Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (93 page)

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
Aboard
the C-21 Marcia Preston made the correction and immediately spotted the
intersection. “I’ve got it,” she said.

           
Elliott turned to her. “Major, can
you . . . ?”

           
“Tell everyone to hang on. Speed
brakes coming out . . .”

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
The
three men watched as the blue-and-white Air Force C-21 made a sudden hard-left
bank. They heard the turbine whine decrease to a whisper as the C-21 turned in
the opposite direction, paralleling the east-west road out of Auka. McLanahan
could hear the loud, angry sound of rumbling air. “It’s slowing down,” he said.

 
          
“Landing
gear,” the Dolphin pilot shouted. “He’s gonna
land.
”

 
          
The
C-21 made the turn to final approach only a few feet above the trees at the
edge of the clearing, its nose high in the air, flying just above the stall. As
soon as it cleared the last row of trees, the jet dropped almost straight down,
touching down precisely and firmly in the center of the asphalt road. The speed
brakes stayed up and the flaps were retracted to put as much weight as possible
on the main landing-gear brakes. This jet did not have thrust reversers but the
short-field approach technique was executed so well by Marcia Preston that they
were not needed—with only a few hard taps on the brakes, the C-21 Learjet-35
slowed and came to a stop right at the road intersection. Engines running, the
left side airstair door opened and Briggs, McLanahan and the Dolphin pilot
climbed on board.

 
          
Deborah
O’Day gasped as she saw Briggs and McLanahan. Blood covered their bodies.
Quickly they found seats in the back of the eight-passenger jet.

 
          
Elliott
moved past her in the narrow center aisle, blocking her view of the three
newcomers. “Deborah, sit up front, would you?” The NSA chief nodded and quickly
changed places. Elliott took her seat and strapped himself in, waited until
Secretary Curtis had the airstair door closed, then touched the intercom
button. “Ready for takeoff, Major Preston. Best possible speed for Puerto
Lempira. Call for medical assistance on arrival.”

 
          
The
C-21 executed a tight left turn as
Preston
lined up again on the road for takeoff. Sixty seconds later they were airborne.

 
          
“We
don’t need medical assistance, what we need is an attack against Puerto
Cabezas. Right now or it may be too late.” McLanahan turned and recognized the
Secretary of the Air Force. “Secretary Curtis, I think Ken James—Andrei
Maraklov—will try to fly DreamStar out of Puerto Cabezas as soon as possible.
He killed J.C. and five other men out there. He’s gotta be stopped.”

 
          
“Colonel,
we’re trying to work out something, but we don’t have any assets out here. We
withdrew everything when the Soviets agreed to this turnover.”

 
          
“We’ve
got Cheetah,” McLanahan said. “I want to fly Cheetah out there and get him.”
Curtis and Elliott said nothing, sat back in their seats. “I can fly it, I know
I can. I’ve flown it in the simulator and I’ve had lots of stick time—”

 
          
“
I’ve
flown in the F-15F’s simulator,”
Curtis said, “but that doesn’t mean I can take it into combat, especially
against a plane like the XF-34. We’d be risking you and Cheetah against
impossible odds.”

 
          
“Wilbur
is right,” Elliott said. “Even J.C. couldn’t beat DreamStar and James half the
time in flight-test
exercises
. You
would have
no chance.
I just can’t
endorse it—”

 
          
“And
I won’t authorize it,” Curtis added.

 
          
“J.C.
told me the key to beating DreamStar, he had it figured out and he taught it to
me.”

 
          
“It
takes more than a second-hand theory to—”

 
          
“Besides,
James himself has changed. You should have seen him—he looks like he’s lost
thirty pounds and aged twenty years. I know how it can eat at you from the
inside, from the brain. It’s been eating at James for almost two years. ANTARES
has changed him into . . . into something else—”

 
          
Hal
Briggs broke in. “The man has become a cold-blooded murderer. He gunned down
those KGB soldiers, and J.C. and Dr. Carmichael, like he was shooting at paper
targets.”

 
          
He’s
gotten compulsive—acts like DreamStar is
his.
I think that may be our chance ... His entire
being
is centered around that machine. But one thing he isn’t—he’s
not a cool-headed fighter pilot any more. He’s changed into something else.”

           
“But you’re not a fighter pilot
either, Colonel . . .” Curtis pointed out.

           
“No, I’m not, but what I am is the
only chance we’ve got to keep DreamStar out of the hands of the Russians or an
obsessed type like Maraklov. We don’t have any choice, we’ve
got
to do it.”

 
          
Elliott
looked at Curtis. “What about it? He makes sense.”

           
“We’d be throwing Cheetah
and
McLanahan away. We’d have another
dead officer on our hands, and lose
both
our advanced fighters all in one morning.”

           
“That’s bull, General Curtis, and
you know it,” McLanahan snapped. “There’s only one thing we know for certain
here—if I don’t go, Ken James, Maraklov, gets away with DreamStar. Sure, if
James gets away we still might get DreamStar back from the Russians, but only
after they’ve copied all our technology and duplicated the ANTARES interface.
After that, we’d
he forced
to build
the F-34 fighter because we’d know that the Russians would build and deploy
their own DreamStar—but we’d be building the F-34
knowing
that it would be a trillion-dollar waste of money because
the Russians would have developed defenses and countermeasures against it and
its weapons . . . Worse than surrendering DreamStar is letting James get away.
He’s killed a dozen Americans to get his hands on DreamStar. He blew away three
of his own people right in front of us. He’s gone round the bend. I want him,
General Curtis.”

 
          
There
was silence again in the C-21 cabin. Marcia Preston made an announcement that
they were about to land in Puerto Lempira, but no one reacted. As they touched
down and taxied to the parking area, Elliott said quietly, “I’ll fly as your
weapon- systems officer.”

 
          
“Out
of the question,” Curtis said.

 
          
“I’ll
go alone,” McLanahan said. “Cheetah is designed to fly air combat with one
pilot—”

 
          
“I
won’t allow any of you to fly this mission,” Curtis said as the C-2i’s engines
were shut down. “It’s suicide, a major breach of regulations—”

 
          
“I’ll
go,” a voice said behind Curtis. They turned and saw Major Marcia Preston
standing in the aisle behind Curtis and Elliott. “It’ll solve your problems,
General Curtis. I’m high- performance twin-turbine qualified, also a qualified
military instructor pilot. If General Elliott makes me part of his unit it’ll
at least be a legal flight. All nice and by the book.”

 
          
“Done,”
Elliott said. He turned to Briggs and said something to him in a low voice.

 
          
“And
as senior project officer I can sign you off as qualified in the F-15F—judging
by the way you handle this C-21, the F-15 should be a piece of cake,” McLanahan
said. “I can also make you air-weapons qualified. And as a flight instructor
qualified in the F-15F I can then legally fly front seat in Cheetah. Like you
say, by the book.”

 
          
“McLanahan’s
not a pilot, he’s not qualified to fly in combat—”

 
          
“I’ve
got a hundred hours of stick time in Cheetah, including air combat maneuvers,
General.”

 
          
“And
I’ve got two hundred hours flying time in the F/A-18 Hornet—air-to-air,
air-to-ground, carrier ops, and even Red Flag, sir,” Marcia put in. “You’ll
have the experience up there. But what Colonel McLanahan needs more than
anything is a pair of air-combat-experienced eyes in his back seat. You’ve got
the people you need, sir.”

 
          
“It’s
still a suicide mission, damn it... I still at least need to get authorization
from the White House—”

 
          
McLanahan
stood and motioned to
Preston
. “We’re wasting time. Let’s go.”
Preston
pushed open the airstair door and exited
the C-21. McLanahan followed her out, along with Hal Briggs and the Dolphin
helicopter pilot, and together they ran for the portable hangar in which
Cheetah was tied down, yelling orders to the crew chiefs.

 
          
“McLanahan,
get your butt back here,” Curtis called out. “That’s an—” But Brad Elliott had
put a hand on his shoulder.

 
          
“The
decision’s been made, Wilbur.”

 
          
“Like
hell.” Deborah O’Day joined the two men in the C-21 cabin. “I’m in charge of
this operation. It’s
my
butt on the
line. Yours too, Brad.”

 
          
“My
butt’s been chewed off long ago. I don’t really care what the suits in
Washington
say. I say let them go.”

 
          
“And
as one of the suits, I agree with General Elliott,” Deborah said. “You’re
outvoted.”

 
          
“Don’t
give me this,” Curtis said. “You two can stand side by side in the Oval Office
and explain to the President why you authorized this mission. But I’m going to
call for authorization from the top. And I don’t want those planes to launch
until I get it.” He moved toward the airstair door, only to find Hal Briggs
rearmed with an M-16B2 automatic rifle slung on his shoulder, blocking the
stairs. Curtis turned back toward Elliott, fixing him with a disbelieving look.
He then turned on Briggs. “You have a problem, Major?”

 
          
Briggs
looked at Elliott with a silent request for an order. Elliott paused until
Curtis turned back toward him again. “Brad, don’t do this . . .”

 
          
Elliott
met Curtis’ stare. He had stepped up to the very edge of insubordination,
something he had never quite done. He nodded, abruptly. “The Secretary has a
call to make, Hal. Let him by.”

 
          
“Just
wanted to pass along to you, sir,” Briggs said straightfaced. “We can’t seem to
make contact with La Cieba. They’re saying another two hours to fix the problem
with the radio, maybe longer.”

 
          
“Don’t
hand me that crap, Major.”

 
          
“Wilbur,”
Elliott said, “the radio works fine. I told him to rig it. But you know what
were facing. We need a decision
now.
You
have to make it. Launch Cheetah.”

           
Curtis hesitated, clenching and unclenching
his fists. Outside he heard a low whine and the whine of a turbine—the sound of
an external power-cart being started.

 
          
“You
made a decision eight years ago that changed my life,” Elliott said. “You sent
another crew and another machine on what was considered a no-win mission. You
could have ignored the Old Dog, brought back the B-i bombers and let the
politicians handle things. You didn’t. You took over and did what had to be
done, and it worked. Do it again. Launch Cheetah.” Curtis said nothing. Out the
starboard windows of the C-21 he could see
Preston
already in Cheetah’s aft-cockpit seat,
strapping in and familiarizing herself with the layout. McLanahan was standing
on the top of the boarding ladder, helmet and flight gloves on, hand on the edge
of the front windscreen—but he had not yet entered the cockpit.