Arctic Fire (45 page)

Just then, a news helicopter zoomed overhead
then made a low pass, then hovered slightly in front of the
Clipper
. Pike looked up and saw a cameraman hanging out the
side, filming, and Tabatha Amies in the copilot seat broadcasting.
She looked down and smiled, then gave him a thumbs up.

Whether by design or just trying to get a scoop,
the effect was the same. The closest two men coming from the spa
slowed and tucked their guns under their coats, not wanting to be
seen on national television with weapons in their hands.

The lead man stopped, then put his hand to his
ear, receiving instruction through an earpiece. The first guard
stopped his partner and the two of them argued stubbornly. After
their brief exchange, the wounded gunman shoved his partner aside,
not willing to be denied his revenge. He drew his gun and fired an
unaimed shot toward the helicopter as he continued toward Pike. The
news chopper banked up and away, out of the line of fire. That was
very good advice, Pike thought.

He said a quick prayer then flipped the switch
for the Zero Length Launch rocket and shoved his throttle to the
stops. With a deafening roar, he was thrown back into his seat as
he went from zero to over 250mph in only four seconds.

“WWWWHHHHOOOOAAAA!” Pike heard himself yell. A
film Cain had showed him said the g-force at takeoff was about the
same as a navy pilot taking off the deck of an aircraft carrier.
After this, he was ready to sign up for the Navy. What a rush! Now
he knew what the term ‘Bat out of hell” felt like. He was so
exhilarated that he almost forgot that he still had a job to
do.

He shot out over the harbor at sixty feet above
the water, barely missing the mast of a passing tug. He gently
pulled back on the stick, slicing between two high-rise office
buildings as he slowly gained altitude, circling back over the
iceberg. Pike noticed that the
Clipper
was handling
sluggishly, so he looked back to see that the booster rocket hadn’t
fallen off like it was supposed to. He knew he could still be able
to land with the rocket attached so he wasn’t overly concerned. At
this point it was just a minor hindrance and no real cause for
alarm.

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! This is
Yankee
Clipper
,” Alpha Whiskey seven-niner-niner-two-one, declaring an
emergency. “Does anyone copy?” The only reply was static
interrupted with an occasional faint voice that was too garbled to
understand. He tried several more frequencies with the same result.
He was circling at 2000 feet and decided to climb to 3000 to see if
that would get him out of range of Cain’s jamming signal.

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! This is
Yankee
Clipper
, Alpha Whiskey seven- niner- niner-two- one, declaring
an emergency, does anyone copy?”

“
Yankee Clipper
.” The voice cut through
the static so cleanly, it startled Pike. “This is Lt. Colonel
Douglas Madison of the United States Air Force. I read you five by
five. Is that you, Mr. Pike?”

“Colonel Madison? Am I ever glad to hear from
you. What are you doing over here?”

“We’re a four ship heading to Lakenheath,
England, then on to Afghanistan. Look to your high four
o’clock.”

The F-86 Sabre was circling over the iceberg
counter-clockwise. Pike strained his neck as he looked over his
right shoulder and saw a flight of four F-15 Eagles descending.

“What is the nature of your emergency?” Madison
asked.

“You are not going to believe me.” Pike said,
shaking his head and feeling his entire body trembling slightly as
a sense of relief came over him; it was finally over. Before he
could finish, the radio came to life.

“Blackjack Three to One, I have a man on the
iceberg, he appears to have a hand held missile launcher, could be
a stinger sir, I can’t tell at this range. He’s tracking the Sabre,
sir. I’m getting a targeting signal.”

Tracking the Sabre? A targeting signal? WHAT! It
finally registered in Pike’s mind, Cain was going to shoot him down
with a missile! “No, no, no,” Pike said, shaking his head
frantically in disbelief; “This can’t be happening!”

“I have a launch signal…and visual
confirmation.”

“WHAT!”

“Blackjack Three, Four. Dive behind the Sabre
and execute flares and chafe. Pike cut your engine.”

“Three.”

“Four.”

Both pilots acknowledged.

Pike, still in a daze, watched in fascination as
the two fighters banked hard and dove in behind him. In a lighting
fast pass, they dipped in behind him and then it looked like both
planes exploded.

“Cut your engine now!” Madison ordered again,
his voice raised but still professional.

Pike was slow to realize what Madison’s plan was
but then it hit him as he shut down. The stinger was a heat seeking
anti-aircraft missile and would zero in on the heat from his
engine’s exhaust. Madison had sent the two fighters down to decoy
the missile and save his life.

He looked down over his left wing and instantly
wished he hadn’t. He saw the trail of smoke rising from the iceberg
and watched with morbid intensity as the deadly missile streaked
toward him. He’d heard stories of people who were about to die and
were overcome by an overwhelming sense of peace. His life didn’t
flash before him and he didn’t feel very peaceful at the moment. It
must be a lie, he thought, because watching that missile coming at
him, he was anything but peaceful; instead he felt angry. He was
angry at everything that had happened and angry that everyone was
trying to kill him. His fate was in God’s hands now. God’s hands,
with a little help from the United States Air Force.

Fueled by his anger, he regained his wits and
banked the
Clipper
down and away from the missile, trying to
put as much distance between him and it as he could. In a blur, the
outline of the two F-15s went streaking by followed by a series of
bright flashes, then a split second later a brilliant explosion.
Before he even had time to think, the
Yankee Clipper
was
buffeted violently as the missile detonated, hitting the flares
instead of his plane. Pike felt and heard several pieces of
shrapnel pelt his plane and he prayed that nothing vital was
hit.

He glanced at the altimeter: 2700 feet. He had
plenty of time to restart the engine, he hoped, again, something he
had never done before. He quickly went through his start up
procedure and then flipped the start switch.

Nothing.

He was down to 2100 feet. Taking a deep breath
and trying to keep his trembling hands steady, he went through the
steps again. His ears were met with deafening silence instead of
the deafening roar of his engine.

His air speed had dipped beneath 200 knots and
he was below 1400 feet. If he couldn’t get the engine started this
time, he knew he would have to start looking for a place to put her
down. An emergency water landing in open water was a feat unto
itself but it would be nearly impossible to do safely without
hitting anyone in the confines of the harbor, not only crowded with
the normal flow of commercial traffic but also filled with hundreds
of smaller boats, all out to gawk at Cain’s monstrosity. He shook
his head, just one more thing to add to his list of “firsts”
today.

Taking a deep breath, Pike nervously went
through the startup procedure for what he knew would be the last
time, one way or another. As he reached over to throw the switch,
he noticed that the bypass valve to the auxiliary fuel tank was on.
It suddenly dawned on him, that’s why the engine wouldn’t
start-because there was no fuel in the auxiliary tank. He must have
hit it accidentally when he shut the engine down.

Feeling like an idiot, he quickly switched the
fuel to the main tank. Belching like a giant who had eaten too many
villagers, the engine roared to life. Pike pulled back on the stick
and leveled the
Yankee Clipper
over the busy harbor at 500
feet.

“Excellent Gabriel,” Pike heard Cain over the
radio; “I bow to your resourcefulness.”

Pike was now circling over the iceberg again and
back up to 3000 feet. As he looked down, he could see that Cain was
wearing his grandfather’s coat from the Titanic.

“Give it up Cain, it’s over.”

“But Gabriel, I thought it wasn’t over until the
fat lady sings,” Cain mocked.

“I see you’re still wearing that old rag.” Pike
taunted. “They say clothes make the man, but definitely not in this
case. Your grandfather would be rolling over in his grave if he
knew that his grandson had grown up to be a monster.”

After a long pause Cain simply said, “goodbye
Gabriel.”

Pike allowed himself a satisfied grin, pleased
with himself for having cracked the armor of the mighty Nigel
Cain.

“Two to lead, it looks like he’s got another
missile,” Lieutenant Packard, Madison’s wing man reported.

“Blackjack Three and Four, cover the Sabre. Two
follow me in. Going weapons hot, selecting air to ground
missile.”

“Negative! Abort, abort, abort!” Pike screamed
into his radio.

“Stand down Mr. Pike.” Madison replied in a
calm, professional voice. “We’ll handle this.”

“Colonel, you can’t fire a missile. The iceberg
if made of methane hydrate.”

“Made of what?”

“Methane gas! The explosion of the missile could
ignite the whole thing.”

“What are you talking about?” Madison replied
with slight irritation in his voice.

“The entire iceberg is one gigantic floating
bomb.”

“The subject has dropped the missile launcher
and has entered the building.” Packard reported.

“He’s probably going down below to detonate it
himself. If that thing blows, it’ll take out half the harbor.”

“Do you have any proof, any evidence of what
you’re telling me Mr. Pike?”

“We’ve got to break up the iceberg Colonel.”
Pike continued. “There’s a large cavity in the center of the
iceberg where thousands of cubic feet of the gas are trapped. If we
can release the gas safely, then the greatest danger of explosion
would be over.” Pike’s voice was full of anxiety and frustration,
anxiety because he knew how real the danger was; frustration
because he didn’t have the time to explain it to the Colonel.

“Let’s just say for the sake of argument that I
believe you Mr. Pike,” Madison said, “if we can’t fire our
missiles, then how do you propose we attack it?”

Pike shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about
that a lot and this is one of those situations where the solution
sounds crazier than the problem.”

“You’re not instilling a great deal of faith in
me here Mr. Pike,” Madison replied.

“Funny you should mention faith, Colonel because
I’m about to ask you to take the biggest leap of faith in your
life.” When Madison didn’t reply, Pike continued. “Do you know how
I became known as the Blast from the Past?”

Madison nodded in his cockpit. “Yeah, you
stopped a car full of bank robbers and protected a bunch of kids by
taking your….” His voice slowed, then trailed off as he figured out
what Pike was getting at. “You don’t mean to tell me you want to
try and break that thing up by hitting it with sonic booms do
you?”

“Think about it Colonel; it’s the only way to
stop Cain without blowing up half of New York. The sound waves from
the sonic booms will resonate throughout the ice, cracking and
shattering it.”

“Do you realize how many office windows we’ll
shatter and how many people might get hurt if we create a sonic
boom in such a populated area?” Madison argued.

“Do you know how many office
buildings
will be destroyed and how many people will
die
if we don’t
and Cain succeeds in detonating it?” Pike countered. “Think of the
largest conventional bomb you’ve seen, then multiply it a thousand
fold. Do you see where Cain has strategically placed the iceberg?
Putting it in the narrows between Battery Park and Governor’s
Island is the perfect location to wreak the most havoc and
destruction.

“Within one mile of ground zero there are eight
major ferry landings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge,
City Hall, Federal Hall, and across the bay the Statue of Liberty.
Nearly every structure within that one mile radius will be
destroyed or severely damaged and any people not sheltered directly
from the shock wave will be torn apart. Do you know how many people
alone are in Battery Park for 9-11 observances today?

Madison was quiet and Pike took that for a good
sign. The longer he thought about it, the more Pike hoped Madison
would believe him. Finally Madison spoke. “I’m sorry Gabe, I need
some sort of proof before I can act.”

Pike felt a tiny pin-prick in his heart. He knew
that his story was as farfetched as they come and that Madison
wouldn’t understand, that with his training he couldn’t understand,
and that was all right. “That’s okay Colonel.” Pike interrupted,
not allowing him to finish. While they were talking, Pike had been
circling over the harbor, slowly gaining altitude, climbing to ten
thousand feet. “I understand Colonel, I really do…and I hope you
understand too.”

Pike smiled to himself as he looked out at the
harbor below, he guessed it really was true after all, because
right now he had a calm and peace about him that he couldn’t
explain.

Chapter Forty
Nine

“I can’t let you do what I think you’re going to
do Mr. Pike.” Madison replied quietly.

“Well sir, unless you plan on giving Lieutenant
Packard a second shot at me, I’m going to put my money where my
mouth is.”

“You’ll never make it. You still have the rocket
assembly hanging off your fuselage. You go anything much past 300
knots it’ll rip your entire tail section off.”