Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (63 page)

 
          
“With
what?
A snow plow? Your noodles?”

 
          
“They
commandeered a fuel truck, and . . . and they had explosives. They threatened
to blow up everything. The whole base. You have to do something—”

 
          
“Your
story gets taller every moment, Serbientlov,” the constable said. He leaned
back into his chair, fixing Sergie with an icy stare. “Are you sure this is not
a . . . shall we say, a falling-out of thieves?”

 
          
Sergei
fidgeted uncomfortably but managed to sound indignant. “Thieves? You are not
accusing
me, tovarisch?
The only
thieves here are the ones out—”

 
          
“Stop
it, Serbientlov. The little empire you’ve built at the base is well- known, at
least to the citizens in the area. You use more diesel in four months than the
whole Soviet navy uses in a year, supposedly for your fleet of plows but the
streets and runways are always clogged with snow and you feed your fat gut with
Chinese noodles and real coffee.” Vjarelskiy threw his grain beverage into a
garbage can. “Now I’m busy, so if you’ll—”

 
          
“Chief
Constable, I
demand
that you send a
unit out to investigate. That’s your job. You convinced the Far East Defense
Force that for a price you could handle any security problems at the base
during the winter. They wouldn’t be too happy to learn that fifty thousand
liters of fuel that
you
are supposed
to be protecting have vanished—”

           
The constable stood and grabbed
Servientlov by the collar. “You maggot. You dare to threaten
me?
I’ll throw your pig body into one of
your snowdrifts where they won’t find it until summer ...”

 
          
But
as he watched the caretaker wilt under his tirade the chief constable also knew
that the old man had already destroyed his own career and could take his along
with him. “All right, I’ll send a patrol out—’’

 
          
“An
armed unit,’’ Serbientlov said. “I want—’’

 
          
“What
you
want is irrelevant. I won’t have
my men mixed up in a fight with your pirates. Now get out of my sight.’’ He
pushed Serbientlov toward the door, watched him scramble away, then turned to
his intercom. “Sergeant, take a patrol—wait, take a squad with the halftrack
out with Serbientlov to the base. Have him show you where he saw his so-called
thieves. If you find anyone, bring him back to me. If you don’t find any
evidence of robbery, bring Serbientlov back to me
—in hand
-
cuffs.
”

 
          
“God,
it’s freezing up there,” McLanahan said as he ran over to Elliott near the cab
of the tanker truck, trying to warm his hands. He’d been obliged to switch
places with Angelina on top of the Old Dog . . . after almost an hour of
pumping kerosene in the bitter Siberian cold he had lost feeling in his hands
and feet. “Fifty thousand liters of fuel—kerosene or not . . . should be enough
to make it.”

 
          
“I’ll
feel better when we’re ...” Elliott’s voice came out in weak, barely audible
grunts. Instantly McLanahan forgot his own cold, reached into Elliott’s pockets
and extracted the survival radio. “Ormack, this is McLanahan. General Elliott
is almost unconscious out here.”

 
          
“Copy,”
Ormack said. “We got enough—all body tanks are full. I’ve started putting fuel
into the leaking mains. Get the general inside, then start wrapping things up
down there.”

 
          
“Roger.”
McLanahan shoved the radio into his own pocket, then took hold of Elliott’s
jacket and started to pull him out of the tanker. “Let’s go, General.”
McLanahan half-walked, half-carried him to the belly hatch, then called up to
Wendy, who ran down and helped Elliott up the ladder to the upper deck, then
over to his seat in the cockpit.

 
          
“Wendy,
push in all the vent-control knobs at the left side station downstairs,”
McLanahan said. “It’ll pump all the heat to the upper deck. I’ll get Angelina
and Dave.”

 
          
McLanahan
ran back outside. Angelina called to him, “I’m not getting anymore.”

 
          
“We’re
packing up,” he said over the whine of the idling number-four engine. “I’ll
help you button up in a minute.” He searched and found Luger near the left
wingtip. He had just wrestled a big piece of hanging fibersteel skin off what
remained of the left wingtip.

 
          
“Dave,
we’re done refueling. Let’s
go.
”

 
          
Two
local militiamen in long, gray-green greatcoats, black fur caps and carrying
forty-year-old bolt-action rifles came into the caretaker’s office, made a
quick check of the small flightline building, hurried outside.

 
          
The
squad leader called out to the halftrack. Sergeant Gazetti waved them back
inside and turned on Serbientlov. “There is no one here, caretaker. I would not
like to be in your shoes when Comrade Chief Constable Vjarelskiv gets his hands
on you.”

 
          
Sweat
broke out on Serbientlov’s face despite the bitter cold of the early morning.
“They were here ... I swear—”

 
          
“Show
me this fuel tank and the truck, caretaker,” Gazetii said. The halftrack rumbled
down the road paralleling the deserted, snow-choked flightline and taxiway. A
few minutes later they had pulled to a stop outside the fence surrounding the
large white tank.

 
          
“This
is the tank?” Gazetti said emerging from the steel interior of the armored
halftrack. “A tank of heating oil? What would your terrorists want with a tank
full of heating oil?”

 
          
“I
don’t know,” Serbientlov said in exasperation. “But they forced me at gunpoint
to fill the tank truck. I narrowly escaped with my life. They had three guards
on me and . . . and machine guns, but I escaped—” “Comrade Sergeant.” One of
the militiamen pointed to tracks in the deep snow. Gazetii studied them
carefully.

           
“Fairly fresh . . .” And then, he
heard it. . . the diffused roar of a jet aircraft engine in the distance. He
turned on Serbientlov. “Is that an aircraft? I didn’t know you had aircraft
here this time of year?”

 
          
Serbientlov
listened, then blanched. “But we don’t have any aircraft here. It ... it must
be the terrorists . . . the English terrorists.”

 
          
Gazetii
waved his men back into the halftrack and directed them down the flightline
toward the noise.

 
          
Angelina
had just slipped off the Old Dog’s right wingtip onto the roof of the Zadiv
panel truck. McLanahan was back on top of the Old Dog’s fuselage just behind
the ejection-hatch covers, scraping snow and dirt off the center-wing-tank fuel
cap and replacing the cap. Luger, half-dragging his right leg, was pulling the
fuel hose back toward the tanker truck.

 
          
Wendy
had jumped out the belly hatch of the Old Dog to look for her
fellow-crewmembers when she saw a large, squat vehicle roll to a stop just
around the end of one of the hangars surrounding their parking spot. Her heart
stopped. It was a Russian armored vehicle, with a Russian soldier sitting
behind a shielded gun-mount.

 
          
“Patrick
. . .” Wendy pointed her finger at the vehicle. “Over there . . .”

 
          
“Yanimnogah simye,
” Gazetii swore as
the halftrack driver stomped on the brakes.
“Shto
etah
?” What he and the others saw in the dim three- month-long twilight was
a huge, black unearthly winged creature with a long pointed nose and large
ungainly wings.

 
          
“Etaht samalyot?”
one of the militiamen
said. “I’ve never seen a plane like
that
before.”

 
          
“It
has no markings, no insignia,” another said. “It must be some kind of
experimental aircraft ...”

 
          
“That’s
it,
” Serbientlov insisted. “That’s
their plane, that’s the plane that... that the terrorists almost forced me
into. You’ve got to stop them. Destroy it—”

 
          
“Control
yourself, Serbientlov.” Gazetii jumped out of the half-track. “What if it’s one
of our experimental aircraft? We have them, you know. Corporal, contact Chief
Constable Vjareiskiy. Tell him we have an unidentified aircraft parked on the
center parking ramp on the base. I am going to talk to the crew. Everyone else
stay here.”

 
          
Luger
tossed the hose as far as he could away from the Old Dog’s wheels. “Pat,
Angelina. We’ve got us some company.”

 
          
Angelina
had already heard Wendy’s warning and spotted the halftrack. She quickly
climbed down off the Zadiv and sprinted for the Old Dog’s belly-hatch.
McLanahan screwed the tank cap closed, then slid down the fuselage to the right
wing. When he saw a Russian soldier emerging from the half track he slid across
the wing to the leading edge between the two engine nacelles, shimmied over the
edge and dropped to the snow.

 
          
Hearing
Wendy’s warning, Ormack stopped strapping the nearly unconscious Elliott into
an upper-deck crash-seat, jumped into the left seat, looked out the left cockpit
window and saw the halftrack.

 
          
“
Goddamn
, ” he shouted over his shoulder,
hoping his voice would carry. “Wendy, get everyone on board.” He then slapped
the wing flap switch to full DOWN and double-checked the fuel panel, opening
the fuel supply from the fuselage tanks to the engines. He moved the
number-four engine throttle to ninety percent power, leaned across the
co-pilot’s seat and put the engine number-five starter-switch to START, using
engine bleed-air from the running number-four engine to spin the turbine on the
number-five engine. When that engine’s RPMs moved to fifteen percent he jammed
its throttle to eighty-five percent to begin pumping fuel into the engine’s
ignition-chamber.

 
          
A
thunderous
bang
reverberated through
the Old Dog, and the right wing shuddered. Ormack scrambled over to the right
cockpit window. The entire number-five engine was engulfed in smoke. He checked
the engine instruments. The RPMs of that engine were slowly increasing but
wondrously there was no indication of fire. Another loud
bang
and the engine RPMs stopped at forty percent.

 
          
The
HATCH NOT CLOSED AND LOCKED light on the front- instrument panel snapped off,
and a moment later Wendy reported everyone was aboard.

 
          
“Get
Patrick up here,” Ormack called out, and McLanahan came scrambling up to the
cockpit to see General Elliott limp in his emergency web seat, forehead and
face dripping from sweat, head lolling back with fever.

 
          
“He’s
out of it,” Ormack said. “Get up here. I’ll fly the plane from the left seat.
You get in the co-pilot’s seat and monitor the instruments.” McLanahan
hesitated—

 
          
“McLanahan!”

 
          
Patrick
shook himself, stepped carefully around Elliott. Just before climbing into the
co-pilot’s seat he reached down and retrieved Elliott’s .45 caliber automatic
from his holster. “Can we start the rest of the engines?” he said, looking at
the gauges.

 
          
“Not
yet. When number five reaches forty-five percent shut off its starter and
switch on three, six, seven and eight. Move throttles up to IDLE when each
engine RPM reaches fifteen percent. Watch the fire lights—that kerosene has
been giving us some hard ignitions.” McLanahan nodded and watched the number
five RPM gauge, a finger on the starter switch.

 
          
Ormack
opened the left-cockpit window. The Russian soldier was now advancing on the
Old Dog, more cautiously than before the engines were started. He did not hear
Ormack open the sliding window.