Retribution (45 page)

“Ray, I doubt they would have come all this way if they didn’t think it would explode,” said Dog.

“Just because
they
think it will explode doesn’t mean it will,” said the scientist.

“How can we take him down safely?”

“Get him out to sea and shoot him down. There is no other guarantee. It’s possible that the warhead is set to explode if the airplane is destroyed, or if it drops below a certain altitude. There is just no way of knowing.”

Over Nevada, approaching Las Vegas
2138

T
HE FIGHTER JET PASSED SO CLOSE TO THE
A
IRBUS’S WINDSCREEN
that Kerman thought the glass would implode from the jet’s thrust. But he held his control steady. He was going to win. All he had to do was stay in the air a few more minutes and he would be over Las Vegas.

This one’s going to hit us, he thought as another fighter pushed in.

The Airbus shuddered as the F-15 swept over the fuselage. Kerman felt the plane slipping from his grip, responding to the violent air currents rather than his controls. He jabbed the pedals, desperate to keep it on its course. The Airbus dropped straight down about 2,000 feet, then abruptly jerked back, level, to just below its original altitude.

The two fighters had moved off. Before Kerman could exhale, a small missile whipped in front of the windscreen. The missile twirled and danced before his eyes, rising upward and then curling back, as lithe as an ocean, before plunging a few feet from the Airbus’s nose.

As it turned, he realized it wasn’t a missile, but an aircraft.

A small one, far too small and sleek for a man.

It must be a Flighthawk. The Dreamland people. They knew he was coming for them.

“I will not fail,” Kerman said aloud, hunkering closer to the wheel.

Aboard Dreamland Bennett
2139

E
NGLEHARDT HAD CLOSED THE GAP BETWEEN HIMSELF AND
the Airbus; as he descended through 30,000 feet, he saw the airliner a few miles ahead. The F-15s had backed away and
the Flighthawk—a small black dart—wheeled over the plane. The Airbus continued on its path.

Englehardt sized up the distance between the
Bennett
and the Airbus. He could ride right over it—that would get their attention.

“Dreamland
Bennett
to Flighthawk leader and
Nellis Flight One
. Stand back—I’m going to take a pass.”

“Negative, Dreamland,” said the Nellis F-15. “Stand by. We are under orders to take this airplane down.”

“Negative, negative,” said Dog, practically shouting over the radio. “You can’t shoot it down.”

“Those are my orders, Colonel.”

“Sullivan, open the bomb bay doors,” said Englehardt over the interphone circuit.

“What?”

“Just open the damn the bomb bay doors.” Englehardt switched back to the radio. “
Nellis One
, stand off—this is our shot. We have the Airbus targeted.”

The Eagle pilot didn’t acknowledge.

“I’ll take you next if I have to,” snapped Englehardt. “Get the fuck out of my way.”

“Hey, slow down, cowboy,” said
Nellis One
.

“All right. Everyone, take a deep breath,” said Colonel Bastian. “We’re on the same side here. Remember who the enemy is. They may have the bomb rigged to go off when the aircraft descends. We’re working on a solution. So everyone calm down and let the scientists think.”

“Nellis,”
said the F-15 flight leader, acknowledging though clearly unhappy.

“Good outburst, Mike,” Dog told Englehardt over the interphone.

“Colonel, I think I can fly right over him and push him away from the city,” said Englehardt. “If the F-15s stay out of the way, I can herd him out over the desert and have them shoot him down there. We’re never going to get him back out to sea.”

“I have a better idea,” said Starship.

Over Nevada, approaching Las Vegas
2141

K
ERMAN’S HEART FELT AS IF IT WERE BEING JOLTED BY ELECTRIC
shocks. It was racing, and every so often skipped a beat.

He was here. He was here. The Las Vegas airport directly below him. In little more than half an hour the city would be gone. All that waited was for the timer to run its course.

He checked his altitude. He’d come down to 15,000 feet.

Every nuclear weapon had an optimum detonation altitude, where the effects of the blast were at their highest. Not being privy to the design of the Indian warhead, Kerman simply planned on flying the aircraft at 2,000 feet when the bomb exploded.

Fifteen thousand feet would be fine, though. So would the ground. There’d be plenty of destruction no matter where it exploded.

But he needed more time. His bluff about being hijacked had to work. He had to make it work.

“Pakistan Air Crating Flight 201 to tower,” said Kerman. “Requesting emergency clearance to land.”

“Pakistan Air Crating Flight 201, you are
not
cleared to land. Follow Air Force instructions.”

“We are having trouble with our radio,” said Kerman. “Is our landing gear down? Can someone confirm that our gear is down?”

There was a clunk from the back of the plane. The Airbus rocked, buffeted by something. Kerman glanced at the panel for the landing gear—he hadn’t put the wheels down, had he?

Of course not.

Then he realized what was going on, and jammed his hand on the thrusters.

Aboard Dreamland
Bennett
2143

S
TARSHIP CURSED AS THE
A
IRBUS LIFTED AWAY FROM THE
Flighthawk.

“Didn’t work,” said the pilot over the interphone.

“Try again,” said Dog. “Get
Hawk Two
in. Try them together.”

Hawk Two,
which Starship had used to continue checking airliners, was just catching up. The pilot told the computer that he wanted to control them in parallel, and had it help him line them up precisely together.

By the time Starship was ready, the Airbus had begun to circle to the south.

Maybe they’d made a mistake—maybe it actually had been damaged by hijackers, perhaps the men with the bomb. The real crew would take it out to sea, now that they were convinced the Americans were serious.

No such luck—it was turning back now, headed toward Vegas.

“Flighthawk leader, this is
Nellis One
. Take one more shot at it. Then we’re going in.”

“Keep your shirt on.”

E
NGLEHARDT FOUND HIMSELF ABOUT TWO MILES BEHIND
the Airbus as the aircraft began banking back to the north, once again moving in the direction of Las Vegas. He had a good view of the Flighthawks as Starship eased them in, one under each wing. The operation was a delicate one; Starship didn’t want to damage the Airbus and make it crash.

The small jets slid in close to the wing roots.

“You’re there,” said Englehardt.

“All right, all right,” said Starship. “We’re going north.”

The Airbus lifted slightly—then dropped abruptly. One of the Flighthawks twisted off to the left, slowly at first, as if it were a leaf being pealed from a tree. A few seconds later smoke began pouring from the robot aircraft.

Pakistan Air Crating Flight 201, meanwhile, banked back toward Las Vegas.

“Dreamland aircraft, back off,” said
Nellis One
. “We’re going to fire.”

“I’m taking a shot,” said Englehardt. He reached for the throttle. “Come on, Sullivan. Help me.”

Sullivan was silent for a moment, then sprang to help. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s what we got to do.”

Englehardt had worked with the 757 tanker project, and had a great deal of experience pulling up under two-engined aircraft similar to the Airbus. But he’d never tried to pick one up before.

Screw that. This was happening. He could see it in his head.

The airliner’s shadow grew steadily. The computer’s automatic warning system was screaming alerts.

“Kill the auto system,” said Englehardt, narrowing his focus to the small area in front of him.

“Killed,” said Sullivan.

Slowly, the Megafortress eased forward. Then, just as he was going to nose up, the Airbus lurched to the left.

Englehardt felt a hole open in his stomach. His hands trembled and all of sudden he was sweating again. His entire body turned to water. There was no way he could do this. No damn way.

Tears welled in his eyes. He was scared, too scared—not good enough.

A coward. A failure.

“Hang in there, Mike,” said Colonel Bastian, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You almost had him. Just hang with him and push it in. I know you can do it.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna do it,” said Englehardt. His voice cracked and trembled, but he tightened his grip on the stick. He pushed the Megafortress back toward the Airbus. “I am going to do it.”

Over Las Vegas
2144

S
OMETHING CRACKED BELOW HIM
. T
HE
A
IRBUS FELT AS IF
it were being pushed upward, shaking violently with a loud scraping and crackling.

Kerman cursed. He was so close—he needed only a few more minutes. Only a few more. He pounded his hand on the throttle and pulled back on the yoke.

Aboard Dreamland
Bennett
2145

E
NGLEHARDT FELT LIKE A BULL HAD CLIMBED ON HIS BACK
and he was struggling to hold it there.

“Power!” he yelled at Sullivan.

“It’s working!” Sullivan shouted back.

The
Bennett
shook violently as the Airbus ramped up its engines. The Megafortress shot upward, slapping against the belly of the smaller plane.

“Starship—take out the bastard’s engines!” yelled Englehardt, pushing his nose up to stay on the Airbus.

The two planes were now rocking violently. Englehardt struggled to keep his nose angled up while Sullivan concentrated on the power. The Megafortress drove against the Airbus, pushing and pulling the lighter commercial plane through the air. Three or four people, including Nellis ground control, were trying to talk over the radio, but Englehardt kept them blocked out. He was sweating and his head pounded and his stomach was a knot, but he was doing this, he was definitely doing this, and no one was going to stop him.

H
AWK
O
NE’S CONTROL SURFACES HAD BEEN BADLY DAMAGED
by the pressure from the Airbus; worse, her engine had sucked in bits of metal, shredding most of her turbine. Starship tried to get the aircraft to the west of the city, into the open terrain, but he didn’t have enough momentum. The Flighthawk spun toward a tight cluster of homes, their light brown roofs looking like the sides of a zipper. White sand appeared—Starship pulled back on the stick, trying to push the plummeting aircraft into a golf course built in the middle
of a condo development. Green grass flashed in the screen, and then everything went blank.

“Connection lost,” said the computer.

There was no time to see whether he had missed the houses. He took over
Hawk Two,
selecting the cannon.

The computer refused to let him fire. He was too close to the mother ship.

“Override,” he said.

“Forbidden.”

“Override Authorization StarStarTwoTwoTwo.”

“Forbidden,” insisted the computer.

“I can’t get the Flighthawk to fire!” he told Englehardt. “It thinks it’s shooting on us.”

T
HE
M
EGAFORTRESS WAS FLYING WITH HER NOSE PRACTICALLY
thirty degrees downward, but she was still pushing the Airbus forward. They were past Nellis, into the Dreamland test ranges.

How far did he need to go? Twenty miles, fifty?

He might be able to hold it for another sixty seconds.

“All right—everybody get the hell out!” he said. “Get down to the Flighthawk deck and bail.”

“We’re staying with you, Mike,” said Sullivan.

“Yeah, we’re with you, Englehardt. Right down to the line,” said Daly.

“I ain’t leaving,” said Rager.

“No way,” said Starship.

The long expanse of Dreamland’s main runway passed the left side of the airplane. The Airbus bucked upward, escaped—Englehardt pushed the ganged throttle, his hand on Sullivan’s, ramming into the cargo plane.

No way it was getting away.

Tears streamed from Englehardt’s eyes.

“We’re doing this!”
he screamed.

Over Nevada
2147

K
ERMAN STRUGGLED TO FIND A WAY TO RELEASE THE
A
IRBUS
, but everything he tried seemed to fail. He was being pushed sideways and forward at the same time. The bigger, more powerful aircraft below him had him in its claws, pushing him away from the city, toward the open desert.

He wasn’t going to make it. By the time the bomb exploded he’d be much too far from Las Vegas to do any damage.

He pulled his seat belt off. He’d have to find a way to detonate the bomb immediately.

Aboard Dreamland
Bennett
2148

“T
HIS IS FAR ENOUGH
, M
IKE
!” D
OG YELLED AT THE PILOT.
“Let it go!”

The Megafortress lurched to the left. Suddenly free of the weight she had been carrying, she shot upward, out of control.

Dog flew backward as the plane lurched. He tumbled against the airborne radar operator’s station, then pulled himself up.

The pilots were wrestling with the controls, trying to keep the plane in the air. Dog fumbled for his headset, resettling it on his head.

“Station Five, operational, authorization Bastian Nine-nine-one,” he told the computer, double tapping the power button to bring the station on line.

“On line.”

“Anaconda weapons section on line. Authorization Bastian Nine-nine-one.”

“Bastian authorized.”

The targeting screen came up.

“Target aircraft identified as PC-1.”