Strike Eagle (21 page)

Chapter 17

Friday, 22 June

One mile outside of Clark AB

Once they had loaded the high-power microwave weapon onto the truck, Barguyo jogged over to Cervante. The Huk leader stayed in one of the jeepneys, off to the side. A girl lay in the back of the jeepney, bound and gagged—Barguyo paid her no attention. If Cervante had wanted him to know about the girl, he would have said something.

“Everything is ready.”

Cervante glanced at his watch. “Any time now.” Cervante smiled at Barguyo—the boy looked back with pride.

Cervante said, “Remember, there will be at least two planes. You must keep firing the weapon.”

“Will the planes really crash?”

Cervante shook his head. “I am not sure. The Americans always think their weapons are so powerful. We will give them a taste of their own medicine.” The Huk leader pulled at his jaw. “I will need you to hurry to Pompano’s store. And make sure you bring this weapon back with you, no matter what else happens.”

“Aih.” Barguyo waited until it was clear that Cervante was finished before he left. As he walked through the rain back to the high-power microwave weapon, Barguyo was thankful for everything he had, everything that had happened to him.

The greatest lesson he had learned from Cervante was to soak up everything he could and take advantage of it. The very position he was in now, serving with the New People’s Army to institute a new order, was the greatest example of that lesson. If it had not been for Cervante, Barguyo would still be a waif, wandering the streets of Manila begging for money.

But in the Huks, each person worked according to his ability, doing what he could to contribute to the cause. That was what Barguyo liked the most—he was given responsibilities based on how well he had performed, not on his age. Anywhere else he would have been a mere go-fer, but here he held positions of importance. He was good at what he did.

No one questioned Cervante’s orders.
Perhaps,
thought Barguyo,
they are remembering Cervante’s slaughter of the woman and her children at the plantation.
That would deter anyone from disobeying his orders.

The convoy of jeepneys left the clearing, leaving Barguyo and the two other men alone. Barguyo moved to the back of the truck and manned the high-power microwave weapon himself. Stretched out in the back of the truck, a generator supplied power to a box labeled maxwell laboratories: high-energy density capacitor system. From there, an array of thick pipes and other cables wound around to a three-meter dish that pointed straight up. The system was crammed in the back of the two-and-a-half-ton truck, but as Pompano had pointed out, it was made to be transportable.

Barguyo waited. The diesel generators chugged away. He knew that when he set the weapon off he would hear a sharp crack, but he also knew that if he stayed away from the front of the antenna he would not be harmed.

It was nearing ten in the morning, but it seemed like dusk. The clouds gave the clearing an ominous appearance, and in the low light things farther away than ten yards lost form. Over the splashing of rain, Barguyo heard the faint whine of jet engines.

Fifteen miles northeast of Clark AB

A few miles away from the relative flatlands surrounding Clark, the jungle gradually sloped up to a mountain. A muddy road wound through the foliage, allowing access to the mountainside.

Emil Oloner sat on his motorcycle on the muddy road and peered across the land toward Clark. Emil sat a good twenty feet below the cloud layer. Above him, cottony wisps swirled by, almost close enough to touch.

It normally took Emil ten minutes to reach the mountain, and another five to race his motorcycle to the top. He lived for the weekend motorcycle races. But with the rain and mud Emil now cursed the weather, for the muddy journey had taken nearly a half an hour.

He bent over his small Honda and pulled out a radio. Flipping the side switch, a burst of static came from the speaker. He pressed the “Send” button and spoke in Tagalog. “This is Emil.”

A moment passed. “Where are you?”

“In place.”

“Contact us as soon as you see it.”

Emil simply clicked off the radio.
Of course I will contact you,
he thought.
Why else would I leave my job to come up here and watch for a plane to crash?
The hundred American dollars that had been promised him would come in handy, but he would get the prize only if he spotted the plane before anyone else.

5,000 feet AGL, ten miles outside of Clark AB

Instrument flying was one of Bruce’s strong points. It was all too easy to get mixed up in the clouds, have a gut feeling that the plane was flying in a wrong attitude, try to fix the problem, and end up pranging it into the ground. Only by trusting the cockpit instruments—even when you thought they “felt” dead wrong—could a good flyer remain a live flyer.

The clouds were thick. Bruce couldn’t see the front of the F-15E. The altimeter read five thousand feet, and their airspeed had slowed to two-fifty knots. Charlie read the checklist.

“Gear down.”

Bruce let the lever down, lowering the landing gear. “Check.”

A vibration filled the cockpit as air rushed around the gear. The drag from the landing gear slowed the F-15E down. Bruce couldn’t see the flaps, but moments before he had extended them to full. It seemed like he was hanging everything but the kitchen sink out there on the wing, trying to extend the camber, provide the Strike Eagle with more lift as the fighter slowed down.

In his helmet Bruce could hear the tower on Clark giving final approval for Air Force Two to land. Bruce had extended the distance between himself and the jumbo jet to three miles. Soon he would hear the tower directions come over his earphones.

Barguyo heard the noise grow louder. It was a much deeper roar than fighters’ flying out of Clark.

As the jet grew closer, Barguyo prepared himself. On the rugged control panel, all the instruments were labeled with English words. There were digital controls, lights and dials. But the only things that concerned Barguyo were the green light that indicated weapon readiness and a red button he needed to depress.

The jet’s engines increased in volume, rolling white noise throughout the jungle. Barguyo looked straight up and could not see anything—still the noise increased. He caressed the red button with his thumb, ready to instantly push it.

On and on it came … and just when it seemed that the noise had peaked, Barguyo caught a glimpse of the white bottom of a huge jumbo jet.

Barguyo punched at the button, again and again. Each time he depressed the firing mechanism, the high-power microwave weapon seemed to jump. It made a sharp “crack” sound, but was otherwise unimpressive.

The jet engines suddenly sounded different—they took on a strange, multi-frequencied pitch.

Whatever the HPM weapon had done, it seemed to have affected the huge jet. Barguyo glanced at the control panel—it still glowed a bright green. He sat back in the truck and made himself comfortable, but in the distance he heard the roar of another jet. It was much higher in pitch than the first one, more like one of the fighters.

Setting his mouth, sixteen-year-old Barguyo prepared to strike again.

POP!

Bruce’s earphones seemed to rattle with reverberations.

“What the hell was
that?”
Bruce scanned the heads-up display. He could have sworn the instruments had jumped, but everything seemed normal.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
The sounds came like a series of drum rolls.

“I’ve got scrambled readings, Assassin,” said Charlie.

A voice broke over his headphone. “Air Force Two, we have you diverging from flight path. You are too low and heading away from Clark. I say again—”

Bruce flipped to “Intercom” only. “See anything?”

“You kidding?”

“On radar.”

“Negatory.” Silence. Then, “I’m getting ghost blips all over the place. It looks like we were hit by some sort of jammer. I’m flipping up my visor to get a better look.”

Bruce flipped back to the tower frequency. “Tower, Escort One.”

“Break away, Escort One. Air Force Two is not responding.

“Air Force Two, come in. Do you read? You are
too
low and heading away from Clark. Answer, Air Force Two.”

Bruce hesitated before breaking away from the flight path. Was there anything he could do? Probably not, if Charlie couldn’t pick out the vice president’s plane. The smart thing would be to get above the clouds and wait for directions.
Some escort I’m turning out to be,
he thought.

Bruce clicked his mike. “Escort One heading up to twenty thousand.” He flipped over to intercom. “Where are we, Foggy?”

“One mile from the runway—”

POP POP POP POP POP POP POP
.…

A staccato of bursts exploded over Bruce’s headphones. Tempered Plexiglas from the heads-up display blew up, then sagged back in crushed plastic. Screams came over the intercom.

“Foggy!”

“I can’t get it off—oh God, it doesn’t come off!”

Bruce scanned the instruments; nothing was working. Needle dials were pegged, and none of the digital instruments was on. He tried to pull back on the stick; the F-15E moved sluggishly—he still had hydraulics. Wind seemed to roar in the back, as if a hole had been punched over Charlie’s part of the cockpit. Still the screaming continued.

“Charlie, are you okay?”

The screams broke to spastic sobs. “Oh, God, Bruce—it hurts! I can’t see! I can’t get it off!”

“What? Can’t get what off?”

“Oh, God! The helmet! Help me … do something … I can’t stand it.” Bruce could imagine him clawing at the helmet, trying to get it off.

What had happened? Had they been hit by a missile—antiaircraft fire? Was Charlie’s helmet punctured?

“Do something, Bruce—I can’t last much longer!”

Bruce flipped to “Guard,” the emergency frequency. “Mayday, mayday! This is Escort One, I have an emergency. Instruments out … I’m going to need some help.”

Nothing came over the radio, not even static. Bruce flipped through the frequencies. “Mayday, mayday! Can anyone hear me?” Still nothing.

Bruce pulled back on the stick to gain altitude. His instruments were out. He didn’t know how high he was, where he was going, or how much fuel he had.

“Please, God, help me!” Charlie’s voice broke into a crying fit.

Bruce felt short of breath. For the first time in his life, he was afraid he was going to die.

Clark AB

“Holy Mother Mary,” muttered Staff Sergeant Whiltree. “Why me? And why now?” She quickly cleared her radar screen and initialized the search sequence. There it was again.

She keyed her microphone and got a direct line to her supervisor, Chief Master Sergeant Figarno. “Chief, I’ve lost Air Force Two.” She tried to keep her voice steady, but the others seated around her looked up sharply.

“What?”
He appeared at her side, wire from headphones trailing behind him. Ramrod-straight, with jet-black hair and penetrating eyes, Figarno was one of the youngest Chief Master Sergeants in the Air Force.

Whiltree pointed at the blinking numbers that were diverging away from the main flight path. “Air Force Two is going down and I can’t get them to respond.”

“What about the escort?”

“I waved Escort One off—
hey,
there it is again!” Whiltree and Figarno watched in amazement as the screen blinked. Not once, but seven or eight times in a row. When the blinking had stopped, Escort One was also veering from its designated path. Whiltree immediately started calling over the radio. “Escort One, you are too low and deviating from flight path. Come in, Escort One. Do you copy?”

They waited for a moment, but nothing came over the airways. Figarno leaned into the screen. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.” Whiltree wet her lips. “They won’t answer.”

“What do you mean they won’t answer?”

“You heard me—Air Force Two and Escort One aren’t transmitting!”

Figarno’s voice stayed cool. “But is it because of our equipment or theirs? When your screen blinked, did that mean that our gear was knocked out of commission, or theirs?”