The Circle War (31 page)

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The Soviet SAM line —most of which was on wheels —would be right behind the ground troops.

It was shaping up to be a monstrous battle . . .

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The four Yaks rose one at a time from their hidden base in North Dakota and headed south. It was dusk —the only time the Soviet commanders would dare move the precious jets. With reports of a second day of numerous air strikes by the West behind the SAM line still coming in, the Soviets were banking that most of the enemy airplanes had returned to their bases by now. The last thing they wanted was for their Yaks to get in a dogfight situation with the more skillful Western Forces' pilots.

The Yaks were deploying toward the center of the SAM line. They would be needed there when the bulk of The Circle Army's Central Group finally arrived.

The Soviets' plan all along was to use the VTOL fighters in a ground attack role—thus the

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Soviet commanders had kept the jets out of the recent murderous air action.

They had already suf- , fered a serious blow when their HQ and power supply near Wichita was destroyed by PAAC's big bombers. Now they knew they couldn't afford to lose a single Yak before the big ground battles began.

But even under the cover of the gathering darkness, the Yak pilots were jittery. It wasn't the free-roaming fighters that bothered them; it was this strange airplane —this secret weapon of the Western Forces —that had the Soviet pilots concerned. Word had spread quickly about the black jet fighter that was invisible to radar screens and therefore attacked without warning. It was an old U.S. Air Force Stealth, the Soviet version of scuttlebutt had it, being flown by this legendary fighter pilot named Hunter.

So the Yaks were ordered to play it cautious. Flying at 40,000 feet in single file, separated by a mile between them, the Soviet jets proceeded toward their destination, a battered yet still working airport near Dodge City, Kansas. As planned, the four pilots were maintaining strict radio silence, their only communication being the sequential clicking of their cockpit microphones every 15 minutes. Two clicks meant "Okay."

The Yaks had just passed over the Nebraska-Kansas border when the flight commander—a Russian colonel —routinely pressed his microphone button twice.

His Number Two man, flying exactly

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one mile behind, responded quickly with two clicks. Number Three did the same.

But when it was Number Four's turn, there was nothing . . .

The Soviet colonel initiated the pattern a second time. Numbers Two and Three responded immediately, but still no sign from Number Four. After a third attempt failed to raise the Yak, the Soviet flight commander began to sweat.

He slowed down, letting Numbers Two and Three to catch up to him. A wag of his wings and a flick of his landing lights was enough for them to know they were to proceed with caution. Then the Soviet colonel doubled back to look for his stray.

Five minutes into his search he found the missing Yak. Pieces of it were lying on the side of a Kansas foothill, burning uncontrollably. One look told him that the pilot could not have survived. And the airplane did not simply crash, either. The wreckage had all the earmarkings of an airplane destroyed in flight.

The Soviet commander made a note of the location, opened his throttle and nervously sped up to rejoin his flight. His fourth man's fuel might have blown up, or perhaps one of his weapons had malfunctioned.

Or maybe an air-to-air missile did the job ...

The commander linked up with his two remaining jets and they fell back into the same mile-spread pattern. The Soviet colonel now started clicking his microphone button every five minutes,

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an action which drew instantaneous responses from his equally-nervous Number Two and Three pilots.

It was twenty minutes later when the commander heard his Number Three man start clicking his microphone not twice but a rapid-fire 10, 20, 30 times! The colonel knew his pilot was panicking. Something was happening. He immediately yanked back on his stick, did a wide loop and headed back to investigate. He arrived just in time to see Number Three take an air-to-air missile right on its exhaust nozzle. The Yak burst into a ball of flame and smoke.

The Russian colonel instinctively looked to his radar screen. There was nothing there except the scattered blips of the Yak wreckage as it plunged to the ground. The deadly missile had come from nowhere. He wheeled the Yak around and armed his own weapons, four Aphid air-to-air missiles. The night was virtually cloudless with moderate light from a waning moon. Yet someone out there had shot down a second Yak.

The colonel was gripped with fear when he realized it had to be the Stealth airplane tracking them. He jerked his head from right to left, up and down, vainly looking for the airplane. He started zig-zagging, diving, climbing, trying to deny a clean shot at him by his unseen enemy. Dogfights, the Soviet commander could handle . . . maybe. But fighting a ghost, he could not.

He booted his throttle and sped ahead to link up with his Number Two ship. He knew his com-332

manders would not want him to stay and fight whatever had knocked down the two Yaks. In the Soviet scheme of things, airplanes were more valuable than people. The Soviet colonel quickly planned to bring the flight down to the lowest possible altitude and make a run for it.

Just as he was getting a radar reading on Number Two, he saw a brilliant flash light up the night sky up ahead of him. He desperately reached for his microphone and started clicking frantically. He got no response. In seconds he was flying through the area of the flash, just in time to see the severed'

front portion of his Number Two ship tumbling to earth, leaving a trail of fire and smoke.

Now he was alone. He immediately brought his Yak down to tree top level and headed south with all due haste. He knew the ghost jet was somewhere nearby.

It had to be. Something up ahead caught his eye. A glint of light. In a complete panic, he launched one of his air-to-air missiles only to see it impact on a radio tower—its red light blinking — standing on a hill a mile in front of him.

Another light, right ahead of him. He wildly opened up with his cannons, only to realize he was shooting at a truck, —it had to belong to The Circle —moving along the top of a ridge. The Soviet had been flying so low, he thought the faint spark of the truck's headlights was coming from something airborne. He was in such disarray he wasn't even reading his instruments. He felt a wave of vertigo —the nightmare of all pilots — overcome

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him. He sharply pulled back on his control stick and yanked the Yak back up to a higher altitude.

Now he saw something for real. It was a dark shape, barely visible in the faint moonlight. It was moving fast and heading right for him.

"He's going to ram me!" the Soviet's panicking reflexes told him. He momentarily froze at the controls. Then he saw the telltale burst of flame which indicated cannon fire. A split second later a small chunk of his canopy glass shattered and broke away. He could feel cannon shells perforating the Yak's fuselage and engine intakes. Still the black shape was streaking toward him, licks of flame protruding from it. He lamely tried to fire his own cannon, knowing full well an air-to-air missile would do no good in a head-on meeting. But his shells seemed to go haywire. No doubt his gun muzzle port had caught some of the enemy's well-placed opening shots.

The Soviet was just about to finally react and pull up when a burst of cannon fire found his cockpit. He was shot first in his shoulder then through his throat. Everything went from black to red. His uniform was soaked with blood.

In his last conscious moment, he realized his whole airplane was aflame. His own body was on fire, yet he couldn't feel any pain. Grabbing his throat, and squinting before his eyes closed for the last time, he saw the mysterious black fighter bank to the left and streak by him, its pilot invisible through the dark tinted canopy.

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Ten hours later, General Jones was awakened from a restless sleep by a loud buzzing noise. It was one of his lieutenants, calling him on the intercom set up next to his bunk.

"Sir?" the younger officer called. "Sir, we have someone here who wants to talk to you . . ."

Jones's eyes barely opened. He was still dressed in his flight suit, not having the time to peel it off in the past two days of intense action. He had finally caught some shuteye a few hours before, buoyed only by the fact that the second day of air, strikes had gone better than any of them had hoped

—thanks in good measure to Hunter's singlehanded work on the enemy SAM lines.

"Sir?" the lieutenant repeated, his voice crackling over the intercom. "One of our PAAC cargo pilots is here. He says he spoke to Hunter a few hours ago . .

."

Jones was up in an instant. He fell into his boots, zipped up the front of his overalls, and ran out of the makeshift barracks toward the air station's flight ops building. It was still dark out — there was still an hour to go before sunrise —and it was raining ferociously. Jones was in the situation room in less than a minute, dripping wet.

"Captain Robinson reporting, sir," the pilot said, jumping to attention when Jones walked in.

"At ease, Robinson," Jones said, waving off the military formality. "You've just got in from Ore-335

gon? Must have been a hell of a flight in this weather."

"A little bumpy, sir," Robinson said.

"Well, we'll get you some grub and coffee," Jones told him, signalling to one of the night watch lieutenants.

"You spoke to Hunter?" Jones said, plopping down in to a chair. "When?"

"A few hours ago, General," Robinson said, finally sitting down. "He was at PAAC-Oregon."

"Really?" Jones asked. The general wasn't surprised that no one from PAAC-Oregon had radioed him about Hunter's presence there. They were just following orders. With the exception of emergency transmissions, there was a strict radio silence order in effect between Denver and the PAAC installations in Oregon and San Diego. It was standard for wartime footing. Jones was certain the Russians were monitoring every radio signal west of the SAM line, and they would have certainly picked up critical intelligence —especially about Ghost Rider—if the radio waves between the air station and the coast were used.

"Yes sir," Robinson replied. "That strange jet of his was there and he had a bunch of monkeys going over it."

"What was he doing?" Jones asked. He was intensely curious. "Plotting bombing patterns? Loading up with additional guns for his airplane?"

Robinson hesitated for a moment. "Well, no, General," he finally said. "In fact, he was working

in the photo lab."

Jones looked up in surprise. "The photo lab?" he asked. "What the hell was he doing in there?"

"I'm not sure, sir," the captain answered. "I was there to pick up a barrel of photo developing wash. You know, for our photo recon boys here? So I went to the photo lab's dark room to get it and there was Hunter, working over a photo printer."

"He was developing pictures?"

"More accurately, he was developing a negative, sir," Robinson answered. "It was kind of funny-talking to him, because the only light in the room was the red safety light they use so as not to screw up the developing. All he asked me was how it was going here in Denver, and I said it looked good what with the air strikes and all.

"Then he just said something about it was still a long road to go, and everyone had to pitch in. He was real busy. Very intense: ,So I got my developer and left."

The junior officer arrived with a pot of steaming coffee and a plate of sandwiches. Both Jones and Robinson immediately dug in.

"Any idea what kind of negative he was developing?" Jones asked. "Recon mission stuff? Bombing targets?"

"No way of knowing, sir," Robinson said.

Jones scratched his head. "Is that it, Captain?" he asked.

"Just about, other than that one of the photo lab guys told me that Hunter wanted them standing by

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because he would need a lot of photos in a hurry. They had one of their big printers warmed up and ready to go. You know, one of those high speed jobs that can print a couple of thousand photos at a whack."

Jones thought about it for a moment then wondered out loud. "What the hell is that boy up to?"

"Beats me, sir," Robinson said. "But whatever it is, he was sure serious about it. If you could have seen the look in his eyes, you'd know what I mean."

Jones nodded his head slowly. "I know exactly what you mean, Captain."

The day dawned cold, wet and miserable. Jones knew a big weather front that stretched back across the Rockies was due to pass through the Badlands during the daylight hours. That was fine with him. It would give his pilots a breather, allow maintenance crews to do necessary work on PAAC's aircraft and would also give the ground forces another day —though a wet one —to continue work on the defense line.

At least two airplanes were flying though. One was an ADF F-105, its pilot carrying a secret pouch from Fitzgerald. It was a videotape the Irishman had just recorded of himself. Because of the strict radio silence order, videotapes were the means of communication the Western Forces allies had agreed on to keep in touch.

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Jones slipped the tape into the situation room's video machine and the TV

screen slickered to life. It was Fitz himself, giving the latest situation report from the northern front.

"We have our friends pretty well bogged down," the Irishman reported, sitting behind a desk somewhere at a secret base in Manitoba, a huge painting of a shamrock hanging on the wall behind him. "Ain't a bridge standing between Minneapolis and Sioux Falls. We go after the railroad lines today."

"The Canadians have their guys ready to strike,/ should we need ground forces.

We hope it doesn't come to that. Good luck down there, General."

Thirty minutes later, a Texas F-4 streaked in from the south under the weather to deliver another videotape, this one from St. Louie. It was shot out on a runway near Dallas and the white cowboy suited St. Louie looked more like a used car salesman than a leader in exile,