The Mercenary

by Dan Hampton

  Fifty-two hundred pounds of fuel and 178 miles to go. Not critical, but it would bear watching. If he wasn’t landing at night in a foreign country on an unlit, unfamiliar airfield, there’d be no worries. He wolfed down another bite and smiled. There was no such thing as easy money. Leaning down again, he reached for the water bottle in the other leg pocket and glanced outside.

  Holy Mother of God!

  The hair on his neck went straight up and his eyes flew open wide. Flashing lights and a tower of gray steel sprang from the sea directly in front of him.

  A ship!

  Reacting instantly, he dropped the egg, hauled back on the stick, and shoved the throttles into full afterburner.

  Up! UP!

  He willed the big fighter to climb as the gray-painted warship loomed out of the sea mist. It was so close the twin stacks and rotating antennas were plainly visible as the FLANKER roared upward, missing the superstructure by a wingspan.

  Suddenly the outside references vanished in the oatmeal mess of the cloud deck. He stared inside the cockpit at the instruments and yanked the throttles out of afterburner. Ignoring the tumbling sensation in his head, he swiftly recovered the jet to level flight using the attitude indicator.

  Rolling out, he stared at the altimeter: 1175 feet and steady. Swallowing hard, he shook his head and ignored his thumping heartbeat. Where the fuck did that thing come from?

  Then the radios exploded into life.

  Screening thirty miles ahead of Carrier Group Seven, the guided missile destroyer U.S.S. Howard was dead center in the Formosa Straits. Centered around the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis was the Curtis Wilbur, another destroyer, the U.S.S. Chancellorsville, a guided missile cruiser, and the fast frigate Gary. Lurking somewhere under the murky water off the Chinese coast was the attack submarine Salt Lake City.

  But the Howard was out in front, plowing through heavy seas and mist when the fighter jet roared overhead. The officer of the deck happened to be the ship’s executive officer, or XO, a senior lieutenant commander. He’d just come on duty and was unsuccessfully trying to wake all the way up.

  Suddenly an orange flash caught his eye and he looked up in time to see a dark shape leap from the wave tops. Submarine! His shocked mind woke up. A missile launch!

  Then he saw the wings and realized it was an aircraft. A big twin-tailed jet that seemed to be heading straight at the bridge. Too startled to speak, he slapped the collision alarm anyway. As the “WHOOP-WHOOP” reverberated throughout the ship, the XO also sounded General Quarters.

  The bridge shook as the jet roared overhead, both afterburners belching flame, and he instinctively ducked. Then it was gone, swallowed up in the clouds.

  “Come left heading two hundred forty degrees,” he barked at the helmsman. “All ahead Flank.” He picked up the hotline. “Combat . . . run a plot on that damn thing! I want to know who the hell he is and where he’s going.”

  Another line buzzed and he picked it up.

  “What the hell is going on up there, Brad?” It was the captain, wide awake and thoroughly pissed. “What the fuck’s gonna hit us out here?”

  The XO shook his head and sat down on the edge of the big swivel chair. “Skipper, you’re not going to believe it . . .”

  “Unidentified aircraft, 2315 north, 12020 west . . . Repeat . . . unidentified aircraft 2315 north and 12020 west . . . this is the United States warship Howard. Acknowledge and identify!”

  Damn. The mercenary swore into his mask. So much for Chinese Intelligence and their position estimate of the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

  “Unidentified aircraft tracking southwest . . . this is the U.S.S. Howard. Acknowledge and identify.” The voice was dispassionate and very firm. Like a machine. Typical military.

  He considered ignoring them and just continuing. There wasn’t much that they could do as these were international waters. But providing no explanation would make the Americans suspicious and probably lead to an official inquiry. It would certainly lead to an investigation after tonight’s events became public. And that was something his employers definitely did not want. If that happened he’d lose the balance of his contract.

  Better to give them an answer. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

  “Howard, this is Wolf 71,” he drawled in his best southern American accent. “Sorry ’bout that . . . ya’ll aren’t supposed to be here.”

  There was a long pause and a new voice answered. More authoritative and demanding. Also a bit tense, and the mercenary chuckled. Undoubtedly an officer.

  “Wolf 71, this is Howard. Squawk 4413. Repeat squawk 4413. Then explain what you’re doing on the waves fifty miles from the Chinese coast.”

  “Ah . . . roger that. Squawkin’ 4413.”

  On a western jet this code would be a critical piece of the Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF) matrix used to determine who to shoot and who to talk to. It would also register him on the ship’s tracking radar, and the mercenary had no intention of complying. He pushed the throttles back up, quickly dropped back down to 100 feet and immediately turned due west, toward China.

  “Howard, this is Wolf 71.” He needed to buy some time. Nosing over slightly, the pilot dropped still lower, to a bare forty to fifty feet above the waves, his eyes on the water.

  “I’m a single F-16 on a night low-level training mission. Sorry about the close call, but there were no posted NOTAMs ’bout naval activity.”

  Nine miles away now. He glanced behind him but couldn’t see anything through the goggles.

  “Wolf, this is the Howard,” the voice was breaking up. “Not registering your squawk. Squawk 4413. Say your home plate.”

  The mercenary smiled. The voice sounded a little less peeved. Twelve miles away now.

  “Roger that, Howard . . . I’ll reset to 4413. Been havin’ IFF problems all night. Home station is Kunsan Air Base and I’m northbound now . . . Headin’ back. See ya.”

  The Howard’s XO keyed the transmitter again but got no response. The captain, who’d joined him almost immediately, was staring at the SPY-ID display. This was the multifunction phased array radar that directed the ship’s AEGIS weapons system and it was blank.

  “Goddamn Air Force,” the skipper swore. “The only way he could not show up is if he was a receding target flying at wave-top level.”

  “Why would he do that?” The XO frowned. “Besides, the Air Force doesn’t have balls that big.” Something was nagging at him. Something he just couldn’t place.

  The captain shrugged. “Note it in the log.” He tapped the electronic chart. “USAF F-16 encountered eighty-eight miles west southwest of Taiwan at 0718 hours ZULU.” He yawned. “Secure from General Quarters, Brad . . . I’m going back to bed.”

  Then it clicked. F-16. That was it. The exec hesitated and the captain noticed.

  “What?”

  The XO straightened and stared at his skipper. “F-16s only have one tail and one engine.”

  The captain, who hadn’t seen the jet, shrugged. “Yeah . . . so what?”

  “Skipper, that thing had two engines . . . and two tails.”

  Forty-two miles to go and 2,800 pounds of fuel. Practically on fumes for this beast, he thought. He’d reduced his speed after getting clear of the destroyer but had added an extra fifty miles to his last leg by heading directly to the coast, then flying south. There hadn’t been much of a choice. Destroyers didn’t typically run around alone and he suspected the Howard was a screening vessel for something a lot bigger. Something that had fighter jets of its own, and an aircraft carrier was the last thing he wanted to run across tonight.

  The mercenary blinked his dry eyes. It felt like his lids were scraping his eyeballs. He was tired. After nearly two hours of exhausting flying under goggles his neck hurt and his head weighed fifty pounds. But ahead and to the right was his destination. A deserted bay on the Chin
ese coast. The clouds had finally pulled apart and silver moonlight glowed along the ragged beach.

  There were no man-made lights showing in the goggles, so he gently climbed up to 1,000 feet and tugged the throttles back to hold 350 knots. The FLANKER’s global positioning system was dead accurate and he centered the steering in the HUD. The highway strip lay on the western shore of the empty bay below him.

  He pulled back on the stick again and zoomed the fighter up to 3,000 feet. There were no coastal surveillance radars this far south and no air bases. Besides, he needed to see.

  Slowing to 250 knots, he put the big jet into an easy left bank. The west end of the bay split into two arms, and following the southern arm, he picked up the black ribbon of highway that paralleled it.

  There. Just at the extreme southern end he could see the telltale widening of the highway to accommodate the landing surface. There were also taxiways on either side of the road.

  Good. Problem One solved.

  He kept the turn coming and methodically searched the bay shore just beyond the north end of the highway strip. All the while, the mercenary watched for any other types of lights. Headlights—even cigarettes—could be seen under the right conditions. Anything that might indicate a trap. Or, more likely, an unscheduled use of the alert strip.

  But there was nothing.

  He made another slow circle, this time descending to 1,500 feet. A yellow glow from the CAUTION panel caught his eye. He checked it against the plastic-coated translation on his kneeboard. LOW FUEL—1,900 pounds of gas. Minimum fuel by any standards, in this twin-engined monster. Time to land.

  But not without his escape. Straining his eyes, he concentrated on the fuzzy shoreline. If the boat wasn’t there he would fly toward Hong Kong and eject as close to the coast as he could get.

  But there it was.

  The cigarette boat was just where he’d been told it would be. Quietly purchased at twice the asking price from a Hong Kong smuggler, the boat had been the weak link in his chain. The smuggler might have delivered it to the wrong cove or he might have decided to keep the initial payment and contact the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. But first things first. At least the boat was here.

  He quietly exhaled, pulled the throttles back and glided down to 1,000 feet. About three miles out he dropped the landing gear and the jet shuddered as it rapidly slowed down.

  Seventeen hundred pounds. He did the math in his head and figured about 168 knots for a final approach speed.

  Two and a half miles. Nosing over, he banked the fighter up in a hard left descending turn. The highway strip momentarily disappeared in the trees but as he rolled out on final it was barely visible again.

  There obviously were no runway lights but the pilot wasn’t worried. The goggles picked up enough ambient light to see and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d landed on an unfamiliar darkened strip. At least no one was shooting this time.

  Yet.

  At a mile out he was about 300 feet in the air and much too fast. Leaving the throttles set he opened the speed brake wider and the SU-27 slowed to 170 knots. There was no question of doing any kind of instrument approach so, eyes flickering between the HUD and the highway, he simply flew by the seat of his pants. For an aim point he’d picked an intersection on the highway where a smaller dirt road ran off into the trees.

  Power . . . speed brake . . . he constantly nudged the stick to correct the flight path. At 200 feet his peripheral vision began picking up details; speckled wave tops in the bay. Trees . . . a ditch beside the road. The sensation of speed increased with the ground rushing up but he ignored it and concentrated on the intersection.

  Passing fifty feet, he pulled the throttles back and dumped the nose. Landing long and fast wouldn’t be a great idea since there was nothing beyond the strip but trees and the bay. Out of long habit his eyes flickered one more time to the three lights indicating his landing gear was down and locked. The road was rushing up now and he could see the white painted center stripe. Steadying the jet, he nudged the stick gently forward and tugged the throttles back to idle.

  For a long few seconds, the big jet floated. Then gravity overcame thrust and the main mounts slammed onto the highway. The pilot winced but pulled the stick back in his lap and kept the nose up. Craning his neck, he pushed on both rudder pedals to keep the fighter roughly centered on the faint white stripe. At 120 knots the nose dropped and he immediately fanned open the big speed brake. At 100 knots he smoothly applied the wheel brakes and the jet slowed quickly.

  Glancing ahead now, he could see wide turnout aprons on both sides of the road. Fingerlike taxiways branched out from these and vanished into the trees. Slowing the jet down to walking speed, the pilot dropped his mask and exhaled again.

  What a fucking night.

  He swallowed and wiped his face. Retracting the speed brake, he angled over toward the left-hand group of taxiways. He knew from studying the layout that these ran off toward hardened bombproof aircraft shelters back in the trees. There were eight of these on the landward side and four by the bay, where he was now pointing. They were regularly maintained for any fighters the Chinese air force decided to employ. Taking the third taxiway. he swung the fighter left and crept forward until his eyes focused.

  The wingtips barely cleared the trees on both sides of the taxiway.

  Taxiway . . . It looked more like a cart path on a golf course. Using only the goggles and soft taps on the brakes, he inched his way through the trees.

  Up ahead was the water, a shining gray surface beyond the trees. Suddenly, like tumbling backward from a funnel, the trees opened up on both sides of the taxiway. A semicircular pad about 75 feet across wound off to the left and at the far edge a mound rose out of the trees. The mound was actually an aircraft shelter and the blast doors were open. Stopping the jet, the mercenary saw nothing but empty space inside the shelter. He reached down anyway, closed one eye, and flicked on the powerful taxi light. For an instant the cavernous hangar was brilliantly illuminated. And utterly empty. Toggling the light off, he eased the fighter forward. Creeping through the opening, he knew there was no way to turn around, so he gently held the brakes and the fighter stopped.

  Taking a deep breath, he sat back for a moment and looked around the cockpit. No trash or written materials. He’d kept his gloves on the whole flight so there would be no fingerprints. Couldn’t do anything about hair or skin residue, but the mercenary doubted if the Chinese would try to DNA match him. It didn’t matter anyway. He didn’t exist.

  Methodically shutting off the various displays and power panels, the pilot took one more look around, then pulled the throttles backward over their stops. As the big engines spun down he switched off the aircraft battery, unlatched the canopy and pulled out his flashlight. Flipping the canopy switch up, he quickly unstrapped from the seat as the cockpit slowly opened.

  A wave of fresh, cool air hit him and he pulled the helmet off. The goggles he put in his G suit pocket and the helmet went into a black helmet bag along with his kneeboard, checklists, and the data cartridge. Even before the engines stopped, the pilot hung the bag around his neck, swung out of the cockpit, and paused on the canopy rail. He looked at the hangar floor, happy to see the jet wasn’t rolling, then turned and hung from rail. Fully extended, he still dropped a good four feet and landed lightly on the concrete.

  Scuttling immediately to the back wall of the hangar, he kept the fighter between himself and the entrance. Drawing the 9mm Parabellum from his vest holster, the mercenary crouched against the iron blast flue and tugged the goggles out of his pocket. Holding them to his eyes, he swiveled them left and right around the hangar, including the roof.

  Nothing.

  He waited. Waited until the engine whine disappeared and the sweat on his flight suit turned clammy. Waited until the only sound was the clicking made by hot metal beginning to cool.

  Nothin
g. He was alone. But he stayed motionless for a slow five minutes and watched the entrance.

  Then, slowly getting to his feet, he came back to the jet and walked down the FLANKER’s long body, pausing by the tail. Russian designed maybe, and Chinese built, but it had still faithfully carried him there and back. Reaching up, he patted the warm engine nozzles.

  Moving silently along the dark hangar wall, he ducked out of the entrance and slid into the night.

  Chapter 3

  He slid over the warm, naked body beneath him, watching her eyes as he moved. They were slightly almond shaped and the color of green seawater. As he slipped into her they widened a bit, then half closed as she savored the feeling. Her legs came further apart and gripped his ribs tightly.

  Lowering his face to hers, he kissed her deeply. Her arms came up along his back and he felt her fingernails rake his shoulder blades. The girl arched her neck and threw her head back as he slid into her again. This time he stayed fully extended and felt her curved inner walls clutch at his prick.

  Running a hand up along her ribs, he squeezed her left breast. Her heart was thumping heavily beneath the smooth, taut skin. The girl’s eyes were closed now and she moaned as he began to lightly pinch her nipple. Licking it lightly then, he saw her eyes crack open slightly.

  “Oh yeah . . . that’s good. That’s so good . . .” She moaned again . . . deeper this time. He sucked the nipple all the way into his mouth and she gasped.

  “Just like that . . . just like that.”

  He ran his hand over to her right breast and kneaded it harder. Staring down at her hard, athletic body, his breathing quickened. . She was wet and warm and amazingly tight. Shifting a bit, he put his hands down behind her knees and leaned forward. Her legs came up over his shoulders and he braced his legs against the footboard.

  She opened herself completely then and put both arms back over her head. Her breasts stretched out and her erect nipples gleamed wetly in the faint light. The girl was staring at him now, her eyes wide, trying to gulp air between his pounding thrusts.