Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10

by Wings of Fire (v1. 1)

  “You can’t, unless you brought a whole truckload of Snap-On Tools,” Patrick replied. “Your best option is to create a heat source and let the FlightHawks finish the job.”

  “I can do that,” Wohl said. He jumped down from the front of the TEL and searched until he found the diesel fuel refilling port, between the third and fourth set of wheels on the right side. The fuel tank itself was underneath the chassis and protected very well by slabs of steel, but he didn’t need it. He opened the filler port, stepped back a few paces, and activated his self-protection weapon, sending a bolt of electrical energy from electrodes on his shoulders directly into the fuel port. A few moments later, Patrick saw a flash, and a second later heard an explosion, then another just a few moments later. So much for their little sneak-and-peek operation.

  “All right, Nike, you dropped your drawers—we might as well have some fun too,” Hal Briggs chimed in.

  “I’m in.”

  “Go for the fuel filler port on the right side between the rear wheels,” Wohl said as he moved to the third SS-12. “The TELs aren’t grounded, and there aren’t any flame suppressors in the filler tube.”

  “Hey, Castor,” Briggs asked, “what’s the chance of one of those babies popping off with a yield in a fire?”

  “Very slim,” Patrick replied. “If they have no safeties in them or if the ones the Russians installed haven’t been maintained by the Libyans, the worst that will happen is that the high-explosive jacket surrounding the core will cook off and scatter radioactive debris around.”

  “What if the trigger gets activated by a concussion or even by our shock beams?”

  “I don’t know,” Patrick said. “Try not to hit the warhead with your beams. But there would have to be no pressure or acceleration safeties and pretty unstable triggers that then happen to work perfectly to produce a yield. Don’t worry about it. Expose your missiles with a heat source as best you can so the FlightHawk can drop on them, and let’s get out of here.”

  Several seconds later, Patrick saw another explosion, this time farther north. “Hot damn, that works good!” Briggs crowed. “I’m liking this!”

  Patrick started running for the perimeter fence, then hit his boots’jump-jets. A shot of compressed air propelled him twenty feet into the sky and almost a hundred feet forward. When he landed, he jogged forward while scanning the area with his helmet-mounted sensors. Libyan soldiers were pointing in his direction. He had to run several yards until the accumulators built up enough pressure, then propelled himself with ease over the perimeter fence. His sensors and self-protection weapons worked automatically—any soldiers within thirty feet were knocked unconscious by a bolt of energy strong enough to start a jet aircraft.

  Two more jumps and six blocks later, Patrick was at the southernmost garbage pit. It was exactly as Chris Wohl described it: a strong net, steel or even Kevlar, with enough real trash piled atop it to hide a huge wide truck carrying a large rocket. One step inside the pit revealed a second transporter about fifty yards away. He immediately found the fuel filler port and set the first SS-12 afire just as Wohl and Briggs did, and the TEL’s right rear wheels blew apart, sending the SS-12 rocket rolling right off its launch rail. In a few seconds it was going to be covered in burning diesel fuel—he hoped the nuclear warhead would just melt away and not cook off. He had no idea how sophisticated the Russians’ nuclear warhead safety mechanisms were, or how well the Libyans had maintained them, so he had to assume that the explosive material surrounding the nuclear core would explode and scatter radioactive debris everywhere. He wanted to be off the base before any of them did just that.

  Patrick quickly attacked the other two SS-12 launcher vehicles. Now there were explosions everywhere, mostly in the north where Hal Briggs was creating havoc. He turned just as his battle armor’s defensive weapon downed another Libyan soldier that had run out from an underground shelter, an AK-47 raised and ready to fire. “Base, status of the FlightHawk?”

  “Inbound sixty seconds, coming in hot,” Wendy McLanahan responded. “FlightHawk One has good imagery of all three garbage pits and good downlink to FlightHawk Two. You guys can bug out anytime. I took the liberty of calling for the Hammer too.” The “Hammer” was the CV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor aircraft. Accompanied by another tilt-rotor aircraft acting as an aerial refueling tanker, the Pave Hammer had flown them in across Egypt from the S.S. Catherine the Great in the Mediterranean Sea and had been waiting for them about a hundred miles to the south in the Sahara Desert.

  “Good thinking, Base. Stalkers, rendezvous at Sierra One.” The team had buried caches of battery packs, spare parts, water, and medical supplies in various places in the desert for their withdrawal; if they were not used within three days, explosive charges would destroy the evidence.

  ‘Taurus copies.”

  “Nike copies.”

  “Pollux copies.” Patrick had just turned to start jumping out of the base when he heard Paul cut in, “Wait, Stalkers. I found something.”

  “What do you got, Pollux?”

  Paul McLanahan was too stunned to take cover—he was standing out in the open in front of three shabby-looking tin service buildings. Just before he was going to jet away, the big overhead doors to each building opened—and two MAZ-543 transporter-erector-launchers carrying an SS-12 Scaleboard nuclear rocket started to roll out. “Stalkers, I’m staring at six huge rockets coming out of those service buildings. I think they’re the same SS-12s you guys have been setting on fire. Should I—?”

  And then he stopped—because all six of the huge vehicles stopped, and the SS-12 missiles started to rise up off the truck bed, and large steel legs began to extend to the ground to steady the vehicle. Warning lights began to blink, and soldiers and ground crew members that had been running around before now started to take cover.

  “Hey, guys, I think the Libyans are going to launch these puppies,” Paul said.

  “Oh, crap,” Patrick murmured. “Base, ETA on the FlightHawks?”

  “Less than ninety seconds, Castor.”

  Patrick had no idea how long it took to launch an SS-12, but he assumed that once it was elevated into launch position, it would take just a few moments. “Stalkers, converge on Pollux. Let’s take those SS-12s out before they can launch!”

  “I can take them!” Paul shouted. “You can’t make it here in time! Continue the evacuation!”

  “Stalkers, converge on Pollux now!” Patrick repeated. At the same time, he jet-jumped to the east in Paul’s direction. “Base, have the Hammer meet us at Tango Ten exfil point.”

  “Roger,” Wendy replied. “FlightHawks are sixty seconds out. Hammer’s ETA to Tango Ten is two-zero minutes.”

  Paul’s electrical defensive weapon went off as several Libyan soldiers approached. He felt heavy-caliber bullets pounding into him from many directions, all on full automatic and some with very heavy rates of fire—a Minigun or antiaircraft gun aimed at him. Seconds later, he got a low- power warning. The Tin Man battle armor was not designed to sustain a heavy attack, and heavy-caliber automatic-weapons fire drained power quickly. Paul had only seconds to get away.

  A loud siren sounded. Paul turned toward the SS-12 rocket just to the right of him just as restraining clamps that held the rocket to the launch rail released and the rocket started to eject some gases from its nozzles. It looked like it was going to launch at any moment.

  Instead of jet-jumping away, Paul commanded a full-thrust jet—right into the rocket, just a few feet below the warhead section. Unrestrained by its road-march holddown bar, the rocket easily toppled off the launch rail. Just as it hit the ground, the single-stage liquid rocket propellant ignited. The rocket streaked across the ground, slammed into the SS-12 unit beside it, and exploded. In rapid-fire succession, all six SS-12 Scaleboard rockets exploded in a wall of flame several hundred feet high and nearly a half-mile long. Every building within a mile was torn apart in the concussion.

  Patrick did not just see and feel the six nearly si
multaneous explosions—he was knocked off his feet from the concussion and earthquake-like tremors, even though he was more than a mile away. The eastern sky lit up like a millennium fireworks display. He didn’t bother getting up from the ground, but low-crawled behind a doorway that led to yet another passageway underground. “Stalkers, status check,” he ordered. He knew where the big explosion was, knew who had been assigned to attack that area, and he dreaded what he was going to learn.... “Castor is secure.”

  “Nike secure.”

  “Taurus secure. I got my bell rung, but I’m secure.”

  “Pollux?” No reply. “Pollux? Paul?” Patrick checked his electronic display for any sign of Paul’s transponder. Nothing. “Castor is en route to Pollux’s last location,” he said. He hit his jump-jets and quickly propelled himself toward the massive explosions to the east. Patrick didn’t have to check his heads-up display to know that Briggs and Wohl were on their way to join him.

  But there was no way to reach Paul’s last location. An area the size of at least four square city blocks was totally engulfed in flames—the very streets seemed to be rivers of fire, and the sky was thick with roiling waves of heat and smoke. Patrick was able to move forward another halfblock with great difficulty before system failure warnings and low-power warnings started to ring. There were several Libyan soldiers in the area, but they seemed stunned both by the devastation and by the strangely armored figure before them.

  “Patrick.” It was Hal Briggs, suddenly appearing beside him as if from nowhere.

  “I’m going in.”

  “You can’t. No one can survive that, not even in a BERP suit.”

  “I’m not leaving my brother behind,” Patrick said. “I left David Luger behind in Siberia, and he survived only to be tortured for five years by the KGB. I won’t let that happen to my own brother.”

  “You can’t do it. It’s suicide.” He paused, studying his electronic visor and downlinking the status of Patrick’s battle armor system. “You only have ten minutes of power remaining, and that’ll get sucked away fast inside that inferno. My power is down to three minutes. Let’s go back to the exfil point and recharge the suits. By then, maybe the fire will have been knocked back, and we can all go in and find Paul.”

  “No. I’m going in.”

  “How are you going to find him in thatV

  “I don’t know, but I’ll find him.” Patrick didn’t know what was guiding him—it wasn’t any sensor scan or transponder beacon. He had always believed there was some sort of bond, like a telepathic link, between him and Paul, but it was something he always dismissed as simply two guys being raised together in a house full of women. Whatever it was, Patrick was relying on it now. As Hal Briggs and the amazed and terrified Libyan soldiers looked on, Patrick jet-jumped into the hellish flames.

  System warnings flashed in his electronic visor, and his skin felt as if it was going to vaporize right off his body, but he kept going. Moving inside the fire was actually easier than he had thought. His battle armor’s sensors detected any large debris around him, so he was able to sidestep the pieces of vehicles and buildings without walking into a burning trap. The multiple blasts had leveled most everything, so all he had to do was avoid the larger pools of burning rocket fuel and continue on. Three or four jumps, and he was in the center of the inferno.

  His power was nearly gone. The last estimate he had was five minutes remaining, but the estimate just a minute before that said ten minutes, so in reality he had only a few minutes to get out before the battle armor completely shut down. Patrick knew if that happened, he would be instantly baked alive inside the armor like a potato in a microwave oven—crispy on the outside, well-done on the inside.

  One more jump, and he found him—or, rather, what was left of him. Patrick could only stare at his brother, not in horror but in sorrow. He had to have been right atop the SS-12 when it detonated, because the blast had torn right through the Tin Man battle armor. It had been all but peeled off his body, stuck on here and there like clumps of dirt. The intense fires had taken care of the rest. Patrick lifted the body of his younger brother as gently and as completely as he could, then jetted away to the east via the shortest way out of the flames.

  The Libyans were getting meaner and bolder now. As Patrick jump-jetted again just a few dozen yards from the perimeter fence, he felt heavy-caliber bullets hitting him from his sides and back. He had commanded the selfdefense electrical beams not to fire to save energy, but his power was all but exhausted. One more jet propelled him over the fence, and the last of his energy reserves drained away.

  The fence kept him and the Libyans separated for now, but that didn’t last long. Already troops were streaming out, angry voices piercing the night sky, drowning out even the roar of the huge fires behind them. Their blood lust was evident—they were out for revenge and retribution, not capturing prisoners. Patrick had nothing left with which to fight. He could not avoid capture now....

  Suddenly, there was a string of explosions between him and the advancing Libyans, stirring up the desert floor like an instant sandstorm. Without the protection of his fully charged armor, Patrick was knocked off his feet as he was pelted with supersonic-blasted sand and rock. Stunned, he lay on the desert floor, knots of pain dotting all around his body. Writhing in pain, he saw the dark profile of his dead brother lying beside him. Both McLanahans, killed in one day, on the same mission. Shit.

  He heard a loud roar and felt, rather than saw, more sand being kicked up. The Libyans were closing in, this time with helicopters or armored vehicles, hunting down Wohl and Briggs. The mission was a success, but they might all be wiped out, Patrick thought wearily. Once captured, their bodies put on display along with the remnants of their armor, the Night Stalkers would be dead, the United States would be embarrassed again, and ...

  “Patrick?” He willed his eyes to open and was surprised when they worked. He was looking directly at the alienlooking helmet worn by Hal Briggs. “You okay, man?”

  “Am I shot?”

  “You sure as shit got fragged pretty good by the Gators, but I don’t see any holes,” Briggs said. Patrick moved his arms and legs and found they all functioned, so he struggled to his feet. “Wendy sent in FlightHawk Two right in the nick of time, and she laid down a carpet of cluster bombs and mines right in front of about a hundred Libyan regulars. The armor protected you from the fragments. We’re safe right now, but we gotta move.” Briggs quickly got to work, snapping a fresh battery pack onto Patrick’s backpack. He looked down, examining the body lying in the sand. “You got Paul out. Good work. I’m so sorry, my friend. I’m gonna miss working with him. He’s a hero.” Patrick reached for the secure latches to his helmet, but Briggs stopped him. “Better not, man,” he said seriously. “FlightHawk One has detected radioactive and chemical agents in the area.” He motioned toward the Libyan soldiers lying dead in the aftermath of FlightHawk Two’s raid. “If the mines hadn’t got them, the radioactivity or nerve agents would have. That replacement battery pack should give you enough juice to hop out of here and be far enough away for the Pave Hammer to safely pick us up. We’d better go.”

  Patrick nodded, thankful to be alive. The noise Patrick heard was not a Libyan helicopter or tank, but the CV-22 Pave Hammer, making a high-speed pass over the area to check for pursuit. He reached down to pick up his brother again, but Chris Wohl carefully, gently pushed him away, and picked up Paul’s body. Together the three commandos and their dead partner jetted eastbound into the desert.

  They unearthed one of their prepositioned resupply caches a few minutes later. Fifteen minutes later they were far enough away so that radioactive and chemical weapon residue levels disappeared. Only then could the CV-22 land and extract them, first eastward into Egypt and then northwest out over the Mediterranean Sea.

  It was a long, sad, quiet flight back to the Catherine.

  AKRANES, ICELAND

  THAT SAME TIME

  “What in hell are you whining about now
, Zuwayy?” the Russian shouted on the secure satellite channel. “This had better be important.”

  “My missile base at Samah was attacked and nearly destroyed by commandos! American commandos/” President Jadallah Salem Zuwayy of Libya shouted in passable Russian. He was wearing a polyester blue and red warmup suit, with no shoes—the clothes that had been thrown to him as his security officers burst into his bedroom and snatched him literally out of bed into a waiting helicopter. At first, he thought it was an assassination squad—rampant fear was finally being replaced with white-hot anger as he realized he was safe. “They have set eighteen of the missiles on fire! There are nerve agents and radioactive materials spreading all across my desert!”

  “Zakroy yibala! Shut your fucking mouth and stop blabbering on this line!” the voice shouted back. “This may be a secure channel, but if the Americans are indeed running an operation on you, they may have figured out how to crack the encryption codes. After all, they built the system we are using.”

  “Did you hear what I said, tovarischl” Zuwayy retorted. “I am under attack! Thousands of square kilometers of my desert have been contaminated! Hundreds of my soldiers are dead! And the Americans certainly know all about those missiles and where I got them!”

  “They know nothing of the sort,” Pavel Gregorevich Kazakov responded. Kazakov was sitting at a desk in a small, private apartment in Akranes, Iceland, a few kilometers north of the capital Reykjavik, sipping a cup of tea that an assistant had just fixed for him. His aide, a beautiful young Russian former army officer named Ivana Vasilyeva, deputy chief of staff to the former chief of staff of the army of the Russian Federation—who was just as talented on the pistol range and in a judo do jo as she was in bed—set a tray of sweet rolls and honey on the desk, gave Pavel an enticing smile, then departed. “If they knew anything at all, they would have destroyed the entire base. Just a few commandos—they could have come from anywhere—Israel, Algeria, even your so-called allies Sudan and Syria. Now, shut up and calm yourself.”