Cyborg 01 - Cyborg

by Martin Caidin

  Steve looked quickly about the room, a frantic expression on his face. The sergeant had his submachine gun ready. The two Arabs were more alert now, their weapons also leveled in Steve’s direction. No one paid attention to Tamara, but Steve saw the sudden alertness in her eyes.

  A gloved fist smashed into his stomach. Pain ripped through him and he doubled over to meet another fist coming up from far below. It snapped his head back violently, and Steve pounded against the wall behind him. God, the sonofabitch knows how to hit! He reeled, spinning about as another blow came at him. He felt blood on his lips, and then he was taking the punches as best he could, rolling with them, crying out with the pain. Let the son of a bitch think he’s killing me . . . Several more brutal punches to the head and, as he doubled over, a swift kick to the stomach that lifted him clear off the floor and dropped him, gasping, back to his hands and knees. He couldn’t take much more because the Russian could suddenly do real damage, and he also knew he was getting into a daze where he would lash out instinctively. He couldn’t risk that. When the move came it had to be all the way, with precision and complete execution. He cringed as the Russian moved in for more punishment. A hand jerked him up by the collar and he felt a fist crash into the side of his face. His vision blurred. The Russian was there again, and Steve clung to the other man, asking not to be hit any more, and at the same time managing to block many of the punches. He caught a glimpse of Tamara, who stared at him with wonder in her eyes. She looked at his bleeding face, heard his pleas for mercy. The same man who in training had been able to handle some of the best commando fighters of Israel. She followed every move like a hawk.

  The Russian pushed him away angrily and swung a roundhouse. Steve took it on the shoulder, infuriating the other man. Another flurry of punches and Steve hung on, tying him up, hanging in. He was close, his left hand clenching the other’s uniform, when he heard it. The distant sound of jet engines, and he knew they were back for the next strike. That was to cover their escape in the stolen plane. This was their chance.

  He closed his left thumb and forefinger against the Russian’s collar bone; steel-finger claws snapped the bone. The man’s eyes bulged and he started to scream, frozen where he stood by the pain knifing through his system. The bionics leg came up into his midsection with wracking force. Before the others in the room could move he had the gun out of the holster from the Russian’s belt. No one fired, could fire, because he kept the now unconscious form of the man between himself and the others. He tossed the gun to Tamara and in the same movement pushed the body at the sergeant, who was already trying for an open shot.

  A submachine gun roared to the side; the Arabs, reacting in fear and surprise, firing at where Tamara had stood. But she was already diving for the floor, cocking the gun at the same moment, pumping bullets upward into the two Arab guards. Steve also dove for the floor, bullets tearing the wall above and behind him. He steadied his left hand, thumb pressing the release in the extended finger, and the poison darts were propelled into the sergeant. His muscles seized as the poison hit his system. Steve was rolling over the floor as both the colonel and the remaining officer went for their guns.

  They had no time to use them. A string of bombs exploded outside the building, dazzling them all with the glare of the blasts, followed by a shock wave. Enough to throw them off stride. Tamara fired two shots into the younger officer as the bomb explosions made him hesitate for a moment. In that same instant Steve was across the room to the colonel, catching him with a savage blow across the side of his head. Dead or unconscious, the Russian fell like a stone. Steve got to his feet, groggy from the punches he had taken. Tamara was by his side at once, her hand going to his bleeding face. “Steve, I—”

  “Never mind that now; get those machine guns from the others. We may need them.” Outside the sounds of the second attack increased in violence. They could hear the shrill roar of the jets intermingling with explosions and the whoomp of exploding napalm. “We’ve got to get to the runway now. The attack will last about ten more minutes and by then we’ve got to be in one of those planes.” He grunted with the effort of dragging the unconscious colonel from the floor. “We’ll put him in the back of the jeep. Tell anybody who stops us we’re taking him to a doctor. While the shooting’s going on—we’ll explain later. Let’s go. You drive.”

  They went outside, the Russian slung over Steve’s shoulder. He dumped him in the back of the jeep, got into the front right seat, made sure the submachine gun he’d grabbed was cocked and had a shell in the chamber. “Let’s go!” he shouted above the din. Tamara released the clutch with a screech of gears and they took off for the airfield.

  At the gate the guards were frightened but determined to let no one pass. Security had been tightened, despite the clamor about them as the jets swept in low, releasing bombs, rockets, napalm, and cannon fire. “Can’t you recognize the colonel?” Steve shouted above the noise. “He’s hurt. We’ve got to get him to an aid station at once.”

  The guards hesitated. Steve half turned, then dove from the jeep, firing as he moved. He heard Tamara’s weapon chattering. He rolled again, looked up. Four guards. Dead. He climbed back into the jeep and they were on their way again. If no one had seen the incident, the guards would appear to have been killed in a strafing burst from one of the Israeli jets. All they needed was time. Just a few minutes more.

  There was a last guardpost to get through. They rushed toward it, Steve ready to fire. No need. The small building was gone, bodies strewn about. “Good job,” Tamara muttered, and swung the wheel down a narrow perimeter road toward the fighter revetments.

  “Tamara, when we get there you talk to the guards. Ask for their help with the colonel. I’ll come around from the other side. And no firing if you can help it. It’s not just the noise. If someone sees the muzzle flash we’ve had it.”

  The jeep screeched around the side of a revetment, out of sight of the main buildings a quarter of a mile distant. Before they came to a stop, Tamara was shouting to the guards. They came running as Tamara explained that the colonel had been hit. Steve stepped down from the jeep, ran around the side, drawing no attention in his uniform. He killed the first guard with a hammering shot to the side of the skull. The second took a straight-edged blow to the forehead that laid bare the bone beneath. Steve turned to Tamara as the colonel stirred groggily. Tamara stepped to his side, shoved the pistol deep into his stomach and fired the last rounds in the clip.

  “C’mon,” Steve shouted. “That third plane down, it’s on alert. That means it’ll be ready to fire up.” They ran to the plane—and almost into the arms of two ground crewmen. “Start the engines,” Steve called to them. “We have orders to take off at once!”

  He boosted Tamara into the rear cockpit, hit the ladder and climbed quickly into the front seat. The crewmen glanced at one another, then moved swiftly to the powercart. One didn’t question an officer at a time like this.

  In the cockpit, all the training in the MiG-21 paid its dividends. The basic cockpit arrangement of this MiG-27 paralleled its predecessor. It came back to him swiftly, and he had the help of a checklist beneath the gunsight. He looked for a helmet, cursed when he saw none. That meant no communication with the ground crew. He looked down and to his right, signaled with his hand. Moments later he heard the powercart speed up. He went through the starting process carefully and quickly. It seemed forever for the two engines to come to life, for the gauges to register proper fuel flow and pressure. There’d be a problem without the helmet—no oxygen mask, and he wasn’t sure of the pressure levels of the cockpit. He could always stay below twelve or fifteen thousand feet. No problem with the Israeli interceptors. The pilots had been warned not to fire on any MiG-27 that made it into the air, to leave the enemy aircraft strictly alone.

  They were ready. He had the belt and shoulder straps on, glanced in the mirror to his left. Tamara was strapped in. He signaled her to move her hands away from the edge of the cockpit. The fighter had a si
ngle clamshell canopy that would come down along a pneumatic strut and lock into place. He ignored the ejection seats and other equipment. No time. He turned again to the ground crew, signalling them to remove the chocks, and—

  Headlights, coming fast. Those sparkling lights . . . they’re firing at us! Oh, babe, it’s now or never . . . To hell with the chocks . . . move out!

  He was doing things simultaneously now. His left hand went full forward on the twin throttles, and he hoped he wouldn’t overload the engines with too rapid a throttle movement. Thunder exploded behind him as the ship rocked wildly against the chocks. Not enough! He went full forward, past the detent and into afterburner. The thunder was a constant explosion now as flame streaked from the jets. His right hand hit the canopy bar and the big plexiglas shell came down with hard authority. The fighter lunged against the chocks. He went to emergency power, and she rocked and pitched wildly, climbing over the restraining chocks on raw power. Canopy lock; he hit the bar for that as the fighter careened forward. He didn’t bother with the runway. No time. The lights were closer from the right. With the canopy closed, the ship accelerating, he could now hear Tamara trying to get through to him. He glanced into the mirror, saw her pointing to the left. More vehicles. He told her to get down, low into the cockpit, bent down himself as the jet pounded from bullets hitting the tail. They’d move the fire forward. He went down the taxiway, slamming his fist against the throttles, imploring the MiG to pick up the speed he needed. No way to take it off prematurely; he had to wait. One jeep was on the runway, racing after them, but they had speed now and were pulling away. At a hundred and fifty knots he rotated, came back gently on the stick and in the same motion hit the gear handle.

  They were off. He watched the airspeed, holding her down for a few seconds more, wanting the speed to throw the ship high, to take her up steeply. Now. He came back on the stick and moved it sharply to the right for a steep climbing turn to throw off their aim.

  They almost made it away clean. They were about two hundred feet up when someone got dead aim on them, leading with his fire, and the bullets started along the top of the nose, coming back. It was only a burst, barely enough, but the plexiglas to his right began to shatter before his eyes and he felt something hot stab into his right arm.

  That wasn’t so bad, he thought. The sudden coughing rumble behind him was far more frightening. One of the engines was going.

  CHAPTER 24

  An airplane always tells you when it’s ready to die. The MiG beneath his hands was no exception. He lowered the nose, trying to ease off on his need for power by climbing away from the Qena airbase at a much shallower angle than he’d planned. Without even thinking about what he was doing, he had shifted his left hand to the stick between his knees, leaving the throttles full forward. It was a bitch of a job, flying a strange fighter at night, for the moment flying strictly by instruments with the nose raised above the horizon. That, plus his need to keep scanning the instruments from the flight panel to the engine gauges, where red warning lights flashed off and on to report some emergency within the bowels of the big airplane. He knew what was wrong without consulting the gauges, but the rising temperature, fluctuating fuel pressure, and coughing rumble that shook the entire airplane pinned it down. The right engine could keep running for a while with a lowered thrust. It could, but he didn’t know. All he knew was that he must gamble on its operation for some time yet, and he must try to coax it along for as long as possible.

  To reach the Sinai Peninsula, and Israel beyond, they needed altitude. There were mountains between them and their destination. The Scorpion airbase lay some three hundred forty-five miles away, if he flew an absolutely precise course (which he knew was impossible) and found the base in darkness in the midst of the high and dangerous Negev hills. The more immediate obstacles were the mountains that rose from the west banks of the Red Sea. If he flew the shortest route toward the Sinai they would run into peaks topping seven thousand feet. No way there, he told himself. If he flew due east he had a range of from three to four thousand feet. Flying to the south meant peaks at six thousand, as well as flying away from their destination.

  There was another nasty little problem. Keeping the engines in afterburner was absolutely necessary at the moment, for they were running on partial thrust from the right engine and he needed everything the left engine would provide. But that meant sucking fuel from the tanks at a disastrous—in fact, prohibitive—rate. He had to cut back on the power to reduce their fuel consumption, but he also needed that power to climb.

  Another problem: His right arm felt as if a hot poker had been stabbed into the muscle, and a hundred tiny devils were twisting the poker with agonizing effect against the nerves. Normally he flew with his right hand, but now it was only an extension from his body that wracked him with pain. No time to see what had happened, how bad it was, how badly he might be bleeding. Not much use in stopping bleeding if in the process you fly into a mountainside.

  He kept the MiG in a right climbing turn, watching the gauges, talking to the engine to keep going, to keep running. If he could get to altitude then he could not only clear the mountains but he might also fly this beast on only one burner. It would be limping home, but what the hell, if it made it.

  The long sweeping turn to the right helped him with his bearings—settlements and communities along the Nile River provided a long, twisting ribbon of speckled lights. The lights of river traffic also helped. He completed the wide climbing turn and eased in left stick and a touch of rudder as he came around to three hundred forty degrees. But not too long for that because that was taking them straight toward Cairo, and by now they must be very nervous up there—

  The airplane shuddered violently throughout its length. Needles trembled. Instinct brought the nose down to reduce the power requirements. He glanced at the altimeter. Eight thousand. More than enough to clear anything this side of the Red Sea or the Straight of Jubal. He didn’t dare fly any farther north; he’d be sliding into range of defensive missiles, and the radar nets could bracket him easily for interceptors. No doubt they’d be scrambling by now. When the Russians in Cairo got word that one of their precious MiG-27 fighters had been heisted by a couple of Jews who wandered in from the desert, there would be dedicated action to bring down the plane. He began a sweeping turn to the right, rolling out on forty-five degrees, to take them north of the Gebel Katherina peak that dominated the lower Sinai at nearly nine thousand feet above the Negev.

  His world was a bank of glowing instruments, and lights on the horizon to his left, far to the north, where Cairo still cast a clear spray of light into the sky. But there was other light now and he vacillated between pleasure and disappointment. They were flying generally into the east, and the first pink touch of dawn showed before them. Well, it took away some of the sting. He wouldn’t need to fly her strictly by the gauges; he could eyeball their way now with that horizon reference. It would also make it easier for pursuers to catch sight of him. To hell with that; it was the least of his problems. Keeping in the air was first, running so long as they had fuel. He didn’t know the capacity of the tanks in the MiG, but flying at nine thousand feet in an airplane designed for efficiency at much greater heights was a sure way to suck the damn tanks dry.

  The MiG shuddered badly again, the instruments dancing in wild vibration before his eyes. He felt no strain flying with his left hand; the bionics limb gave him more than enough strength. But the right arm . . . in the dim cockpit light he saw the glistening reflection of his blood. It wasn’t too bad, and he attempted to move his hand. It hurt but he was able to flex his fingers. Moments later he was moving the entire arm, wincing from the pain but grateful nothing had been broken or severed. He toyed with the idea of a tourniquet, but it would be a clumsy job at this moment. It would wait.

  Again the shuddering of the machine throughout its length, and then a low, booming thunder. The engine was going. If the thing exploded, it could tear the entire ship apart. He had enoug
h altitude and—he hadn’t thought of Tamara all this time. He looked into the small mirror, saw her face, tense, her lips pressed tightly together. She was taking all of this in silence, not bothering him, but knowing they were committed to the MiG, that they lacked even the option of ejecting.

  No chutes. Either they made it back to an Israeli field or he’d have to put her down somewhere in the desert. And wouldn’t that be a job in a fighter that probably stalled out at a hundred and twenty or so? A vision of a silvery lifting body slamming into the flat surface of the California desert came to him with stunning clarity, and he shook his head to throw it off.

  Another booming sound and he had no choice now but to shut down the right engine. He studied the panel, trimming just a hair nose-down pitch. The gauges again followed the basic pattern of the earlier MiG fighter. He held his breath and began flicking switches, then brought the throttle all the way back to cut-off. There wasn’t much yaw. This was a beautiful machine and he corrected the slight tendency of the nose to veer with the trim.

  He took the time to study their position. No charts. He was doing it all by memory. They’d crossed the Arabian Desert; no doubt of that, because there was the Strait of Jubal which, to his left, the north, became the Gulf of Suez. Ahead and slightly to the right he barely made out in the morning haze the high reaches of the lower Sinai mountains, capped by the dominating peak of Gebel Katherina. They moved across the water beneath them. Then the shore line of the Sinai Peninsula slipped beneath the wings and he began to have new hopes that—

  A red warning light flashed at him. The fuel warning light. Maybe five or ten minutes left. He’d never have time to figure out the fuel cross-feed situation. That meant getting down now. He dropped the nose to pick up some more speed and eased off on the left engine throttle. Even a minute could make a tremendous difference at this point. He knew he must land while he still had power. That would give him the chance to dodge anything unexpected. He could maneuver with power; otherwise they’d be dropping down into the desert with a lead sled on his hands that couldn’t get out of its own way.