by Mack Maloney
Hunter dove and flew low over the crash. He knew there’d be no survivors. Wreckage was strewn everywhere, but the main fuselage and the starboard wing were still intact, though smoking heavily. He briefly considered taking off and finding another airliner from the mysterious convoy. But on second thought, he became determined to return to this crash site and search the wreckage. He had to see who the hell these guys were.
He reconnoitered the long stretch of the abandoned highway nearby to see if it could handle the F-16. After two passes he decided to try for it.
Chapter Seven
THERE WERE ONLY ABOUT two hours of daylight left when Hunter finally reached the crash area. The highway—a battered sign revealed it as Montana’s Route 264—proved long and straight enough for him to set down. He hid the ’16 underneath an overpass bridge, and armed with his trusty M-16 and other equipment, had trudged for an hour through the forest to where the airliner came down.
He was soon at the base of the mountain, close enough to see where the huge letters “TWA” had been hastily painted over on the airliner’s tail section. The big airplane carried no other identification numbers, not unusual these days. The ground was still hot and steamy as a result of the crash; the heat was melting the shallow ground snow that covered the mountain. The big fire had died down, but he knew it was only temporary. There was still fuel in the crumpled starboard wing and it was only a matter of time before it got hot enough to blow. For now though, everything around him was very quiet—the only noise coming from the dozen or so small fires that crackled in the bushes around the wreckage, plus a low hissing from the wreck itself. He knew he had about ten minutes before the rest of the airplane went up. He checked the magazine on his rifle, then scrambled up the hill to what remained of the 707.
After a climb of 300 or so feet, he reached the back of the airplane. A rear door that had twisted off its hinges and was hanging from the fuselage now by only wires looked like a means of entry. A moderate amount of smoke was still coming from inside the aircraft. For this contingency, he had kept his flight helmet on and carried his emergency oxygen tank on his back. Now he lowered the helmet’s clear visor flap and strapped on the air tank’s face mask. He knew the smoke was toxic, and without the visor, it would have been difficult to see. He took a few gulps from the oxygen tank, then carefully stepped up to and inside the wreckage.
He was not surprised to find the airliner was empty. A full airplane would have hit the ground much harder and destroyed itself on impact. He looked around inside the cabin. It was a typical New Order Special: an airliner converted to cargo carrier by ripping out all the seats and replacing them with spider’s webs of straps and fasteners to hold the airborne goods in place. He looked to the rear of the airplane, trying to locate where the rear gunner had been stationed. But that portion of the aircraft was crushed beyond recognition. He knew the gunner’s body was buried in the twisted metal.
He started to walk toward the front of the airplane. It was slow at first—the airliner’s hollowed-out fuselage was pretty battered. But even in the twisted mass of ripped metal and wires, Hunter realized the airplane had not been transporting the usual kind of convoy cargo. In fact, the floor of the airplane was covered with what looked like straw or hay. He found several burlap bags that had ripped and scattered their contents around the airplane when it went down. He picked up one of the bags. Printed in black lettering on its side was the word: “Oats.”
“Oats?” Hunter said to himself in surprise.
He continued to pick his way through the fuselage and eventually he reached the cockpit door. It too was smashed and twisted, but he was able to squeeze through what was left of the passageway leading to the flight deck.
There was only one pilot and he was still strapped in his seat. The body was already stiff, its hands locked into a death grip on the control column. A large gash in the man’s temple looked to be the cause of death although half the skin on his face was missing and his body was perforated everywhere with shards of glass. His green coveralls were soaked through with blood now turned black and inky. Weirdly, the man’s eyes were still wide open; a look of crazed horror staring out of them. What was worse, the corpse’s mouth was formed into a slight, grim smile. Hunter felt a chill run through him as he stared at the deathly grin.
He looked around the cockpit. No papers, no registration plaque. He was able to read the flight distance indicator. It read 419.10 miles. He filed the number away into his memory banks. Everything else on the control panel was smashed. He moved back to the pilot. Very carefully, Hunter patted the body looking for some identification. He found a single piece of folded heavy paper inside the man’s breast pocket. Gingerly he removed the paper and unfolded it. What he saw would change his life forever …
It was a photograph of Dominique.
Body Rushes. He knew he got more than the average person and for more and different reasons. He’d flown close to the edge of the atmosphere; he’d flown at nearly four times the speed of sound. He’d not only seen battle; he had fought in the largest, most destructive war ever. He’d been around the world several times, had seen its oceans, its peaks, its valleys. He’d known love; he’d known hate. He’d experienced rushes through his body that left him buzzing for hours if not days. But nothing equaled this rush. It exploded in his brain and traveled at the speed of light to each and every one of his nerve endings. There were sparks in his eyes.
Dominique? What the hell was this guy doing with a photo of Dominique? Hunter stared at it in disbelief. Was it really her? The young Bridgette Bardot-look-alike face was there. Her hair had grown out long and now looked lusty and blond. It was definitely the body he’d taken in person and so many times in his dreams. Who wouldn’t be haunted by this? There was no question. It was her.
More sparks in his eyes. He couldn’t believe the way she was … posing. The photograph was not a hastily snapped affair. It was in clear, crisply focused full color and almost artistic in the way it was shot. She was leaning forward slightly, her eyes staring directly into the camera. She was heavily made-up. Her clothes—what there were of them—were stunning. She was dressed in what looked to be a female version of a black tuxedo jacket. She wore no dress. Her black nylon stockinged legs were fully exposed, as was the garter belt that held them up. She wore short, black leather boots. Her blouse, which looked to be pure silk, was drastically low cut, exposing more of her breasts than not. The clothes managed to look expensive and trashy at the same time. She was wearing several diamond necklaces and what appeared to be a tiara of some sort. Even the chair she sat in had a plush look about it. It was all staged so strangely, yet beautifully. The photo looked like a cross between a pin-up and an expensive portrait sitting.
His eyes were filled with sparks now—real sparks. A loud bang knocked him out of his trance. There was another bang, followed by a louder, more dangerous rush of hissing. Looking out the smashed cockpit window he saw the starboard wing had erupted in flames. The hissing signaled an explosion was imminent. He had no more time to search the body or the cockpit.
His instincts began to take over. He quickly folded the photograph and slipped it into his boot. He wiped off his helmet visor and checked his air supply. But he took one last look at the pilot’s face. Who was he? What was he doing? Where was he going? And what the hell was he doing with Dominique’s photograph? Hunter knew one thing: the dead man could have led him to where Dominique was. But now he was cold and so was the trail. Who the fuck were you, pal? As if to answer him, Hunter watched as by some trick of rigor mortis, the grin widened into a full-toothed, grotesque smile.
“I have to get out of here,” Hunter whispered.
Moments later the wing blew up, violently knocking the fuselage onto its port side. No matter—Hunter was clear of the wreck by this time, having sprinted and ricocheted himself down the cabin and out the door. He made a quick slide of it down to the base of the mountain—mucking up his M-16 in the process. The airplane exploded in o
ne last, agonizing boom, after which it was totally engulfed in flames.
He passed 65,000 feet and was still climbing. The sky had suddenly turned dark, night was falling. As he approached 70,000 feet—nearly 14 miles high—he could see the faint twinkling of stars above him. Higher and higher he went. The F-16 was soon closing in on 80,000 feet, past the safe ceiling for its make and model.
Yet Hunter still climbed …
He clutched the picture of Dominique. There were too many questions bouncing around his head. So he sought refuge. At 85,000 feet the sky was like night and the stars were bright and in full view. Suddenly he saw a huge band of red light streak across his northern horizon. It was followed by another, then another. It was the Aurora Borealis again. But strangely it displayed just one color. Deep red. The streaks were dazzling, sparking bright crimson leaping across the sky like huge airborne waves. In all his years of flying, he had never witnessed the phenomena as intense as this.
Hunter felt a jolt run the length of his body, bounce off his flight boots and rebound back to his flight helmet. He was transfixed by the brilliant, eerie lights and their strong, hypnotic quality. He found himself being drawn toward the display. Slowly he leveled off at 90,000 feet. The air was so thin at this height he imagined he could see it travel by him in long curling wisps.
He pointed the jet fighter north, determined to plunge into the bath of red light. Soon the entire airplane was awash in the one color. It was the color of blood. He took his hands off the controls and held them up to his eyes. Strangely, they looked white while everything else around him appeared red. His body shook again. The red became more intense. He closed his eyes.
He knew it was an omen. War was coming. A big one. To the east. He could already hear the bombs exploding and big guns being fired. He could see the smoke and the tail fires of missiles as they streaked to their targets. Highways lined with the weapons of war. He could smell the gunpowder and the cordite and the napalm. He saw huge fires. He heard people screaming—their sounds intertwined into a symphony, playing so hard in his ears they started to ache. The jet was shuddering, its engine shrieking as it streaked into the Northern Lights.
Suddenly a new, entirely different feeling washed over him. His eyes were still jammed shut. Inside, he felt the color turn from red to white. Then, everything started to clear. In an instant he knew how the Russian jets had pulled off their svengali. The answer had been there all along and he laughed when he finally realized the truth. So that was it! He felt a surge of power travel through his body. His fists tightened. His teeth were clenched. He gulped the oxygen from his face mask. The fuckers. They almost had him. They almost psyched him out. But now he was on to it. One mystery down, just several more to go. No more time to contemplate his condition. No more self-pity. No more doubting his resolve. He had to get to work.
He kept his eyes closed just a moment longer, drawing the last jolts of strength from the feeling. The last image he saw before opening his eyes was that of the beautiful Dominique. She was alive. The photo proved it. He knew it now for sure. She was out there. Somewhere. He would find her.
He opened his eyes. The Northern Lights were gone and the night sky was cold and clear. The feeling hadn’t entirely vanished, however. In fact, a little bit of it would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Chapter Eight
HUNTER RETURNED TO THE base, shut down the F-16 and ran to the base’s recon photo analysis lab. The two technicians who had been laboring over his footage came out to meet him, both anxious and glowing with news.
But before they could say a word, Hunter spoke to them. “Jump jets?” he asked.
“Bingo, sir,” the senior tech told him. “Yak-38’s. We narrowed it down about two hours ago.”
The Yak-38 was an airplane design the Soviets ripped off from the famous British Harrier. By using a multi-direction jet nozzle, the airplane could lift off vertically, then, with the push of a button, its thrust could be redirected backward and the jet could instantly fly like a normal fighter. The Harrier was an amazing airplane; the Yak-38 an effective, if bargain basement version of it.
Now all the pieces were fitting into place. The Russians hadn’t really constructed an air base in the arctic valley—they had simply cleared a landing spot, for the jets could land vertically, too. The airplanes had leapfrogged over from Siberia, probably rendezvousing with tanker planes or even preadapted ships at sea for refueling. After all, the Yak-38 was originally designed to operate off Soviet aircraft carriers. When Hunter happened to find their base, it only would take about an hour or so to get the 50 airplanes lifted off and moving.
But one mystery solved sometimes led to another: Now that he knew how the airplanes got there—and how they got out—he had to find out where they were going …
“Where the hell are they now?”
Seated around the table were the principal officers of PAAC-Oregon. One by one, Toomey, Ben Wa, the Cobras, the Ace Wrecking Company, an officer from the Crazy Eights, Major Frost, and Dozer looked at the still photographs gleaned from the infrared tape of the Yaks.
“This is not your typical Soviet stunt,” Hunter was saying. “These guys were pros. It took a lot of planning and execution to jump fifty Goddamned jets across the arctic.”
“And to do it in bad weather,” Frost said. “And without a peep on the radio.”
“Some kind of special unit,” Dozer said. “Probably trained just for this mission.”
“Damn!” Hunter said, pounding the table. “I would never have guessed the Russians had five of these Yaks left, never mind fifty!”
“We have to find them and take them out,” Captain Crunch of the Wreckers said. “Any ideas where they went, Major?”
Hunter was quiet for a moment. “I hate to even say this but …” he began slowly. “My guess is they jumped themselves right over into the Badlands.”
“Christ!” Toomey blurted out, expressing the feeling of every officer there. They were all unquestioningly brave men. But still not one of them wanted anything to do with the Badlands.
“Why do you figure the Badlands, Hawk?” Wa asked.
“Well, based on the maximum operating range of the Yak-38, if they flew light and conserved fuel, they could have made it in one extra jump,” Hunter said, pulling out a notebook of calculations. “And these photos show they weren’t carrying any ordnance under the wings. They were, however, carrying extra large wing tanks.
“This tells us something else. If they weren’t carrying bombs, it could mean they were meeting up with someone who was.”
“Goddamn,” Dozer said. “Fifty Russian jump jets flying around the continent can cause a lot of misunderstandings to say the least.”
“What are they here for, Major?” one of the Cobras asked. “Convoy raiding?”
“Well, it seems like a hell of a lot of trouble to go through just to shoot at airliners,” Hunter said.
“Could be part of another disruption campaign,” Dozer said. “They sent a bunch of jets over to The Family, too.”
“That’s true,” Hunter said. “But we’ve got to figure that they sent more jets than pilots that time. Pilots must be in very short supply over there, still. And so are top-shelf airplanes like these Yaks. Top-shelf to the Russians, anyway.”
“You think something bigger is brewing?” Frost asked.
Again, Hunter was silent for a few seconds. He had given it a lot of thought in the past few hours, though he had to admit, some of the answers literally popped into his head from nowhere. He now had theories on most of the recent mysteries, both on the west coast and on the east—all except one.
“Okay, let’s look at these one at a time,” he began. “First, we have a patrol boat who reports something strange and sends out an SOS. By the time we get there, they’re gone. Now, whatever it was, it had to be a ship that attacked them. Yet the Wreckers didn’t see anything else floating around out there.”
“True,” one of the F-4 pilots confirmed.
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“Okay,” Hunter continued. “Maybe it was a submarine. Maybe it was a bunch of submarines. By the way the patrol boat captain was talking, he might have sailed right into a school of them.”
“Or a wolf pack,” Dozer interjected.
“Exactly,” Hunter said. “They can’t blast the patrol boat out of the water because they know we could probably find it and figure it was hit by a torpedo, or a Harpoon-type ship-to-ship missile, or even a deck gun.
“So what do they do? They jam the boat’s radio transmission, then they board her and either kidnap the crew or throw them overboard.”
“We never saw any bodies,” a Wrecker said.
“Right, too messy,” Hunter agreed. “So maybe those guys were taken alive.”
He paused for a moment, then continued. “Now, how about what went down in Vegas? What the hell exploded out there and why would anyone want to blow a mile wide crater in the middle of the desert?
“Well, how about this: We assumed it was done on purpose. Suppose it wasn’t. Suppose it was an accident?”
“Accident?” Toomey asked.
“Sure,” Hunter answered. “Why not? Someone moving a whole lot of ammunition. Something goes wrong. Boom! Everyone is blown into smithereens and the place looks like an A-bomb went off.”
The rest of the officers around the table nodded in agreement. It was possible.
“How about what Fitzie’s guys have been seeing, Hawk?” Toomey asked. “Lights floating over the Great Lakes?”
“Not floating, really,” Hunter said. “More like soaring.”
“You mean … like gliding?” Dozer asked.
“I mean exactly that,” Hunter said. “They could have been gliders, released somewhere outside the Canadian radar net. Shit, if you launched a glider high enough, with the winds over the Lakes, it could fly for hundreds of miles. Granted, it would have to be pressurized and winterized and whatever else.”
