Suddenly every single light on his panel lit up. He reached out and pulled the lever that released the Zon’s enormous drag chute. Bells were ringing in his ears but by rote alone he pushed the control column forward. The shuttle’s nose rose instead of falling, then fell when it should have climbed. The chute caught, but the Zon pilot imagined it would quickly burst into flames. He was, after all, landing in Hell.
There was another huge bang, the Zon shuddered from nose to ass and back again. Now the bells got louder and the lights on the control panel got brighter, and oddly, he, felt heavy again. Another jolt, another bounce, this one so hard he bit his tongue, causing it to bleed. Another bang, and then a strange dragging sound. Suddenly he felt his feet pressing hard on something just below the control column. Were those the brakes? He didn’t know.
He looked out the window, near terrified now. He was speeding along, oscillating between the ground and the cushion of air beneath the mighty Zon. He was passing rows of airplanes, some with little footballs on them, others the gigantic kind with the strange paint jobs. And he could see soldiers, lined up along the strip, firing their guns in the air and pointing at him.
Finally, with what he believed was the last effort left inside the last sane part of his body, he pushed down on the control column again. He immediately felt a mighty thump, then a second one, then a third, and then, at last, the sound of the shuttle’s tires finally catching hold of the ground and staying there.
He was down.
The shuttle seemed to roll on forever, careening this way and that, the sounds of the tires burning up and brakes locking filling the flight compartment. But gradually, it began slowing down and now the lines of airplanes and men outside weren’t so much of a blur. These aircraft—they seemed somewhat familiar to the Zon pilot, especially the ones with the little footballs painted on their sides. Something way back in his memory, something that was not completely erased from his mind-washing nightmare was telling him that not only had he seen these airplanes before, but that he might actually know the men who flew them.
The shuttle finally rolled to a stop, ironically right in the middle of the huge orange cross—he couldn’t have made a better landing if he had tried. He began shutting down all primary and secondary systems, making sure to click the fire extinguishers to ready should something happen now that they were down.
Through the window he could see at least a couple hundred soldiers gathered at the side of the runway. Some were armed and looked as if they’d just gone through a terrible fight; others were sitting on the hard concrete, hands tied behind their backs.
A squad of the armed soldiers began pushing a shaky-looking piece of scaffolding over to the side of the shuttle—this would be his disembarking ramp, the Zon pilot supposed. He stared out at these soldiers, watching them as they worked feverishly to move the scaffolding into position alongside the shuttle. The pilot disengaged the pressurization cap and soon the flight compartment was flooded with the warm, smoky air of the outside. Down below, he could hear some rumbling from the passengers he’d carried back with him, but there were no signs that they wanted to get off the shuttle in any kind of hurry.
Did they know something he didn’t?
The Zon pilot took one more long look out the window. Of all the airplanes parked helter-skelter at the end of the rough, concrete runway, one stuck out. It was a huge, black jet with red trim, and two high tailfins. It was an odd-looking aircraft, frightening in a way. What hind of pilot would fly that? the Zon pilot wondered wearily.
He yanked off his helmet, unstrapped from his seat and then walked to the side door and commenced to unbolt it. Outside he could hear the scaffolding being placed next to the hatch. He took a deep breath, gloomily wondering exactly what awaited him on the other side of the door.
Then he finally twisted the dog-lock, pulled back the lever, and swung the door open.
He was immediately hit with a blast of hot smelly air. He looked down to see two hundred faces looking up at him. Who were all these guys? Mercenaries hired by Viktor to secure this place? Or were they representing somebody else?
He’d expected a dozen of them to come charging up the steps towards him, but now only a single man was approaching. The Zon pilot looked hard at this man—that face, the hair, the thin angular body. He almost looked…familiar.
The man had an M-16 up and pointing at him, but as soon as he reached the top of the platform, the man nearly dropped the gun in disbelief. They stared at each other for what seemed like a very long time. The Zon pilot felt many things suddenly begin to click way back in that part of his memory which had been robbed from him two years before.
Wait a second, he thought, I know this guy—and he looks like he knows me.
The Zon pilot took one step out onto the platform, his jaw hanging open, astounded by the man in front of him.
Then it all came flooding back. All the times before he’d been shot down over the Pacific; fighting in America, working with a guy named Crunch O’Malley and a company called Ace Wrecking. A thrill went through him. Those memories hadn’t been stolen—just hidden.
“Jessuzz…Hunter?” he asked. “Is that really you?”
Hunter’s jaw dropped to his chest, too.
“Elvis?” he gasped. “Is that really you?”
Twenty-nine
Three days later
THE HUGE CH-53 SEA Stallion helicopter orbited the tiny island twice before finally setting down on its long luxurious beach.
Sticking out of the white sand, just a few feet from the receding water line, was the charred, battered wreckage of a jet fighter. Its tail was twisted horribly, its wings shot through with holes. The damage was so severe, it was hard to tell at first exactly what model jet aircraft it was.
Three men alighted from the helicopter, weapons ready but not cocked. They slogged over to the wreckage and examined it briefly. Finally one turned to the others and nodded.
“This is it,” he said. “At least he made it this far.”
The three men climbed off the beach and contemplated the heavy jungle before them. This island was part of the Paracels, a handful of atolls located a couple hundred miles off the coast of Vietnam. Ironically enough, this one’s name was Money Island.
They reached the foliage line and, as one, bent down to feel the leaves on the byucus trees. They were real, all three decided at once. Not plastic, not fake.
Guns raised midlevel now, they walked carefully into the jungle, looking in very direction, ready for just about anything. Not thirty seconds later, they came to a clearing, in the middle of which was a row of thatched huts. They immediately came to a halt; they could hear people talking, the high, sing-songy cadence of trang Vietnamese, a dialect spoken by the very few people who inhabited these remote islands.
But in among these voices, they heard one that was lower, deeper, almost raspy. Its owner was laughing.
They finally walked into the clearing to find most of the commotion was coming from the center hut. Three young girls were sitting out on its bamboo porch, preparing a meal. They were topless. Three more females could be seen just inside the door to the hut. They appeared to be bathing a fourth person.
The three soldiers greeted the girls on the porch as peacefully as they could. The females were startled at first but calmed down right away when they saw the American flag patch on the left shoulder of the soldiers’ uniforms.
“We are looking for one of our men,” one soldier said. “His plane is down on the beach. Do you know where he is?”
The young-girls couldn’t speak English but they understood the men anyway. They began nodding and laughing and then pointed inside the hut. The soldiers lowered their weapons, walked up onto the porch and went inside.
The hut was a communal bath house. There was a huge wooden tub in the middle, and in the middle of the tub, covered with suds, was Captain Crunch O’Malley.
He looked first surprised, then relieved, and then embarrassed to see the three soldi
ers. He didn’t know any of them personally, but he recognized their uniforms as being part of the United Americans’ Search and Rescue team.
“Doctor Livingston, I presume?” he asked them with a smile, which quickly turned to a grimace and back to a smile again. His right shoulder was heavily bandaged and coated with a slimy substance the rescue soldiers believed was akin to aloe.
“We’re glad to see you alive, Captain,” one soldier said. “We’ve been looking for you for three days.”
Crunch tried to sit up a little, but his wound prevented him from moving very much.
“I appreciate that, guys,” he said. “But I’ve been in good hands here.”
The soldiers eyed the trio of topless Asian beauties and then exchanged knowing glances.
Crunch readjusted himself once again.
“What happened?” he finally gasped.
The soldiers nearly laughed out loud at the question.
“The short story?” one said. “We won…”
They gave Crunch an abbreviated version of events since he’d crashed on the island. The fight for Lolita. The sudden appearance of Hunter in the strange MiG-25. The turning of the tide. The arrival of the Zon space shuttle.
Crunch listened to it all with his mouth open so wide, the soapy water was leaking in.
“Viktor has a shuttle?” he asked incredulously.
“Had a shuttle,” one of the soldiers corrected him. “It’s been appropriated by us, you could say. In fact, Hunter and the guys flew the big SEXX Condor into Lolita yesterday morning, somehow loaded the shuttle onboard and flew it out. Majors Wa and Toomey are hopscotching it back home, to the old Cape Canaveral.”
Crunch’s eyes were now wider than ever. “And where the hell is that devil Viktor now?”
The three soldiers shifted uneasily at this point.
“Still up there,” one said, pointing straight up. “When his guys got word that they were running out of landing sites, he transferred aboard the Mir space station.”
Crunch nearly leapt out of the tub—but his wound forced him back down.
“Well, we’ve got to get him,” he began ranting. “Someone’s got to…”
One of the soldiers held his hand up and gently interrupted Crunch.
“They’re working on that right now,” he said.
Crunch sank back down into the tub. The three girls began soothing his wounds again.
“How many guys did we lose?” he asked softly.
“One hundred and fifteen,” was the somber reply. “Sixteen airplanes shot down, including three C-5s. A dozen more heavily damaged, not counting yours. You’ll be glad to know Black Eyes made it back though.”
Crunch smiled at that.
“And there’s something else you should know,” another soldier said.
He pulled a photograph from his pocket and handed it to Crunch.
“Do you recognize this guy? He was at the controls of the Zon when it came down.”
Crunch looked at the photo and once again nearly stood up in the tub.
“My God, is this some kind of a joke?”
The three soldiers shook their heads in unison. “No joke,” one said. “That guy is flesh and bones and he says he’s a friend of yours…”
Crunch stared at the photo. The face, older, with more wrinkles and without the long sideburns, nevertheless looked very familiar.
It was his old partner, Elvis Q, the guy who’d made up the second half of the Ace Wrecking Company.
“How the hell did he…”
One of the soldiers held up his hand again.
“That’s an even longer story,” he said. “Just know that he’s alive and well and you guys can get together as soon as we get you out of here.”
Crunch sank back down into the warm water again, a look of contentment replacing the pain and amazement on his face.
“And when will that be?” he asked the three men.
“Whenever you want,” one answered. “Right now, if you can make it.”
Crunch looked at them, then at the three girls and then down at his wound.
“How about tomorrow?” he asked them, sinking even deeper into the water. “Can you come back then?”
The three soldiers smiled and then saluted him.
“Whatever you say, sir…” one told him. “Early morning okay?”
Crunch looked at the three girls once again and then back at the men.
“Make it the afternoon,” he said with a soapy grin. “Late afternoon.”
Thirty
One week later
IT WAS JUST AN hour after sunset when the strange airplane appeared high over Rangoon.
To the legions of radar operators manning dozens of early warning stations around the city, it seemed as if the aircraft had suddenly materialized out of thin air. One moment, their screens were clear; the next, this mysterious blip appeared. Most of the radar techs thought something was wrong with their sets. But several rounds of hasty radio calls to other stations confirmed what their systems were telling them.
The high-flying craft had somehow entered their air space, flashing in at fifty-five thousand feet from somewhere in the east.
What’s more, it was heading down towards the city.
By the time the scramble planes at Rangoon’s main air base were able to taxi out to their runways, the mysterious airplane was already coming in for a landing. A security detail, a mix of armed jeeps and small tanks, roared out to the landing strip, their soldiers nervous. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
The men inside the advance vehicle of this detail were the first to see the strange airplane up close. Though these soldiers had been around air bases and aircraft for several years now, they had no idea what kind of an airplane was rolling towards them.
The wings were in a delta shape, its nose was long, thin and agile. It had more weapons draped beneath it than the security troops could count. Its tail, high and wildly curved, was also adorned with a number of strange, stiletto like protrusions. Most unusual was the airplane’s color scheme. Though the security troops had gotten used to the childish colors of their own air force, this plane’s covering almost looked as if it had been burned on. It was bright red and blue on the wings and tail; the rest was almost luminescently white.
The airplane stopped right in front of the lead security truck, and to the surprise of the heavily armed soldiers, its canopy suddenly popped open. The pilot stood up, removed his helmet and rubbed the tangles from his hair.
Then he looked down at the security troops and said: “Please take me to your swammi-wan…I believe he’s expecting me.”
Ten minutes later, Hunter was being escorted into the main hall of the Kitchen Palace.
There were three times as many guards on hand as before, but now they stared at him as if he was a ghost. Obviously, word had gotten around about his rather sudden appearance over Rangoon.
Both the Kid King and his mother were waiting on the throne for him. The mother looked angry and bitched-out as always; the kid looked…well, he looked worn-out.
Hunter bowed deeply and then took to the first step of the royal platform.
“I have returned as I promised,” he told them. “I have kept my word to you. My airplane is at the airport; you may go and see it, touch it, and even keep it in your collection for a while.”
The mother snorted a few words of grudgingly disbelief.
“You do me no favors by returning,” she huffed. “I’d have been just as happy if you’d stayed away forever.”
Hunter took another step up closer to them.
“We had an agreement,” he explained, “I kept my end of it. And you kept yours…”
They all stared at each other for a long time.
Finally Hunter took a deep breath and asked the big question: “Where is she?”
The Kid King stirred uneasily. He looked down at Hunter, a mixture of emotions spreading across his face. He appeared older, more mature, with wisps of a mustache
now sprouting beneath his nose. But one look into his eyes and the Wingman knew something was wrong.
“Where is she?” he demanded again.
But the Kid King did not answer. Instead he looked at his feet.
Hunter took another step closer, to him.
“Where is she?” he asked a third time, a great fear rising inside him.
But the kid continued staring at his feet.
“She…she is not here,” he whispered finally. “She stayed with me, as she said she would…but only for a little while. I just couldn’t take it anymore…she was just too…too much.”
Hunter climbed two more steps. He was furious and the Kid King knew it.
“If anything has happened to her, I will…”
“She is safe,” the mother huffed again. “In fact, she’s in a lot better hands now than when she was flying around the world with you…”
Hunter was now level with both of them. The kid still refused to meet his eyes. The mother, on the other hand, looked like she wanted to take a bite out of him.
“Tell me where she is,” he said to both of them.
The mother laughed a little, even as the kid sank lower into his seat. He looked like he was about to cry—a feeling Hunter could relate to.
“By her own choice, she is far away,” the mother said finally. “Too far for you to ever find her.”
Hunter felt his face turn bright red. He’d been through a lot in the past ten days. Securing the victory on Lolita. Getting the Zon shuttle back to America. Reuniting with his UA comrades to discuss his most recent mission and to plan the next one. But in all that time, Chloe had not once left his thoughts.
“I will go to the ends of the Earth to find her,” he told them forcefully.
Now the mother laughed again; this time it was louder and more demonic.
“Oh, you’ll have to do that,” she told him with a cruel smile. “And more…”
Downtown Rangoon
The bar was dark and dingy and smelled of burnt coffee, spilled liquor, cheap perfume, and body sweat.
Hunter took a few moments to allow his eyes to get used to the dim light. There was a time in Rangoon’s past where consumption of alcohol would have been strictly forbidden. From the looks of the crowded bar, those days were long gone.
Target: Point Zero Page 32
