“Yeah,” Leif said, his fingers still clicking on the keyboard. “You want me to respond?”
“Tell them to go–” Stacy began, but Jeffrey interrupted.
“Not a peep, Leif. Let them wonder if the message was received. The less information they have the better off we are.”
“Yes, sir,” Leif said, and continued tapping on the keyboard. “Got another message. It says, ‘We will allow you to turn yourself in without shots fired. Please acknowledge.’”
Stacy said, “They’ll save the shots for when we are in a nice quiet room, hands tied.”
“I have what I think is a perfect fuel out in Australia,” Leif said. “It’s a triple tanker of Jet A-1 bio on the road just out of Coober Pedy heading toward Alice Springs. I assume that’s the middle of nowhere, just as we’d like it.”
“It sounds good to me,” Jeffrey said. “It would be better if we found some JP-5B, but the A-1 has a high enough algae-alcohol percentage, so we’ll be able to burn it.”
“I’m moving my search north again, through Japan.”
The keys clicked.
Jeffrey began to feel uncomfortable, as though a huge spotlight were painted on him as he hovered high out over the open ocean.
Continuing to type, Leif said, “Got another message, ‘We have you in the vicinity of Tonga. You are locked via satellite. Interceptors en route. Please acknowledge intention to surrender.’ You still want me to ignore them?”
“Give ‘em nothing,” Jeffrey said over his shoulder. “They have squat.”
“I’m almost done with the searches,” Leif said. “I’m pulling up more detailed shipments in the Chinese low-population areas. Do you want to start heading there and then I’ll shut down?”
“No,” Jeffrey said. “It’s too obvious. If I saw that many searches I would immediately discount the ones in the direction a ship headed right before it disappeared. Let’s just leave them with 20 or so targets that are all equal.”
“Okay,” Leif said, “I’m shutting down the link. I’ll let you know when to move out.”
“Good,” Jeffrey said. “How many targets did you give them?”
“I gave them 456 trucks to think about,” Leif said. “The signal is black, you can move on.”
“Excellent.” Jeffrey dropped the ship into a freefall and pushed the throttle full on. The gunship lashed out across the ocean 100 feet over the waves, splitting the air with a sonic boom.
CHAPTER 11
Out on the horizon, the surf and low green hills of Australia’s Frasier Island came into view and then rolled up on the Kiowa. As the gunship came over the island, the green trees and bright sand seemed strange after so much blue water. The gunship crossed the shallows between the island and the mainland. Jeffrey pushed left a bit to keep the gunship over the less populated forests and farms between the cities of Torquay and Maryborough. As he flew inland, the trees grew thin in the valleys until only dry grass ranches remained. The old worn-down mountain ranges shifted steadily to red dirt. As the rock and sand of the Outback took over, the entire glass bezel of the ship’s fuel indicator began to pulse red. Beneath the gauge, the display reported 867 miles of fuel remaining at the current speed. The display decreased one mile every few seconds.
Jeffrey slid his finger along the map display, scanning over the Stuart Highway. From the southern coast, it ran up through the center of the continent, all the way to Darwin. The truck they needed rolled northbound somewhere along that strip of asphalt between Coober Pedy and Alice Springs. Jeffrey could not establish the exact distance to the Stuart Highway, but he was fairly sure it was more than 867 miles. He pulled the throttle back dropping the gunship to .98 Mach and the miles-remaining display rolled up to 1246. Would that be enough? Jeffrey could not set a waypoint in the GPS navigation without risking sending off a signal.
The gunship shot out over the iron-oxide red of Queensland’s Central Lowlands, and Jeffrey thought how, aside from the scrubs and sporadic gidgee and gum trees, it looked very much like the dead surface of Mars. The calm air held a few high clouds out over the crystalline line of the horizon.
Leif had moved into the back some time ago, leaving Jeffrey alone in the cockpit.
“How you doing up there?” Stacy called out.
“We’re over the continent now,” Jeffrey said over his shoulder. He heard shuffling and looked in the mirror to see Stacy coming up and strapping into the navigator’s seat.
“How far will our range be when we gas up?”
“From what I can see here for fuel consumption and capacity, I would say that–with full main and secondary tanks and flying sub-Mach–we could potentially get to Russia the long way. We won’t have to worry about fuel again after this, I hope. The only trick is not running out before we get to the truck.”
“Oh, I see,” Stacy said, and Jeffrey heard her finger tick the glass on one of the navigator’s instruments. “Do you think we have enough to get to the tanker?”
“I honestly don’t know. It either will be, or we are going to be living off the bounty of the Outback. Even if we get there, we might have problems. I don’t know what priming the system needs if it runs too low. How’s Leif doing?”
“He’s sound asleep.”
…
For the next two hours, he and Stacy watched the mottled red, light orange, and white hills and bluffs pass by beneath the gunship. They sighted the Stewart Highway just as a buzzing alarm joined the pulsing red light of the fuel gauge. ‘Fuel Low’ began scrolling across the lower portion of the front cockpit glass. The gauge showed a range of 198 miles. The fuel had lasted to the highway, but they saw no trucks yet. Jeffrey slowed the ship as he came up on the highway and turned north toward Alice Springs. Red gravel flanked the black asphalt, creating a wide ribbon cutting across the desert. The miles remaining on the fuel gauge ticked down to 197.
The truck they wanted had left Coober Pedy this morning. In the time since then, Jeffrey assumed that it must have crossed at least half of the over 400 mile distance to Alice Springs. He flew with the highway to his left, about one thousand feet away. No vehicles moved on the asphalt. On either side of the road, sand and rock stretched to the horizon, broken only by scrubs and a few spidery trees.
After another 15 minutes and sixty miles, Jeffrey saw a tail of dust rising off the asphalt ahead. The dust lifted into the air away from them. Southbound. Not the truck they wanted. Jeffrey pulled wide, out over the desert. Throttling on, he dropped the gunship low, out of the sightline of the truck. The fuel gauge fell from 146 to 98 when Jeffrey accelerated. He cursed under his breath and dropped his speed.
With the highway clear, Jeffrey pulled back toward it. He saw no other dust-trails but decided to keep heading north along the road. In another ten minutes they were only 100 miles from Alice Springs.
Did we miss it?
The fuel gauge rolled below 50 miles. Jeffrey scanned the road. Then, out ahead, he saw another dust-trail. He strained his eyes at it. The dust rose toward them. Northbound.
“Please let that be the one we need,” Jeffrey said, drumming his fingers on his leg while the slow flight speed crawled toward the truck.
As they closed in on the truck, Jeffrey leaned forward, squinting his eyes. He saw a glint of chrome.
Is it a tanker?
“Yes,” Stacy shouted out, making Jeffrey jump. “That’s it, it has to be. Three… no four tanks.” In a few seconds they were close enough that Jeffrey could also see the chrome cylinders of a quad-tanker semi.
“I thought it was supposed to be a triple tanker,” Jeffrey said.
“Does it matter?” Stacy asked.
“Not as long as it has the right fuel.”
“If not?”
“We walk to Alice Springs or die out here.” Jeffrey looked over his shoulder. “Leif, wake up, we have ourselves a truck.”
Leif said, his voice groggy, “I’m up.”
“Everyone clear on the plan?” Jeffrey asked.
�
�Yes,” Stacy said.
“I’m good,” Leif said from the back.
“Okay,” Jeffrey said, “we’ve got a good list of crimes going. Let’s add piracy to it.”
CHAPTER 12
Doug Norton rode in the passenger seat of the fuel tanker, his head aching from last night’s whiskey. To his right, Alex McKinney drove with a stupid little grin on his face. Doug shifted in his seat and groaned. He had found a good tussle last night, and his right eye throbbed with his heartbeat. At one moment, the drone of the big fusion engine soothed him, in the next, the rocking of the truck cab made him feel sick.
“You still feeling the effects?” Alex asked in his heavy northern accent.
Doug hated Alex and his stupid mountaineering sunglasses. Alex could drink all night and not seem to feel it the next day. But then again, Alex was an alcoholic.
Despite it all, today was a good day. Yesterday, dust storms plagued them, and Doug still had dust crusted in his nostrils from working outside, fixing three blowouts. The truck had rocked and twitched up the highway all the way from Adelaide to Coober Pedy. Nothing but a stiff whiskey had smoothed Doug’s nerves when they reached town. Now, with the sky blue and clear over the Stuart Highway, Doug felt the need to enjoy the moment. He reached into a cooler, pulled out a bottle of beer, pried off the top on the door of the truck, and flicked the bottle cap at Alex’s woolly, blonde head.
“Hey,” Alex said, lifting up his arm.
The truck swerved onto the shoulder, and Doug saw a cloud of dust billow up in the rear view mirror. He laughed, drank off a third of the bottle, and then folded his arms across his barreled chest, saying, “Keep your eyes on the road.”
“I honestly don’t know why I keep drivin’ with you,” Alex said.
“This fuel run is my route is why,” Doug said. “You’re a parasite.”
Alex shook his head.
They passed a south-bound road-train pulling five trailers of sheep. Doug got on the radio and talked for a moment with the other driving crew and then returned to the bright sun and red dirt, feeling boredom creeping in on him.
Thirty minutes passed.
Alex yawned and said, “I suppose it’s just about time to check the tyres and let you drive.”
Doug didn’t respond. He stared across Alex, out the side window of the truck, at what first appeared to be a large, black bird. But it didn’t flap its wings and took an unnaturally straight and fast line through the sky.
“You with me?” Alex said, looking at him.
“I don’t believe it,” Doug said.
“What?” Alex asked as he turned and looked out his side window.
“There’s an American warship out there.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Alex said, leaning forward over the steering wheel to get a better look out the side window.
The aircraft flew north, out ahead of them. Its dead-black lines caught and swallowed the harsh sunlight; even the glass of the cockpit, somehow matted, absorbed the light. The ship slowed and turned toward them, flying sideways. It approached the highway and came to a hover over the asphalt. As the truck approached, the ship began flying backwards, maintaining its distance. The ship was close enough that Doug could see the pilot in the cockpit. He wore no helmet and appeared to be an old man with close-cropped, gray hair and a trim beard.
“That’s no military pilot,” Doug said.
“What should I do? Stop?”
“Not on your life.”
The gunship flew in that fashion, backwards with its rotary cannon on them, for about half a kilometer. When it became clear that Alex had no intention of stopping, it turned and arced away. It came back around toward the highway about a kilometer ahead. The nose came down and missiles lanced away, drawing four, fast trails of smoke out from under the down sloped wings. The first missile converged on the highway. A ball of fire erupted and expanded exponentially as each new missile merged into it. From out of the fireball, small bits of pavement and roadbed shot straight away, trailing smoke, while larger chunks of rock and slabs of tarmac flipped end over end through the air. A moment later, the heavy thumps of the explosions shook the truck’s windshield.
Alex let off of the gas and pressed on the brakes, slowing the two-hundred-plus tons of fuel and steel. The truck rolled up and, as the smoke blew away, Alex and Doug saw that the pilot had run the missiles in a line, one after the other, creating a series of linked craters about ten meters wide and thirty meters long. The craters extended out into the scrubs on each side of the highway. The truck would not be able to go around, and there was no way to get the road-train through a U-turn on the thin strip of pavement. The gunship turned, its landing gear came out, and it settled just on the other side of the craters.
“They just blew Stuart Highway in half,” Alex said.
Doug grabbed the CB radio and turned up the volume. A piercing wail filled the cab. He turned it down and switched channels. Each turn of the knob brought forth the same terrible noise.
“They’ve filled the airwaves with crap, so we can’t radio out.” Doug switched the radio off. He took out his sat-phone and scowled at it.
“There’s no signal,” he said.
“No signal from the sat?”
“They must be jammin’ that as well.”
Alex pulled off his sunglasses, exposing his dog-blue eyes. “So what do we do?”
“Well, we can’t back up or turn around, so I suppose we find out what it is they want.” Doug reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a Ruger .357 revolver with a bright nickel finish. He stuffed it in his worn pants pocket, grabbed the warm door handle, and popped open the door. The desert air, hot even in the autumn, hit him in the face. The heat felt good after the air conditioned cab. The metal-grate steps clanged under his boots as he descended to the ground. He walked around the bull-bar to the front of the truck.
Alex still sat in the truck cab. Doug turned and, with an angry jerk of his right hand, motioned for Alex to get out. Alex squinted into the sunlight toward the gunship and pointed. Doug turned and saw a man… no… a man and a woman come from round the rear of the ship and stand to the right side of the cockpit. The man was young and thin as far as Doug could see. He had blond hair and wore cargo pants and a dark-green t-shirt. The brunette was small, but nice enough on the eyes. She wore fatigues.
The man waved to Doug in a friendly way, and then cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted with an American accent, “We need your fuel. We have no intention of causing you any harm. However, you will need to let us take the fuel for that to work out.”
“You and that little waif of a girl are gonna take my fuel?” Doug shouted back across the crater.
Alex stepped around to the front of the truck. “Why not just give them the fuel? It’s not our damn fuel.”
“You just gonna take a gobful off some Seppo pricks?” Doug said.
“Seppo pricks with guns in a ship with missiles? Yes.”
“I sure as hell am not,” Doug said. “This is just the type I hate. They need the fuel, so if we stay beside the truck, they can’t use their big gun. They don’t even look like they have handguns. We just have to wait them out until someone else comes.”
“I’m not in for this,” Alex said, putting his sunglasses back on. “You want to die, you do it on your own.”
Doug turned and thumped Alex in the chest with his fist. “McKinney, if you don’t back me up on this, I’ll not hesitate. You get me? Did you pocket your pistol?”
“No, it’s in the cab,” Alex said.
“What the devil’s wrong with you?” Doug said, grabbing Alex by the shoulder, spinning him around, and shoving him toward the truck. “Get up there and get it in your pocket.”
“All right, all right,” Alex said, knocking Doug’s arm away and walking back around the side of the truck. He climbed up into the truck. After a few moments, he climbed out of the truck and walked around to the front carrying an old, snub-nosed .380 Smith and Wess
on pistol.
“Alex,” Doug said, staring at him.
“What?”
“I had hoped for a bit of surprise, but there you are with your pistol out in the sun. Do you suppose they know our intention now?”
They both looked back towards the gunship. The man wagged his finger in the air and then pointed down to the rotary cannon on the nose of the gunship. An electric whine spooled up and the multiple barrels of the gun blurred.
Doug shouted out in his deep voice, “You won’t shoot. You need the fuel.” The man shrugged and tapped his ear, unable to hear over the spinning cannon. He turned and gave the pilot a thumbs-up, then he and the girl both put their fingers in their ears. The cannon shifted just to Alex and Doug’s right, and the barrel erupted in a blast of flame. The roar of hundreds of shots in a few seconds ripped across the desert, and large-caliber bullets whipped past them. The truck’s driver-side mirror blew away in a sparkling mist of shattered glass and bits of chrome.
“Holy Christ!” Alex shouted out, and threw his pistol as if it were a baseball. The man standing next to the gunship laughed.
The alarm on Alex’s face faded, and anger took its place. “That little whacka.”
Doug held up his hand. “These Yanks are either crazy or stupid if they’ll shoot at a fuel truck they need. Let’s just walk over there. They still don’t know about my pistol.”
Doug walked off, and Alex followed him through the scrub skirting the craters. The rotary cannon had spooled down, but it still tracked them.
Doug and Alex came around the craters and continued walking toward the man and woman. Doug saw that the woman had a white bandage across one side of her face. Both she and the gangly man looked like easy enough pushovers. When Doug and Alex were a few meters away from the pair, Doug took his revolver from his pocket and leveled it at them. The rotary cannon spun up and Doug side-stepped to put the man and the woman between him and the cannon. Alex took two, quick steps to stand behind Doug.
Hammerhead Page 10
