The Ultimate Escape

by Tom Clancy

  “We’ve got bandits at twelve o’clock,” Andy Moore said frantically from ahead of the formation, as German fighters closed in on them.

  Trapped! Matt thought. What do we do now?

  “Going in to engage the enemy,” Andy said, showing him

  the way. Matt could see his Mustang dive right down onto the tail of an attacking German fighter.

  “David, Megan,” Matt said. ‘Take the nine! Mark and I will deal with the others/’

  Even as he spoke, Matt dipped his wing and banked to the right to counter the oncoming threat at his three o’clock.

  “Heeeere we goooooo!” Mark yelled as he pointed his P-51 at the enemy fighters, who’d broken through the cloud cover and were coming right at them and the bombers they were supposed to defend. despite its routine nature. They traveled with loaded weapons at the ready, as per Stegar’s orders, and the colonel saw that they wore also zipknives in their boot sheaths and had an assortment of grenades rigged to their body armor.

  One of the seven even carried a Hawkeye antiaircraft missile launcher on his broad back. A nice touch, obviously instigated by Lieutenant Sam Knappert, Stegar’s second in command on this mission to Corteguay. Knappert took the job seriously, and communicated that seriousness to the men.

  Colonel Stegar had insisted that the SEALs wear full body armor and smartsuits on the march, though he was certain that the SEALs would prefer to save that for the mission. But he wanted them to know he was serious, a heartless Marine Corps command officer, before they set foot in enemy territory.

  Well t the colonel reasoned, they don 7 have to like me, they just have to obey me.

  Wearing the hot, uncomfortable body armor, smart weapons, and fully computerized and networked helmet with head-up display on what amounted to nothing more than a long endurance march was not really necessary, but Stegar felt it was important anyway. Stegar knew they were used to wearing the irritating head-to-toe clothing and equipment for long hours at a stretch. Now he wanted them used to wearing it at his command.

  The colonel also knew that the high-tech DuPont/Rockwell D-1B Battlesuits would be vital to the success of Raptor, which was why he made them wear the suits today, and why he wore one himself.

  The suits, usually referred to as smartsuits, were made of a jointed flexible shell of bullet-proof plastic, and could withstand virtually anything but a direct hit from heavy artillery and remain intact, protecting the occupants from most common battle injuries. Smartsuits were the best body armor available, though Colonel Stegar didn’t want to test the suits’ effectiveness if he could help it. The suits also incorporated superb barriers against chemical and biological weapons.

  Available in multiple patterns camouflaged to suit the environment the soldiers expected to encounter, the armor was hard to see with the naked eye. If a soldier was standing still, he looked like a shadow in the brightest daylight, and at night… well, at night the smartsuit and the man wearing it looked like nothing at all.

  But the best part of the suit wasn’t the protection or camouflage it gave the wearer. The greatest strength of the suit was the advantage it gave the soldiers on the battlefield. A wireless CPU and multiple digital communication devices were embedded in the suit, along with a GPS locator, heat and motion sensors, carriers for multiple weapons, and tiny cameras of various sorts facing in every direction for night, infrared, and ultraviolet vision. The suit’s helmet could play views from any of those lenses in a heads-up display on the visor, or overlay those images on computer-generated or real-time satellite-image maps of the battlefield in any scale, complete with notations for the positions of the others in the group, as well as the locations of any known enemy personnel and activity.

  The weapons that were a part of the suit could be manually sighted, or could be targeted by using remote feed from the soldier’s equipment, satellite links, or commands from a networked HQ. The soldiers had a broad choice of weapons— everything from particle-beam weapons to more primitive projectile rifles right down to a basic field knife, familiar to soldiers for centuries.

  Some things just couldn’t be improved upon.

  While wearing the suit, a soldier could see for great distances in all directions under any conditions—in the dark, in pea-soup fog, or in the pouring rain. He knew exactly where the other members of his team were at all times, and could communicate verbally both with those in the field and with the people back at HQ. He could fire his weapons accurately to demolish the enemy without ever having to physically see his target, and without having to worry about the risks of friendly fire.

  Despite the discomfort of being wrapped from head to foot in its shell, American soldiers considered the smartsuit to be one of the greatest inventions of the human race since the wheel.

  As the SEALs neared a natural depression in the forest, probably a dried-up streambed, the man on point halted them with a hand signal. This gully would be a perfect place to set up an ambush, and Colonel Stegar was relieved to see that the team was using their training to sniff out danger.

  While the colonel watched, the point man and another SEAL silently moved to either side of the trench, slipping through the forest, ready to ambush any waiting ambusher.

  Stegar set the visor back to normal vision, and confirmed that his SEALs were nearly invisible in the dappled forest, despite the fact that he knew what to look for and where to look. Any average person without special equipment would have a snowball’s chance in the Gobi Desert of seeing his men.

  But no matter how well trained and prepared the SEALs were, Colonel Stegar still wondered if they were up to the mission ahead of them. He was torn by doubts at this stage of every special operation he’d ever led, and this one was no different.

  Did the service teach them everything they needed to know? Stegar wondered. Are they good enough to accomplish the mission?

  And are they ready?

  Suddenly, Colonel Stegar felt the none-too-gentle pressure of the barrel of a gun on the back of his thick neck.

  A soft voice whispered from behind him.

  “Password, sir?” it said. The request was punctuated by a little more pressure applied to the muzzle of the gun. The colonel smiled, realizing that he’d been taken totally by surprise.

  “Green Tambourine,” he whispered.

  The gun barrel disappeared. Colonel Stegar turned and faced Lieutenant Samantha “Sam” Knappert, who lowered her weapon and stood at ease. Her blue eyes were shining beneath her visor, but she never even cracked a smile of triumph.

  “Good to see you again, Colonel,” she said, as if they’d just run into each other at the local mall.

  Yes, Stegar thought with a rush of satisfaction. They’re ready ….

  Matt Hunter snapped his P-51 into a steep barrel roll, diving among the German fighters while his plane twisted through the air like a corkscrew. Mark Gridley was on his wing, and he turned with Matt, move for move. At the end of the barrel roll, Mark banked his fighter to the right even as Matt, his wingman, broke left.

  In the chaos of battle, and the tangle of fighters and bombers, Mark and Matt quickly lost sight of one another—a huge mistake because a two-plane team was vastly more effective in air combat than a single plane. But, Matt knew, there was very little he could do about it at this moment.

  Matt leveled off again. Almost immediately, he spotted a Focke-Wulf hammering away at a B-17. Matt pushed the throttle forward, after quickly checking his six to make sure no one got behind him.

  Matt reached the Focke-Wulf even as the German killed his target. With a fiery, roiling cloud of burning fuel, the B-17’s wing exploded and collapsed. The bomber tilted and literally fell out of the sky in an almost straight line to the virtual landscape below.

  As the German banked away from its kill, it unknowingly flew directly into Matt’s path. At the last second, the German pilot spotted Matt’s Mustang coming at him. He pulled up, exposing the Focke-Wulf s soft underbelly to Matt’s guns.

  Without hesitatio
n, Matt depressed the trigger. The German plane detonated with the first burst. A chunk of wing broke free, followed by a landing wheel and strut. Matt jinked his plane, narrowly avoiding flying into the German’s debris.

  One less, Matt thought grimly. The more Germans we kill the sooner we can talk to Julio.

  Mark Gridley, meanwhile, was on the tail of another German. He fired a two-second burst, but missed.

  Suddenly, tracers tore out of the sky behind him. One shell ripped into his Mustang’s wing, and the whole fighter shuddered as a chunk of aluminum broke loose and was swept away in the slipstream. For a second, Mark hesitated. He pulled back on the stick, stunned by the suddenness of the attack.

  It was that one-second hesitation that saved Mark. As his Mustang slowed, the German in front of him was able to jink away and make his escape. But the Focke-Wulf that was on his tail flashed right past him because the pilot assumed Mark was dead in the air. Now the tables were turned. The hunter became the hunted.

  Heedless of the damage to his aircraft, Mark Gridley pushed his throttle forward and chased the German in front of him. When the fighter dipped into his sights, Mark fired.

  His bullets danced up the German’s tail, along his fuselage, and next to the gas tank. The Focke-Wulf seemed to melt into a rolling cloud of smoke and fire. Mark flew right through the debris and burst out on the other side.

  The sky was clear ahead of him. Mark turned, and saw that he was flying away from the formation. He looped around and headed back to rejoin the battle. But as he did, he saw a flash of sunlight reflected off cockpit glass out of the corner of his eye.

  Mark squinted into the sun. What he saw diving at him made Mark Gridley’s blood run cold.

  It can’t be! Mark’s mind screamed.

  Then they were on him….

  Megan was having one of her best days in the veeyar simulators ever.

  Though she quickly lost sight of David, her wingman, she went up against the Germans boldly and alone. When she saw two Focke-Wulfs strafing a bomber, she turned right into their path. Megan knew that there was nothing she could do to help the bomber, which was already streaming smoke from a dozen hits. But Megan was heartened to see that the Germans hadn’t been able to inflict enough damage to down the B-17. With one engine burning, the bomber dipped out of the formation and turned back to base.

  That meant that the bomber was coming toward Megan. She smiled with predatory glee. If these Germans are kill-happy, then they’ll follow this cripple to try and finish her off. Boy, will they be surprised to find me waiting for them….

  Unfortunately, one of the German fighters broke away from the stricken bomber, but the other continued after the wounded airplane. Megan ducked under the belly of the American bomber—hoping that the virtual gunners in the B-17 would recognize her Mustang as a friend and not a foe.

  Luckily, that was just what happened.

  As the German swooped in for the kill, the “sitting duck” produced a baby hawk from under its wing. Megan opened up with the Mustang’s nose cannon.

  Less than three seconds later the German plane was spinning toward the earth. Megan watched as the pilot of the stricken Focke-Wulf opened his cockpit and leaped clear, spinning wildly until the parachute blossomed above him.

  What a nut! Megan said to herself, admiring the German student’s guts. / would have just hit the panic button. Megan circled the area, watching her kill.

  Though a fighter falling out of the sky is a graceful and awesome sight, it is not wise to linger on the vision for long, as Megan soon discovered. She didn’t even see the fighter that killed her.

  One minute, Megan O’Malley was sitting in the cockpit over Europe. The next, she was disoriented and blinking in the veeyar chamber.

  “The German student you took out wanted me to pass on a comment—he was impressed by your shooting,” Professor Lanier said.

  But for Megan, who’d failed in her ultimate mission, that wasn’t enough to ease the sting of not surviving until the end of the simulation.

  David Gray saw Megan’s plane explode as he was trying to catch up with her. He didn’t see the fighter that killed her either… not at first. But then, as the debris of her P-51 fell from the sky in a burning fireball, a Focke-Wulf shot past the wreckage, toward a bomber below.

  David had no time for regrets. He had tried and failed to save Megan—it was as simple as that. As far as David Gray knew, he was the only Net Force Explorer left in the veeyar. He wanted to live as long as possible, to give Julio Cortez the chance to make an appearance.

  So far, so good, he thought. But as he banked his wing and flipped over into a steep dive to catch the German, David remembered to check his six.

  He was glad he did, because a sky-blue Focke-Wulf with a ferocious tiger face painted on its nose was coming right at his bright red tail. He recognized the paint scheme on the German fighter instantly. It was a variation of the design the same pilot had on his Fokker triplane.

  Dieter Rosengarten is on my tail, David realized.

  Wildly, he searched for something to do to shake this demon of veeyar off his butt. In near panic, he moved directly toward the formation of bombers, hoping to jink among the larger planes and lose the German on his tail.

  But as David came around one B-17, another, wounded by a German fighter, dropped right into his path. David pulled back on the throttle and just missed hitting the bomber, which continued to drop out of the sky as chunks of its burning engines fell away behind it.

  Miraculously, the Focke-Wulf that got Megan was still in front of him. No doubt the German had been the one to kill the Flying Fortress that David had almost rammed a moment ago.

  David forgot about Dieter Rosengarten. He pressed the trigger, and his Mustang shuddered as hundreds of rounds of ammunition poured out of his wings. The German fighter in front of him spun away, its wing in tatters.

  Then David’s Mustang shook as shells from Dieter Rosen-garten’s Focke-Wulf struck it. Bullets pounded his tail fin and danced along his fuselage as David fought for control of his dying airplane… .

  When Matt downed his second German, he climbed above the bombers and searched the sky for his wingman.

  What he saw shocked and frightened him.

  In the distance, Mark Gridley’s Mustang was being attacked by two German fighters—Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighters.

  That isn’t supposed to happen! Matt thought. Somebody’s cheating! But then Matt realized that the German students probably had nothing to do with the jet fighters being here.

  These mysterious bandits might just come from the same place as Julio, he thought with mounting panic. Virtual guard dogs who hacked into the system to drag their prisoner back.

  Matt pushed the throttle forward, glancing at his fuel gauge for the first time in many minutes.

  Not enough, he thought grimly. / guess I’ll never make it back to base. But maybe I can save Mark!

  Mark Gridley still couldn’t believe his eyes. Not until the nose cannons on one of the 262’s spat lead at him did he react. Then his first action was to curse his mistake.

  Mark jinked, twisting his Mustang in the sky to avoid the German jets. The first one flashed right by him, and Mark could see the strange and unconventional markings on it. Instead of German crosses or swastikas, the overall color scheme on the Me-262 was black. But on its tail fin Mark recognized the symbol for the terrorist group Cuba Libre.

  He knew then that something was very, very wrong. Mark got on the horn instantly, breaking their radio silence.

  “Mayday! Mayday!” he said. “To all the Net Force Explorers. We have bandits in the simulator. Real bandits!”

  At that moment, the second Messerschmitt Me-262 roared toward him, and this pilot’s aim was much better. Mark felt his Mustang shudder; then the propeller shattered.

  Just then, Mark heard Matt reply to his frantic warning and distress call. “On my way,” Matt said.

  Mark touched his radio. “Too late—” Then he wa
s gone.

  Like Megan, Mark found himself abruptly back in the real world. In veeyar, his airplane broke apart while Matt watched helplessly.

  Andy Moore saw David’s plane explode, and he saw the culprit responsible for downing his friend a split second later.

  Dieter Rosengarten!

  This was it for Dieter, Andy decided. He twisted and banked his airplane and flew right toward the sky-blue Focke-Wulf. Since he was already above and behind Rosengarten’s fighter, Andy managed to get on the German’s tail without too much trouble.

  At that moment, Andy Moore heard Mark’s enigmatic radio call. But he didn’t have time to think about it now. Andy was almost in the kill position.

  Andy Moore squinted through his gun sight. Then, with calm deliberation, he depressed the trigger. Tracers streaked through the sky, striking Dieter’s wing.

  Andy was peeved that he didn’t down the German then and there. But he was rewarded when he saw the German’s obvious panic. Rosengarten jinked his airplane, not knowing precisely where the attack was coming from, and Andy was able to easily match the German’s every twist and turn.

  But when Dieter Rosengarten leveled off for a second, Andy Moore saw past the German’s Focke-Wulf, and spotted another, more serious dogfight in progress.

  Matt Hunter watched helplessly as Mark Gridley’s aircraft was blown out of the sky. Almost immediately, the two Me-262’s formed up and he got a good look at the strange aircraft.

  They were 262’s, all right. The planes had the traditional swept-back wings of early jet fighters, and two large, cylindrical engines hanging under each wing, the jet engines.

  One of the 262’s was all black. The other was white with red stripes running along the fuselage and wings. Matt was startled to discover that the paint scheme was the traditional 4 ‘Rising Sun,” the symbol of Imperial Japan during the Second World War. Matt barely absorbed those details when both fighters banked and came right at him?

  Oh, no, he thought. What do I do now?

  Andy Moore had less than a second to make a decision. Should he take down Dieter Rosengarten, or should he rescue Matt from the two jet fighters that were coming right at him?