The training mission was a success, with all of the practice ordnance hitting their targets. At that point, all the pilots agreed they were ready to do the real thing.
When it was time to head for home, though, all but Hunter turned south. Instead, he steered his plane northwest. He’d requested a twenty-four-hour leave, promising to be back at Otis in time for any last-minute preparations before they took off to attack the Siberian shipyard.
There was something else he had to do first.
As he flew over the coast and crossed the Canadian border, the events of the past few weeks ran through his mind. Trying to remember it all was like recalling an encyclopedia. Mudtown. The Pine Barrens. New York City. Nantucket. Yankee Stadium. Nauset Heights. Bombing the MMZ. The battle for Tower Two. …
But while he’d replayed all the strange things that had happened in just the past few weeks over and over, one stood out in his mind.
It was the night he’d crashed through the windows of the top floor of 30 Rock, retrieved the NKVD’s master plans for Convoy 56, and found the blonde girl with the big smile. As he’d been flying around the seventy-story building, he’d felt his internal vibrations going off like never before.
But it had slowly dawned on him, and had later been confirmed, that these intense vibes hadn’t been caused by Dominique. She hadn’t even been in the building at the time. She’d already left aboard the helicopter he’d almost shot down.
And during some of his earlier flights, before he’d been spotted, she’d been at her room at the Ritz while he’d been feeling the feeling buzzing around the MMZ.
No, for the entire adventure, the cosmic, heart-pounding sensations—part of that instinct that never led him wrong—hadn’t been caused by Dominique.
They’d been caused by that girl he’d rescued, the girl with the big smile and the big brown eyes.
The girl whose name he didn’t even know.
It was dark by the time he spotted the enormous abandoned air base.
It was located south of the Canadian city of Sherbrook, not far from the Vermont border. It had been a secret joint US-Canadian facility, but had gone unused since the Big War. There wasn’t even any electricity at the place anymore. But as he came within five miles of it, he realized electric lights would not be needed for what he was about to do.
The base featured an enormous five-mile long runway, and he could see it clearly now through his night-vision goggles because someone had lit both sides of it with hundreds, if not thousands, of candles.
He circled the base once and then came in for a bumpy but successful landing. Rolling the Su-34 all the way to the end of the runway, he shut down his engines and climbed out, shaking with anticipation. Waiting for him below, dressed in an old-fashioned US Army combat uniform, was the blonde girl with the enormous smile.
He didn’t even have a chance to say a word to her. She ran to him and kissed him immediately.
There’s that smooch again, he thought.
The kiss was followed by a deep, sensual hug and then another long kiss. Finally, he was able to croak, “You know, I don’t even know your name.”
“Well, you must have top-secret clearance by now,” she replied, kidding him. “But I can only tell you once. It’s Sara.”
Then she handed him a box.
“I heard that you needed one of these,” she said with a smile.
He opened it to find a new crash helmet inside. It looked like his old one, white with lightning bolts on either side, but its finish was almost translucent, and it was embedded with multicolored flecks that reflected the light from all the candles at every angle.
In a word, it was beautiful.
And so was she.
About the Author
Mack Maloney is the author of numerous fiction series, including Wingman, Chopper Ops, Starhawk, and Pirate Hunters, as well as UFOs in Wartime: What They Didn’t Want You to Know. A native Bostonian, Maloney received a bachelor of science degree in journalism at Suffolk University and a master of arts degree in film at Emerson College. He is the host of a national radio show, Mack Maloney’s Military X-Files.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Mack Maloney
Cover design by Michel Vrana
ISBN 978-1-5040-3526-2
Published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
MACK MALONEY
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
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