McLanahan was now fiercely pushing the control column, fighting the lumbering Old Dog. Its airspeed had bled off well below two hundred knots. Over the blare of the stall-warning horn Ormack shouted to him that they had stalled and to get the nose down . . .
McLanahan somehow did it. He had just leveled the Old Dog’s nose on the horizon when a blur and a roar erupted just outside his left window.
The fighter had rushed past, its twin afterburners glowing. It was so close McLanahan felt the heat of its engines through the broken glass and bullet holes. Then it began a shallow climb, arcing gracefully up and to the left.
Ignoring the blaring stall-warning horn, McLanahan pulled back on the control column and pointed the Old Dog’s nose skyward once again.
But with the number-eight throttle at full power, the Old Dog began to slide to the left, its nose reaching a forty-degree angle, knifing skyward.
“Patrick, release the controls, now ...”
McLanahan ignored Ormack’s order, waited, bone-tired, wrestling with a hundred tons of near-uncontrollable machine. Then seconds before the MiG disappeared from sight, he ordered: “Angie, right pylon missile— FIRE. ”
It took a few seconds, but with a screech and a long plume of fire the Scorpion missile sped free of its pylon rail . . . and in the cold semidarkness of the long Siberian night, with two bright turbofans in full afterburner dead-ahead, there was only one possible target.
The missile plunged into the fighter, detonating as the hot afterburner exhaust hit the propellant. The entire aft section of the twin-tailed MiG broke apart, shredding the nearly empty fuel tanks and adding thousands of cubic feet of fumes to the fury of the explosion.
McLanahan watched the fireball fly on for several moments in a wide bright arc, before plunging into the snowy peaks of the Korakskoje Mountains below.
Silence. No cheers. No gloating. And then the Old Dog turned eastward toward the Bering Straits—and home.
24 Seward Air National Guard Base, Nome, Alaska
The hospital rooms were small and cold, the beds hard and narrow, and the food was just edible—but for the past week the crew of the Old Dog had felt like they had died and gone to heaven.
For the first time since their arrival, and by accident, they were all together. When she was notified by a nurse that General Elliott was accepting visitors, Angelina Pereira, the only one of the crew not seriously injured, walked through the frozen streets of the Nome Airport to the Air National Guard infirmary and General Elliott’s guarded room.
The entire crew was assembled.
“Well, hello,” she said, surprised but pleased. They were all there— John Ormack, sitting at a desk beside Elliott, his head and shoulder heavily bandaged; Patrick McLanahan, frostbite on his ears, hands and face; Wendy Tork, bandages over parts of her face and forehead; and General Elliott. Angelina went over to his bedside.
“How you doing, Angie?”
“Fine, sir . . . I’m . . . I’m sorry about your leg. I’m truly—”
“Forget it, Angie,” Elliott said, glancing at the folds of bedspread where his right leg would have been. “Some team of doctors out at Bethesda already has me on the slate for a new mechanical job, so I’ll be up and making trouble before you know it. I’m not trying to be brave, I’m just damn glad to be alive . . . actually I’m the one who should be making the apologies.” He was thinking especially of Dave Luger.
Angelina said: “I was proud to serve with you, sir, and proud of what we accomplished. I think I speak for everybody.”
Elliott looked at his assembled crew. “Thank you, I’m damn grateful to all of you.” He cleared his throat. “I think you’ll be glad to know that I spoke with the President this morning. He congratulated everyone of you. He also said that a new agreement has been reached . . . the Soviets have agreed not to rebuild the Kavaznya facility, and in return we’ve agreed not to launch another Ice Fortress.
“He told me something else that will interest you. Our suspicions about a breach of security were on target. It seems a certain aide in CIA Director Kenneth Mitchell’s office was passing information to the Soviets. I don’t know if it was a birds-of-a-feather sort of thing, or money, or both. Whatever, if we hadn’t faked that crash over Seattle, my guess is that the Russians would have been waiting for us with every fighter they could put in the air. As it was, we had our hands full . . .”
No one argued with that.
Elliott motioned to Wendy, who had gotten a smuggled bottle of wine from the general’s closet. She and Angelina poured for everyone as Elliott went on.
“Of course the destruction of the Kavaznya laser and our new agreement doesn’t nail down the lid on laser technology. It’s probably only a matter of time before we develop laser systems equivalent to the Soviet’s. What we’ve got to hope is that they’ll neutralize each other ...” Elliott raised his glass. “Well, to right now, and to the crew of the Old Dog. You guys broke the mold.”
Angelina raised her glass. “And to Lewis Campos.”
McLanahan forced his voice to be steady. “To Dave Luger . . .”
“To Dave Luger,” Wendy added. “The one who really brought us home.”
They finished their wine in a strained silence. It was Angelina who finally spoke.
“What will happen to the Old Dog, General?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, it may be back in action—although I still think John here suffered a crack in the head he’s not telling us about.” Ormack shrugged. “With what it’s been through, it doesn’t seem right to let it be cut up for scrap metal. I’ll supervise some repairs and fly it back to Dreamland.”
McLanahan said, “I’m probably out of my mind, but I volunteered to go back with him.”
“Patrick seems to like the idea of hanging around with an old coot like me,” Elliott said, smiling. “He’s accepted a job working with me at Dreamland.”
Elliott nodded at Ormack, who reached into a duffel bag. “I saved this one for you, McLanahan,” Ormack said, and presented him with the pilot’s control wheel. “It popped right off the Old Dog’s left control column. I didn’t have it cut off or anything. I guess the beast wanted you to have it.”
♦ ♦♦
Wendy hung up the telephone at the nurse’s station, turned to Patrick McLanahan sitting beside her.
“Everything okay at home?” McLanahan asked.
“Fine. They were relieved to hear from me. They hadn’t been able to get word-one out of the Air Force for the last two months.”
“My Mom was worried too,” McLanahan said. “I had a good excuse, though. Told her I was busy bombing Russia.”
“You didn’t—”
“Sure, why not? She didn’t believe a word I said.”
Wendy smiled, then turned serious. “Pat. . . that girl, Catherine, you told me about. Did you call her too?”
“Yes. We had a long talk. Very long. I told her the truth. I told her I used to worry I wasn’t making a difference being in the Air Force, that what I was doing wasn’t adding up to anything. I said I didn’t feel that way anymore, that I was going to stay in. I think she understood. She wished me luck.”
“Oh, well, that’s good ... I guess ... And now you’re off to Dreamland next month.” She fidgeted with her hands. “I’m sure you’ll do . . . I’m glad things have worked out for you ...”
He stood up and looked down at her, into her eyes that raised to meet his. “Hey, it’s just a thought, but . . . well, you know, Elliott could use a good electronic warfare officer at Dreamland. And I’d like it if. . . oh, to hell with it,” and he put his arms around her and drew her to him. “I want you to come with me. I want us to be together. How about it?” Her arms tightened around him, and the kiss that followed gave him all the answer he needed.
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