“That’s precisely what we had in mind,” Patrick said. “We’re going to tow all the planes over to the north apron, then run ’em one by one.”
“The DC-10 tanker too,” Jon Masters said. “We’ll do the final checkout on it tonight, then start loading up tomorrow.”
“I wasn’t advised about any of the planes being towed outside,” Willis said pointedly. “My orders are to not allow any activities that were not approved in advance.”
“What do you think we’re going to do out here, Commander—steal our own planes?” McLanahan asked with a boyish disarming smile. “Look, Commander, either we depart on schedule tomorrow night or my company loses millions when you guys chop up these planes. We’re running a little behind with maintenance glitches. All we need is to run engines for a few minutes. It’s too much of a hassle to clear out the hangars to run engines inside, so it would be better if we could—”
“Denied, Mr. McLanahan,” Willis said sternly. “No clearance, no activity.”
McLanahan stepped a bit closer to Willis and said in a low, somewhat emotional voice, “Hey, Commander, would it kill you to extend a little professional courtesy to me? I am officially retired from the service, despite what you might have heard about me. How long have you been in the Navy?”
“That is hardly the topic of conversation here.”
“I was in for sixteen years,” McLanahan said. “Yes, I took the early out—actually, I was strongly induced to accept it, or else I would have stayed in. I was on the 0-6 list, and I was just a couple months from pinning on. I understand you’ve been selected for 0-6, and you pin on next week?” No reaction from Willis. “That’s great. I wish the Air Force had that frocking policy, pinning on your new rank as soon as you’re selected for promotion. You Navy guys get the best of everything.”
“Mr. McLanahan . . . Colonel McLanahan,” Willis relented, “I cannot allow these planes to be towed out onto the apron without prior approval.”
“It’s very important that we tow them out, Commander,” Nancy Cheshire said. Willis turned to look at the Air Force pilot. Willis had seen Cheshire out around the planes several times before, and although she was pretty enough, he had always thought of her as a tomboy, probably a lesbian, and dismissed her.
Not this time. Her flight suit had been altered to accentuate her figure, and her flight suit’s top zipper had been unzipped to mid-chest, revealing a more than ample bosom, firm and round. Her hair had been pinned up, revealing a long, slender neck. Her eyes were shining green, round and inviting, and he saw those eyes dip down to check him out, her lips opening up slightly as if she was impressed and perhaps a little excited about the dashing figure he thought he cut in his tropical whites.
“Can’t you give us clearance, just this once?” Cheshire implored him. “We’ll be done in less than two hours, and we’ll have them back in the hangars by midnight.” She hesitated, then added, “I’ll notify you in person when we’re finished.”
Willis puffed up his chest, excited at that prospect but not ready to concede one bit. But that thought was quickly canceled by a slight girlish grin on Cheshire’s lips that spoke huge volumes to the Navy officer. Willis said, “I’m sorry, but I cannot allow the planes to leave the hangar without prior clearance.” But he paused, then added, “But you may open both sides of the hangars and run engines inside.”
“We really need to do this outside.”
“Denied,” Willis said. “Run engines inside the hangar, or not at all.” McLanahan shook his head, muttered something to himself, lowered his head in defeat, then nodded. “Very well, Commander. Inside the hangars only. It’ll have to do. Thank you.”
“Notify me in my office when you are complete and closed up,” Willis added, glancing again at Nancy Cheshire. She arched her eyebrows, silently asking the question, and he answered with an almost imperceptible nod. He stepped away, issued instructions to the federal marshal and his NCO in charge of the security detail, gave one last glance at Cheshire, who still had her eyes locked on him—on his butt, he guessed—and stepped away to his waiting Humvee.
“Thank you, Commander,” Patrick shouted after him—his thanks were not acknowledged. He turned to the others with him: “Okay, gang, we can’t do this outside, so the noise levels are going to be bad, but we’ll have to make do. Let’s run the ‘Before Starting Engines’ checklist for ground engine-running maintenance first, then climb on board. We’re all going to have to help out. Let’s go.”
It took just a few minutes for the flight and maintenance crews to clear out the hangars and open up the double-ended hangar doors, and within half an hour the deafening sound of the Megafortress’s huge jet engines could be heard. The Navy security guards put on noise protectors, but were still forced to retreat to their Humvees to escape the noise.
Fortunately, shift change was coming up soon, so the guards wouldn’t have to contend with the noise for too long. Sure enough, a radio report announced that relief crews were on the way, and the security guards packed up their equipment and got ready to depart when the oncoming crews reported in. At the same time, a long convoy of canvas-covered trailers moved from one of the hangars on the other side of the twin runways to the west, accompanied by the standard four armored vehicles, moving toward them. The guards were curious, but the relief crews were arriving, so it was their problem now.
The relief-crew Humvee for the front of Hangar No. 1 stopped directly in front of the offgoing crew’s Humvee, shining their headlights directly into the offgoing crew’s eyes. Six men stepped out, all wearing Navy-style integrated helmet-noise protectors; the oncoming detail chief carried the detail duty log and the weapon inventory sheets, as required. The Marine detail chief was going to get out and start the weapon inventory, but the oncoming detail chief was already at the door, holding the logs and inventory sheets out. His crew opened the doors in back and began to step out. . .
. . . and then all hell seemed to break loose. -
Doors flew open. Guys were yelling something. Confusion. Gas began to fill the interior of the Humvee. Doors were closed, then wedged shut. The headlights on the other Humvee snapped off. The sweet odor of the gas, a slight choking sensation . . . then nothing.
The doors were opened to ventilate the gas, and a guard wearing a gas mask pushed the unconscious offgoing detail crew chief over against the huge engine hump in the middle of the Humvee, jumped in behind the wheel, and drove off. Outside, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Chris Wohl raised a walkie-talkie to his lips. “Bravo check.”
“Bravo secure.”
“Copy. Break. Charlie check.” One by one, Chris Wohl checked in all the members of his fifty-man commando team. In less than a minute, Chris Wohl and the members of his Intelligence Support Agency special operations commando team, nicknamed Madcap Magician, had completely subdued the four entire Marine Corps security rifle platoons that had been guarding the five Megafortress hangars.
“Break. Leopard. All secure.”
“Copy,” Air Force Major Harold Briggs, the commander of Madcap Magician, responded. Briggs, an ex-Air Force security police commander at the HAWC, was in the lead Humvee escorting the convoy of trailers from the secure hangar that held the Megafortress’s weapons—his team had subdued the Marines guarding the weapons while Wohl’s team had taken down the guards surrounding the planes. The convoy was ushered into the hangars, while another long convoy emerged from the weapons hangar on its way to the planes.
Several Humvees converged on Hangar No. 1 as its engines were shut down. As each crew member climbed out of the planes, they did a very unmilitary-like thing—they gave each Madcap Magician commando a hug. “Damn it all, it’s good to see you, Hal,” Elliott said. Neither had seen the other since the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center had been closed.
“Same here, General,” Briggs said. “You look like a million freakin’ bucks, sir.”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Hal,” Elliott said. “I feel like shit. But I’m sure glad y
ou’re here.”
“We weren’t going to miss this party for all the nukes in China, boss,” Briggs said. He motioned to Chris Wohl. “Chris, you remember General Elliott, right?”
“Of course. How are you, sir?” Wohl said, shaking hands with the retired three-star general. Wohl and Elliott first met while preparing for a secret rescue mission to Lithuania, when Wohl had been asked to train McLanahan, Briggs, and another HAWC commander, now dead, in enough commando-style tactics so they could safely accompany a Marine Force Recon team. Wohl had been against the entire plan, but had been convinced to carry on by Brad Elliott himself.
“Peachy, Gunny, peachy,” Elliott responded. “Glad to have you along. Thanks for the help.”
“Nothing to it,” Wohl said matter-of-factly. “This entire detachment needed a good ass-kicking. They were way too complacent. I was happy to give it to them.”
“I brought along a guy who said he knew a little about B-52s,” Briggs said. Out of the Humvee came a gentleman a little younger than Elliott. “You remember Paul White, don’t you, sir?”
“Damn right I do,” Elliott said happily, and they exchanged handshakes, then embraces.
“Good to see you again, General,” White said. Paul White was a retired Air Force colonel, an electronics engineering expert who’d been assigned to Patrick McLanahan’s bomber base years earlier. Upon retirement from active military duty, White had become the original commander of the Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored unit called Madcap Magician. White’s unit had been involved in the Iranian conflict earlier that year; White himself had been captured by the Iranians. Although he had been rescued unharmed by Briggs, Wohl, and the other surviving members of Madcap Magician, White had been decertified from intelligence work and forced to retire. “I hear we’re going to kick some Chinese butt. Can’t wait to fire up those turbofans.”
The real reunion came when Patrick and Wendy McLanahan emerged and greeted Hal Briggs. These three had first been together years earlier in the original Megafortress project started by Brad Elliott, when Patrick and Wendy had been selected by Elliott to help design and test- fly the first Megafortress, a modified B-52 nicknamed “Old Dog.” That test program started ten years earlier had suddenly become an operational mission when Elliott and his crew of engineers and flyers had flown the Old Dog over the Soviet Union to destroy a groand-based laser site that had been shooting down American satellites, and threatening an intercontinental nuclear war between the superpowers. The bastardized mission had been a success, and the ragtag test crew had become the centerpiece of the Air Forces most highly classified installation, the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, nicknamed Dreamland.
“I never thanked you for helping my ass over Iran, Patrick,” Hal Briggs said. “I knew you were up there doing shit, I knew it! I heard the Iranians launching every SAM and triple-A projectile they had, and I knew it was either a raid by every bomber in the fleet, or a couple Screamers launched by Patrick McLanahan. Thank you for saving my narrow ass, brother.”
“My distinct pleasure,” Patrick said. He shook hands with Wohl. “Good to see you, Gunny. Great work taking over this airfield. I don’t think the Marines will ever know what hit them.”
“It was no problem, sir,” Wohl responded. He motioned to his Humvee, and two of Wohls commandos brought out Commander Willis. “I thought you should explain things to the commander.” Wohl ripped the piece of duct tape off the Navy commanders face, leaving a cherry- red mark on either side of the angry officer’s face.
“I will see you thrown in prison for the rest of your life, McLanahan! ” Willis shouted. “This is a complete outrage! You are nothing but a criminal and a traitor!”
“I’m taking what belongs to me, Eldon,” Patrick said. “We’re going to keep you and your men nice and safe and out of the way. I’m sure you’ll be found shortly after we’ve departed.”
“Where the hell do you think you’re going to go, McLanahan?” Willis spat angrily. “Where do you think you’re going to hide five fucking B-52 bombers? You might as well give yourselves up now. Or maybe you can just defect to Russia or China or wherever the hell you’re headed, you lousy stinking traitors! ”
“I’m not going to defect, Eldon—we’re going to fight,” Patrick said. He nodded to Wohl, who nodded to his men, who wrapped another long piece of duct tape over Willis’s mouth. “Get him out of here, Gunny,” McLanahan said.
“With pleasure, sir,” Wohl said humorlessly.
Patrick turned to Hal Briggs. “The rest of the flight crews were taken off the island and sent back to the States,” Patrick said, “so we’ve only got enough flight crews for one plane. We’re going to load all the weapons we can on Jon Masters’s DC-10 launch plane, and upload all the defensive weaponry we can on the bombers themselves. We’re short on maintenance crews too, so we’ve got to do a lot of the loading and preflight stuff ourselves, so we can use all the help your guys can give us. After the Redtail Hawk mission, I figured your troops are somewhat familiar with loading air-to-mud stuff on bombers.”
“You got it, Patrick,” Briggs said, rubbing his hands together with sheer excitement. “Man, this is great! Do I get to go flying this time?”
“We’re way short on crew members, so we can use all the help we can get.”
“In that case, I brought along someone who might help,” Briggs said. He motioned to his Humvee, and a single man stepped out. It was hard to see his face in the glare of the headlights . . .
. . . but Patrick McLanahan knew who it was the minute he stepped out of the vehicle, even without seeing his face, and the brotherly embrace they shared in the glare of the Humvee’s headlights was genuine and tearful. “My God, Dave, it’s really you, it’s really fucking you” Patrick breathed, his voice choked with emotion. Wendy, Briggs, and Brad Elliott joined the two, and they all clustered around one another like a close-knit family reunited after many painful years.
David Luger and Patrick McLanahan had once formed the Air Force’s most effective bombing team ever. Because of their skill, knowledge, expertise, and seamless teamwork, they had both been selected by Brad Elliott for the secret “Old Dog” project. When the test project had suddenly turned into an operational mission, together Patrick, Luger, Wendy, Brad Elliott, and two more crew members, now dead, had successfully attacked and destroyed the Soviet anti-satellite laser site.
But the crew had been forced to land their battle-damaged plane on an abandoned Soviet airfield in eastern Siberia. The crew had managed to steal enough fuel to depart the base, but in the battle that ensued after they refueled the EB-52, Dave Luger had left the bomber to draw fire from the Red Army soldiers that had arrived. His heroic actions had allowed the Megafortress and the rest of the crew to escape, but he had been severely wounded and left behind in the frozen wastes.
Luger had been feared dead and was nearly forgotten until Paul White and members of Madcap Magician, performing a daring rescue inside a secret Soviet research facility in the Baltic republic of Lithuania, had discovered Luger inside the same facility—White had been a simulator instructor and designer with David and Patrick McLanahan at Ford Air Force Base in California, and he’d recognized Luger instantly White had contacted Brad Elliott, who’d combined forces with Madcap Magician and Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Chris Wohl and mounted a covert rescue mission. David Luger had been returned safely to the United States, but had had to be placed in security isolation because he had been declared dead, and his sudden reappearance would have caused questions about the then-classified “Old Dog” project.
Patrick McLanahan’s longtime partner David Luger returned the embrace, crying like a child and pounding Patrick’s back with joy. “Hal told me you were going flying, and that it might be illegal, so we decided to go all the way and spring me out of security isolation,” Luger said in his familiar Texas drawl. “He filled me in on the way. I guess we’re not so classified after all, are we?”
Patrick was still not believing his p
artner and best friend was standing in front of him. “God, Dave, I still can’t believe this,” Patrick gasped. “Man, a whole lot of shit has happened since I saw you last. I never thought either one of us would make it. ”
“Well, we made it, and I’m ready to do some flying and serve up a heapin’ helpin’ of whup-ass,” Luger said excitedly. “And Fve been studying, too.”
“Studying? The Megafortress?”
“Damn right, bro,” Luger said. “Ever since the Redtail Hawk rescue, and after finding out you guys were still together and still flying Megafortresses, I’ve been studying up on everything you’ve been doing. Hal and Paul and John Ormack and Angelina Pereira, before they died, were secretly giving me EB-52 tech orders for months, the latest stuff. I haven’t seen a Screamer or a JSOW or a Wolverine, but I know how to load, program, and launch them and all the weapons we can carry on a Megafortress. I can sit in any seat and run the systems, and I could even fly the beast with a little help. So just tell me where in the hell we’re going and I’ll help you get us there! ”
Patrick McLanahan looked at his assembled circle of friends and comrades-in-arms, and felt the pride and happiness well up in his heart. They were all together once again: the crew of the original EB-52 Megafortress, the “Old Dog,” minus its copilot John Ormack and its gunner Angelina Pereira; Hal Briggs, his friend and fellow warrior; Paul White, his former instructor turned high-tech rescue expert; Jon Masters, the boy genius whom Patrick had dragged out of the laboratories and corporate boardrooms to show him what defending your country and risking your life in combat was really about; Nancy Cheshire, the smart- mouth hard-as-nails test pilot who had been in combat in the Megafortress even more times than Patrick McLanahan himself; and newcomer Chris Wohl, the brooding, powerful Marine who suffered himself to be around all these Air Force techno-soldiers and who had shown them all what it was like to kill while looking directly into the eyes of the enemy instead of from the sky.
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