by Mack Maloney
Then a seaplane streaked by and Hunter pumped a few shots at it too. Then, down by the stern of the ship, Hunter saw the flash of a Stinger missile going off. Its tail twisted up and over the top of the flying boat missing it by just five feet. That’s better, Hunter thought.
Now he saw more return fire was coming from the attending ships as their sailors began exchanging shots in earnest with the flying boats. Within seconds, the sounds of the battle were overwhelming the roar of the wind and the ever-present claps of thunder.
But now the attackers started to intensify their attack. Changing their tactics, two sea-jets swooped in on the carrier head on, each firing a small antiship missile. One exploded just feet from the carrier’s catapult channel, spraying the deck with shrapnel and fire. Another hit the base of the conning tower, the explosion breaking a number of windows and ripping a hatchway door off its hinges and flinging it off into the raging wind.
Hunter pumped half of his M-16’s magazine into the two jets as they streaked overhead. As soon as they passed, another two sea-jets repeated the maneuver. Luckily, their two missiles passed right over the carrier’s superstructure.
Two more sea-jets came in, but by this time the French Phalanx team had found the range. Firing the modern Gatling gun manually, the French sent up a wall of lead usually intended to destroy incoming missiles. This time, the bullets—firing at a rate of 100 rounds a second—perforated both sea-jets. The force of the barrage was so intense, it seemed to stop the two sea-jets in place. Both airplanes simply disintegrated, their fiery debris instantly swept away by the howling wind.
“Jesus Christ!” Hunter yelled out. He had never seen anything quite like that!
The battle became even more intense. The sky was filled with sea-jets—screaming by like banshees, their cannons roaring. The Rocketeers were firing Stingers in every direction—so many that Hunter felt they would eventually start to hit targets. But it was hard to tell because the visibility was so poor around the ship.
Then suddenly, off to his left, he heard a tremendous roar. It was one of the frigates. A large spit of flame was exploding from its center. Hunter knew right away what had happened. It had been hit right in its ammunition bunker by an Exocet. He watched as the ship belched a cloud of smoke, followed by another, larger explosion.
When the fiery mist cleared, the ship was gone.
Now another Beriev appeared on the port side. At least twenty guns were firing from its side. Hunter began firing back, as did the deck gunners on the side of the Saratoga. That airplane disappeared and another methodically roared in. Again he fired, but then he noticed that others were also on the deck firing hand-held weapons at the enemy airplane. A line of Australian and Gurkha soldiers had formed on his right and they were sending a barrage of return fire into the side of the attacking airplane. Hunter saw one of its engines cough out a burst of smoke, and erupt in flame. “That’s one that won’t make it home,” Hunter thought as the airplane disappeared from view.
Off in the distance he saw another ship go up—probably one of the Freedom Navy’s, most likely to an Exocet. Then, off to his right, he saw a big Beriev take a hit right on its fuel tank and simply obliterate in the sky. Then two more sea-jets streaked over, the Phalanx catching one on its tail, blowing it away. The flaming airplane dove right onto the deck of the carrier, hit it square, bounced up, and streaked by Hunter’s head, before bouncing again and pitching over the side of the carrier. It was instantly enveloped by the raging sea.
Hunter knew the attackers—at least the ones in the sea-jets—were getting desperate. More and more they were abandoning their low-level attacks for straight-over runs.
A Stinger took down another sea-jet off the starboard side, and the Saratoga ack-ack crews combined with those of a frigate to blow the wing off a big Beriev. Even the gun crews on O’Brien’s tugs were getting into the act, peppering anything that dared fly over them.
Still, the air attackers pressed the assault. But the coordination of the attack seemed to break down. Now the flying boats and the sea-jets were coming in from every direction. Missiles filled the air—both coming from the attackers and being fired at them. Ack-ack shells crisscrossed the stormy sky. Tracer bullets rivaled the lightning in intensity. The firing line of Gurkhas and Australians—with Hunter’s gun included—would set up a combined barrage at anything that approached the carrier on either port or starboard side. Every once in a while Hunter could hear the highly distinctive whirring sound of the ship’s Phalanxes going off.
But suddenly, above it all, Hunter heard a piercing scream …
He looked up and down the deck, but couldn’t locate the source of the cry. Then he looked up. Up the superstructure. Up the ladders that led to the conning tower’s antennas. Up there, illuminated by the nearby blinking red beacon light, there was a man lashed to the highest point of the conning tower.
It was Peter …
“What the … ?” Hunter yelled. “How the hell did he get up there?”
The man looked completely disheveled. His beard and long hair was being whipped by the high winds. His face and body completely soaked by the sea spray. He was screaming, foaming at the mouth, “You devils! Cursed be you!” This was not the strange, gurgling voice that had emanated from him the night before. This was Peter’s own voice, now in full roar, screaming at the attacking aircraft.
A pair of sea-jets streaked overhead, and Hunter joined in the barrage driving them off. They swept right over Peter’s head and he freed one of his arms long enough to reach and shake his fist at them.
“Go back to hell, you heathens!” Peter screamed. “Go back to hell where you belong!”
Another Beriev roared by, its guns blazing away. A Stinger shot out from the center of the carrier and caught the big plane on its tail section. At the same time, the rear-end Phalanx opened up and caught the flying boat right in its cockpit. The big plane pitched directly into ocean, blew up, and sank instantly.
“Ha Ha!” Hunter could hear Peter scream deliriously. “You bastards! Burn in Hell!” The man was going completely wild, shaking his fist and foaming profusely at the mouth.
Suddenly a missile flashed out of nowhere. “Christ!” Hunter yelled. “Another Exocet.” As he watched in horror, the missile streaked right over his head, hit the base of the carrier’s mast, and exploded. Hunter heard Peter let out one last bloodcurdling cry—a cross between a laugh and a scream.
Then everything from the base of the mast on up—including Peter—was gone …
Whether by coincidence or design, the air battle tapered off several minutes later. The Spanish rocketeers were able to destroy a retreating Beriev flying boat, and the Phalanx team got one last sea-jet before the enemy planes cleared the area.
Still, Hunter and the rest of the hands on deck searched the wild skies for any more aircraft. It took about ten minutes for it to really sink in. The enemy was gone.
Exhausted, Hunter walked slowly to the superstructure and collapsed to the deck of the carrier. It may have been his imagination, but the storm seemed to start to die down too. He looked around. The deck was filled with smoking debris and cratered in several places. A good portion of the carrier’s communications antenna stand was gone. Several of the Aussies had bought it in the ferocious battle.
A few of the Freedom Navy ships near the carrier were burning and Hunter was sure some were lost completely. He would later learn that two of Olson’s frigates were lost, with all hands. Three of O’Brien’s tugs were also gone.
Just how many enemy airplanes were lost was anyone’s guess. Hunter himself saw at least a dozen destroyed or damaged so much that he knew they couldn’t go on.
“Screw ’em,” he said, lowering his head to his knees. “Screw ’em all … ”
He woke up a few hours later in his bunk, Emma’s lovely face looking down on him, her hand directing a warm washcloth all over his naked body. He could tell at once that the storm had completely dissipated. The carrier was moving again fo
r the first time in what seemed like an eternity. He thought back on the nightmarish action. Did it really happen? He closed his eyes and all he could see was the Exocet hitting the carrier’s mast and carrying Peter away with it.
He tried to get up, but Emma pushed him back down again.
“Stay down,” she ordered him. “You’re hurt and you need to rest … ”
“But, the ship … ” he started to protest.
“The hell with the ship,” she said firmly. “The storm is passed. The sun is out. Heath and Yaz have things under control. They were just here. They said to tell you that they have air patrols out. They also said we’ll be close to Malta by this time tomorrow. So just stay put!”
He stopped protesting. Why fight it? He lay back down on the bunk and let Emma wash him. The battle was one of the most intense he’d ever been involved in. Who were the attackers? Did Soviet-built airplanes mean Soviet-manned airplanes? And did anyone win or lose? Did the enemy retreat because of the defensive measures, or did they simply break off the attack for lack of fuel or ammo? Would he ever know? Did it matter?
He looked up and saw that Emma had put the washcloth away and was unzipping her jumpsuit. Underneath she wore a small black-lace bra and similar panties. She removed her bra, revealing her small, pert breasts to him once again. Her panties came off next. She was now naked before him.
She was just a teenager, yet she was very mature. She knew when to soothe him and when to leave him alone. This was a time for soothing. She climbed into the bunk with him and nuzzled her breasts against his bare chest. He held her, and kissed her.
Then he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
Chapter 26
“GENERAL? THIS IS CRUNCH, calling … ”
The powerful, shortwave radio in the San Diego headquarters of the Pacific American Air Corps was bursting with static.
“Go ahead, Crunch,” the general replied. “I can hear you about ten by twenty. Where are you?”
“Sir, we are at an air base on the island of Majorca,” Crunch reported, his voice fading in and out. “It’s a temporary setup, a staging area. We’ve traced Hunter to this place. We have people here who saw him here just a few weeks ago.”
“Well, what the hell’s he been up to?” Jones asked.
“I hope you’re sitting down, sir,” Crunch called back. “It seems he’s hooked up with a bunch of Brits. RAF guys. You see, they claim that the war is still going on over here.”
“Yes,” Jones replied. “We’ve been hearing a lot about that lately too.”
“Well, Hunter is with these Englishmen and he’s going after Viktor,” Crunch said, continuing his report. “They call him Lucifer over here, by the way. Lucifer has amassed a huge army in what used to be called Saudi Arabia. They say he’s planning to start up the war again and try to take over the Mediterranean.
“There’s a bunch of rich guys in West Europe that are raising an army to fight Viktor. So, they tell us, Hunter and these Brits are towing an aircraft carrier towards the Suez Canal to try to head off Lucifer—”
“Towing a what?!” Jones yelled.
“It’s true,” Crunch replied. “They hope to go in right before the Europeans arrive and bottle up Viktor with airpower.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Jones said, his voice rising a notch in excitement. “Leave it to Hunter to get himself mixed up in that kind of crazy adventure.”
“Well, he probably feels that if he’s going after Viktor, he might as well go with some help,” Crunch said.
“It sounds like to me that he’ll need even more help, Crunch,” Jones replied. “What do you think?”
“That’s a definite,” Crunch answered. “Because our boy Hunter is very well-known over here. And the place is lousy with Russians, spies, mercenaries that will work any side, anytime. And there’s a lot of bounty hunters roaming around. All of them would love to track down Hunter and collect one billion in gold.”
There was a short pause on the end of the radio, then Jones said, “I’ve heard enough, Crunch. You stay put. I’m sending over some help. Will the airfield there handle F-20s and a few AC-130 gunships?”
Crunch looked at Elvis and gave him the thumbs-up sign.
“Affirmative, sir,” the F-4 commander replied. “Fuel might be a problem, though.”
“Well, we can take care of that too,” Jones replied. “We’ve just taken delivery on two 707s converted for tanker and AWACs duty. This will give one of them a good workout.”
“I understand, sir,” Crunch said. “We’ll expect to see some familiar faces in a few days’ time. In the meantime, we’ll try to get a fix on exactly where Hunter and his friends are.”
“That’s a roger,” Jones replied. “I don’t have to tell you how valuable Hunter is to us and to the rebuilding of this country. We’ve got to protect him like a natural resource. Over and out.”
Crunch signed off and turned to Elvis. “Well, looks like we’re stuck here in paradise until reinforcements arrive.”
Elvis smiled. Majorca was beautiful this time of year. “Somehow,” he said, “I think Hunter would want it this way … ”
Chapter 27
THE BERIEV-12 FLYING BOAT Number 33 came in for a bumpy landing, its port wing shredded from a direct hit by a Phalanx Gatling gun. Its crew—twelve of which were wounded—was glad to be back down in friendly waters. The murderous air strike the night before had sapped them of all their strength of purpose.
Now the flying boat taxied up to its holding berth at the movable docking facility. The docking area was made up of a converted ocean-drilling platform that had been previously moved down from the Aegean Sea to its present position one mile off the Mediterranean island of Panatella. A shallow reef provided a natural breakwater, while long heavy-duty pontoon bridges served as docks and walkways between the berths and the platform. Three supertankers—all filled with aviation fuel—were tied up nearby; the returning strike force had flown over a fourth tanker as it was steaming toward the facility. Next to the supertanker docking area were fifty Berievs and as many sea-jets, each in its individual berth.
The pilot of Number 33 was an East German mercenary, as were just about all of the pilots at the base. But now he counted twenty-two empty berths at the mid-sea facility. He knew that was more than one-quarter of the entire force remaining. His employers had told them that an all-out attack on the Saratoga flotilla would be a piece of cake, that the inclement weather would prevent the fleet from firing back. The twenty-two empty berths proved that boast a lie. This on top of the handful lost in the initial earlier attack. The men running the Saratoga flotilla were obviously people to be reckoned with. Now the mercenary began to question whether this docking facility was as “attack-proof” as its operators had said it was.
The pilot of Number 33 made a mental note to ask his employers for a raise the first chance he got …
A few hours later, the S-A3 reconnaissance jet with the Australian pilot E.J. Russell at the controls circled the facility at an unseen height of 60,000 feet.
The fourth supertanker—a ship still carrying its prewar name of Exxon Challenger—was about an hour away from the Panatella base when it picked up a distress call from a Sicilian workboat that was taking on water five miles dead ahead. The captain of the supertanker didn’t want to stop to aid the sinking ship. He was concerned, though. The workboat was directly in his path, and if he were to change course, he would have to hurry. Turning a filled-to-the-brim supertanker just a few degrees to port or starboard was a major project and one that took time to accomplish.
Soon the burning ship was in sight. It was belching so much smoke, one-half of the horizon was completely clouded on the otherwise clear day. But that wasn’t what bothered the tanker captain. More serious was the fact that the smoking ship seemed to be moving toward a direct collision course with the supertanker.
The captain called down to his navigation room. “Are we going to hit it?” he asked, a slight panic rising in his voice.
“We’re deflecting, sir,” the reply came back, “but it keeps moving as we do.”
Goddamn, the captain swore to himself. It was too late to call ahead to Panatella to have them dispatch a couple of sea-jets to blow the boat out of the water.
“Hard again port!” the captain yelled to his steering unit.
Slowly the tanker began to heave to the left. But as the captain watched through his electronic binoculars, the burning ship continued its collision course.
“Hard port! Hard port!” the captain screamed. Again the tanker swayed to the left. Again the burning ship moved in its way.
“Jesus Christ!” the captain yelled. He had no choice, he had to slow down. Even then, there was a danger he’d ram the boat. With a belly full of highly volatile aviation fuel, the slightest bump could spell disaster. “All stop all engines!”
Five miles still separated the two vessels, yet there was panic among the tanker crew. They knew the danger of hitting a burning ship with a load of gas. Secretly the crew chief ordered the lifeboats struck and ready for lowering.
Then the captain got a call from his radar man. “Sir, we are picking up several more blips—smaller boats—in the vicinity of the burning vessel.”
Instantly the captain began to smell a rat. “What the hell is going on here?”
He knew soon enough.
Breaking out of the smoke screen laid down by the burning ship, two dozen high-speed craft streaked towards the supertanker. Then, off to the north, he saw four helicopters approaching.
Within a minute the tanker was surrounded by the boats and the choppers were buzzing angrily above. As the captain watched dumbfounded, six of the boats came up to the side of the tanker and started throwing grappling hooks up to its side rails. Soon men from the boats were scaling up the side of the tanker hull.