Fallout

by James W. Huston

  “Alamo!” Vlad said as he pulled the trigger, and the last missile of their flight dropped off the Fulcrum and tore through the cool morning air.

  Luke saw the flash behind him in his rearview mirror and continued to hold Khan on his radar. He had only guessed where Vlad was behind him; he hadn’t really known. He’d taken a huge risk in ordering Vlad to shoot past him to Khan, but his method had its own madness. The Alamo flew by Luke’s Fulcrum on his right a quarter mile away. It headed directly toward Khan.

  Khan could see it coming and went lower to try to cause the missile to hit the ground as all the others had. It was exactly what Luke had wanted. He stayed in afterburner and closed to gun range. If Khan stayed straight and level, Luke would have him. If he pulled up, the missile would get him.

  Luke pulled lead and placed the gunsight pipper on the nose of the F-16. It danced around in the bumpy airstream, but Luke could hold on the nose of the bogey. The laser range finder instantly gave the MiG computer the firing solution it needed. He pulled the trigger, and the thirty-millimeter rounds pounded out of the cannon.

  With the tracers in front of him, Khan knew he had to make an instant decision. He lowered the nose of his F-16 slightly and descended to the trees. The belly of his plane scraped the tallest trees, and the Alamo came up immediately behind him and tried to get him by going through the branches. One of them was too thick for the fiberglass radome of the radar missile. It shattered the nose of the missile and its radar guidance. The missile went stupid and guided left and down, away from Khan. But it had gotten close enough to Khan to know where he was. Like most airborne missiles, it had two fuses: an impact fuse and a proximity fuse. The proximity fuse measured the range to the target when it got to within a few hundred feet. When the decreasing range suddenly reversed and started increasing, the missile knew it was passing the target and triggered the warhead to explode instantly. It did.

  Khan pulled up hard to avoid the tracers at the same time the warhead’s proximity fuse sent its message. The high-explosive warhead that sent shrapnel out at incredible speeds took off a foot of the left tail of the F-16. Khan’s hard pull-up lost much of its authority, and instead he drifted higher in an arcing left-hand climbing turn. He flew directly into Luke’s cannon fire. The first huge, high-explosive incendiary round cut through the center of the F-16. The second hit the back of the ejection seat in which Khan sat. The third shell passed through the fuel tank in the middle of the back of the F-16, and the airplane exploded as it pitched over and slammed into the ground.

  Luke and Vlad both pulled up high into the sky as Vlad transmitted quickly on the radio, “Splash four F-16s.”

  “You got them all?” Prekash asked.

  Luke could now hear Prekash as his Fulcrum passed through five thousand feet with ease. “Got them all, Prekash. Four down, maybe one survivor,” Luke said in his studied casual tone.

  “Well done. How’s your fuel?”

  Luke checked his fuel gauge for the first time in ten minutes. His Fulcrum was out of gas. The Indian woman had apparently given up. She knew that her stupid pilot was going to kill her and had surrendered to the inevitable. The primary weakness of his favorite fighter had been vividly demonstrated. “I’m out of gas. Request vector to the nearest airfield.”

  “There isn’t one within two hundred miles. Just put her down,” Prekash ordered.

  “Say your fuel state, Vlad.”

  “Zero.”

  Luke leveled out at seven thousand feet and glanced down below him. There was a straight section of a highway five miles away. “I think I see our new auxiliary runway below us.”

  “I’m right behind you,” Vlad said.

  “We’re going to set down on the highway right below us. Do you have our position?” he asked Prekash.

  “We’re looking. We’ll send a helicopter right away. Good shooting.”

  Luke took off his oxygen mask and gasped for air. He rolled into a downwind leg approaching the highway as if it were a typical runway. He checked for power lines and traffic and saw neither. He relaxed, lowered his landing gear and flaps, and prepared to land. He lined up on the road, which now looked narrower than he’d thought. He slowed carefully, then flared and touched down on the road. He quickly deployed his drag chute and got on the brakes. He watched his speed drop below 120 knots, then below 100. The MiG was behaving beautifully.

  Something to his left caught his eye. He suddenly realized it was Vlad’s MiG, in a steep nose-down descent. “Vlad!” he yelled. He pushed the transmit button on his radio, “Pull up! Pull up!”

  There was no response. The MiG plunged into the ground and burst into flames.

  29

  Look at this,” Cindy said as she gave Morrissey the final report. Morrissey was so tired he knew he’d never read a report right now. “I don’t have time to read it. What does it say?”

  “I think you need to read it. It’s the final conclusions of Naval Intelligence on the submarine angle.”

  “Let me guess,” he said, sitting back and rubbing his eyes. “They don’t know what kind of submarine it was, and the reason is that the people who saw it couldn’t tell them. And the reason they couldn’t find the submarine, in spite of trillions of dollars spent on antisubmarine warfare in the last decades, is that nobody told them soon enough to get assets in place in time. And because of all of that, they have no idea what kind of submarine it was, and therefore their report can go into the shit can.” He looked over at her. “Pretty close?”

  “Not even. They think they do know whose sub it was.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Who?”

  Cindy knew better than to deliver that kind of news to her boss. She’d seen too many messengers shot in her days at the Agency. “See for yourself.”

  Morrissey took the report and began reading it quickly. His eyes grew large, and he stopped breathing. He flipped to the last page and read the conclusion. Then he closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’ve got to go to Nevada. Get Helen Li on the phone for me. Tell her to pick me up. Get Lane to meet me at the airport. I want him to go over this report with me.” He stood and grabbed his briefcase. “If this report is right, we’ve been had.”

  * * *

  Luke stopped his MiG on the highway and broadcast on his radio. “Mayday! Mayday! We have an airplane down. Vlad has gone down. Request immediate SAR assistance! Prekash, do you copy?”

  “Affirmative. We’ll get someone over there. State your position.”

  “We’re near a road, about thirty miles west of position Lima on our charts.”

  “Roger. On the way.”

  Luke felt horrible. Vlad had fought bravely, valiantly. He’d shown what he was made of. Luke set the parking brake. He shut down the engines and opened the canopy. He realized he didn’t have a ladder to get down. He didn’t care. He undid his harness and stood on the seat. He threw his left leg over the side, then his right, and held on to the canopy rail with his hands. He lowered himself as far as he could, then dropped the last four feet to the ground. He stumbled and fell but stood again, uninjured. He removed his helmet and his other flight gear and began running toward the burning hulk of Vlad’s MiG a half mile away. As he closed on the fire, he saw a figure walking toward him, dragging a parachute behind him.

  “Vlad!” Luke exclaimed.

  Vlad stopped and sat on the soft green ground. Luke knelt next to him. “Vlad, you all right?”

  “Yes, I am fine.” He tried to stand again.

  Luke unfastened the parachute from his harness and helped him remove his flight gear. “What happened?”

  Vlad stretched his back, then straightened up. “Nothing happened, really. The airplane was fine. Nothing wrong.”

  “Did you run out of gas?”

  “No, it had gas.”

  “Why’d you punch out?” Luke asked, perplexed, then looked up to see if another fighter was around, someone who had shot Vlad down.

  “
I had to.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You have been very kind to me, Luke. You have given me everything. Another chance. It is the happiest I have ever been in my life. But I have to tell you: I was not completely honest with you. I was dismissed from the Russian Air Force because I had a drinking problem. I think I have it under control, but it is a constant battle.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We can—”

  Vlad put up his hand. “The way I got out of Russia got me tied up with some very bad people. They owned me. They were helping Khan, and they tried to force me to join them by allowing Khan to succeed.”

  “Are you—”

  “Let me finish, please.” He sighed. “I did not help him. I would rather die. But now they know I helped defeat them. I have no chance against them. They have threatened my sister, her children, my mother—whatever I have, they will destroy.”

  “Vlad. I’ll help you . . .” Luke protested.

  “No. This is my battle. I ejected because you are going to go back to the United States and tell everyone that I was killed. I crashed in landing. Very tragic. Horrible accident, but my name is to be honored. And my Indian friends will tell everyone here that I was killed. Those in Russia who want to kill me will think I am dead.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “You called for help when you saw me go down, I assume.”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. And you sounded distressed and upset?”

  “Probably.”

  “Good. The Indians will send a helicopter, and you will get in it. They have already sent another one to pick me up.”

  “How did they know to do that?”

  “I had a chat with Sunil. I told him what I was doing. He said he had some scores to settle with these Russians, too. He offered his assistance.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I am going back to Russia. I have some things I have to attend to.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come back to Nevada. Build the school with me.”

  “Who knows? If I make it out again, who knows?” He extended his hand. They shook hands as the sounds of a helicopter came from the horizon behind them.

  * * *

  Luke tried to sleep aboard the Air Force transport plane. He was completely exhausted, but his mind couldn’t stop going over everything that had happened. The more he thought about it, the more he felt as if he’d been operating in the dark. Others had known things he’d only glimpsed.

  On orders from the U.S. government, the transport flew straight in to Tonopah—no customs, no international flight terminal, just a gray Air Force airplane landing in the desert so far away from any population center that no one would know it had even arrived.

  Every instructor waited with Brian and Katherine in the ready room. Even Thud’s father was there. Bill Morrissey, George Lane, Helen Li, and some other government officials sat in the back of the room. They had arrived unannounced, looking concerned and out of sorts. Katherine had to convince Dr. Thurmond that they could come in. They all stared at the television tuned to CNN.

  The President of India was holding a press conference to comment on what had already been reported, that Pakistan had attempted to attack an Indian nuclear power plant but was driven back and defeated by the Indian Air Force. There had been footage of the four downed F-16s, including shots of the Pakistani tail markings and helmets from the dead pilots. The President of India was outraged, telling the world that Pakistan’s claim of a runaway pilot attacking the United States might have been believed, but no one could possibly believe that a strike from Pakistani territory with Pakistani jets and pilots into Indian territory was done without the backing of the government of Pakistan, especially the same week as the attack on the United States. It was impossible. Outrageous. But India was going to resist responding to such an aggressive attack, calling instead for international condemnation of Pakistan, including dismissal from the UN and universal economic sanctions until the government resigned and was replaced by an elected group of what he called “rational” people. Pakistan was obviously beholden to the Islamists and other irrational forces, and India wasn’t going to let them plunge South Asia into a war, he said.

  Finally, Luke walked into the ready room. He was smiling, but it wasn’t the smile of a conquering fighter ace returning from the war. It was the smile of someone who was glad to be home, and not in a body bag. Katherine got up slowly and walked to the back of the room. They embraced silently. He kissed her.

  Katherine looked behind him. “Where’s Vlad?”

  Luke shook his head. “He didn’t make it.”

  “What?” Crumb asked.

  Luke tossed his flight jacket onto the back of one of the ready-room chairs. “We found Khan. He tried to get the nuclear plant. Vlad had the whole thing figured.”

  “What happened?” Stamp demanded.

  “We staged off a road. Just Vlad and me, with an entire squadron circling low over the plant in case Khan got through.”

  “And you got them?”

  “Big night fight. Unbelievable. We ultimately got all of them.”

  “How’d they get Vlad?” Crumb wondered.

  “They didn’t. We were about out of gas, so we landed on a road in the middle of nowhere. I was rolling out, and before I know it, Vlad’s pitched over, inverted, and hits the ground a half mile from where I am.”

  “He just flew into the ground?”

  “There was something wrong. He had to have had a mechanical failure.”

  “He didn’t get out? What about the magical ejection seat?” Stamp asked.

  Luke looked at Stamp and could tell that only Katherine and Stamp were able to see his face. He gave Stamp a quick wink, then said, “You’ve got to eject for it to work.”

  Stamp got it. “That’s too damned bad. He was a great guy.”

  “How many of them did you get?” Crumb asked.

  “We each got two of them.”

  “You got Khan? You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure.”

  “Archer?”

  “Nope. Ended up having to gun him.”

  “You ever fired a MiG gun before?”

  “Nope.”

  Crumb smiled. “Wish I could have seen that.”

  Luke looked around the room and saw the instructors, and Brian, and felt at home. He glanced back at Morrissey, whom he hadn’t even noticed before. “What brings you here?”

  “You,” Morrissey said, looking at Helen and Lane. “I brought a nice, wet blanket.” Morrissey walked to the front of the ready room; the instructors watched him. “Congratulations on your flight in India, by the way. Nice job.” Morrissey looked at the rest of the room, then turned to Luke. “The submarine. You thought it was probably a Kilo. Right?”

  Luke rolled his eyes. “I told you, I told him,” he said, looking to the back of the room at Lane, “I wasn’t sure. I’m still not.”

  “It was our suspicion, and yours, I believe, that Pakistan had been deceiving us all along and was in fact behind the entire operation. They used the rogue Air Force officer excuse, the Islamic radical excuse, to hide. It allows them to achieve their objectives and claim no involvement. It makes our response very tricky, because if we come down hard on them, it looks unfair. Reactionary. Exactly what they would like. But we couldn’t be sure. It could have been anybody’s submarine.”

  “We’ve been through all that,” Luke said, glancing in annoyance at Helen Li, who was still sitting in the back of the room.

  Morrissey started walking back and forth. “But Pakistan doesn’t have any Kilo-class submarines. Who does? Iran, of course. So we all chased the rabbit that led to Iran. Maybe they picked Khan up off the coast.”

  “Exactly,” Luke said. “That’s what India implied. Or at least one guy—”

  Morrissey nodded knowingly. “Who exactly?”

  Luke was getting an awkward, cold feeling
. “Intelligence guy. Gave us the final stuff on when the strike was going to happen. He said they’d been following Khan for years. It was kind of odd. Everybody else left when he was there.” Luke recalled the conversation. “He said he’d told you guys,” Luke said, “but you wouldn’t listen to him. He said the United States always assumed that anything India said about Pakistan was full of lies because it’s in India’s interest to upset our relationship with Pakistan. He said we would never believe what he said. Looks like he was right.”

  “When did you see him?” Morrissey asked icily.

  “The night of the attack.”

  Morrissey nodded. “Good-looking guy. Sophisticated, British accent—more than usual.”

  Luke was startled. “How did you know?”

  “Sunil, right?”

  “How do you know all that?”

  Morrissey said nothing.

  Lane spoke. “Iran has only two Kilo-class submarines. Both were in port during the attack on San Onofre. The only Kilo not in port was an Indian Kilo.”

  Luke looked at Brian and the others, who all looked as confused as he felt. “What are you saying?”

  “This photograph is of an Indian Kilo.”

  Luke frowned. “Indian?”

  Morrissey nodded.

  Brian couldn’t stand it anymore. “Why in the hell would an Indian submarine pick him up?”

  “The very question I’ve been wrestling with for the last three days. Then I read the Naval Intelligence analysis,” Morrissey replied. “It finally occurred to me, and I checked with several sources—sensitive and highly placed sources we can check with only once. An Indian Kilo was deployed during that time. We thought it was operating off the coast of India. That’s what India told us when we inquired. But our sources confirm that it was somewhere far away and was transiting faster than it had ever transited before. No one knew what it was doing, at least no one I could find.”

  “What are you saying? What the hell are you saying?” Brian demanded.

  “It is my belief that Khan was assisted by India.”

  “What? India? Why?”

  “Intense and irreparable damage to Pakistan. There are some new people working in Indian intelligence who aren’t just sitting back and taking Pakistani aggression anymore. They’re becoming much more active, bolder. This is the boldest and most aggressive move I’ve ever seen, if I’m right.”