Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02

by Day of the Cheetah (v1. 1)

  James shut down the scan. Cheetah was obviously hiding in the Shoshone Mountains somewhere, probably ridge hopping among the rocks, staying in the radar clutter as much as possible. But this was supposed to be an air-to-air attack. Powell was screwing up big-time.

  James mentally ordered another spherical radar sweep of the skies. McLanahan would probably direct Powell to climb out of the low-level regime, and then he’d—

  ANTARES broke in with its warning: “Radar contact, directly below and climbing. ”

  ANTARES suggested a roll and a ten-G push-over to an emergency descent. But just as James ordered the maneuver he heard on the interplane channel, “Fox four, Zero-One, three-niner thousand. Underneath you, Ken.” Powell had already started shooting . . .”

  What was happening? Why didn’t he see Cheetah coming? The questions brought spikes of pain that shot through his head and reverberated through his body. For the first time that James could remember, DreamStar had no options. The pain intensified as he continued polling the database, hunting for answers—

  Abruptly the confusion that had lasted only a few seconds ended as DreamStar’s sensors continued to track Cheetah. Suddenly the pain in James’ head disappeared and he found himself presented with a series of maneuvers.

  DreamStar inverted and began a tight descending vertical roll. If Cheetah was in a high-speed climb underneath him, J.C. would be out of airspeed at the top of the climb and would have to go inverted and begin a descent to regain lost airspeed. Now DreamStar had the power advantage. All it had to do was complete the roll and Cheetah should be dead ahead and directly in his gun sights.

  But as James hit the bottom of the roll the G-forces reached their peak. Air tubules in the legs of James’ flight suit inflated, which helped force blood back into the upper part of his body, but it wasn’t fast enough. James’ vision went to a gray-out as blood was forced out of his brain, then darkened completely as he lost consciousness.

  ANTARES detected the elevated blood pressure and the interruption of theta-alpha. The computer immediately lowered the back of James’ ejection seat so that his head was below heart level to improve blood flow back to the brain. Oxygen shot into his face mask as he fought to regain theta-alpha. With his face mask flooded with oxygen, his breathing was slowed, making him feel light-headed.

  It took a few seconds more for James to take control of ANTARES again. He countermanded the computer’s suggestion to raise the seat upright—he would need several more hard turns before he could get within firing range of his adversary and he’d be in less danger of blacking out if the seat-back stayed down. He began a hard seven-G turn back toward Cheetah, but by then he had lost his advantage. Cheetah was in a dive at nearly Mach one.

  DreamStar pulled in six miles behind Cheetah and James tried for a radar lock, but Cheetah executed a vertical scissors and darted away—even though Cheetah did not have DreamStar’s sophisticated high-maneuverabilities her large foreplanes and temporary speed advantage allowed her to execute such a move. DreamStar easily performed the same inverted vertical scissors to pursue. Cheetah had moved out to nine miles by then, and James ordered the throttles into min-afterburner in the descent to catch up. With the throttles up in the steep descent, the lighter, aerodynamically cleaner DreamStar fighter quickly regained the speed advantage.

  Closure rate five hundred knots, ANTARES reported. James “heard” the stream of computer-generated reports as if he was listening to the sound of his own breathing. Range seven miles. Action: High-maneuverability configuration, maintain speed advantage, ANTARES infrared pursuit, deactivate attack radar, laser lock, attack, close to gun range, attack, constant AO A wing mode, maintain gun range, attack. The messages began to repeat, informing him of altitude, closure rate, weapons status, external heating, stress factors, power demands, air-conditioning faults. James accepted ANTARES’ engagement suggestions—the computer had already decided how the battle would be fought several minutes in the future—why not let it go?

  Using its infrared tracker and laser rangefinder, ANTARES had predicted the moves Cheetah could make in its present flight attitude and airspeed and had devised an attack for those maneuvers. There were also reversals Cheetah could make, and ANTARES had computed how to defeat them. The final moves of this aerial chess game were now being played. Cheetah was making a hard left turn, but DreamStar had the cutoff angle and the power advantage. DreamStar did not need to snap over in a hard bank to make the kill—her high-maneuverability canards and strake flaps pulled the laser rangefinder onto target and held it there. Cheetah tried another hard turn, this time to the right, but the XF-34’s guns were locked on solid now—Cheetah was just burning up airspeed in each high-G turn. DreamStar was flying “uncoordinated,” sideways and downward at the same time—

  Suddenly James heard McLanahan over the interplane channel: “Storm Flight, knock it off, knock it off1 Storm Two, pull up!”

  Ground-map radar, James immediately ordered. The phased-array radars snapped on ... revealing a sheer rock cliff no more than a thousand feet away and straight ahead. Cheetah had flown directly at two tall buttes, diving and banking away just before reaching them. ANTARES faithfully computed the deadly news—DreamStar would impact in exactly eight-tenths of a second.

  Which was like eight minutes to the ANTARES computer. James canceled high-maneuverability mode and threw DreamStar into a hard left bank. DreamStar’s large canards and computer-controlled rudders kept her nose from pushing in the opposite direction in a hard turn, and she slipped between the twin towering buttes. ANTARES reported the data from the ground-mapping radars: DreamStar had missed the right butte by eight feet.

  James cleared the left butte and rolled to the right, only to find Cheetah directly in his gunsights less than two miles away. He quickly lined up on him, switched to his twenty-millimeter cannon to activate the gun camera and called, “Fox four, Storm Two, your six-o’clock.”

  “I said knock it off!” McLanahan ordered. “Storm Flight, route formation, station check. Weapons on standby. Move.”

  James raised his ejection seat back out of the reclined anti-G setting and activated the radars that would help keep DreamStar in formation with Cheetah. “Two has twelve minutes to joker, all systems nominal.”

  “Lead’s in the green, nine minutes,” Powell reported. “Storm Flight, right turn heading zero-four-three, direct beacon red five at ten thousand feet.” Powell executed the turn, and DreamStar stayed with him in route formation.

  “What the hell happened, Ken?” McLanahan said as they rolled out on the new heading. “You passed out of theta-alpha for a few seconds but you pressed the attack anyway. We watched you side-slip behind us right into that butte. You almost got yourself killed and destroyed—”

  “I had contact with the ground at all times,” James lied. “I was conscious during the entire attack, except at the bottom of my loop when ANTARES took over. I had clearance between the obstructions.” Another lie—James would not soon forget the rivulets of ice and the lichens he saw growing on the sides of the rock ... he was that close to it. If Patrick hadn’t yelled out ... “I had the last shot after passing between the buttes,” he insisted, “and I processed the shot before you called—”

  “Save it for the debriefing,” Patrick said, “and the data tapes. Storm Flight, fingertip formation. Prepare for penetration and approach.”

  DreamStar and Cheetah were now to demonstrate their landing abilities. Powell redeemed himself for his poor takeoff. Keeping Cheetah in perfect balance, he guided the fighter to a pinpoint landing and stop within five hundred feet—he could have landed Cheetah on an aircraft carrier without the use of a tail hook or arresting cables. But DreamStar’s landing was even better—it was as if the one hundred-thousand-pound fighter was a bee alighting on a flower. The combination of the large canards, mission-adaptive wings in their long-chord, high-lift configuration and thrust-vectored nozzles, all controlled by the fastest “computer” extant—the human brain— and
James had DreamStar stopped within four hundred feet of touchdown, a hundred feet better than Cheetah.

  * * *

  Hal Briggs replaced the phone in its cradle and turned to General Elliott, who was watching the landing through binoculars from on top of the portable control tower. “Those Russian birds are still several minutes from their flyby,” he said. “Good thing our guys landed early—”

  “The hell it is. They even knew when the test was supposed to terminate. If they had landed on time the satellite would’ve been right there taking pictures and there’d be nothing we could do about it.” He ran his fingers through silver hair that, Briggs noted, seemed to grow thinner every year. He turned toward Briggs. “I want you to pull out all the stops, Major.” The tower controllers as well as Biggs caught Elliott’s ominous tone. “Do whatever you have to do to find the leak on this installation. You have an unlimited budget, unlimited resources, and very little damn time. Search anywhere and everywhere. Go off-base with federal authorities to investigate—I’ll back up whatever you do. I want answers, Briggs. Fast.”

  Briggs knew that at least off-base activities needed huge amounts of cooperation, hard to come by, from state and federal law enforcement. He needed some clarification, but now wasn’t the time to ask for it.

  Elliott thumbed the microphone on the command frequency. “Storm Flight, taxi without delay to parking. Over.”

  “Lead.”

  “Two.”

  * * *

  Ken James had been disconnected from his fighter and hoisted out of DreamStar’s cockpit. He was wheeled to an air-conditioned transfer van that drove McLanahan, Powell and him to the project headquarters, where the special flight suit was removed from James’ sweat-soaked body. The two test pilots went to the locker room nearby, said not a word to each other. They were dressing when Patrick McLanahan walked up to them. “Both of you are off flying status as of right now.” James exploded. “What?” There was panic mixed in with the outrage, but it belonged to Maraklov the agent, not to Ken James the pilot. Lately Maraklov had felt his alter ego taking over—this pronouncement jolted him back, some . . .

  “There’s a difference between evaluating the aircraft and pushing the limits to the danger level. You two cross it every time you fly together. I’m grounding you both until I figure out what to do about it.”

  “Then give me another chase pilot,” James said quickly. “Canceling all flying isn’t the answer, Colonel.”

  “You’re assuming that Powell is the problem,” and he started to walk away.

  “There are a dozen guys who can fly Cheetah,” James said behind him. McLanahan turned. “There’s only one who can fly DreamStar. Me.” James realized how this sounded, and tried to soft pedal... “The project doesn’t have to suffer, sir. I think we can continue ...”

  “Listen, hotshot, I’ve got six guys training to fly DreamStar. I’d rather put this project on hold for eight months until they’re ready than risk that machine and this project. You read me?”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry...” Six guys, eight months ... More of a shock . . . time was running out . . .

  “Meet me in my office at two o’clock, both of you. The data tapes should be ready for review by then. General Elliott might be interested in what they show.”

  * * *

  Patrick McLanahan was waiting for an elevator up to his office when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned irritably. “Yeah?”

  “Charming,” Wendy Tork said. Next time I’ll do that with a pole.”

  He managed a grin and kissed her.

  “Long day, Colonel?”

  “You could say so.”

  “You had an early morning go, didn’t you?”

  The elevator arrived, and Wendy cut off the exchange, knowing that Patrick would not talk about his project in an unsecure elevator. She waited until they returned to Patrick’s office and he closed the door. An electronic grid in the walls and floor, she knew, would activate when that door closed, which would offset wiretapping or any other electronic eavesdropping.

  He dropped into his chair. “I’ve got two pilots butting heads.”

  "I like them both, but I can see both of them being very competitive.”

  “At least James comes right out and says it. He’s an excellent pilot, and he’s the only one right now who can fly DreamStar. J.C. sits there putting on an innocent and contrite act, but he’s as big a show-off as James.” He rubbed his eyes. “I can’t afford to lose either one of them, but . . .”

  “What will happen if you transfer either one of them?”

  “1 can get someone to fly Cheetah—hell, I’ve got enough hours, I could probably fly the thing. If I ground James, the project gets set back six months, maybe more. I told him I have people training on DreamStar. Who can be sure when or if they’ll be ready? I exaggerated some to take him down a bit. Brad Elliott will hit the roof. The security leaks—or what seem like security leaks—are already turning him sour.”

  “Are you saying you’ll have to transfer or reassign J.C. if they don’t get along?”

  “I suppose. But Ken knows he’s the only guy who can fly DreamStar. That would be like giving him a veto in almost every other matter that comes up during this project from here on. I ended up grounding both of them, until I have a chance to talk to the general.”

  Wendy smiled. “Eight years ago you were just a captain, responsible only for a radar scope in the belly of a B-52 bomber. Your big worry was your next emergency procedures test. Now, you’re a lieutenant colonel in charge of a hundred men and women and two of the hottest jets there are ... We’ll put it all on hold for a few hours. I’m here to take you to lunch. You probably don’t have time to take the helicopter to Nellis, do you? General Elliott has got to have some decent restaurants built out in this desert.”

  McLanahan grabbed his flight cap. “We’ve got time to take the Dolphin into Nellis if we hurry. I’m not expected back until—” The desk phone rang. He looked at it, then at Wendy. “Let’s go.”

  She smiled, shook her head. “You’d hate me in the morning.”

  He picked it up. “McLanahan . . . Hi, Sergeant Clinton . . . The data tapes are ready now? . . . Yeah, we had some maneuvers that may have overstressed the canards . . . how bad? All right, I’ll be right down.” He dropped the phone back on its cradle. “I knew it. My two hotshots may have bent

  DreamStar some. I’ve got to take a look and prepare a report before this afternoon’s meeting.” He circled his desk, gave Wendy a hug and a kiss. “Rain check?”

  “Anytime.” Especially on flying days, she reminded herself, dates were always crap shoots. She watched as Patrick hurried off. "

  “Wendy?”

  She turned and found Captain Kenneth James standing behind her. His bright blue eyes sparkled, as usual. He was a head taller than Patrick, less broad-shouldered but still athletically built. They looked at each other for a moment. Be honest, Wendy Tork, she told herself, Ken James is a charmer. Plus he has a magnetism, a sort of masculine grace, and he’s not arrogant or cocky or condescending. He also had this way of making a woman feel special, as if he had been waiting all his life just to say hello to her.

  She had met him eighteen months earlier when he first joined the High Tech Advanced Weapons Center at Dreamland. He wasn’t like many of the other jet jockeys in and around Nellis Air Force Base. Getting an assignment to HAWC was the top achievement for any young officer, and most new test pilots seemed not to be able to let you forget it. Not Ken James. He took the time not only to get to know senior officers but non-commissioned officers as well. He seemed just as interested in the engineering and technical parts of the job as the flying. He quickly established himself as the best pilot at HAWC ... a scholar of flying and aerospace, not just a participant. Quite a package. And no wonder they had become good friends.

  “If you’re looking for the old man . . .” he paused at the intentional slip, smiling winningly ... “I mean, the colonel, he just left.”

&n
bsp; “I know.”

  Maraklov understood, as everybody did, the special relationship between Wendy Tork and the colonel. Which, of course, was the chief reason for making her his friend. And it was not exactly hard duty. Tall, good figure, brunette with hints of gray, still foxy for a woman going on forty. But be careful, he reminded himself. And helped himself do that by remembering the research on her. A considerable dossier: Wendy Tork, Ph.D., electrical engineering. Chief of DOPY5, the cryptic office symbol of HAWC’s Director of Penetration Aids, Project Y5—the Megafortress Plus, the super-bomber and strategic escort battleship. This woman had developed many of the twenty-first-century electronic jammers used on American military aircraft, including new jammers that could electronically defeat infrared- and laser-guided missiles. She had built a jammer the size of a toaster that could disrupt much of the known electromagnetic spectrum for thirty miles in every direction. Considered a sort of outsider in HAWC because of her former independent contractor status, she tended, except for the colonel, to keep to herself. Scuttlebutt said that started after the mysterious Old Dog mission that she and most of the brass at HAWC were involved with eight years before. It seemed to have affected her more than the others.

  In any case, possibilities here, he had decided, for a special source of information. “How about lunch?” he said easily.

  “Do you have time? Don’t you have a meeting this afternoon?”

  “I think they’d rather not have me at this particular meeting,” he said, pretending embarrassment. “I’m sort of in the doghouse. But it’s my lucky day. I don’t have to be back until late, and I have a pretty lady to share lunch with. If she’ll give me a break.”

  For a moment she hesitated, then decided why not.. . they were, after all, friends.

  * * *

  If there was room on one of the shuttle helicopters that flew hourly to and from Dreamland, it was open for anyone at HWAC to hop a ride for the twenty-minute flight back to the “mainland,” as people from Dreamland called Nellis Air Force Base. But Maraklov had a different plan. When he climbed aboard the Dolphin transport helicopter he went forward and spoke briefly with the crew. Then as the helicopter touched down on the broiling tarmac at Nellis, Ken touched Wendy’s arm as she began to unbuckle her seat belt.