Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02

by Day of the Cheetah (v1. 1)

The HAWC command post had hooked him into a UHF or satellite phone patch with some ship or aircraft. McLanahan considered using his Dreamland call sign on the open frequency, but this guy wouldn’t know what he was talking about. He said: “Barrier, this is Colonel McLanahan. Connect me with General Elliott.”

  “Stand by one, sir.”

  There was a only a slight pause, then the booming voice of General Elliott came on. “Patrick, how’s Wendy?”

  “Still critical, sir. They might be operating tonight.”

  “You know we’re all thinking of her . . . How you doing?”

  “Okay ... I was watching the news and heard this story—”

  “I know which one you mean,” Elliott interrupted. “We need to discuss it. If you feel up to it, make your way to the electronic security command post at Kelly. I’ll leave instructions on how you can contact me directly.”

  “I’ll get out there as soon—”

  “Listen, Patrick. You don’t have to do this. If you think you shouldn’t leave—”

  “I won’t know anything more about Wendy for several hours, she’s stable now ...”

  Things were obviously happening fast, he thought. There was no telling what sort of aircraft Elliott was in—it was very possible for him to be in some emergency airborne command post, much like his former Strategic Air Command position in the Airborne Command and Control Squadron, ready to take charge of a wide array of military forces. He was probably right on the scene of whatever happened in the Caribbean earlier that day.

  But should he leave Wendy now? If she could, she would tell him that even now, with DreamStar in enemy hands, he was still the key in the DreamStar program. At least his place was with the people trying to get DreamStar back, not wringing his hands and letting self-pity take over . . . “I’ll be there in a half hour, sir.”

  “I’ll be waiting for your call. Barrier out.”

  He hurried back to the ICU nurse’s station, grabbed a piece of paper and wrote a number on it. When the duty nurse came over he gave her a number to call in case of any change in Wendy’s condition. “Tell the controller anything you have, this is my command post number, they’ll—”

  “I’m sorry, sir, we’re only allowed to contact you in person. We can’t leave any message in situations like—”

  “Then get your supervisor over here. I’m tired of people around here telling me what I have to do or should do or can do. Do you follow me?”

  The nurse reached over and took the slip of paper. “I’ll take care of it, sir.”

  “Thank you. Remember, any news at all.”

  Sebaco Airfield, Nicaragua

  Saturday, 20 June 1996, 1735 CDT

  Maraklov woke up with the most crushing headache he had ever had—the pain this time so great that the slightest movement of his head or the least bit of light penetrating the room made everything spin. It was severe dehydration, as always. It was like a fierce case of cotton-mouth and hangover after an all-night drunk—the ANTARES interface soaked up vast amounts of water and essential minerals from his tissues to facilitate the computer-neuron connection, causing the sickness—except this was far far worse. This was the second time he had been taken unconscious from DreamStar’s cockpit—it was getting very unnerving. He decided not to rush things, but lay in bed quietly with his eyes closed and tried to will the pain away.

  A few minutes later he heard voices and footsteps. They were talking in Russian. They did not try to knock before entering, but came right in. Maraklov decided to pretend to be asleep.

  “So this is the great pilot?” one voice was saying.

  “After today, who can tell?” the other said. “He is the only one who returns out of six aircraft—either he is very lucky or he let the others do the fighting for him.

  “Check his arm, check the drip against your wristwatch, then administer ten c.c.’s of—” Maraklov could not understand the word—“if he is not conscious ...”

  Ten c.c.’s... ? Maraklov experimentally flexed each arm and felt the stiff tubules and dull pain of an intravenous needle in his left arm. He quickly opened his eyes. There was a plastic bottle with clear liquid suspended over his head to his left. His left arm was taped onto a stiff plastic board, and an intravenous tube ran into a vein in the crook of his elbow. His eyes focused just in time to see a white-jacketed man injecting something into his intravenous feeding tube with a hypodermic needle.

  “Hey, Karl, he’s awake ...”

  With strength Maraklov thought he wasn’t capable of, he drew his legs up to his chest, swung around to his left, planted his feet on the white-coated man with the hypodermic and kicked out as hard as he could. The man stumbled back and crashed against the far wall, slipping to the floor.

  “Easy, easy...” The other man threw himself over Maraklov and tried to pin his arms and legs down. Maraklov brought the thick edge of the plastic board down on his right temple. He was still struggling but the blow had taken a lot of fight out of him. Maraklov sat up, forcing away the rush of dizziness, rolled away from the second attacker and struggled to his feet. When the entire room seemed to sway Maraklov dropped to one knee and tried to steady himself.

  Two arms suddenly reached around him from behind and pinned his arms to his sides. “O myenya, Ivan, I have him, get—”

  Maraklov bent his head forward, then snapped it backward as hard as he could. He heard bone and cartilage splinter as the man’s nose took the full force of the blow. Still on one knee, Maraklov braced himself against the bed and shoved backward. The man landed hard on his back. Maraklov rolled away from him, giving him a chop to the throat. He found a chair, and held it between the second attacker and himself—using it as much for balance as for self-defense.

  The second man was done. “Stoy, stoy, ” he said, holding up his hands. Maraklov had never seen him before.

  Suddenly the door to his room opened and Musi Zaykov and two KGB Border Guards appeared, all with rifles trained on the three men. Musi was the first one in. She scanned the room, then: “Colonel Maraklov, are you all right?” She saw the blood seeping from his left arm, shouldered her rifle, turned to one of the guards. “Pazavetya vrachya. Skaryeye! Call a doctor. Be quick!” She went over to Maraklov, took a towel from the bedstand and wrapped it around the point were the I.V. needle had come out.

  “What happened, Colonel?”

  “These men . . . never saw them before . . . shooting me up with something . . .

  Zaykov finished tightly wrapping Maraklov’s arm, then helped him back into bed. As he collapsed onto the pillow she checked the two men. The unconscious one was being checked over by one of the Border Guards.

  “Karl Rodovnin,” the KGB soldier said. “He is badly hurt.”

  Zaykov turned toward the second man. “What are you doing in here, Boroschelvisch?”

  “Administering an injection,” the orderly said. “We checked his intravenous needle and were administering his mineral solution into his drip meter when the guy goes berserk.”

  “I’ve found the hypodermic, Lieutenant,” one of the guards said, holding the plastic syringe. “It’s still full and intact.”

  “Take it and that bag of solution to the infirmary,” Zaykov ordered, pointing to the overturned plastic bag of clear liquid seeping onto the floor. “Have them analyze it. I want to know what’s in it. Boroschelvisch, you are under arrest. Take him and Rodovnin into custody.”

  Zaykov turned back to Maraklov. She had not seen him in several days because he was involved in the preparations for taking the XF-34 to Cuba—and she had never expected to see him again when he left. But even in the brief time they had been apart, the changes in the man were frightening. He looked old, emaciated, pale skin stretched over cheekbones, hollow eyes, thinning hair. “Andrei . . .”

  She could feel his body stiffen. He stared in shock at Zaykov. “Janet?”

  Musi looked puzzled. Janet? The name was somehow familiar, and she scanned her memory trying to make the connection. Nothing. Perhap
s someone Andrei knew in the United States . . . “Andrei, it’s Musi Zaykov.”

  His tongue moved across cracked lips. Slowly, his eyes seemed to focus on her instead of some shadowy figure in the distance, and he now seemed to recognize the woman sitting beside him. “Musi . . . ?”

  “Yes, you will be all right.”

  He seemed to relax, let himself fall limp against the pillow, his breath coming in shallow gasps. “Water.” Zaykov poured a glass of lukewarm water for him and held the glass as he drank. She soaked a towel and wiped sweat off his face and chest.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I woke up and saw those guys shooting something into the I.V. I guess I panicked.”

  “I should say,” Zaykov said with a wry smile. “You almost killed Rodovnin. I am having the syringe and the intravenous solution analyzed, and Rodovnin and Boroschelvisch are in custody. The doctor will also tell us if he ordered an intravenous feeding for you. I wasn’t notified of it.”

  He rolled painfully up out of bed, taking deep breaths, trying to force his equilibrium back to normal, then turned angrily to Zaykov. “I don’t want any more damned I.V.’s stuck into me.”

  “The doctor obviously felt it was necessary, you are so dehydrated—”

  “I said no more I.V.’s” He got carefully to his feet and began to test the strength of his legs. She was shocked at the appearance of his body—he looked as if he had lost well over seven kilograms since she had first seen him. Ribs and joints protruded, and his muscles, once lean and powerful, looked stringy, weak. “My body recovers just fine with rest, vitamins and water,” he told her. “I’ve never needed intravenous fluids before.”

  “And I have never seen you so thin before, Andrei. Perhaps the doctor was right—”

  “I’m thin because the food around here is lousy. Hasn’t the KGB ever heard of steaks? The only protein around here is from chicken and beans. Back in Vegas you could get a twenty- ounce steak dinner for five bucks. You could eat like a pig for nothing ...”

  Maraklov paused, resting a hand on the bedstand. He halfturned to Musi. “Vegas,” he said shaking his head. “It seems like a century ago.” Actually it was only a few days.

  “Las Vegas is not your life any more, Andrei. It never was.”

  “Then what is my life? When do I get to live my life? When I arrive in the Soviet Union? I think we both know my life will be anything but mine back in Russia ...”

  Musi had seen this before but never believed it could happen to a man as gifted and professional as Colonel Andrei

  Maraklov. It was more than the sickness caused by that machine he flew. It was common among turncoats, traitors, double agents, informers, even hostages held for long periods of time who began to identify with their captors. The feeling of profound loneliness, aloneness invades even the strongest men, the feeling that no one trusted you then, that no one really wanted or cared about you then. But Andrei Maraklov’s situation was very different. He had been a Soviet agent pretending to become an American—actually two Americans, as a boy and as a man. Now he had to leave that part of his life and revert back to a strange new world. It was supposed to be his world, but it was now as alien—in a way more so—as America was to the young Russian teenager so long ago.

  As a young graduate of the Connecticut Academy years ago, deep-cover agent reorientation and surveillance had been one of Musi Zaykov’s first assignments. She had been trained in studying the men and women who had returned from deep- cover assignments, analyzing them emotionally, seeking out any lingering loyalties to their former lives or resentments toward their new ones. Although the personalities were always different, their emotional roller-coaster rides were not. She had hoped Andrei would be different, stronger, better balanced. She was wrong. Hopelessness, paranoia, anger, loneliness, guilt, even impotence—all common symptoms.

  The intravenous solutions and injections would all check out, she was sure of that. They would find no trace of contamination, no evidence of conspiracy. Rodovnin and Boroschelvisch would check out as well.

  Maraklov had already made complaints about the food—that was typical. He had also complained about the Soviet worker’s sloppiness and inefficiency, about shortcomings in the Soviet government, about his new military commanders, about his clothing, water and surroundings. Telling stories about his former environment, making comparisons, was also to be expected. Unfortunately, so was violence.

  The instructors at the Connecticut Academy suggested that the closer one could get to the repatriated man or woman, the better the transition would be. Strong emotional ties often resulted—but they could be negative or positive emotions. The “handler” was often the target of the repatriated person’s rage as well as his or her love and trust. In this case it was easier to accept Maraklov’s love—she hoped that she would not have to bear his hate as well.

  She had thought about the Connecticut Academy several times in just the past few minutes, while in the past few years she had hardly given that place even a passing thought. What was it about that place . . . ?

  “Andrei, please believe what I say,” Musi said, “your country wants you back. They need you back. You will be the guiding force of an entire new generation of soldiers and citizens. You will be honored and respected wherever you go. And it has nothing to do with that machine out there. Military secrets are the most transient of all. It will be your strength, your courage, your determination and your patriotism that make you a hero to our people, not that plane out there.”

  “That’s bullshit,” he said, turning away from her. “They want me because of what I know, not because of what I’m supposed to be.”

  “That’s only partly true,” she said. “Of course, the knowledge you possess is important, even vital to our national defense and security. Naturally, imparting that knowledge will be your primary function when your return. But your usefulness as a man and as a Russian will not end with that.” She moved toward him and put a hand on his shoulder. “I can prove it to you, Andrei.”

  “How?”

  “Come back with me. Right now. Leave the airplane here—”

  Maraklov spun around. “Leave it? Here?”

  “You are killing yourself every time you fly it,” she said. “Look at yourself. It drains you like some kind of electronic parasite. It will kill you if you continue. Leave it. I can order a transport to take us to Moscow in the morning. Take whatever you want from the aircraft—its most vital computers, diagrams, memory tapes, whatever. Or take nothing. The aircraft is in the hands of the KGB. You have done your duty— now let them do theirs. Come back with me to Russia and I guarantee you, you will be treated like the national hero you are.”

  He stared at her, apparently considering her words. Her message finally seemed to be getting through to him, she thought. He was finally beginning to believe her . . .

  “So that’s it,” Maraklov said. “You don’t think I can deliver. That’s it, isn’t it?” The Politburo doesn’t think I can deliver DreamStar—”

  “No, Andrei, that is not—”

  “They don’t want me flying DreamStar any more,” he continued angrily. “They never did. I delivered it. They think they can debrief me and get rid of me. Now you want me to go back to Russia immediately. Bring him back before he snaps, is that what they said? Pick his brain before he freaks. Is that it?”

  “Of course not—”

  “Lady, I am the only hope of getting that bird out of here in one piece. They don’t have a chance without me.”

  “I know that, Andrei,” she said. “If they want to get the fighter out of Nicaragua you must fly it. But there is a very good possibility that they will not want to fly the aircraft out of Nicaragua.”

  “Not fly it out of Nicaragua . . . ?”

  “Andrei, our government tried to make a deal with the Americans for the return of their fighter. They told the Americans they would turn the plane over to them in five days. The same day they concluded that agreement we
were caught trying to fly the plane to Cuba. The Americans no longer believe us. You’ve said it yourself—we can’t defend ourselves here. If the U.S. mounts an attack they’ll destroy this base. It would seem the only way we can save ourselves is to turn the fighter over to them.”

  “Like hell . . .” He recalled he’d momentarily considered it himself, but only in his bitterness about what probably waited for him back “home.” But he could never seriously go through with that . . . “Do you know what I’ve done? Do you realize what I’ve gone through to get that aircraft here? I was the top pilot in the United States Air Force’s most top-secret research center. In ten years I could have been running the place. I sacrificed it to protect and deliver this aircraft and I will never surrender it . . .”

  He went to the closet, found a fresh flight suit and began pulling it on. “I’ll talk to the general—hell, I’ll talk to Moscow. I doubt that the Americans will attack this base. But if they do we can move DreamStar to another location until the attack is over. Unless the U.S. declares war, they won’t threaten the peace in Central America by bombing a base, even over this fighter. And they’re not going to declare war.” Maraklov pulled on a pair of boots and left his room.

  Zaykov remained there for several minutes. The strain, she decided, was getting to him. Even more than before, the fighter was his personal possession, more than the U.S.’s or the USSR’s, and he was determined to ignore official orders and political realities and do with the fighter as he thought best. The signs of paranoia were stronger as well. She’d never thought he’d agree to leave DreamStar in Nicaragua, but at the very least she thought her words would comfort him if not altogether reassure him. It had had the opposite effect. He clearly now believed that the Soviet military would discard him like a spent shell casing after his mission was completed. (She did not consider the likelihood that he might be right . . .)

  She had to try to convince him to trust his countrymen. That was now more important than ever. With the threat of American retaliation hanging over them, a battle-fatigued and alienated mind of Colonel Maraklov could mean disaster for himself, the mission and all Soviet personnel in Nicaragua.