“Hawk! Get up here now!”
Hunter climbed out of the ’16 and sprinted over to the structure and up the stairs. In the control room, he found St. Louie and a group of Football City officers crowded around a radar screen. Their expressions ranged from extremely concerned to outright panic.
“Hawk,” St. Louie said, the normally measured voice rising an octave with concern. “You’d better-see this.”
Hunter moved to the radar screen and took a look. The round, green video display had an arm of light sweeping 360-degrees every five seconds. At first, he saw nothing unusual—just blips of the Football City aircraft he knew were operating in the area. Then the light arm swept up to indicate the air traffic coming in from the northeast. He gasped.
“Holy shit!”
Now at least he knew what had caused the strange feeling that had come over him. He waited for the arm to sweep up to the northeast again. When it did, he knew he wasn’t seeing things. There were at least 100 blips on the screen, heading south-southwest.
“They’re coming this way,” St. Louie said.
Hunter had felt them. As always, he knew, just by the feeling, seconds, even minutes before any radar. This time his special extrasensory perception almost overloaded and short-circuited.
“They’re not just MIGs,” he said, looking at the screen but actually knowing without its aid. “They’re coming at us with everything. SU-14s, Mirages, Super Sabres, Starfighters.”
“Christ!” one of the officers yelled. “What do we do?”
Hunter was still trembling, not with fear but with hate. Hate for the Family. Hate for the Russians. Hate for the people who killed Saul Wackerman. Hate for the people who killed Jones. Hate for the people who killed his country.
He felt a curious strength wash through him. He suddenly not only felt stronger, his mind became clearer. Clearer than it had ever been before. He knew what he had to do.
“Evacuate the airport!” he yelled. “Quick! They’re heading this way to ice us! Right here! We’ve got to get everything off the ground!”
The officers went into action, grabbing radios and contacting the various crews of the planes waiting to launch. Within seconds, the take-off procedure was sped up. The half-minute between take-off protocol was dispensed with very quickly. Now the planes were rolling down the runway at the rate of one every 10 seconds. St. Louie got on another radio and started contacting the Football City aircraft already airborne. He was primarily concerned about the F-20s. They wouldn’t be able to come back and load up on missiles and ammo.
Hunter heard none of this. He was out of the control tower in a flash. Now, he was running. Running to the F-16. A band of monkeys was working on it. He didn’t remember even talking to them. He was thinking of all the time he had put in back at the Aerodrome, working on modifications to the F-16. Now he was glad he did it. His mind was clear but racing fast. Next thing he knew, he was rolling down the runway, his cannons filled with ammunition, his wings weighted down by 20 Sidewinders, five times the number normally carried on a F-16.
“Got to give these boys a reception,” he thought as he took off and turned toward the northeast.
At the same time, the battle at the Mississippi had again taken a dangerous turn. It was now obvious that another large enemy force had been held in reserve to see the outcome of the initial attack. When the Free Forces’ held their own, the Family commanders, acting on orders from the top men in the Black Tower back in New Chicago, threw their reserves into the fray.
At the front, most of the Free Forces were getting their first look at what was left of the enemy flotilla. Most of the enemy craft were tugboats outfitted with heavy field cannons and RPGs. Others were actually small cargo ships and barges that once plied the Grand Lakes. The boats served two purposes for the Family. Some transported reserve troops from shore to shore while others used their firepower to keep the Free Forces’ defenders occupied.
Every aircraft fighting for Football City had now joined in the battle. The rearmed Cobra Brothers were braving the violently choppy, shrapnel-filled air above the river to fly low and scorch enemy landing craft with their special flame-throwing weapons. The Stallion, with Dozer aboard and operating on the hit-and-run, attacked several key targets in the enemy rear. The Marine captain had also toyed with the idea of bolting up to New Chicago and blasting away at the Black Tower, just to take out the brains of the new Family attack. But like Hunter, he knew the situation at Football City was desperate, and that the Free Forces needed every gun they could get.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
HUNTER COULD FEEL THE weight of the 20 Sidewinders cause the wings of the F-16 to bounce. No matter. He had reinforced the jet’s body and wings long ago and was confident that the airplane could handle the strain.
Whether the pilot could or not was another matter …
He was boiling with hate. Too much hate. It was affecting his reflexes, his logical way of thinking and his inner vision. He couldn’t wait to intercept the incoming Family air armada, although he was outnumbered 100-to-l. This could be it, he kept thinking. This could be the end of the line. But he didn’t care. And that’s what was bothering him.
He knew that none of the other Football City aircraft would be able to leave the river battle to help him. With the arrival of the enemy boats and reserves, that situation was beyond desperate. Anything short of divine intervention wouldn’t be enough to turn the tide.
Tangling with the force of enemy planes coming his way would be no different. He was good. The best, in fact. But one jet against 100? Even he doubted it. But he vowed long ago to go down fighting, and if this was to be his fate, so be it. He realized he felt just as Jones did when he launched his one-man war against the Mid-Aks. Some things are worth dying for. He remembered his rebirth on the mountain in Vermont the day Jones died. He had worked and sacrificed and almost without feeling it, had changed since then as a man and a pilot. The innocence was lost. He hoped something was gained. For the first time ever, he felt ready to meet his destiny.
Suddenly, his target acquisition system started to go crazy. The Family aircraft were just over the horizon. There were so many of them that even the ’16’s sophisticated radar system couldn’t handle them all. In fact, the number of blips showing up on his radar screen was only serving to confuse his on-board computers. If he set the Sidewinders on computer-command fire, they too would become confused and possibly detonate prematurely, it would all be too much for the machines.
So he had to take a chance. First, he armed all the missiles at once. Then, he flipped the weapons release switch from “Automatic” to “Manual.” Finally, he coolly shut his radar off completely. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and let “the feeling” overwhelm him, blast through him, take him apart and make him whole again.
When he opened his eyes, he knew he could carry out this attack entirely on instinct.
Then he saw them. First, there were the MIGs. At least two dozen of them, all of them painted shiny black and riding out front, looking for any opposition. Next came the Mirages—20 of the French-built fighter-bombers, each one armed to the teeth with Exocet missiles. Then came 32 SU-17 Fitters—the Russian-built fighter-bomber he and his squadron faced in the battle over Europe. He was certain that no Family pilot had enough smarts to fly such a hot-shit jet. That led him to the only other conclusion. There were Soviet pilots behind the controls. The rats had come out of their holes.
The remaining 30 or so planes were made up of rogues—F-104 Starfighters, F-100 Super Sabres, some A-4s, a few A-7s, even some ancient F-94s. The planes in this rogue group had one thing in common: they were all types of aircraft favored by the air pirates. The circle was thus closed, he thought. The Family and the Soviets had finally openly teamed up with the aerial bandits.
The enemy aircraft were flying in a tight formation, spread out over two miles. It was a tactic indicating they were expecting to be intercepted. He knew his plane was already showing up on their radar systems, but he c
ould have cared less. He was willing to let them use their electronic eyes for this fight. He would use his own.
He was 15 miles from them and closing when he put the ’16 into a steep dive. Within a half minute, the enemy formation was right above him, but no fighters had broken off from the main group to chase him. That was exactly what he wanted. It told him that a Soviet pilot was the group leader and he was using inflexible Soviet tactics. The crude Soviet military way of thinking discouraged individual shows of initiative. Junior officers, whether they were on the ground or in the air, had to adhere to the higher officers’ plans, no matter how flawed or ill-conceived. The goose-stepping, group-think spoke of everything wrong with the Soviet mind, and it had infected their system ever since they staged their completely phony revolution back in 1917. In this case, the infection had turned into a disease—a deadly disease.
On the other hand, Hunter was an individual. He thought for himself. That was the very heart of his people. He was more than a number. He was a human being. He could act and react as his instincts and experience and his inner vision told him to. He was free in his actions. They were slaves to theirs. He knew the formation would stick together no matter what. It was their biggest mistake.
He let the attackers pass over him, then put the F-16 into a wicked climb. There were heavy cloud banks all the way back to Football City. He would use them to his advantage. His heart was pounding, his muscles flexed. His mind was crystal clean He took a few deep gulps of oxygen from his face mask, then reached down to the breast pocket of his flight suit. It was still there—the bulge of the neatly-folded flag. He took it out. His hand tingled when he touched it. He felt himself drawing even more power from it. He felt filled up. He folded the flag and put it away. Then, he leveled the plane off and found himself directly behind the enemy formation.
He was ready. More ready than he had ever been in his life.
“Hey Jones,” he said aloud as he booted the jet up to afterburner. “I hope you’re watching this …”
The Soviet colonel leading the flight first knew something was wrong when he saw four of his planes at the rear of his flight suddenly disappear from his radar screen. He heard the static-filled cries for help and the telltale squeals of feedback which indicated a plane had been destroyed. The next thing he knew, a red-and-white-and-blue F-16 flashed by his left wing. He never saw it coming; it had never registered on his Su-17’s radar screen.
The F-16 was twisting and turning like it was in the middle of an aerial demonstration. And it was moving incredibly fast. The Soviet flight leader watched in awe as the plane, which he saw was carrying an unbelievable number of Sidewinders, shot out ahead of his formation, wheeled a 180 and headed back toward him, all in a matter of seconds.
The Soviet began screaming into his radio, “Stay tight! Stay tight!” It was as if all the jets in the formation were frozen in place. And the ’16 was moving fast. Too fast, the Russian thought. And, still, it refused to show up on his radar screen.
The F-16 unleashed a spread of four more Sidewinders, each missile finding its mark instantly. Four more jets—a MIG, a Mirage and two Su-17s—were sent plunging toward earth. The plane then looped and disappeared into a cloud at the formation’s rear, only to emerge at the front of the column yet again.
“This is impossible!” the Soviet flight leader screamed in broken English into his radio. “Are there two of them?”
His radio was filled with static and the panicky chatter of the pilots in the formation. “Two of them?” he heard a voice come back to him. “My radar doesn’t show one of them!”
Four more Sidewinders rocketed off the F-16’s wings. Four more enemy planes exploded and began to fall. But this time, the wreckage of one of the doomed planes smashed into two pirate planes flying toward the rear of the column.
“Szechezva!” the Soviet flight leader said into his microphone. “He gets six planes with four missiles!”
Still, the formation flew on. The Soviet leader, his radar screen still blank on the attacking jet, strained his neck looking for the F-16. “Where is he?” he shouted, getting no reply from his charges. Suddenly, the Soviet was aware of something flying directly above his plane. He looked straight up and into the underside of the F-16 which was no more than 10 feet away. The Soviet panicked and put his plane into a sharp dive.
“How can this be?” the Soviet said into his microphone but to no one in particular. He watched as the F-16, turning an eight-point aerobatic turn, fired four more Sidewinders, hitting four more MIGs even though they were twisting out of the way. Then the plane accelerated and did a reverse loop so quickly, the Soviet colonel knew no pilot could stand the g-force that would be generated by such a maneuver. Yet, the F-16 flew on.
“This is not possible,” he said, his brain disbelieving what his eyes were plainly showing him. “This pilot. This plane. Are they a ghost?”
The formation was still 50 miles from the target, and already 15 of the planes had been shot down. Finally, the Soviet knew he had to give the order.
“MIGs. Break formation,” he called into his radio. “Break formation and attack that F-16!”
The remaining MIGs obediently broke from the stiff, boxlike flight path, paired up and began searching the sky for the attacker. Suddenly, he was coming at two of them, head on. The pair of MIGs split, but not before the F-16 delivered a burst of cannon fire, hitting both of the jets and causing them to explode. Two more MIGs vectored toward the F-16, firing two air-to-air missiles apiece before entering a large cloud bank. When they emerged, not only was the F-16 behind them, so were their missiles! The MIG pilots were frozen at their controls. How was it possible? Did the F-16 pilot actually draw the heat-seekers to him then shake them off, all in the time it took to pass through the cloud? They never figured it out. Their own missiles impacted on their exhaust pipes instantaneously, blowing them to pieces and scattering their bodies to the winds.
Four MIGs ganged up and found themselves on the mystery plane’s tail. “We are chasing him now,” the Soviet colonel heard one of his junior Soviet pilots say. Another cloud bank rolled by. Upon reaching the other side, the MIG pilots were astonished to see the F-16 high above them and diving in their direction. “Impossible!” one pilot screamed in Russian. The flight leader heard the sound of cannon fire over the radio, then four snaps in succession. He knew that four more of his airplanes were gone.
The air pirates flying to the rear of the column took it upon themselves to break formation. One pirate, a bandit named Rocko, found himself alone in his F-100 Super Sabre, isolated from the rest of the group.
“Why did I ever get mixed up with these crooks and Russians,” he asked himself, nervously searching the sky for the F-16. He passed through a small cloud bank. When he came out, the F-16 was riding right beside him.
He was stunned. He could clearly see the pilot of the ghost plane looking back at him. The man looked so strange! He had a helmet on, with the dark green visor pulled down, yet Rocko could feel the man’s eyes burning through him. The pirate felt his mind go blurry. Suddenly, a vision flashed into his head. An airliner, full of people. It was over the Great Lakes. He had shot it down. It was just for sport. The Free Canadians had hunted him ever since, but they’d never caught up to him. Now he saw inside the fiery cabin of the plane as it had fallen to earth. The people were screaming. Women. Kids. Old people. On fire. Dying. Their blood-curdling screams were coming over his headphones. He couldn’t stand it! It was as if the pilot in the F-16 knew what he had done. The man with the burning eyes was compelling him to have the haunting vision. The screams got louder. He shook away the vision but the screaming remained. He closed his eyes, looked to his left and prayed the F-16 would be gone. He opened his eyes. It was still there.
Rocko felt a blood vessel in his head go pop. Suddenly the sky and the clouds were on fire. His plane was on fire. The F-16 was on fire. Red filled his eyes. He began to cry. He popped the canopy release lever and the bubble glass top on his
F-100 flew away. The dials and switches inside the jet’s cockpit instantly froze up and began to crack and burst. The force of the wind struck him, disintegrating his oxygen mask and carrying away his flight helmet.
Unprotected, the wind began to rip the flesh from his face. He was paralyzed, completely unable to move. His eyes began to clog. He began to take blood into his lungs. The pain was excruciating. He knew he was dying. Dying a death even worse than the people on the airliner he’d shot down. Worse than any of the innocent people he had killed. It was as if the pilot in the ghost plane willed him to do it. He vomited a wad of blood. Blood poured from his nose. His plane was really on fire now; the flames were catching on to his flight suit. The jet started to take the final plunge. With one last effort, Rocko managed to look to his left.
The F-16 was gone.
One by one, the Soviet flight leader saw the jets in the formation disappear. Four Mirages had simply evaporated from his radar screen. Confused and shaking, the colonel considered calling off the bombing mission. He quickly reconsidered, knowing full well the wrath of his superiors he would face if he abandoned the attack. Especially when he reported only one jet had turned them back.
The Russian collected himself and called for every remaining plane in the formation to count off. He wasn’t surprised to learn that all of the pirates that hadn’t been shot down had scattered and fled. He was left with 40 planes in all, a mix of Mirages, MIGs and Su-14s. Still a formidable, if confused force.
Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of the F-16 as it streaked by off to his right. If possible, he believed it was moving even faster than before. The plane still carried eight Sidewinders, clearly evident as the plane split off and away from the main formation. Was the crazy pilot breaking off the attack?
The answer was no. In a matter of seconds, the F-16 was right below him, twisting, turning, going through impossible gyrations. The Soviet saw four flashes. Four missiles streaked by him and struck a MIG and three Mirages riding above him. The colonel had to dodge the flying debris. How can the man shoot four missiles and have them fly right by me, yet hit planes above me? He had given up trying to figure things out. What he was witnessing was metaphysical, he believed. At this point he simply wanted to unleash some bombs—one bomb—on target just to please his superiors. Then, he planned to escape, land his plane and never take to the air again.
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