by Dale Brown
was shaking. The driver, a burly technical sergeant, was sur-
prised but kept his composure as he raised his hands. "What's
going on?"
:'Step away from the truck," Jacinto ordered. Both men did.
'What's going-?"
" Quiet! Don't move! " Jacinto still held his rifle at port anns-
his voice was enough to convince the two men. Jacinto rested
the automatic rifle on his hip with one hand and pulled his
walkie-talkie from his web belt.
" Red Man, this is Five Foxtrot. Two males intercepted at
Five, driving a blue Stepvan with missile trailer. Executing full
nighttime challenge. Over."
"Copy, Five Foxtrot," the security controller replied. There
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 143
was a hint of humor in the controller's voice-he knew Jacinto
was going to have a little fun with his visitors. "Do you require
assistance? "
"Ne ative. Out."
The driver of the truck said, "Sergeant, would you mind-?"
"Silence. Tlim around. Both of you."
"I've got authorization-"
"I said turn." They did. "Where's your I. cards?"
"Back pocket."
"One hand, two fingers. Remove your I.- They removed
wallets from back pockets. "Over your head. Remove your L D.
cards. " They did. "Drop them slowly, carefully, at your feet,
then take three steps forward." When they moved away Jacinto
said, "Now kneel. Hands on top of your heads."
"Give us a break, Sarge--
"Kneel.
As they did, Jacinto walked over to the I. cards, picked
them up, and examined them. They were bent, dirty, grease-
encrusted and barely readable-typical maintenance troop's I.
cards. Jacinto stepped around the two kneeling men and shined
a flashlight in their faces. The faces matched the photos.
"I need job slips now. Where are they?"
"Upper left pocket."
"Get them out." The two technicians pulled crumpled slips
of paper from their pockets and put them on the ramp. Jacinto
picked them up and checked them under the flashlight's beam.
He couldn't check the job numbers-he'd left his clipboard with
the job numbers from the squadron in his truck-but he checked
the MMS squadron supervisor's stamped signoff block on the
reverse side. The stamp and signature were the most frequently
omitted part of the job ticket, and both were required before any
work could begin on any of the birds on the line. But these guys
were on the ball-both had the required stamp with the familiar
signature of the MMS NCOIC.
"Okay, Sergeant Howard, Airman Crowe," Jacinto said,
looping the M-16 back onto his right shoulder. "Everything
checks okay."
"You're damned right it does," Howard said, hauling himself
to his feet. Jacinto held out the job tickets and I. cards to
them. Howard took his I. D. card and job ticket back with a snap
of his wrist; Crowe took his with relief.
144 DALE BROWN
"Why can't you bozos do your little games during the day?"
Howard said. He motioned to Crowe, who seemed to be ce-
mented in place. "Move it, Airman. We're behind schedule as
it is."
"Wasn't expecting you till nine," Jacinto said.
"I wasn't expecting to be here until nine," Howard said an-
grily. "So naturally I get a call in the middle of the night telling
me they want the plane in premaintenance right now. I know
better than to answer the damned phone after nine P."
Jacinto nodded. "I hear that." He put his own wife and
kids on strict instructions not to answer the phone after nine
P.
He walked back to his V- 100 just as a large green M 113 Ar-
madillo combat vehicle pulled up beside his. The back door
swung ope I n and two armed soldiers jumped out and took defen-
sive positions behind the ACV. Jacinto could see the roof turret
swing in his direction, the huge twenty-millimeter Browning
cannon and its coaxial 7.62-millimeter machine gun in the turret
trained on the Stepvan behind him.
"Five Foxtrot, code two, report," a voice blared through the
Armadillo's loudspeaker.
"Five Foxtrot, code victor ten victor, all secure," Jacinto
yelled back. The security crews had been given a code sequence
and number for the shift. When challenged, the guard would
respond with the proper code to advise the response crew that
he was not under duress. If he had responded with anything else
the snipers at the back of the truck and the gunner on top of the
armored vehicle with his cannon and machine gun would kill
anybody in sight.
But Jacinto answered correctly. The guards behind the Ar-
madillo raised their rifles and slung them on their shoulders.
Jacinto walked over to the truck.
"Pissing off the munitions maintenance troops again, eh,
Rey?"
"I gotta do something to stay awake, Sarge. These guys have
nonsense of humor."
'Yeah. You gotta hit the head or what?"
"Just let me refill my canteen and I'll be okay."
Jacinto went to the back of the Almadillo and hacked around
with the two assault troops as he filled his canteen from the large
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 145
water can and hooked it back onto his web belt. He gave the
shift-supervisor NCO a snappy salute as the ACV drove away.
His blood flowing once again, Jacinto did a quick walkaround
inspection of the hangar as the munitions maintenance troops
punched in the number of the code lock on the hangar door
opening mechanism. As the senior NCO went inside, the younger
man hopped back into the Stepvan and pulled it around so that
the rear was facing in toward the plane. Jacinto moved toward
the front of the hangar so he could watch the rear of the truck
and the driver. The young driver, obviously nervous around the
flight line, finally got into position after a series of jerks and
starts, maneuvering the missile trailer in beside the plane as
close to the hangar wall as he could. Jacinto decided to help him
out, and guided the driver in until the truck was ten feet from
the nose of the plane and the trailer was just under the left wing-
tip.
"Thanks," the young airman said in a high-pitched voice. He
hopped out and trotted back to help his supervisor.
"Better chock the truck," Jacinto called inside the hangar.
The airman froze. Sergeant Howard looked at Jacinto, then at
Crowe, and finally at the Stepvan.
"Do as the man said," Howard yelled to Crowe. "You know
all vehicles are supposed to be chocked out here." Crowe ran
to the truck, pulled out a set of yellow wooden chocks and placed
them under the rear wheels.
"And stop running around in the hangar," Howard yelled
once more. "You know better. Or should."
Jacinto suppressed a smile. He remembered back to his first
solo guard duties while he watched the two technicians set to
work. He was a million times more nervous than this guy . . .
His interest was quickly drawn to the amazing aircraft they
were servicing. He had never been any closer than this to the
plane, even though he had been guarding it for a year now, but
he was still amazed by the sleek, catlike aircraft. It looked even
more deadly now with its two huge air-to-air missiles hanging
on the belly on either side of the large intake. Jacinto had read
every scrap of unclassified information on DrearnStar and had
repeatedly asked for permission to look inside the cockpit but
was always denied.
Sergeant Howard had wheeled a maintenance platform around
to the left side of the cockpit and locked it into place, then
146 DALE BROWN
scrambled up the steps and opened the canopy. Meanwhile Crowe
had started up an auxiliary power cart in the back of the hangar
and was hauling air and power cables over to the receptacles
near the left main landing gear. A few moments later Howard
had flipped the right switches in the cockpit-the battery and
external power switches, Jacinto recalled from his reading-and
cockpit and position lights popped in all around DreamStar.
Howard stepped off the maintenance platform and walked over
to the back of the truck. Noticing Jacinto watching him from the
front of the hangar, he waved him over. Jacinto, and soon Air-
man Crowe, moved over beside Howard.
Over the noise of the power cart Sergeant Howard said, "Want
to take look inside?"
Jacinto blinked in surprise. "Is it okay?"
" Don't see why not. Ejection seat's been deactivated, half the
black boxes in the cockpit have been pulled out and the weapons
are all pinned and safe. No better time - "
Jacinto nodded enthusiastically. He pulled the clip out of his
M-16, placed the clip in a pouch on his belt, checked the safety
on the rifle and leaned the weapon on the Stepvan bumper. "All
right, I been waiting to do this for-"
A hand reached across his face, covering his nose and mouth
and twisting his head sideways. Jacinto tried to roll away from
the arms holding his head, but Howard had run up to him and
grasped his chin, holding his neck fast. A split-second later Ja-
cinto felt a sharp, deep sting on his exposed neck.
Three seconds later he was dead.
"Shto slochelosch? What the hell is the matter with you,
Crowe?" the man named "Howard" cursed at his young part-
ner. "Crowe" was staring at the body, watching Jacinto's death
twitch as the poison slowly destroyed the central nervous sys-
tem. "You almost let him get loose."
Crowe did not reply. Howard slapped the young man hard on
the shoulder. "We must hurry, idiot. Time is running out."
Pushed toward the still-quivering corpse, Crowe began un-
buckling Jacinto's combat harness and webbing, jerking his hands
,away as the last of the dead, guard's tremors left his body. Mean-
while Howard swung open the back of the Stepvan, removed
several pins from the sides of the equipment racks along the
inside walls of the van, then hauled the racks away from the
wall.
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 147
Out from his hiding place inside the racks, wearing the AN-
TARES flight suit, was Captain Kenneth Francis James.
"Nechyega syerchyanznaga, tovarisch. It is all clear, Com-
rade Captain. We are -ready."
James raised the muzzle of the machine pistol and put the
safety on. "Speak English, you idiot. And help me out of here."
Slowly, carefully, Maraklov was helped to his feet. Moving
as if his joints were locked in place, he slowly walked to the
edge of the Stepvan. Howard then lowered him to the hangar
floor, where he made his way to the maintenance platform still
set up beside DrearnStar.
By this time Airman Crowe-real name, long unused and al-
most forgotten, was Andrei Lovyyev-had put on all of Jacinto's
combat gear and was just replacing the ammo clip in the M- 16
rifle. "Blouse your pants in your boots, Crowe," James told
him as he crawled up the ladder. "And keep out of sight. You're
at least thirty pounds smaller than Jacinto, someone is bound to
notice. "
"Yes, sir.
"Remember, your call sign is Five Foxtrot. The duress code
number is twelve and the duress prefix and suffix is victor."
"I remember, sir."
He turned to Howard. "You both have been briefed on the
pickup location?"
"Yes, Captain. Good luck to you, sir."
James balanced himself on the cockpit sill of DreamStar and
swung his legs inside the cockpit. Then with Howard's help, he
connected the maze of wire bundles from his flight suit to
DrearnStar's computers, set the heavy ANTARES superconduc-
tor helmet on his head and fastened it into place. By this time
he was breathing hard, he could feel drops of sweat crawling
down his arms and neck. Howard's hands trembled slightly with
excitement as he fastened the thick shoulder straps around the
metal-encased pilot and pulled them tight. "Tighter," James
said in a voice muffled by the helmet. Howard braced himself
and hauled on'the straps as hard as he could.
"Thank you, Sergeant Howard," James said. "You pulled
this off very well."
"Nyeh zah shto. " Maraklov had been James too long. He
could barely understand a word, but the KGB agent's soft tone
of voice gave him the idea. The man was obviously pleased by
148 DALE BROWN
the compliment. He rechecked James' connections and climbed
off the maintenance platform.
Meanwhile Crowe had climbed inside the armored vehicle
outside the hangar, scanning the flight line-Howard could see
his head jerk at every crackle of the radio. It had, he now real-
ized, been foolish to bring such a youngster on a mission like
this-it was Lovyyev's first full-scale job since sneaking across
the border from Mexico via El Paso and setting up residence
under cover in Las Vegas three years earlier. To put him in the
lion's den like this was taking a big risk.
But it was too late for second guessing. Howard disconnected
the missile trailer from the Stepvan truck and moved it out of
the way inside the hangar, closed the van's rear doors and moved
it out of the hangar and clear of DreamStar's taxi path. Next he
took several large orange-colored traffic cones marked "DANGER
HIGH EXPLOSIVE" out of the van and arranged them in a wide
arc around the hangar doors. This was a normal procedure-the
cones were a warning to anyone else on the flight line that work
on live weapons was going on inside. But these cones were dif-
ferent. Each was a miniature mortar-launcher, operated by re-
mote control. When activated, each would fire a high-explosive
magnesium flash bomb a hundred yards away. The concussions
and blinding white light produced by the mortar rounds would
slow and presumably stop any quick-reaction forces from mov-
ing in until DreamStar was clear of the hangar.
After carefully aiming the disguised mortars at response roads
and likely targets around the hangar-being careful not to crat
er
DrearnStar's taxi route or exit-Howard stepped inside the han-
gar once again and rechecked that all safing pins and streamers
were removed from the aircraft and weapons. He then walked
to the truck, retrieved a M-16 rifle with a M-203 forty-millimeter
grenade-launcher under the barrel, a metal box full of grenades
and a bag of five thirty-round clips, and went back into the
hangar to wait.
His legs were aching, sweat was pouring into the metallic flight
suit. Conditioned air from the external power cart was trickling
into the suit but was hardly enough to change the temperature.
Through the canopy he could see Crowe nervously fidgeting
inside the armored car, looking as if he was going to shoot
himself in the face with his M-16 any second. He could also
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 149
watch Howard's careful preparations for the massive assault they
knew had to come. Despite their plans, the moment they tried
to start engines the full force of Dreamland's security forces
would be on top of them. Nearly fifty armed soldiers and two
heavily armed tracked combat vehicles surrounding the flight
line would be let loose to blow DreamStar to hell.
Amid it all James had to convince himself to relax, to empty
his mind of all thoughts, to clear a path for the sleeping AN-
TARES computer to worm its way into his subconscious. Self-
hypnosis, consciously forcing each muscle group to relax, was
the simplest and usually the most effective way of achieving
theta-wave state, but that seemed impossible. Muscles ached
from the long climb up the platform, and the lactic acid that
collected in his muscle tissue from heavy exertion would act like
halon gas on a fire, blocking any conscious efforts to relax those
muscles.
His mind kept straying to the thoughts of Major Briggs' se-
curity forces-he had inspected those forces many times, acting
only partially interested in them at the time when in fact he was
taking careful notes on the exact numbers, equipment and de-
ployment. He had examined the weaknesses of the force and
planned possible escape routes out of Drearnland for himself
should that ever have been necessary. He had devised several