by Dale Brown
the huge bomber lumbered forward. It stopped briefly to test its
brakes, then taxied out quickly onto the ramp and moved toward
the open exit-gate. Rover Nine and Rover Seven, the two M113
combat vehicles, fell in on either side of the B-52, their gun
turrets now manned and armed with automatic cannons.
Briggs let out a loud sigh of relief when the B-52 taxied clear
of Hangar Five-if there had been a commando or terrorist there
he would have struck then, as the Megafortress taxied right in
front. He almost expected to see a bazooka or TOW anti-tank
missile round hit the Old Dog's jet-black surface, but there was
no movement. Hal keyed his car's mike:
"All units, be advised aircraft exiting main parking ramp
heading for taxiway delta. Begin pre-launch sweep check and
report to Red Man when complete. Red Man, report status to
Hotel when complete.
"Red Man, wilco."
Hal put his car in gear and fell in well behind.the B-52 as it
headed down the taxiway toward the sand-colored four-mile-long
runway. The security units surrounding Dreamland were report-
ing in to Red Man Security Control as briefed. Individual tac-
tical units would report to their sector commands, who would
report to their team leaders, who would report to Red Man.
Everything was going smoothly.
The last to report in were the units not involved with the
B-52's operations-base security, individual building security and
standing flight-line checkpoints. It took several minutes, by
which time all units had reported in as ordered . . . all except
Five Foxtrot.
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 157
That did it. Definitely something wasn't right here. Hal Briggs
stopped his car dead in its tracks and picked up the mike: "Five
Foxtrot, this is Hotel. Check in immediately. Over."
He couldn't wait any longer-Lovyyev could hear the irritation
in the voice of whoever this Hotel character was. Orlov had
disappeared into the hangar. For an instant he thought that Orlov
was running, escaping before the security patrols closed in, but
he knew better. Orlov was one of the best KGB operatives in
North America. He would never run out on a mission unless it
was completely hopeless, and he certainly wouldn't run out on
another operative.
He had to answer, but he needed to sound convincing. What
was the nationality of the security guard they killed? Spanish?
Mexican? Why didn't the United States use one damned race in
the military like most of the rest of the world? In the Soviet
Union they used Russian soldiers. Other nationalities swept floors
or collected garbage.
Taking a deep breath, he composed his reply in his mind, as
taught to him in an all-day cram course by Orlov, and keyed the
mike: "Five Foxtrot, all secure. Over."
A chill ran down his spine. Hal had a tough time hearing the
faint response, but even if it had been a whisper it wouldn't have
made any difference.
That was not Rey Jacinto on the mike.
The Old Dog had now reached the end of the runway. It paused
for a few moments as it aligned with the runway centerline. For
an instant Hal thought that now would be the perfect time to
strike-here, away from the ramp, isolated and vulnerable-but
as he began to issue orders to cover the bomber from attack, the
engines slowly accelerated to ftill thrust and the huge plane rolled
down the runway.
Hal Briggs stared transfixed at the huge dark creature blasting
down the runway. He could see huge puffs of dust and sand
erupting from the edge of the semi-camouflaged runway, those
could be mortar rounds impacting near the plane-which con-
jured up the memory of the last time he had seen the Old Dog
take off eight years ago, not five hundred yards from this very
spot, when there were mortar rounds exploding all around them.
The same sense of fear gripped him . . .
158 DALE BROWN
But this time it turned out to be huge dust clouds kicked up
by the wingtip vortices generated by the Old Dog. A few mo-
ments later the bomber was airborne, the gear was up, the SST
nose retracted into flight position and the Old Dog was racing
skyward once again. It climbed nose-up, more like a light fighter
plane than a half-million-pound strategic bomber.
In minutes the B-52 was out of sight. No alerts, no warnings.
Members of the M 113 Rover crews had gotten out of their ACVs
to watch the takeoff. Hal checked Five Foxtrot once again. He
could see clearly inside the hangar, but there was no sign of any
munitions maintenance men in there, and the missiles were still
on DreamStar's handpoints beside the air intake. A power cart
was hooked up to DreamStar, with hoses and cables snaking
around to the fighter's service panel, and now that the Old Dog
had departed, Hal could hear the roar of the external power cart's
jet engine. It was as if the MMS crew had simply left the plane
alone and on power to watch the Old Dog's takeoff. That was a
major breach of security, not to mention good sense. You never
left a plane unattended with power and air on. Jacinto knew
that-where was he during all this? And whose was that voice
on the mike? Or was he imagining . . . ?
The upper hatch on the armored car was open, and Briggs
noticed that a fifty-caliber machine gun was now mounted on
the armor-shielded gun bracket on the car's roof. Still no sign
of Jacinto. Maybe he had watched the takeoff, after all. But why
mount his machine gun now? Or had he done it during taxi?
Briggs picked up his microphone. "Five Foxtrot, report status
and location of the work crew at your location. Over."
No reply.
"Red Man, this is Hotel, radio check."
"Hotel, this is Red Man. Five by."
It wasn't his radio. Was there a radio "blind spot" out here?
Was Jacinto's radio malfunctioning? If it was, he should have
gotten a replacement long ago-if it was Rey Jacinto in there.
"Roger. Break. Rover Nine, meet me at Five Foxtrot on the
double. Over. "
"Rover Nine on the move." Briggs could see the two alert
crewmen run back inside the ACV. The low-slung, eleven-ton
mini-tank made a tight turn and headed back toward the parking
ramp on its twin-steel tracks.
Briggs put his car in gear and headed toward Dream Star's
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 159
hangar. Somebody was screwing up by the numbers here, it was
past time to find out who and what.
Lovyyev was silently screaming at himself. Only a few hours in
place, he speaks three words on the radio and is discovered.
Be calm, he told himself. Things were happening out there
on the flight line-perhaps there was still time to bluff his way
out of this. This Hotel person may get too busy to check on him.
But one glance out the bulletproof windscreen told him that
his luck was running out. A staff car was heading his way. It
was still three hundred yards off, perhaps more, but it was com-
; ing fast.
Lovyyev jumped out of his seat and crawled up into the ar-
mored open turret on the roof. He yelled back into the hangar,
"Orlov. Skaryehyeh! Etah srochnah! Hurry. They're coming!"
"Shut up, Crowe!" Orlov was hiding against the inner front
wall of the hangar, his M-16/M-203 in his arms and the rernote-
control detonator around his neck. "Get down!"
But it was too late. In a panic, Lovyyev swiveled the machine
gun turret around, released the safety, aimed it at the approach-
ing staff car, pulled and held the trigger.
Hal Briggs was thinking about what he was going to say to Rey
Jacinto about his strange behavior when he saw what looked like
exhaust smoke rising from the Commando armored car. Just as
he was wondering why Jacinto was starting up, he saw a line of
explosions and shattering concrete race across the tarmac di-
rectly at his car. He slammed on the brakes and dived for the
floorboards under the front seat just as his windshield exploded
in a shower of glass. Instantly he felt a wall of fire envelop him,
and realized that the engine compartment was on fire.
His synthetic fatigue shirt began to melt on his back. He
clawed for the door handle, found it, shoved the door open and
crawled Out of the burning car. He landed only a foot from the
flaming remains of the car's hood, which had been blasted apart
by the explosion, and half-crawled, half-stumbled away from the
car. Thick black smoke was everywhere. He inhaled a lungful
of the gas, gagged, fell to the concrete. Pieces of red-hot metal
were all around him. But at least the smoke hid him from the
unner in the V- 100. He stayed on his hands and knees and
began to crawl to where he thought the security checkpoint
160 DALE BROWN
was ... He guessed right. A few moments later two guards rushed
out and hauled him to his feet. He let the guards carry him to
the guard shack but resisted when they tried to lay him down on
the floor. He picked up the radio, switched the channel selector
to one, the base-wide emergency channel, and clicked it on:
"Attention all HAWC security units, this is Hotel on channel
one. Execute code echo-seven. Repeat, code echo-seven. Intruder
alert, Hangar Five. Repeat, intruder alert, Hangar Five. This is not
an exercise. Shots fired in front of Hangar Five by intruders from
a V- 100 armored vehicle. Number of intruders unknown."
Briggs paused, rubbing a pain in his right temple. Massaging
it, he found a gash in his head and his hair burned off. "All
Foxtrot guard units, secure your posts and stand by to repel.
Break. Rover Seven, converge on Hangar Five, secure the V- 100
parked there, block the front on the hangar by any means pos-
sible. Break. Red Man, notify Colonel Towland and General
Elliott in Mission Control of situation, use channel nine, and
have them order the flight crew on the airborne B-52 to remain
clear of the area and notify the crew of the standby B-52 to
prepare to evacuate. Deploy all available personnel in full com-
bat gear to security checkpoint alpha and launch helicopter air
security units one and two. Break. Rover Nine, pick me up in
front of security checkpoint alpha. I will take control from Rover
Nine. All units,'execute .
Orlov knew it was no use berating Lovyyev-he might have
even saved them by keeping that sedan away from the hangar
until Maraklov, or James, or whatever his name was now, could
get ready. They had been out there for hours. Was Maraklov
ever going to be ready?
The security forces were moving faster than Orlov ever thought
possible. Seconds after Lovyyev opened fire, he was receiving
return fire from Hangar Four, although Lovyyev was in no dan-
ger except from a lucky shot. M-16 rounds were pinging off the
armor surrounding the turret, forcing Lovyyev to shoot from a
more protected position inside the cab. But it was working. He
was holding down any deadly return fire, keeping the first wave
of defenders back. It wouldn't last long, but he was buying
Maraklov time . . .
As was always the case, the first device to be activated under
the Advanced Neural Transfer and Response System was on the
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 161
radios. Usually they were quiet. This time, there was so much
chatter on the area air-traffic control frequency that at first James
thought he had dialed in two overlapping Las Vegas AM talk
stations. The words were almost unintelligible, which at first
confused him. Then he realized that the voices were talking about
them-half the military security forces in Nevada were being
called on to attack Hangar Five . . . they had already been dis-
covered by Dreamland's security forces. If he'd spent two more
minutes completing the ANTARES interface they'd all be dead.
A millisecond's mental inquiry told him all he needed to
know: Sergeant Howard, if he was still alive, had done his job
well. External air and power were on and available. DreamStar's
body tanks were full-he had much more fuel than he had hoped
for. Apparently they had drained the wing fuel tanks but left the
body tanks and their thirty thousand gallons of jet fuel intact.
Both AIM-120 Scorpion missiles were loaded and even re-
sponded to a fast connectivity and continuity check-which
meant they could be launched orjettisoned at any time. Whether
they were armed or capable of defending him was a question that
would have to wait. The twenty-millimeter Vulcan cannon was
empty-a fully loaded cannon would have been too much to
hope for.
Howard had removed the inlet covers, safety pins and landing
gear downlocks, and had closed all the maintenance covers ex-
cept for the external power cover. The man was really efficient.
He'd have to thank him someday, if they made it . . . AN-
TARES' automatic flight-data recorder recorded the thought for
later retrieval.
DreamStar had the ability to go from complete power off to
full military takeoff thrust in moments. Fighters in the twenty-
first century would routinely have it-now only DreamStar did.
James again placed his life in the hands of a computer-only a
machine could control the enormous amount of power that he
was about to unleash. It was the ultimate in combat speed and
efficiency-but it could just as easily turn the one hundred-
thousand-pound fighter into a huge bomb.
Power, fuel, air-all engine start systems activated with a sin-
gle thought. Lights and transmitters off-no use in making it
easier for Briggs and the Air Force to find him. A compressed
air tank, filled from the external power cart, collected twenty
162 DALE BROWN
thousand cubic feet of air at five thousand pounds PSI pressure,
then emptied it onto the sixteenth-stage compressor in
DreamStar's turbofan engine in less than a second. At the same
time fuel was injected into the combustion chamber and the high-
voltage ignitors activated. The blast of compresse
d air spun the
engine turbines at three thousand RPMs, mixing air and fuel in
the proportions to create a huge explosive ignition equal to the
force of a ton of TNT.
In ten seconds DrearnStar was ready for flight. With full power
available, his only concern now was to get off the ground as fast
as possible.
Orlov, as Sergeant Howard, had been briefed on DreamStar's
fast-reaction-start capability, b6t he never quite believed it. One
moment the fighter was silent, cold, without power-the next,
the engine was at full power with a hugh shaft of fire burning
out the engine exhaust, expelling dangerous unburned gases. It
reminded him of watching a tiger being fed at the Moscow Zoo-
one moment the tigers were sleeping soundly, but at the first
scent of blood they were unstoppable dynamos of motion and
energy.
The external power cables and air hoses dropped off the ser-
vice port by remote control, and before he could rush to the side
of the cockpit to see if Maraklov needed anything, DreaniStar
was moving forward-ready to fly.
Orlov didn't hesitate. He reached up to the remote-control
trigger device, pressed the button, then threw the device away
in the hangar and sprinted for the V-100 armored car.
He reached the car just as columns of fire lit up the gloomy
early morning sky. Orlov hadn't counted on how bright those
magnesium mortar shells were-he had, though, tightly closed
his eyes just as he heard the loud puffs when the mortar rounds
were launched. Lovyyev, inside the V-100, had neglected to
shield his eyes, and Orlov found him rubbing and blinking fu-
riously.
"Move, get out of the way!" Orlov ordered. Lovyyev fol-
lowed Orlov's grasp and tumbled into the clear area under the
gun turret as Orlov scrambled into the stiff driver's seat, put the
V-100 into gear and hit the gas pedal.
"Can you operate the machine gun?" Orlov called to Lovy-
yev and checked his assistant as he hauled himself into the
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 163
gun-turret brace. Lovyyev was still trying to blink away the
flashblindness, his face red and puffed, but Lovyyev, longer on