by Dale Brown
But Khan had a chance. He yanked up on Khan's left ejection
lever and hit the trigger, watching as his long-time copilot and
friend blew clear of the crippled bomber. Ormack now rotated
his own arming levers and pulled the ejection triggers . . .
Khan had promptly been grabbed by the Old Dog's exhaust
and blown several hundred yards back, away from the impact
area, but Ormack had spent precious time rescuing Khan. He
was a hundred feet above ground, his chute filling with wind
and inflating rapidly, when the Old Dog slammed into the Aniar-
0 own,
g sa Desert valley floor. Directly over the aircraft, face d'
in position to watch the end of the B-52 Megafortress Plus,
Ormack was engulfed by the two-mile wide fireball that blos-
somed over the desert, consumed by the flames of his beloved
aircraft.
His last thought was that somebody had to get that son of a
bitch James . . .
Over the B-52 crash site, Amargosa, Nevada
Wednesday, 17 June 1996, 0712 PDT (1012 EDT)
IT RESEMBLED THE aftermath of a fire bombing. Even from five
hundred feet in the air, everything within sight was black-the
rocky hills surrounding the crash site had been blackened by
fires and debris. Huge craters in the earth contained burning
sections of the mighty B-52 Megafortress Plus, the heat of the
fireball hot enough to melt even the B-52's thick carbon and
fiberglass skeletal pieces. A mile away the center-wing junction-
box and forward fuselage, the piece that joined the wings to the
fuselage and the largest section of the B-52 still intact, was burn-
ing, so hot and so smoky that firefighters could not get within
two hundred yards of it. Debris was scattered in a ten-square-
mile area of devastation, and thick black smoke obscured half
the sky.
The helicopter crossed perpendicular to the axis of impact,
paralleling route 95 near the evacuated town of Amargosa. A
large building, a restaurant-and-truck-stop complex, was burn-
ing fiercely-one fire truck was spraying surrounding fuel pumps
with water to prevent any massive explosions. Several hundred
feet from the edge of the area a knot of police cars and an
ambulance had pulled off the highway and encircled several dark
objects lying in the charred sand.
"That's it," McLanahan shouted, not bothering to use the
helicopter's interphone. "Set it down there."
The chopper pilot nodded, spoke briefly on the radio, then
turned to Brad Elliott. "Sir, I can't touch down-Ive got wheels
instead of skids. I'd sink up to the fuselage in that mess-"
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 185
"Then hover and drop me off," McLanahan shouted.
"The medevac helicopter is only a few seconds from-"
"I don't give a damn, take me down there. Now. " Elliott
nodded to the pilot, and the chopper pilot reluctantly circled the
area once, then set the helicopter in a gentle hover, wheels up,
only a few inches from the ground. McLanahan leaped out the
side door and ran through the burning debris and gasoline-fired
desert to the patrol cars.
It was obvious that Wendy Tork McLanahan had been under
her parachute only a few seconds before hitting ground; the ejec-
tion seat was just a few yards away. Wendy was lying on her
side, seemingly buried in the dirt and blackened sand, her half-
burned parachute trailing behind her. Her flight suit, gloves, face
and hair were black from the heat and falling debris-from the
air she had looked like another burnt piece of the dead B-52
bomber. Her helmet and one boot were nowhere to be seen-
they were usually lost during ejection unless secured uncom-
fortably tight during the mission. Her left leg was twisted
underneath her body, her left shoulder, half buried in the dirt,
appeared to be broken or at least separated.
TWo Nevada State Troopers were maneuvering a spine board
into place when McLanahan ran over to them. He dropped to
his knees in front of her.
"You from the base?" one of the troopers asked McLanahan.
Their voices were muffled by surgical masks.
"Yes . . . "
"What the hell hit out here? A nuke?"
"An aircraft."
They had dug a trench behind Wendy's back and were moving
the board along her back. Patrick carefully swept bits and pieces
of metal off Wendy's face. A few stuck fast, and pain shot
through his own body, as if he was feeling the pain for her, with
her.
"Get with it," one of the troopers yelled, "grab those straps
and pass them over." They routed several thick straps under
Wendy's body, and Patrick carefully passed them back through
the brackets on the side of the board. They tightened the straps
until Wendy's back was tight against the board. Several wider
stra s were secured over her forehead and chin, a cervical collar
@p
placed around her neck, her head immobilized on the board as
186 DAIZ BROWN
well. The troopers began working to free and immobilize her
legs as the medevac helicopter touched down a few yards away.
Let the paramedics in there, pal,." the troopers told Patrick,
pulling him up and away from Wendy. Three paramedics rushed
over. In moments they had oxygen, a respirator and electronic
vital-sign monitors in operation. They finished securing thick
plastic splints on her legs, placed her on a gurney and carried
her to the helicopter. Patrick ran over with the gurney but was
pushed away.
" No room. We've got more injured to pick up from the truck
stop." The doors closed, the helicopter jumped skyward and
was quickly out of sight.
Patrick's leg felt ready to buckle . . . one survivor out of a
crew of seven. He'd seen the entire crew alive and well not an
hour earlier. Wendy . . . his last thought of her was the thumbs-
up she'd given him before heading out to the crew bus. Piece of
cake, she had said.
Another aircraft appeared out of the smoke-obscured sky, not
another helicopter. Resembling a remodeled JC.-130 transport,
the CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport swooped down out of the
sky barely a hundred feet above the ground. Suddenly, with a
roar of turboprop engines, the engine pods on the wing-tips be-
gan to tilt upward until the blades were horizontal. The aircraft
then began a soft helicopter-like vertical descent, landing only
yards from Patrick.
The rear cargo doors on the Osprey popped out, disgorging a
dozen heavily armed security troops in full combat gear and
backpacks, along with an M113 armored combat vehicle. The
M113 rolled off toward route 95, and the guards began to station
themselves a hundred yards apart along the perimeter of the
Megafortress' impact area.
"Patrick He turned at the sound of his name. Hal Briggs
was standing over him, Uzi submachine gun in hand. He was
wearing a Kevlar helmet with a one-piece communications head-
set in place. Now he dropped down beside Patrick and mo
ved
his face closer to his so they could talk over the roar of the
Osprey's rotor-props. "You okay?"
:'Wendy . . . "
'I heard, I'm glad she made it out," Briggs shouted. "They're
taking her downtown to the bum unit . . . she'll be okay, they
think.
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 187
"Unbelievable ... it was James, Patrick muttered. "Stole
DreamStar, shot down Old Dog .
"We gotta get you out of here. I'm securing the crash site.
The general is assembling an investigation unit. He wants you
to help him set it up."
"Investigation unit? What about DreamStar? James is getting
away with DreamStar-"
"He's heading south, right into the F-15 interceptor unit out
of Tucson. They've got a squadron ready to shoot his ass down.
Now let's get going."
He helped McLanahan to his feet and led him to the open
cargo ramp at the rear of the Osprey. He was strapped in beside
Briggs at the flight-engineer's station.
"Headquarters building," Briggs radioed to the pilot. "Hel-
ipad one should be big enough for the Osprey--
"No," Patrick said. "I want to go to the hangar ramp. Right
now. "
"General Elliott is waiting-"
"I'm not going to supervise a bunch of guys crawling around
in the mud, putting little flags on chunks of metal and body
parts. We know what happened to the Megafortress-James shot
her down, he killed six people, he damn near killed my wife .
I want to go to the hangar ramp right now. That's an order. "
Briggs shook off his immediate surprise at Patrick calling
Wendy his wife. He pushed his boom microphone away from
his lips and bent closer to Patrick. "You know me better than
that. I take 'orders from Elliott, and sometimes not from him.
It's how I do my job. Tell me what you want and convince me
it's better than what the man with the four stars wants."
"Hal, believe me, DreamStar will blow right past the F-15s
out of Davis-Monthan."
"Eight jockeys in Eagle Squadron won't buy that."
"Listen, I've flown against DreamStar for a year. If DreamStar
has any more weapons on board, a whole air wing of F-15s
won't be able to bring him down. Even if he doesn't, James has
the skill and the hardware to evade them. Those pilots have never
seen DreamStar in action. If the F-15s can't bring him down
before he enters Mexican airspace, he'll lose them."
"So what are you going to-?" Briggs cut himself off. It
wasn't hard to figure out what McLanahan wanted to do--you're
gonna take Cheetah . . . ?"
188 DALE BROWN
It's the only fighter that can take on DreamStar head-to-
head. And JC. Powell is the only pilot that can do it. I want
Powell and Sergeant Butler to meet me at Hangar Four with a
fuel truck. If he can, I want Butler to get MMS out there with
missiles or at least some twenty-millimeter cannon shells."
"And then what? Chase him down? He's got a huge lead on
you, you won't stand a chance-"
"He's only got two hours' worth of fuel on board, maybe
less," Patrick said. "He's got to land it somewhere."
:'How the hell are you supposed to know where?"
'Those air defense units will be tracking him. They'll be able
to pinpoint his location, even three or four hundred miles into
Mexico. If he tries to land we'll know about it. And unless he's
removed or deactivated them, Cheetah has telemetry and track-
ing equipment on board that can direct us toward him. But we
need to act now, Hal. If we wait he could get clean away. The
Mexicans aren't going to be much help. They don't exactly love
us anymore."
Briggs paused. McLanahan was obviously beside himself over
the crash, and about Wendy-did he say his wifie?-but what he
was saying did make sense. If Dreamland's security forces
couldn't stop DreamStar, there seemed little chance that a squad-
ron of Air Force reservists from Arizona could do it.
Hal looked at Patrick. "You said your wife?"
"We were married two days ago. We were going to tell ev-
erybody tonight." They were both silent for a moment, then
Patrick asked: "How about it, Hal?"
Briggs thought about it a few moments longer, then nodded.
"Hey, you're a colonel, Colonel." He reached over to the flight-
engineer's console, flicked a switch on the communications
panel, dialed in channel eight-the discrete channel for the flight-
line maintenance section. "I was told to deliver you a message
from the general and assist you in complying with those orders.
You can do anything you want. Talk on the radio, tell Butler to
do something. Look here, this radio was even on Butler's fre-
quency, you can plug in and talk to him any time you want."
Briggs swiveled his microphone back and hit the interphone
button. "Pilot, looks like I might have miscalculated. This Os-
prey is too big to land on the Headquarters helipad.-
"No, Major," the pilot radioed back. "It's plenty big enough.
I can-"
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 189
"I don't think we can chance it. Some pretty strong gusts
kicking up out there."
-It's clear and calm, Major Briggs."
"Better not chance it. Drop us off at the hangar ramp."
The pilot shrugged, keyed his radio button to request different
landing instructions.
McLanahan clicked on the radio. "Delta, this is Charlie on
channel eight. How copy?"
A few moments later Sqrgeant Ray Butl r replied: "This is
Delta mobile, sir. Go ahead."
McLanahan glanced at the navigation readout on the flight
engineer's console. "I'm fifteen minutes from touchdown on the
hangar ramp, Ray. Meet me at Hangar Four. Repeat, Hangar
Four in fifteen mike. Urgent. Over."
"Fifteen mike at Hangar Four. Copy that," Butler replied.
"Does this have to do with our recent fireworks here, sir?"
"It does, Delta. You may want to see that the ramp is clear
in front of Hangar Four. Over."
"I understand, Charlie. I'll be ready. Delta out."
TWelve minutes later the Osprey set down in the center of the
hangar ramp and carefully taxied over to Hangar Four. Mc-
Lanahan disembarked the cargo ramp and found an army of
maintenance trucks surrounding the hangar. Cheetah had al-
ready been rolled out of the hangar and a fuel line had been
hooked up to its single-point refueling receptacle on the left-side
service panel.
Sergeant Butler trotted up to a surprised McLanahan with a
sheaf of papers on a clipboard and a pen. "You mustve forgot-
ten to sign all these requests for maintenance support, sir," he
said with a straight face. "You made this request last week-
don't know how we missed getting all this signed off." Mc-
Lanahan nodded-obviously Butler wanted the same thing he
did, but he was still going to make sure his paperwork was
straight. "You wanted gas, long-range fuel tanks, five hundred
rounds uploaded with the M61112 cannon, two AIM-9R infrared
short
-range missiles and four AIM-120 medium-range active ra-
dar missiles. I got everything? Oh, you also wanted that video
camera taken off, didn't you? Good. Sign here."
McLanahan signed all the blocks. "Thank you, sir," Butler
said. "Sorry about the paperwork shuffle, sir. My mistake. Won't
190 DALE BROWN
happen again ... I trust you'll take care of any problems Gen-
eral Elliott might have with my ... procedures.
"Nothing wrong with your procedures, Sergeant."
Butler allowed a smile. "Have a good flight, and good hunt-
ing. We should be ready to go in twenty minutes, maybe less.
Captain Powell is over there. I'm very sorry about the Megafor-
tress, sir. Well, gotta go." Butler handed Patrick his flight hel-
met, saluted and trotted back to the maintenance supervisor's
truck.
JC. Powell met McLanahan halfway to Cheetah. He slapped
his hands together. "We're going hunting?"
"If I don't my get ass court-martialed first, yes."
"I heard Ken James stole the plane? I don't believe it. I always
suspected the guy was a little whacked out but not this . . . "
"He's more than a little whacked out. He's jumped head-first
into the shallow end, or something a lot worse."
"Such as?"
"Something Briggs said a few days ago . . . that his security
problems started when James arrived at Drearnland about a year
and a half ago. Briggs even suspected Wendy, who happened to
get here at the same time."
"You mean, you think Ken James was some kind of damn
spy? "
"It would answer a lot of questions, wouldn't it?"
"The guy's an Academy grad, passed every security screening
check I have-probably more. I'm only a ninety-day wonder and
I had to jump through some pretty small hoops-"
"I didn't say I had it all figured out. Maybe he was turned or
recruited after he got here, or he's being blackmailed. Maybe
I'm all wrong. But one thing's for sure-if the F-15s out of Davis-
Monthan don't get him, we will. I just hope I get a chance to
ask him why the hell he did it"-Patrick glanced at the AIM-
120 missiles being raised into position on Cheetah's wings-
"before we put one up his tailpipe.