by Dale Brown
the screaming its turbine engine was making. ','Shut that damned
thing off."
"Leave it on, Sergeant," Patrick told Butler.
Elliott jabbed a finger first at Powell, then at McLanahan.
"You, I knew you were crazy, but Patrick, you've gone round
the bend. James steals a jet so you guys want to steal one too?
All even up-?"
" Don't give me that, General. Don't tell me you don't un-
derstand what I'm trying to do."
DreamStar is long gone, Patrick," Elliott said. "It's up to
Air Defense to force it down or shoot it down. There's nothing
we can do-"
"Like hell, Brad - We're gonna bring down that sonofabitch.
The change that came over McLanahan was startling but
somehow familiar. This was the McLanahan, "Mac" not Pat-
rick, that he remembered from Bomb Comp and from the Old
Dog mission eight years earlier-cocky, headstrong, defiant. All
part of what had attracted him to the young navigator from the
very beginning. The guy was also a pro. He knew it and every-
one else knew it-he didn't sugarcoat with politics or bravado
or fake expertise. Some of that in his role as a project com-
mander had been kept under wraps, but the crash of the Old Dog
and seeing Wendy Tork-or rather as Hal had told him just mo-
ments ago, Wendy Tork McLanahan-lying half-dead in the ru-
ins of the Megafortress, had transformed him back to what he'd
always been . . .
"At max endurance the whole way he only had enough fuel
on board to go as far as Mexico City," McLanahan was saying.
"With that max alpha takeoff he made, plus all that combat
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 205
maneuvering, his range has to be much less. I say he's gotta be
on the ground somewhere . . . "
"So what can you do about it?" Elliott asked. "If he's on
the ground--
"Why steal DreamStar, knowing that he can fly for only a
few hundred miles before he has to abandon it? Unless he's
getting help, unless he planned to fly DreaniStar somewhere
where it can be refueled. And the nearest place obviously is
Mexico, where he was chased."
"You don't know that. What if he's just flipped out? What if
he just wanted to steal DreamStar for a damned joy ride? He's
gotten to be so close to that plane, he thinks he owns it."
"He shoots down the Megafortress for a joy ride?"
"ANTARES could have attacked the B-52," Powell broke
in. "It's possible for ANTARES to press an attack right after
an evasive maneuver-as part of an evasive maneuver. It could
have happened without James ever knowing about it-"
"Look, all this argument isn't getting us any closer to
DreamStar," McLanahan snapped. "Old Dog got shot down-
it happened. James has got DreamStar, that's a fact. And Chee-
tah is the jet that has any chance of bringing him down. We've
seen what's happened to the others. The instruments on Cheetah
can locate DreamStar, on the ground or in the air. If he's on the
ground I can direct our forces in on him. The Mexicans can yell
but I don't think they'd really try to stop us. If he's airborne we
can engage him. Either way we need to get our asses in the air.
Right now."
81hott hesitated. McLanahan might be upset but he was also
thinking pretty damn clearly. The question was: what would the
Joint Chiefs believe? Would they agree to let Cheetah, with
McLanahan on board, try to chase down DreamStar? Obviously
they had several squadrons of fighters out after him already, and
Cheetah was almost as unique and as classified as DrearnStar-
too valuable to risk in a major fur-ball dogfight. Would they
decide that everyone at Dreamland was nuts and close down the
place?
"I need authorization first," Elliott said. "I have to call
Washington-"
"There isn't time for that. Every minute we delay DrearnStar
slips further away from us."
"You can authorize Cheetah to launch at any time, sir, " Pow-
206 DALE BROWN
ell suggested. "Let us get airborne and headed south. When you
get authorization we'll continue the pursuit. If we stay on the
ground until you get the word we'll never catch him."
"This is an unauthorized mission. I don't own these air-
frames -the Joint Chiefs and the Penta on own them. They're
experimental aircraft, not operational interceptors. It's illegal as
hell for me to authorize you to take off and hunt down DreamStar
or any other aircraft. Can't you understand that?"
"Sure, and now let me try to make you understand, General.
I'm just not going to let any of that stop me from bringing down
DrearnStar. James is a thief, a killer and either a spy or a traitor.
I have the plane to bring him down. As far as I'm concerned all
the rest is bureaucratic horseshit that can wait until after
DreamStar has been destroyed or recaptured. Now, you can give
me authorization to launch, and you can get permission for us
to pursue DreamStar after we take off. You can play political
games if you want.,But we're leaving, sir, with or without your
blessing.
Which brought matters to Hal Briggs. Would he support his
commanding officer or his best friend?
"Don't even think about it, Patrick," he said. "I can't let
you go against the general's orders. Not now . . . II But then he
turned to Elliott: "Sir, I'm a member of this organization, and
I agree with Colonel McLanahan. Let him take off and chase
down that sonofabitch. It's the best plan we have."
"If I get authorization . . . "
Briggs took a deep breath. "Sir, you've never requested au-
thorization for half the plans you cook up. Building that Old
Dog ten years ago was unauthorized-you took a B-52 air-frame,
ripped off the parts and put the thing together in secret. That
whole B-1 bomber mission to Kavaznya was unauthorized.
Launching the Old Dog was unauthorized. Continuing the mis-
sion was technically unauthorized, and so was penetrating Soviet
airspace and attacking that laser installation. You did it, sir,
because it had to be done and you had the people and the equip-
ment to do it."
"This is different-"
"Why? Because it's the colonel doin' the rule-breaking and
not you? Let me make a wild guess here, sir-Colonel Mc-
Lanahan here is sort of a carbon copy of Bradley Elliott about
twenty years ago. He's ready to go out there and kick some butt,
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 207
just like you did more than once in your career. I read your bio,
General . . . " He rushed on, afraid if he stopped he'd lose his
nerve. "They stick a hot-shot ex-test squadron commander out
in some abandoned Air Force test base in Nowheresville, Ne-
vada. They tossed you out, right? You pissed someone off and
they stuck you in a hole in the wall in Nevada to get you out of
the way-"
"Hal, I'm trying to be patient but this isn't getting us any-
where-"
"But you wouldn't roll over and play dead, would you? You
&
nbsp; turned Nowheresville into Dreamland. The Pentagon started
tossing iffy projects your way. What the hell, sir, if the projects
failed you'd get the blame. You proved them wrong. You made
the projects work-and not always by following the book and
getting authorization-and you got the credit. Pretty soon every
new piece of military hardware went through Dreamland . . .
O@kay, now you're the man, General, and you're lookin' at the
new Bradley James Elliott-Patrick S. McLanahan. He's pullin'
the same shit you did twenty years ago."
Elliott knew that was right. He had been drawn to Mac
McLanahan from the start, not just because the guy was the best
navigator in the Air Force, but because they seemed so much
alike. He also knew he got a kick out of watching the transfor-
mation of Mac McLanahan-it was almost as if he was watching
a videotape of what had happened with him. It had taken a di-
saster for Patrick to come alive, to rise above the bureaucratic
morass. Now the real McLanahan had resurfaced, the one that
once treated a bomb run in Russia like nothing much more than
a late-night training flight in Idaho.
Elliott turned to McLanahan. "Mac, smoke that bastard.
Whatever it takes, do it."
Elliott barely had time to lower himself off the crew ladder
before Cheetah's left engine began to spin up to idle power.
When Briggs reached up to pull the ladder off, McLanahan
grabbed it.
"Thatwasquiteaspeech,Hal,"hesaidovertherisin whine
of the engines. 9
"I got a confession, buddy. I never read the old man's bio.
But I guess I hit pretty close to home. You hang around the guy
long enough, you learn a little about what goes on behind the
208 DALE BROWN
brass. Now get outta here and bring us back some rattlesnake
hide.
Over Ojito Airfield, central Mexico
Ten minutes later
DrearnStar's database on Ojito was accurate, except it failed to
account for at least a year's worth of unchecked vegetation. Mar-
aklov had set up a computerized instrument landing system in
Ojito, which used the database's field location, elevation and
information on surrounding terrain to draw a glidescope and lo-
calizer beam into the runway.
But Maraklov had to yank DreamStar away from tall strands
of dense trees off the approach end of the runway, and when he
reached the airport's coordinates themselves he could barely see
the runway through the weeds and junk scattered around. He
had no choice but to ignore the low fuel warnings and go missed-
approach on the field; then he adjusted his ILS for the obstruc_
tions and tried again. To use every available inch of pavement
he had to drop DreamStar over a stand of trees at almost a full
stall, applying power at the last moment to avoid crashing.
After touchdown he discovered that QJito was nowhere near
seven thousand feet long-another dense stand of trees and sev-
eral buildings rushed up to meet him from less than two thousand
feet away. Apparently a small corral and farm had been built on
the little-used runway to make it easier to load livestock onto
trucks, and the surrounding forest had been allowed to grow over
the rest of the airstrip.
Maraklov threw the vectored-thrust nozzles and louvers into
full reverse power, then hit the brakes. The left brake locked
its anti-skid system failed; it overheated and was quickly deac-
tivated by computerjust before it fused to the wheel. DreamStar
skidded hard right, and only the lightning-fast application of
thrust in the right directions kept the fighter on the narrow weed-
covered runway. The left wing crashed into several small, rick-
ety wooden buildings, sending chickens and pigs scattering.in
all directions. One of the small buildings burst into flames, ig-
nited by the heat from DreamStar's exhaust.
Maraklov gunned the engine. DrramStar leapt forward away
from the burning building seconds before the fire reached the
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 209
left wingtip. Scattering buildings in his jet exhaust, Maraklov
taxied back down the runway to the opposite end, turned and
aligned himself with the runway centerline, his engine idling. If
troops or olice came, he would have enough fuel to take off
p
and get two or three hundred feet before flame-out-enough to
nose over and crash DreamStar.
He activated the radio on Kramer's frequency. "Kramer,
what's your position?" he thought, and ANTARES transmitted
the query.
"Vstryetyemsah zahv dvah menootah, tovarisch, " Moffitt,
Kramer's assistant, replied. Maraklov wished there was a
Russian-translation computer in DrearnStar-once again he didn't
understand enou h of what Moffitt said.
9
This was going to be a major problem, Maraklov thought to
himself. They weren't in Russia yet, but even in Mexico they
were a hell of a lot closer to Moffitt's turf than Maraklov was.
He would have to deal with Moffitt and all the other Moffitts that
he'd meet up with-the ones that didn't trust him, the ones who'd
think he might have turned, the ones who envied his life in the
United States. He'd have to try to begin the transfon-nation back
to being a Russian right now.
"Yah . . . yah nye pahnyemahyo, " Maraklov thou ht halt-
9
ingly. Like many before him, he thought, Russian is hard. But
ANTARES did not transmit the Russian phrase, so Maraklov
had to answer, "Say again."
"Oh, excuse me, Captain James"-Moffitt was his usual
charming self-"I forgot you do not speak Russian any more.
Our ETA is two minutes."
Maraklov had no time to think about Moffitt. Several villagers
had begun to appear at the opposite end of the airstrip. Some
went to work putting out the fires to their outbuildings; others
pointed at DreamStar. Maraklov couldn't tell if any were car-
rying weapons but the safe assumption would be that they were
armed and shouldn't be allowed to approach, even though they
looked like backwoods villagers . . .
Now a large dark-green truck rumbled up the road leading to
the tiny airstrip, about a dozen men piled in and slowly started
down the runway toward DrearnStar. So much for timid villag-
ers,
Maraklov locked the right and the emergency brakes, set the
engine louvers on full reverse, and advanced the throttle. A huge
210 DALE BROWN
cloud of dust rolled up from the airstrip and almost covered the
advancing truck. The truck stopped, then several villagers
jumped out and ran over to the sides of the runway. This time
Maraklov could see rifles and shotguns. The truck then began
advancing slowly toward him, the villagers with rifles advancing
on both sides.
Maraklov created another dust cloud to warn them away. It
wasn't working. He moved the louvers back to takeoff position.
The truck was closer than a thousand feet now-he wouldn't
make it if he a
ttempted a takeoff over the truck even if his wings
weren't damaged. There was no way in hell he'd risk losing
control of DreamStar to these characters. If these guys came any
closer . . . well, he'd survived fighters, surface-to-air missiles,
anti-aircraft artillery, the best of America's defense arsenals.
Damned if he and his plane were going to give up to a bunch of
peasants in Mexico armed with shotguns.
The villagers were about a hundred yards away when a thun-
derous roar echoed through the mountainous valley, drowning
out the sound of DreamStar's engines. Suddenly the airfield
erupted in clouds of dust and the crackle of machine-gun fire.
The tree-line on either side of the strip was strafed with heavy-
caliber machine-gun fire, whipping the trees and branches as if
they were in the grip of a hurricane. Not surprisingly the armed
villagers bolted from the airstrip, and soon the source of the
uproar hove into view in the center of the airstrip.
Maraklov was impressed. It was a huge Boeing CH-47 Chi-
nook transport helicopter, an old American twin-rotor job that
had to be at least forty years old. This veteran chopper, belching
smoke that could be seen for miles, was ready for action-with
a door-gunner on each side of the helicopter firing a gyro-
stabilized twenty-millimeter gun, it was more a gunship than a
trash-hauler. Its huge eight-bladed rotors, each some one hun-
dred feet in diameter, barely made it through the trees and brush.
The KGB had at least pulled out all stops to make sure DreamStar
got out of the U. intact-no sooner had the monster landed
than twelve heavily armed men rushed out of the rear-cargo
ramp. TWo hit the area where the burning buildings smoldered,
the fires extinguished by the downwash of the chopper's huge
rotors; the rest split up on either side of the chopper and began
to secure the perimeter of the airstrip. And then from the cargo
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 211
hold of the chopper came Kramer and Moffitt riding aboard a
small black-and-green fuel truck.
As Maraklov opened the canopy, a crew from the chopper
brought a ladder up to the side for Kramer. Maraklov ordered