by Dale Brown
of support you can give them. They'll want to know their hus-
bands or friends or sons or daughters didn't die for nothing.
218 DALE BROWN
Elliott turned to Briggs. "How the hell did you get so smart?"
"Watchin' you, General. I-- Briggs stopped and listened
intently on his communications earpiece. "Message coming in
from the Joint Chiefs. AWACS and the Mexican government are
reporting another unauthorized airspace intrusion by Powell and
McLanahan in Storm Zero One. JCS want you to stand by for a
secure video conference at five past the hour.
"Here's where it hits the fan, Hal," Elliott said. "The Pen-
tagon probably thinks I've flipped out, they'll relieve me from
command--
:'There was nothing you could have done-"
'There was everything I could have done. Like I could have
screened our test pilots better, I could have secured the flight
line better, I could have forbidden Ormack to engage DreamStar.
It'll probably turn out I never should have let Cheetah go after
DreamStar.
"They can't hang you for something you had no control over.
Elliott sat quietly for a few moments, then: "As long as I've
got control, I'm going to use it." He picked up the direct line
to the command post controller. "It's something I should have
done from the beginning."
:'You're going to recall McLanahan and Powell?"
'I've made too many mistakes. I've got a responsibility here,
and I'm taking charge right now."
Powell had taken Cheetah down from forty thousand feet
to one thousand feet and just below the speed of sound as they
approached the area where DreamStar's data-signal indicated its
position.
. "Showing thirty miles to intercept," McLanahan said, read-
ing the telemetry data being received from DreamStar's auto-
matic encoders. "Still showing him on the ground but with
engines running."
:'Can you get a fix on his position?"
'Already got it," McLanahan said. "I don't show any Mex-
ican airfields on my charts, but there're probably a lot of them
around here. He . . . goddamn, just lost the data-signal."
"Which means he's got help," said. "Someone must
have deactivated the data-transmitter for him." JC. took a firm
grip on his stick and throttles, experimentally shaking the stick
to help himself concentrate-he was amazed at the extra amount
of agility Cheetah demonstrated without the heavy camera on
the spine. "Twenty miles. Stand by. Throttles coming to eighty
percent. " Slowly Powell brought the throttles out of military
power and to the lower power setting.
"Give me a good clearing turn in each direction so I can get
a look," Patrick said. "I'll call the target, then we'll come back
around and try for a strafing run."
"Guns coming on," said He hit the voice-recognition
computer button: "Arm cannon."
"Warning, cannon armed, Ax hundred rounds remaining,
the computer replied.
"Set attack mode strafe," ordered.
"Strafe mode enabled. " A laser-drawn crosshair reticle ap-
peared on 's windscreen, and weapon- and altitude-waming
readouts appeared near the reticle. Adjusted for airspeed, winds
and drift by the computer and attack radar, the reticle would
position itself where the bullets from Cheetah's cannon would
impact, no matter how Cheetah moved through the air. In strafe
mode could select a ground target and the computer would
direct the pilot which way to fly to keep the reticle centered on
the target. It would also warn of terrain or other obstacles and
warn when the ammunition count was getting low.
"Cannon's on-line," told McLanahan.
"Ten miles out." McLanahan now began to transition to vi-
sual, looking out the canopy as he could, scanning the rocks and
scrub-forested hills ahead for an airfield. The inertial navigator
and flight director could fly Cheetah to within sixty feet of a
waypoint, but if the airstrip's coordinates in the database were
not perfect they could miss the field. And in this dense, hilly
terrain it was very possible to fly as close as a few hundred yards
of the airstrip and not see it.
"Five miles." made S-tums around the flight path, bank-
ing sharply up without turning so Patrick and he could get a
clear look all around the aircraft for the airfield, including under
the belly. There were lots of clearings, even several that looked
like airstrips, but in the few moments they had at each, they saw
no aircraft.
"DreamStar could be hidden," said. "They've had
time-"
"We'll find it."
220 DALE BROWN
"We'll be able to loiter only a few minutes before we have to
start back-"
'Just look for the damned-there it is, eleven o'clock low ...
Cheetah was in a steep left bank when Patrick called the air-
strip. Powell saw it immediately. It was a narrow clearing on
top of a small plateau, but it was wide enough through the trees
so that the edges of the tarmac could be seen. It was also difficult
to miss the huge black-and-green helicopter sitting in the middle
of the clearing.
"A chopper. They brought in a chopper," McLanahan called
out. "If we can hit that Chinook, keep it from taking off-
Hang on." pulled hard, using Cheetah's large canards
to pull the nose hard-left over to the helicopter in the clearing.
Target lock." The aiming reticle began to rotate. As the heli-
copter moved into the center of the reticle Powell said --now!"
to complete the command.
"Target locked, " the computer answered. A small square ap-
peared in the center of the reticle indicating that the firing com-
puter was now aimed and locked onto the helicopter, and a large
cross, resembling the glideslope-azimuth flight director of an
instrument landing system, interposed itself on the screen. "Fif-
teen seconds tofiring range, six hundred rounds remaining . . .
caution, search radar, twelve o'clock. "
" DreamStar," Powell said. "His search radar." As he fin-
ished saying it the search symbol on the widescreen changed to
a batwing symbol.
"Warning, radar weapon track, twelve o'clock, " the com-
puter announced.
"He's got us," McLanahan said. "But we got him first .
"Disconnect." The computer-synthesized voice of Maraklov
boomed in Kramer's headset. "Clear the area. We've been spot-
ted. Aircraft to the east!"
Kramer, still standing on top of the crew ladder during the
refueling and rearming procedure, turned and searched the ho-
rizon behind him. He saw it immediately, bearing down on them.
A single F-15 fighter, dark gray, larger than DreamStar. Even
from this distance he could see the missiles hanging on the wings.
"Skaryehyeh, " Kramer shouted to the ground crewmen.
Disconnect the fuel lines, move that fuel truck aside, launch
the helicopter, move." He jumped off the ladder, pulled it free
and threw it into the bushes beside the air
strip. The canopy
closed with a bang. A crewman had disconnected the fuel line from the single-point refueling receptacle before the truck's pump was shut off, and a geyser of jet fuel erupted near DreamStar's
front landing gear.
Cheetah. As Maraklov issued the mental command to begin
the start-sequence and prepare DreamStar for flight he knew it
had to be Cheetah. He didn't need to analyze the radar emissions
or flight parameters. He could even guess who was on board:
Powell and McLanahan. Only those two would be crazy enough
to go on a search-and-destroy mission alone-but that matched
Powell's cowboy attitude and McLanahan's emotional approach.
They should have brought a dozen F-15 Strike Eagles or FB-111
bombers along for ground attack and carpet-bomb the area, plus
another dozen fighters for backup. They were probably acting
against orders-hell, they might be in as much trouble right now
as he was. But he still had a chance to escape if he could get off
the ground in time.
Maraklov closed the service panel and began to retract the
cannon back into its bay at the same time that he activated the
cannon and checked the system. The Soviet-make ammunition
fed through the chamber-then suddenly jammed. It might have
been the same caliber ammunition but the feed mechanisms were
barely compatible. Immediately the cannon performed an auto-
clear, which reversed the belt feed, ejected the cartridges where
the jam had occurred and re-fed the belt, and this time the one-
inch-diameter cartridges fed properly.
One last check as the engines quickly revved to full power.
Two hundred rounds of ammunition had been loaded. They also
had managed to onload full fuel in the body tanks and three-
quarter fuel in the wings, about forty thousand pounds of it. It
was enough for the seven-hundred-mile flight to Nicaragua at
normal cruise speeds but not enough if he had to mix it up with
Cheetah. This was not the time or place to make a stand-the
order of the day was Run Like Hell Fight Only If Cornered . . .
The huge blades of the supply helicopter began to turn just as
several loud sharp cracks reverberated off the canopy. Dust and
concrete flew near the aft-empennage of the chopper, and smoke
began to billow out of the aft rotor. But the main rotor continued
to spool up. The fuel truck originally high-tailing it for the cargo
222 DALE BROWN
ramp was waved aside and ordered into the tree line out of the
way.
Maraklov set DreamStar's wings to their maximum high-lift
then had the computers check the takeoff performance. Barel;
enough. The computer said two thousand three hundred feet to
clear the seventy-foot trees; there were only about fifteen hun-
dred available. Maraklov activated the UHF radio on the discrete
KGB frequency: "Kramer, this is DreamStar. Order your men
to clear those buildings off the end of the airstrip. I need more
runway for takeoff."
There was no reply, but soon several soldiers ran out of the
chopper's cargo bay toward the end of the airstrip and a few
moments later the fuel truck followed. They used the fuel truck
to push the burned-out buildings into the tree line. Several of
the Soviet soldiers fell, and others began firing into the trees-
apparently there were still Mexican villagers in the forest sur-
rounding the airstrip. The KGB soldiers would take care of
them . . .
"Five hundred fifty rounds remaining, " the computer an-
nounced. Cheetah swooped over the trees, so close Patrick
thought they had flown between a few of them. "Low altitude t
warning . . . "
Thanks for nothing, thought. I only had the shot for a
few seconds.
"Looks like that Chinook has some heavy guns on the side,"
McLanahan said. "Better hit 'em from a different angle."
banked sharply left, started a hard left turn, steering to
put himself at a ninety-degree angle to his first strafing run to
hit the helicopter from the tail. "Did you see DreamStar?"
"Behind the helicopter about a hundred yards," McLanahan
said. "'He's right at the north end of the airstrip, almost under
the trees."
"Had a fifty-fifty chance and blew it," said angrily. "I
won't be able to hit him from this direction but if I can get
another good shot at that helicopter while it's on the ground it
at least should block the runway enough to keep DreamStar from
lifting off.
Powell shallowed out his bank angle to allow himself more
time to extend his distance from the airstrip. But by the time he
had rolled out on the flight director they saw a dark, massive
apparition slowly rise out of the trees, trailing thick clouds of
smoke.
"It's the damn helicopter-"
hit the voice-command button, forced his voice to be
steady: "Set attack mode infrared missile. Arm one missile."
The Sidewinder missile's aiming reticle appeared on the wind-
screen centered on the slow-moving helicopter, and almost im-
mediately the missile signaled that its infrared seeker-head had
locked onto the helicopter's huge jet engines. Before the com-
puter could acknowledge his commands Powell had punched the
missile-launch button on his control stick.
"Infrared missile launch. " Less than three miles away, the
Sidewinder could hardly miss . . . the entire rotor and top half
of the huge helicopter disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire
as the hulking machine rolled hard to the left and dropped into
the trees. Powell and McLanahan were so close to the helicopter
on impact that they could see the men inside . . .
But the helicopter crashed clear of the tiny airstrip. The run-
way was open.
"Damn it. Set attack mode strafe. Arm cannon." McLanahan
grabbed hold of the handlebars as rolled Cheetah hard up
and right, struggling to get back into firing position. They rolled
into a wings-level steep descent on the attack flight director,
which was still locked in strafing mode onto the spot where
DreamStar had been parked. It took a few precious seconds for
Powell to readjust his eyes. When he did he saw DreamStar
rolling down the runway. He tried to push Cheetah's nose down
and get off a few quick bursts, but his rate of descent was too
steep and the flight director was ordering him to climb before
he got too low. The few rounds he did get off impacted on the
spot DreamStar had vacated just seconds earlier.
"I missed, he's getting away."
The instant the hulking transport helicopter lifted off, Maraklov
forgot about the fuel truck, the buildings on the runway, every-
thing except the takeoff. He saw the Sidewinder plow into the
chopper, saw the machine explode and crash into the forest. But
his attention was on the takeoff-until he saw Cheetah bearing
traight down at him, the F- 15 fighter so large it cast a shadow
on Maraklov's cockpit. How could he miss?
The feeling of imminent death was so strong that the AN-
224
DALE BROWN
TARES interface almost shut down out of sheer panic. But Mar-
aklov's last commands were executed, and DreamStAr's turbofan
engine was at full afterburning thrust and the brakes were off.
He expected the rounds from Cheetah's M61B2 gun to tear
through his canopy any second-then, almost as quickly, he re-
alized that Cheetah had overshot. His guns were firing but his
nose was coming up too fast and so the shells were hitting be-
hind him. He also caught a glimpse of KGB soldiers firing into
the sky, futilely trying to shoot down Cheetah with AK-47 rifles.
Maraklov considered using the same takeoff trick he had used back
at Dreamland, but the wings would not respond to the wingtip back-
twisting that had worked, so well before. The pile of broken and
burning buildings at the end of the runway rushed forward. Smoke
from the destroyed cargo helicopter obscured his vision, so that he
could not watch the wall of green heading straight at him ...
. . .DreaniStar's landing gear left the runway less than a hun-
dred feet from the hastily cleared end of the runway, and the
wheels were just tucking themselves into their wells when
DreamStar cleared the trees. Airborne once again, Maraklov
made a hard turn to the southeast, stayed in full afterburner,
pushed DreamStar's nose down to build airspeed and hugged the
rugged mountain ridges as close as possible. ANTARES had
computed several attack scenarios, but Maraklov overrode all of
them. For now escape was his best defense.
McLanahan was holding onto the canopy sill, straining against
the crushing G-forces to look between Cheetah's twin vertical
stabilizers.
"I see him, " he called out. "He made it off, he's staying low .
Powell continued his hard turn, executing a one-hundred-
eighty-degree turn and thrusting his nose toward the rugged
mountain foothills. Once they were rolled in McLanahan checked
his radar screen. "Radar contact, JC., twelve o'clock low-I've
got radar lock. Get him!"
Powell hit the voice-recognition computer-button. "Set attack
mode radar missile. Arm one radar missile."