by Dale Brown
fire the gun to the north, bracket the area. Quickly."
But the radio operator froze, gaping out the windows to the
north across the runway. Tret'yak grabbed the microphone and
was about to push the man out of the way when he too looked
up and followed the man's stare.
The dark shape roared out of the jungle surrounding Sebaco
like some sort of prehistoric bird, swooping so low over the trees
that it appeared to be skimming the tops, the wing vortices and
engine thrust snapping branches and parting the forest. When it
cleared the trees it dropped even lower, not more than twenty
or thirty meters above ground. It was headed right for the control
tower, aiming its pointed nose at a spot, it seemed, right be-
tween Tret'yak's eyes.
In rapid succession four dark streaks arced away from the
bomber's belly. The first headed straight ahead, plowing into
the center of Sebaco's two-kilometer runway. The explosion ob-
scured the bomber for several seconds until the behemoth crashed
through the column of smoke, bearing down on the control
tower.
A second missile missed the control tower by a few meters,
flew by and hit a building somewhere behind the tower-Tret'yak
immediately thought of his headquarters building a few hundred
meters directly in that weapon's path. The missiles seemed to-
be massive bombs with wings, more flying whales than missiles.
A third and forth explosion rocked the hangars off to Tret'yak's
left, blowing out the hangar doors, collapsing both buildings and
scattering pieces of steel and concrete in all directions. Second-
ary explosions blew the roofs off another hangar, adding more
fuel to the fires now burning out of control all along the flight
line.
The massive aircraft then executed an impossibly tight left
turn toward the southeast. The roar of the bomber's engines was
so great that it threatened to collapse the control tower. As it
banked away, its broad jet-black fuselage missing the tower by
only a dozen meters, the remaining glass panels exploded as if
grenades had been set off inside the room. Tret'yak was thrown
off his feet, blinded and deafened by the hurricane-like after-
math. Tables, books, chairs and pieces of equipment flew every-
where.
Tret'yak could not move for several moments, and even
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 415
though he was awake and alert he felt as if he had been dis-
membered. Finally he shook off the piles of debris on his back
and struggled to his feet. The control tower was beginning to
fill with smoke as the fires in the nearby hangars intensified;
the underground fuel pits, containing over forty thousand deca-
liters of jet fuel, were in danger unless the fires could be
contained.
He helped his men to their feet and toward the exits as he
surveyed what he could see of his airbase. The runway had
one huge crater in the center, leaving about nine hundred me-
ters usable on either side of the crater-not enough to recover
the MiG-23s. It would take a day to repair it; the fighters
would have to land at Sandino International, Bluefields or
Puerto Cabezas. The taxiway was destroyed and the parking
ramp was unusable. Two fifty-seven-millimeter guns and one
SA-8 missile site out of commission-the SA-10 site in the
Rio Turna valley had apparently been destroyed as well. Not
to mention the one MiG-23 fighter destroyed right after take-
off. Tret'yak checked the area behind the tower and found the
second American glide-bomb had hit the roof of the under-
ground headquarters building, but caused no apparent serious
damage or fire.
One aircraft had done all this. He had planned on taking
on the combined might of an American carrier air group, and
one bomber had wiped out all his defenses in less than ten
minutes.
He needed to transmit a report as soon as possible back
to Moscow. The stolen American fighter was safe, but the
Americans had just raised the price of keeping it to an all-
time high.
The flight out of Nicaragua was no cakewalk for the Megafor-
tress and her crew, but the loss of all ground-controlled intercept
capability over Nicaragua and the loss of contact with Sebaco
seemed to take the fight out of the Nicaraguan MiG pilots. One
had been destroyed by Stinger fire from the Megafortress as it
tried to tail-chase the bomber at low altitude, and another was
damaged by a near-miss from one of Cheetah's dogfighting AIM-
132 missiles; the rest turned around and headed for Sandino
International Airport. Powell and McLanahan followed the B-52
416 DAIE BROWN
out over the Caribbean until it was picked up by the E-5 AWACS
radar plan orbiting over the Cayman Islands.
"First things first," Bradley Elliott said when secure com-
munications with the strike formation had been established.
"Patrick, Wendy's out of surgery. She's still officially in critical
condition. I can't get any other information out of the hospital
staff. We could airlift you from Georgetown and have you in San
Antonio in four hours-"
"No . . . as long as she's being taken care of. I'm where I
need to be right now."
"We've got other back-seaters for Powell--
"I am Powell's back-seater. Maraklov's gotta break out sooner
or later and I have to be there when he does. Oh hell, of course
Id like to go to her, but I also know I can't do her any good.
Not now. And I've got more hours in Cheetah than anyone else.
I'm the only one familiar enough with her systems to take her
into combat. If DreaniStar got away while I was in Texas it
would be a disaster for us all. And if I know Wendy, she'd kill
me if I sat around her bedside while . . . well, you know what
I mean."
Aboard the E-5 AWACS, Elliott still considered pulling
McLanahan, but not because of Wendy. His near-fixation on
evening it up with Maraklov had come perilously close to per-
sonal, and soldiers on a vendetta made poor fighters. Still, he
was right, he was the best-qualified crewman for Cheetah, and
only Cheetah could hope to take on DreamStar in air-to-air com-
bat. The time to have the first team on the line was right now,
when the chances of DreamStar leaving Nicaragua were most
likely . . .
"All right, Patrick," Elliott said. "Agreed, at least for now.
Break. Kelvin, job well done to you and your crew. Radar shows
your tail is clear. Climb to flight level two-six-zero. Your tanker
is orbiting over Grand Cayman at two-seven-zero. Everyone
okay? "
"Affirmative," Carter replied on the scrambled UHF chan-
nel. "We're beat but unhurt. We might have picked up some
blast damage from the last run we did-we were a little close to
the explosion when we dropped a Striker on the runway, and
with our bay doors open we might have picked up some fuel
leaks-but we should be able to recover in Dreamland. Id like
DAY
OF THE CHEETAH 417
to have a tanker meet us over the CONUS in case we have a
leaking aft body tank."
"We'll work on that for you right away," Elliott said.
"While you're at it," Cheshire cut in, "maybe you can get
us clearance to land in Georgetown for a few days - "
"I thought of that, Nancy," Elliott replied, "but we had a
little trouble convincing the government to let the F-16s, the
KC-10s and the AWACS in-a Buff would have been out of the
question. Besides, technically the Megafortress Plus is still clas-
sified. But we can arrange a short TDY for a debriefing, I think.
Break. , Patrick, any problems with Cheetah?"
"We're in the green," Patrick told him. "I just wish our late
friend had showed for the party."
"It was a long shot, Patrick," Elliott said. "There's fifty-
thousand square miles of nothing in Nicaragua where they could
have hidden DreamStar. We've intercepted radio traffic that
seems to indicate it might be in Puerto Cabezas but we're not
positive.
"It's worth a look."
"We're not loaded for air-to-mud, Patrick," cut in.
"There's nothing we can do to him except wave as we fly by.
Besides, we'd fly right into the teeth of that SA-15 Atkins said
was there."
"We've done more than the White House wanted to authorize.
We'll maintain our surveillance in case they try to fly DreaniStar
out. We're changing your flight plan, though, because of this
new intelligence," Elliott continued. "We've secured landing
rights at Puerto Lempira, a Honduran army base seventy miles
north of Puerto Cabezas-that was the original base for this op-
eration until we got landing rights in the Cayman Islands. We're
trying to get authorization now from the White House to set up
a photo-run at Puerto Cabezas like the one you did on Sebaco.
We've got fuel and weapons being airlifted there to meet you.
It's not Georgetown but you'll be in position in case DreamStar
tries to make another run for it."
"Sounds good," McLanahan said. "I want to be there when
he tries to get away again."
A
418 DALE BROWN
The Kremlin, Moscow, USSR
Monday, 22 June 1996, 0932 EET (0132 EDT)
Outside the foreboding walls of the Kremlin the bright, clear
summer morning belied the internal struggle taking place. There,
two of the government's most powerful men were sitting across
from each other, locked in a silent combat.
The Chief of Staff of the Soviet military, General Cherkov,
had just delivered a briefing to the General Secretary and Vla-
dimir Kalinin, Chief of the KGB. The General Secretary nodded
to Cherkov, who was unsure whether or not he had just been
directed to leave; he kept his seat, with no objections from the
two principals with him.
"I disagree with General Cherkov's analysis of the informa-
tion provided from General Tret'yak," Kalinin said. "He says
that the American experimental fighter is safe in hiding at Puerto
Cabezas, guarded by both KGB and Nicaraguan troops, but then
he says that the aircraft is in danger. That is inconsistent.
Tret'yak is understandably shaken after sustaining the Ameri-
cans' preemptive attack-"
"Your rhetoric is the only thing that is inconsistent here,
Kalinin," the General Secretary said. "The Americans de-
stroyed one of our military bases, shot down two of our fight-
ers and decimated our defenses. Yet you can sit there and say
your plan is progressing well and that there is no cause for
alarm? "
"We won't know the true extent -of the damage for several
hours," Kalinin hedged. "But what happens to Sebaco is inel-
evant to our mission. The XF-34 is safe, it is still combat ready
and can make the flight to Ramenskoye. In two hours, we will
begin launching escort aircraft from Cuba, and the decoy aircraft
from Managua will make their way north to-"
"Your plan has failed, Vladimir," the General Secretary said.
"Admit it before any more men are killed and we lose any more
aircraft or bases. " He shook his head. "It is only a matter of
time before they discover the fighter in this, this Puerto Cabezas
place. Then they will proceed to destroy that airfield-- he
scanned the report, tossing it away with a dramatic flourish-
II with one bomber. One bomber. What do we do against one of
their aircraft carriers or a squadron of these bombers?"
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 419
"The attack on Sebaco was expected," Kalinin argued. "That
was the reason why we moved the fighter out of there. Tret'yak
described some sort of new bomber that carried defense-
suppression weapons as well as air-to-ground weapons, and it
possibly carried air-to-air-" Kalinin suddenly stopped. "The
kryepahst ezometyelna," he said half-aloud.
"The what?"
"The Megafortress project," Kalinin said. "The highly mod-
ified B-52 bomber developed in the Nevada research Area, the
same place where the XF-34 was built. The American Air Force
general, Bradley Elliott, flew a Megafortress against our strategic-
defense laser-installation at Kavaznya eight years ago; it carried
the same unusual mix of weapons as the bomber that attacked
Sebaco. It must have been a Megafortress they used to beat
down our defenses and attack Sebaco. " Kalinin slapped a hand
on the conference table, muttering to himself. "Parazetyel'na!
Vilizherchev said he met Elliott in Washington at the White
House. We should have known Elliott would be called on to
formulate an attack plan-"
"You mean you knew the man who would direct this attack?"
the General Secretary interrupted, staring at the KGB chief.
"You knew about this meeting-which did not appear in your
report or Vilizherchev's report-and you knew that this Elliott
would be involved with the planning yet you failed to anticipate
the attack and failed to take actions to protect our base from
attack. I am ending this craziness-"
"You can't stop it now-all the forces are in place and
ready- I I
"Then order them to stand down," the General Secretary said.
"Kalinin, how much more do you want? The Americans want
their fighter back, and as long as the aircraft is in Central Arner-
icalthey have the resources to offset every effort we make to
bring it out."
"One more attempt," Kalinin said. His voice softened, and
he opened his hands, virtually pleading. "I ask for one more
try. All our forces are in readiness, it can begin in two hours .
"Request denied."
"If our aircraft are detected and intercepted I will order them
to tum around and return to Nicaragua without a battle," Kalinin
said. "But if we surround the XF-34 with fighter aircraft, even
420 DALE BROWN
if the formation is detected I think the Americans will have no
choice but to allow us to proceed."
"I disagree," Cherkov put in. "I believe the Americans would
attack the formation. Even if they did
n't openly attack, which
they did not do over the Caribbean on your first attempt to smug-
gle the XF-34 out of Nicaragua, there is too much chance for
disaster. An air battle would almost certainly result. I cannot
endorse such an operation-"
"You'd do anything to save your pension and yourdacha .
"Silence, Kalinin.
"Your defense of me is not necessary, sir," Cherkov said.
"Actions speak louder than words and young Kalinin's actions
in this operation prove what sort of tactician he is."
"It was not my pilot that tried to ram the American fighters,"
Kalinin said quickly. "It was not my ineffective pilots that could
not defeat inferior American forces." Kalinin chose not to men-
tion that the air-defense troops- around Sebaco were all KGB.
Cherkov did not bring it up either.
Kalinin turned to the General Secretary, trying to put on his
best humble, earnest face. "Then allow me to bring the fighter
out on one of our carriers, sir. A Kiev-class cruiser with escorts
can be brought from Havana to Puerto Cabezas within the hour.
The XF-34 can easily land on one, and the Americans would
not dare attack a carrier .
"But one of these Megafortress bombers could send a few of
the carrier's escorts to the bottom of the Caribbean," the Gen-
eral Secretary said. "Vladimir, I have lost count of the number
of fighters, transports, men and equipment we have lost trying
to bring that fighter out of Nicaragua. Even if what you say is
true-if this DreamStar fighter is worth ten of our front-line
fighters-we are definitely on the minus side of the ledger. We
have lost six MiG fighters along with the Ilyushin radar plane,
which I understand is worth ten or twenty fighters, plus the trans-
port helicopter and its men and crew in Mexico. If we then lost
a seven-thousand-metric-ton capital ship to an American attack,
we would all be deposed by the Politburo. That could still hap-
pen . . .
He reached to the phone on his desk and buzzed his confi-
dential secretary. "I am going to order Vilizherchev to open
negotiations with the Americans for the transfer of the aircraft
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 421