The Ultimate Escape

by Tom Clancy

  As Matt watched, the symbol on his HUD changed from “MISSILE LOCK” to “LAUNCH.”

  Matt steered his plane into a steep dive to boost his airspeed, twisting and turning to elude the weapon, with the Russian missile on him like moss on a log… .

  Dieter Rosengarten and his Berliners spotted the air battle from a distance. They hung back for a moment, gaining altitude for their attack.

  As he approached the battle, Rosengarten searched the sky for another aircraft, one painted all in orange, with black stripes. He wasn’t sure it would even show up, but he was ready if it did… .

  Andy Moore was cut off and fighting the battle of his life. Three MiG-33’s were on him, and he only had two missiles left. He knew it was only a matter of time before they got him.

  But he refused to give up. At least I can lead these Russians away from Matt and Mark, he thought.

  Then his warning system told him that two missiles had been launched at him. He danced on his wing and turned into the path of the missiles, hoping that the less-maneuverable projectiles could not follow his moves.

  It worked. Both missiles flashed past his wing, and a MiG entered his line of fire. Without hesitating, Andy switched to his cannon and depressed the trigger.

  The MiG-33 disintegrated.

  But his warning system began to shrill again as two more missiles locked on to his aircraft. Oddly, the tone died almost immediately. Then a bright flash lit up the sky behind him. Andy turned and saw three German Eurofighter EF2000’s streaking toward him.

  Dieter and his friends had taken out both MiGs and missiles. 1 ‘Danke Schoen,’ ‘ Andy Moore said gratefully.

  “You’re welcome,” Dieter said as he flashed past Andy’s wing and was gone….

  Matt rocketed downward. The munitions factory they were supposed to target was out there somewhere on the ground. Right in front of him, in fact. He waited until it was almost too late, until he was almost sure to crash into it, then pulled out of his dive as sharply as he could without snapping the wings off his plane or blacking out. The heat-seeking missile behind him continued on its course, locked now onto the smokestacks of the factory. As Matt raced back into the sky, a ferocious explosion ripped into the building, then further explosions as the weapons and fuels stockpiled within the factory blew up and magnified the effects of the original bomb.

  Target destroyed—and with the enemy’s own missile.

  But Matt didn’t have time to gloat. There was still a MiG-33 out there with his name on it—one he had to outwit or out-maneuver if he was going to warn Julio. His cockpit warning lights started flashing and his buzzers began to shriek at him. The Russian was right behind him!

  When the Russian on his tail failed to fire a missile, Matt knew that the pilot must be out of them. That was good, because Matt still had two left. But if Matt couldn’t shake this guy, he knew he could never gain an attack position.

  As he jinked through the sky, Matt searched for a solution. The Russian opened up with his cannon, and tracers flashed past Matt’s cockpit. Matt redoubled his efforts to survive.

  Then he remembered Julio’s stunt from the previous year. When a Russian had been on Julio’s tail, Julio had put down his flaps and lifted his nose. It had almost stalled his plane, but it got the Russian off his back and into Julio’s crosshairs.

  Here goes, Matt said as he dropped his flaps.

  The MiG streaked past Matt, and moved right into missile range. Matt’s F-15 did almost stall, but he steadied her in time to fire a missile up the Russian’s tailpipe.

  “Got ya!” Matt said in triumph.

  “Good shooting, mi amigoV a familiar voice said.

  Matt felt a rush of triumph.

  “JULIO!” he yelled as a black and orange fighter—an F-22—appeared beside him.

  “Listen closely, Jefe.” Matt said. “I have a lot to tell you….”

  “There are six Cuban guards at the compound,” Lieutenant Knappert said as she returned to the truck after a quick sortie around the pumping station. “And a brand-new machine gun nest in the tree above it. ..”

  Stegar’s blood chilled at the news. Could they have been warned? he wondered. But it was too late to worry about it.

  “Okay,” Stegar said, calling the others to him. “This is what we’re going to do….”

  For almost two minutes, Matt and Julio were left alone. Matt told his friend about the raid—the predicted plan, the number of personnel taking part, and when it was going down. Julio and Matt both realized that time was running out.

  “I must get back,” Julio said.

  “What are you going to do?” Matt asked.

  “Kill the security system,” Julio said. “And shut down the veeyar too. That way, our jailers can’t harm my family.”

  “But what about you?” Matt asked. “When you take the system down, you’ll still be in an active rig. You can go into neural shock if you don’t go through proper procedures before exiting veeyar—you know that. If you’re still hooked up to the system when you crash it.. .”

  Julio did not reply. He merely smiled at his friend. “A soldier does not think of such things,” Julio whispered. Then he sighed. “You have been a good friend,” he said, his voice filled with a sadness that was audible over the radio. “I must go now, before they come to get me. …”

  Suddenly, another voice crackled in Matt’s ears. “I think the enemy is already here,” Dieter Rosengarten said. “Check your six.”

  Matt looked at his display. To his horror, two MiGs that could only be 44’s were streaking across the sky. No other type of plane could possibly achieve the speed of these bogeys. Given their trajectory, their target had to be Julio’s orange fighter plane.

  “Mayday! Mayday!” Matt said. “Net Force Explorers! I need you! Julio, get out of here!”

  Dieter and another German flew between Julio and the attackers. Matt joined them, forming a line of defense between Julio and the MiG-44s.

  “We don’t have a chance, you know,” Dieter said calmly.

  “Wanna bet?” Matt said as he hit the afterburners and rushed toward the enemy fighters.

  Matt fired his two missiles the moment he had a missile lock.

  They didn’t even make the jets change course.

  The first MiG, painted black with a Cuba Libre symbol on its wing, easily destroyed both missiles. The defense system in the high-tech Russian aircraft sent intense electronic coun-termeasures through the sky, exploding the projectiles long before they were within range of his plane.

  Matt kept coming. If he could, he planned to ram one of them, to do anything to protect Julio until he was safely awaj from the simulation.

  As Matt pointed the nose of his F-15 at the black MiG, the jet shot around him, faster and more maneuverable than Matt’s plane would ever be. Matt flashed past his target, cursing.

  The second MiG, with a Rising Sun logo on its wing, launched a missile at the oncoming Germans. Before the missile reached them, its nose cone burst apart as several small projectiles blasted away from it, enveloping one of the Euro-fighters. Dieter’s wingman blew up in a spectacular explosion. The shock waves rocked Dieter’s fighter, which probably saved him, as several tiny missiles streaked through the space his jet had occupied a split second before.

  “Matt, they’re using Swarm missiles!” Dieter yelled.

  As Dieter regained control of his fighter, and Matt turned to attack the enemy, the MiG-44’s closed in on Julio’s orange airplane.

  “They’ve got a lock on me,” Julio said. “I don’t know what I can do to shake them!”

  “Just call ‘Rescues-R-Us,’ ” Andy Moore said, right before his fighter slammed into the Cuban MiG in a repeat performance of his suicidal move of the other day.

  Mark Gridley appeared at that same moment. His F-22 cut between Julio’s plane and the remaining MiG-44. The multiple-target individual warheads burst from the Swarm missile and tore his fighter jet apart, but he stopped them from hitting Julio.
/>   “Your friends are very brave,” Dieter remarked as he hit his afterburners and streaked toward the remaining MiG-44. The Japanese assassin easily avoided the German, and as Dieter raced past, he spat missiles at him.

  Dieter’s plane exploded—marring the German student’s otherwise excellent record.

  But while the MiG pilot concentrated on killing the German, he’d forgotten about Matt. The Net Force Explorer came around the MiG and streaked toward its tail.

  “Good luck, Julio!” Matt said as his plane slammed into the MiG-44

  The battered truck rumbled down the road toward the compound.

  The Cuban guard at the gate looked at his friend. “It’s about time,” he said. He got up and walked in front of the truck to begin the ID checks. But to his surprise, the vehicle did not even slow down. It just kept coming.

  Too late, the Cuban snatched his pistol and pointed it at the driver. But the man behind the wheel hit the gas pedal. As the Cuban leaped out of the way, the truck slammed through the gate.

  In the tree, the machine gunner turned around, cocked his gun, and pointed it at the truck. At that moment he felt the platform vibrate under his feet. Before he could make a move Lieutenant Knappert took him out. She grabbed his gun and used it to eliminate the remaining Cuban guards.

  The SEALs emerged from the truck and rushed toward the pumping station building. Colonel Stegar pulled out a wad of plastic explosives, ready to place the charge on the steel door of the bunker. But to his surprise, the interior lock clicked and the door opened.

  A Cuban guard on the inside of the bunker was just as surprised. Stegar dropped him before he could react.

  The colonel rolled into the building, and took out a second man, a technician.

  But as fast as Stegar was, he wasn’t fast enough. As the man in the lab coat fell, he hit the alarm.

  In the underground facility, the master stood over the still-twitching bodies of his virtual assassins.

  “They knew the price of failure,” he said to Mateo, and holstered his weapon. As the echo of the shots he’d just fired died away, the security screens went blank.

  He blinked. “Something is wrong!” he said. The chamber was soundproofed, so they could hear nothing from above. The man picked up the security phone, planning to call the guards above.

  No dial tone.

  “It’s the Norteamericanos!” he said. “They are here!”

  As if to punctuate his statement, the alarm klaxon began to blare.

  “We are under attack!” the Corteguayan said. He turned, wild-eyed, to the computer monitor. Even as he watched, the system shut down completely. He slammed his fist down on the control button that would send thousands of volts of electricity through the hostages’ bodies, killing them instantly, but nothing happened.

  He whirled, his eyes moving from side to side like a trapped animal’s. Just then, he and Mateo heard the elevator cage begin to descend—the retinal-scan security system had probably been shut down too.

  “The Yanquis come!” he said. “But they will not get their prize!”

  With that, he raced across the room, pushing past Mateo, to the bodies strapped to the tables. He placed the barrel of his pistol against Ramon Cortez’s head.

  Ramon groaned and stirred, waking from his veeyar-induced trance.

  “NO!” Mateo shouted, rushing the man responsible for what he’d become. But Mateo had too far to go. Coldly, his master raised the pistol and fired at his rebellious creature. Mateo clutched his chest, and his master fired again. And again.

  Then, turning from Mateo, the man pointed the muzzle of his gun at Ramon Cortez a second time.

  Mateo’s desperate move had bought Ramon just enough time. Before the man could shoot, the elevator doors opened wide, and Colonel Stegar opened fire. The Corteguayan fell to the ground, dead before he could pull his own trigger.

  The last technician threw up his hands in surrender, and Lieutenant Knappert grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the floor.

  “Who’s that?” she asked, keeping her eyes on her prisoner while motioning her head toward the man Colonel Stegar had killed.

  “Believe it or not, he was supposed to be on our side,” the colonel said. “His name was Manuel Arias.”

  Epilogue

  A month later, Matt sat on the roof observation deck at Net Force Explorers’ virtual headquarters. He was alone, and he’d been contemplating the sky above. He’d imagined for a moment that he, Mark Gridley, and Julio Cortez were flying up there in a Sop with Camel, a P-51 Mustang, or an F-15 fighter.

  But he knew that it could never be.

  Matt had had to wait until he got home the night of the Bosnian simulation to learn what had happened. Not surprisingly, given his experiences with the State Department over the last few days, Matt’s source of information wasn’t the government. He found out from the HoloVid International News. It was the lead story.

  According to the news anchor, a team of Navy SEALs had gone into Corteguay and rescued presidential candidate Ramon Cortez and his family from a political prison. Walter Paulson was at the press conference as the State Department spokesman. He told the world how a brave team of Americans had made Corteguay safe for democracy.

  It was an almost perfect mission, he said proudly.

  Almost.

  But Julio was dead. He’d released his family from inside the computer program, but he’d never made it back himself. By the time the soldiers got to him, neural shock had taken hold, and in a place so isolated from proper medical facilities they’d been unable to save him. Matt felt a terrible sense of loss. An ache in his heart he’d never felt before.

  Now I know how Andy Moore feels every day, he thought sadly. How does he cope with the loss of his father?

  Matt heard the door open behind him, but he didn’t turn around. Megan O’Malley moved beside him. She stood for a while in silence, and watched the sky with him.

  “Have you ever heard of the Flying Dutchman?” she asked suddenly.

  “Nope,” Matt said, shaking his head.

  “It’s a crazy legend about a ghost ship with a ghost captain who sails the Seven Seas forever,” she said. “There’s a holo of it.”

  “Uh-huh,” Matt grunted.

  “I always thought that if the captain loved the sea, as most sea captains must, then sailing them forever wasn’t such a bad thing,” she concluded.

  They stood in silence for another minute.

  “The results of the Century of Military Aviation competition were just announced,” Megan said.

  Matt looked at her. Because the Net Force Explorers had done so poorly, they’d not gone on to the next round, or any of the later ones with experimental aircraft. Matt had completely forgotten about it.

  “Dieter Rosengarten won the Ace of Aces trophy,” she continued.

  Matt smiled. “I’m happy for him,” he said.

  “Well,” Megan smiled. “He just showed up in Lounge.”

  “Dieter?” Matt said, surprised.

  “Yup,” she said. “Said he almost lost the final round, a friend of ours appeared and got him out of a jam.”

  Matt turned and met Megan’s gaze. “You mean?”

  “He said an orange plane with black tiger stripes appea out of nowhere and nailed Sergei,” she said.

  Matt got choked up. “Do you think it’s possible?” asked.

  “Sure,” Megan said with a smile. “He got out of prison, didn’t he? I think he left his mark on that simulat when he forced his way into it so many times to try to confuse. I think that the character he created for himself in that simulator is still intact.”

  Matt nodded, his heart filled with happiness for the first time in days.

  “It’s kind of fitting,” Megan continued. “What better place for Julio to leave behind a piece of himself than in a flight simulator?”

  Matt continued to stare at the sky for another minute or so.

  “I can’t wait,” he said abruptly. Megan blinked,
puzzled. Matt turned and faced her.

  “I can’t wait until next year’s competition,” he explained. “We’ll have an edge—a secret weapon named Julio Cortez.”

  Virtual Crime. Real Punishment.

  Tom Clancy ? s Net Force

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