Elliott rubbed his throbbing right leg — the developing headache he had was starting to rival the pain in his leg. “It’s like asking if anyone can race in the Indianapolis 500. Sure, anyone can drive the cars, and you might even survive the race without killing yourself. But only a very few can really race in it … Only a few people can fly Cheetah well enough even to have a chance of getting DreamStar,” Elliott said gloomily. “Most of them, my senior test pilots, are two thousand miles away in Dreamland right now. Two may be lying dead in the jungle in Honduras — Powell and McLanahan. And another turned out to be a goddamned Russian spy—”
“General Elliott, this is Major Preston,” the pilot said over the cabin intercom. “We’re crossing the coast now, ETA to Puerto Lempira nine minutes. We’ve got clearance to fly near the Nicaraguan border, but we’ll only have enough fuel to loiter about ten minutes before we need to head back to Puerto Lempira for fuel.”
“Thanks, Major. Take us down to two thousand feet and head south of Puerto Lempira, then ask Storm Control on what frequency they talked to Major Briggs. We’ll scan that frequency plus GUARD and hope he comes back.” Preston gave General Elliott enough time to strap himself in back in the right cockpit seat before descending quickly to five thousand feet and getting on the radio to Puerto Lempira. A few minutes later she had set up the radios on UHF and VHF GUARD and Air Force discrete emergency channel alpha. Elliott put on his earset and keyed the microphone:
“Air Force helicopter Triple-Echo Three-Four, this is Storm Commander on alpha. How do you read?”
The three crewmen of the mission to bring DreamStar out of Nicaragua reached Auka in less than an hour, but all hope of finding a telephone was quickly squelched — Auka was little more than a group of abandoned old shacks, half flooded and long overgrown by jungle. The road was still wide and paved — it was part of the main coastal highway running through Central America — but there was almost no traffic anywhere except for a few horseback riders and some youngsters herding a small knot of uncooperative goats through the streets. They had no intention of talking to a group of dirty-looking strangers, and as fast as the children appeared, they were gone.
The road through Auka branched out just on the north side of town off to the west — the fork in the road was on a small cleared-away rise with a shrine to the virgin Mary in the intersection. From that spot they could see for about five miles in any direction before the trees shrouded the horizon. “This looks like the best vantage point,” McLanahan said. “Hal, go ahead and—”
“Wait,” Briggs said. He held the survival radio up to his ear, then hit the TRANSMIT button. “Storm Commander, this is Hal Briggs. I read you loud and clear. Over.” To McLanahan: “It’s General Elliott! He’s coming this way!”
“All right.”
Briggs handed McLanahan the survival radio. “General, Colonel McLanahan.”
“Patrick, damn good to hear you.” Then he realized — the third survivor must be the chopper pilot … “Who did you lose?”
“J.C., Carmichael and Ray Butler …”
Elliott slumped back in his seat. Powell dead — that was their last hope, the man who could fly Cheetah well enough to take on DreamStar in air-to-air combat. He keyed the microphone: “How did it happen? Were they killed in the crash?”
“No. They were killed by Andrei Maraklov — Ken James.”
“James? He’s supposed to be in Moscow … “
“He’s alive and he’s got DreamStar.”
“But what about the deal? The transfer?”
“I had the impression that James came out of nowhere, completely unexpected. Even by the local Russian general. He killed the KGB general and two Russian soldiers and who knows who else to get DreamStar? He might be working for himself, or for someone else. General, DreamStar is flyable. We’ve got less than fifteen minutes to put together an attack package and take it out before he gets away.”
“I see Elliott’s jet,” Briggs shouted, pointing skyward.
“General, we’ve got a visual on you. Range about three miles. Come right twenty degrees. There’ll be an east-west road off your right wing. Follow the road until it ends. We’re right at the intersection in the clearing.”
Aboard the C-21 Marcia Preston made the correction and immediately spotted the intersection. “I’ve got it,” she said.
Elliott turned to her. “Major, can you …?”
“Tell everyone to hang on. Speed brakes coming out …”
The three men watched as the blue-and-white Air Force C-21 made a sudden hard-left bank. They heard the turbine whine decrease to a whisper as the C-21 turned in the opposite direction, paralleling the east-west road out of Auka. McLanahan could hear the loud, angry sound of rumbling air. “It’s slowing down,” he said.
“Landing gear,” the Dolphin pilot shouted. “He’s gonna land.”
The C-21 made the turn to final approach only a few feet above the trees at the edge of the clearing, its nose high in the air, flying just above the stall. As soon as it cleared the last row of trees, the jet dropped almost straight down, touching down precisely and firmly in the center of the asphalt road. The speed brakes stayed up and the flaps were retracted to put as much weight as possible on the main landing-gear brakes. This jet did not have thrust reversers but the short-field approach technique was executed so well by Marcia Preston that they were not needed — with only a few hard taps on the brake, the C-21 Learjet-35 slowed and came to a stop right at the road intersection. Engines running, the left side airstair door opened and Briggs, McLanahan and the Dolphin pilot climbed on board.
Deborah O’Day gasped as she saw Briggs and McLanahan. Blood covered their bodies. Quickly they found seats in the back of the eight-passenger jet.
Elliott moved past her in the narrow center aisle, blocking her view of the three newcomers. “Deborah, sit up front, would you?” The NSA chief nodded and quickly changed places. Elliott took her seat and strapped himself in, waited until Secretary Curtis had the airsiair door closed, then touched the intercom button. “Ready for takeoff, Major Preston. Best possible speed for Puerto Lempira. Call for medical assistance on arrival.”
The C-21 executed a tight left turn as Preston lined up again on the road for takeoff. Sixty seconds later they were airborne.
“We don’t need medical assistance: what we need is an attack against Puerto Cabezas. Right now or it may be too late.” McLanahan turned and recognized the Secretary of the Air Force. “Secretary Curtis, I think Ken James — Andrei Maraklov — will try to fly DreamStar out of Puerto Cabezas as soon as possible. He killed J.C. and five other men out there. He’s gotta be stopped.”
“Colonel, we’re trying to work out something, but we don’t have any assets out here. We withdrew everything when the Soviets agreed to this turnover.”
“We’ve got Cheetah,” McLanahan said. “I want to fly Cheetah out there and get him.” Curtis and Elliott said nothing, sat back in their seats. “I can fly it, I know I can. I’ve flown it in the simulator, and I’ve had lots of stick time—”
“I’ve flown in the F-15F’s simulator,” Curtis said, “but that doesn’t mean I can take it into combat, especially against a plane like the XF-34. We’d be risking you and Cheetah against impossible odds.”
“Wilbur is right,” Elliott said. “Even J.C. couldn’t beat DreamStar and James half the time in flight-test exercises. You would have no chance. I just can’t endorse it—”