“Helis are coming out,” said Splash Control, acknowledging a transmission from the Chinooks. One of the Pave Lows hovered near the MiG, which was still sitting on the access ramp. Men were scurrying near it.
The AWACS controller warned that two more Iraqis were on the runway at an airfield further north, preparing to take off. The Tomcats would have to deal with them.
No escort for Hack.
Skull tucked back north, eying the obstructed runway. Takeoff distance was down to close to a thousand feet, maybe less.
No way, Skull thought. He slipped his finger edged across the cannon trigger, then began a wide bank to line up his shot.
CHAPTER 54
Hack watched the smoke pour from the rear motor of the helicopter, black furls leaking downward before dispersing sideways into a web of gray curlicues. Men were running furiously back and forth — the pilot and copilot actually seemed to have survived.
This damn close, he thought.
“Major! Major! What do you need?”
Hack jerked back around. Eugene had grabbed the flight bag and hauled it to the plane.
“My mask!” He mimed as he shouted, repeating the words. The British mechanic grabbed the mask and its hose and tossed it to him.
“The nozzle and the clamps!”
But Eugene had already realized he’d forgotten the adapter pieces and fished them out. Preston dropped one of the clamps, and had to wait for the mechanic to retrieve it from the ground.
He looked back at the helicopter. A fresh volley of flames shot from the rear. An orange fist rose from the spine and smashed downward, a full body slam that shattered the metal rivets and joints.
“My board!” Hack shouted, making a rectangle in the air. The mechanic fished it out.
Slapping it around his leg, he felt as if he was walking to the plate and someone told him he was going to knock it out of the park.
His dad. He had this nailed.
Hack reexamined the oxygen hookup on the left panel. The modified end of the mask hose, with its flexible tubing and hand-cut nozzle face, looked and felt a little like a vacuum cleaner tool, with a metal spring clamp embedded inside. It also seemed to be about the right size without adding the second, more elaborate, plastic adapter-ring assemblies and their clamps. Hack jammed the nozzle into the receptacle on the panel and felt it click home. He pulled at it. It stayed. Oxygen flowed through. When a second jostle didn’t disrupt the flow, he stowed the adapter in one of the bloodstained flaps in his pants. Then he turned to his attention to getting off the runway.
With his left wrist still not working, he tried nudging the throttles with his forearm and elbow, but couldn’t manage it. He had to reach across and push up the power with his right, the plane instantly jerking against her brakes, which someone had only partially set.
Hack’s right hand shook so badly as he grabbed for the stick, he had to wrap his left hand around it to keep it steady before the shock of pain reminded him of just how badly he’d hurt it. Somehow he managed to get the brakes completely off and began to steer the MiG down the apron, in the direction of the still-smoldering helicopter.
An Apache whipped across his path, hovering near the Chinook. The helicopter was several hundred yards away., but he was starting to move fairly quickly.
“Get out of my way!” yelled Hack. The gunship launched rockets into the hulk of the aircraft, apparently to finish off its destruction. A fireball shot from the front of the craft.
“I’m going to hit you, you asshole!” Hack shouted, knowing, of course, that no one could hear him. He reached for the brake. The Apache whipped away, and Hack grabbed the control stick again, his legs jelly as he slopped back and forth across the taxiway, the oscillations increasing despite his efforts to even them out.
Two modes, he remembered — the steering could be switched into a less sensitive setting.
Preston glanced down at the stick, looking briefly for the selector, but there was no way in the world he was screwing with that now. The end of the ramp was barely fifty feet ahead. He had to slide around precisely, cut the angle and get by the rear end of the burning helicopter.
If he went off the ramp he’d sink in the sand. He steadied his feet on the rudder pedals and leaned forward to get the pit of his stomach into his elbow, glancing at the knee board as he did.
“Just do your best!” he yelled. With every part of him jittering, he started the turn. The plane slid sideways as he pushed the stick, then jammed at the rudder. He felt a thump, knew he was off the concrete, and saw the back end of the Chinook looming on his right.
What a stinking green newbie idiotic jerkful dumbshit asshole fucked-up jackoff numbskull thing to do putting the stinking plane off the runway and losing fucking control before, before, before even taking off.
Numbskull. His dad used to say that.
The Fulcrum, its engines still set at seventy percent for ground idle and its canopy still wide open, plowed across the soft earth, but kept moving. The right wing nudged one of the bent rotors of the Chinook but cleared it without damage. The MiG hopped across a cluster of potholes, and began moving cockeyed down the short strip, her nose bent slightly downward.
Clear, Hack cinched the top. It moved painfully and slowly. He cursed himself for not having closed it earlier — he couldn’t afford to give up even a yard of takeoff distance. With the top still inches from slamming home, he pitched forward on the stick as slowly and deliberately as he could, though the movement was still fairly abrupt. The nudge sent the leading edge on the tailerons downward. As they angled, he took the stick with his injured wrist and tried closing his knees on it, holding it as best he could while reaching with his right hand for the throttle. He slid to full military power and then jammed to afterburner. The plane jerked forward, everything rushing now, the MiG veering right.
Hack grabbed the stick, holding the runway, calmer now, in control. He didn’t look at the sky, or the rapidly approaching gravel at the end of the runway. He ignored everything but the speedo, got 200 km on it, then eased his control column. The front wheel slapped into the stones and dirt, a cloud of debris coming off with him as the wheels whined and the wings groaned and the plane fluttered a moment. Hack was weightless, caught in the moment when the earth and sky balanced against each other too perfectly.
The nose of the plane slammed upward and the MiG rammed herself forward, jumping into the air like a sprinter bolting from the blocks. Hack felt the rush of speed as the engine doors opened, the need to protect against debris gone. The plane began to buck, her nose trying to slip out of his hand — but he steadied it. He began trimming, cleaning the airfoil, breathing regularly now through the oxygen mask, its fudged connector working without a leak. The pure air cured most of his aches and pains, even dulling the throb of his damaged wrist.
He backed the engines off, climbing steadily now, in control. Checking the ladder on the HUD, he took a moment to orient himself, get used to thinking in kilometers and kilograms.
Damn. Goddamn. Thirty minutes from now he was going to touch down a hero.
Hot shit. Not too much of a numbskull, after all.
His dad was going to be damn proud.
CHAPTER 55
Hawkins watched with the rest from the open door of the helicopter as the MiG rolled onto the runway and then raced toward the end, veering sharply upwards and then racing away.