“Want a ride, soldier?” she asked.
Chapter Twenty
“Bout time, amigo. I was beginnin’ to think you didn’t love me anymore.”
“Unavoidably detained, Tiger,” McKenna said as the bay doors opened under his feet.
His own cockpit was directly below him, and Munoz was looking up at him from the backseat. He was already out of the two backpacks and breathing on an emergency cylinder. He had stripped most of the black tape from his arms and upper torso to give him more freedom of movement.
The two MakoSharks were nose to tail, Delta Red ten feet above Delta Blue. Nudging one of Delta Red’s internal ribs, he launched himself out of the bay. Two seconds later, he grabbed the edge of his own canopy and pulled himself into the cockpit. The surge of relief that washed over him was enough to make him want to go take a nap.
“Thanks for the ride, Country.”
“Anytime, boss.”
He hooked into the MakoShark’s communication system, then the air supply.
“Go, Country. See you on the other side.”
“Roger, Blue.”
Since Haggar’s craft was already facing the correct direction, she fired her aft thrusters to open the space between them, drifted away, then opened up the main rockets. The MakoShark quickly disappeared.
McKenna strapped himself in.
“We’re four minutes from a window, and the checklist is run right up to firing, Snake Eyes.”
“Flipping,” McKenna said and hit the controller.
The craft went over on her back, and McKenna turned the retro fire sequence over to the computer.
He went to Tac Two, “Delta Yellow and Orange, Blue.”
“Yellow.”
“Orange.”
Checking the chronometer on the panel, he said, “We’ll go to phase two in what, Tiger?”
“We need forty-six minutes,” Munoz said.
“Phase two in fifty minutes.”
“You want us to hold off?” Conover asked.
“Roger. Delta Green is probably inbound on you, and we want all four of us on that hummer. Keep an eye open”
“Roger that,” Conover said.
“Orange.”
Brackman’s voice broke into the net, “Delta Blue, Semaphore. Can we get a sitrep sometime?”
McKenna imagined all of the honchos sitting around in one war room or another, probably on pins and needles.
“Semaphore, Soyuz Fifty is disabled, but rebuildable. Two’ fatalities. ICBM is neutralized. The second ICBM was never online.”
“Very nice work, Delta Blue. We’ll remember it. Semaphore out.”
“Alpha, you there?” McKenna asked.
“Blue, Alpha,” Pearson came back.
“Make your phone call,” he told her.
The computer started its countdown to retro.
“You actually see who was flying Green?” Munoz asked on the intercom.
“Not clearly.”
“They see you?”
“I don’t think so. I was damned glad to be the man in black.”
It seemed to take forever before the connection was made, and then it took another seven minutes for someone, to get Dr. Geli Lemesh to the phone.
Pearson was so relieved about McKenna’s return to the MakoShark that she was having trouble concentrating.
“Hello?” he asked in Russian.
Pearson spoke in English. “Doctor Lemesh, I don’t know whether or not you remember me. I’m Colonel Amelia Pearson, with the United States Air Force.”
He switched to his stilted English, and she could hear the smile in his tone, “Of course I remember you, Colonel. I did so enjoy your visit. Are you coming back soon, I hope?”
“I may well do that, Doctor.”
“Please, it is Geli.”
“Geli, then. And I go by Amy.”
“Amy. Wonderful”
“I wonder if you could do something for me, Geli?”
“Anything.”
“I believe you feel as compassionate about the children as I do,” she said. She could summon up so many images of forlorn eyes and weak smiles.
“You know that I do”
“I would like to have you protect them”
“In what way would that be,” he asked, suspicion creeping into his tone.
“Load them on the buses and trucks, and drive them toward the lake.”
“But… but what for?”
“The children are not shields, Geli. And they will not be recognized as such.”
“I do not know what you are speaking about.” His voice had hardened.
“Yes, you do. Please, for the sake of the children, do as I ask.”
“Are you telling me…?”
“I’m not telling you anything more than what I have said. This may be your only salvation, Geli.”
“I cannot take such an action.”
“Think about it,” she said. “Think very carefully.”
General Oleg Druzhinin and Sergeant Nikita Kasartskin, along with a radar operator, were in the Control Center.
They had been there since Maslov had taken off, awaiting word of the deployment of the second ballistic missile. Outside the windows, the jungle was dark. The air-conditioning had been turned off, and gnats and mosquitoes bounced against the screening of the door.
He knew of Maslov’s reticence to talk on the radio. The man was a loner. But still, he could wait no longer.
“Sergeant, check on the communication relays, please.”
“Right away, Comrade General.”
Kasartskin rose from his chair and went back to the global communications room. When he came back, he said, “All is in order, General”
Druzhinin went to the console and raised the microphone. “Commander, this is Commodore.”
There was no response.
“Commander, this is Commodore.”
“Commodore, Captain.”
It was a relief to hear Maslov’s voice, even though it sounded half dead.
“What is your situation, Captain?” he asked.
“We have just come out of blackout.”
“You are on the return already?” Druzhinin could not believe it.
“Commander no longer exists, Commodore. The men are dead, the station out of operation.”
“What!”
“It is true. We are returning to base.”
It could not be. And if it was, the base was no longer safe, no longer clandestine.
“You must not come here,” Druzhinin said.
“But we must.”
“What you must do, Colonel, is remain aloft until I tell you otherwise.”
He dropped the microphone and turned to Kasartskin. “Sergeant, alert all aircraft crews. All interceptors are to take off immediately. I will take the MiG-25.”
Then he picked up the telephone and called the hospital.
“Delta Yellow, Delta Blue.”
“Go, Blue,” Conover said.
“Blue and Red are out of blackout and joining up at angels one-ten. We’ve got the CAP You are free to enter phase two.”
“Roger, Blue. Yellow’s going to phase two.”
On the intercom, Conover said, “You’ve got the weapons, Do-Wop.”
“Oh, goody,” Abrams said. “Taking four Phoenix. Come to two-seven-zero, Con Man, and let’s put her on the deck.”
“Coming two-seven-zero.”
The Phoenix II missiles were not ground attack weapons, but they would still play hell with most fortifications.
They were a hundred miles southeast of Phnom Penh, still on a rocket-assisted glide at forty-five thousand feet. Conover put the nose down and went through the turbojet start-up list.
A hundred feet off his left wingtip, he could see Delta Orange falling back a little.
On Tac Three, he said, “Cancha keep up with me, Cancha?”
“Whatever you can do, I can do better,” Dimatta said.