“We’re in the middle of Inner Mongolia, hundreds of miles from help, and we’re down to emergency everything,” Elliott said. “We got no choi—”
Suddenly, the Megafortress buckled under them and slew nearly sideways. Cheshire straightened the plane out only by using both hands on the control stick. “We got hit, number four’s on fire!” she shouted. This time, the computer did not shut down the engine automatically. Cheshire jammed the number four throttle to idle, then to cutoff, then pulled the yellow fire T handle to cut off fuel to the engine and activate its fire extinguisher. “Still got a fire on number four! ” Cheshire shouted. “It won’t go out! It won’t go out! ” There was a bright flash of light and another violent explosion jerked the bomber nearly upside down. “Fire! Fire!” Cheshire shouted.
“Eject! Eject! Eject!” Brad Elliott shouted.
Patrick looked over at Wendy. She returned his glance — but that was all the hesitation she allowed herself. She jammed her fanny back into the seat, straightened her back, pushed the back of her helmet into the sculpted headrest, tucked her chin down, crossed her hands, and pulled the ejection ring between her legs. Her shoulder harness automatically tightened, snapping her shoulders and spine back into the proper position; the overhead hatch blew off, and she was gone in a blinding cloud of white smoke. Patrick pulled his handle as soon as he saw she was gone.
Cheshire looked over at Brad Elliott — and hesitated. “Go!” she shouted at him. She grabbed the control stick. “I got the plane! Go! Eject!”
To Nancy Cheshire’s complete astonishment, Brad Elliott reached down beside his ejection seat — and pulled the red manual man-seat separator knob, then reached up and twisted the center of his five-point harness clasp on his chest. His parachute shoulder straps and lap belt fell away with a clatter. He had detached his parachute from his ejection seat and then opened up the clasp to his parachute harness! He would never survive an ejection now! “Brad, what in hell…”
Brad Elliott reached over and grasped his control stick and the throttles. “I got the plane now, Nancy,” he said. “Get out of here.”
“Brad, goddammit, don’t do this!”
“I said, ejectl ” Elliott shouted.
Nancy Cheshire’s eyes were wide with fear, locked onto his with a questioning stare… but somewhere in Brad Elliott’s reassuring eyes, she found the answer. She touched his right hand in thanks, nodded, then assumed the proper ejection position in her seat and fired her ejection- seat catapult.
“Finally, I get some peace and quiet around here,” Brad Elliott said half aloud.
He didn’t need an attack computer or even a compass to do what he needed to do now. Off in the distance, he could see flashes of light from another heavy barrage of antiaircraft fire — it was coming from the last Dong Feng-5 intercontinental nuclear ballistic missile site, the one that hadn’t yet been destroyed. He steered his beautiful creation, his EB-52 Megafortress, right at the tracers.
The fire was still burning brightly on the right wing; he had no instruments, no weapons, no jammers or countermeasures. But the Megafortress was still flying. In Brad Elliott’s mind, it would always be still flying.
Ten minutes and two fighter attacks later, it was still flying. It was still flying, as fast and as deadly as the day, more than ten years ago, he’d rolled onto his first bomb run over Dreamland in the Nevada desert, when he nosed the giant bird over and down, aiming it directly for the door of the last Chinese DF-5 ICBM missile silo. The Megafortress did not protest, did not try to fly out of the crash dive, did not give any ground proximity warning. It was as if it knew that this is what it was supposed to do, what was finally expected of it.
“Patrick! Wendy!”
“Here! ” Patrick shouted. Nancy Cheshire limped over to the voice, and soon found Patrick and Wendy McLanahan. Thankfully, both appeared unhurt. “You okay, Nance?” Patrick asked.
“I think I broke my damned ankle,” Cheshire replied. “Wendy? You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she replied. Patrick had her lying flat on her back, using their parachutes as a sleeping bag to keep her comfortable. They both had plastic hip flasks of water out and were sipping from them. “My back’s sore, but I’m okay.” She touched her belly. “I think we’re all fine.”
“Did you find Brad?” Patrick asked Cheshire. No reply. “Nance? Did Brad make it out?”
As if in reply, they all looked to the west as a bright flash of light and a huge column of fire rose into the night sky. It was not a nuclear mushroom cloud, but the geyser of fire and the billowing cloud of smoke reflecting the flames of the exploding DF-5 ICBM sure resembled one. “My God!” Wendy exclaimed. “That’s where the DF-5 is, isn’t it? Is Terrill Samson still flying bombers out here? How did…?”
“Brad,” Patrick breathed. He looked from the exploding DF-5 to Nancy Cheshire. “He didn’t make it out, did he?”
“He made it,” Cheshire replied with a smile. “He made it… exactly where he wanted to go.”
EPILOGUE
“In general, in battle one endures through strength and gains victory through spirit… When the heart’s foundation is solid, a new surge of ch’i will bring victory.”
Oddly enough, the jets that pulled off to an isolated part of Brunei International Airport and maneuvered beside each other nose-to-tail were both Gulfstream IV long-range business jets — but one was in the red and white livery of the Chinese Civil Aeronautical Administration, and the other was in the plain white with blue trim of the United States Air Force. Guards of the Sultan of Brunei’s Gurkha Reserve Unit, the elite paramilitary palace guard, ringed the parking ramp, while armored personnel carriers and heavily armed Humvees roamed the area beyond.
The inner guards seemed oblivious to the noise of the Chinese Gulf- stream as it pulled into its assigned parking spot. It did not shut down its engines. A set of stairs had been rolled out and placed near the exit door on the port side of the Chinese Gulfstream; the USAF Gulfstream had used an integral airstair that extended from the plane itself, and the exit door was already open and ready. Two lines of GRU commandos quickly formed between both sets of stairs, and one guard carrying an infantry rifle was stationed at the top of the stairs of each plane.
The door of the Chinese Gulfstream opened, and a lone man wearing a plain gray tunic appeared and stepped down the stairs. At the same time, a lone individual in a plain dark business suit walked down the USAF Gulfstream’s airstair. They walked across the ramp between the two lines of armed GRU commandos and met in the center of the tarmac. They regarded each other for a moment; then the American made a slight, polite bow. The Chinese man smiled, made an even slighter nod, then extended a hand. The American shook it hesitantly. No words were exchanged. Both men turned, walked a few paces away, turned sideways in front of the GRU commandos, then looked toward their respective aircraft.
At that, several individuals began emerging from both the USAF and CAA jets and stepped down the airstairs. Ten men wearing blue and white polyester jogging suits and white running shoes emerged from the USAF jet; two women and one man, wearing white baggy peasant’s outfits and sandals, stepped off the Chinese jet. In single file, the two columns of individuals walked across the tarmac between the GRU commandos. The men who came off the USAF jet walked more and more quickly until they were virtually running up the airstairs into the Chinese jet, but the American man and two women prisoners strode deliberately, proudly, toward the USAF plane.