To insure total secrecy and complete control, Mandala had devised a plan he called Hop-Skip, whereby all canisters were loaded onto the initial squadron of dusters. They would empty their prescribed amounts and then rendezvous at the first “hop” point where the remaining canisters would be loaded onto dusters that would then “skip” on to the next rendezvous point. To have evenly distributed the canisters at the fifteen bases lining the center of the country would have meant far faster dispersal but would also have required the taking of far more men into his confidence. The physical logistics would prove more difficult under his Hop-Skip strategem, yet on the slim chance that one or more of the rendezvous bases were raided, there would be nothing for the authorities to find. Time clearly wasn’t a factor because the fungus spread so fast that this method of dispersal would slow the rate of total crop contamination across North America by barely a day. Furthermore, if a rendezvous base was captured, the approaching dusters would simply proceed on to the next one.
Ahmad Hamshi checked his watch: one minute to go now. The pilots were revving their engines. Since each plane was weighed down with the bulk of the excess canisters, its climb would be slowed. It would take just over seven minutes from takeoff for the dusters to rise to their optimum dispersal altitude and spread out sufficiently, and not until then would they open the valves that would dispense their cargo.
Hamshi sniffed the air. The clearing skies had left things hot and humid, ideal weather for the fungus to procreate and spread. Mandala would be pleased to learn that even the weather had cooperated with them, as if Allah was behind their plan. He checked his watch again.
The time had come.
He made the appropriate signal to the men directing the planes on both runways, and immediately the first two dusters began to accelerate down the dust-blown strips.
Ahmad Hamshi saw them clear the ground. As the next two taxied into position, he moved inside his cobweb-coated office and adjusted the transmitter to the proper frequency. He gave his call signal and a slightly garbled voice answered with the according one.
“The birds are flying” was all Hamshi said, repeating it twice before he returned to the runways.
“We got two thousand horses under us, Chris,” Pop Keller shouted back to Locke from the front of the cockpit.
“What?”
“There should be a set of headphones in front of you,” Pop shouted louder. “Put them on!”
“I got them!” Chris yelled back, fitting the plastic over his ears.
Pop Keller’s voice filled them immediately. “I said we got two thousand horsepower pulling us. I do some special stunts so I had the old Warhawk souped up a little.” He tightened his own set of headphones. “You’ll be able to hear all communications clearly now, friend.” His eyes tilted down. “That’s the base down there to our right. Enjoy the show.”
The ninth and tenth cropdusters were climbing for the sky when Hamshi saw the planes coming. He shook himself, wondering if it might have been a trick of the brightening sun, then quickly realized it wasn’t. Unless he had lost his mind, though, the squadron of planes swooping toward Stonewall Jackson on an obvious attack run was a mixed collection of World War II fighters!
He started running toward the twin rows of dusters, reaching them just as two more screamed toward the sky and the ghost squadron roared closer.
“Damn!” Pop Keller rasped into his headset. “Some of the cropdusters are already airborne. Blue leader, how many do you figure slipped out?”
“I count twelve climbing and spreading, Red leader,” the husky voice of Mickey Ostrovsky came back. “Weighted down by the look of it. Climbing slow.”
“Blue leader,” said Keller, “take your Pipers down and knock out as many of the other dusters as you can. Have the other half of your wing wait to mop up the mess.”
“Affirmative, Red leader.”
Pop adjusted his headset and Locke felt suddenly dizzy as the bottom seemed to drop out of the Warhawk.
“Red Wing, this is Red leader. We’re a little late, boys. Time to do some huntin’.”
Ahmad Hamshi had just signaled the dusters to continue taking off when the wave of Pipers soared over the runways. He saw the shiny, oblong objects shot from their wings, heard the rockets whistling through the wind, and hit the pavement just before they did.
The explosions came fast and loud, like thousands of pieces of glass shattering. Smoke clouded the start of the runways but as Hamshi climbed back to his feet he saw that miraculously only two of the dusters seemed damaged. Armed assault troops were pouring from the barracks by this time, rushing toward flatbed trucks that held heavy-canvas-covered, high-caliber machine and antiaircraft guns.
They were still yanking the covers away when the Pipers attacked again from the opposite direction. A dozen rocket-propelled warheads hurtled toward the ground. The resulting explosions sent huge chunks of cement into the air and disabled at least four additional dusters. As the Pipers swung into a steep climb, a pair of Bearcats dove under them and sprayed the runway area with machine-gun fire, scattering Hamshi’s men.
The smoke made it hard for Hamshi to estimate the damage. This was crazy. He was watching the whole plan disintegrate around him thanks to a bunch of crazy men flying ghost planes. He started running toward the main body of troops, who had started to organize their fire, even as the truck-mounted big guns were tilted toward the sky.
“The planes!” Hamshi shouted. “Move the disabled planes out of the way! We’ve got to keep the runway free! The runway must be kept free!”
Already he was starting to consider how to make up for the loss of at least six dusters. Mandala’s orders had been precise in the event of sudden mechanical breakdown. Well, this certainly fell into that category. The canisters were the key, Mandala had explained, and should be moved from disabled planes onto planes that could fly.
Sprinting along the runways, Hamshi noticed two more of the dusters had managed to take off and were climbing into the sky. Then he saw the streak of red, a Warhawk with a shark’s mouth for a nose, screeching forward, and he heard its machine-gun fire. Both dusters dipped crazily out of control, swooning for the ground beyond the runway and exploding on contact.
The bastard had shot them down! Then Hamshi watched as half the ghost fighter squadron broke off and soared higher in obvious pursuit of the dusters that had managed to escape the base. He glanced in the direction of one of the hangars and then bolted in a diagonal toward where the base personnel had gathered.
“We got the sons of bitches! You see that, Chris?”
Pop Keller pulled up from his dive and climbed almost vertically, his engine straining. Locke had seen all right but he couldn’t believe it. The ease with which Keller had maneuvered the Warhawk and knocked the cropdusters from the sky was incredible.
“Two down, lots to go!” Pop screamed. “Heeeeeee-yahh-hhhhh!”
Keller leveled off and picked up the Warhawk’s pace as Blue Wing was diving for another attack run.
Down below, the monstrous machine guns and antiaircraft cannons had finally been made ready.
“Holy shit!” Pop grabbed his headset. “Blue leader, this is Red leader, do you copy?”
“I copy, Blue leader.”
“I just spotted guns, big ones, on the ground.”
“I see them too, Red leader,” Mickey O. acknowledged.
“They’ll tear you to shreds! Have your team pull up, do you hear me?” Keller could hear the booming rat-tat-tat of the big guns and see the fire belching from their barrels even from this distance.