The first thing Bogner remembered was the unpleasant wailing of the alert siren. The discordant, undulating sound cycled over and over, and he finally managed to get a message past the throbbing sensation in his head to his eyes. Open, dammit. Open. What the hell is going on?
Beneath him he could feel the cold, damp concrete flooring of the hangar. He clawed at it, trying to crawl through the hole in his confusion and pain back into reality.
He could hear footsteps and men shouting. There was chaos and noiseand the frantic sounds men make when they hurry. Somewhere off in the distance there was a rumble and yet another uncataloged soundlike someone pounding a staccato beat on metal. It was the rain hammering on the metal roof of the hangar.
He tried to move his legs, and to his surprise they worked. Then he tried his arms and hands. More success. Finally, there was the matter of putting the two together, to move everything in unisonto make something happen, to feel in control. His head throbbed, and even though the parts were responding, the only thing he could manage was a crawling motion. Even that made him sick to his stomach. It was dark and cold and the world was a Rorschach, a blur on a blur.
He inched his way under a workbenchnot because he was planning anything, but because it was a sanctuary. He saw the face of a man, a man with a serpent's tongue. Then there was a fire, out of control, and people screaming. His head hammered and he closed his eyes.
He heard the sound of engines, jet engines, turbos, the clanging of metal, more shoutsand the roar increased. He saw movementgreat behemoths, spitting fire, angry and roaringand put his hands over his ears to shut out the furor.
Finally there was nothing left but the shouts of the men. Eventually, even they died outand he felt alone.
Slowly the face of Driver materialized and he saw the butt of the SMG arching down toward him. He winced and felt the blow to his midsection for a second time. To stop it, he closed his eyes again, but the image stayed with him.
Finally the noise ceased, and the silence was frightening. He was alonewith no idea where he was.
Bogner pulled himself up on his hands and knees. He was shaky and weak, but the pieces were starting to come together. He saw a face. Driver. Driver had put him down. Why? He shook his head to clear the hurt and the cobwebs, but there was no relief. The only thing that was certain was that the hangar was dark and the Covert was gonebut so were the Flankers. More of the puzzle came together, merging, connecting, one piece at a time. The reasoning, like the images that played out in his head, followed a line of jumbled logic: Driver had escaped with Schubatis in the Covert and Quan had sent the Flankers after him. But why had Driver…?
Bogner steadied himself just long enough to stumble toward the nearest doorthe one with the red light over it. The rain… the rain would help. He needed to clear his head. He fumbled with the knob, managed to get the door open, and stumbled out into the rain. What the hell was Driver up to?
The rain pelted down on him. He shook his head again to clear his thought patterns, but the gesture only increased the throbbing. He leaned back against the side of the hangar to steady himself and closed his eyes. He knew he had to get his act together, to think straight, before he could calculate his next move. His only allies were the rain and semidarknessand he was fast running out of the latter.
He had to try again. He looked around him.
In the cold gray light of the emerging dawn, he continued to put the pieces together againto identify possibilities. He had stumbled into what appeared to be a motor-pool area. There were two trucks and a third vehicle that resembled a personnel carrier. The area was fenced, bordered on one side by the rear of the hangar, and on the far side by a shed with a low roof that provided an overhang no more than forty or fifty feet from where he was standing.
A plan was starting to formulate: By keeping his back to the wall until he could dodge between the parked trucks, he figured he could get across the opening to the shed door. But then what? Beyond that he had no planhe didn't even know where he was. He knew he still wasn't thinking straight. The thought repeated itself: Trust your instincts, Toby, trust your instincts. They taught you that in psych warfare; work out the rest of your plan after you've conquered the first hurdle. The biggest mistake is to do nothing.
He managed the first part, getting to and hiding between the trucks. The next hurdle would be clearing the thirty, maybe forty feet to the overhang.
He was still crouched between the two trucks when he saw the door to the shed open and two men emerge. One was obviously one of Quan's men; he was wearing a uniform. The other appeared to be one of the villagers Le Win Fo had described; he was wearing a rain poncho with a hood. Just as they were closing the door behind them, Bogner heard a phone ring. There was a brief exchange of words, and the one in uniform went back in the building to answer it.
Suddenly Bogner saw his luck turning. The smaller of the two men, the one in the poncho, was headed straight for him.
Bogner dropped to the ground, shimmied under the truck, and waited. The man walked by him, and just as he started to crawl in the cab, Bogner reached out with one hand and took the man's legs out from under him. When he hit the ground, Bogner dragged him under the truck, rolled him over, and buried a left hook in the man's midsection. The little man was older than Bogner had anticipated, and one blow was all it took. There was no fight in him. The wind gushed out of him and he lay there, looking at Bogner, terrified and gasping for air.
"Sorry about that, old-timer," Bogner muttered, "but right now I need this truck a helluva lot worse than you do." He peeled the man out of his poncho, crawled out from under the truck, climbed into the cab, and waited.
Minutes later, the soldier came out of the building and darted through the rain for the truck. As he opened the driver's-side door and started to get in, Bogner reached out, grabbed him behind the head with one hand, and bolopunched him with the other. By the time Quan's man knew what was happening, it was all over. Bogner jerked his head down, brought up his knee, felt the reassuring collision of knee against face, heard the man's semimuffled protest, and slammed his face against the steering wheel. Mouth bloodied, nose crushed to one side and pumping blood, the soldier fell back against the seat. Bogner pried the keys out of his hand, pushed the door open, and shoved him out. He jammed the key into the ignition, twisted, and heard the engine rumble to life.
Su-27 4107, the lead Flanker in the formation, was being flown by Flight Captain Feng. His wingman, Lieutenant Chang, in the Su-27 4211, managed to maintain his position some thirty yards off Feng's right wing despite the soup and chop at the 3,000-foot level.
''See anything?" Feng asked. He had dropped his mask-mike to scrutinize the electronic-warfare panel.
"Negative on EW," Chang answered, "but all the radar is degrading. If he's heading for Haiphong, as Colonel Quan thinks he is, I should be picking him up on acquisition."
Feng eased the throttle back and brought the nose of the Flanker down a full degree. The presence of repeated flashes of cloud-to-cloud, an intercloud lightning, was making their mission all the more difficult.
"Danjia five-four-oh, this is Songbird 4107."
Feng heard his voice filter through on feedback. The transmission was punctuated with static, and he wondered if Danjia TO was receiving his transmission.
"You're breaking up," Chang confirmed. "Garbled."
Feng continued. "We're easing down to twenty-five hundred to see if we can get under this mess. Experiencing severe turbulence."
There was no confirmation from Danjia TO, and in the heavy wash of rain slipstreaming over his canopy, Feng was beginning to have second thoughts about his decision to go lower. Despite that, he twisted the knob on the pressure altimeter to match the reading on the radar screen.