“I’ve got video lock on the Sherpa.” The pilot’s voice broke him from his strategic reverie.
He suddenly realized that he needed to get to his command bunker in order to survive the blast as well as continue to control the action. If the nuke detonates, everything is incinerated.
“Your command center there ought to be able to download this from the satellite, sir.”
“Zeke, hook that up.” Hellerman looked up at the blank screen. Then, after a moment, said, “Roger. Thanks. We’re with you, son.”
“Sir, we just got word that Tomcat one six shot down that Predator near Dunn, North Carolina. The report is that the bomb exploded and there’s a radiation cloud about two miles in diameter. Small nuke, but what a mess,” Zeke said.
“Listen up, everybody. Understand what I’m talking about here?” Hellerman shouted. He heard several grunts and “Yes, sirs.” “This ain’t child’s play. This terrorist came to do business, people, and we’ve got to stop him.”
Hellerman turned and looked at the large screen again. He could see the Sherpa flying level above some dotted lights on the ground. The picture was grainy but good enough to see one head in the pilot’s seat. Just for an instant, he saw long hair hanging off the shoulders of the pilot. The video feed wasn’t clear at all, but his instincts told him that Peyton O’Hara was flying that airplane.
“Eagle five, this is the vice president. Over.”
“This is Eagle five. Go ahead.”
“It’s time. Get in position and knock this thing down. Go for the forward portion of the airplane,” Hellerman commanded.
“Will comply. This is Eagle five assuming attack position.”
On the screen, the operations group in the command center saw a quick rushing of land, losing sight of the Sherpa, as Eagle five turned the jet to close in on its tail. But then the Sherpa came back into view. It was closer now. The pilot had pulled up parallel with the airplane and was only a few feet away from the Sherpa’s wingtip. The mesmerized faces of the operations group could plainly see the face of Peyton O’Hara huddled over the cockpit, straining to see beyond the windscreen in the night.
“I salute you,” the pilot’s voice came over the radio speakers. Then the Sherpa was gone from sight for the moment.
The pilot’s voice again broke the deathly silence. “Going to guns.”
Hellerman watched, waiting for the image of the Sherpa to reappear on the screen.
CHAPTER 66
“Now what, Zach?” Matt shook his drugged and exhausted brother, then muttered, “Unbelievable.”
“Hey, Matt, we’ve got an F-15 out here on our flank,” Peyton said.
“What’s he doing?”
“Saluting me, I think.”
“That’s either good news or bad news.”
Matt looked at the bomb timer. It had thirteen seconds to go…
00:32…
00:31…
00:30…
“Okay, Peyton, I just want to tell you in case this thing doesn’t work out that I’m really very proud of you, and I want to thank you for helping me get my brother back. If we die here in a few seconds, well, we saved him, and now we’re saving others. That’s not a bad way to go.”
Peyton turned and watched the countdown.
00:03…
00:02…
00:01…
The digital readout flashed zeroes for a few seconds and then began an upward count:
00:01…
00:02…
00:03…
Matt and Peyton stared at the nuclear bomb.
“Now cut the other wires. You have fifteen seconds while the bomb tries to close the loop through the wires you cut, then it will reverse course and confirm the loop through the sending wires. If it can’t confirm the loop, it won’t blow up. I think.”
Zachary’s head rolled on the back of the Sherpa floor as he spoke.
“Damn it, why didn’t you tell me that?” Matt flashed with anger.
“You were too busy sucking face with your girlfriend. Now cut the wires, man.”
Matt scrambled for the knife, unable to find it, wasting precious time.
“Come on, Matt, hurry,” Peyton said.
“Found it.” He fumbled with the knife and grabbed both sets of wires, slicing them and then looking at the black box. The number fourteen frozen on its face.
The bomb sat idle in the back of the Sherpa. A few seconds went by, and they started to laugh. It was nervous adrenaline. For all Matt knew, Peyton was about to fly the plane into the Blue Ridge Mountains, but at least they had beaten Ballantine.
Then they heard the loud report of machine-gun fire.
“He’s shooting at us!” Peyton said, banking the plane hard to the north.
“Where are we?” Matt asked her.
“We’re about twenty miles from Hellerman’s dirt strip. We’ll never outlast this guy. He’s in a fighter jet, for crying out loud.”
“Take it low. Take it as low as you can go. He won’t want to use Mavericks on us because he thinks the nuke is still live. He has a problem flying slow enough, so he’ll have to keep circling and trying to get behind us.”
Peyton pushed the airplane into a near-vertical dive, tracers ripping past the fuselage. The lower she flew, the less accurate the fire. She tilted the wings and followed the grid coordinate she had punched into the navigation system. It was as simple as lining up two small arrows, unless there was an F-15 fighter jet trying to shoot you down, she mused.
“Okay, what are you, about fifty feet off the ground?” Matt asked.
“Forty,” she said.
“Okay, push it to about twenty,” he said.
“I’ll hit telephone wires at twenty. No way.”
Another burst of machine-gun fire shot past the windscreen. Two rounds caught the right wing.
“Good thing we’re low on gas,” Matt said. “That’s where the main tank is.” He pointed at the two holes in the wing next to his seat.
“Speaking of gas, I’m getting the low-fuel warning again,” she said. The engine began to sputter, as if cued.
“How far?” he asked.
“Five miles, five damn miles! And we would be home free, but this jackass is going to shoot us down — that is, if we don’t fall out of the sky first!” she shouted.
Matt looked at her for a moment, then said, “Feel better?”
“Yes, actually,” she said, shaking her hair behind her head and shaking off the fear.
They saw the F-15 race overhead and then pull upward, spiraling in the sky, and then loop behind them.
“Okay, here it is. He’s not missing this time,” Matt said. “You’re going to need to zigzag a bit, like a running back, you know?”
“This airplane! You grab the handles and zigzag this bitch,” Peyton hissed.
“Okay,” Matt said, grabbing the steering column and yanking hard to the right about the time the F-15 spat a 20mm burst at them.
“See, it’s not so hard,” he spat through gritted teeth.
“Damn you!” Peyton shouted, regaining control of the airplane and leveling the wings. She put on the night-vision goggles that Ballantine had stashed on the dashboard.
“One mile. One mile. Okay, line up the arrows. One mile. There it is. There it is. We’re going to make it,” she said.
Peyton banked hard once, in the same style Matt had previously, avoiding another wide spray of machine-gun fire. Then the engine began to sputter and cough. They were out of fuel.
“Six hundred yards. Six damn football fields!” she shouted. “Keep going. Get going, baby. Please keep going!” Peyton pleaded with the faltering machine.