It was uncommonly overcast above the canyop when he arrived around noontime.
He knew that ever since the Soviets had nuked the Badlands the continent's weather patterns had changed — still a foggy cloud bank enveloping the crevices of the canyon was highly unusual.
He brought the jet fighter down to barely 1000 feet and located the western mouth of the canyon near Lake Mead. Dropping even lower, he found the clouds ended completely at 500 feet.
The secret base was cleverly hidden about 100 miles east of Lake Mead, in an extremely narrow and isolated part of the canyon. Built near an outcrop of rock that was nearly inaccessible by foot, when viewed from the air, one could only see canyon walls and the Colorado River snaking its way through. The buildings, the arresting gear and the catapult were all hidden from casual view. Only someone flying low off the river and expertly following two very hairy miles of the twists and turns of the canyon floor could reach the place.
It was so well hidden that only a handful of the many excursion pilots that had flown the canyon before the war had tripped over the installation. When they did, the CIA tracked them down — then offered them a lucrative flying job. Only the most courageous or craziest of pilots would dare to fly the narrows that led to the base. But those were two qualities in demand at the CIA any time.
Hunter located several landmarks and slowly brought the F-16's airspeed down to barely 150 knots. Just off Steamboat Mountain, he carefully descended until he was below the rim of the canyon. Further down he went, gingerly edging the '16's right side control stick back and forth, staying with the twists of the river below.
Soon he was just 50 feet off the water and his airspeed was down to 120 knots.
He started to pick up some more fairly familiar landmarks. A cliff here, a set of rapids there. Although he'd had only flown the secret missions here years before at night, he had guided his way in then using a helmet-attached
"NightScope." The device made the flights seem like flying in the clearest of daylight.
He recognized a bend in the river ahead as the two-miles-to-go landmark. He applied his airbrakes and lower his landing gear, reducing his speed to just 110 knots. He inched his way down to 40 feet off the deck. Above him he could see the outcrops of rocks jutting out this way and that. This was the hairy part. If any trouble developed, he could not pull up without smashing into one of the overhangs. All he had to do was keep it slow and steady and hope that the arresting cables were still there…
Bang!
Suddenly something hit his starboard wing. He turned to see a hole had drilled clearly through and a wispy stream of fuel starting to leak from the wound…
Bang!
Something — probably a .20 mm cannon shell — went through his port wing, just at the tip, close to his wingtip-mounted Sidewinder…
Bang! Bang! Bang!
In a matter of seconds the air around him and in front of him was filled with streaks of anti-aircraft fire. He reacted quickly: he couldn't go up, so dropped down, all the time trying to identify the source of the gunfire. Then he saw puffs of smoke — hundreds of them coming from guns hidden in every crevice and crack on both sides of the canyon wall. Only by his rocking of the F-16 in the narrows did he avoid getting hit.
Up ahead he could see the firing was even more intense. But at the same time, it was sporadically placed. The gunners — whoever they were — weren't aiming at him as much as setting up a wall of lead, which made it impossible for anything to get through. Bullets were glancing off the wings and body. He had no choice. He put the '16 into a 180-degree roll — the tightest he'd ever performed. As most of the gunfire was coming from above him, he'd much rather take some hits on the bottom of the airplane than the top.
But the maneuver was not enough. He still had at least a mile and a half to go. He had to fight back…
He couldn't imagine this many gunners were hiding in the canyon just waiting for some airborne intruder to pass through. Then he got an idea. He immediately punched his Electronic Counter Measures console and heard the reassuring whine as the variety of radio jamming equipment came on.
Suddenly the firing stopped. His gamble worked. He realized that these weren't humans shooting at him — they were robot-controlled anti-aircraft guns. The CIA must have installed the things to finish off anyone — like a single fighter or even a cruise missile — they judged hostile before it even reached the base. His ECM equipment was effectively jamming the signals, confusing the guns' automatic fire system and bringing the attack to a halt.
But Hunter felt far from secure. Someone had activated the robot-controlled gauntlet — someone who didn't want anybody getting into the base. The fact that his airplane was equipped with ECM counter-measures was the only reason he was still in one piece. Most of the aircraft flying around these days considered ECM equipment as an expensive and hard-to-maintain luxury.
He could see the secret base less than a mile ahead of him. In an instant he knew that the arresting gear was still in working order, because there was another jet — a banged-up Lear — sitting next to the midget runway. The only way it could have landed safely was to use the arresting device. He switched on his forward-looking topographic infra-red radar system and got a clear TV picture of the base. He could see at least seven individuals running about the installation. Obviously, they knew they were about to have some uninvited company dropping in.
Suddenly, a warning light flashed on his control panel. Someone had launched a small SAM at him. His ECM was still working, but it wasn't needed. Whoever fired the missile was an amateur — and that was being generous. The SAM — it looked like a Stinger — bounced off the canyon wall about a quarter mile from his position, exploded and fell into the river causing a minor avalanche in the process.
He pressed on. He had two options and he was running out of time. One choice was to rip up the base with his Vulcan cannon six pack then pull up, go around again, survey the damage, before going around a third time and trying to land.
He didn't want to shoot up the place for fear of destroying the precious black box… Suddenly he knew he didn't have time to consider option one. The fuel leak from the hit on his starboard wing had just gone from bad to worse.
He had no choice but to set the F-16 down.
He cut back his powerful engine to almost nothing, lowered the specially-installed arrester hook and crossed his fingers…
The F-16 hit the arresting wire at 105 knots. With a great squealing of tires and a cloud of dust, the airplane jerked to a halt in less than two seconds.
It was more of a controlled crash than a landing. Now Hunter knew why the Navy flyboys described carrier landings like "having sex in a car wreck."
When the smoke and dust cleared he saw he was on a small stretch of sandy beach, no more than a quarter mile long. The escape catapult was about 300 yards directly in front of him. A dangerous set of Colorado River rapids cascaded nearby. The base looked the same as when he flew the secret missions in some years before — nothing more than four concrete bunkers built into the side of the canyon wall.
He immediately popped the canopy and leaped out of the jet fighter, his M-16 up and ready.
That's when he saw the naked woman…
She was tall, thin with blond hair flowing almost to her waist. On second look, he realized she wasn't completely naked — she was wearing the thinnest of bikini bottoms, but that was it. She was standing about 25 feet away next to one of the concrete bunkers. She was also aiming an M-16 at him…