"Look out, look out."
It was one of the SEALs. Bennett couldn't see what was happening. But he could hear it. Someone was firing at them at close range. The .50s opened up and blew the guy away, but not before six rounds riddled the back of their Seahawk.
"We're hit, we're hit — go, go, go."
Both Seahawks gained altitude and began pulling away from the airport. The question was, which way should they go? The Seahawk's onboard color radar showed the storms pelting the coastline and interior of Spain, making the route to Rota treacherous at best. The worst of the storm was now over the Rock itself. Thunder boomed above them and lightning was flashing all around them. Heading out to the aircraft carrier actually seemed the marginally less dangerous course of action, but it was a crap shoot either way.
"It's your call, Sergeant," Bennett said. "Just get us out of here."
Hunt climbed into the raging storm and made his decision.
"Freedom One, this is Striker One Six," Hunt told the USS John F. Kennedy. "We are airborne. Our feet are dry, but we are coming to you. Over."
"Striker One Six, this is Freedom One — negative, negative — be advised weather our way is extremely dangerous."
"Look out, " yelled Galishnikov. "RPG — left side. "
Every head turned. They could see the white contrail heading straight for: hem. The Seahawk banked hard to the right. The RPG sliced past their left window, missing by inches. Now the pilot pulled straight up into the light-ning and fog. Everyone was holding on for their lives, but now the gunfire didn't seem as terrifying as the weather.
"Freedom One, this is Striker One Six, you do not understand — we have he Package. I repeat, we have the Package. We are under heavy fire. We lave no other options. We are heading your way."
FORTY-NINE
MacPherson and his team tracked the drama from the Sit Room.
With the suicide bomber crisis over — at least for now — there was no need to be in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the blast-proof bunker three stories under the White House. They'd be safe where they were. A steward brought in coffee and sandwiches, but no one was hungry. They were listening to a live, secure feed, cross-linked from the Pentagon.
"Can I talk to them, Bennett and McCoy?" MacPherson asked.
"Not yet, sir," said Defense Secretary Trainor, patched in via videocon-ference. "Let's give them some time to get their bearings and battle that storm."
"Freedom One, this is Striker One Six again, do you copy?"
Hunt tried to establish contact with the Kennedy, still nearly fifty nautical miles away. Nothing. He checked his radio equipment and made some fast adjustments.
"Freedom One, I repeat, this is Striker One Six, do you copy?"
It took a moment. Then a hiss of static and a garbled voice came crackling back.
"Striker… Six… Free. …"
"Freedom One, please repeat. Say again, please repeat."
More hiss and static — then a clear channel.
"Striker One Six, we're launching two F-l4s to watch your back."
That was more like it.
"Roger that, and thanks, Freedom One. Our feet are wet. We're coming home."
Bennett stared out the window of the Seahawk. They were just four hun-dred feet above the angry whitecaps, trying to stay under the thick fog with-out crashing.
No one said a word for the next few minutes. They simply surrendered to the sounds of the whirling rotors above, the crashing waves below, and the deafening thunder exploding all around them. The chopper continued rocking back and forth, occasionally dropping a good twenty-five or thirty feet in a split second.
Two F-14 Tomcat Interceptors went to full power.
Seconds later, they each catapulted off the pitching deck of the Kennedy, one after the other, racing from zero to a hundred fifty miles an hour in just three seconds. It was no night to fly. The pilots didn't even know who they were risking their lives to escort home. But orders were orders and they were pros.
The Seahawks were now just thirty miles from the Kennedy battle group.
But they were absolutely being mauled by the storm raging around them, The winds were gusting upward of sixty to seventy knots. Massive sheets of rain were moving horizontally. Bennett forced himself not to look out the window at the snaking bolts of lightning and the massive black waves.
Suddenly, warning lights and buzzers filled the cockpit. Hunt checked his istruments and his radar. Then McCoy saw his head jerk back. They had company.
"Freedom One, Freedom One, this is Striker One Six, we are being painted. Some bogey just locked onto me. What the hell is going on?"
Painted? Bennett's eyes opened instantly and he sat up. Someone out there in the darkness had just acquired tone and was preparing to fire their missiles
at them.
"Striker One Six, we just picked up two MiG-23s. They're coming fast and low from the south-southeast."
Bennett couldn't believe what he was hearing. MiGs inbound on their location? Why? Who were they? It didn't make sense. He leaned into the cockpit to see the blips on radar. Sure enough, they were sitting ducks, Mordechai leaned over with his assessment.
"Libyans."
"You sure?" said Bennett.
"I'm sure."
McCoy agreed. So did the SEALs. It was the only explanation.
"Freedom One, where's that cover you promised?"
"Striker One Six, they're inbound hot. They should be there any moment."
"We might not be—"
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.
"They fired. One of the MiGs just fired!" yelled Hunt. "Missile in the air!
Hunt immediately deployed countermeasures and pulled back on the yoke. The Seahawk climbed to three thousand feet, then went into a hard dive as Bennett and the others hung on for their lives. Just before they crashed into the waves, Hunt banked hard right, then hard left, then pulled up and broke right again. Everyone looked left as a Russian AA-10 air-to-air missile sliced by at Mach 4, missing the Seahawk by less than a yard. Even Galishnikov was terrified now, and he lost everything he had on the floor.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.
"They've locked on again!" Hunt yelled. "They've got tone again."
They'd been lucky but he wasn't sure he could pull an evasion like that again.
Just then the two F-l4s raced by — one to the left, one to the right. A cheer went up in both choppers and Bennett could hear the radio traffic as both pilots locked on to their bogies.
"I've got tone," said the lead.
A moment later, his wingman did, too.
"Fox two, fox two."
"Fox two, fox two."
Sidewinder missiles exploded out the sides of the F-l4s. A fraction of a second later they could feel the concussion of two massive explosions. The MiGs were history. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief — everyone but Bennett. They weren't out of this storm yet. They still had to land.
Bennett could see the landing lights on the Kennedy.
The navy's last conventionally powered aircraft carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy was a thousand feet long, twenty stories high, and weighed more than eighty thousand tons. But the waves below were now cresting at thirty to forty feet. Even at three-quarters of a mile out, Bennett could see the four- and-a-half-acre flight deck pitching wildly back and forth, between fifteen and twenty degrees at least, making it impossible to stand on the deck, much less land on it.