That night he lay in the visitor’s tent, wrestling with his bug netting. An hour before, he had finished eating a hardy meal with the Brits, downing several cold Algerian beers along the way. Now the desert was cooling down and Hunter was looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
Having finally solved the bug net, he lay on his bunk thinking. He reached inside his flight-suit pocket and took out a small flag. He unfolded it and fingered the material. It was his most prized possession: a small American flag. He carried it with him everywhere — ever since he’d taken it from a citizen he saw shot in war-torn New York City right after returning from the European theater years before.
The flag meant so much to him. It was the last symbol he knew of that reached back to the days before the big war started. Back when his country was called The United States of America. Back when there was that special unity found in all Americans. Back when it wasn’t illegal to carry this flag. It was a law he defied every day of his life. He would gladly die fighting for his right to carry the Stars and Stripes. For his right to remember what it used to be like. For his right to dream what it might someday be again …
Also inside his pocket he carried a picture of Dominique. What was she to him? His girlfriend? His lover? His soul mate? She was in Canada now, in friendly hands, recovering from a terrible two-year ordeal in which Viktor had kidnapped her and used her shamelessly for his twisted, brainwashing Circle War campaign.
Hunter’s heart started thumping whenever he thought of her.
He was handsome. Taller than most fighter pilots, and slightly quiet. He had been a certified genius as a child, a doctor in aeronautics from MIT at seventeen, and flying Air Force fighters by nineteen. He was recognized as the best fighter pilot that had ever lived — a reputation helped in great part, he knew, by his amazing sixth sense and the way it integrated into every action he performed while flying. Hunter didn’t just fly an airplane — he became one with it.
Some women found him dashing. He enjoyed them all. But no one — no one — affected him like Dominique. Ever since that day they’d met in war-torn France, she’d been with him. They had lived together briefly, but he had sent her away because it was too dangerous to remain where they were. Then she had been spirited off by Viktor’s agents, and would still be with the madman today if Hunter hadn’t rescued her.
But now, here he was, separated from the woman he loved, chasing some brainwashing lunatic across the top of Africa. His life had never been simple, and he didn’t expect it to change anytime soon.
Hunter had been in a deep sleep for three hours when he suddenly sat bolt upright …
Missiles. Fired from way off. Coming this way …
He was up and running in a matter of seconds. Across the sand, across the highway-runway, toward the only tent at the small base that still had a light burning in it. It was the Scramble Tent, where two pilots waited on call around the clock.
Hunter burst in, startling the two British officers, who had been sitting calmly playing a game of cribbage.
“Missiles!” Hunter said. “There’s three of them coming this way!”
The two pilots looked at him as if he were mad. “I say, major,” one drawled. “Are you sure?”
He didn’t hang around long enough to reply. He was running again, this time to his F-16.
The 16 was the fastest-warming airplane in the world. Unlike other fighters, it could be started unassisted by the pilot and rolling for takeoff in under forty-five seconds. Hunter routinely cut that time to less than a half minute.
He fired up the F-16’s engine and moved out onto the runway. He could feel the missiles coming in from the northeast, probably launched by an aircraft somewhere out of the Med. He switched on his radar and immediately got three clear readings. They were sophisticated “fire-and-forget” missiles — deadly flying bombs that locked into a target from far off and homed in unerringly over distances of up to 100 miles or even more. Hunter knew these missiles were just 50 miles from the British base and closing fast.
He roared off the runway, noting out of the corner of his eye that the two British pilots were running to their Tornados.
Hunter was still unarmed, his firing system still disconnected. But he knew he had to stop the missiles somehow. He turned the 16 in the direction of the oncoming rockets and booted in the afterburner. He had a visual sighting on them in twenty seconds.
They were flying in a straight line separated by a mile apiece — mindless instruments of destruction all too reminiscent of the Nazi buzz bombs of World War II.
Hunter would have to work fast, and still he doubted if he could stop all three of them.
The night was pitch-black and the inside of his cockpit was ashimmer in the green light of his TV screens. He put the 16 into a wicked 180-degree turn, the G-forces stretching the muscles on his face into a grim smile. He got on the tail of the third trailing missile and quickly calculated its exact speed and altitude. He pumped the numbers into his flight computer and pushed a button. More lights flashed as the computer went to work. Instantly, the F-16 moved right up beside the missile. He took over manual control of the jet again and maneuvered the 16’s wing towards the short control and steering stub of the missile. Deftly, he moved the airplane up a little. Then more to the right. Now down a touch. It was a dangerous, delicate maneuver — both he and the missile were traveling at 400 mph plus. One wrong move and they’d be picking him up in little pieces all over the desert.
He took a deep gulp from his oxygen mask and slid the 16 in closer to the missile. With an irritating scraping noise, the F-16’s right wing moved up and underneath the missile’s. He knew he could only hold the precarious position for a few seconds. With the flick of his wrist, he jerked the control stick to the left. The F-16’s wing bumped the missile’s stub just enough to upset its predetermined course. The missile’s gyro-system immediately overloaded, causing its targeting system to go blank. The missile did a complete flip-over, then plunged into the sands below, detonating in a huge explosion.
But Hunter didn’t even see the flash. He was already moving up and into position on the second missile.
He didn’t have time to be so fancy with rocket number two. The base was just ten miles away. He caught up with the missile and pulled ahead and slightly above it. Then he gradually brought the F-16 down until the jet engine’s hot exhaust was blowing directly into the missile’s air-intake duct. Instantly the missile’s fuel-combustion chamber became overheated by the F-16’s aftersmoke. Hunter bit his lip and held the risky position for seven long seconds before sharply veering away. Just in time, as the fuel ignited and the missile self-destructed in midair.
But there was still one missile left and now, with the base in view, he knew he would not be able to stop it.
The missile impacted exactly where his F-16 had been parked, causing a large blast of fire and dust. Luckily the two scramble pilots had warned the rest of the base before taking off in the two Tornados. The explosion was far enough away from the base’s other two airplanes so as not to cause any damage. However, as he streaked over the base and watched helplessly, Hunter could see that three of the base tents — those holding their valuable supplies — were burning ferociously. The base’s water supply was also hit.
He landed by the light of the fires and taxied to the far end of the runway. Without water, the base’s personnel were helpless in fighting the flames. They could only move as much equipment as possible away from the blazing supply tents.
Hunter jumped out of the F-16 and ran to meet Heath, who was directing the emergency operation.