Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (83 page)

 
          
One aircraft
had done all this. He had
planned on taking on the combined might of an American carrier air group, and
one bomber
had wiped out all his
defenses in less than ten minutes.

 
          
He
needed to transmit a report as soon as possible back to
Moscow
. The stolen American fighter was safe, but
the Americans had just raised the price of keeping it to an alltime high.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
The
flight out of
Nicaragua
was no cakewalk for the Megafortress and
her crew, but the loss of all ground-controlled intercept capability over
Nicaragua
and the loss of contact with Sebaco seemed
to take the fight out of the Nicaraguan MiG pilots. One had been destroyed by
Stinger fire from the Megafortress as it tried to tail-chase the bomber at low
altitude, and another was damaged by a near-miss from one of Cheetah’s
dogfighting AIM-132 missiles; the rest turned around and headed for
Sandino
International
Airport
. Powell and McLanahan followed the B-52 out
over the
Caribbean
until it was picked up by the E-5 AWACS
radar plan orbiting over the
Cayman Islands
.

 
          
“First
things first,” Bradley Elliott said when secure communications with the strike
formation had been established. “Patrick, Wendy’s out of surgery. She’s still
officially in critical condition. I can’t get any other information out of the
hospital staff. We could airlift you from
Georgetown
and have you in
San Antonio
in four hours—”

 
          
“No
... as long as she’s being taken care of. I’m where I need to be right now.”

 
          
“We’ve
got other back-seaters for Powell—”

 
          
“I
am Powell’s back-seater. Maraklov’s gotta break out sooner or later and I have
to be there when he does. Oh hell, of course I’d like to go to her, but I also
know I can’t do her any good. Not now. And I’ve got more hours in Cheetah than
anyone else. I’m the only one familiar enough with her systems to take her into
combat. If DreamStar got away while I was in
Texas
it would be a disaster for us all. And if I
know Wendy, she’d kill me if I sat around her bedside while . . . well, you
know what I mean.”

 
          
Aboard
the E-5 AWACS, Elliott still considered pulling McLanahan, but not because of
Wendy. His near-fixation on evening it up with Maraklov had come perilously
close to personal, and soldiers on a vendetta made poor fighters. Still, he was
right, he was the best-qualified crewman for Cheetah, and only Cheetah could
hope to take on DreamStar in air-to-air combat. The time to have the first team
on the line was right now, when the chances of DreamStar leaving
Nicaragua
were most likely . . .

 
          
“All
right, Patrick,” Elliott said. “Agreed, at least for now.

 
          
Break.
Kelvin, job well done to you and your crew. Radar shows your tail is clear.
Climb to flight level two-six-zero. Your tanker is orbiting over
Grand Cayman
at two-seven-zero. Everyone okay?”

 
          
“Affirmative,”
Carter replied on the scrambled UHF channel. “We’re beat but unhurt. We might
have picked up some blast damage from the last run we did—we were a little
close to the explosion when we dropped a Striker on the runway, and with our
bay doors open we might have picked up some fuel leaks—but we should be able to
recover in Dreamland. I’d like to have a tanker meet us over the CONUS in case
we have a leaking aft body tank.”

 
          
“We’ll
work on that for you right away,” Elliott said.

 
          
“While
you’re at it,”
Cheshire
cut in, “maybe you can get us clearance to land in
Georgetown
for a few days.”

 
          
“I
thought of that,
Nancy
,” Elliott replied, “but we had a little trouble convincing the
government to let the F-i6s, the KC-ios and the AWACS in—a Buff would have been
out of the question. Besides, technically the Megafortress Plus is still
classified. But we can arrange a short TDY for a debriefing, I think. Break. J.
C., Patrick, any problems with Cheetah?”

 
          
“We’re
in the green,” Patrick told him. “I just wish our late friend had showed for
the party.”

 
          
“It
was a long shot, Patrick,” Elliott said. “There’s fifty-thousand square miles
of nothing in
Nicaragua
where they could have hidden DreamStar.
We’ve intercepted radio traffic that seems to indicate it might be in Puerto
Cabezas but we’re not positive.”

 
          
“It’s
worth a look.”

 
          
“We’re
not loaded for air-to-mud, Patrick,” J.C. cut in. “There’s nothing we can do to
him except wave as we fly by. Besides, we’d fly right into the teeth of that
SA-15 Atkins said was there.”

 
          
“We’ve
done more than the White House wanted to authorize. We’ll maintain our
surveillance in case they try to fly DreamStar out. We’re changing your flight
plan, though, because of this new intelligence,” Elliott continued. “We’ve
secured landing rights at Puerto Lempira, a Honduran army base seventy miles
north of Puerto Cabezas—that was the original base for this operation until we
got landing rights in the Cayman Islands. We’re trying to get authorization now
from the White House to set up a photo-run at Puerto Cabezas like the one you did
on Sebaco. We’ve got fuel and weapons being airlifted there to meet you. It’s
not
Georgetown
but you’ll be in position in case DreamStar
tries to make another run for it.” “Sounds good,” McLanahan said. “I want to be
there when he tries to get away again.”

The Kremlin,
Moscow
,
USSR

Monday, 22 June 1996
, 0992 EET (0192 EDT)

           
Outside the foreboding walls of the
Kremlin the bright, clear summer morning belied the internal struggle taking
place. There, two of the government’s most powerful men were sitting across
from each other, locked in a silent combat.

 
          
The
Chief of Staff of the Soviet military, General Cherkov, had just delivered a
briefing to the General Secretary and Vladimir Kalinin, Chief of the KGB. The
General Secretary nodded to Cherkov, who was unsure whether or not he had just
been directed to leave; he kept his seat, with no objections from the two
principals with him.

 
          
“I
disagree with General Cherkov’s analysis of the information provided from
General Tret’yak,”
Kalinin
said. “He says that the American experimental fighter is safe in hiding
at Puerto Cabezas, guarded by both KGB and Nicaraguan troops, but then he says
that the aircraft is in danger. That is inconsistent. Tret’yak is
understandably shaken after sustaining the American’s preemptive attack—”

 
          
“Your
rhetoric is the only thing that is inconsistent here,
Kalinin
,” the General Secretary said. “The
Americans destroyed one of our military bases, shot down two of our fighters
and decimated our defenses. Yet you can sit there and say your plan is
progressing well and that there is no cause for alarm?” “We won’t know the true
extent of the damage for several hours,”
Kalinin
hedged. “But what happens to Sebaco is
irrelevant to our mission. The XF-34 is
safe,
it is still combat ready and can make the flight to Ramenskoye. In two hours,
we will begin launching escort aircraft from
Cuba
, and the decoy aircraft from
Managua
will make their way north to—”

 
          
“Your
plan has failed,
Vladimir
,” the General Secretary said. “Admit it before any more men are killed
and we lose any more aircraft or bases.” He shook his head. “It is only a
matter of time before they discover the fighter in this, this Puerto Cabezas
place. Then they will proceed to destroy
that
airfield—” he scanned the report, tossing it away with a dramatic
flourish—“with one bomber.
One bomber.
What do we do against one of their aircraft carriers or a
squadron
of these bombers?”

 
          
“The
attack on Sebaco was expected,”
Kalinin
argued. “That was the reason why we moved
the fighter out of there. Tret’yak described some sort of new bomber that
carried defense-suppression weapons as well as air-to-ground weapons, and it
possibly carried air-to-air—” Kalinin suddenly stopped. “The
knjepahst ezometyelna,
” he said
half-aloud.

 
          
“The
what?”

 
          
“The
Megafortress project,”
Kalinin
said. “The highly modified B-52 bomber developed in the
Nevada
research area, the same place where the
XF-34 was built. The American Air Force general, Bradley Elliott flew a
Megafortress against our strategic-defense laser-installation at Kavaznya eight
years ago; it carried the same unusual mix of weapons as the bomber that
attacked Sebaco. It must have been a Megafortress they used to beat down our
defenses and attack Sebaco.”
Kalinin
slapped a hand on the conference table,
muttering to himself.
“Parazetyel’na!
Vilizherchev said he met Elliott in
Washington
at the White House. We should have
known
Elliott would be called on to
formulate an attack plan—”

 
          
“You
mean you knew the man who would direct this attack?” the General Secretary
interrupted, staring at the KGB chief. “You knew about this meeting—which did
not appear in your report or Vilizherchev’s report—and you knew that this
Elliott would be involved with the planning yet you failed to anticipate the
attack and failed to take actions to protect our base from attack. I am ending
this craziness—”

 
          
“You
can’t stop it now—all the forces are in place and ready—”

 
          
“Then
order them to stand down,” the General Secretary said. “
Kalinin
, how much more do you want? The Americans
want their fighter back, and as long as the aircraft is in
Central America
they have the resources to offset every
effort we make to bring it out.”

 
          
“One
more attempt,”
Kalinin
said. His voice softened, and he opened his hands, virtually pleading.
“I ask for one more try. All our forces are in readiness, it can begin in two
hours . . .”

           
“Request denied.”

 
          
“If
our aircraft are detected and intercepted I will order them to turn around and
return to
Nicaragua
without a battle,”
Kalinin
said. “But if we surround the XF-34 with
fighter aircraft, even if the formation is detected I think the Americans will
have no choice but to allow us to proceed.”

 
          
“I
disagree,” Cherkov put in. “I believe the Americans would attack the formation.
Even if they didn’t openly attack, which they did
not
do over the
Caribbean
on your first attempt to smuggle the XF-34 out of
Nicaragua
, there is too much chance for disaster. An
air battle would almost certainly result. I cannot endorse such an operation—”