Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (70 page)

 
          
“I
never thanked you for helping my ass over
Iran
, Patrick,” Hal Briggs said. “I knew you
were up there doing shit, I knew it! I heard the Iranians launching every SAM
and triple-A projectile they had, and I knew it was either a raid by every bomber
in the fleet, or a couple Screamers launched by Patrick McLanahan. Thank you
for saving my narrow ass, brother.”

 
          
“My
distinct pleasure,” Patrick said. He shook hands with Wohl. “Good to see you,
Gunny. Great work taking over this airfield. I don’t think the Marines will
ever know what hit them.”

 
          
“It
was no problem, sir,” Wohl responded. He motioned to his Humvee, and two of
Wohls commandos brought out Commander Willis. “I thought you should explain
things to the commander.” Wohl ripped the piece of duct tape off the Navy
commanders face, leaving a cherry- red mark on either side of the angry
officer’s face.

 
          
“I
will see you thrown in prison for the rest of your life, McLanahan! ” Willis
shouted. “This is a complete outrage! You are nothing but a criminal and a
traitor!”

 
          
“I’m
taking what belongs to me, Eldon,” Patrick said. “We’re going to keep you and
your men nice and safe and out of the way. I’m sure you’ll be found shortly
after we’ve departed.”

 
          
“Where
the hell do you think you’re going to go, McLanahan?” Willis spat angrily.
“Where do you think you’re going to hide five fucking B-52 bombers? You might
as well give yourselves up now. Or maybe you can just defect to
Russia
or
China
or wherever the hell you’re headed, you
lousy stinking traitors! ”

 
          
“I’m
not going to defect, Eldon—we’re going to fight,” Patrick said. He nodded to
Wohl, who nodded to his men, who wrapped another long piece of duct tape over
Willis’s mouth. “Get him out of here, Gunny,” McLanahan said.

 
          
“With
pleasure, sir,” Wohl said humorlessly.

 
          
Patrick
turned to Hal Briggs. “The rest of the flight crews were taken off the island
and sent back to the States,” Patrick said, “so we’ve only got enough flight
crews for one plane. We’re going to load all the weapons we can on Jon
Masters’s DC-10 launch plane, and upload all the defensive weaponry we can on
the bombers themselves. We’re short on maintenance crews too, so we’ve got to
do a lot of the loading and preflight stuff ourselves, so we can use all the
help your guys can give us. After the Redtail Hawk mission, I figured your
troops are somewhat familiar with loading air-to-mud stuff on bombers.”

 
          
“You
got it, Patrick,” Briggs said, rubbing his hands together with sheer
excitement. “Man, this is great! Do I get to go flying this time?”

 
          
“We’re
way short on crew members, so we can use all the help we can get.”

 
          
“In
that case, I brought along someone who might help,” Briggs said. He motioned to
his Humvee, and a single man stepped out. It was hard to see his face in the glare
of the headlights . . .

 
          
.
. . but Patrick McLanahan knew who it was the minute he stepped out of the
vehicle, even without seeing his face, and the brotherly embrace they shared in
the glare of the Humvee’s headlights was genuine and tearful. “My God, Dave,
it’s really you, it’s really fucking
you”
Patrick breathed, his voice choked with emotion. Wendy, Briggs, and Brad
Elliott joined the two, and they all clustered around one another like a
close-knit family reunited after many painful years.

 
          
David
Luger and Patrick McLanahan had once formed the Air Force’s most effective
bombing team ever. Because of their skill, knowledge, expertise, and seamless
teamwork, they had both been selected by Brad Elliott for the secret “Old Dog”
project. When the test project had suddenly turned into an operational mission,
together Patrick, Luger, Wendy, Brad Elliott, and two more crew members, now
dead, had successfully attacked and destroyed the Soviet anti-satellite laser
site.

 
          
But
the crew had been forced to land their battle-damaged plane on an abandoned
Soviet airfield in eastern
Siberia
.
The crew had managed to steal enough fuel to depart the base, but in the battle
that ensued after they refueled the EB-52, Dave Luger had left the bomber to
draw fire from the Red Army soldiers that had arrived. His heroic actions had
allowed the Megafortress and the rest of the crew to escape, but he had been
severely wounded and left behind in the frozen wastes.

 
          
Luger
had been feared dead and was nearly forgotten until Paul White and members of
Madcap Magician, performing a daring rescue inside a secret Soviet research
facility in the Baltic republic of Lithuania, had discovered Luger inside the
same facility—White had been a simulator instructor and designer with David and
Patrick McLanahan at Ford Air Force Base in California, and he’d recognized
Luger instantly White had contacted Brad Elliott, who’d combined forces with
Madcap Magician and Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Chris Wohl and mounted a
covert rescue mission. David Luger had been returned safely to the
United States
, but had had to be placed in security
isolation because he had been declared dead, and his sudden reappearance would
have caused questions about the then-classified “Old Dog” project.

 
          
Patrick
McLanahan’s longtime partner David Luger returned the embrace, crying like a
child and pounding Patrick’s back with joy. “Hal told me you were going flying,
and that it might be illegal, so we decided to go all the way and spring me out
of security isolation,” Luger said in his familiar
Texas
drawl. “He filled me in on the way. I guess
we’re not so classified after all, are we?”

 
          
Patrick
was still not believing his partner and best friend was standing in front of
him. “God, Dave, I still can’t believe this,” Patrick gasped. “Man, a whole lot
of shit has happened since I saw you last. I never thought either one of us
would make it. ”

 
          
“Well,
we made it, and I’m ready to do some flying and serve up a heapin’ helpin’ of
whup-ass,” Luger said excitedly. “And Fve been studying, too.”

 
          
“Studying?
The Megafortress?”

 
          
“Damn
right, bro,” Luger said. “Ever since the Redtail Hawk rescue, and after finding
out you guys were still together and still flying Megafortresses, I’ve been
studying up on everything you’ve been doing. Hal and Paul and John Ormack and
Angelina Pereira, before they died, were secretly giving me EB-52 tech orders
for months, the latest stuff. I haven’t seen a Screamer or a JSOW or a
Wolverine, but I know how to load, program, and launch them and all the weapons
we can carry on a Megafortress. I can sit in any seat and run the systems, and
I could even fly the beast with a little help. So just tell me where in the
hell we’re going and I’ll help you get us there! ”

           
Patrick McLanahan looked at his assembled
circle of friends and comrades-in-arms, and felt the pride and happiness well
up in his heart. They were all together once again: the crew of the original
EB-52 Megafortress, the “Old Dog,” minus its copilot John Ormack and its gunner
Angelina Pereira; Hal Briggs, his friend and fellow warrior; Paul White, his
former instructor turned high-tech rescue expert; Jon Masters, the boy genius
whom Patrick had dragged out of the laboratories and corporate boardrooms to
show him what defending your country and risking your life in combat was
really
about; Nancy Cheshire, the smart-
mouth hard-as-nails test pilot who had been in combat in the Megafortress even
more times than Patrick McLanahan himself; and newcomer Chris Wohl, the
brooding, powerful Marine who suffered himself to be around all these Air Force
techno-soldiers and who had shown them all what it was like to kill while
looking directly into the eyes of the enemy instead of from the sky.

 
          
And,
last but not least, they were all together with the beast that had started the
whole thing ten years earlier—the modified B-52 strategic escort “battleship”
they called the Old Dog. Over the past ten-plus years, they had done some
incredible, mystifying, unheard-of things in the strange pointed-nose, V-tailed,
fibersteel-skinned demon.

 
          
Now
they were faced with their greatest challenge—to leave the protection and
support of the
United States
military, fly to a strange new land, and
attempt to turn the tables on a giant military superpower that was willing to risk
a global thermonuclear holocaust to assert its domination. The odds seemed
enormous.

 
          
“Guys,
listen up for a minute, all of you,” Patrick McLanahan said. “I don’t mean to
insult any of you, but I’m going to remind you that what we have done and what
we are about to do are probably among the most dangerous things you will ever
do or ever contemplate doing. If we succeed, you will not be rewarded for a job
well done—in fact, you might find yourself in federal prison for a long, long
time. My child ...”

 
          
“Your
. . .
what
, Mack?” David Luger asked
incredulously. “Your
child?
”

 
          
“Yes,
my child
—our
child,” Patrick said,
reaching over to take Wendy’s hand. “My child could grow up fatherless, or he
could be born with his father in prison—in fact, he or she could be
born
in prison. And of course, we could
all die successfully defending our country, and no one will thank us, or we
could die in total obscurity, and it will be as if we never existed at all. I
know we’re not in this business to get thanks from anyone, but I do know that
we fly for our country and to preserve our freedom. Well, our country’s leaders
don’t want us to do what we’re about to do.

 
          
“On
the other hand, if we don’t do this mission and if we turn ourselves in to Sky
Masters, Inc.’s, lawyers in Washington, we could have a pretty good chance of
surviving lawsuits and court-martials and returning to our former lives with
our fortunes and careers intact,” Patrick went on. “I think Jon Masters and I
have enough friends in high places, including the White House, to go to bat for
us. Between our political pals and our lawyers, I feel pretty confident that if
we stop now, our careers and our company can survive all that we’ve done up
until now, even including taking this airfield. So you see, you’ve got nothing
to gain and everything to lose if we go on.”

 
          
“So
what else is new, Patrick?” Hal Briggs deadpanned.

 
          
“If
you’re done talking, Colonel,” Nancy Cheshire said, “I think we better get off
this airpatch before someone happens by. Let’s go.”

 
          
Patrick
McLanahan searched the faces of all those surrounding him—there was not one
downturned eye, not one uncertain fidget, not one shred of doubt evident in any
nuance or expression. They were all ready to fight. “Very well, folks,” Patrick
said. He turned to Brad Elliott and asked, “You feel up to doing some flying
again, sir?”

 
          
“You
try to stop me, Muck,” Elliott responded. The retired three- star looked at his
young colleague and protege with great admiration, but said nothing else as he
headed back to the hangar to get ready to load and launch his bomber.

 
          
“Good
speech, boss,” Nancy Cheshire said as she followed. “Corny as hell, but very
inspirational. Made me weepy all over the damn place.”

           
“Thanks,
Nancy
. High praise coming from you,” he deadpanned.
“And I’m not your boss.”

           
“Maybe you will be,”
Cheshire
said. “You sure sound like a commander
giving a pep talk to the troops before stepping.”

 
          
“It’ll
be all I can do to keep us out of prison, Nance,” Patrick said. “Try to keep
the general straight.”

 
          
“No
problem, Colonel,” Nancy Cheshire said eagerly. “See you on the other side.”
She trotted off after Elliott.