Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09 (39 page)

           
“Deactivate voice link,” Annie
ordered to the satellite voice server.

 
          
“He
can override,” Deverill reminded her. “You can’t shut off the general.”

 
          
“Just
give me a heading and altitude on Hammer,” Annie said. “I'll give it one more
shot.”

 
          
“You’re
going to ignore Samson? He’ll eat you for breakfast.”

 
          
“Do
I gotta do it myself, Dev? Give me a damned vector to the MV-22.” Deverill
shook his head, gave Annie a heading, altitude, airspeed, and range to the
MV-22 Pave Hammer, then fell silent.

 
          
If
it was possible, the weather had gotten worse—now, along with the structural
ice, darkness, and poor visibility, they encountered strong, choppy turbulence.
A few' times, the turbulence was so bad they thought they had been hit by
antiaircraft fire. In addition, the MV-22 was in a slight turn. At first it was
in a good direction—northwest, away from the advancing Russian army—but the
turn kept on coming, and now they were headed back the way they came, toward
the oncoming forces.

 
          
Again,
Annie began her rejoin on the MV-22. She lowered flaps right to the landing
position to slow down and stabilize faster. But it was obvious after only a few
moments that it was not going to be any easier—the pounding caused by the
turbulence w'as getting worse by the minute. “Damn it, I can’t do it,” Annie
said. “The turbulence is too strong. I'm getting a cramp in my hand.”

 
          
“You’ve
come this far, Annie. Keep it coming. Relax your grip on the stick.”

 
          
“I
can’t do this, Dev—”

 
          
“Heels,
just shut up and move it in,” Deverill said. “Nice and easy, but keep it
coming. We’ve got about ninety seconds before we get within lethal range of
that Zeus-23.”

 
          
Annie
nudged the EB-1 closer, closer... “Three thousand feet... twenty-five hundred
... good closure, two thousand ... fifteen hundred ..But suddenly the MV-22 hit
some turbulence and yawed hard left. Annie yanked the control stick left,
avoiding a collision by just a few dozen yards. Annie had no choice but to bank
away hard, back out to three-quarters of a mile.

 
          
“Why
are they turning left?” Annie exclaimed, her voice strained and hoarse. “Don't
they realize they’re about to get their butts shot off?”

 
          
“Never
mind, Annie,” Deverill coached. “Ease it back over. You can do it, Four
thousand feet... c’mon, Annie, time’s a-wastin’, get it over there ... whoa,
whoa
.
a little too fast, two thousand . . . good correction, fifteen hundred . .. one
thousand . .. good, five hundred feet... slide ’er over a hair more. He scanned
the sky with the flashlight, aiming it where the electronic image said the
cockpit was. “Trash Man’s probably got all his attention on his gauges, trying
to keep himself upright. C’mon, you guys, look up, look
up
!”

           
“Crap, crap,
crap
, ” Weston
swore to himself. The primary electronic artificial horizon had gone out when
the triple-A guns got them, and now the backup gyroscopic artificial horizon
was starting to look wobbly. He glanced over at the pneumatic pressure gauge
and saw it was two dots below the green arc—the backup gyro instruments would
probably go out very soon. When that happened, he’d have to rely on the
electric turn and bank indicator, the pitot-static altimeter and vertical
velocity indicator, and the backup “whiskey” compass—instrument flying at its
most basic.

 
          
He
knew he was in serious trouble. It would take all his skills to keep the big
plane upright now. Any distraction, any emergency, any attack now that diverted
his attention away from Hying the aircraft, might send them into an
unrecoverable death-spiral right into the ground. Weston tried to relax his
grip on the controls, tried to loosen up.

 
          
“Where
are you guys?” Briggs asked, frantically searching out the cockpit windows. “My
pilot’s getting pretty antsy, and so’s his gauges.”

 
          
“At
your nine o’clock, less than a half-mile,” Deverill replied. “Coming in fast.”

 
          
At
that instant, Weston saw it—it looked like a flashlight beam, as if shining
through a thick fog. Weston’s eyes darted back and forth, from window to
instruments. He then had to scramble to stop a steeper-than-anticipated left
bank. Shit, that came out of nowhere! An instantaneous distraction was all it
took to start a violent maneuver. Weston quickly realized he couldn't keep that
up any longer—the plane was drifting farther and farther off course every time
he looked out the window.

 
          
Suddenly
he saw it, flying just below and to their left. less than a football field’s
distance away. How in the world they’d avoided a collision, Weston couldn’t
figure. “Tally-ho! Tally- ho!” Weston crowed. “Got you in sight!”

 
          
“There
it is!”
Deverill crowed. “You see it. Heels?”

 
          
“Tally-ho!”
Annie responded happily. Sure in hell, it'd worked. Her attitude changed
instantly. Before she'd had visual contact, all she could think about was how
to stay away from the MV-22. Now that she had visual contact, she wasn’t going
to lose sight of him again, even if Deverill had to open the window so they
could hold hands together. “I got you now, sucker.”

 
          
Her
flying instincts and skills kicked in immediately. Seconds earlier, five
hundred feet apart in the soup was too close— now fifty feet didn’t seem
unreasonable at all. She smoothly, expertly tucked herself right underneath the
pilot's window— fortunately, the EB-l’s high angle of attack, with its nose
sticking high above the horizon, helped Annie to get closer than she ever
thought she could do.

 
          
Just
then, a shrill warbling
DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE!
warning tone sounded,
followed by a
aaa threat
light on the threat warning display. “Triple-A,
ten o’clock, inside lethal range!” Deverill shouted. And then the shells came,
bright yellow pops of light slicing upward through the darkness. Duane knew
that for every flash of light he saw, there were ten others zipping around with
it. The snake of shells swung hard in their direction. They were too close to
turn in either direction—there was no way out.

 
          
Deverill
shouted, “Vertical jinks!” But it was too late. Dewey and Deverill heard what
sounded like a rapid, heavy drumming on the left wing, followed by a heavy
vibration emanating from the left wing and tail. The
master caution
light
and several yellow warning lights illuminated on both sides. “Fuel malfunction
... configuration warning ... flight control warning.” Deverill said. “Looks
like they shot the hell out of our left wing and tail section—” At that moment,
the first red light on the warning panel illuminated. “Oh, crap, number-one i
hydraulic hot warning light.”

 
          
“Annie,
this is Dave,” a disembodied voice announced. It was Colonel David Luger,
seated in the “virtual cockpit” of the EB-1C Vampire bomber back at Elliott Air
Force Base, which allowed several crew members and support personnel to
remotely monitor the aircraft during its mission. “Annie, I’m going to shut
down your number-one primary and secondary hydraulic systems before they seize
and put the entire system into isolate mode. Eve also sent a test signal to
your left flap and slat actuators, spoiler group, and adaptive wing actuators,
and there’s no response, so it looks like you lost all your leftside-wing
flight controls. The rudder actuator seems okay, so you still have limited turn
control via the rudder. Copy all?”

           
“We copy,” Annie said. “We've got a
pretty good vibration coming from the left side,”

 
          
“Could
be a shot-up wingtip, spoiler, flap, or malfunctioning adaptive wing actuators,”
Luger said. “In any case, don’t touch the flap or wing sweep controls or you’ll
put your hydraulic system into isolate mode and end up wrapping yourself up in
a ball.”

 
          
“Roger.”

 
          
“Captain
Dewey,” General Samson cut in, “I want you out of there right now. That’s an
order. Return to the due regard point. We’ll coordinate a tanker rendezvous.”

 
          
“I’m
not leaving the MV-22 now that I’m in contact,” Annie said. “He’s on my wing,
and he’s going to stay there. If you want me to leave, get another plane up
here to lead this guy. Otherwise he won’t be able to keep himself upright.”

 
          
There
was a long pause, then: “Help is on the way right now,” Samson said in a
tunnel-deep monotone that signaled how angry he was. “An MC-130P is en route to
top off the MV-22 and lead him home. Stay with him until the P arrives.”

           
“Thanks, boss,” Annie said. There
was no reply. She knew she was going to catch hell for disregarding his orders.
“He sounded pissed,” she said to Duane.

 
          
“You
did real good. Heels,” Deverill said. He reached over and patted her shoulder,
then gave it a friendly rub. “Let the big guy be pissed—that’s his job. I’m
your MC, and I think you did all right.” His touch was electric—it sent a
current of warmth through her body. She dared take an eye off the MV-22 to
glance at him, and he smiled at her across the dark cockpit.

 
          
An
hour later, over the Sredneruskaja plains of southwestern Russia near the
Ukraine border, the MC-130P special operations aerial refueling aircraft
finally rendezvoused with the pair. Visibility had increased to just under a
mile as the storm front began to move through the region, so there was little
trouble during the rejoin. Just before the MC-130P got into visual range, Annie
backed the EB-1C Vampire bomber away, out of visual range, while keeping a
close watch on the damaged Pave Hammer aircraft. The stricken MV-22 made visual
contact with the MC-130P less than a minute after the Vampire bomber moved
away, and another minute later it was happily sipping fuel from the MC-BOP’s hose
and drogue refueling system, using position lights on the MC-BOP’s wings and
fuselage to stay straight and level.

 
          
“Thanks,
you guys,” Hal Briggs radioed. “A big thank-you from Trash Man and his guys,
too. You saved the day. You guys going to be okay?”

 
          
“We’ll
find out right now, Hal.” Annie started to push the throttles forward to get
some better controllability, but the faster she flew, the worse the vibrations
got. She could manage only another fifty knots without threatening to tear the
EB-1C apart. “Crap. We’ll be up here all night,” she cursed.

 
          
“If
we’re lucky,” Duane said.

 
          
For
the third time, Annie had to reapply the autopilot after it kicked itself
off-line. “Autopilot can’t hold it anymore.”

 
          
“I
think the vibration is getting worse. Fve noticed you keep on pulling back on
the power. We’re down to two hundred and twenty knots now. I think we got major
structural problems happening.”

 
          
“I
know, I know,” Annie said. She paused, trying to think of options, but she was
fast running out of them. Annie felt a loud, swift roanng in her ears as she
realized she might have only one option left. “I want you in your cold-weather
survival gear. Now.”

 
          
“You
go first,” Deverill said, his voice remarkably calm. “I can hold it.”

           
“I said, get in your cold-weather
gear and check your survival kit is secure.
Now.”
She watched with
half-angry, half-sorrowful eyes as Deverill nodded, then safetied his ejection seat
and began to unstrap. Annie spoke: “Genesis, this is Terminator.”

 
          
“Go
ahead, Annie,” General Samson responded.

           
“The vibration is getting worse,”
she reported. “I think we might be getting ready to lose part of our left wing.
I’ve ordered Dev into his cold-weather survival gear.”

 
          
“It’s
that bad?”