Power Curve (49 page)

Later, Anthony was ragging Sara a bit about Boots McClure’s randy comments, and acting—well, partially acting—a little teed-off. She picked it up fast, and fed him a few more anxiety moments before playing it straight.

“I met Mrs. McClure the other day at a luncheon and liked her,” she said. “She doesn’t wear her husband’s rank like some of the other wives do. God, what a sad crowd they can be. You’d think in this day and age they’d get out and do
something
besides eat lunch and sit around the pool and gossip, gossip, gossip. For some reason, I think the lieutenant colonels’ wives are the worst—do you suppose it’s because they’re bucking with their spouses for the big eagle and letting off
his
frustrations? Oh, never mind—now what about the big news? Where are we off to in the wild blue yonder and so forth?”

“No way, lady. You got to pay for your intelligence. Ante up…”

And she did, and afterward, his head against her bare breasts, as she checked carefully for more signs of gray—“I love a mature man, stop worrying”—he told her it was England, and she told him that that was too easy, that she had paid too much for such available info.

“You’ve just begun,” he said, and proceeded to make love in a way he never thought he could again, the inhibitions from the tragedy of the past finally giving up the ghost.

FORCE OF EAGLES

The two F-4s had a late tallyho on Jack and barely had time to split, one going high and to the left, the other diving to the right. Jack chose the high man and went for a head-on pass. He selected guns, snap-rolled to the right, squeezed the trigger for a long burst of cannon fire and brought the F-4 aboard, passing almost canopy to canopy. He saw smoke puff from behind the F-4 as he turned his attention to the other bandit. “Watch him,” he told Byers, “don’t lose sight.”

Byers turned to look at the rapidly disappearing F-4
behind them just as Jack wrenched the fighter after the other jet. The sergeant’s head snapped to the left and his helmet banged off the canopy, but he did keep his eyes on the first Iranian…

The second Iranian, for his part, was concentrating on the C-130, trying to get behind the slow-moving cargo plane. Actually Kowalski’s low altitude and slow speed were causing problems for the Iranian pilot…

Jack selected a Sidewinder and sweetened the shot, taking his time to get well inside the launch parameters of the missile. The reassuring growl of a lock-on grew louder and louder. He pressed the pickle button and watched the missile streak home. The rear of the Iranian jet flared into a long plume of flame as the plane spun into the ground.

“My guy ran away,” Byers told him. “What happened?”

“We got one,” Jack said as he flew past Kowalski. “You did good, Byers. Rule number one is always check six. You did that. That guy died because he forgot rule number two.”

“What’s that?”

“Never forget rule number one—”

“Bandits,” Kowalski called over the UHF, “ten o’clock high.”

A welcome voice came over the radio. “Snake and Jake on the way.” Snake Houserman and his wingman were now off the refueling tanker and headed into Iran.

“Hurry, Snake,” Jack answered. “Multi-bogies on us.” He checked his armament-control set. Two AIM-9 missiles and 450 rounds of 20mm showing on the rounds-counter were left. In a hurry, Jack missed that he still had one Maverick left hanging under the right wing and creating drag. He turned toward the four Floggers that had their noses on him…

FIREBREAK

Matt concentrated on his attack run. “Skid,” he called his wingman, “take the lead, we’ll lase. Ripple two.” Matt had told his wingman to lead the attack and pickle both his bombs on the first pass. Matt would take spacing and follow on the opposite arm of the
B’nai
attack and do the lasing. “Then get the hell out of Dodge,” he ordered.

“Roger, copy all,” Skid answered.

“Sounds good,” Martin’s voice said.

My God! Matt thought. How can he keep what he’s doing sorted out and still pay attention to what’s going on down here?

The two fighters started their run in. The TEWS scope was a mass of symbols and the audio was deafening him with chirps and wails. He turned the audio off and would rely on Furry to do his job. Now he could clearly see the compound housing the nerve gas plant and storage bunkers
on the Nav FLIR. Furry worked the Target FLIR and told him, “Target identified.” It amazed Matt how familiar the target complex looked.

Sweat poured off him as he concentrated on the run. A string of tracers from a ZSU-23-4 arched across the sky in front of him. He heard himself breathing hard. “Piece of cake,” Furry said, his voice rapid and high-pitched. More tracers crisscrossed in front of him and he saw the bright flash of two Gadflies launching. Now Matt “paddled” off the autopilot and hand-flew the jet as they swung in on their side of the pincers.

Then: “Bombs gone.” It was Skid coolly announcing that he had gotten his bombs off onto their target, the main production plant. Matt had lost sight of him when they split up for the attack and it was reassuring to hear from him.

A Gadfly exploded, lighting the sky. In the bright flash, Matt could see Skid escaping underneath the fireball and more tracers reaching toward him. The second Gadfly exploded, but this time, there was no trace of his wingman.

“Lasing,” Furry shouted. Matt was concentrating on the Nav FLIR, using it to fly around the target. It was a good run and all systems were working perfectly. A Gadfly streaked by less than a hundred feet above the canopy. For some reason, its proximity fuse didn’t work and the missile went ballistic.

The plant erupted in an explosion as the first bomb hit within inches of where Furry had laid the laser. The bombs were fuse-delayed and the first one penetrated to the first basement before it exploded. The second bomb flew right through the explosion and burrowed through to the third basement, burying itself in four feet of concrete before it exploded. The labs and test chamber where the nerve gas had been developed disappeared in a fiery blast. But the scientists who had given Iraq the deadly weapon had been paid off long before and were safe in their homes in Europe and China. Only two technicians were on duty. A series of secondary explosions turned the plant into an inferno and flames belched and mushroomed over three hundred feet into the air.

Furry shouted, “GO!” as a wall of tracers mushroomed
in front of the F-15. Matt broke hard left, still below a hundred feet. He flew around a radio tower and headed for safety as Viper 07 and 08 hit the first of the storage bunkers.

Then it was all behind them and Matt became aware of the chatter over the radios. He had effectively tuned it out. Still, he had been conscious of what was going on around him throughout the attack. It was called situational awareness. He reengaged the autopilot and coupled it to the TFR. He checked his fuel and ran a cockpit check, making sure they had not taken little damage. Then it hit him, the simulator rides the Gruesome Twosome had put them through had been worse.

CALL TO DUTY

“The press conference has been set up for two o’clock this afternoon,” Leo Cox told Pontowski. The two men were sitting in the Oval Office going over the day’s revised schedule with the press secretary.

“We expect most of the questions will be about the kidnapping,” Henry Gilman, the press secretary said.

“Any feel of the mood of the press corps?” Cox asked.

“Still digging for angles,” Gilman said. “Right now they are neutral and waiting to see what develops.”

“Good,” Pontowski said. “Leo, have the Vice President cover the luncheon with the delegates from the American Bankers Association for me. I’ll have lunch with Tosh and join you both in the Oval Office for a final review before the press conference. Have all the players there.” The two men rose and left the room.

Outside, Press Secretary Gilman said, “He always talks to Tosh before a press conference.”

“She’s still his best adviser,” Cox told him.

Pontowski walked upstairs to his wife’s bedroom. He knocked gently at her door and waited until the nurse answered. It was one of the small things he did to keep his wife’s morale up; she always wanted him to find her looking her best. The way the nurse smiled at him as she held the door open signaled that Tosh Pontowski was having a good day. A smile spread across his face when he saw her sitting at the small table near the windows. He walked across the room and joined her.

Tosh Pontowski smiled at him. “The wolf is losing today,” she said. As always, her lilting accent captivated him and touched the love he held for her, a love made stronger by her courage in coming to terms with and fighting the disease that ravaged her—systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus—the wolf). The disease was well named for the way it came and went unexpectedly, suddenly leaping out to rip and tear at human flesh and then sneaking away, only to return without warning to attack another part of the body. At first, it had only been a mild skin rash and Tosh had not been overly worried by the flare-ups that continued for a number of years. But then lupus had attacked her joints, and then had returned as kidney paralysis. But that had disappeared and then the wolf had returned again, this time attacking her heart.

He reached across the table and took her hand, hoping that she was in remission again. But his inner alarm warned him otherwise. How much longer? he wondered. He knew he could go on without her but life would lose most of its luster.

As usual, Tosh Pontowski refused to give in to her
disease. “Press conference today?” He nodded a yes. “L’affaire Courtland no doubt.”

“Can’t hide much from you, can we?” Pontowski observed. Charles, his valet, entered with a tray holding his lunch.

“Courtland will turn this against you,” she said, watching him eat. “He knows he must discredit you if he is to defeat the candidate you endorse in the next presidential election.”

“I know,” he answered. “No matter what we do, he’ll claim it isn’t enough. He’ll work the sympathy angle for all it’s worth.”

“Then you must defuse it,” she counseled. “Recall your own escape.”

“But I was never in captivity.”

“No, but you were wounded, frightened, and pursued. It was a near thing. Build on that.”

Matthew Zachary Pontowski leaned back in his chair and recalled when he had indeed been a terrified, desperately wounded fugitive.