Sky Ghost (34 page)

The reporter laughed a very false laugh. Then he turned to the camera and said: “Self-effacing, maybe even shy. Just as we’ve been told to expect him.”

He turned back to Hunter and stuck the microphone even closer to his mouth.

“You realize you have a lot of fans back in the States,” the reporter said. “How about a word or two for the folks at home.”

Hunter kept his mouth shut. Did these guys have authorization to do this?

“Or how about telling us something about your mysterious past. What do you say? How about giving us a scoop?”

Hunter just shook his head. Tell us about it? Where he came from was supposed to be one of the darkest secrets of the U.S. military, deeper and darker than the mission he was about to go on. And these guys wanted him to talk about it?

“I think I’d better not,” he finally blurted out.

“Well how about this mission today,” the reporter insisted. “We hear it’s a really top secret one—c’mon, let us in on it.”

“I can’t,” Hunter replied. “It’s
top secret
.”

The reporter just laughed his fake laugh again. Then he looked back into the camera and said: “OK, there you have it folks. An exclusive interview with the famous Hawk Hunter. And remember you saw it first here on WSUX…”

And with that, the three men disappeared into the fog again.

Hunter’s head was spinning now. Did that just happen? Was that real? But then, something else caught his attention. Something big.

He stared out into the fake fog and saw a gray outline. It was so gigantic, Hunter was distracted enough to forget the reporters for a moment. It was another megacarrier just a few hundred yards off the starboard. It was so big, it blotted out whatever morning light that was getting through the artificial fog. The second carrier’s presence underscored the fact that the other ships supporting the mission were moving into position. He studied this floating city for a moment and then the big ship vanished into the fog again.

At exactly 0600, Hunter sensed an aircraft approaching. It was a small airplane, not a jet, not a big chopper or anything even close. No, this was definitely a piston-driven prop plane. One that was very, very quiet.

Interesting, Hunter thought.

The aircraft got closer. But he could just barely hear it. He’d been told to expect a unique infiltration aircraft. That’s exactly what it sounded like coming out of the clouds.

It was strange, because while he sensed the airplane’s approach, he was surprised when it finally came out of the mist at him. It was not in the air at all, it had already landed on the near end of the deck and had rolled up to him without him realizing it. The plane was that quiet.

And he’d been right; it was a piston-driven prop plane. The propeller was enormous and thus the engine must have been too. But there were a series of dampeners around the cowling to keep the noise down. In fact, painted in scroll letters on the cowling, it read:
WHISPER-ENGINE.

The aircraft itself looked like a biplane, one with its bottom wing missing. It had big squatty tires like a German Stuka of old. The fuselage was thick and boxy. The tail was painted with Zebra stripes and the ID number 333. It was about half the size of a C-47, Hunter figured. In this strange place, that was rather small indeed.

The plane was a Westland Lysander-XX. An odder airplane has never been built, here or anywhere else.

The side door opened and Hunter ran towards it. The plane wasn’t going to stop, that was quickly apparent. So Hunter jumped aboard even as the pilot was turning around and heading back to take off again.

Hunter just made it in before the pilot gunned the single engine. Suddenly the plane was moving very quickly. Hunter was barely able to close the door behind him when the plane was lifting off the carrier deck. He could see the huge carrier start to fall below him as he finally jammed the door closed.

The pilot put the Lysander into an incredibly steep climb. Hunter was nearly thrown to the back of the airplane cabin, it was so severe. He held on and waited for the climb to end. It took about a minute and it was a bit hair-raising. But finally the plane passed above the artificial fog bank and leveled out.

Only then could Hunter climb up to meet the two-man crew.

They gave him a sort of quick but friendly salute.

“Captain Lancaster,” the pilot said.

“Lieutenant Moon,” the copilot added.

Hunter gave both men the once-over. Unlike many other people he’d run into during this strange adventure, they did not seem familiar to him. At least, he didn’t think they did. They were not wearing any insignias on their flight uniforms, but Lancaster looked and sounded British; Moon was definitely an American. Both had special ops written all over them.

“Hunter,” was the extent of his introduction to them, along with a quick handshake. “How’s the weather look?”

It was an important question.

If the weather was against them, this wouldn’t be a pretty flight.

“Weather is about a four,” Lancaster yelled back to him. “We could do better.”

Hunter strapped into the third seat in the plane’s roomy cockpit. He took a look around. The Lysander
was
a very odd aircraft. Inside there were berths for four, plus a stove, a kitchen, an eating table, even a head with a door on it. As a military airplane, it was more like a flying house trailer. What a concept!

He found his gear next to his seat. It was all stuffed into one backpack. Inside, he found the heating ring, three batteries, a Boomer, a rope, and a radio control set for steering the drone. He lifted the pack for weight. It seemed to be made of some kind of indestructible material and would fit snugly on his back. But the thing was heavy. Damn heavy.

They broke through the real clouds at 7000 feet, and for the first time in a while, Hunter actually saw the sun.

Both Lancaster and Moon put their oxygen masks and helmets on, so did Hunter.

They flew on in silence. Hunter settled back and sucked in some pure O—it helped wake him up a bit.

He’d gone over all the plan a hundred times how, but felt it wouldn’t hurt to do it again.

The first phase would be the most dangerous. Getting into Germany undetected. The bombing raid, launched from two other megacarriers nearby, would be a great cover, but the plan called for them to land practically in the middle of it.

The dam itself was only two miles from one of the bomb impact zones. From the air, and with bad weather, that might as well be inches. Their timing would have to be precise.

Once down, Hunter would leave the plane and set up the heat ring on the target. The batteries to be used were the most important element and they weighed a ton. But the heat ring had to reach at least 150 degrees Fahrenheit for the heat-seeker in the nose of the drone to work. Thus two batteries had to be placed in tandem, and hooked up just right. That’s why his pack was so heavy. He had to carry two main batteries plus a third as a back up.

Once the heat ring was attached, Hunter would find a safe place not too far away from the dam itself. The bombed-up drone would arrive overhead. At this point Hunter’s flying expertise would come into play—indeed that’s the real reason he was here. He would essentially be flying the big drone once the radio contact was switched over to him.

He unpacked some of his equipment. All these switches and tubes and radio equipment worried him. Like everything in this strange world, it all seemed to be bigger and bulkier than it should have been. He was certain that much of it could have been built smaller, but he had to work with what he had.

Oddly too, there was not much discussion about what would happen after the drone went into the side of the dam. Certainly the bomb-packed airplane would explode—but would it really be enough to make a crack in the thick dam wall? And would the crack be big enough? Or could it be too big? No one was really saying.

The OSS planners were sure though that the cascade of water from the busted dam would knock out most of the power in the western half of the Reich’s territory. If the Huns lost power for as long as a month, it would be a significant blow to the pumped-up German war machine. And it would give the Americans another 30 days to somehow figure a way to turn the tide yet again.

Once the deed was done, Hunter’s escape plans were fairly straightforward. The dam blows up, he climbs aboard the Lysander, and off they go. A flight of Navy long-range attack jets from the
Cape Cod
was promised to meet them and ride air cover for their getaway.

If all went well, Hunter could be eating soup in one of the carrier’s mess halls by dinnertime.

He made that his most immediate goal.

The flight passed for the next two hours without incident.

The plane was flying slow, and the wind was against them, but that was OK. They were still on schedule.

Then, about 0815 hours, things began happening.

They had just broken through a massive cloud layer when they saw them. Way off to the east and south. The bomber formations from the two other megacarriers. Again there were the two prime Air Corps types, B-17/36s and B-24/52s. There were at least 10 packages and each package had at least 25 planes in it. And these were just the ones that Hunter could see.

“Lot of airplanes just for the three of us,” Hunter heard Lancaster murmur.

“Lot of people chewing our asses if we fuck up,” Moon replied.

Hunter took another gulp of oxygen and remained silent. The formation of huge bombers looked impressive; he would have loved seeing them take off from the huge carriers. And he was sure they were chock full of firebombs—all of them. This sent him gulping for more O.

There were some fighters too; they were flying so high above the bombers that it looked like they were expecting an attack from Heaven itself. Hunter could only wonder if Sarah was up there flying with them. He took in some more oxygen; they hadn’t discussed anything about the mission the night before, which was good. He really didn’t want to think about what danger she might get into if she was involved.

The Lysander moved over and took up a position underneath one of the bomb groups.

They flew on in formation like this for the next half hour. The weather got worse the deeper they went into the east. By the time they made landfall over the European coast, the clouds above Germany itself looked like they were miles high, and blacker than black.

Storms of the most incredible kind must be taking place beneath them, was all Hunter could think. He’d never seen clouds so big and so dark.

At least, he couldn’t remember doing so.

They flew for another hour, the huge bomber formation all around them, the fighters above them.

They ran into some flak around Dokken in Occupied Holland and then again near Bacholt, inside Germany itself. But they were flying too high for the weak AA. And no German fighters showed up even to probe them.

Obviously there were all assigned to protect the bigger cities of the Reich.

Twenty minutes out from their target area, Lancaster began shutting down some of the aircraft’s electronic systems. They would aid anyone with a detection unit on the ground in finding them, plus it was always a good idea to shut off anything electrical you could spare if you were about to attempt a hairy landing.

And the plan called for this landing to be an especially hairy one.

The dam itself was three miles wide, and nearly one half mile high. Next to its western edge, there was a service road which ran through a woods for about 100 yards before flowing into a larger highway nearby. But the term “road” might have been used a little too quickly. It was essentially a path lined with trees on both sides. Its main advantage was that it was open at either end. In theory the Lysander could fly in at one end, and fly out at the other.

But once they got a look at the road from the air on the long-range TV screen, they all knew this would not be very easy.

First of all, the road was not just
near
the dam—it was right
beside
it. This increased their level of exposure to guards thought to man the small outpost on the dam’s western side, as well as to those in a much more substantial force, quartered on the eastern side. True, it would take these troops some time to get across the three-mile-long dam to the far side. But if the Lysander got stuck or was slow to take off for any reason, it could be a problem.

The second bad sign was the weather over the landing zone. Those huge dark clouds were now pouring sheets of rain over the target area, the dam, and the city of Heidiberg, just a few miles away. It was the bombing of this city that was supposedly providing the immediate cover for the Lysander to set down.

But the weather was so bad, there was a possibility that the local military might not even realize their city was being bombed, which would make the diversion meaningless. Hunter didn’t like this either.

But it was no time to complain. It was time to just go ahead and get the damn job done.

So Lancaster began pulling back on the throttle and then put the nose of the Lysander nearly straight down. They started dropping like a rock. The engine got quieter as they went down. This impressed Hunter; there was some cool technology at work in that Whisper-engine.

Lancaster was able to bring the plane down almost vertically; Moon was working, hard too. It was a precision thing and again Hunter was impressed. They were dropping very fast however and none of them was wearing a parachute. But again, it was too late to think about that now.

He figured they were about 200 feet in altitude now. One group of bombers was going over them very low, and he could see the first bombs falling out of the lead plane heading for their targets in Heidiberg.

“One-fifty altitude,” Moon called out, somewhat calmly. “One hundred…”

Hunter hugged his equipment bag and once again held on. It seemed that was all he’d been doing since arriving in this strange world: trying to make it through one more heart-stopping landing.

“Seventy-five,” Moon called out. “Fifty…”

Hunter took a quick look outside but now couldn’t see anything, with the rain and the trees. Still it felt as if he was coming down in a helicopter rather than a fixed wing craft.