Sky Ghost (38 page)

At the rear end, the strakes flared in to the exhaust tube. This itself was huge, with movable vanes. Hunter took a very deep sniff now. This engine had been fired up and flown only once in its life, he guessed. Probably just for the flight from its place of manufacture to here.

He noted all this and then walked to the next plane. It was exactly the same. So was the third, the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth. All of them, 12 in number, were the same kind of airplane.

But the question was, what kind of airplane was that?

Throughout all this Hunter’s inner being was vibing to the max. He was shaking, the back of his skull was pounding, like many of the secrets and lost memories in there were ready to get flushed out. He took another sniff. Yes, this place, the smell. So familiar. He was sure he’d been in a place just like this one before—not in this time. But definitely in another one.

The sheer curiosity of it all finally got the better of him. Maybe where he was really from, he would have handled it differently. But this version of him was still light-headed from his experience on the flood, from his experience of nearly drowning, and from his experience at the bottom of the bottle of Schnapps.

He wasn’t too good at the moment at not feeding an impulse—especially one as strong as this one.

He wanted to see these goddamn airplanes and he wanted to see them now! But to do that, he needed some light, and the only light available here would be daylight. And the only thing standing between him and some illumination was a row of big, thick-paned windows that had been painted black so as not to let the slightest bit of sun into this place.

Now the “other” Hunter might have taken the time to feel his way over to nearest window, somehow climb up to its sill, feel around until he would find some kind of locking mechanism, and then somehow solve it in the pitch dark, scrape away whatever paint buildup might be on it, and then, probably very slowly and painstakingly, get the window to open, maybe just a crack to allow in just enough light.

Well, he just didn’t have time or patience for any of that crap now. So he simply aimed his huge rifle about 35 degrees from the floor and pulled both barrels. The explosion was enormous, the cloud of cordite thick, the blast of the gun muzzle in the completely dark room almost blinding.

But the cloud of buckshot hit the window straight on, and punctured it in 274 locations.

Hunter reloaded and let another blast go. Then another, and another. Now there were more than a thousand points of light flooding into the hangar. And only then did he turn around. And only then did he see what kind of airplanes they were.

Long snout, cranked wing, high tail. Red, white, and blue color scheme. Sleek, dangerous-looking, and fast.

“Jesus Christ,” Hunter whispered, never more astonished in his life.

They were F-16s.

And that was it.

That was the moment when everything came rushing back. It came in a torrent greater than the flood he’d just survived. The feeling suddenly building up inside him felt hotter than the fires he had set on German cities.

These were F-16s!
He used to fly one, back where he was from. He flew one for the Thunderbirds. He flew one for the 16th Fighter Squadron of the old U.S. Air Force. Then, after World War III, he flew one for the Zone Air Patrol, then the United American Air Corps. In this airplane, he’d fought air pirates, Mid-Aks, the Family, the Russians, Nazis, skinheads, white supremacist groups, and the KKK Air Force. This airplane was him, and he was it, an extension of himself in his other world.

He was so staggered by this revelation, he found himself sitting down in the middle of the hangar floor, holding his head in his hands. Spurred by the touch of his beloved airplane, everything was coming back to him now in a big way. At last he knew exactly who he was: Major Hawk Hunter, the best fighter pilot who ever lived.

The one they called The Wingman.

But Jessuzz, where the hell was he? On another planet? No—this was definitely Earth. But it was
another
Earth. Same time, different place. A parallel place. The same, but different.

How did he get here?

He actually squeezed his head with his hands and let the memory come. A huge comet had been spotted, it was on a collision course with Earth. He was in space, in the captured Zon space shuttle. There was a string of nuclear bombs; he flew out to lay them in the comet’s path. His close friend Elvis Q had gone with him on this suicidal mission—and someone else too. The bombs went off. The comet was diverted—and then…then what?

What happened after the bombs exploded?

He remembered a bright white light. And a long tunnel. And something drawing him up into that light. And when he reached it. the next thing he knew, he was falling…

Then he hit the water. And
that’s
how he found himself floating in the Atlantic Ocean!

But three of them fell out of the sky. He and Elvis and someone else. Who was it?

That’s when his stomach began to tighten, his fists did too. Yes, this memory was coming back as well. He was the Wingman and his arch enemy was Viktor Robotov, world terrorist and Satan on Earth. Hunter had been chasing him forever, or so it seemed, and even went so far as to steal his space shuttle and go into space to capture the supervillain up there!

But then, just at his moment of triumph, just as he had the devil in his clutches, the comet was spotted, and the world had to be saved.

But on that last ride to put the bombs in place, he and Elvis had kidnapped Viktor and took him with them, certain they were all going to die anyway.

So then, the two other people in the water with him: One was Elvis.

And the other was Viktor.

Then suddenly another memory came flooding back—one that was even more powerful than the last. It was so intense, Hunter felt like someone had fired a Stinger missile into his chest. That ache in his heart, he’d felt it almost since the first second he’d arrived in this place. A woman was there. Her name was Dominique. She was the beautiful love of his life. But she was dead. He knew this, he felt it in every fiber of his being. His eyes began to water as this, the most painful memory of all, began to sink in.

Dominique was gone. He was without her.

Damn…

The next thing he knew, he was running. Out of the hangar, out of the air base, up the side of a small mountain nearby. He seemed to reach the top in minutes, though it should have taken an hour or more. And at the top he collapsed.

Out of breath, out of life, he just lay there, numb from what had happened.

The flood of memories was almost too much now, but he knew he had to let them flow. So for hours he stayed perfectly still, looking up at the sky, letting it all come back to him. His parents. His schooling at MIT. His colleagues, his enemies. The wars he’d fought, the friends he’d lost.

And those planes down in the hangar, the trigger for letting his memories back in. He knew them too. They were F-16 Fighting Falcons, originally designed by the General Dynamics Corporation. He knew more man their name. He knew every inch of them. Every bolt and rivet, ever panel and every wire. He knew exactly how many gallons of fuel one plane could carry, knew how many bombs could be hung from beneath the wings, knew how many cannon shells were needed to feed the huge front-mounted gun.

He knew how the thing flew, how fast, how high, how low. He even knew the correct tire pressure for the gear wheels in both hot and cold climates.

But what he didn’t know was
how
these planes could have gotten here. In this place. They certainly hadn’t fallen into the ocean along with he and Elvis and Viktor. Those airplanes had to have been built in this time, in this place, by hands belonging here. But how? For all its quirky advances, this world didn’t have anywhere near the technological smarts to put out one of these airplanes, never mind 12 of them. Besides, even the greatest minds of this era wouldn’t have been able to dream up this exact design, not in a million years.

But if someone
told
educated and skilled people how to put them together—well, that just made more sense.

So what Zoltan said and what Hunter had suspected all along was true then: Everything changed in the war the day Hunter and the two others were found in the Atlantic. And one of the people who dropped in with him was responsible for the resurgence of Germany, and for these weapons and for God knows what else.

And Hunter had no problem at all determining who that person was.

It was a devastating thought to behold, but now, with night fallen, staring up at the stars, mind almost numb from overload, Hunter felt it had to be the correct one. Like a deadly virus, a common germ, he believed right down to his bones, that Viktor had infected this world as well. And because he was responsible for bringing him here, then it was his responsibility to stop him, somehow, before he tainted this world any further.

So these were the thoughts he dwelled on all that night—these and the pangs of loss for Dominique.

He stayed on top of the mountain, wide awake and thinking, until the sun came up the next morning.

H
UNTER BEGAN THE NEXT
day by studying the F-16s.

He finally managed to get himself to climb up and get inside one of the cockpits. It was a huge psychological leap forward for him, even though at first he’d feared it might be a traumatic event. But once he’d squeezed in and settled down and took a deep breath he knew it was OK. His body fit the contours of the seat perfectly. His hand went to the side stick controller so naturally it was scary. Yes, this was familiar and it felt good. Back in his other world, he’d spent more time in one of these things, than he had walking around upright on two feet.

The cockpit control panels were different though. They were very spare. All the essentials were there: altitude, AOA, fuel gauges, oil pressure lights, and so on. But the panel had none of the sexy bell-and-whistle connections. No radar mapping, no terrain avoidance, no NightVision capability.

The jets were stripped down inside, but in an odd way, this made them better, and more dangerous. These airplanes were pure fighters. Engine, wings, and weapons. He would have loved to turn one on, but that would be impossible. There as no fuel at the base—not a drop. He’d checked. Same with weapons. There were no bullets, no cannon rounds, no bombs anywhere. These airplanes were virgins. Hunter would have bet none of them had more than an hour’s flight time between them.

Which was really too bad. Because, as painful as it was, he knew they had to be destroyed.

And quickly.

Of all the decisions he’d made up on the mountain the night before, this was probably the most difficult.

These airplanes were his strongest link back to the place where he came from. In many ways, his only link. He would have loved nothing better than to keep one somehow, fly it, be with it.

But he knew that couldn’t be.

For despite his own odd circumstances, he was still in a military situation here. And the right thing had to be done.

He knew these airplanes could have a huge affect on the outcome of the war. No weapons in this world could catch up to a 1600-mph fighter, not one that could sustain that speed for long periods of time, unlike a Natter, which blew its load in two minutes. These airplanes would be able to shoot down the huge American bombers with impunity then. They would make the other German wonder weapons look like toys once they became operational. These 12 airplanes alone could possibly win the war for Germany. And who was to say there weren’t any more of them?

So they had to go…and go quickly, before the Huns realized this part of the valley was still dry and came back to reclaim their prize.

But how could Hunter do it exactly? There was no fuel, no flammable liquids at all at the base. No weapons, no explosives, nothing combustible. There was nothing to burn them with really.

He’d found a sledgehammer, and thought for a while that he might be able to batter the planes to the point where they could never fly again. But he quickly came to the conclusion that this would be impossible. He could bang on these things all day and really do only superficial damage. He’d have been better off if he’d found a screwdriver.

No, there really wasn’t anything here with which Hunter could destroy the airplanes quickly, all at once. Not directly anyway.

But he still had his Boomer, and amazingly it still worked.

And with it, he might get lucky.

It took him more than an hour to climb back up the mountain this time.

His heart was heavy, that’s why it took so long. The adrenaline rush from the day before had dissipated, and the full effect of the narcosis had not fully set in yet. So now he was just tired, cold, hungry, and heartsick. He missed his world, as crazy as it had been. He missed his friends.

He missed Dominique.

By the time he topped the hill, night was falling. He ate a handful of mush from the four-day-old supply found in the mess hall, and drank a container of water.

Then he lay back and looked up at the smoky sky again and waited for the stars to come out.

And the bombers too.

He knew the in-flight combat radio frequencies for most of the bomber groups from the old Circle. He’d used them so many times during the operations over Britain and Germany, they came back to him like prayers. He was sure some of the old Circle planes would be taking part in the new bombing campaign now.

If he could just get a message through to one of them.

It took three more hours of scanning the skies, but then, right around midnight, he saw them. The contrails showed up first. Very high, coming out of the northwest. There were so many of them, they were filling the sky with long white stripes from horizon to horizon.

He saw the lights on the bombers next. It was the absence of any fighter opposition to and from the target that allowed the American pilots to boldly illuminate themselves with a single red light, just to stay safe in the very crowded and tight bomber streams.