The Circle War (12 page)

He turned to go back to his quarters and finally retrieve his boots when his attention was drawn to a long plume of black smoke that was rising from the SAM launch vehicles parked nearby.

"I'll be shot for this," was his first thought. "The SAM is on fire and will soon explode and I'll be court martialed and shot for it." He immediately started screaming orders to his troops, frantically pointing at the burning missile launcher.

Some of his soldiers were already taking action. The base had a small trailer containing fire extinguishing equipment and now a dozen of his troopers were dragging it down the hill and toward the SAM site. From where the captain stood, it appeared that only the launch vehicle's rear tires were ablaze. But he knew in less than a minute, the fire would reach the fuel tanks of the four missiles on the launcher's back and the whole fucking thing would go up.

He ordered his other troops —mechanics, guards, everyone—to grab anything they could and go and fight the fire. A second fire brigade —armed with 120

small fire extinguishers and five-gallon water containers—ran out of the base.

Now the only ones left were the captain and the pilot of the warmed up Yak.

The captain was finding cold comfort in the fact that the explosion from the four missiles blowing up would probably destroy the whole base anyway, killing him instantly and thereby sparing him from the slow death of Soviet military justice. As for the pilot waiting in Yak, he was also watching the fire and thinking that now might be a good time to take off and escape the conflagration to come.

But then something else caught the captain's attention. A man—wearing black clothes, a blackened face, and what looked like an American fighter pilot's helmet —was scrambling underneath the Yak. Amazed, the Russian watched as the man attached a loose chain to the bottom of the jet then ran to its other side. What's was going on here? the Soviet thought. Who the hell is that guy?

Amid the confused panic of the blazing SAM launcher, and the awful racket of the whining jet, the Soviet officer started screaming at the Yak pilot. But it was useless; the pilot couldn't hear him for the noise and couldn't see him because he was still looking the other way, nervously taking stock of his comrades' losing battle against the SAM fire.

In desperation, the Soviet officer looked around for a weapon. An AK-47, dropped when its owner was pressed into service as a fireman, lay nearby. The officer retrieved it and took aim at the man in black. By this time, the interloper had climbed the small ladder leading to the Yak cockpit and was pummel-121

ing the unsuspecting pilot. The officer squeezed off a burst of automatic gunfire which sailed far over the top of the airplane. He aimed lower and fired again, shooting out the Yak's front tires, causing the entire airplane to shudder. Suddenly it dawned on the Soviet officer that he was firing at a fully-bombed up, fully fueled airplane. A stray bullet could ignite a blast that would make the SAM's inevitable explosion sound like a firecracker. The Russian immediately ceased firing.

It was no use anyway. The man in black had subdued the pilot and literally dragged him up and out of the cockpit. The pilot fell a long nine feet to the hard metal surface of the landing platform below. Barely conscious and battered, the Russian pilot nevertheless hurriedly dragged himself out from under the Yak. He collapsed at his officer's feet.

The Soviet captain watched helplessly as the man in black climbed into the pilot's seat and started to quickly scan the airplane's controls. Suddenly the jet's irritating low whine leaped into full roar. The Yak started to ascend.

In desperation the Soviet officer began firing the AK-47 again. But it did no good. The airplane was picking up speed and moving away. The man in black was smiling down at them and saying something so distinctly, both Russians could read his lips. He was saying: "See you later, boys."

The Soviet troops fighting the fire on the SAM barely noticed the Yak taking off. Still bootless, the Soviet captain ran down the hill toward his troops, grabbing half of them and yelling at them. He was 122

pointing at the Yak with one hand and back toward the base with the other.

Quickly, a dozen of the Soviet soldiers ran back to retrieve their weapons, leaving the other 12 to battle the fast spreading flames.

The Yak was still hovering nearby. It had not sped off as the Soviet officer thought it would. Perhaps the man who commandeered it was having trouble flying it. The Russian captain could not let it escape. Losing a SAM to a fire was one thing; having one of his jet fighters stolen was quite another.

Now the Yak was very slowly moving away toward the east. The pilot had closed the canopy and brought up the landing gear. Most of the Russian soldiers had their weapons in hand again and were shooting at the jet fighter, but the pilot somehow managed to avoid the concentrated barrage. Below the airplane hung the eight-foot length of chain the strange man had fastened beneath it. A large hook was conveniently attached to the bottom end. The airplane moved even further away but then stopped and hovered over a point about a half mile from the base. Now it looked to the Soviet officer that the pilot was lowering the Yak down. All the while his troops were hurrying to the spot, stopping and firing at the airplane as they advanced.

Using his binoculars, the Soviet captain watched as the Yak descended even lower, the chain dangling just 10 feet or so from the ground. The airplane hovered for a moment, then moved forward. The hook at the end of the chain snagged something and in one motiori, the Yak started to quickly gain 123

altitude.

The SAM's blew up a few seconds later—not from the fire but from a time-bomb hidden underneath the launcher. Three of the SA-2 missiles were obliterated immediately along with most of the Soviet soldiers fighting the fire. The fourth missile actually launched itself, traveled a brief, spiraling path and impacted on the side hill less than a mile from the base.

Flaming pieces of shrapnel from the explosion started to rain down on the base, touching off many small fires. It didn't matter. Exactly one minute after the SAM blew up, a second time-bomb went off under the base's precious fuel supply. Within seconds the installation was a mass of flames, growing higher with every exploding barrel of jet fuel.

The last thing the Soviet captain saw was the stolen Yak-38 turning toward the west and accelerating, the smaller minijet hanging underneath it.

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The two PAAC F-105 Thunderchiefs were at full afterburner when they intercepted the Yak somewhere over Wyoming. The jet fighters were on armed air patrol when the PAAC Early Warning Radar net detected an unidentified aircraft coming out of the Badlands. The Thunderchiefs were immediately vectored to the area.

When they arrived at the coordinates, the PAAC pilots observed the Yak, its landing gear deployed, its collision lights blinking frantically, plus it was flying completely upside down. The F-105s got no response after ordering the airplane to identify itself. Normally, at this point, they would have shot it down. But this airplane was flying so oddly, the Thunderchiefs decided to hold their fire and investigate.

It was a good thing for Hunter that they did ...

Hunter had never flown a Yak before, but he had got the hang of it quickly.

The Soviet-designed cockpit and controls didn't bother him; they were essentially the same as the British VTOL Harrier, an aircraft he had flown on several occasions. As long as

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he knew where the throttle, the up-down-forward steering controls and landing gear buttons were, he was okay.

Getting the Russian-made radio to work was another story.

For the first 50 miles, Hunter had flown the jet slowly and steadily, being careful not to drop the mini jet hanging underneath. It was not for entirely sentimental reasons that he had risked getting shot down in order to retrieve the small airplane. There was a load of valuable recon film in the minijet's cameras —film that he knew would be critically important to PAAC in the coming weeks and months.

He had located an isolated stretch of roadway and set down long enough to discard the minijet's wingsail, fold up the small aircraft's irreplaceable parts, and store them inside the Yak's undercarriage. As long as he flew with the landing gear deployed, the valuable minijet would stay secured. He took the precaution of removing the precious film and keeping it inside the cockpit with him.

He was up and flying within an hour, though the wheels-down gear position prevented him from putting the Yak at full throttle. He started fooling around with the radio soon after taking off. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get so much as a crackle of static on the thing. The airman spent most of the flight cursing the so typically Soviet malfunctioning radio; he was certain it was busted before he ever arrived on the scene. The trouble was he hadn't talked to Dozer via the gunship link in a while. He knew because of the information he did

get to them, the base and all of PAAC's aircraft would be on a high state of readiness, which was not casually nicknamed a "shoot first" alert. All they needed to see was a Russian Yak come streaking out of the Badlands unannounced and they'd be picking him up in pieces somewhere between Cheyenne and Yellowstone. He had to somehow warn them off...

The F-105s slowed down and took up positions on either side of the inverted Russian fighter, their Sidewinder missiles armed and ready. They could see the pilot waving and giving them the thumbs-up sign, but it wasn't until they saw the small American flag attached to the inside of the Yak's canopy did they back off long enough to allow the airplane to do a quick flip. Only then did the Thunderchief pilots recognize Hunter as the grinning man at the controls.

Heartened to see their commander again, the F-105s escorted the Yak home. .

Alerted ahead of time that a "friendly" Soviet fighter was on its way in, a large group of base personnel and civilians turned out to see the airplane make a dramatic vertical descent and landing. Hunter received a half-kidding round of applause from the crowd of mechanics and others who quickly gathered around the VTOL jet.

General Jones and Dozer were waiting for him.

"Are we glad to see you," Jones told him, shaking his hand as Hunter stepped down from the Yak.

"Same here, General," Hunter said. He took off 126

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his helmet and shook hands with Dozer.

Jones walked around the Yak, inspecting its unusual features. "Wait 'til we get a bottle before you tell us how you got this," Jones said. "Right now, let's have it. How bad is it?"

"Real bad, sir," Hunter said solemnly rubbing his sandpaper-like beard. "They have more SAMs sitting out there than in Ho Chi Minh's best wet dream."

The trio started walking toward the base saloon.

"Can we take them out with air strikes?" Jones asked, his face furrowed with concern.

Hunter shook his head. "It would take every airplane this side of the Mississippi, plus all of the Free Canadian Air Force too, just to make a dent in it," Hunter said grimly. "We'd face very heavy losses to the SAMs. Plus we'd have the Yaks to contend with — forty-nine of them anyway. Then, there's their cavalry. . ."

"Cavalry?" Dozer asked. "You've got to be kidding."

"I know it sounds crazy," Hunter said, "but not only have they moved in all those Yaks and SAMs, they've somehow managed to infiltrate at least a division of cavalry. Probably much more. Ever hear of the People's Mounted Army of Mongolia?"

"Yes," Jones said. "They were the last regular cavalry units left in the world. But the Russians disbanded them in the early 'Fifties. Gave 'em trucks instead."

"Well, they've been reactivated," Hunter said. "I tangled with a bunch of them. They're tough customers."

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"It's incredible," Dozer said. "But I guess that would explain these horses we've been hearing about lately."

"But how did they do it? Did they swim over from Siberia?"

Jones asked.

Hunter shrugged. "They must have come across the Bering Straits in anything that could float, then let 'em off in the Yukon somewhere and pointed them toward the 'Bads."

"Like Hannibal and the elephants," Dozer said incredulously. "And these guys are probably experts in working their horses in the snow, over mountains, through the desert, Jesus, wherever."

"And the plains of Kansas and Nebraska are perfect for operating cavalry,"

Jones added.

"So is Texas," Hunter said ominously. "We know they've been flying some of these guys from a hidden base somewhere way out in.northern Montana and ferrying them and their horses down to southern Oklahoma. That's what that convoy was doing when I ran into them."

"No wonder that seven-o-seven looked like a stable," Dozer said, laughing at the absurdity of it. "They've probably been flying the nags all over the Badlands."

They arrived at the base's club and quickly took possession of a corner table.

The bar maid brought over their usual brand of whiskey and a plateful of bar sandwiches. Hunter began wolfing down the first of several of the saloon delicacies.

"A well-trained cavalry could do a lot of damage in 129

Texas these days," Jones said, pouring out the drinks. "They could drive the Texans crazy raiding along the border then provide cover for the infantry when the big push came."

"There are still two major questions," Hunter said, downing his drink and reaching for another sandwich. "One: how the hell did they get all those SAMs over? And two, who's supplying the infantry when the balloon goes up?"

"We might have both answers " Jones said, knocking back a shot of the no-name whiskey. "A lot of things have happened since you left." He reached inside his flight jacket and produced a photograph. "But first of all take a look at this. It came from the Texans a couple of days ago."

Hunter took the photo and examined it. It was a typical recon picture, taken at low-level. The photo showed a long stretch of beach, perhaps two miles worth, dotted with what looked at first to be about fifty beached whales. A closer examination showed them to be not whales, but submarines. Russian submarines.