The Circle War (8 page)

surge of power travel through his body. His fists tightened. His teeth were clenched. He gulped the oxygen from his face mask. The fuckers. They almost had him. They almost psyched him out. But now he was on to it. One mystery down, just several more to go. No more time to contemplate his condition. No more self-pity. No more doubting his resolve. He had to get to work.

He kept his eyes closed just a moment longer, drawing the last jolts of strength from the feeling. The last image he saw before opening his eyes was that of the beautiful Dominique. She was alive. The photo proved it. He knew it now for sure. She was out there. Somewhere. He would find her.

He opened his eyes. The Northern Lights were gone and the night sky was cold and clear. The feeling hadn't entirely vanished, however. In fact, a little bit of it would stay with him for the rest of his life.

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Hunter returned to the base, shut down the F-16 and ran to the base's recon photo analysis lab. The two technicians who had been laboring over his footage came out to meet him, both anxious and glowing with news.

But before they could say a word, Hunter spoke to them. "Jump jets?" he asked.

"Bingo, sir," the senior tech told him. "Yak-38's. We narrowed it down about two hours ago."

The Yak-38 was an airplane design the Soviets ripped off from the famous British Harrier. By using a multi-direction jet nozzle, the airplane could lift off vertically, then, with the push of a button, its thrust could be redirected backward and the jet could instantly fly like a normal fighter. The Harrier was an amazing airplane; the Yak-38 an effective, if bargain basement version of it.

Now all the pieces were fitting into place. The Russians hadn't really constructed an air base in the arctic valley —they had simply cleared a landing spot, for the jets could land vertically, too. The airplanes 77

had leapfrogged over from Siberia, probably rendezvousing with tanker planes or even preadapted ships at sea for refueling. After all, the Yak-38 was originally designed to operate off Soviet aircraft carriers. When Hunter happened to find their base, it only would take about an hour or so to get the 50 airplanes lifted off and moving.

But one mystery solved sometimes led to another: Now that he knew how the airplanes got there —and how they got out—he had to find out where they were going . . .

"Where the hell are they now?"

Seated around the table were the principal officers of PAAC-Oregon. One by one, Twomey, Ben Wa, the Cobras, the Ace Wrecking Company, an officer from the Crazy Eights, Major Frost, and Dozer looked at the still photographs gleaned from the infrared tape of the Yaks.

"This is not your typical Soviet stunt," Hunter was saying. "These guys were pros. It took a lot of planning and execution to jump fifty Goddamned jets across the arctic."

"And to do it in bad weather," Frost said. "And without a peep on the radio."

"Some kind of special unit," Dozer said. "Probably trained just for this mission."

"Damn!" Hunter said, pounding the table. "I would never have guessed the Russians had five of these Yaks left, never mind fifty!"

"We have to find them and take them out," Cap-78

tain Crunch of the Wreckers said. "Any ideas where they went, Major?"

Hunter was quiet for a moment. "I hate to even say this but . . ." he began slowly. "My guess is they jumped themselves right over into the Badlands."

"Christ!" Twomey blurted out, expressing the feeling of every officer there.

They were all unquestioningly brave men. But still not one of them wanted anything to do with the Badlands.

"Why do you figure the Badlands, Hawk?" Wa asked.

"Well, based on the maximum operating range of the Yak-38, if they flew light and conserved fuel, they could have made it in one extra jump," Hunter said, pulling out a notebook of calculations. "And these photos show they weren't carrying any ordnance under the wings. They were, however, carrying extra large wing tanks.

"This tells us something else. If they weren't carrying bombs, it could mean they were meeting up with someone who was."

"Goddamn," Dozer said. "Fifty Russian jump jets flying around the continent can cause a lot of misunderstandings to say the least."

"What are they here for, Major?" one of the Cobras asked. "Convoy raiding?"

"Well, it seems like a hell of a lot of trouble to go through just to shoot at airliners," Hunter said.

"Could be part of another disruption campaign," Dozer said. "They sent a bunch of jets over to The Family, too."

"That's true," Hunter said. "But we've got to figure 79

that they sent more jets than pilots that time. Pilots must be in very short supply over there, still. And so are top-shelf airplanes like these Yaks.

Top-shelf to the Russians, anyway."

"You think something bigger is brewing?" Frost asked.

Again, Hunter was silent for a few seconds. He had given it a lot of thought in the past few hours, though he had to admit, some of the answers literally popped into his head from nowhere. He now had theories on most of the recent mysteries, both on the west coast and on the east —all except one.

"Okay, let's look at these one at a time," he began. "First, we have a patrol boat who reports something strange and sends out an SOS. By the time we get there, they're gone. Now, whatever it was, it had to be a ship that attacked them. Yet the Wreckers didn't see anything else floating around out there."

"True," one of the F-4 pilots confirmed.

"Okay," Hunter continued. "Maybe it was a submarine. Maybe it was a bunch of submarines. By the way the patrol boat captain was talking, he might have sailed right into a school of them."

"Or a wolf pack," Dozer interjected.

"Exactly," Hunter said. "They can't blast the patrol boat out of the water because they know we could probably find it and figure it was hit by a torpedo, or a Harpoon-type ship-to-ship missile, or even a deck gun.

"So what do they do? They jam the boat's radio transmission, then they board her and either kidnap ' the crew or throw them overboard."

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"We never saw any bodies," a Wrecker said.

"Right, too messy," Hunter agreed. "So maybe those guys were taken alive."

He paused for a moment, then continued. "Now, how about what went down in Vegas? What the hell exploded out there and why would anyone want to blow a mile wide crater in the middle of the desert?

"Well, how about this: We assumed it was done on purpose. Suppose it wasn't.

Suppose it was an accident?"

"Accident?" Twomey asked.

"Sure," Hunter answered. "Why not? Someone moving a whole lot of ammunition.

Something goes wrong. Boom! Everyone is blown into smithereens and the place looks like an A-bomb went off."

The rest of the officers around the table nodded in agreement. It was possible.

"How about what Fitzie's guys have been seeing, Hawk?" Twomey asked. "Lights floating over the Great Lakes?"

"Not floating, really," Hunter said. "More like soaring."

"You mean . . . like gliding?" Dozer asked.

"I mean exactly that," Hunter said. "They could have been gliders, released somewhere outside the Canadian radar net. Shit, if you launched a glider high enough, with the winds over the Lakes, it could fly for hundreds of miles.

Granted, it would have to be pressurized and winterized and whatever else."

"But it's not impossible," Frost said.

"But what's in these gliders?" Wa wanted to know.

"Could be anything," Hunter continued. "But my 81

guess is troops. At the very least, officers and advisors. Sure, a few years ago we know the Soviets could disguise one of their big planes as being 'East European,' load it up with troops and fly right into the Aerodrome. But they knew then, and they know now, that with our intelligence network, we'd be on those airplanes as soon as they touched down and we'd stay with them the whole way.

"But how do you do it when you don't want anyone to see or hear you? Sneaking in fighters is one thing. And maybe there are weapons and ammo on the subs. A sub you can dock in any number of places around the continent without a soul seeing you. But bringing in troops —raw manpower—on the QT, well, that takes some doing."

"Jesus Christ!" Dozer said, putting the pieces together. "Are you saying they're sneaking a whole Goddamned army into the country!"

Hunter nodded gravely. "They're not doing this just to harass us. They've been doing that kind of Mickey Mouse stuff ever since the armistice. This is big time. Serious stuff."

He paused. "I think what we've feared most is underway and has been underway for some time.

"The Russians are invading America."

"But, wait a minute," Toomey said. "What happened at Way Out, or the guardsmen's post?"

"You mean, 'Horses,' " Hunter asked. "I'm still working on that one. But we do know this much. Two men —the surviving guardsman and St. Louie's recon guy

—both saw some kind of intense action, and although they were more than a thousand miles

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apart, they both remembered one thing: Horses. And I'm personally going to find out what the hell they meant."

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A week later, Hunter sat in the hold of the Stallion chopper, looking out at the darkened landscape below. They were heading east, over the old states of Idaho and Wyoming, over the South Platte River to where the borders of Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas once met. There was an almost full moon this night. He could see the contour of the land below him change from mountainous to hilly range land to flat open spaces. He checked his watch. 0150 hours. By 0230, the chopper would be on the edge of the Badlands. Then he would be on his own.

He had briefed the rest of the PAAC-Oregon officers on the mysterious convoy and wreck of the 707. The incident fit into his theory. If the Soviets had moved men and materiel into one end or the other of the Badlands, it would just be a matter of getting hold of some convoy jets, hiring on some fighter protection and moving freely anywhere in the midsection of the country. In all likelihood, the convoy he intercepted had strayed somewhat from its course, bringing it slightly west of the Dakotas. Again, not an unusual occurrence in these days of

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flying more by the seat of one's pants than by sophisticated navigational gear.

Using the 419.10 miles he'd found on the 707's distance indicator, he did some quick calculations which led to a very interesting discovery. Within the 420-mile radius of the crash site there were four airports —or former military air bases —that could handle 18 big airliners like the ones in the convoy.

Three of these bases were inside the Badlands. Even the hay and the oats made a crazy sort of sense. "Horses," again. Another piece of the puzzle seemed to be falling into place.

But the photo of Dominique was another story. That almost defied explanation.

He told no one about it ...

He checked his watch again. 0200 hours. His face was properly blackened as were his clothes. He did a final check of his gear. He was carrying Dozer's smaller Uzi instead of his own, larger M-16. On his back was a satchel filled with HE (high explosive) hand grenades, several signal rockets, a long distance radio transmitter and receiver, a long, bayonet-like pack knife, and a .45 automatic. He also carried two gallons of water and six small bags of food. He knew he'd never eat any of the food —when he was this charged up, food was the farthest thing from his mind. But he took the packets along only as a favor to Mio and Aki.

He turned his attention to the contraption sitting next to him. He'd spent the last week designing and building it, yet he still couldn't come up with a proper name for it. It was kind of a combination 86

ultra-light/hang-glider/minijet. He had started with a tricycle-type frame and enclosed it with a small, soapbox derby style cockpit. Inside was a seat, a main control steering column, and two mini-control panels. Located directly in back of the seat was an umbrella-like device on which was the vehicle's presently-folded triangular sail. In the rear he had installed a small, intricate jet engine. Two stubby wings projected a foot and a half out from each side of the frame. They were just long enough to hold four small dual-purpose air-launched missiles, two on each wing. The missiles were also filled with HE. A tripod built next to the steering column held a swivel fastener on which he could bolt down the Uzi. A small radio was on board.

Right next to the front landing wheel was a black box housing two miniature cameras. Hanging off the starboard side was an elaborate eavesdropping device he had taken off the U-2.

The entire minijet was painted dull black and — except for a few of the critical engine parts —was made entirely of plastic. This way it had

"stealth," meaning it wouldn't show up on radar. It would also be very quiet.

He had built the airplane from scratch, robbing pieces of material here, cannibalizing other pieces there. It was basically a very elaborate hang glider. The jet would give him the thrust he needed to stay airborne, then he would shut down the engine and just glide. Fuel would be the main concern. He designed an especially small combustion chamber for the engine —one which would efficiently use every drop of gas he could carry. Still, he knew the 25-gallon plastic tank he hooked up under the minijet's

)

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seat would have to be used very carefully. That's why he programmed the whole firing process into one of the aircraft's two minicomputers. He didn't relish the prospect of having to look for jet fuel in the middle of the Badlands.

And that was where he was going. He had to. PAAC needed intelligence and they needed it fast. He was convinced the Soviets were infiltrating men and arms into the country and hiding them somewhere. And the best hiding place on the continent was the

'Bads.

A perpetual fog had hung over the place since the day of the Soviet bombing.

The mist was so thick in places, it was nearly impossible to photograph any of the Badlands from the air. With concentrations of radiation, nerve gas, germ gas, and God-only knows what, only fools entered into the Badlands at all.