The Lucifer Crusade (12 page)

He heard a burst of cheers from his earphones. "Good shooting, Hunter!" Sir Neil's voice through, so loud it caused his ears to ring.

"Don't thank me," Hunter said, only half-jok-ingly. "Thank the guys who built that Sidewinder so many years ago. That's what it means to be 'Made in the USA.' "

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But now there was a new threat.

While Hunter was taking on the Exocets, a major battle had erupted on Gold Beach. Approximately 500 SAS troops were ashore and they were battling many of the T-62 tanks that had moved up from the town. Another group of about a dozen tanks were firing directly on the frigates, which were aggressively firing back.

The Tornados were strafing the tanks firing at the beach soldiers, but already one of the jets had been shot down by a shoulder-launched SAM. Two other Tornados were low on fuel and ammo and would shortly have to return to Majorca.

But in his highly trained mind's eye, Hunter knew the battle would soon change. It was getting dark, and right now the night would be the Recovery Force's best ally. He swooped in over the beach and started strafing the T-62s. Meanwhile, shells from the frigate's deck guns were finding targets in the enemy column. The SAS troops were also joining the fray, sending mortar shells crashing on to the enemy-controlled highway near their beachhead.

Two more passes over the tank column and Hunter saw the predicted change in the battle. The tanks were withdrawing to the side of the road where their crews would dig them in. They could continue to shell the beachhead from these stationary positions, but the battle had reached a point where the tanks needed to be resupplied.

As darkness quickly enveloped the area, the ^hooting on both sides died down to just scattered exchanges. Both sides hunkered down for the night.

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he made the final turn to the carrier. The floodlights that bathed the carrier deck gave it the appearance of a football field at night. He lined up the cen-terline of the deck with his HUD display and brought down his landing gear. The carrier was listing at a slight angle, but not enough to bother him.

Yaz himself was on the radio, his voice calmly calling out the wind direction and the all-important distance-to-ship measurement. The Navy man confirmed that the F-16's arresting hook was fully deployed.

Hunter was now 500 feet out. He caressed the F-16's side-stick controller.

Flaps were lowered, air brakes engaged. 300 feet to go. He pulled the nose up slightly. A cross wind came up, causing him to dip the starboard wing slightly. 200 feet. Down a little more. His speed was just 120 knots. He throttled back on Yaz's suggestion. 150 feet out. He could see the two arresting cables now. He would try for the first one. Missing that, he could always hope to snag the second one. If that were unsuccessful, he would be swimming for his life in the dark waters of the Med.

"OK, major," Hunter heard Yaz say. "You're looking good. Down just a hair. One hundred feet to go. Throttle back. Back. Steady. Nose up a little. Good!"

Hunter's F-16 hit the first cable. There was a great screech and a burst of friction smoke as the arresting hook grabbed the cable, stretched it to its full limit, and snapped back. The F-16 shuddered all over, its engines screaming. Hunter was thrown forward in the cockpit, then slammed back against his seat. What a rush! he thought. He was down. The airplane was safe. From 100 mph to a dead stop in a

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second and a half. No wonder the Navy guys likened carrier landings to "having sex in a car wreck."

The 16 was immediately surrounded by Yaz's men, who started attaching securing lines to the aircraft and bolting them to the carrier deck. He could see other sailors were already draping the heavy-wound towlines over the stern of the carrier in preparation for O'Brien's tugs. Hunter popped the canopy and climbed out. Heath and Yaz were waiting for him.

"This might be a first," Yaz told him. "An Air Force plane landing on a Navy carrier . . . unopposed, that is."

Hunter checked over the fighter and, once he was convinced it was in relatively good shape, he, Heath, and Yaz headed towards the Saratoga's Combat Information Center or CIC, the central nervous system of any warship. As they walked along the ship's passageways, Hunter could see SAS men and Yaz's sailors running throughout the ship performing their prearranged tasks.

"The beachhead is in good shape," the British officer told him. "Our SAS guys have occupied the shoreline buildings and have a good defensive perimeter set up. We're lucky because the Faction are not known as night-fighters and the Iron Fist people are probably cowering under their beds."

"How about the ship's launch system?" Hunter asked. "Can we get it working?"

Yaz raised his hands to display two sets of crossed fingers. "We got electricity to the primary controls," he said. "And the hydraulic pumps for the steam catapult are fixable. If the steam tanks don't leak and the pipes take the pressure, we could launch in less than three hours if we had to."

Hunter felt a jolt of pride for the Navy guys. He

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knew the jobs Yaz had described would usually take at least a day to complete.

"No trouble when your chopper guys landed on board?" Hunter asked Heath.

Heath shook his head. "The ship was nearly empty," he said.

"Nearly?"

"Except for one person," Heath said. "I'll introduce you."

They reached the bridge to find a squad of SAS men surrounding a strange figure. It was an old man, dressed in rags and sporting a dirty, gray beard-and long, stringy hair that nearly reached his waist. He was wearing a sackcloth tied at the middle with a piece of electrical wire and dilapidated combat boots on his feet. A dozen garishly colored strings of beads hung around his neck. He looked like both a hermit and an out-of-date hippie. The man was sitting in an old pine box that looked to be a cross between a bed and a coffin. His eyes closed as if he was meditating.

•

"Who's the old guy?" Hunter asked.

"His name is Peter," Heath said. "Or so he tells us. We found him here, in this box. Says he's been living here for a while. Also says that he's been

'expecting us.' "

The man opened his eyes and looked at Hunter. The pilot could tell right away the man was a little crazy.

"It's him!" Peter started yelling. "He's come!"

Hunter looked at Heath. "Who the hell is he talking about?"

"I think he's talking about you, major," Heath answered.

Peter bounded out of the box and into a kneeling position. He started chanting loudly in gibberish,

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pausing occasionally to look up at Hunter and let out an insane laugh.

"Christ," Hunter said. "This guy's nuts . . ."

"Maybe so," Heath said. "But look at this." He picked up a notebook and gave it to Hunter. "The SAS guys found him writing away in this when they came aboard."

Hunter recognized the book as a typical ship's log. He was surprised to find the writing inside was not only extremely neat and readable, it was almost stylized, like that in a Bible.

Hunter started reading the log and felt a wave of astonishment pass over him.

There, on the first three pages, was a completely accurate version of what he and the Brits had been doing in the past week. From the bombing at the Highway Base to the trip to Algiers to their attacking Villefranche to their boarding of the Saratoga. It mentioned Sir Neil, Heath, Hunter, and even Yaz by name.

The whole story -right up to the section titled "Peter Meets the Pilot"-written as if it were already history.

"How the hell did this guy know all this?" Hunter asked, plainly shocked.

Heath could only shrug his shoulders. "We don't have the foggiest idea," the Englishman said. "A bit spooky, don't you think?"

"Spooky?" Hunter said. "It's damned scary!"

Hunter looked at the man called Peter. He was now lying prostrate on the floor, his soft moaning muffled by his wild hair and beard.

"He says he's been living on ship for a long time," Heath continued. "Waiting for us. Hiding from the Fist and the Faction whenever they came aboard. He apparently knows the ship like the back of his hand. He might even be a member of the original crew,

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though from all that mumbling he's doing, it's hard to pick out an accent."

"Yeah, he also looks pretty old to be a regular crew member," Yaz said. "He could be a CPO or even an officer, though."

Hunter knelt down beside the man. "Hey, pal," he said in a soothing, coaxing tone. "Who told you we were coming?"

The man looked up at him, his shaking hands brushing the hair from his face.

"I knew . . ." he said in a trembling voice. "I've known for years . . ."

Those eyes, Hunter thought. He saw madness, behind them, but also a flicker of intelligence? "What else do you know?" he asked.

The man gathered himself back up into a kneeling position and closed his eyes tight. "Women! I see painted women," he said through gritted teeth. "Beautiful women. You'll see them to! And flowers! Green flowers floating in the ocean!"

Hunter caught Heath's eye. The Englishman was shaking his head as if to confirm that he believed the man was nuts.

Still, Peter went on, his voice going low. "I see a face in the sky," he croaked. "I see the ocean burning. I see you, the pilot, alone in the desert.

And I see Viktor . . ."

"What do you know about Viktor?" Hunter asked him quickly.

Peter's eyes went wide with authentic terror. "Viktor is Lucifer. Lucifer is Viktor. He is the Evil sent to destroy the world . . ."

"Well, he's got that part right," Hunter said.

Peter then stretched upward and put out his arms as if he were hanging on a cross. "Lucifer!" he bellowed, startling everyone in the room, including the battle-hardened SAS men. "He is the Anti-115

Christ!"

"Oh, brother," Hunter said, instinctively backing away from the man. "Not this

..."

"Lucifer is the real thing-he comes from Hell, I tell you!" the old man screamed, his voice tortured and cracked. "He is six-six-six ..."

"The man is over the edge," Heath said.

Suddenly Peter's head was bolt upright. He began to shake uncontrollably.

"Listen!" he whispered. "Here it comes . . ."

Those in the room could hear a faint whistling sound, quickly getting louder.

"Incoming!" someone yelled.

Bang!

Suddenly the whole ship shuddered with the sound of an explosion. The lights flickered twice, then went out completely. In a second, the CIC was filled with black, acrid smoke. The crackling of flames could be heard in the next compartment.

Instantly, the room was a scene of controlled confusion as those inside tried to make their way in the smoky blackness to decks above.

The man called Peter let out a long agonizing scream, then sank back to the darkened floor . . .

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Hunter was already on the carrier deck before the second shell hit the Saratoga. He had recognized the distinctive whistling sound of the howitzer and could tell by its pitch that it was being fired at the ship from a position somewhere near Villefranche.

Heath and Yaz were right behind him when he reached the deck. Off in the distance they could hear the thumping of the three howitzers firing simultaneously.

"I hear them but I don't see them!" Yaz said trying to locate the howitzers'

positions.

"They're hidden in the town, probably close to the shoreline," Hunter said.

"Those are the only kind of guns that could possibly have the range to do us some damage."

"Jesus, I didn't think the Faction had such heavy-duty stuff," Heath said as one of the shells crashed into the sea just 100 yards off the port side of the carrier.

"Maybe they don't," Hunter said. "They could have got lucky and hired a freelance howitzer group that was camped nearby."

The shoreline was now a portrait of flames and

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smoke. The beachhead had yet to be attacked by the howitzers. Whoever was firing the ten-mile-range guns was zeroing in on the carrier. The first shot had been a lucky hit right against the side of the ship near the CIC.

Fortunately, it made more noise than anything else, and Yaz's men were already fighting the small blaze that had broken out. But other shells were now landing dangerously close. Two of the frigates were moving into position off Villefranche in an attempt to locate the howitzers' hidden positions. One of them was the command ship carrying Sir Neil and the Recovery Mission planners.

But Hunter knew the frigates' gunners would not be able to get in close enough to find out where the big guns were.

Just then one of Heath's men yelled to him from the bridge on the carrier's conning tower. "Sir! The tugs are here!"

The trio whirled around to see a group of red and white blinking lights stretching across the dark horizon. "Well, well, Mr. O'Brien," Heath said.

"You've arrived ahead of schedule . . ."

"And just in time," Yaz added.

"We've got to get this show on the road," Hunter said. "Yaz, get on the horn to Sir Neil, will you? Tell him the tugs have arrived and we've got to start pulling the SAS guys off the beach now."

"Where you going, major?" Yaz wanted to know.

Hunter and Heath were already running toward the big Sea King helicopter sitting on the carrier deck. "We're going to find those howitzers!" he yelled back.

The Sea King was armed with two outdated but still effective 40mm grenade launchers. Heath had

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automatically jumped behind the controls of the big chopper and Hunter had strapped himself into the side-door gunner's seat. They were airborne less than a minute later, taking off just as a howitzer shell had come crashing down on the deck, dangerously close to where the F-16 was parked.

Hunter hung out the open bay door of the chopper as Heath steered the Sea King toward the shore. Already a frigate was moving toward the SAS beachhead, preparing to take off the first contingent of troops. Sir Neil's command ship was still looking for the howitzers, but now the entrenched T-62 tank crews -