Wingman (18 page)

Within seconds, the runway and the surrounding area was filled with hundreds of the deadly popping bombs. It was like a long, deadly string of firecrackers laid down and ignited. Everything and anyone within a 100 yards of the runway was perforated by shrapnel from the exploding projectiles. The fuel tanks in the hundreds of 'Ak helicopters began exploding, adding to the chain reaction of destruction. Bodies were being flung everywhere. Severed arms, legs, torsos flew through the air. A half a man's body was thrown upward and splattered against one of the control tower windows. The sudden, grisly sight made even the iron-stomached Mid-Ak officers retch. The four young girls in the tower at the time took advantage of the confusion and fled, naked.

Within 30 seconds the runway and the base itself was a mass of bloody, fiery confusion. The F-16, its powerful engine screaming, turned once again and headed back.

. .

Many of the Mid-Ak troops began to panic and flee. Some did report to their

antiaircraft positions and lamely returned the fire, but Hunter, on his next past, took these soldiers out with one squeeze of the F-16's gun trigger. He looped and made a hard peel to the left, finding himself 20-feet above the water, and heading for the biggest of the Mid-Ak warships. It was like a replay of his attack the day before.

Black-uniformed sailors frantically running to their positions as he approached. The jet, so low its exhaust was churning up the surface water, unfailingly staying on target until the last possible second. The weapon release button was pushed. A 500pound bomb ripped into the side of the ship and exploded.

He managed to strafe the other two, smaller ships in the harbor then executed a climb and back roll, leveling out at the far end of the base's number one runway and back for another strafing past. The Mid-Aks on the ground were amazed that an aircraft could perform the maneuvers, the F-16 was going through. It was turning, spinning, climbing, diving, strafing, bombing. Anyone brave enough to stick his head up and risk a shot at the plane found themselves shooting into thin air.

Hunter systematically went about destroying primary and secondary targets on the base. He put a Sidewinder into the only Mid-Ak helicopter that was able to get airborne during the attack. He left the crucial radio antenna in ruins. The two warehouses were in flames. A row of Mid-Ak trucks was reduced to smoking hulks. He bombed a nearby dike, which allowed the sea to pour into the far end of the place, putting half the major runway under water.

He was running low on ammunition and fuel and knew it was time to start thinking about making a grand exit. He was carrying one last bomb-a napalm canister he'd purposely saved for last. He wheeled around and headed directly for the control tower. There were two Mid-Aks foolishly firing at him from that position, with the majority of the 'Ak officers were still cowering inside.

He lowered his flaps and his landing gear to slow the jet down to almost a crawl.

Lining up the control tower in his video display sight, he could see figures running inside panicking as he approached. At 200 yards out, he performed a perfect four-point turn-first on the right wing, then upside down, then on the left wing and back level again. At the end of the maneuver he was right on the control tower. A push of the weapons release and the napalm canister splattered onto the side of the tower.

The building was instantly engulfed in flames. Streaking past, he could see fiery figures, diving or falling out of the building as the burning gelatin spread. For the coup de' grace, he squeezed off a cannon burst which riddled the Mid-Ak flag flying above one of the buildings splintering its flagpole in the process.

Then he was gone in a flash . . .

The survivors of the murderous one-man air strike finally started to emerge once they felt sure the jet was gone. Looking around the base they saw almost the entire Mid-Ak helicopter corps in flames, every major building was burning, the control tower simply ceased to exist, two ships were slinking offshore, and the sea was uncontrollably pouring into the far end of the base carrying with it the bodies of the Mid-Aks killed in the attack.

On a sand dune, about a mile away, some of the civilians who only minutes before were slated to go before the firing squad, were bayoneting the remains of their would-be executioners. They would never forget what the pilot in the red, white and blue jet had done. Stealing the dead Mid-Aks' weapons, they regrouped and prepared to evacuate the area, using the commandeered Mid-Aks trucks.

Something in the sky caught the eye of one of the survivors and he called to his comrades to look. Some of the few remaining Mid-Aks saw it too. Miles up, its tail exhaust leaving a contrail, the outline of the F-16 could be seen. The pilot was skywriting a huge letter 55,000 feet up and miles across. Then the F-16 was gone for good, leaving a sight both friend and foe would not soon forget-even as the huge "W" drifted and eventually faded away

He only had enough fuel to fly another 500 miles, if he kept it high and steady and didn't have to go into the fuel-gulping afterburner. Steering west, he was intent on getting out of the Mid-Ak controlled air space of what used to be the Northeast Economic Zone. They would certainly be looking for him-his plane was undoubtedly identified at the nuking of Baltimore. Now he had to wonder what the bounty on his head would be worth once word of the bombing of Otis reached the Mid-Ak High Command.

He was high over what was once called western Massachusetts when he got his answer

. . .

He was aware of the two bogies even before they showed up on his radar scope.

His sixth sense-that mysterious, almost spooky ability which set him apart from any other pilot who ever flew-had warned him that they were in the area. The blips on the radar screen just confirmed what he already knew-two fighters were gaining on him fast.

He remained cool and slowly drifted down through the cloud cover, emerging at 45,000 feet. They were coming out of the southwest, freelancers, most likely, alerted by the Mid-Aks that a high-priced fugitive would be in their area. And the Mid-Aks would like him shot down for good.

Supersonic bounty hunters were one of the new breed of flyboy in the New Order world. They had a couple of ways to make their money and it was only their ability as pilots that determined how rich they could be.

Air bounties were paid in two ways. "Bring 'em back alive," and the pilot-or a team of pilots-received the full reward. Shoot the fugitive down-and return the tail section of his plane as proof-and the hunter received half the bounty. Either way, a successful air hunter-mostly freelancers looking for a little excitement to spell them from the monotony of convoy duty-could wind up rich very quickly.

Just how rich depended on the flyer's skills. It took a special finesse of flying for a bounty hunter to stalk, locate and force a fugitive pilot to land-safely-to be brought back alive. This could be accomplished in a number of ways: Some air hunters could simply persuade a fugitive to give up without a fight and follow him back to the payer's airfield. This tactic usually worked if the air hunter was loaded with buckshot and the fugitive was unarmed. If words and threats didn't do it, a clip of the fugitive's wing with a well-placed cannon burst just might. A good air marksman could blind the runner by sending a single shot through his radar. Or the tried and true tactic was to just stay on the runner's ass until he ran out of fuel.

Still, the bounty hunter had to provide a living, breathing body to collect the big money. This is why many of them worked with accomplices on the ground-shady characters who could be radioed and told to speed to the site of a fugitive's landing, find him, and capture him.

And if all else failed, the stalker could always blast the runner out of the sky and settle for half the reward. Either way it was a complicated, fast-moving, treacherous but ultimately profitable business. No wonder it attracted some of the best stick jockeys left on the continent.

“Fast Eddy calling one-niner-five F-16. Do you read me?"

Hunter had been tracking the two fighters visually for five minutes before they called him. They were about a mile below him and two miles back. A pair of F-104

Starfighters, fast, pencil-thin, short-winged jets. Both were painted in gaudy, red and yellow circus colors. As usual, the pilots were known by their gimmicky call names.

Hunter adjusted his UHF band frequency. The game had begun.

"F-16 acknowledging. Read you five-by-five, Starfighter. What's your problem?"

"You've got the problem, Mac," came the static-filled reply. "You the one who busted up the air base down on old Cape Cod?"

"News travels fast," Hunter replied, checking his remaining armament. No cannon ammo. One Sidewinder. two Starfighters. It could get interesting.

"You pissed some people off, '16," the other pilot, known as Rick the Stick, radioed in.

"Mid-Aks? People?" Hunter said, rechecking his fuel load. "I don't think they qualify."

"Being a wise-ass will only make it harder on you, '16," Fast Eddie said. "We know you're down on fuel. And you ain't got enough to take the both of us on. . .

"And we only see one air-to-air . . ." Rick the Stick added.

"Right," Eddie continued. "So why not come quietly, 16? Follow us on a three-seven heading."

"I don't know, boys," Hunter replied. "What's in it for me?"

"What's in it for you, '16, is that we don't trash your pretty airplane," Eddie said, a touch of hostility in his voice.

"Okay, Starfighter," Hunter said, eyeing a bank of clouds ahead. "What's in it for
you?
"

"We take you alive," Fast Eddie replied. "Three bags of silver and quarter bag of gold. Real stuff."

Gold, Hunter thought. The Mid-Ak's favorite currency.

"Dead . . .?" Rick the Stick added, "You’re worth a dime bag of gold and a few lousy quarters."

Hunter could see that while the bounty pilots were talking to him, they had slowly narrowed the gap between him and them. The large cloud bank was just ahead. The Starfighters were now just a half mile below and riding a quarter mile off his tail.

"Make it easy on us, '16," Fast Eddie said as he and the Stick moved up to within a quarter mile of Hunter's jet. "Just lower your flaps and gear and follow us. The 'Aks ain't that bad."

"Yeah," Rick the Stick added. "Just lose that Sidewinder too."

At that moment all three jets entered the cloud bank simultaneously. When the Starfighters emerged a few seconds later, the F-16 was nowhere to be seen.

"Where did the son of a bitch go?" Rick the Stick exclaimed.

"Christ! Check radar, Stick!" Eddie said, panic rising in his voice.

"No need," a voice, popping on in their headsets, said. "Just check your tail."

The Stick looked back just in time to see the Sidewinder leave the wingtip of the F-16.

The missile was swallowed up by the Starfighter's jet exhaust duct. An instant later, Rick the Stick and his Starfighter were blown into a million little pieces.

"Air pollution," Hunter muttered as he climbed slightly to avoid hitting the flying debris.

"Jeezus!" Eddie exclaimed as he watched his wingman become one with the clouds.

"How did you do that?"

"Practice," Hunter said, smiting. The old 360 loop-dee-loop-a quick climb, roll back and level-had been in the fighter pilot's bag of tricks since World War I. The Thunderbirds perfected it. But no pilot did it quicker than Hunter.

Fast Eddie, a former Air National Guard pilot gone bad, knew there was only one pilot in the world who could loop that quickly without killing himself with

"Hawk Hunter?" he asked almost meekly into his radio set.

"The one and only," Hunter replied.

"Oh, God! Those goddamn 'Aks," Eddie said, nearly screaming. "They didn't tell us we was going up against you, Hunter."

"That's bad employee relations, Eddie."

"Jesus, I should have known by the F-16," the bounty pilot said, turning to see Hunter directly behind him.

"Not many of them left," Hunter said. "And there'll be one less," Fast Eddie said, a light bulb going off in his head. " 'cause, you ain't got no more air-to-airs left.

And if you had any ammo, you'd have blasted me by now." Just because Eddie was a pilot didn't mean he was extraordinarily bright.

"Maybe I just like talking," Hunter said as he watched Eddie peel off to the south.

"I got three Sidewinders, Hunter," Eddie said, a new confidence evident in his voice. "And one of them is for you. When I bring back the tail section of the great Hawk Hunter, the 'Aks will pay me double the live rate. And I'll be famous!"

More likely they'd feed you into a hot engine, Eddie, Hunter thought. But he had wasted enough time with the Starfighter already. He had places to go. With a touch of the F-16's side-stick controller, he put the jet into a screaming dive.

Fast Eddie was on his tail in a second, prematurely launching one of his

Sidewinders. It streaked by off to Hunter's left, missing by an eighth of a mile.

"Where'd you learn to shoot like that, Eddie?" Hunter asked, as he passed 20,000

feet and still diving. "A video arcade?"

"I got two more, Hunter," Eddie replied, arming his second missile and lining up the F-16 on the Starfighter's relatively crude targeting acquisition system. "Say your prayers . . ."

"In the name of the father. And of the son," Hunter began, "Out of the park. Home run."

Eddie's second missile missed by a full 100 yards. "Now I know why your plane looks like it belongs in a carnival, Eddie," Hunter said, checking his altitude at 5000

feet and still dropping. "A loser every time."

"Fuck you, Hunter," Eddie said with a mouthful of frustration.

They were both closing in on 1000 feet when Eddie launched his last Sidewinder.

A deft flick of Hunter's wrist on the side-stick and the '16 casually moved out of the way of the deadly missile. It shot straight past and exploded on the side of a mountain below. They were flying through the heart of the Berkshires, close to where ZAP had battled the Cherry Busters in the Thruway War a year before. Hunter was now down to 500 feet, following the twists and turns of a river as it wound itself through the mountains. Eddie was close on his tail.