Return of Sky Ghost (27 page)

The white plane finally came to a stop and simultaneously was surrounded by the base workers, the ecstatic gun crew, and the members of the STS squad.

After a few moments, the canopy lifted off the needle-nosed airplane and Hawk Hunter stood up and stretched his tired legs.

He looked down to see two dozen faces looking up at him, and a few gun barrels too.

Finally one of the STS soldiers stepped forward, his pistol pointing directly up at Hunter.

With a thick English accent, he asked,
“And who the hell are you?”

Near Summer Point

T
HE MAN IN THE
farmhouse had never worn a battle helmet.

There had never been a need before. He was not a soldier. Not Here. Not There.

But he had a helmet on now and his wife did too. And their front lawn, where they had so laboriously tried to grow green grass for the past twenty years, was now all mud, churned up from tank treads. Indeed, an enormous SuperChieftain tank was sitting right outside their front door, its crew at their battle stations, its three gigantic 188-mm antiaircraft guns pointing skyward in three different directions.

Another SuperChieftain, just as big, its treads just as destructive, was sitting by their back door. A third was firmly implanted in the cabbage patch next to the house. A fourth was hidden in the apple orchard.

Down by the front gate, a series of trenches had been blown out of the rocklike peat by the Special Tank Service commandos, using rubber explosives. These trenches were now bristling with two-man cannons, recoilless rifles, and antipersonnel rocket launchers. All of them were pointing down the east road, the barely paved path which led to the beach. There were so many heavy weapons on the front lawn of the farmhouse, it seemed like there were more guns than soldiers to man them. In fact, this was the truth.

The man and his wife were sitting on the living room couch watching all this out their huge picture window. They were at a 2,197-foot elevation; the height gave a good view of the surroundings for miles around. From here, down the hill and beyond the stunted scrub trees, was the beach, and beyond that, Falkland Sound. Three and a half miles beyond that was McReady airfield. At the moment, it was nearly obscured by clouds of billowing smoke.

They had watched the titanic air battle from their living room, nervously sipping their morning tea. Against the typically gray skies, it had looked like a fireworks display going off. Red and yellow explosions above the air base. Millions of sparks spraying everywhere. The battle had seemed time-delayed, though. They would see a flash and then the fire and smoke—and the sound and concussions would arrive half a minute later. The same was true for the scream of the jet engines and the multitudes of sonic booms. Some of them had been so strong, they’d rattled the farmhouse down to its many foundations.

The battle had ended about thirty minutes ago and now all was quiet—except for the noise of the tank’s engines running in the cold air outside the front door. Still, the smoke continued rising above McReady Field, and some major fires were raging out of control across the sound as well. The heavy winds were whipping these flames everywhere, blowing some of the thick black smoke all over the normally peaceful Falkland Sound.

The man had no idea what had happened, but it seemed very apparent an enemy had come to the Falkland Islands. Now, his main concern was for his wife’s safety. He had to protect her, no matter what the cost. That much was a given.

But he was also responsible for the lives of the men working in the facility deep below the farmhouse: the scientists, the technicians, the support people. Colonel Asten, the STS unit’s overall commander, had sent two soldiers down into the Hole to bolster the pair of guards permanently stationed down there. But he knew, should the situation get critical, all four of these commandos would have to come back up top and fight in the trenches along with the rest of their unit.

The man shuddered to think how bad the situation would be if that turned out to be the case.

The man poured his wife another cup of tea, then strapped his helmet down and walked out onto the front porch.

Colonel Asten was there, huddled over a field-size Boomer, trying to get a clear radio channel to an RAF base on Ascension Island and not having a good time of it. The radio transmitter at McReady had been destroyed in the air battle. It was this transmitter the STS used to “steal” from. That is, feed off of without the people at McReady knowing about it. With that line of communications gone, the STS unit was suddenly very isolated. The commandos had been trying to get a message out since the first plane appeared over McReady. They had not come anywhere close to succeeding as of yet.

Asten saw the man come out the door. The STS commander told his radio man to keep trying, then walked up to the front porch.

“Any further news, Colonel?” the man asked him.

The STS officer’s face looked uncharacteristically pained.

“No, sir,” he said. “No news at all, I’m afraid. McReady’s radio transmitter is knocked out. The base is being abandoned and we are taking the survivors over here.”

“What are you expecting next exactly?” the man asked him.

“I’m not sure,” Asten replied truthfully. “The air attack on McReady might have been an isolated event, or it might be the prelude to something—though it did end rather unexpectedly. The airplanes were definitely of Japanese origin. They have been making lots of noise over on the continent, as you know. But I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you, sir.”

The man just shook his head. That was enough.

“It is best then that you and your wife stay inside, sir,” Asten went on. “In fact, you might consider joining the others down below.”

“Do you have a gun for me?” the man asked him unexpectedly.

Asten was stumped for a moment. It was a rather strange request, considering.

“If it comes to that,” Asten finally answered. “I’ll see what I can do.”

With that, the man nodded numbly and went back inside the house.

His wife’s usually pleasant face was now thick with worry.

“What is it?” she asked him, hoping he would report it was all just a plane crash or a false alarm. But his own worried features betrayed him.

“They may be expecting some …” he stuttered, groping for the right word,
“uninvited
company. But I’m certain they can handle it.”

Still the man did not want to take any chances that his wife might be in danger. Instinct was telling him it might be best to go below immediately. He helped her off the couch and together they walked toward the closet door behind which lay the hidden elevator.

“Let’s go make some doughnuts,” he told her softly. “Together.”

Twenty minutes later, the Roamer appeared.

Crawling up the south road, its crew was hanging all over the sides, its twin exhaust tubes spewed large clouds of black smoke. The approaching vehicle was traveling as fast as it could, its engines screaming in response. Still, it was coming up the hill, very slowly.

It topped the crest and squealed to a stop next to the huge SuperChieftain tank positioned at the front gate of the farmhouse. The Roamer crewmen jumped off, exhausted from their adrenaline-packed experience against the Japanese planes.

The Roamer’s driver killed his engines and now the commander of the vehicle climbed out of the front hatch and down the access ladder. He was a lieutenant, his name was Ponch. Behind him was the driver, his hands and face covered with sweat and grease. Behind him, led out by two privates, was Hawk Hunter. He was blindfolded.

Colonel Asten greeted Ponch with a silent salute. Ponch had radioed him right after the air battle had concluded. He told the STS CO that he was bringing someone back from McReady, someone that the colonel absolutely had to talk to.

Now this man was standing before him. Asten took a long look.

He was a pilot, his uniform was a flight suit. He was a very strange sort; that was Asten’s first impression. He looked different, but in a way the STS commander could not describe, not even to himself. He looked familiar too; Asten had been stationed in the Falklands for four years. He didn’t see much from the outside world. But this man’s face he might have caught on a TV report, or perhaps in a newspaper at some point.

Asten walked Ponch a few paces away from the Roamer, out of earshot of Hunter.

“OK, who is he?” Asten asked the Roamer commander.

“He’s the pilot who saved us and the airfield,” Ponch replied starkly “He’s the guy who iced all those Japanese airplanes.”

Asten had seen the white blur twisting and turning through the attackers. The carcasses of more than two dozen SuperKates and ’Zeroes were still burning over at McReady or in the waters nearby. There was no doubt that through his amazing aeronautics, this man had saved the people at the base from certain doom, at least temporarily.

But heroics aside, Asten still had a big question to ask. He turned back to Ponch.

“So what the hell is he doing here?”

Lieutenant Ponch just shrugged. “He said something about a weapons pickup. Says he was supposed to come here and await further orders. Did we ever get any word of that, sir?”

Asten shook his head no. He hadn’t received any such report. But that didn’t necessarily mean that he’d have
seen
such a message if such a message had been sent. This was a place of many secrets. Asten’s job was to protect the people in the farmhouse and those in the facility underneath. He didn’t know what went on down below, or even how many people were actually down there. Nor did he need to know. His job was to watch the door. That was all.

“I heard nothing like this,” he finally told Ponch. “Maybe he’s in the wrong place.”

“Well, if that’s the case, we’re damn lucky he was,” Ponch said. “He saved our arses. And the people left over at McReady too.”

There was a huge roar. From behind the hill came the enormous old Beater from McReady. It was carrying the survivors in its expansive cargo hold. What’s more, dangling from a chain attached to its belly, was Hunter’s Z-3/15.

Asten just stared at the strange plane as it went overhead.

“Look at that, will you?” he exclaimed. “I’ve never seen an airplane like that in my life!”

“I’ve never seen anyone
fly
an airplane like he just did.” Ponch said. “I just knew you would want to see him, sir.”

Asten looked back at the pilot.

“What has he seen so far?” he asked Ponch.

The lieutenant just shrugged. Hunter’s blindfold was still in place.

“Nothing over here,” he replied. “Yet.”

One of Asten’s radar men ran up to him.

He was holding a long sheet of yellow paper. It was a readout from the unit’s surface radar set. It showed a detailed impression of the sea for 100 miles around West Falkland Island. Clearly at the western edge of this limit there were twelve blips.

“What are they?” Asten asked the radar man to interpret.

“Can only be one thing, sir,” the man replied quickly. “Warships. Twelve of them.”

“This guy said he flew over them,” Ponch reported. “Those Japanese planes came from one of those ships.”

Asten crumpled the yellow paper into his fist. West Falkland was home to so many secrets simply because it was out in the middle of nowhere; two mere specks of land at just about the last point on Earth. Now, though he sure didn’t want to believe it was happening, it seemed like the day they had all trained for but never expected to come, had indeed arrived.

“So this isn’t any isolated thing, this attack on the air base,” Asten said, more to himself than to Lieutenant Ponch. “It’s a prelude to an armed landing.”

Ponch just shook his head in disbelief.

“Who would be crazy enough to invade the Falkland Islands, sir?” he asked Asten incredulously.

“That’s a very good question,” Asten replied.

Asten thought for five seconds, then began issuing orders. His men were to go on Alpha One High Alert. This meant an invasion of the island was imminent. They would bring some of their forces down to the beach in case this invasion was by the sea. They would leave several tanks up top, to protect the farmhouse, in case the attack came from the air.

Already Ponch was barking Asten’s orders out to his men in short, clipped British bites. Soon the commandos were running this way and that, moving tanks, cranking up guns. It was a study in organized chaos.

That’s when Ponch looked back at Hunter, still standing alone at the side of the road, waiting patiently.

“It may get a bit ’airy around here, sir,” Ponch said. “What shall we do with him?”

Asten took another long look at the man and then just shook his head.

“Give him a rifle and put him down on the beach with the others,” Asten finally replied. “Whoever the hell he is, he’s just as stuck here as the rest of us.”

Area 52

A
GENT Y WAS WAITING
out on the runway when the huge transport plane roared in.

It was escorted by two Mustang-5 fighters. Their pilots waited until the transport was down and braking before they broke off and landed on a shorter runway nearby. The very precious cargo they’d been protecting had arrived safe and sound. Their jobs were done.

Three buses appeared on the tarmac and met the huge transport plane as it finally came to a stop at the end of the runway. The rear of the airplane opened and a small army of passengers trooped out. They were directed to the three buses by the crew. Once full, the buses headed back across the Bride Lake air base to an isolated hangar which had been set up as a reception center.

As the buses passed close by his jeepster, Y took his MVP pad from his pocket and punched in a coded message. Its rough translation: “The Associates have arrived. More later.”

Then he put his jeepster in gear and moved into position at the end of the small convoy. Slowly, they all drove toward the hangar.

It was a typical dry, windblown morning. Already scorching hot. Already very unsettled. Questions were going through Y’s mind as quickly as the desert wind. When would the upcoming Panama Canal action really begin? What would happen on Brazil’s border when it was time to move? Were both of these things really just feints to cover the real mission, the one involving the colossal bomber? Or was the bomber mission just a ruse to divert attention from something else?