Return of Sky Ghost (37 page)

They all looked up at one another at the same time and again it was like Hunter had been hit by a lightning bolt. The two people—a man and a woman—were both middle-aged, both pleasant of face and sturdy looking.

They looked damned familiar too.

But just as Hunter was about to call out something to them, Duggen revved the Octo’s eight very noisy engines and after that, all thoughts of communication were lost. Hunter just stood in the open cargo bay door watching the pair as the Beater began slowly and unsteadily to rise into the sky.

And then the man and the woman waved to him.

And then Hunter waved back.

O
NLY ONE OF THE
Japanese warships taking part in the Falklands campaign was able to make it back to South America under its own power.

It was the command cruiser, the vessel first attacked by the sleek white jet at the beginning of the battle for Tin Can beach.

It had lost more than half its crew. It had no communications ability left. It could only move at half power, and was riding with a fifteen-degree list. The chances of it making port safely were only about fifty-fifty.

Still, this seemed of little concern to two of the three men presently ensconced in the ship’s captain’s quarters. The pair was more interested in getting drunk, or more accurately, getting drunk on something drinkable.

It was X and Z, the two wayward OSS agents. They had watched the strange battle for Tin Can beach unfold from the relative safety of a gun mount on the cruiser, after having been picked up by a Japanese rescue boat, as so hastily planned, shortly after the attack on McReady Field.

Watching the Japanese attempt to invade West Falkland had been an exercise in frustration for the two rogue agents. They had learned about the Bomb from the thinking machine on their German-built
Nacht-Sputnik
airplane. There was a high probability that some kind of weapon of mass destruction was being kept on the Falkland Islands and that this weapon could literally change the balance of power in the world. This was too good of an opportunity for the pair to pass up—at the time even their search for the all-important Third Guy had been suspended.

Getting into a deal with the Japanese to attack the Falklands had been easier than they’d figured. Characteristically, they went right to the top in presenting their dirty deal with America’s current enemy and initially found a responsiveness which they were certain would insure their success.

But fate came back to bite them on the ass. Little did they know that Hawk Hunter, the Sky Ghost, the only other guy on the planet whose very presence could alter events, was also in the Falklands. What were the chances of
that?
These two had asked themselves that question over and over again. They never did come up with the right odds, but both knew as soon as they saw the white jet in the sky that their plan to snatch the Bomb and use it for whatever they could dream up, was lost.

They had watched the battle from a gun turret, a guest of the ship’s high commander, and had narrowly escaped the brutal strafing the white airplane had delivered on the vessel.

Now as the ship made its way slowly west, the men were scouring the cabin for anything mildly alcoholic, but having a hard time of it, much to their dismay.

The third man in the cabin however had had no problem getting and staying inebriated. He may have needed to be in such a state even more than they. They were simply discouraged. He was devastated, his failure to succeed in the operation had reached new lows of shame for him. He could hardly speak, he was so depressed.

It was, of course, High General Hilo Wakisaki, the man who was responsible for the Japanese invasion of South America in the first place, slumped in the chair across from the two agents, simply staring out into space, not talking, hardly breathing. His loss of face following the embarrassing Battle of Axaz plain on Xwo Mountain and the overall failure of the Night Brigade had affected him greatly. It was like a knife had been thrust in his heart and become stuck there. He was no longer the darling of the population back on the Home Islands, he was no longer regarded as Japan’s greatest general. His triumph had so quickly turned to failure, it was almost surreal.

When the pair of OSS men had approached him through back channels to make a deal on invading the Falkland Islands, Wakisaki had jumped at the chance, hoping to regain his previously lofty reputation.

But now with the dismal failure of this operation, Wakisaki was running out of options.

“You would think the highest bug on the Japanese food chain would have something decent to drink,” X said to Z as he ransacked the captain’s cabin once again, looking for some liquor.

Z just shrugged. He was tired. The last few weeks had been a bitch for him.

“Why do you expect this guy to have taste?” he replied nodding toward the nearly comatose high general.

X went right over to the Japanese commander, got down in his face, and, in perfect Japanese, asked him: “If you were going to hide something like brandy or bourbon, where would you put it?”

Wakisaki simply grunted. In his eyes one could see he was reliving the triumphs that had become him until recently. His eyes were watering. He was hardly alive. X resisted the temptation to slap him across the face. Instead he reached inside his gun belt, drew out a revolver, and placed it in Wakisaki’s hand.

“Here you go, pal,” the OSS man told him. “Do the right thing.”

Finally Wakisaki moved. He looked down at the gun, then back up at the two OSS men.

“That man in the white jet,” he began asking in halting, stuttering Japanese. “He was this Sky Ghost?”

X slumped back onto the couch beside Z.

“That’s right, pal,” the OSS man told him. “He was the brick wall we were unlucky enough to slam into.”

“There was no way it could have gone in our favor no matter what we did,” Z said, more to himself than to Wakisaki. “Damn, that guy is a pain in the ass.”

“A valuable pain in the ass,” X moaned.

But Wakisaki wasn’t listening to any of this. He was staring down at the pistol in his hand. Before his eyes flashed many, many final scenes. Strangely, the last one was his memory of his favorite vase, the one he’d smashed that morning in his suite in New Lima. It seemed like things just never got any better after that.

“If only I could have that moment back,” he whispered. “And a bottle of glue.”

Then he put the gun to his head, pulled the trigger, and blew his brains out.

The cloud of blood and brain mist stained the far wall of the cabin, but X and Z hardly moved a muscle.

Z reached down to the only bottle they could find in Wakisaki’s supply cabinet and took a swig, but spit it all out just as soon as it touched his tongue.

“Grape sake!”
he said with disgust, wiping his mouth. “Who the fuck would ever drink this stuff?”

H
UNTER TOOK OFF JUST
as the sun was going down.

Bomb-pod finally attached to the bottom of his aircraft, fuel tanks filled to the brim with something, he left McReady field, climbed to a mind-numbing altitude of 101,000 feet, and turned northwest.

Timing was everything, he knew. For this plan to finally reach its last stage, Hunter would have to make the 7,500-mile trip to Area 52 in record time.

Luckily the Z-3/15 was just the airplane to do it.

The events of the past few days ran through his head now like a movie reel set to replay. The cold, cold Falklands. The battle at McReady. The strange tale of the hooker in the crashed airplane. The battle on Tin Can beach. The world beneath the hill. Seeing Chloe—and the man and woman glimpsed briefly in the rubble of the farmhouse.

It all seemed unreal, and so intense it made what he was about to do—his “suicide” mission—almost seem dull by comparison.

He reached optimum height and booted in the
Stiletto
’s double-reaction engines to 93 percent power. Whatever was feeding his power plants definitely had a kick to it. Previously he had shied away from opening up the plane’s throttles all the way, simply because he wasn’t sure it could take the strain. But now was not the time for caution. Now was the time to get from one lonely, secret spot on the Earth to another as quickly as possible.

So he pushed his throttles ahead and watched the airspeed indicator begin spinning madly around the dial.

Mach 5. Mach 6. Mach 7….

Once again the needle-nosed airplane cut through the air like a knife. The steamy green of the South American continent was soon in view, even though Hunter was barely two minutes out of the Falklands. He nudged the throttles ahead further. Mach 7.5. Mach 8….

The g-forces were pinning him against his seat with an intensity he could not ever recall, at least not in this world. It made it hard for him to move, to breathe, to blink—but he didn’t care. He loved the feeling, loved the pressure he felt on every square centimeter of his body. Why? Because he knew it came as a result of ultimate flight. Fast, faster, fastest. That’s all he ever wanted to be.

But the feeling had a downbeat to it as well. As soon as he reached his destination, he knew the chances that he would ever fly this beautiful, if slightly muddy airplane again, were practically nil. He had to enjoy it while he could.

So he hit the throttle again and now the engines were burning at 110 percent, and he was approaching Mach 9, close to 5,500 miles per hour. Below him, the entire South American continent looked like a green blur. He sucked in a long breath of oxygen and let it out very slowly. He knew it would be wise to savor this.

His control panel began blinking just a moment later. It was not a warning light or a trouble indicator that was flashing—it was the MVP, coming back to life. Hunter lifted his oxygen mask and tried to spit at it again, but the saliva simply rocketed back into his own face. This gave him a laugh. The aerodynamic properties of a loogie. Interesting thesis, he thought.

He strained his sore elbow lifting his finger to push the MVP activator button. Once engaged, the screen immediately came to life. It was filled with the routine jumble of numbers and letters and computer codes at first, blinking at him like it was happy to be back on, and flushed out and working and what have you been doing Mr. Hunter since we last spoke? Finally the message screen went all white and then purple, an indication that an animation was forthcoming.

Hunter did a check of his aircraft’s vital signs and everything looked fine, despite the fact that he was traveling more than a mile a second.

He turned his attention back to the MVP screen and was surprised by what he saw. It was not the long list of instructions and inquiries he’d half expected, but rather the same cartoon he’d viewed when he first received the orders for the top secret bombing mission.

Well, at least the OSS wasn’t wasting time getting him back into the game, he thought.

The cartoon showed the huge hangar out in the middle of the Nevada desert, the one containing the colossal airplane. The first time he’d seen this visual, the briefing animators had showed it shaking slightly, giving the impression that work was being done inside. Now, in a very bizarre comic fashion, the hangar was shaking again, but even more so, and puffs of smoke and steam were emitting from the windows and the doors. The whole building was shaking at its foundations. Slowly the huge hangar doors were beginning to open.

It looked ridiculous, but the meaning of this comical animation was crystal clear: Much work was going on inside the huge hangar. The doors opening told him that, incredibly, the project was nearing completion.
In three days?

The implication for him was clear as well. He had to get back to Area 52 as quickly as possible.

This deflated him again. The urgency of the animation was pressing on him like the monstrous g-forces. It meant at least one diversion he’d been toying with was now impossible. He wouldn’t be able to stop at Xwo Mountain.

That meant he would probably never see Sara again.

He let out a long slow breath and sucked in another one. Maybe that was the way it was supposed to be.

He reached forward and managed to hit the throttle again and now the Z-3/15 was going full out at Mach 9.2.

At this velocity, he’d be in Area 52 in less than two hours.

Nevada

Mike Fitzgerald was exhausted.

He’d been up for three straight days now. In that time, he’d drunk more than five gallons of coffee, six gallons of highly caffeine-enriched soda, had eaten 35 candy bars, and eighteen bananas.

After all that, and with the strange excitement within the big hangar, Fitzgerald’s sugar buzz had him high as a kite.

Which was good. Because if he fell asleep, he had no idea what would happen to the others. They’d been following his lead since they were brought to this fateful place. This enormous hangar with its colossal airplane. The place called G-2. He’d become the project foreman. The mother hen. His main fear was that if he lay down and went to sleep, the rest of them would too.

And that would be a disaster.

So Fitz continued gobbling Snickers bars and draining huge mugs of coffee.

If it was up to him, he’d never have to go to sleep ever again.

Probably the most startling thing about the past forty-eight hours was how smart the New Jersey Giants turned out to be.

Fitz had always held the impression—and he knew he wasn’t alone here—that most football players were basically big and dumb. But not these guys. These guys were wizards. They had performed engineering feats way beyond anyone’s expectations, the OSS included. They had provided the backbone and the muscle for this bizarre project. They had contributed a lot of the reasoning too. True, the majority of this inspiration was coming from Coach Geraci and his assistants. But the players themselves—the linebackers, the defensive ends, the linemen, and both backfields—had contributed some outstanding ideas in the reconfiguration of the colossal airplane, and once approved, implemented them by way of some frighteningly efficient time-saving dictums.