Target: Point Zero (41 page)

The Zon pilot had to think a moment—why would an airplane’s pilot do that? Then it hit him. He leaped for the button which controlled his own landing gear and pushed it hard. He felt a violent kick and saw a row of red lights pop onto his control panel. His gear was lowering way too early for a normal landing—but it was also serving to slow the Zon down dramatically.

He looked at his guidance computer again. Just four miles away now, altitude at thirty-one hundred. Speed was down to two hundred ninety and still dropping.

He chanced another look out the window and was startled to see a huge airplane pulling up along his portside. It was painted like a circus train and had a thousand guns sticking out of it. So, he’d been right! He
was
descending into Hell. This thing couldn’t possibly be real.

Just two and a half miles out now—he was close enough to see all the wreckage burning on the island was demolished airplanes. Yes, it was making sense now. This wasn’t a landing spot—it was a place where aircraft of all types and sizes came to crash.

Now he was just a mile and a half away. He could see the big arrow was just some kind of an orange stripe and the huge cross was, too. He could see bodies everywhere, broken and bloody.

He shook his head and laughed—all this time he thought Viktor was the devil; he certainly looked the part. But now the pilot was sure he’d be meeting the real item very, very shortly.

A half mile out now, and only one thousand feet in height. Another strange airplane with the little football painted on its side came up beside him, stayed a few seconds then peeled off. The smoke was clouding his windscreen now. He killed the computer completely and yanked the control column back towards him. All he could see were flames, rising up to meet him. He imagined he could feel their heat, and not just on his fingers and toes, but all over. He was insane. He was dead, and landing the shuttle here in Hell was just a matter of procedure.

Suddenly every single light on his panel lit up. He reached out and pulled the lever that released the Zon’s enormous drag chute. Bells were ringing in his ears but by rote alone he pushed the control column forward. The shuttle’s nose rose instead of falling, then fell when it should have climbed. The chute caught, but the Zon pilot imagined it would quickly burst into flames. He was, after all, landing in Hell.

There was another huge bang, the Zon shuddered from nose to ass and back again. Now the bells got louder and the lights on the control panel got brighter, and oddly, he, felt heavy again. Another jolt, another bounce, this one so hard he bit his tongue, causing it to bleed. Another bang, and then a strange dragging sound. Suddenly he felt his feet pressing hard on something just below the control column. Were those the brakes? He didn’t know.

He looked out the window, near terrified now. He was speeding along, oscillating between the ground and the cushion of air beneath the mighty Zon. He was passing rows of airplanes, some with little footballs on them, others the gigantic kind with the strange paint jobs. And he could see soldiers, lined up along the strip, firing their guns in the air and pointing at him.

Finally, with what he believed was the last effort left inside the last sane part of his body, he pushed down on the control column again. He immediately felt a mighty thump, then a second one, then a third, and then, at last, the sound of the shuttle’s tires finally catching hold of the ground and staying there.

He was down.

The shuttle seemed to roll on forever, careening this way and that, the sounds of the tires burning up and brakes locking filling the flight compartment. But gradually, it began slowing down and now the lines of airplanes and men outside weren’t so much of a blur. These aircraft—they seemed somewhat familiar to the Zon pilot, especially the ones with the little footballs painted on their sides. Something way back in his memory, something that was not completely erased from his mind-washing nightmare was telling him that not only had he seen these airplanes before, but that he might actually know the men who flew them.

The shuttle finally rolled to a stop, ironically right in the middle of the huge orange cross—he couldn’t have made a better landing if he had tried. He began shutting down all primary and secondary systems, making sure to click the fire extinguishers to ready should something happen now that they were down.

Through the window he could see at least a couple hundred soldiers gathered at the side of the runway. Some were armed and looked as if they’d just gone through a terrible fight; others were sitting on the hard concrete, hands tied behind their backs.

A squad of the armed soldiers began pushing a shaky-looking piece of scaffolding over to the side of the shuttle—this would be his disembarking ramp, the Zon pilot supposed. He stared out at these soldiers, watching them as they worked feverishly to move the scaffolding into position alongside the shuttle. The pilot disengaged the pressurization cap and soon the flight compartment was flooded with the warm, smoky air of the outside. Down below, he could hear some rumbling from the passengers he’d carried back with him, but there were no signs that they wanted to get off the shuttle in any kind of hurry.

Did they know something he didn’t?

The Zon pilot took one more long look out the window. Of all the airplanes parked helter-skelter at the end of the rough, concrete runway, one stuck out. It was a huge, black jet with red trim, and two high tailfins. It was an odd-looking aircraft, frightening in a way.
What hind of pilot would fly that?
the Zon pilot wondered wearily.

He yanked off his helmet, unstrapped from his seat and then walked to the side door and commenced to unbolt it. Outside he could hear the scaffolding being placed next to the hatch. He took a deep breath, gloomily wondering exactly what awaited him on the other side of the door.

Then he finally twisted the dog-lock, pulled back the lever, and swung the door open.

He was immediately hit with a blast of hot smelly air. He looked down to see two hundred faces looking up at him. Who were all these guys? Mercenaries hired by Viktor to secure this place? Or were they representing somebody else?

He’d expected a dozen of them to come charging up the steps towards him, but now only a single man was approaching. The Zon pilot looked hard at this man—that face, the hair, the thin angular body. He almost looked…familiar.

The man had an M-16 up and pointing at him, but as soon as he reached the top of the platform, the man nearly dropped the gun in disbelief. They stared at each other for what seemed like a very long time. The Zon pilot felt many things suddenly begin to click way back in that part of his memory which had been robbed from him two years before.

Wait a second, he thought, I know this guy—and he looks like he knows me.

The Zon pilot took one step out onto the platform, his jaw hanging open, astounded by the man in front of him.

Then it all came flooding back. All the times before he’d been shot down over the Pacific; fighting in America, working with a guy named Crunch O’Malley and a company called Ace Wrecking. A thrill went through him. Those memories hadn’t been stolen—just hidden.

“Jessuzz…Hunter?” he asked. “Is that really you?”

Hunter’s jaw dropped to his chest, too.

“Elvis?” he gasped. “Is that really
you?
”

Three days later

T
HE HUGE CH-53 SEA
Stallion helicopter orbited the tiny island twice before finally setting down on its long luxurious beach.

Sticking out of the white sand, just a few feet from the receding water line, was the charred, battered wreckage of a jet fighter. Its tail was twisted horribly, its wings shot through with holes. The damage was so severe, it was hard to tell at first exactly what model jet aircraft it was.

Three men alighted from the helicopter, weapons ready but not cocked. They slogged over to the wreckage and examined it briefly. Finally one turned to the others and nodded.

“This is it,” he said. “At least he made it this far.”

The three men climbed off the beach and contemplated the heavy jungle before them. This island was part of the Paracels, a handful of atolls located a couple hundred miles off the coast of Vietnam. Ironically enough, this one’s name was Money Island.

They reached the foliage line and, as one, bent down to feel the leaves on the byucus trees. They were real, all three decided at once. Not plastic, not fake.

Guns raised midlevel now, they walked carefully into the jungle, looking in very direction, ready for just about anything. Not thirty seconds later, they came to a clearing, in the middle of which was a row of thatched huts. They immediately came to a halt; they could hear people talking, the high, sing-songy cadence of
trang
Vietnamese, a dialect spoken by the very few people who inhabited these remote islands.

But in among these voices, they heard one that was lower, deeper, almost raspy. Its owner was laughing.

They finally walked into the clearing to find most of the commotion was coming from the center hut. Three young girls were sitting out on its bamboo porch, preparing a meal. They were topless. Three more females could be seen just inside the door to the hut. They appeared to be bathing a fourth person.

The three soldiers greeted the girls on the porch as peacefully as they could. The females were startled at first but calmed down right away when they saw the American flag patch on the left shoulder of the soldiers’ uniforms.

“We are looking for one of our men,” one soldier said. “His plane is down on the beach. Do you know where he is?”

The young-girls couldn’t speak English but they understood the men anyway. They began nodding and laughing and then pointed inside the hut. The soldiers lowered their weapons, walked up onto the porch and went inside.

The hut was a communal bath house. There was a huge wooden tub in the middle, and in the middle of the tub, covered with suds, was Captain Crunch O’Malley.

He looked first surprised, then relieved, and then embarrassed to see the three soldiers. He didn’t know any of them personally, but he recognized their uniforms as being part of the United Americans’ Search and Rescue team.

“Doctor Livingston, I presume?” he asked them with a smile, which quickly turned to a grimace and back to a smile again. His right shoulder was heavily bandaged and coated with a slimy substance the rescue soldiers believed was akin to aloe.

“We’re glad to see you alive, Captain,” one soldier said. “We’ve been looking for you for three days.”

Crunch tried to sit up a little, but his wound prevented him from moving very much.

“I appreciate that, guys,” he said. “But I’ve been in good hands here.”

The soldiers eyed the trio of topless Asian beauties and then exchanged knowing glances.

Crunch readjusted himself once again.

“What happened?” he finally gasped.

The soldiers nearly laughed out loud at the question.

“The short story?” one said. “We won…”

They gave Crunch an abbreviated version of events since he’d crashed on the island. The fight for Lolita. The sudden appearance of Hunter in the strange MiG-25. The turning of the tide. The arrival of the Zon space shuttle.

Crunch listened to it all with his mouth open so wide, the soapy water was leaking in.

“Viktor has a shuttle?” he asked incredulously.

“
Had
a shuttle,” one of the soldiers corrected him. “It’s been appropriated by us, you could say. In fact, Hunter and the guys flew the big SEXX Condor into Lolita yesterday morning, somehow loaded the shuttle onboard and flew it out. Majors Wa and Toomey are hopscotching it back home, to the old Cape Canaveral.”

Crunch’s eyes were now wider than ever. “And where the hell is that devil Viktor now?”

The three soldiers shifted uneasily at this point.

“Still up there,” one said, pointing straight up. “When his guys got word that they were running out of landing sites, he transferred aboard the Mir space station.”

Crunch nearly leapt out of the tub—but his wound forced him back down.

“Well, we’ve got to get him,” he began ranting. “Someone’s got to…”

One of the soldiers held his hand up and gently interrupted Crunch.

“They’re working on that right now,” he said.

Crunch sank back down into the tub. The three girls began soothing his wounds again.

“How many guys did we lose?” he asked softly.

“One hundred and fifteen,” was the somber reply. “Sixteen airplanes shot down, including three C-5s. A dozen more heavily damaged, not counting yours. You’ll be glad to know
Black Eyes
made it back though.”

Crunch smiled at that.

“And there’s something else you should know,” another soldier said.

He pulled a photograph from his pocket and handed it to Crunch.

“Do you recognize this guy? He was at the controls of the Zon when it came down.”

Crunch looked at the photo and once again nearly stood up in the tub.

“My God, is this some kind of a joke?”

The three soldiers shook their heads in unison. “No joke,” one said. “That guy is flesh and bones and he says he’s a friend of yours…”

Crunch stared at the photo. The face, older, with more wrinkles and without the long sideburns, nevertheless looked very familiar.

It was his old partner, Elvis Q, the guy who’d made up the second half of the Ace Wrecking Company.

“How the hell did he…”

One of the soldiers held up his hand again.

“That’s an even longer story,” he said. “Just know that he’s alive and well and you guys can get together as soon as we get you out of here.”

Crunch sank back down into the warm water again, a look of contentment replacing the pain and amazement on his face.

“And when will that be?” he asked the three men.

“Whenever you want,” one answered. “Right now, if you can make it.”

Crunch looked at them, then at the three girls and then down at his wound.

“How about tomorrow?” he asked them, sinking even deeper into the water. “Can you come back then?”