“Let’s go, let’s go,” Starship yelled, more to himself than the soldier or Kick. More arms appeared around him. He resisted as they started to push him toward the ground, then realized they had him; he slipped into the arms of a burly Special Forces sergeant, who immediately pushed him down and in the same motion whirled and began firing at something in the jungle fifty yards away.
Chapter 85
Every bone in his body felt as if it had been broken, and every muscle felt as if it had been twisted and bent and rearranged. But for Mack, the worst thing was the horrible taste in his mouth, which for some reason just wouldn’t leave him, not even after he gulped water from the nearby stream. He spit, he dunked his head, he stuffed the top of his flightsuit into his mouth — it stubbornly remained.
Mack started walking downstream, along the side of the stream opposite the one he had fallen down on. Within a few minutes he heard the rush of a waterfall. He climbed hand over hand down a scramble of rocks and dirt, descending nearly fifty feet before the ground leveled out in a bog. The only way through was over a jumble of felled trees. As he reached a run of boulders he finally caught sight of the waterfall, a spectacular spray that cascaded over a nearly sheer cliff. Mack, never much of a nature admirer, stared at the spray as it came off the flow, awed by it.
The bugs prompted him to move on. He threaded his way through jungle fronds, the stalks and leaves getting thicker and thicker. Finally he thought he might have to turn back and tried rushing ahead like a bull, crashing and struggling until he hit a clearing. Mack collapsed, resting for a few minutes; when he got up he saw that he had come out on a path.
He took it to the left, and within ten minutes heard voices in the distance. He froze, then moved off the trail, hiding as he tried to make out the sounds. They seemed to be kids, which meant he must be near a village; his best bet would be to go there and ask to be taken to the police station, where he could explain who he was.
As he took a step back on the trail, something crashed behind him; Mack spun just in time to see the back of some sort of animal disappearing into the vegetation.
When he turned around again, he found his way blocked by a short, squat man holding a large machine-gun in his beefy hands.
Chapter 86
Prince bin Awg’s MiG-19 sat in the center of Hangar Two, an access ladder propped to its cockpit. McKenna decided to take that as an omen of luck, rather than an indication that mechanics had been trying to fix something when the attacks began. She spun the tractor she’d taken from the other hangar into position, jumped off, and pulled away the wheel chucks from the plane. She climbed up into the cockpit to check on the brake and found a helmet and parachute stowed there. Those were clearly signs of good luck.
The tractor filled the hangar with thick diesel exhaust as she stomped on the pedal and got it moving forward. The vehicle — its vintage was uncertain, but it had Chinese lettering on the dash — groaned as it tugged the MiG out of the hangar. The two Whiplash troopers helping her were just pulling up with the fuel truck that had been in the other hangar. McKenna threw on the brakes and jumped off the tug.
“Fuel it! Let’s go! Let’s go!” she yelled, running to unhook the tractor and get it out of the way.
Prince bin Awg’s engineers had updated some of the systems, mostly with Chinese equipment intended for the vastly updated J-6, whose design was based on the MiG-19 family. The radio was state-of-the-art, and a small GPS device had been jury-rigged to the right panel. Otherwise, the cockpit remained exactly as it had been when this model rolled off the line at Gorki in 1957 — primitive even by Russian standards. McKenna switched on the backup battery and got a tentative read on her instruments, cinching her restraints at the same time.
“All right, that’s good,” she yelled at the men outside with the jet fuel. Her tanks were more than half full — more than enough to get her where she had to go. “All right, go. We’re going. See you at the end of the war.”
The twin Tumansky turbojets groaned as she brought them on line. Even with the brakes set the aircraft moved forward, and in fact when she removed them there seemed almost no difference. McKenna turned left onto the access ramp, snugging the canopy as she went. The aircraft started slightly to the right and she nearly went off the other side over-correcting; her controls felt sluggish and she thought one of the tires might be flat or close to it. A helicopter buzzed off to her left as she brought the plane onto the main runway. It seemed to be firing at someone but McKenna couldn’t spare the attention. The MiG was proving more of a handful than she remembered.
But she appreciated challenges.
The engines responded quickly as she goosed the throttle. The plane drifted right as she shot down the runway; remembering her earlier problem she treated the controls as gingerly as possible. As she hit one hundred and eight knots she began her takeoff rotation, lifting her nose wheel five degrees. But the MiG stayed stuck to the ground. Her forward air speed dogged, the aircraft struggled despite its lightish load; finally she managed to get it up, passing one hundred and sixty knots, just enough to lift off the ground. She crossed to the right, trying to stay clear of the area where the helicopters had been, climbing slowly and heading toward the ocean.
Now that she was airborne, the MiG’s speed built nicely, climbing up over two hundred and fifty knots. The controls got a bit lighter as she flew, and McKenna felt the pleasant tug of the old metal around her. The MiG-19 was the first supersonic fighter built by the Soviet Union; while it was quickly superceded in the Russian inventory by the MiG-21, the design had a number of virtues. It was built to go very fast and very high, enabling it to threaten the bombers of the day. The MiG’s speed would be a liability when she landed, even with the parachute that was standard equipment at the rear of the aircraft; the fact that the brakes hadn’t been particularly good was not a good sign.
But there was plenty of time to worry about that. McKenna decided there was no reason not to see what the plane could do. She gave her instruments a quick sweep, checked her altitude and the air around her, then pulled the throttle to afterburner.
“MiG is off,” the helicopter pilot told Danny.
“Pick up our guys,” Danny said, though the command was unnecessary — the pilot had already whipped the Quick Bird toward the hangar area.
“Danny, I have an update from the Malaysian air base,” said Jennifer. “They’re taking heavy fire. The command trailer has been hit by mortar fire. One Megafortress took off. Another is on the ground. They think it got hit. Colonel Bastian is overdue as well.”
“They asking for assistance?”
“They’ve radioed out to a Malaysian unit in the area. They didn’t get a response.”
Danny leaned back in his seat. Besides the length of time it would take to get there — upwards of an hour, if not more — they didn’t have the fuel.
“We’re ready to blow hangar one, Cap,” said Liu, breaking in. One had the Sabre and the Hunter, which McKenna has said were the most likely planes to be used. “Charges are set”
“All right, Jen, I’ve got a few things to attend to here. I’ll get back with you”
Danny was about to give Liu the okay to blow the planes when he saw the fuel truck on the tarmac near the hangar.