Her seat malfunctioned. Nothing happened. She reseated her triggers and activated the backup ballistic acutators, but by then it was too late …
Ormack heard the loud pops and surges of air as ejection seats left the plane — at least someone might make it out alive, he thought. Wendelstat had finally collapsed. There was nothing to do for him — no time to haul him downstairs for manual bailout. But Khan had a chance. He yanked up on Khan’s left ejection lever and hit the trigger, watching as his long-time copilot and friend blew clear of the crippled bomber. Ormack now rotated his own arming levers and pulled the ejection triggers …
Khan had promptly been grabbed by the Old Dog’s exhaust and blown several hundred yards back, away from the impact area, but Ormack had spent precious time rescuing Khan. He was a hundred feet above ground, his chute filling with wind and inflating rapidly, when the Old Dog slammed into the Amargosa Desert valley floor. Directly over the aircraft, face down, in position to watch the end of the B-52 Megafortress Plus, Ormack was engulfed by the two-mile wide fireball that blossomed over the desert, consumed by the flames of his beloved aircraft.
His last thought was that somebody had to get that son of a bitch James …
4
Over the B-52 crash site, Amargosa, Nevada
It resembled the aftermath of a fire bombing. Even from five hundred feet in the air, everything within sight was black — the rocky hills surrounding the crash site had been blackened by fires and debris. Huge craters in the earth contained burning sections of the mighty B-52 Megafortress Plus, the heat of the fireball hot enough to melt even the B-52’s thick carbon and fiberglass skeletal pieces. A mile away the center-wing junction-box and forward fuselage, the piece that joined the wings to the fuselage and the largest section of the B-52 still intact, was burning, so hot and so smoky that firefighters could not get within two hundred yards of it. Debris was scattered in a ten-square-mile area of devastation, and thick black smoke obscured half the sky.
The helicopter crossed perpendicular to the axis of impact, paralleling route 95 near the evacuated town of Amargosa. A large building, a restaurant-and-truck-stop complex, was burning fiercely — one fire truck was spraying surrounding fuel pumps with water to prevent any massive explosions. Several hundred feet from the edge of the area a knot of police cars and an ambulance had pulled off the highway and encircled several dark objects lying in the charred sand.
“That’s it,” McLanahan shouted, not bothering to use the helicopter’s interphone. “Set it down there.”
The chopper pilot nodded, spoke briefly on the radio, then turned to Brad Elliott. “Sir, I can’t touch down — I’ve got wheels instead of skids. I’d sink up to the fuselage in that mess—”
“Then hover and drop me off,” McLanahan shouted.
“The medevac helicopter is only a few seconds from—”
“I don’t give a damn; take me down there. Now. “ Elliott nodded to the pilot, and the chopper pilot reluctantly circled the area once, then set the helicopter in a gentle hover, wheels up, only a few inches from the ground. McLanahan leaped out the side door and ran through the burning debris and gasoline-fired desert to the patrol cars.
It was obvious that Wendy Tork McLanahan had been under her parachute only a few seconds before hitting ground; the ejection seat was just a few yards away. Wendy was lying on her side, seemingly buried in the dirt and blackened sand, her half-burned parachute trailing behind her. Her flight suit, gloves, face and hair were black from the heat and falling debris — from the air she had looked like another burnt piece of the dead B-52 bomber. Her helmet and one boot were nowhere to be seen — they were usually lost during ejection unless secured uncomfortably tight during the mission. Her left leg was twisted underneath her body, her left shoulder, half buried in the dirt, appeared to be broken or at least separated.
Two Nevada State Troopers were maneuvering a spine board into place when McLanahan ran over to them. He dropped to his knees in front of her.
“You from the base?” one of the troopers asked McLanahan. Their voices were muffled by surgical masks.
“Yes…”
“What the hell hit out here? A nuke?”
“An aircraft.”
They had dug a trench behind Wendy’s back and were moving the board along her back. Patrick carefully swept bits and pieces of metal off Wendy’s face. A few stuck fast, and pain shot through his own body, as if he was feeling the pain for her, with her.
“Get with it,” one of the troopers yelled, “grab those straps and pass them over.” They routed several thick straps under Wendy’s body, and Patrick carefully passed them back through the brackets on the side of the board. They tightened the straps until Wendy’s back was tight against the board. Several wider straps were secured over her forehead and chin, a cervical collar placed around her neck, her head immobilized on the board as well. The troopers began working to free and immobilize her legs as the medevac helicopter touched down a few yards away.
“Let the paramedics in there, pal,” the troopers told Patrick, pulling him up and away from Wendy. Three paramedics rushed over. In moments they had oxygen, a respirator and electronic vital-sign monitors in operation. They finished securing thick plastic splints on her legs, placed her on a gurney and carried her to the helicopter. Patrick ran over with the gurney but was pushed away.
“No room. We’ve got more injured to pick up from the truck stop.” The doors closed, the helicopter jumped skyward and was quickly out of sight.
Patrick’s leg felt ready to buckle … one survivor out of a crew of seven. He’d seen the entire crew alive and well not an hour earlier. Wendy … his last thought of her was the thumbs-up she’d given him before heading out to the crew bus. Piece of cake, she had said.
Another aircraft appeared out of the smoke-obscured sky, not another helicopter. Resembling a remodeled C-130 transport, the CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport swooped down out of the sky barely a hundred feet above the ground. Suddenly, with a roar of turboprop engines, the engine pods on the wing-tips began to tilt upward until the blades were horizontal. The aircraft then began a soft helicopter-like vertical descent, landing only yards from Patrick.
The rear cargo doors on the Osprey popped out, disgorging a dozen heavily armed security troops in full combat gear and backpacks, along with an M113 armored combat vehicle. The M113 rolled off toward route 95, and the guards began to station themselves a hundred yards apart along the perimeter of the Megafortress’ impact area.
“Patrick … “ He turned at the sound of his name. Hal Briggs was standing over him, Uzi submachine gun in hand. He was wearing a Kevlar helmet with a one-piece communications headset in place. Now he dropped down beside Patrick and moved his face closer to his so they could talk over the roar of the Osprey’s rotor-props. “You okay?”
“Wendy …”
“I heard, I’m glad she made it out,” Briggs shouted. “They’re taking her downtown to the burn unit … she’ll be okay, they think.”
“Unbelievable … it was James,” Patrick muttered. “Stole DreamStar, shot down Old Dog …”
“We gotta get you out of here. I’m securing the crash site. The general is assembling an investigation unit. He wants you to help him set it up.”
“Investigation unit? What about DreamStar? James is getting away with DreamStar—”
“He’s heading south, right into the F-15 interceptor unit out of Tucson. They’ve got a squadron ready to shoot his ass down. Now let’s get going.”