The huge blades of the supply helicopter began to turn just as several loud sharp cracks reverberated off the canopy. Dust and concrete flew near the aft-empennage of the chopper, and smoke began to billow out of the aft rotor. But the main rotor continued to spool up. The fuel truck originally high-tailing it for the cargo ramp was waved aside and ordered into the tree line out of the way.
Maraklov set DreamStar’s wings to their maximum high-lift, then had the computers check the takeoff performance. Barely enough. The computer said two thousand three hundred feet to clear the seventy-foot trees; there were only about fifteen hundred available. Maraklov activated the UHF radio on the discrete KGB frequency: “Kramer, this is DreamStar. Order your men to clear those buildings off the end of the airstrip. I need more runway for takeoff.”
There was no reply, but soon several soldiers ran out of the chopper’s cargo bay toward the end of the airstrip, and a few moments later the fuel truck followed. They used the fuel truck to push the burned-out buildings into the tree line. Several of the Soviet soldiers fell, and others began firing into the trees — apparently there were still Mexican villagers in the forest surrounding the airstrip. The KGB soldiers would take care of them. …
“Five hundred fifty rounds remaining,” the computer announced. Cheetah swooped over the trees, so close Patrick thought they had flown between a few of them. “Low altitude warning…
Thanks for nothing, J.C. thought. I only had the shot for a few seconds.
“Looks like that Chinook has some heavy guns on the side,” McLanahan said. “Better hit ‘ern from a different angle.”
J.C. banked sharply left, started a hard left turn, steering to put himself at a ninety-degree angle to his first strafing run to hit the helicopter from the tail. “Did you see DreamStar?”
“Behind the helicopter about a hundred yards,” McLanahan said. “He’s right at the north end of the airstrip, almost under the trees.”
“Had a fifty-fifty chance and blew it,” J.C. said angrily. “I won’t be able to hit him from this direction but if I can get another good shot at that helicopter while it’s on the ground, it at least should block the runway enough to keep DreamStar from lifting off.”
Powell shallowed out his bank angle to allow himself more time to extend his distance from the airstrip. But by the time he had rolled out on the flight director they saw a dark, massive apparition slowly rise out of the trees, trailing thick clouds of smoke.
“It’s the damn helicopter—”
J.C. hit the voice-command button, forced his voice to be steady: “Set attack mode infrared missile. Arm one missile.” The Sidewinder missile’s aiming reticle appeared on the windscreen centered on the slow-moving helicopter, and almost immediately the missile signaled that its infrared seeker-head had locked onto the helicopter’s huge jet engines. Before the computer could acknowledge his commands Powell had punched the missile-launch button on his control stick.
“Infrared missile launch. “ Less than three miles away, the Sidewinder could hardly miss … the entire rotor and top half of the huge helicopter disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire as the hulking machine rolled hard to the left and dropped into the trees. Powell and McLanahan were so close to the helicopter on impact that they could see the men inside …
But the helicopter crashed clear of the tiny airstrip. The runway was open.
“Damn it. Set attack mode strafe. Arm cannon.” McLanahan grabbed hold of the handlebars as J.C. rolled Cheetah hard up and right, struggling to get back into firing position. They rolled into a wings-level steep descent on the attack flight director, which was still locked in strafing mode onto the spot where DreamStar had been parked. It took a few precious seconds for Powell to readjust his eyes. When he did he saw DreamStar rolling down the runway. He tried to push Cheetah’s nose down and get off a few quick bursts, but his rate of descent was too steep and the flight director was ordering him to climb before he got too low. The few rounds he did get off impacted on the spot DreamStar had vacated just seconds earlier.
“I missed; he’s getting away.”
The instant the hulking transport helicopter lifted off, Maraklov forgot about the fuel truck, the buildings on the runway, everything except the takeoff. He saw the Sidewinder plow into the chopper, saw the machine explode and crash into the forest. But his attention was on the takeoff — until he saw Cheetah bearing straight down at him, the F-15 fighter so large it cast a shadow on Maraklov’s cockpit. How could he miss?
The feeling of imminent death was so strong that the ANTARES interface almost shut down out of sheer panic. But Maraklov’s last commands were executed, and DreamStar’s turbofan engine was at full afterburning thrust and the brakes were off. He expected the rounds from Cheetah’s M61 B2 gun to tear through his canopy any second — then, almost as quickly, he realized that Cheetah had overshot. His guns were firing but his nose was coming up too fast and so the shells were hitting behind him. He also caught a glimpse of KGB soldiers firing into the sky, futilely trying to shoot down Cheetah with AK-47 rifles.
Maraklov considered using the same takeoff trick he had used back at Dreamland, but the wings would not respond to the wingtip back-twisting that had worked so well before. The pile of broken and burning buildings at the end of the runway rushed forward. Smoke from the destroyed cargo helicopter obscured his vision, so that he could not watch the wall of green heading straight at him …
… DreamStar’s landing gear left the runway less than a hundred feet from the hastily cleared end of the runway, and the wheels were just tucking themselves into their wells when DreamStar cleared the trees. Airborne once again, Maraklov made a hard turn to the southeast, stayed in full afterburner, pushed DreamStar’s nose down to build airspeed and hugged the rugged mountain ridges as close as possible. ANTARES had computed several attack scenarios, but Maraklov overrode all of them. For now escape was his best defense.
McLanahan was holding onto the canopy sill, straining against the crushing G-forces to look between Cheetah’s twin vertical stabilizers.
“I see him,” he called out. “He made it off; he’s staying low …”
Powell continued his hard turn, executing a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn and thrusting his nose toward the rugged mountain foothills. Once they were rolled in McLanahan checked his radar screen. “Radar contact, J.C., twelve o’clock low — I’ve got radar lock. Get him!”
Powell hit the voice-recognition computer-button. “Set attack mode radar missile. Arm one radar missile.”
“Radar missile armed.”
“Launch radar missile … now.”
Once again the radar-threat warning blared in Maraklov’s head but this time he was ready for it. It said that Cheetah was above and behind him approximately six miles — a poor position to launch an attack at low altitude. The threat-warning receiver also did not indicate that the Scorpion missile’s own seeker-head was tracking — which meant that the missile was getting its guidance information only from Cheetah’s radar. A significant disadvantage in the milliseconds game they were now playing.