“Lightning, Houston. Check body flaps to manual.”
“Roger. Body flaps to manual. Eighteen thousand feet at four-eight-zero knots.
“Lightning, you’re a little low on the altitude. Pull your nose up by a couple of degrees.”
“Roger.”
“Okay, speed brake start now.”
“Roger, Houston.” Kessler activated the speed brake, which was integrated with the rudder and made up of two identical halves. Hinged at their forward edge, the two rudders opened and closed in response to Kessler’s commands, forcing a drag-producing wedge that assisted Kessler in maintaining his approach. Under a normal approach, the speed brake would have been kept one-half open, but in his current situation, Kessler kept it one-fourth open. That, in a way, acted as an engine since it allowed Kessler to shallow his approach just as he would do by increasing throttle, if he had an engine.
“Lightning, you’re still slightly low on the altitude, but looking okay. You have a ‘Go’ for autoland.”
Kessler switched to autoland, the microwave terminal-phase-guided-system program that was scheduled to take over at eighteen thousand feet using information supplied by the microwave-scanning-beam landing system. Autoland would be maintained to flare at two thousand feet, when Kessler would take over.
“Roger, Houston. Brake and body flap on auto; everything on auto, thank you!”
Lightning was now entering a twenty-degree-angle glide. The air brake helped Kessler maintain a steady 265 knots.
“One minute to touchdown, Lightning.”
“Roger, Houston.”
Kessler noticed the chase planes closing in. They would call out the last tens of feet to touchdown and confirm Lightning’s airspeed to Hunter.
“Lightning, you’re clear to land Lake Bed Two Three whenever you’re ready.”
Kessler switched off autoland and took control of the stick. As the altimeter scurried below two thousand feet, Kessler pulled the nose up and the glide angle was reduced by two degrees as they approached the sun-hardened desert floor. The landing gear dropped.
“Roger,” acknowledged Kessler.
“Okay, Lightning, keep it steady.”
The lake bed came up to meet him, and Kessler knew that the large elevons on the rear would make his landing difficult. He had to avoid jerking back on the stick to flare out as he would have done in a regular aircraft. A sudden jerk like that would cause the elevons to rise, resulting in severe loss of lift, probably forcing Lightning to land hard.
“Two hundred feet… one hundred seventy-five…” called out the pilot from one of the chase planes.
Kessler kept the control stick steady. Autoland had planned his approach meticulously, helping him avoid corrections at the last moment.
“One hundred fifty feet… fifty… thirty… ten… five… three… touchdown!”
Kessler felt a light vibration as Lightning’s rear wheels came in contact with the smooth surface of the lake bed.
“Nose gear fifteen feet… ten… five… three… touchdown. Welcome home, Lightning.
The mid-morning California sun struggled to pierce through Lightning’s anti-reflection-coated windowpanes as both T-38 chase planes, in full afterburners, zoomed past the decelerating orbiter and rolled their wings in victory. Underneath his plastic oxygen mask Michael Kessler smiled broadly. He was home. He was safe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FINAL CONFRONTATION
In the final choice a soldier’s pack is not so heavy burden as a prisoner’s chains.
The enemy slowly approached Mambo’s initial defense position — just as Cameron had anticipated — from the large clearing. Cameron and Ortiz had deployed their forces efficiently. Once more, Mambo was divided into three teams. Mambo One was composed of Ortiz, Zimmer, and Cameron. Mambo Two had three soldiers twenty feet to Mambo One’s right, and Mambo Three had the last two soldiers up in the trees fifty feet from the trip wires.
Cameron checked his watch. According to his last communication with the rescue helicopter they still had another fifteen minutes. He made his decision and moved forward.
“Where you goin’, amigo?”
“Up front. I want to get a feeling for how close those guys are. The rescue helo will be here any minute now. If those guys are still too far away I’m pulling Mambo Three back here. No sense in exposing them unnecessarily.”
Ortiz nodded.
Cameron dropped to a deep crouch and moved forward quietly, warily. Although the area was supposedly secured because of the trip wires, there was always the chance of an enemy getting by undetected. He pressed his back against a tree and looked over both shoulders. Nothing. He selected another tree a few feet away and raced for it. Again, he leaned back against it and inspected the grounds. Satisfied, he moved forward once more, carefully selecting trees in advance, close enough to minimize detection between transitions, yet far away enough to maximize progress.
He scurried forward for a second, perhaps two, until he reacted to the visual image of several men moving in his direction. It all happened very fast. He dropped to the ground and rolled back to the tree. A second later he rose to a crouch, hid behind the thick trunk, and—
The loud explosion was followed by cries of pain. Someone had run into one of Zimmer’s trip wires. Cameron was about to look in that direction when gunfire erupted from several places at once. Muzzle flashes were clearly visible in the murky woods. They were mixed with the screams from the wounded men and the enraged shouts from other men.
Cameron dropped to the ground again and rolled away from the tree. He shifted his gaze up toward the two Mambo soldiers, pinned down behind thick branches as a shower of bullets engulfed their entire area.
“Pull back! Pull back!” he screamed as loud as he could, but the men could not hear him. Cameron quickly moved his body from side to side, trying to bury himself in the foot-thick layer of leaves. Satisfied that he was relatively invisible, he set the MP5 to full automatic fire and aimed at the first group of muzzle flashes over a hundred feet away — the one that appeared to be firing in the direction of Mambo Three. He pressed the telescopic butt against his shoulder, left hand under the silenced barrel and right index finger on the trigger.
Another explosion. More curses and screams. More gunfire broke out from another sector to his left. Who are they firing at? There were only the three of them, the two Mambo soldiers and himself, in that sector. The rest of Mambo was safely positioned almost two hundred feet back.
He shrugged and shifted his gaze back toward the muzzle flashes to his left. He squeezed the trigger and made a wide sweep at waist level. The German MP5 started spitting 9-mm rounds, depleting the thirty-round magazine in under ten seconds. Some of the muzzle flashes had disappeared. Cameron quickly removed the spent magazine and grabbed another one from a Velcro-secured pocket on his gear vest. He slid it in place and, using his left hand, he pulled back and turned upward the cocking handle located on the left forward section of the barrel. Again, he unloaded the thirty rounds on the enemy. A few more muzzle flashes disappeared. He estimated only five or six attackers remained. Another explosion. This one to the far left. The enemy was approaching from all directions. They were closing in.