Iceberg cursed. He was still in the clouds, but his altimeter showed he'd just gone through fourteen thousand feet and was eight miles from the runway. He would have to enter the last phase of the runway approach blind, and that meant there would be very, very litde margin for lateral adjustment if his position was wrong, because from this point the Intrepid would be dropping almost like a stone and its maneuverability would be severely hamstrung. He pushed the hand controller forward to put the orbiter into a 22-degree glide slope — a descent gradient seven times steeper than a commercial airliner. The orbiter would cover the last seven miles and drop the final thirteen thousand feet to the runway in just eighty seconds. If the runway wasn't where it was supposed to be, he was in deep shit. Even with a name like Iceberg, Kapuscinski had a dry throat now.
The airspeed indicator showed 411 mph as the Intrepid broke into the clear.
"There it is!" Iceberg shouted to himself. Right in front of him, but just a shade to port. No problem. Iceberg, the master pilot, eased the hand controller a litde to the left and applied the left rudder. He also decreased his air brake a bit to maintain the 22-degree glide slope. Perfect.
Once aligned, Iceberg retrimmed the orbiter and watched the altitude/vertical velocity indicator on the head-up display as the runway rushed up to meet him.
"There he is!" shouted Vostov. He discarded the binoculars and grabbed the phone. "Popov! I have him in sight! He will touch down in a matter of seconds!"
The tower controller said nothing as he snapped pictures at five frames a second with his 35mm Nikon motordrive camera.
5,000… 4,000… 3,000… It almost seemed like the digital altimeter couldn't run backward fast enough. At two thousand feet, Iceberg pulled back heavily on the hand controller and increased the air brake to put the Iritrepid into its final flare maneuver. The nose pitched up from 22 degrees to a 1.5-degree glide slope, and the last remnants of altitude and kinetic energy clicked off. Iceberg armed the landing gear. Everything came down to this moment. Fourteen seconds to touchdown, speed 268 mph, altitude ninety feet. Iceberg hit the landing gear dn switch and the tricycle gear exploded out of the nose and wheel wells.
The tarmac came up to meet the Intrepid, and at 216 knots, Iceberg felt a rumble as the rear wheels met the 5,000-meter runway at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. He put the air brake to 100 percent and gently eased the hand controller forward. The nosewheel squealed as it touched down and Iceberg immediately popped the braking parachute. The drogue quickly deployed, then the main chute, and the braking action caused Iceberg to pitch forward a little. But the Intrepid still continued to roll. It had landed with a full load in its cargo bay, and the additional mass required more braking power to stop it. When the speed slowed to 100 mph, Iceberg pushed on the pedals to apply the wheel brakes. Slower… slower… slower… until finally, a mere eighty meters from the end of the runway, the Intrepid came to rest and the braking chute collapsed like a deflated balloon.
"Yeeeaaah!" shouted Iceberg, in an exultation unlike anything he'd experienced in his life. The landing was like a catharsis, uncorking his emotions from some inner psychological dungeon. "I have done it! Mother, I have done it!"
"His roll speed is decreasing," came Vostov's voice through the speaker box. "Still rolling… rolling… rolling. Dear Lord! He's running out of runway!… Wait… no. He is slowing rapidly. Now. Yes. It has stopped. He has done it! Yes, he has landed!"
A cheer rose up from the entire room. Popov looked up at the ceiling in supplication before plopping into a chair — exhausted.
The relief in the Flite Centre was palpable as Kostiashak patted Popov on the shoulder. "You have done well, General. You are to be congratulated, as is everyone here."
Popov could not have cared less what the little bastard thought. "You are too kind, Comrade Chairman," he said bitingly.
"I think that's it," said Ghost Leader coldly while pointing at a small white line on the screen.
Whizzo nodded. "I think you're right."
Leader looked closer. "Can't tell if the target is there or not, but I'm starting the bomb run now. Leveling off at two thousand." And he pulled back on the stick. "Any bad guys?"
Whizzo looked at the threat board. "Negative, Skipper."
"Guess our luck is holding," said Leader in a hopeful voice.
"Four minutes to drop," chirped Whizzo. "Speed four-six-four knots."
Monaghan's digital altimeter read 11,877 feet as the space fighter popped out of the clouds.
"Son of a bitchl Son of a bitchl Son of a bitchl" yelled Monaghan in frustration. "Hot Rod, I'm afraid we aren't gonna make it. Our airspeed is down below six hundred knots… We can't glide much farther. You see the runway anywhere?"
Lamborghini's hawk eyes scanned the horizon. It was still hazy from the overcast and sunset was approaching, but there was no rain. "Dog, I think that's it over to port. Way in the distance."
Monaghan looked over to port but couldn't see anything. Hot Rod must have some kind of zoom lenses in his eyeballs, he thought. "I don't see it," Mad Dog said in defeat. "No way we could make it anyway. We'd better look for a place to set her down." He focused his eyes on the ground to search for a landing zone, and saw a bizarre object cross his beam at an obtuse angle — something that looked like a giant black manta ray skimming over the sandy bottom of the ocean. Mad Dog immediately threw the Kestrel into a slight banking left turn to give Lamborghini a better view, and to come to a parallel course with the strange craft. "Hot Rod! Do you see what I see?"
Lamborghini looked down, and although it was a shock, he knew immediately what it was. He'd seen it in a hangar at Nellis Air Force Base during a supersecret briefing with General Whittenberg. It took him a moment to digest it all, but then everything fell into place. What had Whittenberg's secretary said? "He's on the phone with General Dooley. You know how it is when those two get together." Dooley meant SAC. And SAC meant bombers. "Mad Dog! That's a…"
"A stealth bomber?"
"Yeah. I saw it once at Nellis. I bet SAC sent it in to nail the Intrepid if we missed."
"Shit," cursed Monaghan. "Why didn't that son of a bitch McCormack tell us about it?"
Lamborghini's mind raced. "Because there was no reason for
McCormack to know about it. We weren't supposed to be here.
Remember?"
"Oh, yeah," came the sheepish reply. Monaghan took a moment to absorb the situation, then said, "Well, you think we should tail him?" He checked the altimeter, which showed they were passing through ten thousand feet. He figured the stealth bomber was six to seven thousand feet below them.
Lamborghini quickly said, "No. If we're being picked up on ground radar we could draw attention to the bomber. We'd better break off. Maybe our radar signature will decoy the Russians away."
Mad Dog had a hard time taking his eyes off the black manta ray, which was a couple of miles ahead of them now. God, what a freaky-looking contraption. "Yeah. Okay. You're right. Let's get outta here and find someplace flat to set down." He was about to put the Kestrel into a banking turn to the right when something roared out of the clouds — not four hundred yards in front of them.