Like a school of airborne sharks, the Paveway bombs sensed the laser blood splashed on the Intrepid, and were plummeting down to savage their victim.
Iceberg had unhooked his shoulder harness and was quickly tending to the post-landing checklist. He paused to look up, and saw how close he'd come to the end of the runway. Earlier models of the shuttle did not have the braking parachute. Without one, the Intrepid would've undoubtedly sailed off the end of the tarmac. He looked out to the side and saw a covey of ground vehicles rushing up the runway access road with their strobe lights flashing. Coming to greet their new hero, he figured— and that started him thinking about what kind of deal the Russians were going to set him up with. Hell, he could probably move into the Kremlin if he wanted to. In fact, he figured he could have anything he wanted now. Because he — Julian Kapuscinski — had just pulled off the grandest hijacking in the history of piracy.
The first thing he'd do was hold one of those press conferences. Now that would be something. Finally, he could shove it to those American bastards in spades. For what they'd done to his mother. And for what Felicia had done to him. All those years he'd played by their rules just so he could keep his secret. He'd even up the score now. Think of it. The Iceberg who was decorated by the President would host a press conference out of the Kremlin to tell those Americans he'd played them for fools. Yes, this was going to be sweet.
As Kapuscinski was contemplating his future, the first Pave-way sailed over the top of the Intrepid—clearjng it by a hair— and went on to impact on the far side of the runway. The force of the blast rocked the spacecraft so violently that Iceberg's face was thrown into the control panel, shattering the glass CRT screen of the NavComputer and crushing some of the indicator lights. Iceberg was dazed and barely able to lift his bloodied countenance from the broken instruments. The last thing that registered in his brain before he left this life was the sight of broken shards of bloodstained glass sticking out of the NavComputer display.
In rapid succession the second, third, and fourth Paveways plowed broadside into the soft aluminum skin of the orbiter's cargo bay, detonating simultaneously and blasting the innards of the Intrepid apart like a harpooned whale. The remaining Paveways joined the conflagration, turning what was left of the spacecraft into a funeral pyre of flame and dust for Frank Mul-cahey, Geraldo Rodriquez, and Col. Julian Kapuscinski.
Caught in a wave of sheer ecstasy, Vostov watched the army of ground vehicles rush toward the Intrepid, while the tower controller continued to snap pictures with his Nikon camera. What a coup! thought Vostov. What a victory! He could almost smell his seat on the Politburo now.
He was savoring the triumph when, out of nowhere, a bizarre, unearthly black batwing rose up into the air and soared over the runway, just as the Intrepid erupted before him.
The blast shook the tower, shattering one of the large panes of glass and throwing Vostov to the floor, along with the controller. "Alert the air defense battery, you fool!" yelled the Chief Designer. "We are under attack!"
"Bull's-eye! Bull's-eye! Bull's-eye!" howled Whizzo. "We got him, Skipper! We blew it away! Good Christ, there's nothing left but smoke now!"
"Great shooting, Whizzo! Great shooting! Okay, let's bust outta here and send the message! Yahoo!" Ghost Leader pulled back on the stick and the black batwing climbed toward the protective concealment of the puffy clouds.
After the Fulcrum was shot down, Monaghan spied a flat plateau — a mesa — and turned the Kestrel toward it to make a landing. His speed was less then 400 mph now, and they had just passed through 2,500 feet.
"Mad Dog, I see some smoke over to port," said Lamborghini with excitement. "Maybe they got him."
"Jeez, I hope so. Can't worry about that now. I'm gonna try to put down on that plateau up ahead."
' 'Beeeeeeeeeeeeppp!!
Lamborghini's threat warning receiver emitted its distinctive warble. "Mad Dog! We've been locked on!"
"Oh, shit!"
Lamborghini scanned the sky above him but saw no bandits. Then he looked down, and his blood froze. There it was. A jinking litde pinpoint of light with a smoky tail. The last time he'd seen something like that was over Thai Binh, North Vietnam. "Mad Dog! SAM coming up from nine o'clock low!"
Monaghan looked down, and felt absolutely helpless. His aircraft had no power, they couldn't climb, they couldn't maneuver. They were dead in the water. "Hold on, Hot Rod!" he said in a squeaky voice. What he was about to try was crazy, but he couldn't think of anything else to do. He watched the pinpoint grow bigger and bigger, until at the last possible moment he yanked on a lever beside his leg.
The braking parachute billowed out from under the Kestrel's tail, cutting its speed just as Mad Dog shoved the space fighter into a dive.
The SAM couldn't compensate quickly enough and whizzed by the Kestrel, exploding moments later. But neither Monaghan nor Lamborghini saw the blast, because now the Kestrel was headed straight down.
The flat-top plateau was rushing up at them. Monaghan jettisoned the braking chute and the Kestrel started falling even more rapidly. "Here we go, Hot Rod!" yelled Mad Dog as he deployed the landing gear. When the plateau filled the spacecraft's entire windshield, he pulled the hand controller all the way back, putting the Kestrel into an extremely sharp landing flare.
Lamborghini felt a washboard rumble as the landing gear touched down on rough terrain. He was violently shaken in the backseat, but after a few seconds he could feel the spacecraft's speed slowing. Lord! Evading a SAM and making a dead-stick landing on a Kazakhstan mesa. What a piece of flying!
Monaghan felt like he was in a bronc's saddle, but it looked like he'd pulled it off. The Kestrel had slowed to seventy-five mph and Mad Dog had a grin on his face.
But then the Kestrel sailed into a gently sloping trough in the center of the plateau. Monaghan gasped as the spacecraft's wheels momentarily left the ground, then came down hard. The tricycle gear snapped off like so many pretzels, and the Kestrel skidded along the bottom of the trough until it was pitched up into a cartwheel by the upsloping side.
Instinctively, Monaghan wrestled with the hand controller and refused to give up, cursing, "Come on, you son of a bitch!" But it was useless. In the windshield the sky was swirling, swirling — until, in a heartbeat, it was replaced by a rock formation that seemed to reach out for them. "Oh, Christ, Pete,'' he cried, "I'm sorry…"
And the Kestrel impacted on the Kazakhstan plateau.
"It is utterly destroyed!" wailed the speaker box. "There was some type of giant plane. It came out of nowhere and dropped dozens of bombs, then disappeared. Some of the ground vehicles were destroyed and their crewmen killed. It's a disaster! An absolute disaster!"
Vostov's wailing hit poor Popov like a sledgehammer, and he collapsed back into his chair, totally crestfallen. "I cannot believe it," he mumbled. "All of that work… the danger we faced… our cosmonauts dead… all for nothing. Nothing."