Heath gave Hunter and the women a thumbs-up signal and lifted off the beach, plotting a course to the command frigate. Passing the Saratoga on the way, Hunter could see that Yaz’s men had already attached heavy-wound lines of rope to twelve of O’Brien tugs. Eight more of the tugs were circling nearby. In the light of their salvage beacons, Hunter could see each tug had an enormous shamrock painted on its deck. They looked like huge green flowers, floating on the sea. The work appeared to be proceeding so smoothly, Hunter estimated the carrier would be moving before sun up.
He caught Heath stealing glimpses of the women crowded into the helicopter compartment. “Wait until Sir Neil sees this,” Heath yelled.
But even the presence of the two dozen beauties was not enough to distract Hunter from his deeper thoughts. He just couldn’t get the words the old man Peter had spoke out of his head …
Chapter 14
The F-4 Phantom turned high over the desert highway base and came in for a landing.
Gone were the tents and temporary buildings, the water tanks and antiaircraft batteries. No Tornados sat on the pavement runway or patrolled the nearby air space. All that remained of the RAF highway base was a weatherworn desert mobile house trailer, three fuel tanker trucks parked side by side, and two elderly reservists of the Gibraltar Home Guard.
Captain Crunch rolled the jet fighter to a halt and popped the canopy. The two reservists, their game of gin rummy interrupted, walked over to the jet as the airplane’s engine was just beginning to wind down.
“Are you here for fuel, lads?” one of the reservists, a man named Smythe, yelled up to Crunch and Elvis, a flexible silver ladder under his arm.
“Yes, if you have JP-8,” Crunch yelled back.
“We do,” Smythe called back. “Have yer got gold or silver?”
“Silver,” Crunch said, holding up four bags. “We’re close to dry. Can you give us enough to make the next big base?”
“Twenty minutes from here on afterburner,” Smythe answered, his words easier to hear as the F-4’s engine spun to a halt. “Are you Canadians here for the war?”
“We’re from America,” Crunch called back. “We’re looking for another American. A pilot named Hunter.”
“Hunter, you say?” Smythe called back. “Does he fly a fancy jet airplane? Red and white and blue?”
“That’s the man,” Crunch said, standing up in the Phantom’s front seat. “Have you seen him?”
“He was here,” the other reservist said. “Back when this place was a working air base.”
Both Crunch and Elvis looked around. They had assumed the base had always looked like this: two stretches of straight highway with the reservists’ trailer and the fuel trucks.
“You mean this was once more than just a fuel stop?” Elvis asked.
“Aye, lad,” Smythe said as his partner headed off to start one of the gas trucks and begin the refueling. “A few weeks ago, this was a major base for the Gibraltar Defense Force, that being formerly a part of the RAF.”
Smythe unfolded his ladder and put it up against the F-4. He slowly climbed up until he was eye level with the two pilots. Unstrapping a bottle of ice water from his belt, he passed it to the pilot.
“You look like you got a bad wing there,” Smythe said looking at the Phantom’s starboard side.
“We did a skid back in Casablanca,” Crunch told him, taking a long swig of ice water, then passing the bottle back to Elvis.
“Casablanca!” The old man laughed. “Well, you boys are lucky you made it out of there with just a twisted wing!”
“You saw Hunter?” Crunch asked.
“No,” Smythe answered. “But we heard about him. He saved this base he did. Stopped two out of three missiles from blowing the place off the map. What a corker! Flipped the bloody things right over, they say.”
Crunch eyed the scarred portion of the highway-runway where the third missile had fallen, then asked, “Do you know where Hunter is now?”
“Yes I do,” Smythe told him. “He’s gone. Gone with the rest of them. Gone to fight the war.”
Crunch looked at Elvis, then shook his head. “Do you exactly where?”
Smythe laughed. “Aye, haven’t you blokes heard? He and the RAF guys are sailing a carrier to the Suez! Going to stop that Lucifer character right where he lives, the arse!”
“An aircraft carrier?” Crunch said in disbelief.
“It’s a grand-sounding adventure isn’t it?” Smythe said. “A Crusade they are calling it. I’d be with them if I wasn’t seventy years old. They all left — days ago. Sent Roger and me here. Just to top off the tanks of the regular customers we get through here. Things have been slow, though, mate. The war is coming. People are afraid to fly, even this far west.”
Roger had arrived with the fuel truck and began filling the F-4’s wing tanks. Smythe pulled out a piece of beef jerky and started chewing on it.
“Course they haven’t got a prayer, the poor bastards,” he said.
“Who’s that?” Crunch asked.
“Well, your boy Hunter and the heroes of the RAF, I’d say,” Smythe replied. “They’re sailing to an early death if you ask me. Why, they’ll be lucky if they make it past Crete. Do you know what the Med is like these days, lads? Blimey. It’s filled with Russians, terrorists, Lucifer’s allies, and Lord knows what else. And that’s even before you get to Lucifer’s Kingdom. Who knows what’s floating around out there.
“Aye, those RAF guys. Brave. Filled with courage they are. And your boy Hunter too, of course. Brave fools, laddies.”
Roger had completed filling up the F-4’s tank. Crunch turned over four bags of silver to Smythe.
“Where can we find out more about this crusade?” Crunch asked, flipping his standby switches and turning on the F-4’s generator.
“You’re heading there, mates,” Smythe said, taking his bottle and descending the ladder. “Gibraltar, lads. Been having trouble raising them on the radio this morning. But don’t worry. They’ll tell you all about it in Gibraltar … ”
With that, Crunch lowered the canopy, gave Smythe a wave, and taxied the jet slowly to the end of the highway runway. The two reservists watched as a spit of flame erupted from the back of the F-4. Then, its engine screaming, the Phantom roared down the runway, lifted off, and disappeared over the horizon.
Chapter 15
Hunter brought up the throttle on the F-16 and made a final check of his instruments. Everything was okay. He gave the thumbs-up signal to one of Yaz’s men standing next to the aircraft, then leaned back in the fighter’s seat and braced himself. A long thin wisp of steam rose up in front of him as he counted down:
“ … three … two … one … Now!”
He was slammed against the seat with such a force, his ears started ringing. The carrier deck whipped by in a blur and next thing he knew, he was out over the open sea. The F-16 had gone from standing still to 120 mph in less than three seconds.
“Jeezuz!” he thought as he yanked back on the side-stick controller and gained altitude. “No wonder those Navy pilots are all crazy.”
The first catapult launch in a long time from the deck of the USS Saratoga was a success.
They were now more than fifty miles away from the Riviera and heading east. Moving the Saratoga proved to be just another few hours’ work for O’Brien’s tugs. The Irishman and his men had pulled and pushed and pulled some more with their twenty extra-large tugboats. Just as the sun was coming up, O’Brien got all of his tugs working together and, sure enough, the carrier slipped off its sandy resting place and out into deep water once again. All the Faction tank gunners could do was lob a few angry but meaningless shells into the sea as the Saratoga and its strange attending fleet of tugs and frigates sailed away.