“If you won’t do something now, General, I will!”
“Colonel!” Samson shouted. He finally stopped, but his chest was heaving as if he had just gone three rounds in a boxing ring.
Samson looked at his chief engineer with serious concern. Luger had reported his two contacts with the Ukrainian bomber forces commander, who happened to have been one of the test pilots at the same facility where Luger had been held captive years ago. He’d considered sending him off on leave while the Ukrainians were at Nellis, to avoid any further complications, but he’d let Luger override him. He’d seemed just fine. Obviously, those two brief encounters had dredged up a lot of very bad memories. “Stand at ease! That’s an order!” Samson’s booming voice finally seemed to shake Luger out of his near-panicked anguish. “We’re going to help them, Colonel, I promise you. But we need to devise a plan of action and get approval from Washington. Prepare your planes and get weapons uploaded right away, but I don’t want anyone launching. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Luger said. He took a deep breath and wiped cold sweat from his forehead. Quickly, his tortured mind began to think rationally. “But if the decision is made to do a rescue, we should brief up the teams and launch as many Vampires as we can to forward strike locations. If Annie and Dev can evade capture long enough, we might be able to rescue them, but we need to get ISA units moving now. If the Russians capture and then release Annie and Dev right away, we’ll just come home. But if they don’t, we want to be in a position to nab them before they get moved all the way back to Moscow.”
“I said, no one launches without my go-ahead. End of discussion.” To Long, he said, “I’m preparing for a briefing to the National Security Council staff right now. I’ll get you clearance as quickly as I can.”
“Yes, sir,” Long said.
“We are still receiving life signs,” Luger said, checking the satellite communications server’s readouts on Deverill and Dewey. “Still no voice contact. The longer they’re on the ground, the better the chances of them getting caught. General, at least give us clearance to refuel and divert Furness and McLanahan in the mission backup plane. We can schedule a tanker and get it turned around in minutes.”
“Request denied,” Samson said. “Furness and McLanahan follow their original recovery routing back here — no alterations unless I get approval from the White House. That is all. Major, you’re with me. We should be getting a videoconference call from the White House any minute.” Luger was left with nothing to do, so he got ready to depart.
“Colonel, are you going to be okay?” Samson asked just before Luger reached the door.
“I’ll be all right, sir,” he responded evenly.
“I would like you to assist in preparing available Vampire aircraft for weapons upload and launch in case we’re given the go-ahead,” Samson said. “John will be working with me here to get ready for the NSC brief. I’m sure it would be a big help to have you and Major Cheshire in the maintenance area supervising things.” John Long said nothing, but nodded.
“I’ll be over there if you need me, sir,” Luger said.
“And David? Advise General McLanahan and Colonel Furness on what’s happened.” He paused, staring at Luger as if punctuating his next order: “I want them to continue on their recovery track. Under no circumstances are they permitted to try a rescue mission without prior authorization. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll advise them.”
“They can contact me directly via satellite if they have any other information, or if they have recommendations, but I want them to head on back otherwise,” Samson said again. For some reason, he felt a strong need to repeat his orders to Luger. “No heroics. I don’t want to lose any more aircraft over Russia.”
“Understood, sir.”
David Luger went over to the maintenance hangar complex and briefed the chief maintenance officer, the chief civilian engineer, and the NCO in charge, on what was happening, but he was wise enough to let them do their thing without hovering around them. Besides, he was too angry and frustrated — at Samson, at Long, at himself — to think and organize effectively.
His mind drifted away to his friend and lover, on the ground in Russia. He activated his subcutaneous satellite transceiver and spoke: “Dewey, this is Luger… Heels, this is David — can you hear me? Please answer, Annie. Can you hear me?” His voice choked as he thought of her lying on the ground half a world away, and he too far away to help her. “Annie, answer me, please … answer me, goddammit …”
No reply.
He understood General Samson’s order. Sampson wanted to be sure Patrick returned — meaning, he fully expected Patrick to turn around and fly cover for Annie and Dev. Luger knew what could happen if he disobeyed him — but also knew that Patrick McLanahan was Annie’s best hope to avoid capture. Samson could have contacted McLanahan himself via the satellite transceiver and directly issued the order to him. He was purposely vague about it. Did he want Patrick to fly cover — or was he passing the responsibility to his second-in-command?
Again, Luger activated the worldwide satellite transceiver: “Luger to McLanahan.”
“Go ahead, Dave.”
“We’ve got a situation, Muck,” Luger said, and he ran it down for him.
“Come to a heading of one-two-five, right now, “ Patrick said urgently. His mouth was dry, and his fingers shook as they flew across the large supercockpit touchscreen display. “Heading back to our due-regard point. Steering is good. Take it.” The due-regard point was a special point in a flight plan where flights were “dropped” or “accepted,” without any air traffic control agencies knowing or responsible for where the flight went — they were used primarily by classified military flights. They were currently over southern Norway, well out of range of any ground radar sites, but they still used satellite communications and GPS to call in their position to transoceanic air traffic controllers. “I’ll call Oslo Transoceanic and get a clearance.”
“Clearance? What in hell are you talking about?” Rebecca Furness asked. She had to paddle off the autopilot to prevent the EB-1C Vampire bomber from automatically following the new steering command Patrick had given. “We’re not turning around and flying hundreds of miles back through Russian airspace. Are you nuts?”
“Rebecca, one of our planes just got shot down — one of your planes, a point you made very clear to me the other day,” Patrick said. “Two of your crew members are on the ground in Russia. If they get captured, it’ll be an enormous security breach for the United States. It’ll be the military classified information discovery coup of the decade!” He scanned his flight information. “I can have us over the shootdown point in less than two hours. I’ll download Annie and Dev’s position from the satellite server, and Dave will upload the updated tactical order of battle to us, so we can—”
“Hold on, General,” Rebecca said. “Why didn’t General Samson or someone from the Pentagon call us?”
“They’re probably deciding exactly what to do,” Patrick replied. “Terrill won’t be in charge — it’ll be someone at USAFE, or it might be turned over to the Director of Central Intelligence or Defense Intelligence Agency. It might take them hours just to decide who the hell is in charge. By that time, we can be over the shootdown point and helping Annie and Dev. If the Intelligence Support Agency or U.S. Special Operations Command launches a rescue sortie out of Turkey, they can be over the shootdown spot at the same time we arrive, and we can cover them. Let’s go, Rebecca!”