“I don’t know—”
“Rebecca, don’t hesitate now,” Patrick urged her. “Those are your people on the ground. We can help them. We just got a refueling, so we don’t need gas—”
“We’ve been talking with Oslo Transoceanic for the past fifteen minutes,” Rebecca argued. “We’ve broadcast our aircraft type on open channels. If we turn around, they’ll be able to track us.”
“Not if we go in hard,” Patrick said. “We’ve got enough fuel to go in low right now. But we need to get turned around now, Rebecca. Every pound of fuel we waste going westbound is one pound less we’ll have over the shootdown point.” When Furness still hesitated, Patrick added, “I know I can’t tell an aircraft commander to do anything he or she doesn’t think is safe—”
“Damn straight.”
“—but I’m ordering you right now, Colonel, as your superior officer: turn right to a heading of one-two-five, center up the steering bug, and prepare to commence hostile airspace penetration operations at the original route entry point. Do it now, or by God, I’ll prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law when we get back to base.”
“You’re crazy, McLanahan,” Rebecca exploded. “You’ll never be able to convict me of disobeying an order like that. You’ll be laughed out of court — probably court-martialed yourself.”
“Are you going to refuse my order?”
“It’ll be daylight by the time we reach the shootdown point,” Furness argued. “We’ll be sitting ducks—”
“You don’t know that,” Patrick said. “All we do know is that Dev and Annie are sitting ducks right now. We are the only chance they have of escaping or getting rescued. Now I’m ordering you once more — center up the steering bug now.”
Rebecca Furness looked into Patrick McLanahan’s eyes and saw nothing but red-hot fury in them, unlike anything she had seen in the short but intense time they had worked together. She knew that, although it was probably unauthorized, his was not an unlawful order. The Rules of Conduct under the Uniform Code of Military Justice stated that she was not obligated to obey unlawful orders or orders that violated her own morality. This did neither. If she obeyed his order, she felt certain she could not be prosecuted for doing so.
Damn it, Rebecca, she admonished herself, stop thinking about the legalities and start thinking about what could happen if you don’t do it! Dev and Annie could be captured. They were only a few miles from the Ukrainian border — if they were unhurt from the ejection, they still had a chance to make it across the border. The Russians might still go after them, but that’s why they needed to be there for them.
Rebecca released the paddle switch on her control stick, which allowed the Vampire bomber’s autopilot to follow the computer’s steering signals. They were on their way back to Russia.
In the Sredneruskaja Plains, near Obojan,
Russian Federation
There was only one way to describe what ejecting out of an exploding aircraft was like: pure, unadulterated violence.
Annie Dewey’s only warning of what was about to occur was when the overhead hatch blew free, her shoulder and lap belt straps tightened, the leg restraints snapped her ankles back so they wouldn’t flail around during the shot, and the ejection seat slid backward against the launch rail. Then her body was racked by immense pain as the main rocket motor fired her clear of the aircraft. The force exerted on the human body during the ejection sequence had been compared to hitting a brick wall in an automobile traveling twenty miles an hour — headfirst — and Annie probably would’ve doubled that number.
The sky, which had been cold, dark, and stormy all night, was a blaze of hot yellow and red flames. Annie lost her oxygen mask right away — that’ll teach you always to lock it in tight, she somehow managed to admonish herself throughout the chaos — and the helmet almost came flying off with it. The only thing that helped catch her helmet was the chin strap digging into her nose. She was sure her nose was broken. Time for that nose job she always wanted — maybe she would finally get Nicole Kidman’s nose at last.
Because the Vampire was flying at such a slow speed — almost approach speed — and they were relatively low to the ground, the ejection sequence happened fast and violent. She got both rocket motors on full ignition right away, which tripled the force exerted on her body. Thankfully, that ride was over in less than two seconds. She then got the mule-kick in the back from the man-seat separator, a thick nylon strap along the back of the seat that tightened and propelled her away from the ejection seat pan like a slingshot. Next the drogue chute deployed, which whipped her body upside down, followed almost immediately by the shoulder-cracking snap of the big main chute. Fortunately, the Vampire bomber was still accelerating away, and her chute did not open inside the rapidly growing fireball that used to be her warplane. Annie got half a dozen good swings in her chute, but all she remembered was crashing into the frozen rocky earth in typical Air Force crew member fashion: feet, butt, back of head.
The wind tugged at her half-inflated parachute, as if insisting that she get up, but Annie wasn’t going to move one inch, even though she was almost facedown in the snow. She could smell and taste blood, so she knew that at least two senses were working. A few moments later, her hearing kicked in as she caught the sound of her beloved B-1 bomber crashing into the low hills, not far away. The ground heaved and rumbled like an earthquake — touch was okay, too. She tried the last sense, sight, but that didn’t seem to want to work quite yet. Four out of five — not bad for just hitting the ground under a parachute after ejecting from a shot-up bomber.
Her plane was gone, history. An incredible, almost overwhelming, sense of fear, dread, and guilt washed through her brain. What have I done? she asked herself If I had followed orders, I’d still be flying far overhead, out of range of antiaircraft guns and safe from Russian fighters. I’d still be able to protect the special operations guys with her weapons, or vector in fighter support, or jam Russian radars, or a whole number of other things. The MV-22 Pave Hammer crew might have been able to fly the plane out themselves. Or what if a trigger-happy Russian fighter jock got both them and the MC-130P tanker as well? Her rescue attempt would have been a waste. What if everything she did was all for nothing?
The fear and the cold caused her to shiver. It was hypothermia setting in. Annie didn’t care. She had failed. She had probably killed Dev, and she had certainly caused the loss of a multimillion dollar warplane. The Russians were obviously going to find the wreckage and discover who and what they were. Their secret would be out. She would be captured, Dev’s body taken to some grimy little prison morgue, maybe broadcast around the world so Dev’s poor parents could see his mutilated body. The United States would suffer one of its greatest foreign policy and military embarrassments since Iran-Contra. The United States government might disavow any knowledge of their mission. Lives and careers would be ruined. Everything the United States said or did for the next decade would have the stink of this failure tainting it.
I might as well die, Annie thought. Death would certainly be preferable to living with the shame of what her decisions had caused tonight. She was probably already blind, certainly shattered from the ejection and the hard landing. So not only would she be a national disgrace, but if she lived, someone would have to take care of her. She’d have to be fed through a tube, shit in a pair of diapers like an infant, be set out on a patio like a potted plant so she could get some sun so she wouldn’t shrivel up and die, and the attendant would know who she was and would be embarrassed and probably disgusted to have to take care of such a loser oh God why did I do it why didn’t I listen to orders oh Jesus I want to die let me die don’t let me live like a paraplegic vegetable being hated by my mother and father oh mom oh dad I’m sorry I apologize I only wanted to help I thought I was doing the right thing I …