dozen pinpoints of laser-red light hit the intruders' chests and didn't waver an inch. All Julie could do was raise her hands to show she wasn't armed.
'I'm glad you're okay, Tony, but you couldn't have picked a worse time to wake up,' Julie whispered out of the corner of her mouth, taking a deep breath.
'Miss Dawes, what a surprise. I was sure you had vacated the premises with the others,' the blond-haired man from the Interior Department said, as he stepped away from his companions.
Gone were his casual clothes, and in their place was this military, black jumpsuit. He had a large pistol strapped to his side and the most lethal-looking knife Julie had ever seen on the black belt across his chest.
'Mr.... uh...?' Julie stuttered.
The man just smiled and stepped up to the three intruders. He placed his hand on Billy's head and rubbed his hair. The smile, all three noticed, didn't touch his now cold eyes.
'We'll leave my name out of it for now, Miss Dawes. And this must be the man of the house. I'm glad you located him. Today isn't one to be roaming around outside.'
'My son, Billy,' Julie said, looking worried.
'As I said, Miss Dawes, you really should have left on the evacuation helicopters with the others. But as it stands, I'm afraid you'll be accompanying us. I am sorry.'
'Okay, okay, what'd I miss?' Tony said, taking the cap off the bottle of Jack Daniel's.
The four F-15 Strike Eagles out of Nellis streaked through the blue sky at twelve hundred feet off the desert floor. Lieutenant Colonel Frank Jessup led the flight of air force jets, who were on temporary duty from Japan, here to take part in Red Flag, a rigorous course to train pilots to fight foreign aircraft and their tactics. And now they had been summoned on the most unusual CAP mission he had ever been in command of. He scanned the ground, watching for any kind of activity out of the norm. He was trying to figure out just what the norm should be when his wingman, Major Terry Miller, called over the radio:
'Drover lead, this is Drover Two, they said unusual activity, correct?'
Jessup thumbed the transmit button on his joystick. 'That's what they said. What have you got, Drover Two?'
'Look to your nine o'clock and tell me what you see.'
Colonel Jessup looked to his left and down, but his weapons officer in the backseat saw it first.
'What in the hell is that, Colonel?' he asked.
Jessup stared in wonder as the ground below rippled as if a small speedboat were traveling across the sand. Just behind the advancing wave, the ground was caving in as if whatever was causing the wake was traveling close to the surface, weakening the tunnel it was making and causing the ground to fall in just as it passed.
'All right, Drover flight, we have a target of opportunity as per orders. Our ROE are still the same.' Jessup didn't have to remind his flight that the rules of engagement were simple: sight the enemy and attack. 'Drover Three and Four, sight on target and attack' was Jessup's brief command. 'Drover lead will ride high cover.'
'Drover Three and Four, sighted and locked.'
In all three locations, ears listened anxiously to the radio conversation between the air force pilots as they rolled in and dived on what must be the leading element of the animals as they were exploring the valley. The president's attention went from the live feed in the desert valley to the monitor hooked into the Event Center for a reaction from Niles Compton. But Niles was busy listening to the radio transmission and watching the live feed himself. Then the president looked at the Joint Chiefs in the room, then to another monitor showing the crash site, where the largest audience by far, made up of Event Group technicians, were gathering to hear the exchange between the attacking fighter bombers.
The F-15E Strike Eagle is an amazing aircraft, capable of dogfighting with the best fighters in world, belying that it also has a bomb load capacity almost equal to that of the venerable old B-17 bomber from World War II. The bombs on this flight had been researched and specially chosen. If the animals were traveling close to the surface, the pilots were to use the general-munitions cluster bombs. They didn't have the shaped charge or the weight of the Bunker Busters that the F-16 Fighting Falcons were carrying above the larger fighters at ten thousand feet, but they were accurate, and they exploded with a large bang and killed well for their size. Before the human element went below to fight the creatures, the air force had been given the green light. Now they would see what air power could do to help right the situation in the valley.
The two fighter-bombers streaked in low, maintaining their height at three hundred feet, a dangerous altitude for the large fighter, even in the relatively flat terrain of the desert. Then, at three miles out, the fighter-bombers nosed up and climbed, water vapor pouring off their wingtips as the Eagles fought for altitude. At a thousand feet they leveled off, and Colonel Jessup watched as both Drover Three and Four dropped their munitions wing abreast. This tactic would expand the area of impact and make their killing zone wider, rather than longer, for the best chance of taking out the lead elements of the animals. The colonel watched as four small wing-brakes popped out from the back of the eight six-foot-long bombs, retarding their speed and rate of drop to give the fighters time to get out of Dodge before they impacted. At 175 feet of altitude, a pressure-sensing device activated and blew the outer casing off the eight bombs, loosing two hundred softball-sized bomblets. They struck the ground just two feet in front of the wave of dirt and sand that was caused by at least two of the moving animals, causing what looked like a fireworks display gone awry and exploding on the ground. To the men and women at the crash site it was if someone had set off two hundred grenades at once.
'Direct hit,' Jessup said in a businesslike manner into his oxygen mask.
As Drover Three and Four banked hard to come around for an assessment pass, they didn't see another two waves approaching the first set until they were almost on top of the strike zone. Jessup saw the twin waves breaking fast from above his pilots, who were too busy to notice the approach. In horror, he watched an animal they thought had been stopped in the cluster munitions strike rise from the dirt and sand and shake itself.
'Drover Three and Four, pull up, abort pass! Bandits are approaching the strike area, and the active target is now aboveground!'
The call came three seconds too late. As the colonel watched in horror, two of the animals approaching the first exploded out of the sand and dirt of the desert. Bunching up their muscled legs and using their powerful tails as a natural catapult, they sprang into the air at incredible speed. The first one caught Drover Three in the left air intake, smashing into the fuselage and being sucked in, exploding through the Pratt & Whitney engine, causing a catastrophic failure and explosions that ripped through the cockpit and fuselage of the heavy fighter, tearing it apart. The second animal ricocheted harmlessly off the remains of the disintegrating jet, falling onto the desert floor, along with the mile-long stretch of settling wreckage of Drover Three. To the amazement of all watching, the animal rose and stumbled, fell to the ground, then rose again. This time it shook its massive bulk, jumped into the air, and dove into the desert soil. Drover Four banked hard and climbed, pushing the big fighter to afterburner in its attempted escape, taxing the huge jet's air-frame as it did so. The first beast was on the surface of the desert floor below and was watching the F-15 Eagle trying to make her escape. The beast timed its jump perfectly and leaped just as Drover Four went to afterburner and started climbing. But before the full effect of the powerful twin engines could provide enough thrust to propel the heavy fighter forward and up, the animal struck hard. It hit the Strike Eagle's left wing and punctured straight through it, tearing out control surfaces and bending and weakening the struts until the wing creased and folded inward toward the cockpit with a pop that sounded as if a bomb had exploded. The wing then slammed hard into the glass-enclosed canopy, crushing the life from the two men inside instantaneously, seconds before the aircraft slammed into the desert floor and disappeared in an expanding fireball. The Talkhan that had embedded itself in the fighter's wing rolled free of the wreckage. It was burning as it gained its feet, stumbled three steps, then collapsed dead to the sand.
Jessup banked hard to the left, bringing the fighter to a nose-down attitude. His wingman mimicked the move as he followed. The colonel brought his cannon to bear on the still form of the animal that had downed Drover Four. The cannon embedded in the left side of the aircraft just aft of the radar dome in the nose erupted with all six barrels with a short
Jessup applied power and pulled back on his stick, bringing his fighter back up to a safer level, then he called, 'Drover flight, climb to five thousand feet and hold for targets.'
