“Yes, sir,” Burkhart said with uncharacteristic nervousness in his voice. “Just letting you know.”
No wonder Duane had the jitters, thought Major Vickers. He’d envisioned many combat missions upon graduating from the Air Force Academy six years before. But never one that took place over the Jersey Turnpike.
“This is wild, isn’t it?” Burkhart said as the New York City skyline, unmistakable from seven thousand feet, approached rapidly on their right. “Those bastards hitting the towers was the reason I joined up.”
“You’re a true patriot,” Vickers said sarcastically, dropping altitude and buzzing by the Statue of Liberty. “I hitched up for the subsidized on-base bowling.”
“You should be able to get that visual now,” Burkhart said.
“Roger that.” Vickers spotted the blip that appeared on the canopy’s electronic air-to-air combat heads-up targeting display. The Cessna was moving south down the Hudson three, maybe four miles ahead, and closing fast.
Vickers flicked a button at the top of his joystick with his thumb and the pairs of AIM Sparrow and AIM Sidewinder missiles, nestled under the wings, hummed as they powered on, high-explosive attack dogs tugging the chain.
He had already been given the firing order by the time he’d finished strapping in. He didn’t need to know who or what was on the Cessna – only to knock it out of the sky.
“Cessna Bravo Lima Seven Seven Two,” Burkhart said into the radio. “This is the United States Air Force. Turn around and land back at Teterboro or you will be brought down. This is your only warning.”
The Cessna pilot’s voice crackled back. “Don’t bullshit me, ace. I used to fly one of those things. You can’t risk it. You could wipe out half of Manhattan.”
“That’s a risk we’re prepared to take,” Burkhart said. “I repeat. This is your final warning.”
This time there was no answer.
Had the guy really been a fighter pilot? Vickers wondered. If it was true, that added a wrinkle.
He rolled his neck as the targeting radar lock alarm suddenly sounded.
“Well, you can’t say we didn’t warn ‘em,” he said.
The siren quit as the Cessna suddenly swung a hard left west in between the stone and glass towers. It was in Manhattan airspace now, somewhere around 80th Street.
“No!” Burkhart cried. “Shit on a stick! We’re too late!”
“Keep your shirt on,” Vickers said, jogging the joystick between his knees to the right, screaming the dull silver-colored jet in over the West Side. He was coming over Central Park a split second later when the Cessna reappeared ahead above Columbus Circle, then immediately vanished again, weaving through the city’s high-rises, using them for cover.
Though the missile lock siren came back on, he knew he couldn’t chance a missile now. That bastard in the Cessna was right. If he missed, a big chunk of midtown Manhattan would be history.
Vickers squinted beneath his flight visor as his gloved finger reached for the trigger of the twenty-millimeter Gatling gun. He kept it there, waiting for his chance.
Chapter 95
I was wide awake when I heard Meyer’s radio exchange with the fighter pilot, although I was wishing I wasn’t. I didn’t know which hurt worse, my head or my groin.
“The hell with the Blanchettes,” Meyer said, talking to himself now. He was ignoring me, assuming I was unconscious or dead. “Why waste this stellar opportunity on those old fools? Let’s hit this fucked-up country where it’ll hurt the most – the Big Apple’s pride and joy. Then they’ll read my Manifesto of Nonsense.”
I stayed slumped in my seat, but opened my eyes just enough to see that we were rocketing southward down Fifth Avenue.
Straight toward the glittering, spire-topped, man-made mountain face of the Empire State Building.
One more try, I thought, gritting my teeth against the pain. I was going to die in a fiery explosion anyway. Maybe I could keep us from taking anybody else along – except for the psycho beside me.
Meyer hadn’t bothered to strap me back into my seat. Quietly, I took a long, deep breath.
Then, with every ounce of strength I could muster, I threw my left elbow up into his Adam’s apple.
He reared backward, clutching his throat with one hand and clawing at my face with the other. I lunged into him, pinning him against his door and grabbing the wheel.
“We’re going out over the bay,” I screamed into his headset microphone. “Shoot us down!”
For the next few seconds I had the edge of surprise, and I managed to wrestle the plane into a sharp westward arc. Banking perilously, we skirted the northwest corner of the Empire State by no more than a couple hundred yards.
But Meyer was strong and he came back, pounding at my face and trying to regain control. As the plane yawed wildly from side to side, we battled like caged panthers, snarling, butting heads – both of us injured, both desperate. Once again, we were losing altitude fast.
But this time we were heading out over the bay. I clung to the wheel with everything I had to keep us on that course, my shoulders tensed for the fireball from the fighter jet that was going to blow us into cinders any second.
“Our Father who art? -” I started mumbling through my teeth, as the expansive emptiness of the last sight I would ever see raced up to meet me.
Then I heard a high-pitched sort of whining sound.
Sweet Jesus, this is it, I thought.
An instant later came one long, continuous, eardrum-rupturing string of explosions that tore the roof and entire back of the plane away like wet tissue paper.
But I was still there, still alive. I could see streaking fire behind us, but it was a trail of burning fuel, not the entire plane exploding.
My mind was scrambling to rectify that when I realized that our gliding dive was turning into a plummeting headlong fall. The bolts of my seat groaned as we shook and rattled, and my shoulder harness bullwhipped my chest.
Strangely, it brought me a window of peace. Not the kind of light at the end of the tunnel that people who thought they were dying sometimes describe, but just calm.
An instant later, we hit with a tremendous splash, like a returning NASA shuttle.
Chapter 96
The impact was crushing, slamming me around the cockpit, but we still had enough forward momentum to skid across the water’s surface for a few more seconds. Otherwise, it would have been like smashing into concrete. That, and the fact that I’d been wedged in tight with Meyer’s harnessed body when we hit, was probably what saved me.
As I tried to believe that I was still alive, I felt something wrong with my neck. I wiggled my fingers to see if I was paralyzed. They would barely move, but I realized that was because my wrist was broken. Half the dashboard gauges were now sitting in my bleeding lap. But apparently, my neck was only wrenched, and the rest of me was more or less intact. I was able to get my arms going, then my legs.
Burning debris was scattered all around on the dark surface of the bay, and water was pouring inside, already covering my ankles, as what was left of the plane sank fast.
Then came a massive flash of orange and a blast of intense heat from the pilot-side wing. Pitch-black smoke that smelled horribly of burning plastic seared my face. Another fuel compartment must have gone up. The flames surged ferociously, eating into the plane’s interior. Within half a minute, they would engulf it – and me.
Meyer was still strapped into his seat, unmoving – knocked out by the impact, or dead.
