laughing and gabbing with his impossible Texas accent… she imagined she heard a knock on the belly hatch, and there he would be.
.. except, of course, he would not. Face it…
He was gone.
She had given Luger's coat to General Elliott, who was strapped into an emergency crash web chair on the upper deck between the cockpit and the defense crew's station, caught between a severe fever and the onset of deep shock.
Ormack continued with the checklists as they scrolled onto the computer monitor. 'Flight instruments checked, pilot and co-pilot.
'Mine are gone,' McLanahan asked. 'Adjust your A.D.I. I can hardly see it but it's the only reliable one we have. 'He watched as Ormack adjusted the artificial horizon. 'That's it.
Standby altimeters are good. Standby turn-and-slip indicators are good.
'Electrical panel. 'Ormack strained to read the tiny gauges.
'One and two are zero. All the rest are okay. 'He advanced the computerized checklist. 'Crosswing crab.'
'Zeroed. Next.'
Pitot heat.'
It took McLanahan a moment.interrupted with a few small turns to stay on hard pavement, to find the switch. 'On.'
'Stability augmentation system.'
'On.'
'Stabilizer trim.'
'That's this big wheel here, right?' McLanahan asked. 'We don't have time to compute the right setting so I'm setting it to one-half unit nose up. Set. Next.
'Airbrake lever.'
'OV, 'Flaps.'
'One hundred percent down, lever down.'spiM.
'Fuel panel. I think I have it set up right,' Ormack said wincing from a stab of pain that shot through the area arour his neck. 'Check it for me. We've got minimum fuel in the main tanks because of the damage, so those pumps right there should be on, and those… there should be to OPEP Checked. Next.
'Starter switches.'
'Okay, we're almost ready to go. Using the rudder pedal McLanahan nudged the Old Dog around a tight corner and turned onto the end of the Russian runway, then stepped on the tops of the pedals to engage the brakes.
'Angelina, Wendy, ready to go back there?'
'Ready,' Angelina said over the interphone.
'Ready,' Wendy asked. 'Good luck.'
'Thanks. 'McLanahan gripped the control yoke. I'm gonna need it.'
'All right,' Ormack said, 'we're going to start the number two engine.
Ready?'
Ready McLanahan moved the number-four engine-throttle to ninety percent. 'Go!' Ormack moved the starter to START Slowly the RPMs on the number two engine began to increase McLanahan pointed to a yellow light on the forward panel 'What's that?' Ormack said over the interphone. 'I can see… ' 'A low oil-pressure light,' McLanahan told him over the roar of the engines. 'We've got to hope it'll give us enough thrust for takeoff before it seizes… ' There was a tremendous bang on the left wing as the Old Dog bucked and rumbled so that no one could read the instruments.
'That's the bad gas,' McLanahan said, 'it should work okay, though Anxious moments later the RPMs on the number-two engine went to idle settings, and McLanaha pulled the power back on the number-four engine.
'Okay, starter on number two is in FLIGHT position generator on number two is on,' Ormack asked. 'Takeoff data. 'McLanahan gave it over the interphone. 'We roll until just before we run out of runway, then I pull back on the stick. If we fly, we fly. If we don't, we eject.
Next.
'Arming lever safety pins.'
'All right, everyone,' McLanahan told them, 'get your seats ready for ejection. And don't hesitate. If you see the red bailout warning light, eject. Immediately.'
'Couldn't have made a better takeoff briefing myself, McLanahan,' Ormack said, trying to smile. 'Takeoff checklist. Steering ratio selector lever. 'McLanahan took a deep breath and tried not to think of Luger. Concentrate, he told himself. Get the job done.
Everybody was counting on him… including himself. He moved a lever on the center console. 'TAKE-OFF LAND.
Set.
'Air conditioning master switch.'
'RAM.
'Throttles.
'Here we go. 'McLanahan took hold of the seven active throttles and moved them slowly forward to full military power. Because of the dead number-one engine the Old Dog slid to the left on the snow-covered runway. McLanahan stomped on the right stabilator pedal to correct, then, realizing the dual rudders had been destroyed, slowly pulled back the number-eight engine throttle until he was able to straighten out the Old Dog along the runway, then slowly pushed it back almost to full power.
'Good. 'Ormack strained to be heard over the roar of the engine. 'No stabilators… do whatever you need to do to keep her on the runway. 'He put his hands on the yoke but could not help. 'Keep an eye on the distance- remaining markers if you can… they'll be labeled in hundreds of meters. Lift off with about a thousand meters remaining-' 'I can't see them,' McLanahan shouted. 'They're going by too damn fast-wait… sixteen, fifteen, fourteen.. ' ' The wild rumbling and vibrations made it tough to refocus his eyes on the instruments.
When McLanahan swung the control yoke to the right to correct the violent left skid, it seemed the Old Dog was sliding sideways down the runway. He scanned the instruments. A caution light was lit but he couldn't make out which one.
'Hold it steady, Patrick-' 'I can't, it's skidding too hard-' Easy.
.
you can do it. Easy McLanahan realized with a surge of fear that the one-thousand-meter sign had just whizzed by. At the nine-hundred meter he pulled back on the control yoke, wrestled it back, back, back until it was touching his chest. Still the Old Dog's nose refused to leave the ground.
'C'mon, baby, lift off, dammit.'
'Add some nose-up trim,' Ormack yelled. 'The big wheel by your knee.
Gent@v- Keep the back pressure in but get re to release it when the nose comes up.'
'It's not lifting off… ' The shaking, the turbule almost maae him lose his grip on the wheel… Now could see the end of the runway, a tall wall of drifting snow ice…
'Four… three… two… oh God, there's a snow drift out there, we're not-' With its nose still pointing downward the Old Dog left ground less than three feet above the peak of ice at the end of the runway. Buoyed then by 'ground effect,' the swirl of snow generated by the wings that bounced off the ground and back up at the plane, the Old Dog skittered only twenty feet on the snowy surface, the air pounding on the bomber's wings adding to the turbulence.
Like a blessing, the pounding began to decrease, and as airspeed slowly increased, the Old Dog's nose lifted skywa McLanahan at times swinging the control yoke all the way its limit to control the swaying as the huge bomber lifted in the Siberian sky.
Carefully now, McLanahan reached down to the gear-control lever and moved it up, also checking the main- gear indicate lights. 'Gear up, Colonel, keep an eye on the-' He was interrupted by a blur of motion outside the cockpit window. Ormack spotted it first but was too shocked to speak. All he could do was point as the light gray MiG-29
