Like a good Marine, he made his choice. Dump ordnance, then break off and orbit over Buddy’s location. Ninety seconds from now he’d be headed back in, and to hell with any Tomcats who tried to force him to RTB. No way he was going anywhere, not until he saw a SAR helo taking off from an LZ with Buddy in it. One way or another.
Hard choices, harder answers. But with the decision made, he locked the question of his wingman out of his mind and concentrated on flying the aircraft.
Ninety seconds. Then he’d settle that score.
Pamela ran with her hands wrapped around her, trying to hold the shattered rib in place. Each breath was agony, piercing and hot. She bit the inside of her lip, determined not to make a sound. Now that the first shock of being injured was over, she was learning how quickly one could learn to live with pain.
“This way.” The Macedonian shoved aside some bushes, took a quick look, then put out one arm to hold her back. “No. They are always armed. If he doesn’t know who you are, he will shoot before you can explain.” He pulled her behind a tree. “Tell him now.”
She took a deep breath automatically in preparation for shouting at him, then let out a low moan as the pain intensified. She stifled it just as it started, shutting her eyes for a moment to paste her iron control back in place. When she opened her eyes, she saw a grudging respect in the Macedonian’s eyes.
“Hornet pilot, my name is Pamela Drake. The reporter on ACN. Can you hear me?” She waiting, holding her breath. There was no answer.
“He’s unconscious,” she said.
“Or pretending to be. I would. Wait until you come to check, then take a better shot.”
“Could you tell which way he was facing?” she asked.
He shook his head. “His feet were toward me. I could not tell if he was conscious or if his eyes were open.”
“Well, then, I’ll just have to find out.” She raised her voice and said, “You’ll recognize me as soon as you see me. I’m not armed. I’m going to step out so that you can see me, okay?”
There was no answer. She started to move away from the bulk of the tree, but Xerxes stopped her. “You know that he was going to bomb my people. If he’s alive, he’s a prisoner of war.”
She nodded, oddly uneasy at having the point made clear to her. If she convinced the pilot to give up his side-arm, Xerxes would take him prisoner. So was she committing treason by not telling him that the Macedonian was hiding here behind the tree? The words from an old training film she’d watched one night while onboard
But at least he’d be alive. They’d treated her injuries, hadn’t they? They’d probably treat him all right, maybe set up a prisoner exchange. It wasn’t like he’d be a POW in Vietnam. As soon as this all blew over — unless they needed to make a point to the United States. Then what better example than an American pilot held prisoner?
They’d be misjudging the American psyche if they thought that. The reaction to Americans shot down during Desert Storm had been overwhelmingly supportive of the military.
“I’m coming out now. You’ll see me if you look over your feet, I think. Just take a look… you’ll know who I am.” She started out again, and this time Xerxes let her go.
Thor could feel the briefed path stretching out before him like a yellow brick road leading him straight down to Oz. So far, there was no sign of antiair activity, not even of a Stinger squad, much less anything more sophisticated.
That worried him, but not too much. Maybe they’d only had the one truck-mounted site left and Arkady’s men had destroyed the rest.
But Stingers? Everyone had Stingers. Even the most impoverished rebel forces could find some larger power somewhere that would be glad to supply them in exchange for the opportunities created by internal turmoil in a country. Russia, China, even Italy — plenty of ways to get them if you wanted them.
The seconds were slipping by quickly now, along with the ground under him. The lead Tomcat was almost in position… there. The first aircraft in this wave jolted up as the bombs left his wings, then banked hard away from the IP. They continued on in, each one lofting the bombs in on target from slightly further away to avoid being blinded by the debris thrown up by the earlier aircraft.
It was his turn now. His internal clock was counting down the seconds. Maybe twenty seconds since he’d left the two stretched out on the ground behind the rock. He hadn’t seen them move — maybe he’d gotten lucky and nailed them, but he didn’t think so. Still, it was always better to be lucky than good.
Three, two,
He reached out for the radio switch, then hesitated. No — not now. He’d see if he could locate Buddy and the two terrorists after him first. He wasn’t sure he could. The trees looked pretty thick back there, and Buddy could be hidden under any one of them. Hell, if he’d survived the ejection, he was probably in deep cover by now, waiting for the SAR helo.
But there was no chatter on the Military Air Distress, or MAD, frequency. No single tone locator beacon or mayday call from Buddy. The radio could have been broken in the ejection, or he could be unconscious. There was no way to tell from here.
He vectored back in over the rock he’d shot up and started expanding search pattern over the area.
Pamela stepped out into the open, holding her hands over her head. “Can you see me?” She waited for an answer, but there was none. She took a step closer to the body stretched out on the ground. “Look, you can see me now. I’m not going to hurt you.”
There was an odd stillness to the figure, and it took her a moment to quantify what she was seeing. When it finally hit her, she darted forward, ignoring her own pain, and knelt down next to the pilot. He wasn’t breathing.
Xerxes was on the ground next to her now. He’d moved silently, simply appearing there.
Pamela ripped down the zipper on the front of the man’s flight suit, then bent over to press her head to his chest while her fingers sought out the pulse point in his neck. She thought she felt the vein flutter under her fingers. He still wasn’t breathing, though.
She tilted his head back, holding her ear close to his mouth. Still no breath sounds, but if his heart were still beating, he had a chance. A big if… she was finding it hard to distinguish between the shaking of her own hands and his pulse.
Xerxes was watching her, his face impassive. She glared at him. “Do something.”
He shook his head. “It won’t matter.” He pointed at the blood coming out of the pilot’s ears. “Even if he starts breathing, he’s too badly hurt. He’ll never survive.”
She swiped at the blood. “It’s just a slash on his ear. There’s still a chance.” She administered the first deep life-giving breath of artificial respiration, then another, inflating his lungs and saturating them with oxygen. She stopped, waiting to see if his own breathing reflex returned.
Suddenly, the aviator gasped. He sucked down a deep lungful of air, then started coughing. Pamela hovered over him, praying that he’d keep breathing.
Spluttering and hacking, he did. The breaths were irregular for a few moments, then finally settled down into a steady rhythm. After another minute, he opened his eyes and stared up squinting and trying to focus on her face.
“What happened?” His voice was a harsh croak.
