Delta Green - [24]

McKenna didn’t bother sight-seeing. He kept his eyes scanning the HUD and the instrument panel, watching for delicate imbalances that he could control with the throttles. Easing the nose up, he bled speed off by approaching stalling speed, but he didn’t want to raise the angle of attack so high that he cut into the airflow for the turbojets and stalled them out.

“Four-three-five knots,” Munoz reported. “We’re looking for about three-ten, right?”

“In that neighborhood, Tiger. Altitude?”

“On the radar altimeter, we’re showing two-five-five-zero.”

Munoz’s instrument readouts agreed with his own, which was reassuring.

The MakoShark kept lowering her tail, pancaking toward the earth at over four hundred miles per hour. The stall warning buzzer and panel light ignited once, and McKenna brought the nose down a trifle.

“Three miles, jefe.”

“Good a guess as any.”

“Hey, man! I say anythin’ about give-or-take a few feet?”

“Just checking.”

Mitchell’s numbers were just numbers. They didn’t feel right to a pilot who had learned to trust his instincts as well as his instruments. Old barnstormers never die.

“Outer marker,” Munoz reported, then told the tower the same thing.

“We’ve got visual on you,” the air controller called back.

Far ahead of Mitchell’s recommendation and two miles out, McKenna eased the left throttle into reverse thrust, beginning to counteract the rocket motor. He pulled the right throttle back to twenty per cent power, until the rudders felt balanced.

The MakoShark settled abruptly.

“Five hundred ground clearance,” Munoz said, his voice steady and firm.

McKenna nudged the nose down.

The airspeed picked up for a few seconds then began to fall off.

“Three hundred feet.”

The airspeed dropped to 320 knots. The controls felt iffy. The right wing dropped, and he brought it back up with minor pressure on the controller.

“Fifty feet, airspeed three-one-zero.”

The noise of the rocket motor all but drowned out the sound of the turbojets now. He didn’t hear the shriek of rubber when the main gear tires touched down.

McKenna had to use the brakes to bring the nose down, and it hit hard and bounced. He pulled reverse thrust into both engines, but at different rates, and the MakoShark slewed from side to side as he sought the right adjustments.

Halfway down the runway, with the MakoShark still moving too fast, the emergency vehicles roared onto the runway alongside him, but quickly fell behind.

He was standing on the brakes now, the MakoShark’s path straightening as she slowed.

Easing off the reverse thrust of the right engine to maintain his line.

Drifting to the right side of the runway.

And rolling off the concrete onto the hard-baked soil of Borneo.

And slithering to a stop.

Dust boiled the air around them.

The scream of the left turbojet countering the thrust of the rocket motor threatened to deafen him. He killed the starboard jet engine.

“Come on, people,” Munoz urged.

Several seconds later, red foam trucks and blue pickups came sliding up beside them, spilling firemen and mechanics dressed in silver heat-resistant suits.

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

Vitaly Sheremetevo looked up from his desk when he heard the tap on the door frame.

Corporal Petrovsky, his secretary, said, “Colonel Volontov has arrived, General.”

“Send him in, Corporal.”

Sheremetevo took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes as Volontov entered the office and came to attention.

“At ease, Pyotr Mikhailovich. Please have a chair.”

Colonel Pyotr Mikhailovich Volontov was almost 180 centimeters tall, slim, blond, and blue-eyed. Hard angles in the planes of his face reflected the overhead fluorescent lights. He was an intelligent man, and he did not often concede to impetuous authority. He was based in St. Petersburg (once Leningrad) and commanded the 5th Interceptor Wing, comprised of Mikoyan MiG-29s and the two Mako aerospace craft. Sheremetevo had adopted the man early in his career and protected him occasionally when he had balked at ridiculous orders and had come close to insubordination.

“I came as soon as I could, General”

“I appreciate that,” Sheremetevo said. He considered taking a walk along the parade ground for this conversation, but reminded himself that his office had been swept for eavesdropping devices that morning. Electronic eavesdropping had been a constant under the old Soviet regime, but he had yet to discover similar tactics used by the Commonwealth members. The jockeying for power among republic presidents and politicians remained the focus of the political arena for the time being. The military chiefs were currently more concerned with walking the tightropes strung between the republics — and keeping the payrolls coming in — than with risking their own power bases within the air force and army.

He told Volontov about Colonel Pearson’s request.

“She wishes to have the names of the men who have trained in the Mako?”

“Yes.”

“For what purpose, General?”

“That was not revealed to me, and I have not bothered guessing at it. Our last report to the United Nations stated that the Makos were being utilized solely for support of the Soyuz Fifty space station, and that we retain one craft on the ground until the other has returned from space. Is that not so, Colonel?”