Delta Green - страница 11

“Radars were shut down.”

“No one heard the takeoff?”

“The ship was towed about a third of the way down the runway. We found a tractor in the drainage ditch off the runway. If anyone heard the start-up or the takeoff, it was subconsciously.”

“What was the flight configuration?” Pearson asked.

“Shit. She had four pylons rigged. They got a photo recon pod, an M230 Chain Gun pod, two Phoenix missiles, and four Wasp IIs.”

“My God!” Pearson said. “McKenna’s going to come unglued”

“Not exactly unglued,” Dimatta said, “but he’s not happy.”

“Payload?”

“We had two cargo modules of fuel pellets.”

“It took off heavy,” she said.

“Near the max. We had added it up to one-seven-eight-point-four.”

That was 178,400 pounds.

“That would take a pilot that knew what he was doing,” Pearson said.

“This son of a bitch knew what he was doing,” Dimatta agreed.

Which defined Pearson’s method of investigation. She knew what she was doing, too.

“Checklist comin’ up on D-3, jefe. That’s the tiny little TV-like thing on your left panel.”

“I know what the damned D-3 is, Tiger.”

“Lighten up, will you, Snake Eyes?”

“I don’t want to lighten up. Call it.”

“Roger that,” Munoz said.

McKenna glanced at the four-inch CRT to the left of the main display on the instrument panel. Normally, it was used as a rearview mirror, displaying true video or infrared views to the rear of the MakoShark since, due to the cockpit configuration, the pilot and WSO did not have adequate vision behind them. Munoz had switched the display to the scrolling checklist for landing.

Outside the cockpit, the mid-morning sun was absorbed by the matte green jungle canopy of Borneo. It looked hot, and it would be hot when they got on the ground. Off to his right, McKenna saw the serene blue of the Celebes Sea.

Ahead, nothing but green.

Munoz called off the systems checks, and McKenna eyeballed the switch positions and light indications and responded the way the checklist wanted him to respond.

“Air speed?”

“Four-two-five knots,” McKenna said. A scan of the HUD showed his altitude at nine hundred feet above the terrain.

The DME — Distance Measuring Equipment — told him he was seven miles from Merlin.

“Traffic, Tiger?”

“I show a southbound blip, our bearing one-five-seven, eight miles away. Probably an island-hopping DC-9. Nobody’s seen us, amigo.”

Six miles out, Munoz went on the air. “Merlin, Delta Blue.”

“Blue, we read you, but we don’t see you.”

“Six out. Requesting straight in.”

“Blue approved straight in on ought-one. No traffic. Wind is two knots out of the east. Barometric pressure of two-nine-point-one. Temperature nine-two and climbing.”

McKenna backed off the turbojet throttles and watched his speed decay to 380 knots. The landing speed of the MakoSharks when coming in heavy, as he was, was high at 248 knots, or 285 miles per hour.

“Flaps, Snake Eyes.”

“Twenty degrees.” McKenna reached for the lever below the throttle quadrant and lowered his flaps for more lift. Despite the heavy, humid air which provided more lift than, say, Peterson Air Base in Colorado Springs, the MakoShark was designed for ultra high speeds. At landing speed, she handled like a Mack truck on a hockey rink.

A rent in the jungle canopy suddenly appeared directly ahead.

“Got visual, Tiger.”

“Sumbitch was right where she’s supposed to be. Gear?”

McKenna thumbed the landing gear switch and watched the HUD for his three green LEDs.

“Gear down and locked,” he told the WSO when they blinked on.

“Do it like a feather.”

McKenna used his hand controller to bring the nose up a tad and watched the speed bleed down.

The jungle quit abruptly and the black asphalt of the single long runway appeared.

He retarded the throttles, and the MakoShark sagged downward, the main gear touching with a screech of rubber, then the nose gear settling onto the pavement.

Pulling the throttles inboard and back, he neutralized the turbine blades, then eased them into reverse thrust. The big craft slowed, but he didn’t use his brakes until he was three-quarters of the way down the two-mile strip, coming up on the hangar complex to the right of the runway.