Текст книги "End Game"
Автор книги: Dale Brown
Жанр:
Боевики
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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
Tracers danced in front of his windscreen. Then he heard the sick thump-thump-thump of slugs slapping into his right wing.
Dog struggled to hold the plane steady. Without the computer to help trim the aircraft, the Megafortress was a stub-born beast. Once she had her momentum going in a certain direction, she insisted on following through.
Which was just as well in this case.
END GAME
415
More tracers. Then the J-13 zoomed ahead and banked in front of him.
The ship was starting to get bigger. He’d have a fat target now. He could see the antiaircraft fire. It had been fired too early, too desperately.
The ship moved to his right, turning.
To get away?
He pushed on the stick. He was close enough. They were dead.
For a brief, flickering moment Colonel Tecumseh “Dog”
Bastian thought of his daughter Breanna. He was proud of her, the woman she’d become. His one regret in life was that he’d been too busy to pay much attention to her growing up. He’d done his best to make it up now, but there were shortcomings you never really could excuse.
He had them now. He leaned toward the windscreen.
“They’re standing down!” yelled Jed Barclay in his headset. “They’ve pulled the Tai-shan aircraft away from the launchers. They’re turning out of the wind! Colonel—don’t attack them! Don’t attack them!”
Dog pulled back, clearing the carrier deck by three feet.
Aboard the Levitow ,
over the Arabian Sea
0713
THE SIX EJECTION SEATS FIRED ALMOST SIMULTANEOUSLY. THE
long explosion morphed into a howling wind.
Breanna helped her husband cinch the substitute helmet a few feet from the gaping holes in the floor of the Flighthawk deck.
“You ready?” she shouted in his face.
“Hell, no, but let’s do it anyway,” said Zen. He pulled her close, squeezing as tight as he could.
The plane rocked violently.
“We have to go out!” she yelled.
416
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“Why were you mad at me?”
“Mad?”
“You were mad at me. I didn’t pick it up at first, but then I figured it out.”
“It wasn’t important if I was.”
“Yes.” He held her tight, though she tried to pull away.
“I didn’t want you to give up.”
“Who gave up?”
“Your dream of walking.”
“You want me to walk?” he said.
“I want you to be happy. I want—I do want you to walk,”
she said. He could feel her tears on his cheek. “But I don’t want you to give up fighting. I want you to keep fighting. I don’t want you to give up for me.”
“I didn’t give up,” said Zen.
They looked at each other for an instant, a moment of time but an enternity in every other way.
“We have to go,” said Breanna.
“Well, let’s get the hell out of here.”
Breanna stayed next to Zen as he crawled close to the blown-off hatches in the Megafortress.
She’d jump with him, holding on for as long as possible.
If the slipstream slammed them against the jet, if it pushed them away to the water—they’d be together.
That was the way it should be. The only way.
“Here we go!” yelled Zen, and with one push they tumbled through the hatchway.
XI
Fates Unknown
NSC Situation Room,
Washington, D.C.
2120, 14 January 1998
(0720, 15 January, Karachi)
JED HAD STOOD ON THE THINLY CARPETED CEMENT FLOOR FOR
so long that his legs seemed to vibrate when he collapsed into the chair in front of the console.
“You look tired, young Jed,” said the President.
“A little.”
“You’ve done yeoman’s work.”
“We’re not done yet.”
“True,” said the President grimly.
The Indians, Pakistanis, and Chinese seemed to have tacitly accepted a cease-fire, certainly for the moment. All three navies were conducting rescue operations in the Arabian Sea. But the situation remained exceedingly chaotic.
Good portions of India and Pakistan, including both capi-tals, were without electricity and communications. It was anyone’s guess how long it would take to rebuild the systems damaged by the EEMWBs. Just as it was anyone’s guess whether tempers would eventually calm.
In the meantime, the U.S. had two aircraft down in the northern Arabian Sea and a third facing a several-thousand-mile trek without any electronics. The fate of the men and women who had bailed from the planes remained unknown.
The Abner Read, herself badly damaged by the attack from the Chinese, was directing the Sharkboat and the Werewolf in rescue operations to recover the downed flight crews.
420
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
Dreamland’s Whiplash Osprey would be in the area in two hours to help out.
“Coffee, Jed?” asked Peg Jordan, the NSA liaison.
“Coffee’d be great. Better get a pot. We’re going to be here awhile.”
About the Authors
DALE BROWN
is a former U.S. Air Force captain and the author of fifteen previous bestsellers. Brown lives in Nevada, where he can often be found in the skies, piloting his own plane.
Jim DeFelice’s recent techno-thrillers include Brother’s Keeper (2000) and Havana Strike (1997). Jim has also written more than a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction for young people. He lives with his wife and son in upstate New York and can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected].
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
RAVES FOR THE NOVELS OF
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
D A L E B R O W N
“A master at mixing technology and action, Brown puts readers right into the middle of the inferno.”
Larry Bond
“[His] richness of detail will appeal to the many readers taken with military weaponry, air combat, and the Byzantine secrets of military command.”
Chicago Tribune
“The novels of Dale Brown brim with violent action, detailed descriptions of sophisticated weaponry, and political intrigue … His ability to bring technical weaponry to life is amazing.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“A master at creating a sweeping epic and making it seem real.”
Clive Cussler
Also in the Dreamland Series
(with Jim DeFelice)
Dale Brown’s Dreamland
Dale Brown’s Dreamland: Nerve Center
Dale Brown’s Dreamland: Razor’s Edge
Dale Brown’s Dreamland: Strike Zone
Dale Brown’s Dreamland: Satan’s Tail
Titles by Dale Brown
Act of War • Plan of Attack
Air Battle Force • Wings of Fire
Warrior Class • Battle Born
The Tin Man • Fatal Terrain
Shadows of Steel • Storming Heaven
Chains of Command • Night of the Hawk Sky Masters • Hammerheads
Day of the Cheetah • Silver Tower
Flight of the Old Dog
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND: END GAME. Copyright ©
2006 by Air Battle Force, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader October 2006
ISBN 0-06-124704-9
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
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Document Outline
Cover Image
Title Page
Contents
Dreamland: Duty Roster
Dreamland: Weapons Systems
Prelude: Dreams
I Test Run
II Impossible!
III Be Boarded, or Be Sunk
IV Monkeys in the Middle
V Fires of Hell
VI Catastrophic Events
VII Coming to Their Senses
VIII Inevitability
IX End Game
X Tai-shan
XI Fates Unknown
About the Authors
Raves
Also in the Dreamland Series
Copyright Notice
About the Publisher
Table of Contents
Dreamland: Duty Roster
Dreamland: Weapons Systems
Prelude: Dreams
I Test Run
II Impossible!
III Be Boarded, or Be Sunk
IV Monkeys in the Middle
V Fires of Hell
VI Catastrophic Events
VII Coming to Their Senses
VIII Inevitability
IX End Game
X Tai-shan
XI Fates Unknown
About the Authors
Praise
Other Books by Dale Brown and Jim DeFelice
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prelude:
RAVES
