Ben Bova - Able One

“I’m deadly serious, Mitch,” said Brad Scheib. He certainly looked serious, Watson thought. Absolutely grim.

Watson leaned back in his desk chair. His eye caught the tennis trophy that he and Scheib had won back at the Academy. It was Watson’s year to hold the silver-plated cup.

“Let me get this straight,” he said, jabbing a lean finger at his old friend’s image. “You want me to scramble a flight of F-16s out to North by-damn Korea?”

Nodding tightly, Scheib answered, “There’s a 747 out there in trouble. Over the Sea of Japan, near the coast. Your Falcons could mean the difference between life and death for the crew.”

“I’m supposed to do this on your authorization.”

“I’ve got a priority code from the National Security Advisor’s office.”

Trying to read Scheib’s taut expression, Watson realized, There’s more to this than he’s telling me.

“Why in the ever-loving blue-eyed world should I do this? It’s crazy!”

“You don’t want to know, Mitch.”

Watson puffed out a breath. “That bad, huh?”

With another nod, Scheib said, “Just get some fighters out to that plane. Scare the bandits off.”

“And to hell with the chain of command, huh?”

“I gave you the priority code. It’s my responsibility, Mitch. You’re just following orders.”

“Yeah,” said Watson, wondering if he wasn’t flushing his career down the toilet. “Sure.”

The MiG-27 was painted a dull brownish gray ,the same color as the hills up ahead, Colonel Christopher realized. Her 747 was still shaking badly, bouncing around as if it were caught inside a thunderhead.

“We’re gonna be crossing their coastline,” Major Kaufman said.

“Tell me about it, Obie.”

“You want to shoot that guy down?” Kaufman clearly didn’t like the idea.

“If we can, Obie. If we can.”

“And what does the other one do? He’s still on our tail, isn’t he?”

Christopher didn’t reply to him. Instead, she called down to Hartunian, “Can you lock on or not?”

“If you could keep the plane steadier we could,” came the engineer’s response.

“Maybe you ought to come up here and try flying this bird,” Christopher snapped.

“I wouldn’t be any—”

Suddenly the woman tech’s voice shrilled, “Lock! We’re locked on!”

“Zap the bastard!” Christopher snapped.

Nothing happened. The North Korean MiG flew several hundred yards in front of them just as before.

“What are you guys doing down there?” Christopher demanded.

“We hit him,” Hartunian said. “The instruments show we hit him.”

Christopher started to shake her head, but Kaufman took one hand off the control yoke and pointed a shaking finger at the MiG.

“Look!”

A thin trail of whitish smoke was streaming from a spot on the MiG’s fuselage halfway between the cockpit and the jet engine’s tailpipe.

“Is that all you can—”

Christopher clamped her mouth shut. The MiG’s fuselage was burning. A bright cherry-red circle of flame was growing, spreading. The plane’s aluminum skin was on fire.

“It’s burning!” Kaufman shouted.

“Took a few seconds to burn off the paint,” said Hartunian, almost apologetically.

Colonel Christopher watched as the burning circle spread across the MiG’s rear section. The plane yawed violently to the left and suddenly its clear plastic canopy popped off and the pilot ejected, his seat firing up and out while the MiG slid off on one wing and began to spiral toward the sea below. She leaned forward and craned her neck to watch the pilot separate from his seat. A heartbeat later his chute streamed out and billowed. She could see the man’s tiny figure hanging beneath the parachute’s canopy.

“We got him!” Kaufman exulted.

“Right turn, Obie,” Christopher commanded. “We’re heading for Misawa.”

The lumbering 747 turned slowly while the second MiG flew past them and began to circle the pilot descending into the water in his parachute.

“Let’s get our butts out of here,” Colonel Christopher said.

Kaufman muttered, “Before the whole gook air force comes after us.”

“Colonel, DPRK air command is calling again,” O’Banion reported.

Wishing she were flying a B-2 instead of this beat-up hulk of a transport plane, Christopher said, “Put him on.”

The man’s voice sounded more agitated. “American 747, one of our fighters has suffered a malfunction. Nevertheless you will continue to follow a heading of three hundred ten degrees. Another flight of our planes will escort you to a landing in the DPRK.”

Christopher thumbed her radio switch. “This is United States 747 ABL-1. We are leaving North Korean airspace and returning to Japan. Out.”

To O’Banion she said, “No more transmissions on their frequency, Captain. Let’s get away from here before they send out more fighters.”

Kaufman nodded. “Amen to that.”

Charley Ingersoll’s hands were completely numb. He couldn’t feel anything with them. When he tried to wipe the snow off his face it was like a pair of wooden boards scraping against his frozen nose.

With some surprise, he realized that the pain was gone. Numb. Freezing. At least it don’t hurt anymore, he realized. God never gives you a trial that’s too much for you. He watches over you all the time.

He wondered if God was keeping the wolves away. They must be out there. Wolves. They hunt in packs. Prob’ly go after that moose ‘stead of me, he told himself. God won’t let me get eaten by wolves.

Without warning, Charley’s legs collapsed beneath him. He simply folded up and fell facedown into the snow. No pain. He felt like he was floating. Going to sleep. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a tendril of fear, a vague memory of Martha and the kids.

God, don’t let them die! Charley begged silently. Take me if you gotta, but let Martha and the kids live.

He wanted to hear an answer, but only the biting, moaning wind came to his ears. And the distant baying of a wolf. Charley fought against falling asleep. You fall asleep and then you ireeze to death, he knew. But ultimately he had no more strength in him. He closed his eyes and drifted into the sweet oblivion of sleep.

But just before it all went dark, he thought he heard the snarl of a wolf. Several wolves. Very close to him. He knew he should be alarmed, but it was just too easy to go to sleep.

“So when’s he coming out?” Vickie asked, teen-aged impatience etched onto her face.

Sylvia frowned at her elder daughter. “He’s the President, Victoria. He has a lot of things to do. He’ll be out when—”

“Look!” Denise pointed. A portly woman was striding onto the stage. The audience began to applaud.

“That’s Senator Youmans,” Sylvia told her daughters, feeling relieved that something was happening at last. The chairs were totally uncomfortable.

Senator Youmans basked in the applause for a few moments, then waved both her chubby arms to still the audience.

“Good evening, and welcome to San Francisco, the City by the Bay. This is a momentous occasion for us all…”

“Oh, for the love of Pete,” Vickie moaned. “She’s going to give the same speech she gave at the big rally last week, back home.”

The President listened intently to his chief of staff’s cell phone. Foster had laid it on the table between them and clicked on its speaker function.

“Apparently they shot down one of the North Korean interceptors,” General Higgins was saying. In the phone’s minuscule display screen the general’s face looked red and bloated, clownish.