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The Legend of Banzai Maguire
By Susan Grant
Dorchester Publishing
Copyright © 2004
Susan GrantAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0-505-52542-9
Chapter One
Bree dropped her helmet bag by the front nose tire so she
could inspect the sleek, gunmetal gray F-16 that was hers for
the next few hours. To her, the fighter was breathtaking, like
a piece of modern art, all smooth lines and sharp
turns-beautiful in a deadly way, like a bird of prey.
She waved to the arriving crew chief, the airman who would
guide her through the engine start and taxi-out, and then
climbed up a ladder into the cockpit, high above the ground.
It wrapped around her snugly, that cockpit, as if the jet was
custom made for her.
Inside, she connected her G-suit to an air hose. Then, with an
assortment of clips and straps, she attached herself to a seat
that contained everything she needed for survival in the
unlikely event of ejection: more survival kits, a radio, a GPS
unit, a life raft, and, of course, her parachute. After her
seatbelt clicked closed, she donned her helmet, leaving the
mask loose for the moment.
With a flick of her finger, the powerful engine rumbled to
life. Then it was time to leave. Bree taxied out, Cam behind
her. She always looked over her wingman's aircraft, but she
stared at Cam's a little longer than usual as the feeling of
foreboding came over her. Cam was fine, she told herself.
Everything would be fine. It was aroutine sortie. Bree forced
her eyes to the runway ahead of her. The sky was turning from
gray to blue, clear and cloudless. You were born for this,
remember? Born to fly. Bree's spirits lifted with the rising
sun.
"Razor flight's ready," she told the control tower.
"Razor flight cleared for takeoff."
The tower controller's voice came through her helmet headset.
"Roger," she replied. "Razor flight cleared for takeoff."
"Two." Cam's response told her that she'd heard and understood
the tower's instructions. Clearance for their "flight" meant
clearance for them both. Cam would be rolling down the runway
within seconds of Bree's liftoff.
Bree pushed the throttle up. The engine didn't rumble to life;
it exploded-a multi-megaton kick in the pants. Acceleration
slammed her shoulder blades into the seat, and within seconds
she was above a hundred knots and heading for twice that. The
sheer force of the fighter never failed to awe her. All that
power, in her control.
At rotation speed, Bree wrapped a gloved hand around the
control stick of her F-16 and pulled back gently, sending the
jet skyward. A glance over her shoulder told her that Cam was
airborne, too.
Soon, Cam fell back to a tactical position a mile-and-a half
behind her. Together, they headed to the airspace high above
the DMZ between North Korea and South Korea. Bree leveled off
at twenty-thousand feet. Somewhere high above her jet a
modified 747 airliner bristling with radar and intelligence
personnel eavesdropped on her radio calls to Cam. Iris could
relay warnings to the fighters, speaking to them directly, all
while coordinating with the region's military commanders-and
Washington, if needed. The integrated battlefield.
So far, so good. Bree thought of the bad vibes she'd felt
before takeoff, and blamed them on too much sugar for
breakfast.
A burst of random radio static yanked Bree's mind back where
it belonged: in the here-and-now, where she didn't have the
luxury of letting her thoughts wander. She rolled up on a wing
and turned back to the shore. Here, the landscape was very
rugged and remote. The forest came almost to the beach, what
there was of one: a narrow and rocky strip of sand, decorated
she'd bet with mines and barbed wire instead of Pepsi bottles
and empty containers of Coppertone. Another burst of static
caught her attention as the coastline rolled under the belly
of her jet.
Cam shouted: "Razor-two, Radar, RAW, hits bearing
two-two-zero!"
Bree's pulse jumped with a surge of adrenaline. RAW was
shorthand for radar alert warning. Cam's threat warning system
had gone off. A radar site on the ground had turned on to take
a look, telling them that somewhere down there a North Korean
surface-to-air missile operator was tracking Cam as a cat
stalked a mouse. It might want to pounce ... or it may simply
want to play. You never knew. But you had to treat every blip
as a potential threat.
Bree answered quickly so Cam would know that her own jet
hadn't picked up anything. "Razor-one is negative." She hated
surprises like this. She'd read the intelligence briefing that
morning, and it had been clean. Then she remembered a recent
report on the North's shoulder-launched missiles. It was
impossible to keep track of those. They could be loaded in a
car and driven anywhere. Worse, an actual visual sighting of
an aircraft wasn't necessary, as it had been in the old days.
All anyone needed to complete the deal was a cooperative radar
operator to help find a target. Then everyone with a personal
missile launcher could fire away.
"Iris, what have you got for Razor flight?" The surveillance
plane would have heard Cam's radio call.
"Stand by. We're checking it out."
"Checking it out," she muttered to herself. They could afford
to sound that laid-back; they were sitting in a safer place
than her wingman. But Bree tried to be patient. The
intelligence gatherers were good, very good, and they'd saved
her butt plenty of times, but they weren't perfect. They
couldn't possibly keep track of every stray missile battery in
North Korea.
Bree's threat warning system light illuminated. A swell of
adrenaline froze her concentration into absolute focus. Her
voice was calmer than she felt. "Razor-one has RAW. Nine
o'clock."
"Two!"
She glanced from the warning light to her HUD, and then to the
sky. It had been only seconds since Cam had reported her
warning. Now someone was looking at Bree also. But radar alone
didn't pose a threat. Every fighter pilot knew it. The guys on
the ground could aim all they wanted, but unless they were
close enough, anything they lobbed over would fall short-and
Bree was going to take care of that right now.
She accelerated, climbing to a higher altitude, eager to put
distance between her and the unknown threat before it became
more than that. Cam followed, a half mile behind her. She'd
rather go south than farther north, and she hoped Cam realized
that, but the people on the ground checking them out were in
that direction, keeping them on the northern side of the
border. It almost smelled like a set-up. But what could the
North hope to gain by shooting aircraft engaged in operation
Keep The Peace? With tensions as high as they were, it didn't
make sense.
A loud alarm filled Bree's headset. She warned, using the
radio, "Missiles!"
"Talley ho!" Cam shouted back.
Bree looked over her shoulder, craning her neck. There!
Telltale white plumes of launched SAMs.
The ice in her veins surged like an arctic dam breaking.
"Counter, counter," Bree's threat warning system suggested in
a female voice. But Bree was already releasing chaff and
flying evasive maneuvers. Missiles came at you at supersonic
speed. Confusing the little buggers was the only way out.
"Counter, counter."
Bree gripped the control stick, wrenching it sideways, and
pulled. Her vision narrowed. The sudden onset of Gs was almost
too much for her suit and body to fight. She tightened her leg
and stomach muscles to squeeze the blood pooling in her lower
body back up to where she needed it most-in her head. Her
oxygen mask slid down her sweaty face. Harsh breaths roared in
her ears as she sucked air into her squashed lungs.
Radio chatter filled her headset. Bree realized belatedly that
Iris was transmitting something about confirmed reports of
SAMs in the air. Well, duh. Sorry, no time to chew the fat.
Gotta get rid of this missile on my ass.
The aerial battle exerted tremendous forces on her body,
alternating between the bone-crushing force of gravity and
negative Gs that propelled her insides upward and out. The
missile streaked past. Woo hoo! It had missed! Thank you, God.
But the missile passed her by only to lock on to Cam.
Bree's mood changed instantly. She was in a position to have a
good visual on both of them. "Razor-two-Missile at eight
o'clock, low!" But Cam wouldn't have a visual. The SAM was in
her blind spot: underneath and slightly behind. "Break right,"
Bree directed. "Break right!"
Cam flipped over on her right wingtip. The missile followed.
On Bree's HUD, Cam's jet was one of many shapes, whirling in a
dizzying video-game battle. With her naked eye, she saw two
birds of prey, one guided by mindless, mechanical technology,
the other by human hands.
The missile looked as if it would miss, fooled by
countermeasures and some amazing evasive flying. But then it
came around, its plume of white vapor sweeping in a graceful
arc. Bree stared in horror. "Razor-two, reverse left-reverse
left!" Sweat stung her eyes. "Missile in your six, closing
fast." Come on, Cam, come on.
The SAM was a half-mile behind. And then a quarter-mile. Dread
tightened her throat. "Harder left!"
Bree jerked, startled as smoke and debris made sudden daytime
fireworks. Cam!
Ah, God. There couldn't be a worse thing to witness than
watching your best friend take a direct hit.
In the seconds that followed, Bree searched the smoky sky,
fighting the emotion that if let loose would shatter her
concentration. Then she saw it, an open parachute, and it was
the most beautiful sight in the world. Even better was the
glimpse of Cam's long legs dangling beneath the silk. Her
wingman plunged down toward hills bordered by a U-shaped
swatch of darker trees, a crescent of green in a vast sea of
grey-blue conifers. At the speed of light, Bree committed the
sight to memory.
A warning alarm trilled in her headset. She wrenched her
attention back inside. Lights in the cockpit flashed at her. A
stoic computer-generated voice urged: "Counter, counter."
The other missile was locked on her!
Cam's ejection had sidetracked Bree-for only a few dozen
heartbeats. But that distracted fraction of a minute might
have been a fatal mistake. She gritted her teeth and hauled
back on the control stick to bank away from the threat.
Massive forces crammed her into her seat. Not enough. Need
more. After what she saw happen to Cam, she knew it'd take
every countermeasure, everything in her bag of tricks to
escape.
Bree shoved the stick the opposite way and forward. Her seat
belt and shoulder harnesses kept her bottom pressed firmly on
the seat cushion, but negative Gs thrust her insides upward,
as if she'd just crested the highest hill on the world's
biggest rollercoaster. But her tactics weren't working. She'd
have to reverse course, fly into the missile, and then hope
her angle and speed would be enough to throw it off her tail.
Her threat warning alarm blared. She flew wildly. Ground
became sky and the sky ground. Then, a painfully intense flash
of light half blinded her. For one infinitesimal slice of a
tick of the clock, Bree thought that the missile had missed,
and that she was watching its flamboyant suicidal finale from
the front row. But when something unimaginably powerful
slammed her jet from underneath and threw her forward into her
shoulder harnesses, she knew better.
The second missile had found its target.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Legend of Banzai Maguire
by Susan Grant
Copyright © 2004 by Susan Grant.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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