Deep Black

82

The computer flying Bird Two had done a better job than Malachi, managing to avoid all the missiles on its own. Malachi struggled to reorient himself as he took the stick from the machine, but he was rattled; he had trouble locating himself relative to the laser site.

Train’s first strike on his site had also been turned back. He still had both of his planes and was already lined up for a second try.

“Malachi, get down low where the radars won’t see you and make your attack from there,” said the flight leader.

“I lost Bird Four.”

“Improvise.”

He may have meant to use the remote aircraft’s cannon, but Malachi decided instead he would use the AMRAAMs, which were still loaded in the belly.

Then he decided on something better.

“I’m going to kamikaze the son of a bitch,” he told Whacker. “You can stay with Train.”

“Malachi, you’re being spiked!” warned Riddler.

He rolled the Bird downward, falling into a spin as he plunged from fifteen thousand feet. He recovered and then slid south at about five thousand feet, coming through to four thousand, to three thousand, his heart pounding like the piston of an old steam engine roaring down a Rocky Mountain grade. Riddler tried directing him away from the radar coverage, giving him a graphic on the threat screen that portrayed it as purple blossoms in a 3-D landscape. But he switched it off verbally; it was distracting and the stinking radars were all over the place.

And so were the flak guns. The screen lit up with a thousand water fountains, all spurting toward him. An array of ZSU-23 and larger ZSU-57 antiaircraft guns, radar and optically guided, sprayed lead into the sky before him. Mal-achi was running through a volcanic field, plunging past the gates of hell.

There was definitely a song in this.

The altimeter ladder at the left side of his screen had descended to one hundred feet, and the indicator was still rolling downward. Malachi’s entire body moved backward as he lifted his nose, trying to slip under the radars but not hit the earth. He had an open plain in front of him, strings of tracers and black strings — he was through the guns, past the worst of the antiair. Something grabbed at his right wing; he jerked the stick back, overcorrected, did the wrong thing, cursed, felt himself lose the plane.

“You son of a bitch, hold still,” he said.

The computer blared a warning, insisting that he was going to collide.

Then he had a blank screen in front of him.

“Shit,” said Malachi. He pushed back in the seat, exhausted, humiliated.

No one said anything for a good thirty seconds, maybe more.

“They’re down! They’re down!” shouted Riddler. “I have a visual from one of the satellites. You hit the mother square on.”

A picture appeared in the middle of Malachi’s main screen. In one corner was a building with what looked like a blotchy cloud right over it. It was the laser complex exploding.

“Splash Site One,” said Train as Malachi stared at the laser he had just hit. “Both sites are down. Both sites are down — kick-ass, boys. Mal, help me get Two to a good self-destruct; then let’s break out the beer.”