The Death Strain

V

Rita and I jammed into one of the Vigilante's two seats, our pilot in the other. They'd come up with a pair of jeans and a zippered jacket that fit Rita. It would have been cozy except for the bulk of our chute packs made it uncomfortable. The two J79 turbojets had the plane up to near its 1400 mph speed in not much more than a long minute. In a little over an hour we were winging over Sosura on the Korean coast and then, at the tip of the land where the three countries came together, we saw the village of Changkufeng inside the Manchurian border. Just beyond it lay the Russian border and the village of Podgornaya. We flew a tight circle around Changkufeng and then across thatched-roof-and-clay farmhouses and hilly land dotted with scrub brush and stunted trees. I saw no sign of a field large enough to land a jet.

As we flew along the narrow pointed finger of land where the three countries touched at the tip, moving into Manchurian territory, the pilot dipped low over the fields and houses. I saw his arm point down and he banked. Below, outside a clay-walled house, a figure waved and I recognized the portly shape of Chung Li. The Red Chinese espionage chief was holding a rifle in one hand and waving with it. He had reached here first, as Hawk suspected he might. As the pilot sent the Vigilante A5-A up in a steep climb I wondered what Chung Li had found.

When we got enough altitude, the pilot pressed the ejector button and I felt myself flung out and upward, hurtling through the sky to stop suddenly as the chute billowed open. I caught a glimpse of Rita's chute, a round shape against the sky, mushrooming up behind me and then I was drifting down, guiding myself as best I could by pulling on the chute lines. I hit the ground a few hundred yards from the farmhouse, unsnapped my chute and ran over to where Rita was struggling with hers. I had just unsnapped her chute when I heard the roar of the MIG-19s coming in, three of them, out of the north. They wheeled and banked and shot up for altitude. That would be Ostrov, coming in from Yakutsk.

With Rita beside me, I started for the farmhouse. Chung Li had gone back inside, and as I entered my eyes swept the room in a glance, passed the two uniformed Chinese on the floor to the narrow bed where Carlsbad lay, a deep, red-stained hole creasing his temple. I heard Rita gasp beside me and she pushed past and ran to the bed. The room itself, simple clay walls with a wooden roof, branched off to two other rooms I could only glimpse. I nodded toward Carlsbad.

"Is he dead?" I asked.

Chung Li shook his head slowly. "Not yet anyway. But a bullet passed through his temple. He's in a coma. There was a battle, as you can see. We found the house and were attacked."

He gestured to the two dead soldiers on the floor, one with a field transmitter beside him. "My two men were killed," he said. "I fought back from the adjoining room. When a bullet struck Carlsbad, the others fled."

"The others? You mean the huge Japanese and the jet pilot?" I questioned.

Chung Li nodded. "And two other men," he said. "In a Land-rover. The jet must have been hidden a few miles inland at one of the larger meadows. But our immediate problems are over at least"

I saw something in Chung Li's eyes that I couldn't read. But it had triumph in it, a Cheshire cat feel. I didn't like it but I put it down as satisfaction at having gotten to Carlsbad first.

"How do you mean, our immediate problems are over?" I asked slowly. The Chinese espionage chief gestured to the inert form of the bacteriologist. "He is finished," he said. "I've seen men with that kind of wound live for months, paralyzed and in a coma as he is now. Whatever his plan, it's ended. All we need now is to have a platoon make an inch-by-inch search of the area to recover the X–V77."

I watched Chung Li lean back against the rough clay wall, very much at ease, bland satisfaction on his face. That wasn't the way I was feeling, and I turned as Ostrov and three men burst in through the open doorway. The Russian chief's eyes took in the situation at a glance and focused their ice-blue hardness on Chung Li. The Chinese again told him what had happened, and when he was finished I saw Ostrov's tensed face lose a little of its grimness.

"I agree with the general," he said. "Carlsbad's men can run but they'll be found. Meanwhile, the greatest danger is over. Carlsbad is in no condition to carry out whatever he planned or even to direct others in carrying it out."

"I can't call it over until the X–V77 is found and in our hands," I said. "What if that big Japanese knows where it is and tries to come back for it?"

"Without their brains, their leader, they will do nothing. Except hide in terror." Chung Li smiled at me.

"I agree again," Ostrov said gruffly. "The jackals run. That is always the way." I didn't answer, but I was thinking of those people back in the old temple in the Kuriles. They were all dedicated zealots in their own way and Carlsbad's missing helpers were part of that. Chung Li smiled at me again, a deprecating, condescending smile.

"Your concern is understandable, seeing as the entire problem was caused by your government's stockpiling of inhuman methods of warfare," he said. "But a careful search of the area is certain to uncover the virus."

I felt Rita move to my side and I glanced from the Chinese espionage chief to the Russian and back again. Chung Li's position was logical enough. With Carlsbad captive, nearly dead, and the others fleeing, it seemed the primary danger was over. Carlsbad was certainly in no state to carry out anything further. So why was I so damned uneasy? Ostrov's gruff, unfriendly voice gave words to something else in the back of all our minds.

"There is no need for me to stay any longer," he said. "My men and I will cross the border into Kraskino. It is safe to say that this period of cooperation is at an end. We shall not meet again under these circumstances, gentlemen."

I knew he was damned right about that but I was still thinking about the missing bacteria strain. I never liked things unfinished. Loose ends caused trouble.

"I want to get Dr. Carlsbad to America and have our doctors work on him," I said. "He's still alive. Maybe he can be brought around enough to tell us where the X–V77 is hidden."

"It is pointless," Chung Li said through the mask of his bland smile. "My men will find it, given time for a thorough search, I assure you."

I looked at Ostrov and waited for him to offer to help me get Carlsbad the short distance to Kraskino across the border. He merely shrugged, saluted smartly and turned on his heel. "It is over," he flung back. "I have important things to get back to." He stalked out with his three aides. I followed his broad back with my eyes, but he kept going until he was out of my sight. Cooperation was shattering so fast, I could hear the pieces falling.

I turned to Chung Li whose quick little eyes were watching me narrowly. Gesturing to the radio transmitter beside one of his slain soldiers, I said, "I should like to contact my people." Chung Li hesitated for a brief moment and then smiled again.

"Of course. I wish to speak to your Hawk myself." He disentangled the straps of the transmitter from the dead man's shoulders and handed the set to me. I called the carrier, using the agreed-upon code name. When I heard them answer, I asked for a relay hook-up to Hawk in Washington and told my boss what had happened. When Chung Li gestured, I turned the set over to him. He spelled out his thinking persuasively, and it almost convinced me as I listened to him. Almost. But I still had that gnawing inside me. Chung Li handed the set back to me, and I heard Hawk's faint voice.

"I'll take this up with the others who were at the meeting," he said. "But I'm afraid they'll see it Chung Li's way, too. And frankly, Nick, I can't see where his analysis is wrong. Without the brains, without Carlsbad, the others will just keep running."

I couldn't say what I was thinking with the Red Chinese chief standing within arm's length of me but, as I'd learned long ago, even silences spoke to Hawk.

"I know what's bothering you," I heard him say. "You don't trust the sonofabitch, to phrase it in your inimitable way."

"I guess that's about it," I admitted.

"I don't trust him any more than you do," Hawk said. "But look at it this way. If, as is in the back of your mind, Carlsbad's friends left with the X–V77, Chung Li would be anxious as all hell to get it back. It'd mean the same kind of big trouble for him as it originally meant. The only reason he cooperated at all was because he feared Carlsbad might strike at his boss. I can't see Chung Li being casual about this if he wasn't sure that the danger was past."

"I still want to bring Carlsbad back," I said. "I'd feel a lot better if he could be made to talk."

"By all means bring him back," Hawk agreed. "Let's let the medics have a crack at him."

I looked at Chung Li as I put down the set. "I'm to bring Dr. Carlsbad back with me." His fixed smile stayed in place. Only the glitter of his eyes brightened. "May I assume your cooperation in this?" I asked. I knew that under any other circumstances he'd have told me to go to hell. Or more likely, he'd have had me killed. But the World Leadership Conference was still waiting in the wings with his boss taking part. He didn't want to risk a wrong move at this time.

"Of course." He smiled, picking up the transmitter. "The nearest airport capable of handling a large plane is Yenki. I shall arrange to have a plane waiting there to fly you to Japan. I'll clear arrangements with Major Nutashi."

He spoke crisply and sharply into the set and the mask dropped away for a few seconds. I glimpsed the harsh, driving man I knew was under the bland exterior. Finally he turned to me.

"A car is coming for me," he said, the fixed smile in place again. "A medical lorry will also arrive for you and Carlsbad. All you need do is wait here. Of course, I believe all this completely unnecessary. The man will never recover and his plans are destroyed. Why all this undue concern over his life? It is foolish."

"Undue concern for human life is a hallmark of our culture, decadent as it may be," I said. Chung Li's smile remained but it took more effort. Rita had found a chair and had dragged it beside the cot. Chung Li made no move to help me as I pulled the two dead Chinese soldiers out of the house. In a little while a Chinese staff car came down the road. Four rifle-carrying Chinese Army regulars got out and Chung Li went to meet them.

"Your plane will be waiting at Yenki airport, Carter," he said. 'This period of cooperation between our forces has been most enjoyable. Indeed, much more so than I had expected."

What the hell did that mean, I asked myself as Chung Li started to get into the car. He sounded like he'd won some sort of victory and that bothered me. Maybe he figured that beating me to Carlsbad was a prize of sorts. Or maybe he felt good about having destroyed the scientist's plans, whatever they might have been. All my logical explanations didn't do a damn thing for the way I felt. He closed the car door and they drove off. He never looked back.

Rita came outside, and we sat on a crumbled wall and waited.

"Do you think he'll live?" she asked me. "Or don't you really care beyond getting your questions answered?"

"I won't lie to you," I said. "I don't really care that much. I just want the doctors to bring him around enough to talk."

An hour passed, then another and I was beginning to grow more edgy. I walked up and down, my eyes riveted on the curving road that stretched away from the abandoned farmhouse. Rita came to me and pulled me down on the grass beside her and let her warmth, the soft cushions of her breasts, try to relax me. She wasn't doing at all badly when I heard the sound of an engine and saw the dust cloud advancing along the road. We got up and watched the canvas-topped lorry come near and halt before the farmhouse. A Chinese noncom and a soldier got out. The noncom spoke halting English and produced a stretcher from the rear of the van.

I went with them inside as they moved the comatose Carlsbad from the cot onto the stretcher and carried him to a bed bolted to the floor of the lorry. I glimpsed a small cabinet at the front end of the lorry with bandages and bottles — it obviously was used as a field ambulance of some kind. The soldier took up a position on a bench opposite the bed after strapping Carlsbad down. Rita was standing at the rear of the truck, watching, anxiety in her eyes.

"You ride up front," I said to her. "I'm staying back here with him."

"You don't think that they would…" she began, but I cut her off.

"I don't think anything. I don't take chances I don't have to, either."

Darkness was starting to fall as we started off. The road was winding, rutted and muddy. I saw why the soldier had strapped Carlsbad onto the bed. We kept nudging a small river that paralleled us, disappearing for a few moments only to return again. I stuck my head out the rear of the vehicle to see that a full moon lighted the night. The river was a placid dark ribbon glittering in the moonlight and there were trees and hills at the other side of the road.

I checked Carlsbad every little while. His breathing was regular and his heartbeat steady. Grimly I watched his unchanging face and thought of servicemen I'd seen with similar injuries of the brain. They lasted for months and months, alive but dead. I sat back and closed my eyes as the lorry bounced along. We had gone perhaps fifty miles, maybe sixty, when the night exploded, lighting up with a pink glow as the flare burst directly overhead. The lorry braked to a shuddering halt as a barrage of rifle fire followed the burst of the flare. I glanced at the soldier. His alarm was genuine as he grabbed his rifle and leaped from the back of the truck.

I saw him hit the ground, start to turn and then twist in a grotesque arabesque as three shots hit him. I grabbed the tailboard and swung down, staying close to the lorry, dropping under the rear overhang. The dead soldier's rifle was near enough to reach and I pulled it to me. I looked across the ground underneath the chassis of the truck and saw Rita with the Chinese noncom beside her.

"Mountain bandits," he said, and I gazed out at the rolling hills to see shadowy forms moving in short bursts from bush to bush. The noncom moved out around the front of the truck, fired twice at the figures heading toward us and tried to run for a large bush. He didn't make it.

A flare arched up from behind a bush off to the left. We'd never have a chance as long as they could keep the scene brightly lighted. I counted eight, perhaps ten, figures moving forward.

"Stay under the truck," I said to Rita as I crawled backwards and around the lorry, staying on my belly. The brush was only a few yards away and I crawled into it. Once inside it, I moved upwards at a crouch. I paused to see three of the figures detach themselves and head after me. I shifted direction and stayed quiet as they moved into the bushes, heading for the river, figuring that's where I'd fled. But I continued crawling upwards toward the bastard behind the bush with the flare gun. As I got near enough I saw him, waiting, watching, starting to load another flare into his gun. Hugo dropped into my palm. I took aim, threw and saw the tempered steel of the stiletto go right through his ribs up to the hilt. He fell forward, and I broke for the bush, retrieved Hugo and stuck the flare gun into my belt.

I had the rifle, Wilhelmina and the flare gun. It was as good a spot for a surprise flank attack as I could hope to find. I started with the rifle, firing first and taking them by surprise as they advanced toward the lorry. I cut down four, five, six of them. The others took cover and turned their fire on me. Shots zinged into the bush, one cutting a crease across my shoulder. The three who had taken off toward the river had come back at the first round of shots. They were running from below and to the right of me, about to get a cross fire going with me in the middle.

I moved onto my back, lying flat on the ground, pointed the rifle to the left and fired with my left hand, not trying to aim, just keeping some lead in the air. As the three others reached me and raised their rifles, I fired Wilhelmina from a prone position. The big Luger barked three times and the three figures fell.

The pink glow from the flares had completely gone, and only the moonlight played over the dark shadows of the hills. They had been pretty well decimated but there were still some left. I had to find out how many. I took the flare gun and lit the night once again with a pink, unreal glow. I saw two figures midway up the hill and then picked out a third man, crouched in the clear against the side of the hill, talking rapidly into a field radio.

I frowned. Hill bandits with a field radio? Banditry in the Chinese back country had apparently become very modern. I aimed carefully and the man's body seemed to leap into the air as he half-turned and fell back onto the ground. I swung Wilhelmina to the left and poured a series of shots into a bush. A figure rose and pitched forward to lay across the small bush. Two more figures broke cover and headed back into the hills. It was a mistake for one of them. The other one made it as the flare died out.

I lay quietly and waited. This was no time for foolish moves. To play extra safe, I edged back to where one of the bandits lay face down. Propping him up in front of me, I got up and walked from the bushes. There were no shots, I kept the Chinese in front of me for a few more feet and then dropped the lifeless body. I called to Rita and saw her in the moonlight as she emerged from beneath the lorry.

"What are you looking for?" she asked when she saw me going through the clothes of the dead Chinese.

"I don't know," I said. "Bandits with flare guns I can understand. A flare gun could be obtained easily enough. A field radio is something else."

Inside the man's clothes I found a small billfold and inside the billfold an identification card.

"Major Su Han Kow of the Chinese Army," I read aloud to Rita. "I'll bet the rest are Chinese Army too, tricked out to look like bandits."

"But why?" Rita asked. "Why attack the lorry?"

"I don't know why," I answered. "But I do know he was radioing somebody for help and we'd better get the hell out of here."

"Didn't Chung Li guarantee our safety to Yenki?" Rita asked. "Maybe they really are bandits. Maybe they attacked a small group or a staff car and stole that identification card and the field radio."

"Maybe," I had to admit. But bandits don't usually go around attacking military units. Most of them wouldn't even know how to work a field radio. I had no answers once again, only suspicions. We'd reached the lorry and I rummaged around in the dash compartment. I found what I'd hoped was there, a map of the area. The little river with which we'd been playing tag wound its way right into Yenki.

"That settles it," I said. "We leave the truck and go by river." Carlsbad's stretcher, built of heavy canvas with a wood frame made a compact little raft of its own and Rita and I carried it into the water. The river was warm and not terribly deep near shore. Guiding the stretcher with Carlsbad on it, we stayed near land, walking most of the time, swimming some. As the river moved close along the road for almost a mile we swam out to midstream, holding each side of the stretcher and guiding our patient along the watery path.

I saw army trucks and motorcycle troops moving along the road. And then I saw a band of men, roughly dressed as the hill bandits had been. But they moved like soldiers with snap and precision. I was glad we hadn't tried to go on in the lorry.

We swam toward the shore again as the river left the roadside and rested for a while. Then we moved on till the sky began to lighten. I found a large clump of trees overhanging the river and screened from the road. We pulled Carlsbad and the stretcher to one of the low-hanging trees. He was breathing steadily but was otherwise unchanged. Rita and I lay down on the soft marsh grass under the,thick leaves of the tree as the sun came up.

"We'll stay here till dark and then move on" I said. "I think well make Yenki before morning."

"I'm going to let my clothes dry out, even if they get wet again," Rita said and I watched as she stripped and put her things on the grass. Her body was full-breasted, with long graceful legs and softly rounded hips. She lay back against the green of the grass and as she looked at me her blue eyes darkened.

"Come here beside me" she said. I put my clothes on the grass beside her and lay down with her. She moved into my arms, pressing her body against mine. She fell asleep that way almost instantly. I lay awake a while longer and tried to reconstruct what had taken place.

The attack on the lorry had been deliberate and planned. I had to admit that Rita's explanation was a possibility. They could have been bandits with stolen identity cards and stolen equipment. But they also could have been a Chinese Army Intelligence unit operating in disguise. I smelled Chung Li's fine oriental hand in it someplace. I looked down at the lovely girl in my arms, breathing softly against my chest, and closed my eyes. The sun filtering through the thick leaves and the heat became a lulling blanket. I fell asleep thinking what a helluva strange world this was to be naked with a gorgeous girl in your arms, under a tree in Manchuria, with somebody out to kill you.

I slept, more tired than I'd realized, and woke only when I felt Rita stir and move from my side. I looked up to see her at the river's edge, washing her face in the clear, warm water, looking like something out of a seventeenth century painting. It was late afternoon and I heard the sounds of crickets. We could have been lolling around a country river in Ohio. I sat up on one elbow and Rita turned at the sound. She got up and walked toward me and as I watched her approach I felt desire stirring, rising. Her eyes looked down at me, moving up and down my body, lingering, and suddenly she dropped to her knees. Her hands pressed into my flesh and she buried her face against my abdomen.

She looked up at me for a moment, then lowered her head once again. Her lips nibbled across my body, inflaming, arousing, and she seemed moved by an inner urgency. She toyed and caressed me and as she did her own excitement grew until she was quivering, her lovely body moist and wanting. I pulled her roughly up but she fought away from me to continue what was giving her so much pleasure. Suddenly she flung herself atop me, her hips heaving and thrusting and I turned over with her as she buried her head against my shoulder, stifling the cries that were rising from her.

I moved in her slowly, then faster, feeling the surges of her wild ecstasy that my every motion brought. Then she rose up and her teeth bit into my flesh as she cried out with abandon. I held her there, flesh into flesh. Life's physical symbol of being, welded into moments of passion. Finally she fell back onto the grass and her eyes found mine.

We lay there together a long time, watching darkness come over the land like a slowly descending curtain. Then we rolled our clothes up in a tight pack together and put them atop Carlsbad on the stretcher. Rita's eyes were haunted with sadness every time she looked at him. It was harder for her than for me. All she had was the pain and sorrow for him. I was comforted by my angry determination.

When the night finally came, we slipped into the river again and made our way forward. The trip was free of problems until we reached Yenki. I saw the runway lights of the airfield outside the village. The river bordered one side of the field, and it was now less than an hour before dawn. The field itself was unguarded, I saw, as we pulled the stretcher up onto the bank and got into our clothes.

"Do you think the plane is still here?" Rita asked. "When we didn't arrive yesterday it might have left."

I grinned at her. "Maybe it was never here at all. Anyway, I'm not taking a chance on another "accident." You stay here. I'm going to find us an airplane."

The hangars were directly in front of me, lined up along the rear of the field. I ran, crouched over, casting an eye at the first streaks of gray in the sky, to the nearest of the hangars. A side door was open and I slipped through. Three small planes were there. They'd be useless to us; I went to the second hangar. It was a repair shop with parts and pieces of planes scattered around.

The third hangar proved more fruitful. It held an old Russian TU-2 light bomber, piston-engined, a vintage plane. But it was plenty big enough and had the range we needed to make Japan, I climbed into the cockpit for a fast look. Everything seemed to be in order, but I couldn't be sure till I turned her on and I couldn't do that till the last moment.

I went back for Rita and Carlsbad, scouting the edge of the hangars, flattening myself against a wall as a small fuel truck chugged past with two Chinese in khaki jump suits. After it passed, I continued hugging the deep shadows at the walls of the hangars. It was definitely getting light, and fast. I ran the short distance to the edge of the field and Rita rose to meet me. She started to pick up one end of the stretcher when I stopped her.

"Leave it," I said. "It'll slow us down too much." I picked up Carlsbad's limp form and slung him over my shoulder. It wasn't exactly prescribed treatment for patients with brain injury and in a coma but it was the best I could do. With Rita beside me, Wilhelmina in one hand and carrying Carlsbad, I started back for the hangar, once again skirting along the back edges of the big walls.

We made it to hangar three and the old TU-2, all right. I'd just carried Carlsbad into the stripped-down cabin and put him on the floor when I heard the hangar door being opened. Rita was still outside, at the bottom of the movable steps I'd placed alongside the plane. Through the nose window I saw three Chinese mechanics in white coveralls as the main garage door went up. They saw Rita at the same time and went for her. She tried to turn and run, slipped on a circle of grease and went skidding to the concrete floor. The three Chinese had her at once and were yanking her to her feet. I didn't want noise, not yet, anyway. I saw a heavy wrench on the floor of the pilot's cabin, grabbed it and jumped.

I landed atop one of the Chinese, and he went down. As he did, I brought the wrench around in a short arc and clipped the other one alongside, feeling the weight and force of the blow crack hard into his skull. He crumpled where he stood. I was on the floor, atop the first one who was still a little dazed, when the third man leaped at me. I got a knee up and helped him over my head. He landed on his back, started to roll over and got only halfway across when Hugo flashed in my palm and struck deeply into his chest.

But the last one, the one I'd landed on, had come around at least enough to run for it I saw Rita stick out a foot and he went flying. "Nice going," I said as I threw Hugo hard and fast The blade skewered him through the back of the neck and Rita grimaced and turned away. I was retrieving the stiletto when two more men came around the corner of the hangar, stopped short for a second, and then turned and ran. They were off and across the airfield, shouting, and I swore under my breath.

"Get into the plane," I yelled at the girl, and she scrambled. At the far end of the hangar, in one corner, I saw perhaps ten drums of fuel. I drew Wilhelmina. I needed some diversion, anything that would create excitement and cause confusion so all their attention wouldn't be concentrated on us. We were far enough from the drums so that we wouldn't go up with them, not right away, at least.

I climbed into the plane, hung out the door for a second and emptied Wilhelmina into the fuel drums. I slammed the door shut as they went up with a roar of flame and the old plane shook. As I sat behind the wheel and switched on the engines, I had the frightening thought that if the plane was in for engine repairs, the game was over. It grew more frightening as I pressed the starter switch again and nothing happened.

I pressed a third time and she caught, both engines coughing into a whirring roar. There was no time to wait for them to warm up. I sent the TU-2 moving out of the hangar as the heat of the flames started to peel the paint. A runway loomed directly ahead of me and I went for it. I saw men racing from the main building. Some of those running toward the hangar thought I was merely moving the plane to safety and directed their energies to the fire. Then I saw others move at top speed from the main building carrying rifles. I gunned the old plane, felt her creak and respond, wheels gathering speed on the concrete. The guards fell to their knees and shot. I heard two bullets strike the cabin and whip through.

"Stay low," I yelled back to Rita. I held the old TU-2 steady and lifted up with her as she left the ground. I didn't dare try a fast turn with the engines not even warmed up. I heard a half-dozen more shots slam into the underside of the plane, and then I tried a slow bank. Below, I saw the guards racing back into the main building of the field and I knew they'd be on the radio in seconds. I headed out to sea at once and Rita appeared in the pilot's cabin.

"How's your uncle?" I asked.

"No change," she said. "But we made it."

"Don't count chickens," I said gruffly. "Not yet." I switched on the radio and called the carrier.

"Operation DS calling Carrier Yorkville," I said into the mouthpiece. "Come in Yorkville. This is N3 calling. Come in Yorkville. Over."

Bless their Navy hearts, they picked me up at once, and I heard a voice with a Dixie accent in it.

"We hear you, N3," it said. "What do you want?"

"I'm flying a TU-2 with Chinese Air Force markings, heading south by southeast over the Sea of Japan. I may have unwelcome company. Need escort cover immediately. Repeat, immediately. Do you read me? Over."

"We read you," the voice answered. "One squadron Phantom II jets taking off. Stay on your course. We'll pick you up. Over and out."

"Roger," I said and flipped the transmitter. The morning sun was streaking the sky with red smears and I had the old TU-2 up to her top speed of three hundred and forty-five. She was groaning and shaking and I let her down a little.

"Keep looking out the windows," I said to Rita. "Yell if you see any other airplanes."

"You think they'll send planes after us?" Rita asked. "You still think Chung Li is behind what's happened?"

"I can't shake how I feel," I answered. "I'm sure our grabbing this old bird hasn't filtered up to Chung Li yet. Right now it's only a plane theft."

If Rita had another question, it was cut off by the starboard engine as it coughed once, then twice and died. I worked the choke button frantically and let out my breath as the engine roared back to life, sputtered and then caught again. My fingers were stiff and cramped and I stretched them. Suddenly I heard the roar of engines and Rita was pointing up into the sky. I gazed out the left window and saw them come out of the sun, Phantom IIs, and they wheeled and circled overhead in figure eights. They were a reassuring and comforting sight.

"Why the acrobatics?" Rita asked, and I smiled wryly.

"We go three-fifty an hour, maybe," I said. "They do over fifteen hundred. They're doing the figure eights so they can stay with us."

And they did till we sighted the carrier. If the Chinese Reds had sent planes after us, they only came close enough to take a look and disappear. I set the old TU-2 down on the carrier deck as smoothly as possible which wasn't smooth at all.