"Maloney, Mack - Wingman 02 - The Circle War UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maloney Mack)

"Whatever it was," Wa said. "It shook up the civilians pretty bad. Some of them left town; others are chipping in to buy an anti-aircraft battery, just in case."

A murmur rose up and subsided among the assembly.

Jones shook his head and took a swig of his booze-laced coffee. "What else?" he asked.

Hunter nodded to Captain Crunch, commander of the Ace Wrecking Company.

Crunch stood up and started his story. "We were flying routine sea patrol, General, a few weeks before Ben and J. T. were down in Vegas. We were about one hundred fifty klicks off what used to be San

22

Fran when we started picking up some strange radio clutter."

"What kind of strange?" Jones asked.

"Well, it sounded like a lot of different kinds of traffic. Routine stuffЧlike weather, wind direction, but also the kind of transmissions you'd hear between ships. Course headings, fuel loads, these kinds of things. Some of the voices were in English, others, well . . . not English."

"Russian?" Jones asked, looking up.

"I don't speak it, sir," Crunch said. "But it could have been."

"So what happened?" asked Jones as he refilled his coffee cup.

"Well, we alerted the base and vectored to the area," Crunch continued. "That's when we made contact with the Coaster intell ship that was coming back from a long-range patrol."

"That was the Liberty Two ship, General," Hunter interjected.

Now a collective shudder went through the room. Everyone there knew what happened aboard the Liberty 2 was downright spooky.

"Right," Crunch said. "We talked to them. Reported that we were hearing all this strange stuff and it seemed to be coming from a point close to their location. They said they were picking the stuff up too, and that they were getting a little jumpy. They also said they were in the middle of a first-class fog and to them, the radio traffic sounded like a whole Goddamned fleet of ships was bearing down on them.

"We told them to sit tight, that we were about

23

fifteen minutes away. We radioed the base again and requested back-up and also a air-sea rescue chopper, just in case. Then we lit out toward the Liberty. We were still getting a lot of noise on the radio, so much so we had trouble raising and maintaining contact with them."

Crunch stopped and took a chug from his coffee mug. It wasn't holding coffee. He continued, slowly: "Well, we finally got to within twenty miles of the Liberty's coordinates and sure enough, there was the biggest Goddamn fog bank I've ever seen. It went on for miles in every direction. Thick as hell. We got a good lock on their receiver and we started sending like crazy. At first we got no answer, then . . ." Jones looked up. "And then, Captain?" Crunch took another slug from his cup. "Then we had one more transmission with them, sir. We were talking to the skipper." "What did he say?"

Crunch reached out to the tape recorder which sat in front of him and pushed the PLAY button. "Here's what we picked up, sir."

The room was completely silent as the tape crackled to life. First, a burst of static could be heard. Then noises, like hundreds of voices, were clearly evident. Then, one voice came through. It was the Liberty 2 skipper. His voice was shaky: "Get here, quick, Phantoms! Get here quick! They're all around us! Jesus, there must be a hundred of them! Phantoms! Do you copy? May Day! May Day! May . . ." The tape abruptly ended in a burst of static. The whole room shuddered as one again. Even Jones shook off a chill.

24

"We searched the area up and down, sir," Crunch said, caution evident in his voice. "We were twenty five feet off the deck in that God damn fog and we didn't see a thing."

"So what happened?"