"Maloney, Mack - Wingman 06 - The Final Storm UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maloney Mack)

Chapter 1

The strange-looking aircraft skimmed over the steel-blue surface of the Atlantic Ocean, intently hurtling toward its destination.

The craft was a curious hybrid-part helicopter and part fixed-wing cargo plane. Its stubby fuselage hung under a wing section that, though thin, supported two huge turbine engines. Like a conventional airplane, these engines drove massive propellers that sped the craft through the air at a respectable speed.

But this airplane had a hidden talent. . . .

Its engines, encased in bulbous nacelles on each wingtip, could be rotated a full ninety degrees. Once done, this action would almost magically transform the oversize propellers into overhead rotors. Thus, the airplane was able to take off and land vertically like a helicopter.

It was officially known as the MV-22 Osprey. The amazing tilt-rotor aircraft had been designed to be the close air support mainstay for US Marine Corps amphibious assault operations. Like the seagoing bird of prey it was named after, the Osprey was built to skim the waves and strike swiftly, delivering Marines and material to the battle. At one time, before World War III, hundreds of them had seen service around the globe.

Now there was only one. . . .

Major Hawk Hunter, the man behind the airplane's controls, was concentrating on keeping the green-and-gray camouflaged plane as close as possible to the tops of the ocean swells.

Adjusting the control surfaces with the barest flick of a wrist or the slightest pressure on a rudder pedal, he found himself continually compensating for unseen turbulence in the heavy, pre-dawn salt air. Every few seconds his eyes darted about the airplane's cockpit console, quickly monitoring its gauges. Then he would look up and, by adjusting his helmet's infra-red sighting goggles, scan the thin line of the horizon, searching for the point of land in the distance that was his destination.

Hunter had flown hundreds of combat missions in every type of aircraft, in every corner of the globe-bis virtually undisputed reputation as the best fighter pilot who had ever lived led to his being known as The Wingman.

But this mission was like no other. . . .

In the Osprey's squat fuselage behind Hunter there were twenty-four commandos, all of them tensely gripping then-weapons as they sat facing each other in the cramped cargo cabin. Rocking with the aircraft's motion, the soldiers-members of the elite Football City Special Forces Rangers-stared down at the floor, or up at the overhead compartments, or simply sat with their eyes closed. For them, the time before combat was always reserved for private thoughts. It would be no different on this day.

For Hunter, too, it was a time for reflection. Even as he was manipulating the controls and reviewing the mission plan, another part of him was reliving a bad-dream memory that was still as painful as if it had happened the day before.

Actually it might as well have been a lifetime ago ....

The nightmare started with the outbreak of World War III. Lulled by several years of glasnost-eia peace, the world exploded in war after a massive Soviet attack-launched in complete surprise on Christmas Eve-killed millions of West Europeans, not by nuclear holocaust, but by nerve gas. A massive Soviet invasion of Western Europe followed. Eventually, China was nuked and suddenly, any country who had a dispute with its neighbor decided to have it out.

The Free World struck back. After much suffering and misery, the US and NATO forces had cleverly won the final battle

8

of the war, soundly defeating an overwhelming Soviet war machine-and all without using nuclear weapons. Moscow pleaded for an armistice. Magnanimously, the West agreed. But then, just as it seemed that peace was at hand, the Soviets launched another devastating attack-this one a nuclear strike at the heart of the American continent. All of the country's ICBMs were destroyed in their silos, and its remaining nuclear arsenal rendered useless. Now the nation's heartland was a desolate wasteland-an ugly, festering scar that stretched from the Dakotas down to the northern border of Texas.

Now, the once-fertile fields of America's breadbasket were a nightmarish radioactive moonscape called the Badlands. . . .

Only later was it learned that the Soviets had been aided by a traitorous "mole" in the US Government. Someone, who, as part of a sinister plot, arranged to have the US President, his family and his cabinet assassinated just after the armistice was declared.

Suddenly shattered and leaderless, the US had little choice but to accept the harsh terms of the Soviet "victors," a mockery of justice known as the New Order. Under this decree, the United States of America ceased to exist. Instead, the nation was carved up into a patchwork of territories, free states, and independent republics, most led by criminal puppets of the Soviets. No sooner had the New Order been declared when these mini-countries began fighting each other, further increasing the instability of the American continent.

But the darkness of these times had not totally consumed Hunter. In the handful of years that followed, and through several full-scale wars and dozens of major battles, he and his allies-known collectively as the United American Army-had fought back to reclaim their country and secure its borders.

Months before, these democratic forces had soundly defeated the Soviet-sponsored Circle Army in a* battle for control of lands east of the Mississippi. More recently, another major engagement had wrested control of the Panama Canal from a group of fanatical, nuclear-armed neo-Nazis.

Yet despite these successes, Hunter knew the battle was far from over. In fact, he believed the most difficult tasks lay ahead.

But the United Americans had gained the momentum. At the