"Maloney, Mack - Wingman 07 - Skyfire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maloney Mack)

"Damn, they are quiet," Frost whispered to Johnson. "I didn't hear a thing."

"Let's hope our friends up there in the castle don't, either," Johnson replied grimly.

Tyler and Crockett maneuvered the two choppers closer to the mountain fortress, going into a near hover just a couple of hundred feet away from the castle's front gates.

Suddenly the silence of the early morning was shattered by a burst of gunfire.

A dozen soldiers had instantly materialized along the front ramparts of the castle, their weapons blazing. In a second, both Tyler and Crockett could tell that these soldiers definitely were men. And worse, many of them were wearing gas masks.

The Cobra brothers immediately opened fire with their belly-mounted two-inch rocket launchers and then swerved sharply to the right and away from the enemy gunfire.

The fight was on.

By now the wave of attacking jet aircraft, having just refueled in air, arrived on the scene. Realizing that the Seasprays' initial approach had been repulsed, Ben Wa

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and Twomey, leading the air strike in their creaking F-104's, dove straight for the castle's front wall. The heavy cannon fire of the Starfighters sent the blocking squad of Guardians scurrying for cover.

As JT and Ben Wa circled around for another pass, the F-4's of the Ace Wrecking Company roared in and sent two more barrages of cannon fire slicing into the castle. At least a hundred Guardians soldiers, about half of them wearing gas masks, had now appeared on the battlements of the fortress and were filling the sky with AA fire in a desperate attempt to hold off the attackers.

The rest of the United Americans' aerial attack force roared into view. But suddenly the skies were filled with streaking AA fire as well as a rain of small but deadly shoulder-launched SAM's. Then a wave of Hind helicopters emerged from hidden shelters on the far side of the mountain. While they were no match for the heavily armed jet fighters, the Hinds were able to dart in and out of the AA fire and send harassment fire up at the air strike, gaining precious moments until help could arrive.

And that help came, in the form of a dozen Phantom jets being piloted by air pirates in the employ of the Guardians. The Americans saw them coming and, as planned, half turned in their direction, missiles ready.

The battle now fully joined, the troops at the base of the mountain started their dangerous ascent. They edged their way up to the castle-slowly, painfully, but thankfully free of any resistance. Already the first part of the assault plan was working: The hired guardians of the fortress were far too occupied with the attacking jets to concern themselves with a ground attack, too.

Meanwhile, Tyler and Crockett ducked under the dogfights raging above them and brought the Seasprays streaking right over the castle, just a few feet above the walls. With considerable aplomb, they began firing can-nisters of knockout gas inside the towering walls of the mountain fortress.

Not everybody down there can be wearing a mask, Tyler

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thought as he watched one cannister smash into one of the castle's turrets and begin to spill its powerful gas.

And he was right. Inside the castle, dozens of soldiers- both men and woman-began to stumble and fall to the ground, unconscious, as the SX-555 gas started to spread.

The forces led by Frost and Johnson had reached the gates of the castle by now. Immediately a sharp firefight erupted between the invaders and the hired guns guarding the fortress. Several hundred feet above, the Cobras were now free to tangle with the Hind gunships. A thousand feet above them, the United American jets were battling it out with the Guardian Phantoms. Within the course of only a few minutes, the mountain sky, which had been bathed in the gentle pink of early morning, had turned red with the flames of war.

And out of that bloodred sky, a lone airplane appeared, and headed straight for the heart of the holocaust.

Hawk Hunter was about to join the battle.

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Chapter Four

Hunter counted fifteen enemy Phantoms taking part in the swirling dogfight above the castle.