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

"Nine against fifteen?" he whispered as he watched the nine true fighters in the United Americans air contingent tangle with the F-4's. "Can they hold them?"

The United Americans had expected air opposition-it was known that the Guardians had hired out free-lance air pirates based at a heavily fortified air strip nearby. But to strike the base before attacking the castle would have tipped the Americans' hand. So the hard decision had been made to deal with the enemy air force after it arrived on the scene.

Normally, Hunter would have armed everything on board and hurtled himself into the high-speed jet shootout twisting barely a mile above the castle. Actually it took a lot of willpower to prevent his instincts from doing just that. Instead, he was flashing in toward the castle at treetop height, far below the spectacular dogfight.

The truth was, mixing it up in a furball was not part of his mission. Nor was providing ground support, SAM su-pression, or weapons targeting. No, he had only one mission this day, dictated in writing by the United American Commander in Chief himself, General Dave Jones.

That mission was to rescue Dominique.

When word first arrived-via St. Louie's spies-that Dominique was being held prisoner in the same location that Duke Devillian, Elizabeth Sandlake, and God-knows-how-many other wanted criminals and terrorists were us-

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ing as refuge, Jones knew that the plan to invade the castle and arrest the notorious characters had just taken a very bizarre and complicated twist. As a student of history and as a commander of an entire nation's armed forces, he knew that military planners frequently had to put sentimentality aside when making tough decisions. Few important military victories came cheap, in resources or in lives. When the truth was uncovered about the castle, the stark-cold reality of it was this: the possibility of catching so many dangerous criminals in one place at one time was too great for both the Americans and the Free Canadians to pass up just because Hunter's celebrity girlfriend was locked inside.

So, from a military point of view, the castle had to be attacked.

Yet such an operation-especially one that counted on air power as such a crucial component-would be much more complicated and costly without Hunter's expertise in planning a prestrike execution. No one doubted that the attempt to capture the fortress would be intense and bloody. But Jones could not order Hunter to take part in a military action that could prove so violent it might quite possibly kill Dominique.

So Jones slyly did the right thing. Declaring that Dominique would be "a valuable asset" in any treason trial against Devillian and Elizabeth Sandlake (because, Jones explained, she could place the criminals at the scene of the crime, so to speak), the general made it Hunter's special mission to rescue this valuable witness-at all costs.

With complete determination-and a grim wink of the eye-Hunter had accepted the mission.

Now hoping that JT, Ben, Crunch, and the others could keep the situation in the air under control, Hunter put the Harrier into a shallow dive, heading straight for the castle.

On the ground, the elite troops led by Johnson and Frost had broken through the front gate and were locked

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in close combat with the hired guards of the fortress. The knockout gas had eliminated some of the resistance, but hundreds of gas-mask-equipped soldiers remained, determined-by gold or insanity or both-to defend every inch of the fortress with their lives.

The Harrier hovered just above the castle, dodging a wide assortment of AA fire, as Hunter searched for a landing place. Because the Harrier was so versatile, any reasonably flat surface would do. Yet, in the midst of the gunfire, the explosions, and smoke, finding such a place wouldn't be easy.

Still, Hunter was nothing if not lucky, and within seconds he spotted a semiprotected ledge jutting from the side of the mountain, about a hundred yards from the castle's front gate.

It would take a landing of pinpoint accuracy, since the ledge was only twenty-five feet wide. Any slight miscalculation would send the Harrier hurtling down the side of the cliff and into the forest several hundred feet below.

Gingerly, Hunter eased the Harrier into position. Once he was as close as he was ever going to get, he took a deep gulp of oxygen and activated the jumpjef s direct vertical thrusters. A few seconds later, he set the aircraft down exactly in the center of the tiny ledge.

It took him only a couple of seconds to secure the jumpjet, leap out, and start for the castle gate. On the way, he donned a gas mask. He was carrying his trusty M-16-filled as usual with tracer rounds-as well as several grenades and a small cannister of the SX-555 knockout gas.

Reaching the battered, burning gate, he found nothing less than a full-scale battle in progress. Gas-masked soldiers on both sides were firing at each other from point-blank range. Some of them had resorted to brutal bayonet engagements, others had tossed their guns aside completely and were struggling in hand-to-hand combat with their foes. All the while, the sky was aflame with streaks of AA fire and air-to-ground rocket launches and the roar

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of the dueling jet fighters high above.

It looked all the world like a scene from a B movie about a war between alien armies on a far-off planet.