said. "Simultaneous voice and data." Briggs switched his
walkie-talkie over as well.
CATTLECAR, this is Hotel on channel one-one. Over.
"Hotel, this is CATTLECAR," the radar controller replied.
"HAWC anti-air units are reporting in now, sir. All assets should
be on-line in sixty seconds."
"Any airborne radar platforms up?"
T_
170 DALE BROWN
"Not yet, sir. Nellis' 767 AWACS is not an alert bird. I've
requested the tac fighter unit to recall the crew, but that may
take some time."
"
of We'll lose him without an AWACS up there to dig him out
the terrain," McLanahan said. "Ground radar won't pick him
up if he stays low."
"Hotel, this is CATTLECAR. Radar contact on your hostile. I'm
directing all HAWC anti-air artillery units to engage. Any fur-
ther instructions?
Briggs stopped and looked at Elliott. The general inwardly
flinched but did not hesitate. "If they've got him, destroy him."
Briggs nodded and raised his walkie-talkie. "CATTLECAR,
message confirmed through Alpha. Engage at will and shoot to
kill. Out."
Maraklov was no more than two hundred feet above ground
when ANTARES began to report the emitters all around him.
As Maraklov scanned outside the cockpit, visual images were
supplanted by ANTARES-generated images of catalogued ter-
rain features around which multicolored arcs or bands undu-
lated, disappeared and reappeared in kaleidoscopic waves. The
colored bands were beams of radar energy-search radars, track-
ing radars, and data-links-all searching for him.
Most of the waves of color were above him, like curtains of
fire stretching across a ceiling, but a few seemed to slice right
through DreamStar. Maraklov had to avoid those bands. The
green bands were search radars, not deadly in themselves, but
they would give away his position to the searchers. The other
bands of energy were yellow-tracking radars that would pin-
poini his location and would begin to feed targeting information
to surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. If the yellow bands turned
red, it meant that a missile had been launched. If he was inside
the red band, he was within the missile's lethal envelope and
would probably die within seconds unless the missile could be
outmaneuvered-DreamStar carried no jammers, no decoys.
Maraklov had to outrun, outmaneuver or kill his attackers, or it
was over for him.
He was finally free of the dry bed of the Groom Lake area,
heading south and almost into Papoose Canyon northwest of
Emigrant Valley, when a single finger of green light snapped out
between a narrow gap between two rocky buttes and hit
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 171
DreamStar broadside. One of the search radars had found him.
The band immediately turned to yellow, but one of the buttes
blocked the energy and the band turned green once again as the
beam continued its three hundred and sixty degree sweep. But
they now knew where he was-and were closing in on him.
Maraklov dodged further away from the butte, hoping to stay in
the butte's radar shadow as long as possible.
It wasn't working. The terrain was forcing him to climb, but
the beam of green energy above him wasn't rising with him. He
had no time to react. The green beam of energy, completing a
full revolution every six seconds, hit him once again as
DreamStar crested a rocky ridge line. This time, it turned yellow
and stayed on him. DreamStar's threat-warning receiver imme-
diately reported the contact, and after a few seconds analysis
concluded that a British-made Rapier surface-to-air-missile was
locked on.
The computer suggested a heading, altitude and airspeed to
escape the Rapier missile's lethal radius, and Maraklov ordered
the evasive maneuver just as the band of energy went from yel-
low to red-the Rapier had gone from search to missile-uplink
in seconds. The missile was in the air. There was no time and
no room to move. DreamStar was bracketed by hills and moun-
tains.
Sensing Maraklov's confusion, ANTARES canceled the first
suggested maneuver, immediately deployed the canards into their
high-lift configuration and ordered a hard, tight Immelmann-a
fast inverted'half-loop-directly into the short rocky butte they
had just passed. ANTARES also activated the superconducting
radar, which showed the butte only three-quarters of a mile di-
rectly ahead. They would impact in less than four seconds ...
A flash of light erupted off the right wing, and suddenly
DreamStar banked hard right, pulling nine Gs in the tight turn.
The Rapier missile had missed by only a few short feet. Mar-
aklov tried to search the sky for another missile, but the hard
nine-G turn had blurred and tunneled his vision. Another explo-
sion off to his right-there had, indeed, been a second Rapier
missile launched at him, but that one had exploded on the butte
not three hundred yards behind him.
As his ejection-seat back began to recline automatically, which
would help blood to flow back into his brain while ANTARES
completed evasive maneuvers, Maraklov watched as the colored
172 DALE BROWN
bands surrounding him switched back to green. The older Rapier
missile systems surrounding Dreamland carried only two mis-
siles on each launch platform, and the system had switched back
to search mode while the Rapier crew reloaded.
Maraklov watched, fascinated, as ANTARES automatically
increased power to full thrust, and began to use short bursts of
its multi-directional radar to scan the terrain around DreamStar
and fly as close to earth as possible. His ejection seat slowly
returned to its upright position as the G-forces subsided, and he
actually could relax . . . he would be long gone from the range
of that Rapier site by the time it was reloaded-
A warning beep sounded in the upper-center part of his cock-
pit, and with it a blue-triangle icon appeared, with a long green
triangle protruding from the front end. Answering his mental
query, ANTARES reported what it was: an F-16 Falcon fighter,
sweeping the skies below with its new AEG-91 look-down radar.
Although pushing age twenty-five, the F-16 had undergone so
many modifications that it could hardly be considered the same
aircraft as twenty-five years earlier. Not originally designed for
look-down, shoot-down, low-altitude engagements, it now
sported a multi-purpose "cranked arrow" effect, with huge delta
wings, and was capable of attacking air or ground targets at any
altitude. Its new capability was in evidence as its green triangle
swept down from the sky and in moments DreamStar had once
again been discovered.
Maraklov commanded an immediate hard bank and searched
for terrain to hide in. He knew the F-16s rarely worked alone;
only one would activate its radar, while one or two others would
take vectors from the lea
der and close in on their prey, activating
their attack radars at the last possible moment . . .
Another mental command . . . and Maraklov's heart sank. At
its present low altitude, DreamStar was gulping fuel. He could
not afford to get into a situation where he'd have to waste time
and fuel dodging missiles from the F-16s, let alone any sort of
protracted aerial battle with them. Reinforcements were surely
on their way-very likely F-15s from the Air Force Reserve base
at Davis-Monthan in Tucson. Maraklov's options were running
out. There was only one real choice left to him.
Run like hell.
At a single request, Maraklov discovered the single best alti-
tude to use to clear all terrain within five hundred miles-six
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 173
thousand five hundred feet. He ordered the computer to maintain
that altitude and set best-speed power settings for the engines.
As fuel was burned off and gross weight decreased, the com-
puter would pick the best speed versus drag settings of engine
power, trim, and wing configuration to achieve the fastest pos-
sible speed. He could afford no more power changes, climbs,
descents, terrain avoidance or defense maneuvers. His only op-
tion was to stay at zero Q-where the sum of all aerodynamic
forces on his aircraft remained zero, the highest possible cruise
efficiency-and run for the border.
A fast mental inquiry and the GPS satellite-navigation system
checked DreamStar's osition, computed a likely flight path
around known population centers and defense areas, measured
the distance between present position and the tiny dry lake, La-
guna de Santiaguillo, where Kramer and Moffitt in north central
Mexico were supposed to be waiting with a fuel truck. Laguna
de Santiaguillo was an abandoned training facility (KGB assets
utilizing locals equally receptive to rubles and dollars) in the
foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains, well within
range of two Mexican fighter bases at Mazatlan and Monterrey.
A lousy location, Maraklov thought, but the only one possible
on such short notice.
The computer had his answer after a relatively long two-second
pause: three hundred miles to the Gulf of California, another
seven hundred fifty miles along the west fidge of the Sierra Ma-
dre Occidental mountains, then across the Remedias River valley
to Laguna de Santiaguillo. He was traveling at one point one
Mach, about nine hundred miles per hour, and was consuming
twenty thousand pounds of fuel an hour. He had exactly twenty-
two thousand pounds of fuel remaining. Which meant, at his
current setting, he would flame out right over Laguna de Santia-
guillo. He would have more fuel available if he used an idle-
power descent and a long glide for landing, but he'd have less if
he had to dodge any more missiles or if he had to use after-
burner.
Another mental command and he checked the two AIM-120C
Scorpion missiles, then tried a test arming. Both were fitted with
instrumented warheads, but otherwise would launch and track
like fully operational weapons. He could use them if he got
himself comered. He would, though, have to shoot very care-
7
174 DALE BROWN
fully-without explosive warheads there would be no proximity
detonation; each shot had to be a direct hit.
But up here, the possibility of anyone touching him seemed
unlikely. There were still search radars all around him, resem-
bling huge green cones rising out of the terrain, but there were
large gaps between the radar cones and he was picking his way
through them, using slight heading changes to put a mountain
or ridge line between himself and the radar cones. Smaller yel-
low blobs, giant mushrooms, appeared now and then-the lethal
envelope of surface-to-air missiles stationed below-but he was
avoiding them as well. Now he was almost out of the Dreamland
complex, accelerating past one thousand miles per hour.
Speed and stealth meant survival more than fancy flying or
superior weaponry. The first time he had decided to steal
DreamStar he'd imagined himself taking on the air might of the
whole southeastern United States, flying rings around the best
fighters and the best pilots in the world, winning out over a
billion dollars' worth of hardware. Well, it wasn't going to hap-
pen that way. He was going to sneak out, hiding behind every
shadow, measuring every quart of fuel.
Whatever it took . . .
For the first time he really allowed his body to relax. He had
stolen DreamStar right out from under the noses of the people
who wanted to give up on his baby. And now he even dared to
think that he might actually make it all the way.
He was allowed that heady thought for precisely forty sec-
onds. From out of nowhere, a green triangle of energy appeared
in front of him. There was no time to evade. The green triangle
enveloped him, and instantly turned to yellow . . .
This thing was truly amazing, Major Edward Frost, the radar
navigator aboard the B-52 Megafortress Plus, marveled. A god-
damned B-52 bomber with more gadgets and modes and func-
tions and bells and whistles than L. Air Traffic Control.
Frost was studying a fourteen-inch by ten-inch rectangular
cursor, automatically laid on a radar return that matched the
preprogrammed parameters set by Frost, was tracking a high-
altitude, high-speed target dead ahead. You told the system what
you wanted to find and it did the searching. It was a hell of a
lot different from only a few years ago when radar navs on B-52
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 175
bombers concentrated on terrain and cultural returns-moun-
tains, buildings, towns. This B-52 was different.
Major Frost hit the mike button near his right foot. "Pilot,
radar. Radar contact aircraft, one o'clock, eighty-five miles."
He punched a function key on his keyboard. "Altitude six thou-
sand five hundred, airspeed . . . hey, he's moving out. Airspeed
one thousand one hundred knots."
He hit another function key, and the display changed to a
maze of arcs, lines, grids. The computer had presented a series
of options for approaching the target.
Frost shook his head. Here I am, sitting in a B-52 bomber
planning to attack a high-speed fighter!
"Turn right heading zero-five two to IR intercept in six-two
nautical miles. Automatic intercept is available." Then to An-
gelina Pereira: "I'm aligned for guidance-mode transfer at any
time-"
"Belay that," General John Ormack said over interphone.
"Weapons stay on safe-that's our damned plane out there,
Frost. "
"Sorry, got carried away."
"Auto-intercept coming on, crew. " Ormack connected the
digital autopilot to the intercept computer and monitored the Old
Dog's turn, pushing the throttles up to ninety five percent power
to keep the a
ngle of attack low. The autopilot made several small
corrections farther to the right as the distance between the two
aircraft rapidly decreased.
"Exactly what are we trying to accomplish here, General?"
George Wendelstat, the safety observer asked. Wendelstat was
firmly strapped into the instructor-pilot's seat, wearing a
backpack-style parachute on his beefy shoulders. His face was
cherry red and he was sweating in spite of the B-52's cool in-
terior temperature. "Do you mean to attack that aircraft?"
"What I mean to do is everything I possibly can to turn that
aircraft back," Ormack said. "If I can't get him to turn around
I mean to delay him long enough for help to arrive. "
"But this is suicide," Wendelstat protested. "A B-52 against
this DreamStar? That's a fighter plane, isn't it?"
"It's also a stolen aircraft from my research center," Ormack
said. "I'm not going to let this guy go without trying to do
something-"
"Including getting us all killed?"
176 DALE BROWN
"I know the limits of this crew and aircraft," Ormack said.
"We have the capability to engage DreamStar and hopefully de-
tain him long enough for help to arrive. I won't go beyond the
limits of my responsibility or common sense-"
"You already have. He can launch a missile against us at any
second--
"Seventy miles and closing fast, General."
"Wendelstat, sit back and shut up, " Colonel Jeff Khan, the
copilot, broke in. "The general knows what he's doing."
Ormack reached up to the overhead communications console
and switched his command radio to channel eleven. "CATTLE-
CAR, this is Dog Zero Two. We have the hostile at our twelve
o'clock, seventy miles. Closing on an intercept course. Request-
ing instructions from HAWC Alpha as soon as possible."
"Break. Zero Tvo, this is HAWC Alpha. You can't do any-
thing up there, John. We're vectoring in the F-16s now. Get out
of the area as fast as you can. Over."
"I've got a lock-on and I'm turning for an I. intercept,
Alpha," Ormack answered back. "I can turn it into a radar pass
at any time. Just say the word."