In the cockpit of the Starlifter, Joe braced himself for the superheated beam that would rip the plane apart. It didn’t come. On the far side of the bridge, he pushed the nose down, cutting in front of Saber One and hoping Kurt was ready.
Spotting Saber One beneath the bridge, Kurt stomped on the tug’s accelerator and sent the baggage train of missiles down the ramp and out through the back of the plane.
The carts were torn from each other by the Starlifter’s slipstream, and they tumbled in haphazard fashion as they went out the door. Kurt drove the tug right to the end, leaping off before it hit the ramp, and grabbing for anything he could find that might keep him from rolling out along with it.
With his arm hooked into a cargo net, he watched the trail of destruction unfold.
The missiles, carts, and the tug fell like a metal avalanche toward Saber One. One projectile hit the top of the plane, another hit the tail, a third hit the wing. One of the carts was sucked into an engine, causing it to flare like a Roman candle. The tug fell last and most true. It rolled over once, heading directly for the cockpit.
Inside Saber One, the weapons technician had reacquired the Starlifter after the planes emerged from opposite sides of the bridge, but he hesitated, considering what might result if they shot it down while it was above and directly in front of them.
Looking out the cockpit window, he was astonished by how large and close it appeared. He was even more surprised by the barrage of projectiles pouring out of it and into the sky before them.
Ahab stood in shock, eyes wide, mouth agape. The plane shook as it was hit in various places. One of the cruise missiles tumbled past them, missing by mere feet. A cart hit somewhere on top of the fuselage, gashing it. Something hit the right wing, jarring the plane.
Ahab focused on the next object. The squat angular tug flipped slowly as it grew closer.
“No!” he shouted.
The thousand-pound tug crashed unstoppably through the cockpit. It destroyed the control space, killing Ahab and the others instantly.
From Kurt’s perspective they’d scored a direct hit. Five of them, in fact. But the strike to the front of the plane was a fatal blow. Saber One careened out of control, turning slowly to the left as it rose and wavered. The right wing caught fire as venting fuel was ignited by the burning engine.
To Kurt’s astonishment, the old plane refused to come apart. Instead, it veered gracefully toward the rugged hills on the left side of the river, trailing smoke and fire, then plowed into them at three hundred miles an hour.
The plane folded up on impact, compressing accordion style and exploding in a reverberating thud.
One look told Kurt there would be nothing left of the laser, the crew, or Ahab. He made his way to the intercom, buzzed Joe, and gave him the good news.
“Take us home,” he suggested, “before the Chinese decide we might be useful to them somehow.”
“Sorry, amigo,” Joe said. “No can do. Engines have been used up. We need to set this thing down before they come apart.”
Kurt took that stoically. “I thought you said you didn’t know how to land this plane.”
Joe’s reply was confident, but noncommittal. “I guess we’re going to find out.”
Chapter 72
Joe put the cargo plane down at a small airport five miles from where Saber One had crashed. The landing was a little rough, especially with two of the engines smoking, and he pulled onto the grass as soon as he could, rather than continuing on the pavement.
He hit every kill switch he could find as soon as the Starlifter came to a halt, cutting off all fuel from the engines, which were glowing red-hot.
Emergency vehicles reached them quickly, dousing the plane in foam as a precaution. Military vehicles followed, and Kurt, Joe, and the surviving Yellow Tigers were taken into custody.
After a day in some kind of military prison, Kurt and Joe were transferred to a local apartment on the eighth floor of high-rise building, not far from the Five Bridges area.
They were held under a sort of house arrest, with guards placed outside the doors, down the halls, and in the lobby. Aside from a few initial questions, they were neither interrogated nor harassed. They were even allowed to spend an hour per day in the small courtyard connected to the building, as long as the guards came with them.
After a week without even a phone call, Kurt figured they weregoing to be there for a while and decided he would start learning Mandarin. He was looking through a rack of DVDs containing Chinese movies with subtitles when he found a copy ofCasablanca, in English.
He was studying it when a knock at the door took him by surprise.
“Since when do the guards knock?” Joe asked.
“Must be a new thing,” Kurt said.
He went to the door and opened it, surprised to see a friendly face waiting on the other side.
