Arctic Storm Rising Dale Brown (literature books to read TXT) 📖

pain. Through the clear canopy, Flynn could see the snow-covered landscape sliding past at increasingspeed as the stealth bomber rolled down the runway. He leveled his pistol at the pilot’s head. “Ostanovi etot samolet seychas zhe!” he snapped. “Stop this aircraft, now!”

To his surprise, Petrov forced an agonized smile. “Or what?” he retorted in lightly accented English. “You will shoot me?And then we crash?”

“Yeah, if that’s what it takes,” Flynn growled.

Still smiling crookedly, the Russian held up his empty left hand. His shattered right arm was immobile. “Shooting me willnot change anything, Captain . . . Flynn,” he said tiredly, reading the name off Flynn’s own uniform. “I am no longer in control.The computers are.”

At that moment, the bomber lifted off, shuddering and shaking as it plowed through wind gusts and low-altitude turbulence. Flynn hurriedly grabbed hold of the back of the copilot’s seat while still keeping his pistol aimed at Petrov’s head. Hydraulic thumps and whines from behind the cockpit signaled that the landing gear had retracted and locked inside.

Slowly, the aircraft banked, turning toward the south as it sped low over snow-capped ridges and hills. With difficulty, Flynntore his eyes away from the bleak and empty landscape. He set the Glock’s muzzle directly against the Russian colonel’s temple.“Then turn those computers off and land this big son of a bitch.”

Petrov laughed harshly. “I will not.” He shrugged. “I am already dying anyway.” Sardonic amusement flickered in his icy blueeyes. “What you do not understand is that you are dying with me. Though you may live long enough to see the missiles fly.”

“Missiles? What missiles?” Flynn demanded sharply. Oh, shit, he thought, feeling cold.

“This bomber prototype carries twelve nuclear-tipped cruise missiles,” Petrov told him calmly. “Missiles that I have alreadyarmed. In a few short hours, once this undetectable stealth aircraft reaches its preprogrammed coordinates, those missileswill launch against strategic targets in your country—”

Flynn listened with mounting shock and horror while the Russian laid out his plan. And, from the smug expression on his gray,bloodless face, Petrov enjoyed seeing his reaction. “You must be fucking insane,” Flynn ground out between clenched teethwhen he’d finished.

The other man shrugged again. “Perhaps.” His eyes were half-closed now. “Then again, it could simply be that knowledge ofapproaching death clarifies the mind, stripping away everything that is useless—concern for mere individuals and so-calledmorality, for example . . . in favor of more important matters like the fate of nations and the application of raw power inits most elemental, atomic form.”

“Like I said, you’re nuts,” Flynn said bluntly.

Petrov’s eyes opened fully again. “Insult me all you like,” he said coolly. “It changes nothing.” He waved his left hand atthe white wilderness visible ahead of the speeding bomber. “Enjoy the ride, Captain.”

Swiftly, Flynn looked around the cramped cockpit. There had to be something he could try, he thought desperately. Something he could use to stop this lunatic from triggering a war that would kill millions. Faster and faster, he scanned displays, dials, buttons, and switches. There was nothing. No control helpfully marked “Pull to stop nuclear holocaust” in Russian and English. No magic off switch.

He swallowed hard against a sharp, acid taste in his mouth. For one thing, he decided there was no way he was going to ridethis bird all the way to the point where it fired its missiles. Especially not strapped in beside this smug Russian son ofa bitch. He glanced down at his pistol. If worst came to worst, he always had at least one way out.

A way out. The thought echoed in Flynn’s mind, bright and clear like a bugle call on a windless summer morning. Carefully, he lookedaround the cockpit again. And this time, he saw what he was looking for.

“Sorry, but your big plan’s a bust, Colonel,” he said quietly. “It’s not going to happen.” He slid into the copilot’s seatnext to Petrov and strapped himself in.

The Russian snorted, watching him through narrowed eyes. “What? You imagine you can somehow hack into this aircraft’s computersystems?” He sneered. “Please, take all the time you wish.”

Flynn grinned back at him, feeling suddenly fully alive and in control. “Computer hacking is for subtle, clever guys.” Thenhe reached down and grabbed the yellow-and-black-tape-wrapped ejection seat handle between his legs. “But I’m not that subtleor clever. Do svidaniya, Colonel.”

He yanked the ejection handle just as Petrov screamed in sudden, horrified comprehension.

Everything after that happened in milliseconds. First, tiny explosive charges shattered the canopy over Flynn’s head. And then the rocket motor below his seat ignited, lobbing him out of the stealth bomber and away into the frigid slipstream with tremendous force. Petrov’s distorted face shrank into a tiny dot, while the cockpit’s computer control panels—smashed by the shock wave—shattered, shorted out, and went dark.

Slowly, with Petrov still strapped into his seat and screaming in helpless terror, the fatally damaged PAK-DA bomber rolledover on one wing and then, completely out of control, whirled end over end down out of the sky. Seconds later, it smashedinto a jagged, saw-toothed ridge and blew up with a flash that lit the night sky for miles around.

 

Flynn, knocked out by the bone-jolting shock of a rough, low-altitude ejection, clawed his way up out of nothingness justin time to see the parachute above him snap open. He looked down and saw the ground rushing up at him at high speed. “Ah,hell—”

Then all he felt was an enormous, shattering impact. The whole world around him went black. Still tumbling downward, NickFlynn fell endlessly into the darkness.

Epilogue

Restricted Wing, Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas

Some Days Later

Captain Nick Flynn resisted looking at the wall clock for what seemed the thousandth time in just the past couple of hours.Frantically, he wriggled his back against the pillows, trying again to scratch an itch somewhere inside the bulky upper bodycast they’d put him in while his badly broken shoulder healed. No joy. He sighed.

He’d gone far beyond being ordinarily bored at being stuck alone in this hospital room. In fact, Flynn had now moved on tothe