Archangel by Paul Watkins Page B

over Allied territory yet.
    Wright said, “Not yet.” They were near the Kuwaiti oil fields, which were just inside Iraqi lines. That area was expected to be a heavy combat zone as soon as the land assault began. Wright was quiet for a minute, his voice replaced by the soft rush of static in Gabriel’s headset. Then Wright said he would radio in the coordinates of the bailout and would make sure a rescue helicopter was deployed immediately. He told Gabriel to lie low and get his distress beacon going as soon as he hit the ground. Gabriel knew all this. He knew what he would do and what Wright would do, because they had all been trained in it until the moves were chiseled into their minds like some kind of genetic coding.
    Gabriel’s fuel marker bounced off zero. He could feel the power fail, the smooth rush of the jet becoming choked. Any second now, the engine would die. Then the plane would move into a free fall.
    Wright said he would see him real soon.
    “Thank you,” Gabriel said. Then he switched off the intercom. Hechecked his straps again, breathing as slowly as he could in the last few seconds before bailout. He looked down and saw dozens of fires burning in the dark. The flames were thick and yellow-orange, obscured by coal-black smoke. Gabriel knew the wellheads had been blown and the oil was burning out of control. He knew this meant that the Iraqis might have pulled back, leaving the burning wells for the Americans to deal with. The plane shuddered slightly, and then a steady tone from the fuel-tank warning system reached his ears, like the sound of a TV station when the programs are finished for the night. With the first cough of the dying engine’s thunder, Gabriel blew the cockpit canopy. Cool desert night air rushed around him.
    The nose of the F-14 dipped. The horizon rushed over Gabriel’s head and out of sight. He closed the visor on his helmet.
    He fired the bailout charge. His blood drained from his skull with the roughness of sand and slammed into his feet. The visor shattered as something smashed against it and in the fraction of a second that he could keep his eyes open, Gabriel saw the plane hurtling away from him. The heat of the jet’s engine surrounded his face, stabbing through the broken visor. It felt as if his flesh would melt like wax. Then the heat was gone and only the pain of having been scorched remained on his face. His flameproof Nomex suit and gloves protected the rest of his body. He was upside down and then right side up. Blood zigzagged across his face. He could feel wind chilling the blood across his forehead. He didn’t know how badly he’d been cut.
    Gabriel cartwheeled through the air. The chair rockets that had launched him from the plane still hissed. Then the rockets quit and he found himself surrounded by nothing but the sound of rushing wind. Gradually his head stopped spinning. He understood that he was falling sideways.
    The chutes popped and jolted him upright. He felt a tug in his neck. Blood plowed into his head. He was blacking out.
    Suddenly the ground was very close. Gabriel did not know if he had fainted. The desert filed away beneath him. He could see the ripples of dunes and cracks where the sand had blown away, exposing hard-packed earth. The oil-well fires blazed in the distance.
    The chair straps were bands of pain across his shoulders and stomach, digging into his flesh. Dizziness rocked in his skull and hewondered if he had been badly hurt. The cuts sent pain in streaks across his face. His burned flesh felt tight and stretched across his cheekbones.
    Gabriel looked out into the dark, hoping to see where his plane had landed. But he saw nothing, and he knew that since the plane had no fuel in it, the jet might not burn, leaving no smoke to trace. It would not leave the enemy anything to follow, either. He had seen no vehicles on his way down, no towns or roads. Just desert. Wright would have called in his position by now. He was grateful for