"Maloney, Mack - Wingman 01 - Wingman UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maloney Mack)

PROLOGUE
He knew the airplane was coming.
It was an early spring day. The sun was shining.
The whole mountain was melting, coming to life again
after the long, cold winter.
The airplane was still some distance away, but the
sound was unmistakable. He closed his eyes and saw
it. Small engine, no more than 200 horse. It was a
Piper Cub-10, maybe 15 miles to the southeast. One
of the airplane's pistons was misfiring slightly.
He waited.
For two years, one month and six days he had lived
on the top of the New Hampshire Mountain. The
camp-nothing more than a shack with a bed and a wood stove-had belonged to his family years before.
He had visited there many times white growing up, so
he knew the isolated mountain area well. But two
years of trapping rabbits, opening cans and drilking
nothing but stream water or melted snow was no life
for a fighter pilot. He hadn't seen or talked to a soul
in all that time. And until he had heard this airplane
approaching, he wasn't sure that there was anything

Flying anywhere. He wasn't even sure if there were any
people left.
Two years-a long time to be alone. When he first
climbed the mountain, he was convinced it was to
escape the chaos he envisioned it would sweep the
country. Did it ever happen? Did America commit
national suicide after it lost World War III? Lost, not
on the battlefield, but by the actions of a Russian
mole who waited until America and its allies were
victorious before he showed his true colors? Would he
have felt differently if the traitor had been someone
other than the Vice President?
He waited another hour before the airplane came
into view. It was at the other end of the valley, flying
slowly, being buffeted by the mountain cross winds.
As it flew closer, he saw it was towing something-a
sign like those once used to carry advertisements.
Even with his extraordinary vision, it was still too far
away for him to read. How strange it would be, he
thought, if the first plane he had seen since the end of
the war was pulling a sign for suntan oil.
two years-it was a long time to thilk. That
Christmas Eve. He had just arrived at Cape
Canaveral to begin pilot training for the Space Shuttle. It was then he had heard of the Russian attack on
Western Europe. SCUD missiles. Tens of thousands
of them. Millions of Europeans dead-not by nuclear

holocaust, but by nerve gas. A massive invasion of