Wingman #19 The Odessa Raid by Mack Maloney

Author:Mack Maloney [Maloney, Mack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Wingman, Retail
Publisher: Speaking Volumes
Published: 2019-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

Timing really was everything, because not a half minute after Viktoria left, Hunter heard a faint beeping coming from his crash helmet.

He retrieved the bone dome and reached deep inside its thick foam padding. Within was a three-inch-long, half-inch-thick, flexible walkie-talkie. He pushed a small red button on the top and the beeping stopped. He opened the communication link.

Captain Orr was on the other end.

“She’s not eaten you, I take it?” he asked.

“Maybe she’s not hungry yet,” Hunter replied.

Orr had been working his super-ears since Hunter gave himself up; the mini-me walkie-talkie was one of its remote devices. The Canadian was hiding in the jungle a quarter mile to the south. It took many hours and some fine tuning, but from this vantage point, he was finally able to isolate Viktoria’s voice, one among dozens. He’d heard the entire exchange between Hunter and the pirate queen just minutes ago, as well as conversations before and even now afterward.

“Want the short version?” he asked Hunter.

“Yes—please . . .”

“She’s scared, Hawk,” Orr told him. “They’re all scared. If anything, she soft-pedaled the situation to you. Her mother has been radioing her four, five times a day for weeks. Taunting her. Nagging her. Just tearing her down—all in perfect English, by the way. Some of it was particularly nasty.”

“How so?” Hunter asked.

“As in Mom doesn’t want to waste a nuke blowing up her daughter’s sad little pirate base. And Mommy vows to kill all her ‘girlfriends’ and then send Vikki to a prison in Siberia—forever.”

“Looks like our friend has both daddy and mommy issues,” Hunter said.

“And she knows when the invaders appear, it’s going to be a short fight,” Orr added.

“Did she say that before or after talking to me?” Hunter asked him.

“Before and after,” Orr replied. “In fact, she just said it to her security girlfriend.”

Hunter sat on the edge of the huge waterbed, causing it to slosh around. “That’s not encouraging,” he said.

“And if she’s serious about her mother having a half-dozen Ekranoplans, well . . . one of them carries enough firepower to take out this foggy little dot in about two minutes,” Orr said. “I can’t imagine what six could do. Their biggest problem might be finding their way around in all this soup. And our little destroyer isn’t going to stop them for more than a few seconds.”

Hunter rubbed his eyes. At that point, he felt like climbing back in bed.

“Well, you know her counteroffer,” he said to Orr. “She’ll let us go if we help her. Did you hear anything that indicates it might be a fix?”

“My training says she seems sincere in private conversation,” Orr replied. “Plus, I think she thinks it’s a lost cause, no matter what.”

“Then it’s not a difficult choice,” Hunter said. “We’ve got to go along with her, at least for now.”

“Agreed,” Orr said. “Especially because we’re all stuck here, and that means their fight is our fight.”

“Will your guys on the ship buy in?”

“When I tell them the circumstances—and that you are here—they’ll all go along with us.

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