www.kehuanzhijia.comAnderssen reached out and ran her fingertips through the hair overwww.kehuanzhijia.com
Hiller's right ear. 'Maybe you could try growing yours a little
longer."

'Yes,' said Hiller. She smoothed her hair back into place. 'I'll
think about it."

Steve lost his bearings after leaving Anderssen's office but he knew he
was outside the bunker when he felt the earth under his feet and the
smell of the grass filtered through the light-proof vents in his
hood.

'Okay,' said a voice. 'Put your feet together and bend your knees
forward. We're gonna lift you into the aircraft." Three pairs of
hands grabbed hold of him and hoisted him into the air. Another pair
of hands guided his feet down under what he visualised was the
instrument panel. He felt them touch the floor. 'Okay, sit down."

Steve sat. Hands pulled the straps of the safety harness over his
shoulders and thighs, clipped them into the quick release buckle, then
adjusted the tension so that he was held down firmly.

'Now put your wrists together,' said the voice.

Steve offered up his manacled wrists. Another chain was passed around
his wrists, drawing his hands tightly together and towards the
right-hand side of the cockpit.

He heard the snap of a padlock closing. 'Okay, Don.

He's stowed away nice and tight."

Don . . .?

Steve aimed his head up to the right. 'What happens if we have to get
out in a hurry?"

A hand patted him on the head and a new voice said, 'I guess it means
that you don't, good buddie."

Terrific...

'Okay, let's go,' said the first voice. 'We've done the map plot, so
you know the course heading. We'll fly a loose diamond at three
thousand feet. Seventy per cent power after climbout. You lead,
Don.

I'll take the number two starboard station. Joe, number three to port,
Tony, you sit on our tail."

Steve heard the others murmur their assent. 'What's the Santa Fe
channel?" asked a third voice. Steve caught his breath as he
recognised it. Come on - it couldn't be...

'Tower frequency is Channel Ten. I'll give you the switch when we
clear Pueblo."

Steve felt someone settling into the left-hand seat. He spoke into the
enveloping darkness. 'Is that you, Don?

Don Lundkwist?"

'Yeah, that's me,' said the voice, with a hint of surprise. 'Who's
under there?"

Steve laughed. 'It's me! Steve! Steve Brickman."

'Christopher Columbus,' muttered Lundkwist. 'I thought you were
dead!

Listen, hold it down - we'll talk later." The electric motor burst
into life with a loud vrooomm as she pressed the button on the dash. A
few minutes later they were airborne.

How amazing, reflected Steve. Of all people. His escort on the first
leg of his journey was to be Donna Monroe Lundkwist. The last time
he'd seen her had been in his shack at the Flight Academy on Graduation
Day. Lying naked alongside him on the bunk. With his guard-father
asleep right beside them in his wheelchair.

A quarter of an hour into the flight, after they'd levelled off,
Lundkwist removed Steve's hood. As his eyes adjusted to the light he
saw to his surprise that they were seated under a streamlined
plexiglass canopy. All the Skyhawks Steve had ever seen were open
cockpit models. He took in the view. The weather was good, the sky
blue, with scattered alto cumulus and you could see for ever. In an
ordinary Skyhawk, Steve might have been frozen stiff but with a closed
canopy and the blower on, they were snugly insulated from the cold,
mid-November air. 'What do they call this thing?"

'A Skyrider,' said Lundkwist. She was wearing a white

bone-dome with a bold red figure one on either side and she had the
dark face-visor raised. Her shoulders were squarer, her face leaner
and harder than when he had last seen her. She smiled. 'You may find
this hard to believe but even with the hood on I thought there was
something familiar. I felt sure I recognised the hands..."

'You got a good memory."

'For some things, yeah..." Lundkwist gave him a sidelong look then
broke away to search the sky ahead.

Steve eyed the silver-threaded Minuteman badge sewn on her tunic, the
top award given to the most outstanding senior cadet. It was a sharp
reminder that he had been the victim of a shadowy conspiracy. Steve
Brickman had set out to come first in his year at the Flight Academy
and for three years he had totally dedicated himself to pursuing that
goal with relentless determination. Brickman knew that he was the best
cadet in his year but instead of being awarded the two highly prized
graduation honours and top marks in the final examinations they had
gone to Lundkwist. Never mind. He had mastered his disappointment but
he had not forgotten or forgiven his humiliation.

He now had a new goal that would be just as rewarding.

He planned to destroy Lundkwist - and all the others who had conspired
to give her the prize that had been rightfully his. Sooner or later,
one by one, they would all get it.

But she would be the first.

He smiled at her. 'Good to see you."

'You too. The word at Fort Worth was that you'd powered down last
June."

'Just goes to show you shouldn't believe everything you hear." Steve
nodded towards the black hood that now lay on his lap. 'Are you sure
it's okay to take that thing off?.

Supposing the other guys see me - and make trouble?"

Lundkwist smiled. 'Relax. Rick Wyman said it would be okay. In fact
he suggested it. We're all from Big Blue right?"

'I hadn't thought of it that way. Thanks." Big Blue was the graduates
nickname for the Flight Academy at Lindberg Field - buried fifteen
hundred feet down under the sands of New Mexico.

Lundkwist eyed him. 'Incredible. We knew we were picking up a wingman
but I had no idea it was going to turn out to be you under that hood.

Christopher - the idea of you as a cee-bee is really hard to take on
board. It just. doesn't make sense!" Steve shrugged. 'It must be
somebody." He gazed out through the canopy and wondered if Lundkwist's
presence was just pure coincidence or whether - because they knew each
other - she had been sent to pump him.

Maybe even the removal of his hood as a gesture of solidarity was all
part of the business. Whatever the answer, if Lundkwist was hoping to
trap him into revealing some code-breaking indiscretion she would
discover it had been a wasted journey. During his five months as a
prisoner of the Mutes, something had snapped. His previous automatic,
almost robotic, responses to the military style discipline that
governed the thoughts and behaviour of everyone within the Federation
had gone. He had realised it from the moment Harmer, the pudgy-faced
lieutenant had rushed out of the way-station with his heavily armed men
and had tried to haul him in on a line.

From early childhood, Steve had become adept at concealing his true
feelings. He had used that skill to exploit the system to his own
advantage but he had, nevertheless, believed in the system
wholeheartedly.

That certainty had now evaporated; his time with the Mutes had exposed
the Federation's weaknesses; had made him aware that he wanted
something other than what it had to offer. He was not yet sure exactly
what that 'something other' was. He only knew that he wanted things
his way. Now that he was back, he would say and do the right things
but, from here on in, it would be nothing more than an elaborate
game.

Even so, Steve was under no illusions. This was no inconsequential
battle of wits or abstract triumph of will.

He was about to pit himself against the collective might of the
Federation and the all-pervading power of the First Family.

This game was for real; a deadly contest in which the slightest false
move could cost him his life.

'I've got your gear in the back. Naylor's knife and Fazzetti's
helmet.

Did Lou ?"

'Yeah. He went into the meat business." And not just metaphorically,
thought Steve. Every time Steve had seen that helmet it conjured up
the image of Fazzetti's impaled head. In all the time he'd been a
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