Crash Dive: An Alex Hawke Story Read Online Free

how the hell to peel off and head for his mission destination without arousing the slightest suspicion.
    He knew what he had to do now, although he didn’t much like it.
    L and on the island airstrip on Xiachuan Island. Meet with this Chinese Admiral Tsang and fulfill C’s back-channel charge as best he could. Find a strategic way to avert the imminent showdown and eliminate another global flash point. He didn’t much like the fact that a high-tech SAM had been launched at him streaking across some dinky little atoll in the middle of nowhere. And that a Chinese carrier just happened to be sailing the sea-lane where he went down? No. He simply couldn’t shake the distinct impression that this might all be an elaborate setup. That the wily Chinese were going to use his violation of their airspace as proof positive that the West was being deliberately provocative.
    They’d trot out his blackened corpse and twisted pieces of his American fighter jet on global TV. Use him to justify an even more aggressive posture in the South China Sea. Take retaliatory measures against Taiwan, Japan, or Vietnam. Next step, war. That’s how he saw it, anyway. C might disagree. But C wasn’t sitting in the hot seat with his ass on the line.
    He now had little choice. He flew on with the formation, heading north toward the Pacific. He looked at his watch, calculated time and distance to his target. A long way to go and a short time to get there. And suddenly it came to him.
    He thumbed the transmit button on his radio.
    “Flight leader, flight leader, this is, uh, Passionflower, over.”
    “Roger, Passionflower, this is Red Flight Leader. Go ahead, over.”
    “Experiencing mechanical difficulties. System malfunctions, over.”
    “What’s your situation?”
    “I’m flying hot, sir. Engine overheat. It’s getting worse. Running override system checks now. Doesn’t look good.”
    “Are you declaring an emergency?”
    “Negative, negative. I think I can throttle back and make it home to mother. Request permission to abort and return, over.”
    “Permission granted, over.”
    “Roger that, Red Flight Leader. Passionflower returning to the Varyag, over.”
    Hawke peeled away from the formation and went into a steep diving turn away from his flight. The sun was up now, just a sliver above the horizon, streaks of red light streaming across the sea below. When Red Flight was out of radar range, he corrected course and went to full throttle. By his latest calculations, he’d touch down just in time. He sat back and allowed himself his first smile in hours.
    If he didn’t get blown out of the sky, it promised to be another beautiful day in Paradise.

Keep reading for an excerpt from
    Ted Bell’s upcoming novel
    Phantom

    on sale March 2012

Prologue
    T he house at the seaward end of Captain’s Neck Lane in Bar Harbor is a three-story Victorian painted a lovely shade of pale yellow with white trim. The home has all the prerequisite nineteenth-century decorative gingerbread geegaws and doodads, but they are not overwhelming. There is a certain peace about the house that you can feel, just standing on the sidewalk at the front gate on a quiet summer evening.
    Peace, yes, and should you step inside, abiding love.
    There was red, white, and blue bunting hung from the portico surrounding the front door. A very large American flag was draped from the roof and obscured the two large windows on the third floor. A banner was affixed to the exterior wall just below the flag. It read:
    A HERO’S WELCOME, U.S. MARINE SGT. CHRIS MARLEY!
    Tonight, all the windows of 72 Captain’s Neck Lane are aglow, though it is well nigh the witching hour. Even lit is the tiny window at the top of the tower jutting out from the western front corner of the house. In that small round room, a little girl is sitting on her bedroom floor being read to by her father. The child’s name is Aurora, age six. The father is Christopher, age thirty-two, a warrior at heart.