Return of Sky Ghost Read Online Free Page A

Davis, astride the Gatun Locks. This was a very lazy base where many veterans of the hardest-fought battles had been sent after the war. Little was expected of the men here. Routine drills, occasional musters. But that was about it.
    In Wolf’s section there were three companies of Sea Marines and Naval Infantry. In his first month here, he’d come to know just about all of them by name. Like him, most were lifers in the Navy. Just about every one of them was a hero of some sort too, or had endured wounds above and beyond the call of duty. Wolf had become close to many of them, because he’d been there himself. He knew how tough it had been in those very lean months. Now they were all getting their sunny reward.
    Still, it was just not like Wolf to sit around all day, soaking up the sun and letting his mind and soul drift away. But he’d been dozing for almost a half hour now and even he had to admit it felt damn good. So good, he’d even loosened his tie and undone his shirt collar—minor violations of the uniform dress code that Wolf had never ever broken before.
    But there was a first time for everything.
    Sweet cooking smells drifted up from below. It was Sunday afternoon, and the base cooks usually laid out a massive meal at 1700 hours. This aroma was proof that the meal was not far away. Wolf was sleepily looking forward to the feast. After that, the base saloon would open. Tonight, Wolf told himself, waving a fly off his nose, he might even have a drink. Or two.
    Things were that peaceful….
    It was strange then when it happened. Wolf thought he’d fallen asleep—a first on duty!—and that the noise that so suddenly pierced his ears was actually part of a dream he was having about riding a surfboard to the Moon.
    It was a high-pitched squeal, both mechanical and unearthly. It seemed to go in Wolf’s right ear and come out his left, at least that’s what it felt like in his dream. But then the noise seemed to get caught in the back part of his skull, and there its high-pitched whine turned into a full-throated scream.
    He opened his eyes a split second later. What he saw looked to be still part of his dream—a dream that had quickly turned into a nightmare.
    The scream was coming from sixteen jet engines. They were attached to a huge jet that was directly overhead but coming down fast. It looked very odd at first, especially to Wolf’s sleepy eyes, because the plane was coming straight down, very fast, its engines howling as they worked with gravity to hasten this dive.
    A million thoughts ran through Wolf’s head in those few seconds. This airplane was not of any kind he’d ever seen. It was painted green and was larger even than a Navy B-201, the largest airplane in the U.S. inventory.
    It was coming down so steeply, Wolf knew its pilots would never be able to pull up in time. This meant it was going to crash, and in just a few seconds.
    Wolf felt the panic instantly rise up inside him. It was just a question now of where the huge airplane was going to crash. Would it hit the building he was in? Or the nearby barracks where he knew 300 of his men were lounging, eating a late lunch, or attending afternoon Sunday services?
    Or would it hit the canal locks themselves?
    The canal stretched nearly five miles wide at this point and the Gatun Locks Station which held it in place was a massive structure of concrete and steel. Bombproof, Wolf had once heard someone claim. In the next split second, he wondered if that claim was about to be put to the test.
    For instinctively he knew two things even as the screaming jet spiraled madly toward the ground. This plane was not crashing—at least not by accident. He could tell that it was under some kind of control, because it was moving slightly to the west and away from him now. He also knew it was heading not for his building or the barracks, thank God, but for the locks themselves.
    It hit five seconds later, slamming into the main control station and blowing up