So the Soviets want us to cut our engines? No way. If Ormack and McLanahan can bite the bullet, then I'm sure as hell going to do my part. Sitting alone, strapped in my seat, freezing to death with a bad leg and a bad eye, isn't doing jack-shit to help. But there may be a way...

Luger saw a trail of thick dark blood staining the entry ladder and lower deck and realized there would be rivers of blood pouring out of this black beast if he didn't do something-and do it now.

Crew dogs rarely talked of things like fear, but he knew the rest of the crew had to be as scared as he was. But fear was no reason to bail out; fear accelerated one's courage. It certainly did his. Feeling the blasts of frigid air rushing through the open hatch below him, hearing the scream of the engines, Luger reached down and felt the .38-caliber survival revolver strapped against his torso He withdrew it and counted the cartridges-five, with the hammer down on the empty chamber. It was a small gun, but it helped melt the last of his fear away. He slipped off the entry hatch rear sill, dropped down to the hard-packed snow below, and closed the hatch behind him.

Upstairs, the HATCH NOT CLOSED AND LATCHED light on the forward instrument panel snapped on then, and before either Ormack and McLanahan could react it popped out.

"What was that?" asked Ormack.

"I don't . . . Dave, did you open the hatch?" No reply. "Luger. Report."

There was no answer.

Luger had never been outside a B-52 with the hatch closed and the engines running. It was a weird, almost overpowering feeling.

For an instant he visualized the faces of everyone he had just left behind. But one look at the menacing-looking armored half-track parked between two hangars off to the left of the nose of the bomber and he knew what he had to do.

The roar of the engines was deafening, acutely painful. Staying under the left wing, careful not to get either in front or behind the running engines, oblivious to the ear-shattering noise, he moved away from the Megafortress and toward the half-track, the gun in his fist.

Luger was only a few feet from the Megafortress's shattered left wingtip when he inadvertently tried to put weight on his right leg. It immediately gave way, and he sprawled to the snow into a patch of black oil that had spilled out of the damaged number-two engine.

The shock of the slimy snow on his face sent a surge of energy-or panic-through his body, and he half-stumbled, half-crawled to the fuel truck, which was still parked just off the left wingtip.

He heard several rapid-fire pop-pop-pop-pop shots coming from the Megafortress, turned, and saw Colonel Ormack firing a big pistol- General Elliott's big .45, he realized-out the left cockpit window. Luger couldn't see what he was shooting at, but he assumed it was the half-track. The heavy-caliber gun would slice the cockpit into ribbons in a few seconds .