Fallout

18

The canopies came down, and the radios went on. “Everybody up?”

“Two.”

“Three.”

“Four,” they said, instantly adopting the positions they’d been scheduled to fly on the missile shoot later that morning. Luke advanced his throttles, released the parking brake, and began taxiing toward the runway. “I have no idea what they’re up to. Get airborne in two sections. Use burner. Fuel is no concern until we catch them. Any questions?”

“Did you notify anybody?”

“I tried,” he transmitted. “I’m going to keep trying. Stamp, I want you on the radio talking to the FAA about this until you get somebody. Thud, when we get airborne, I want you on every Air Force frequency you can find, particularly Nellis. Talk to anybody who’s awake, and tell them what’s going on.”

“Roger,” they both said.

Luke was taxiing much faster than was safe, particularly in the dark. The taxiway lights were not lit, and he could barely distinguish the black taxiway from the sand right next to it. He was following the faint yellow line in the middle of the taxiway, illuminated by a remnant of moon. He didn’t turn on his airplane’s taxi lights. He didn’t want to draw attention to his position. He had no idea where the rest of the Pakistanis were.

On the other side of the airfield, all the remaining Pakistanis, including the mechanics, piled into the back of the now empty trucks. The drivers and riders climbed into the front and slammed the doors as they quickly started their engines and raced off the tarmac, past the hangar for the gate with their lights off, hoping to escape undiscovered.

Vlad was right behind Luke as they taxied onto the runway in position for a section takeoff in the dark. Luke leaned forward and strained to see the centerline. He looked at his compass and saw that he was heading exactly 260, the precise heading of the runway. He released his brakes and went to full military power. No afterburner—less illumination.

They weaved down the runway, unable to see the centerline, and reached rotation speed. They lifted off the ground and raised their landing gear. Behind them, Stamp and Thud taxied onto the runway and rolled rapidly into a ragged but successful section takeoff.

Luke continued to climb. He quickly took off his oxygen mask and ripped off his helmet. He picked up the cell phone that he’d stuck in his flight suit pocket and dialed the number Raymond had given him. Luke pressed the telephone to his ear, hopeful he could hear the conversation over the jet noise in the cockpit. “Raymond?” he yelled.

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Stick. We just took off from Tonopah. Flight of four. You see us? You still on your hill?”

“Yes, sir. I saw everything. Four F-16s took off, and I saw you after them. I’d say they got about a five-or ten-minute jump on you.”

“Which way did they go?” Luke demanded.

“South,” Raymond said confidently.

“You sure? Can you give me a compass heading?”

“Positive. I followed them with my binoculars. I watched them as far as I could. I could see right into their tailpipes. They went south, sir. I’m sure.”

“You just earned your salary, Raymond. Call everybody you can think of in the world and tell them that the Pakistanis have taken off with F-16s and bombs, headed south from Tonopah. Just tell whoever you can raise—the FAA, the Air Force, anybody,” he yelled.

“Will do, sir. Good hunting.”

Luke hit the end button on his phone, put it beside him in the map case, and latched the door over it. He had no flight plan and no idea where Major Khan was taking his men and their bombs. He pulled on his helmet and reattached his oxygen mask. “Back up,” he transmitted to the other three. He could hear Stamp on guard, 243.0 MHZ, the emergency UHF frequency every aircraft was required to monitor. The FAA and all military establishments monitored guard twenty-four hours a day.

“Mayday, Mayday. This is Nevada Fighter 103. A flight of four F-16s is airborne in southern Nevada with laser-guided bombs. We’re unsure of their heading or intended target. Requesting fighter assistance. Mayday, Mayday…” Stamp repeated the warning.

Luke cringed. He hadn’t told Stamp to use guard. He wouldn’t have. It was monitored by everybody, almost certainly including Khan. Now Khan knew that they were onto him, airborne, and coming after him.

Luke pushed the MiGs through five hundred knots toward six hundred. He struggled to figure out what Khan’s target was. He thought of all the cities and Air Force bases and Navy bases where Khan might inflict the most damage.

Luke concentrated on his radar. If Raymond was right, Khan should be about fifty miles ahead of them. Luke reached into the map case and moved the phone aside. He pulled out the Las Vegas sectional chart and examined it under the red light on the clip on the instrument panel. He listened as Stamp tried to contact the FAA on guard and Las Vegas approach. He knew they were violating all kinds of FAA airspace and regulations, and he couldn’t care less. He thought it would be just fine if he had a midair with another airplane about now, because he didn’t know how he was going to face his wife, his friends, his squadron, or his fellow TOPGUN instructors at Fallon or the rest of the world.

He searched the chart. The Las Vegas sectional didn’t go all the way to Southern California. He tried to think of the juiciest targets. Los Angeles? But where? Laser-guided implied precision strike. A particular target, not just to drop on a house or a hotel and kill a few dozen people. And there wouldn’t be anywhere that more than a couple of hundred people would be at 5:00 a.m. March Air Force Base? Possibly. Air Force One was there a lot… . He jerked his head up as his heart responded to the instantaneous stimulation of adrenaline. He transmitted, “Anyone know where the President is right now?”

“Camp David,” Thud replied.

Luke was relieved. “Anybody got them on the radar yet?”

“I’m getting something,” Vlad replied.

Maybe the Navy base in San Diego—32nd Street, or North Island, where the carriers were based. Oh, no, he thought. These guys are going to attack an aircraft carrier, a nuclear aircraft carrier. His heart pounded even harder as his mind raced from one potential disaster to another. The MiGs sped on, accelerating through supersonic, violating yet another flight regulation. “Anybody know if the carriers are in port at North Island in San Diego Bay?”

“They sure are,” Stamp replied. “Stennis and Nimitz.”

Both nuclear carriers. “They could be heading there!” Luke exclaimed.

“That would not be good,” Stamp replied.

“Thud, contact Miramar ops. See if the Marines have any alert F/A-18s they can get up between us and San Diego. Stamp, the carriers have any of their own aircraft aboard?”

“Negative,” Stamp replied.

Suddenly an unidentified voice challenged them. “Nevada Fighter 101, this is Los Angeles center. How do you read?”

Luke jerked to respond. Finally. “Loud and clear, how me?”

“Loud and clear. Say your intentions.”

“Did you copy the guard transmission?”

“Affirmative.”

“We are a flight of four MiG-29s. We have Russian air-to-air missiles with us and are in hot pursuit of four California Air National Guard F-16s that are being piloted by Pakistani pilots training at our base at Tonopah, in Nevada. They killed our guards and have taken off with laser-guided bombs and Sidewinder missiles. We have no idea where they’re going. Do you have them on radar?”

“We have a flight of four ahead of you fifty miles, heading south-southwest at thirty thousand feet.”

Luke pulled up to climb to thirty thousand feet. “Request thirty thousand feet. Request you clear the corridor south of them and between us of all traffic. These aircraft are extremely dangerous, and we do not know their intentions. They may try to shoot down an airliner. They have Sidewinder missiles. We don’t know what they have in mind.”

“Roger. Are you declaring an emergency?”

“Definitely. I’m declaring whatever is the worst possible thing you can declare.”

“Roger, squawk 7733, climb and maintain thirty thousand feet. Switch to 227.6 now.”

They did.

“Nevada fighter flight up.”

“Roger, read you loud and clear. Sir, how do we know you are who you say you are?”

“You’re just going to have to take my word for it. My name is Luke Henry. Call TOPGUN at Fallon, Nevada. They can vouch for me. We need to get any alert fighters airborne. Whoever would launch in case of a violation of the ADIZ needs to get airborne now, and these F-16s should be treated as a flight that is penetrating the ADIZ without authorization, and they are armed. And be sure to tell them the F-16s are the bad guys and the MiG-29s are the good guys.”

“I’ll contact the Air Force. I must put you on notice here that you’re in violation of Federal Aviation Regulations in that you did not file an IFR flight plan”—Instrument Flight Rules—“in that you’re flying above fly level 180 through the jet routes without clearance, in that—”

“I don’t care if I’m violating every FAR in existence! I’m telling you, these men are about to attack the United States somewhere. I don’t know where. Give me their heading! Help me get them. Give me a vector—”

“I don’t appreciate—”

“Then get somebody on who’s willing to help. I don’t need anybody else making it harder.”

“Their heading appears to be 190, but that is off raw radar return. Their IFFs are off.” The Identification Friend or Foe highlighted each plane’s position on the controller’s radar.

“Say their speed, and thanks.”

He hesitated, then, “Speed is estimated at 650 knots.”

“Request permission for supersonic—”

“I do not have the authority—”

“What’s your name?” Luke demanded.

“I am a retired air controller. My call sign was Catfish.”

“Navy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I was with VFA-136, then TOPGUN. We’re on the verge of disaster here, Catfish. You’ve got to help me.”

“Stand by.”

Luke went to afterburner, and the other three airplanes joined him in the dark, leaving long trails of yellow flame behind them. He checked his airspeed. He was passing through 650 knots to 700. They were supersonic, screaming across southern Nevada, crossing into California. Luke did a quick calculation. If Khan and his men were headed for the California coast, they had about twelve minutes to stop them.

Catfish came back on the radio. “Sir, I raised the Air Force. They’re scrambling a flight of four F-15s. The Air Force controller will be vectoring them toward the F-16s. They are concerned about the rules of engagement and do not believe they will be given clearance to fire, as there has been no hostile intent. They cannot verify your claims nor can they verify that the F-16s are armed. Their instructions are ID and escort—”

Luke broke in. “Shooting guards isn’t hostile intent? I have an eyewitness that says they loaded bombs and missiles! Just get them up there. Intercept them. Then, if they roll in on anything, that’d be hostile intent.”

“I’ll pass it on. Stand by. Sir, I have completed the flight path analysis. They do not appear to be headed toward San Diego. Their current flight path will take them to the ocean well north of San Diego.”

Luke was puzzled. He glanced at the other three MiGs and thought for a moment. “What will they fly over?”

“Mostly mountains, then Orange County, then to the ocean just north of Camp Pendleton.”

“Maybe they’re heading for Camp Pendleton. Maybe they’re going to attack the barracks or the officers’ quarters.”

“We will alert Camp Pendleton.”

Luke envisioned the area in his mind. He’d been there innumerable times, up and down the California coast—San Diego, Orange County, the beaches, San Clemente… “San Onofre! They’re headed to San Onofre!”

“The nuclear plant?”

“Get on the telephone! Warn them! Tell them to evacuate the place! Shut it down!”

Luke glanced at his gas gauge. His fuel was disappearing at a shocking rate. He looked at his radar for any sign of the F-16s. He had two contacts close together thirty miles ahead. “I think I’ve got them, Catfish.” He compared his radar picture to their location and their closing rate. They had 150 knots’ speed advantage on the bomb-laden F-16s. It would take them seven minutes to get within a good missile-firing solution. By then Khan would have gone another eighty-four miles—just enough to put them at the coast. “Shit!” Luke yelled into his oxygen mask. “I don’t think we’ll reach them in time!” he transmitted.

“Yes, sir. The F-15s are airborne, but they’re as far away as you are.”

“Roger,” Luke said, checking his airspeed, wishing for more speed, anything to catch Khan. He stole a look at the chart again. “Do the F-15s have them yet?”

“Don’t know, sir. Separate control.”

“Damn it, Catfish! Fix it. Get everybody on the same frequency.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll work on that. Stay with me for now.”

“Do you still have them heading for the coast?”

“Yes, sir…” Catfish said, obviously studying the radar information, as minimal as it was. “Looks like they’re starting a descent.”

“Take combat spread,” Luke transmitted to his wingmen. “Acquire any of them you can, and be ready for missile launch, even if outside the envelope. We’ve got to distract them.”

“Two,” Vlad replied.

“Three,” said Thud.

“Four,” Stamp said.

Luke looked at his three wingmen, who were ripping through the sky with him, anxious to close on the Pakistanis, for the chance to get them before they did whatever they were planning on doing. Vlad backed off Luke and pulled out to his right.

Luke transmitted, “Vlad, I’ve got them dead ahead, at thirteen miles. Thud, you and Stamp take a position to the south and west. I want everybody launching on these guys as soon as possible.”

“Don’t we need clearance?” Thud asked.

“We can try. Break, Catfish, we need clearance to fire. Get whatever General is in charge on this frequency. We’ve only got about thirty seconds.”

“Sir, there’s no authority to do anything yet. They’re waking up everybody in the country right now, trying to figure out what’s going on. We don’t have anybody on the line yet except the Air Force duty officer, and he hasn’t given anybody clearance to do anything except take off and investigate. I seriously doubt he’ll be saying anything to you, sir. You’re a civilian.”

“We’ve got to take them out, Catfish. They’re going after a nuclear power plant, and—”

“Sir, I’m showing them approaching the coast.”

“They’re starting a bombing run! Where are they?”

“Directly over San Onofre. That’s restricted airspace—”

“That ought to really matter to them. Get us clearance to fire on them, Catfish!”

“Sir, I work for the FAA. I can’t give anybody—”

Luke’s transmission ran over Catfish’s response: “Nevada Fighters, I’ve got four targets. I’m locking on the target second from the right. Vlad, take the lead to the right.”

“Roger,” Vlad said. He was nearly overcome by the idea of piloting a MiG-29 in California defending an American target trying to shoot down an American F-16 with Gorgov whispering in his memory. He replied to Luke, “It is a difficult shot for the missile.”

“We’re taking whatever shots we can get, Vlad. Get ready to launch.”

Luke could only imagine what would happen if any of the bombs actually hit the rounded domes of the two operating facilities. It would send up a cloud of nuclear fallout that could contaminate all of Southern California. It could contaminate the Pacific Ocean. Depending on which direction the wind was blowing, Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, and Palm Springs were all in danger. If it erupted to the same level as Chernobyl, the entire western United States could be endangered by the cloud of radioactive fallout. He pulled his mind back to the fight ahead.

Luke started down as they approached the coast. The F-16s had begun to descend in the darkness toward the coast of California. The horizon behind Luke was just beginning to brighten. Exactly the conditions Khan had wanted. They would be coming out of the east.

Luke looked through the thick, illuminated glass of the HUD, the heads-up display that projected symbols onto the glass in front of him. The missile-launch indicator and the target were moving closer together in the HUD, indicating that his shot was improving with every passing second, but he was still out of range. He knew that Vlad was looking at a virtually identical display.

“I have them on my radar. Request permission to launch!” Vlad insisted. Luke checked his own position and looked at how far ahead of them the F-16s were. It was down to nine miles as they screamed through the black sky at Mach 1.2 in their Russian fighters over Orange County, California. The entire trip from Tonopah to Orange County had taken only twenty-one minutes. The F-15s took ten minutes just to get airborne. He could imagine the F-15s closing on the F-16s supersonic, just as they were, but doubted they’d get there in time, let alone be cleared to do anything decisive. He knew better than most how the military mind worked. They would much rather hesitate and be wrong for inaction than take decisive action and kill people and be wrong. They can always claim they didn’t have enough information to act decisively. They knew they were less likely to be held accountable for doing nothing than for doing something dramatically wrong that would provide pictures of dead, burning bodies.

Luke strained to see the two cement domes of the San Onofre nuclear plant on the coast between Interstate 5 and the Pacific Ocean, dramatically outlined by the morning sun. But there wasn’t any morning sun yet, no light for them to see ahead, only a pink horizon behind them.

The radar showed a good lock on one of the jets in front. It was heading down rapidly. He knew that the F-16 was now getting a MiG-29 radar strobe on its radar warning indicator. He prayed it would deter them from completing their task, but held out little hope.

“Fire!” Luke said to his wingmen, taking full responsibility on his own shoulders for whatever came next. He was hanging so far over the edge in so many different ways that it almost didn’t matter. He expected to die.

Luke pulled the trigger with the jerking motion he taught his students not to use. He felt the large AA-10 Alamo drop off his left wing. He squinted in the darkness as the rocket motor ignited and lit up the sky all around his Fulcrum. A trail of white smoke followed the blazing yellow light toward the California coastline. A missile flew off Vlad’s Fulcrum almost simultaneously.

Luke’s weapon selector had automatically cycled to the next Alamo. He held down the trigger, and his second—and last—Alamo fired. He knew he didn’t have time to break lock to select another airplane. He simply needed to get some ordnance into the area and hope he hit one or more of the F-16s now hurtling down toward the nuclear plant.

Luke watched the altitude readout on his target spin through twenty thousand feet, then eighteen thousand feet, then fifteen thousand feet as the F-16s plunged toward the target in a near-vertical descent. They couldn’t have planned a more effective way to evade the Russian missiles headed at them. Two of the missiles went stupid almost immediately, clearly not guiding. Vlad’s single missile flew straight into the ground. Luke’s second missile seemed to be guiding on the target, its motor still rushing to its destination.

Luke checked his radar just as it broke lock and went back into a track-while-scan mode, a fine radar mode of its own but not one in which the Alamo could be guided to a target. “Shit!” Luke yelled to himself. “Chaff? They’ve got chaff?” Where the hell did they get chaff? Damn it!”

On the beach below, the scavenger with a Dodgers cap knelt with his can sifter and grabbed some sand. He glanced around and put the can down. He looked up into the sky at the F-16s plummeting toward the earth with their engines screaming. He pulled off his backpack, grabbed the heavy black laser designator out of his pack. He looked through a gunsight on top of the device to aim it, then pulled the trigger. The invisible laser illumination immediately flooded over the target in eager anticipation of the laser-guided bombs attached to the F-16s above.

Khan pointed directly at the now laser-illuminated target. The two large domes were well outlined in the predawn light.

Vlad’s second Alamo flew by the trailing F-16 and was detonated by the proximity fuse in the warhead. The warhead ripped the tail off the F-16, which flipped upside down and headed straight for the ground. The pilot stayed with his plane and fought to regain control, at least enough to drive his bomb-laden aircraft directly into the nuclear plant. His F-16 tumbled slowly toward the dark ocean to the west of the power plant.

Luke switched his missile selector to Archer, the infrared missile considered by many to be the best in the world.

Suddenly a new voice came on the radio. “Nevada Fighters, this is Eagle 105, flight of four. State your position.”

It was the F-15s. “Five miles northeast of San Onofre,” Luke said, struggling to talk, fly, and shoot all at once.

“Roger. Confirm you’re flying MiG-29s?”

“Affirmative,” Luke yelled, angry they couldn’t get there before now. “The F-16s are the bad guys.”

“Roger. We’re twenty miles out.”

Luke’s heart sank. He didn’t respond.

“Say location of the bogeys.”

“Directly over San Onofre. They’re dropping. The shooting’s already started. We’ve splashed one and are closing on the others.”

The Nevada Fighter Weapons School instructors all knew they had gotten there too late but had to limit the damage as much as they could. They charged in toward the F-16s to kill them any way they could—or at least disrupt them. They fired any missile they had, at any distance, hoping it would cause one or all of the F-16s to change their flight path enough to miss.

Luke locked up the lead bogey with his radar. He was outside the maximum range of the Archer, but he couldn’t wait. He pulled the trigger, and one of his Archer missiles hissed off the rail toward the lead F-16, which was now pulling up, away from the power plant.

Khan saw the Archer racing toward him at the same time he saw the lead MiG-29. He pulled up and turned inland toward Luke. The missile tried to turn the corner but was just outside the lethal range of its warhead when its proximity fuse detonated it.

Luke suddenly felt panic sweep over him; he remembered that the F-16s had Sidewinders. “They’ve got Sidewinders!” he reminded the others.

“Roger,” someone transmitted. The Fulcrums came at the three remaining F-16s in flights of two in combat spread, with Luke and Vlad in the lead, and Stamp and Thud off their left, to the south. Vlad fired an Archer at the lead F-16, at Riaz Khan.

Suddenly, while Luke watched in horror, a flash diverted his attention from Khan’s airplane to San Onofre as the first laser-guided bomb hit directly on the top of a long, flat building just east of one of the domes. The blast was bright yellow for an instant, the concussion visible in the moist sea air. The building was crippled, but the dome was untouched. The second bomb, dropped by Rashim, went in through the now open structure and hit right where Khan’s bomb had hit. The rest of the building’s flat roof collapsed.

Luke saw an Archer come off Thud’s wing and scream toward the last F-16 that was in the middle of its bomb run.

Luke was amazed that they were somehow unable to hit the enormous domes, the home of the active reactors at San Onofre. Whoever was doing the laser designation for the bombs was doing a piss-poor job, Luke thought.

Rashim was right on Khan’s wing as they climbed toward Luke and Vlad. A small cloud of white steam began shooting out of the low building behind them, hissing and screaming into the golden predawn of the coast of California. Thud’s Archer from the south reached the third F-16 almost simultaneously. The plane never had a chance. The missile tore off both its wings, but it had already released its bomb. The third laser-guided bomb went into a flat building next to the second domed plant and blew a large cloud of dust, debris, and steam into the sky. The third F-16 tumbled to destruction on the beach below.

Khan and Rashim climbed through three thousand feet, heading up toward the MiG-29s that were passing through eight thousand feet on their way down. The F-16 radars scoured the sky in front of them. The MiGs’ electronics countermeasures in the humps behind the cockpits were effective in convincing the F-16 radar to look elsewhere.

Luke could now clearly see the waves breaking on the beach behind San Onofre, behind the white steam shooting into the sky. Cars were piling up on the freeway below them.

Vlad pulled to the right of Luke, trying to gain an angle on Khan so he would have to choose to go after one of them. Khan chose Luke, who was straight ahead of him. Luke and Khan raced at each other at nearly twice the speed of sound, now three miles apart. Vlad pulled hard into a high-G turn and tried to get his helmet-mounted sight on Khan. Khan had fought the MiGs enough to know what the outside limit of the helmet-mounted sight was and when he was in danger. He knew that Vlad was nearly to the point where he could fire an Archer. What he didn’t know was that Vlad didn’t have any more missiles. Khan broke off his attack on Luke to defend himself from Vlad. He pulled hard to his left as Rashim passed him on his right and headed toward Thud and Stamp.

Luke was tempted to fire his last Archer missile at Rashim, but knew that the other F-16, the one in the lead, was Khan—and he wanted him. Luke pulled hard right after Khan’s F-16.

Vlad screamed in Russian and pushed his throttles into afterburner to regain airspeed as Khan turned into him. Luke saw his chance. He squeezed the autolock on the radar to find the nearest airplane and lock it up, flooding it with radar illumination, then to slave the Archer missile’s seekerhead to the radar. The MiG had too many switches and moves required, though; he had to keep looking into the cockpit.

He pulled hard on the stick and banked to the right to get his nose on Khan, now only a mile away and turning toward Vlad. Luke pulled harder, with his nose only forty degrees behind the tail of the F-16. He pulled through seven Gs, then eight. His face distorted under the force, his cheeks pulled down. His radar suddenly showed a good lock on the F-16 and good missile parameters. He slipped his finger around the stick until it rested on the trigger and he waited for a clear shot, but Vlad’s MiG was in the windscreen. The Archer was just as likely to go after Vlad as Khan.

Luke pulled harder still to get a better shot and maybe get Khan to reverse himself and see Luke as the threat. Vlad could escape, or even drag Khan northeast into the low-level California mountains over Camp Pendleton, where Luke could get a clear shot. Luke fought to keep the blood in his head and to keep from blacking out. He noticed he was already seeing in black and white, his vision beginning to get grainy around the edges.

“Eagle 105 flight six miles out. State your posit.”

Luke grunted as he tried to speak through the eight-G turn. “Splashed two. Still over San Onofre. Plant has been… ugh… hit.”

“We have you. We’re right behind you.”

Vlad was in a low rolling scissors with Khan that Luke couldn’t get into or stop. They were heading toward the ground at three hundred knots as each tried to turn inside the other without gaining any angles.

Luke eased the stick forward and rolled left to see Thud and Stamp. They were two miles south, embroiled in their own 2 v. 1 with the other F-16. Luke watched them for five seconds, to make sure they weren’t in trouble. He instantly knew that the F-16 was Rashim. Overly aggressive.

Luke turned back hard right to head down toward Vlad and Khan. As he relocated the F-16 against the dark landscape behind them, a small explosion on Khan’s airplane startled him. Too late he realized it was the rocket motor of one of Khan’s Sidewinder missiles. It raced across the circle toward Vlad, less than half a mile away. Luke fumbled for the radio transmission button, but he couldn’t warn Vlad in the short time it took for the missile to cross the gulf between them. The Sidewinder slammed into the tail of the MiG-29, and the airplane burst into flames. Vlad immediately pulled the ejection handle, and his ejection seat rocketed him out of the burning wreck.

Khan knew he had the MiG-29 as soon as he launched his Sidewinder. He pulled up, somehow now aware of the F-15s closing on him. Khan was between four F-15s coming from the north and Luke coming from the east.

Rashim had his own problems with Stamp and Thud. He turned into the two MiG-29s, hoping to avoid the combination of their Archer missiles and their helmet-mounted sights. He turned hard, keeping them at bay but not trying to get behind them. He was playing a defensive game, knowing that there were now four F-15s in the mix.

Rashim suddenly dumped his nose and headed for the ground toward the power lines that climbed up the hill from the nuclear plant. He couldn’t see the plant from his current position, but he knew the fat wires would lead him right back to it.

He performed a split S as he headed down toward the power lines, hoping to avoid Thud and Stamp as they locked their radars onto his fleeing airplane. He leveled off just above the freeway, crowded with stopped cars, the drivers of which had gotten out to watch the aerial dogfight and gawk at the flames coming from a building on the property of the nuclear power plant, wondering what the screaming sirens meant.

Rashim hugged the ground as he screamed north, then pulled up to climb over the power lines. He was half a mile from San Onofre. He glanced at the growing plume of steam. It was now illuminated by the morning sun and was starkly white and radiant. Rashim pulled hard left and headed toward the steam as he looked over his right wing toward Khan.

On his left, what he couldn’t see was that Thud had stayed at altitude and was racing downhill toward him, rapidly closing the distance. To Rashim’s right, Luke was locked in a death fight with Khan.

Luke was on the ragged edge of the aircraft’s performance. He reversed his airplane and pulled his nose up to slow down and to slice in on Khan’s F-16. He waited for Khan to pull into him aggressively again, as he knew he would. Luke would be ready to cut inside his turn and drill him. Khan had wrestled back, keeping the fight neutral, no one gaining an advantage, countering every one of Luke’s moves, but this time, instead of pulling into him, Khan suddenly broke off and headed for the power plant behind Rashim.

Luke was surprised. He leveled his wings, waiting for Khan to commit himself. He saw Rashim with Khan following him. He jerked his MiG over on its back and pulled down toward the ground, his throttles at full throw, accelerating with gravity’s help to chase the fleeing F-16s. They were bugging out. Luke made sure his spine was straight so his head wouldn’t get buried in his lap by the huge Gs he was about to pull. He yanked back hard on the stick and loaded up the MiG with eight Gs. He went to full afterburner and stayed after Khan, who fell in a mile behind Rashim.

Luke had no idea what Khan was doing, but he was going with him. He eased back on the stick as they leveled out at ground level. Khan tore toward the Pacific. Luke glanced up to his left and saw another MiG descending, much faster than Luke, cutting across toward the lead F-16.

The F-15s finally arrived and crossed from Luke’s right to left, above and behind the MiGs, joining in the tail chase of the fleeing F-16s. There were too many airplanes too close together for anyone to lob a missile.

“Thud, that you going after the westernmost F-16?”

“Yeah, Stick. I’ve got him. No way he’s getting away.”

Thud was going at least two hundred knots faster than the F-16. Luke watched as he closed on Rashim. Thud had pushed his MiG-29 toward the F-16 nearly supersonic. Rashim stayed low. He knew that Thud was too close for a missile shot and, with the closure he had, was likely to overshoot and expose himself. Rashim was content with that.

Thud rushed in with reckless abandon.

Luke didn’t like what he saw. He transmitted, “Thud, watch your closure.”

Thud didn’t reply.

“Thud, pull off and let me have a shot at him. They’re bugging out! Thud!”

“I’ve got him,” Thud replied. “As soon as he sees me closing on him, he’ll come back at me. Then I’ll have him.”

He had gotten it almost completely right. Rashim was looking over his shoulder. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to get away. He’d done what he’d come here to do. Rashim pulled back on the stick, and the F-16 instantly went to 9.5 Gs, as much as the computer would allow. He pulled up and back, directly into Thud.

Thud pulled back on his throttles and tried to increase his distance from Rashim.

Rashim expected that. He kept his eye fixed on the nose of the MiG-29 as he pulled, and flew his fighter right into Thud.

The two fighters collided like cymbals and burst into flames. Airplane and canopy parts littered the sky and fell to the ocean.

“Thud!” Luke cried. He fought the instant nausea that ripped into his gut. “No!” Luke gasped for oxygen through his mask. He pulled back on his throttles and came out of afterburner. He put his head back against the ejection seat. He couldn’t do it.

“You want us to take the last one?” the F-15 lead asked.

Luke watched as Khan’s F-16 got smaller as it headed out into the Pacific. He waited, then jammed the throttles forward as Glenda spoke in his ear, “Low fuel! Low fuel!” His eyes darted to the fuel gauge. She was right, but it didn’t matter. If he had to go swimming to get Khan, then that was just how it was going to be. He’d strangle him to death in the water.

Khan had taken advantage of the midair to make his escape. He was down on the deck, fifty feet off the water. He had a mile head start on the fighters chasing him. Luke and Stamp were right behind him at the same speed. It was a race to the middle of the ocean. He had nowhere to go. The flight of four F-15s flew cover above them, ready to pounce. The lead was ready. “Nevada Fighter, pull off. We’ve got a sweet missile shot on him.”

“Negative. I’ll take my shot, then you can have him.”

“Roger. Fuel state?”

“About twenty minutes. I’m okay,” he lied.

Luke was surprised. Khan was clearly planning on running west until he ran out of gas, then crashing into the ocean. But if Khan knew he was going to die, Luke was surprised he didn’t want to go down fighting as Rashim had just done.

Stamp was apparently thinking the same thing. “Any idea on his intentions?” he asked.

“None.”

Luke didn’t want to get too close. He settled in one mile behind Khan, waiting for him to commit himself, with the image of Thud’s airplane exploding branded into his mind. If he fired a missile now, it would hit the water instead of the F-16. But if he had to wait much longer, Luke would run out of gas and crash into the ocean himself. He had to act soon to have any chance of landing back at Miramar, the Marine Corps air station in San Diego.

As Luke contemplated his options, they reached seventy-five miles off the coast, in the middle of nowhere, with no land in sight. Khan suddenly pulled into a hard left turn, still fifty feet off the ocean.

“Here we go,” the F-15 pilot said.

Luke pulled up slightly as the turn took him by surprise. He had closed the distance to Khan too fast. He pulled up quickly into a high yo-yo to keep from overshooting. He looked down at Khan from a high perch position. Khan was in a tight five-G turn right on the surface of the ocean, circling. Suddenly he pulled up into a climbing spiral away from the ocean.

Luke hesitated. He couldn’t imagine what Khan was trying to do, but it was the opening Luke had been waiting for. He rolled in and locked up Khan with his radar. He selected Archer and directed his helmet-mounted sight toward the climbing F-16. He heard the growl from the Archer seekerhead. Khan was far enough away from the water to give Luke a clear shot. The F-15s above at ten thousand feet watched in anticipation as Luke pulled hard to line up his last missile shot.

Luke leveled his wings, his breath coming in short, quick gasps. He pulled the trigger, and the Archer hissed off the missile rail toward the F-16. Luke watched in shock as the canopy came off the F-16 and Khan ejected before the missile even arrived. “What the…” Luke said to himself. The ejection seat and rocket motor threw Khan away from the F-16 seconds before the Archer missile hit the Viper in the belly and cut it in half. The F-16 rolled over and headed for the water in its two pieces, flames coming out of both ends. Khan floated down gently in his silk parachute as he inflated his survival vest and deployed the seat pan on his ejection seat.

Luke rolled wings level and pulled his throttles back to idle, slowing quickly. He watched Khan float to the ocean. “Catfish, splash the fourth bogey. The pilot jumped out. Get the Navy out here to take this guy into custody.”

“Roger, copy.”

Luke looked down at his TACAN. “We’re on the 298 radial for 98 from Miramar.”

“Roger that.”

Luke’s heart climbed quickly into his throat and choked off any thought of speaking as he watched Khan touch down and splash into the ocean. A hundred yards away from him, a periscope pierced the ocean’s surface. It was barely moving in the water. Seconds later the submarine’s sail broke the surface in a bath of white foam. Khan had freed himself from his parachute and swam with a gentle backstroke toward the surfacing submarine.

Two men opened a hatch in the sail of the submarine and came out onto the bridge. They saw Khan and clambered down a ladder to the flat deck behind the sail. They wore life jackets and dark clothes. Luke lowered the nose of the Fulcrum. “You seeing this?” Luke asked.

“I’m seeing it, but I’m not believing it,” Stamp replied.

This cannot be happening, Luke thought. “Catfish, we’ve got a submarine surfaced on the water. They’re pulling Khan out of the water. Call the Navy! Get some antisubmarine assets here now!”

“A submarine, sir?”

“Yes, a submarine?”

“Whose, sir?”

Luke lowered his nose and slowed down to take a hard look at the sub. It was black, in good shape, and almost clearly a diesel. He asked in desperation, “Anybody got a camera?”

“No,” Stamp said with regret.

“Negative,” the F-15 leader replied.

Luke pulled up hard and tried to get out of the way as Stamp followed him down and attempted to get a radar lock on the submarine with his MiG radar to shoot his last missile. The radar refused to lock on to the submarine. It couldn’t separate the sub from the rest of the ocean. Stamp fired anyway, hoping against hope that the missile would guide, but he was disappointed. The long Alamo went ballistic as soon as it was launched. It headed straight down into the ocean like an arrow hundreds of yards from the sub.

Luke watched helplessly as the submarine started to dive. “Emergency fuel! Emergency fuel!” Glenda warned. He ignored her. Khan stood on the bridge of the submarine, removed his helmet, and waved at Luke flying two thousand feet above. Suddenly Khan turned and dropped through the open hatch, which closed quickly behind him. The blue ocean closed over the submarine, and the deck was soon awash in white foam and surging water. The sail grew smaller, and the submarine disappeared into the ocean.

Luke reduced his throttles and pulled back on the stick as the MiG climbed away from disaster. Glenda continued to remind him of his fuel state. “Catfish, I’m emergency fuel. Request bingo profile vector for straight-in approach to Miramar.”

“Roger, Nevada Fighter 101. Fuel emergency. Take heading of 113, climb and maintain maximum-range altitude, and report level.”

“Catfish, Eagle flight RTB.”

“Roger. Take heading 060, climb and maintain fifteen thousand feet. Break, Nevada Fighter, I’ve been informed, sir, that the Navy is on their way to get to the submarine,” Catfish reported.

As Luke climbed away from the ocean, he glanced back at the vague disruption on the surface of the Pacific where the submarine had been. “Tell them they’re too late.”