Final Flight

28

Jake Grafton eased the throttles forward to full military power and felt the nose of the fighter dip as the thrust of the engines compressed the nose wheel oleo. The Tomcat seemed to crouch, gathering strength as its two engines ripped the night apart.

“You ready back there?” he asked Toad. As usual, Jake’s heart was pounding as he scanned the engine instruments.

“I’m behind you all the way, sir.”

Jake glanced over at the waist catapult bubble as he flipped on the external light master switch. The bubble windows were opaque. He looked straight ahead, down the catapult track at the ink-black void.

The G pushed him back into his seat and the end of the deck hurled toward him faster and faster as the howl of the engines dropped in pitch. The deck edge flashed under the nose and the G subsided, and he released the throttles and slapped the gear handle up as he let the nose climb to its optimum, eight degrees up, attitude. Accelerating nicely … 180 … 190 … 200 knots, still accelerating and climbing, flaps and slats up, little wallow as they come in…. Passing 250 knots, he looked ahead for the lights of the KA-6 Intruder tanker, which had been the first plane off Catapult Four.

Toad was on the radio to Gettysburg: “… airborne, two miles ahead of the ship, passing two thousand and squawking …” Jake eased into a left turn and looked back for the next plane. God, it’s dark out here! There — a mile or so behind. Back on the gauges, still climbing and turning, still accelerating — Jake breathed deeply and tried to relax as his eyes roamed across the panel, taking everything in.

The Tomcat that had launched from Catapult Four was on the inside of the turn, closing. Jake searched the night for the beaconing anticollision lights of other fighters leaving the little island of light that was the carrier. Nothing yet. Kowalski must be taking his time. That’s good; better safe than sorry.

Jake eased back the throttles and leveled at 5,000 feet, still turning. The second fighter was only a hundred yards away, closing nicely. It traversed the distance and slid under Jake and stabilized on his right wing, on the outside of the turn. The tanker was on the opposite side of the ship, so Jake steepened his turn to cross the ship and rendezvous.

“Red Ace Two Zero Six, Volcano, over.” “Volcano” was the radio call sign for the Gettysburg.

“Go ahead, Volcano,” Toad replied.

“Roger. Uh, sir, we have received, uh …” The transmission ceased for a few seconds. “Maybe we should go secure.”

“Roger.”

After he turned on the scrambler, Jake glanced again at the carrier. Still no anticollision lights on deck or in the air. Come on, Ski! He turned his attention again to the little collection of lights in the great black emptiness that was the tanker.

“Red Ace,” the controller aboard Gettysburg said when Toad had checked in again, “we have received a high-priority message from Sixth Fleet and have relayed it to Battlestar.” “Battlestar” was the United States. “Sixth Fleet has directed that there be no planes launched to pursue the intruders unless and until authorized by the president. Battlestar suspended the launch after we relayed this message to them by flashing light. Do you wish to hold overhead until we receive presidential authorization for the mission, or do you wish to recover back aboard Battlestar?”

Jake stole a glance at his fuel gauge as he closed on the tanker on a forty-five-degree line of bearing. The totalizer had begun its relentless march toward zero when he started the engines. Fuel from the tanker would delay the inevitable, but not prevent it. “Any timetable on when you might hear from the president?” Jake asked as he matched his speed to the tanker and passed under it, surfacing on its right side.

“Wait.” The controller aboard the cruiser must be questioning his superiors.

The tanker lights flashed, and Jake flashed his; now he had the lead. He could see the reflective tape on the pilot and bombardier-navigator’s helmets whenever his own red anticollision light swept the plane. That was all. Just the outline of two helmets in the darkened cockpit. The tanker drifted aft so the pilot could look up the leading edge of Jake’s left wing. Jake checked his right wing. The other Tomcat hung there motionless, suspended in this black, formless universe.

“No, sir,” the controller finally said.

“Talk to you in a minute,” Jake replied. He glanced at his heading indicator. Passing 210 degrees. He rolled wings level when the indicator read 180 degrees.

“Toad,” Jake said over the intercom, “use your red flashlight to signal those guys to switch to two three two point six.”

Tarkington did as requested while Jake dialed the radio to that frequency. “Two, you up?” Jake asked.

“Roger.” This was the other fighter.

“Shotgun’s with you.” That was the tanker crew.

“Go secure.”

The response was mike clicks.

With the scrambler engaged, Jake said, “Who’s over there in the turkey?” He slowly nudged the throttles forward and lifted the nose. The needle on the altimeter began to move clockwise.

“Joe Watson and Corky Moran, CAG.” The needle on the vertical speed indicator swung lazily up past five hundred feet a minute, then eight hundred, and stabilized at one thousand. It was reassuring, in a way; he could make these little needles do precisely as he wished with the smallest displacement of stick or throttles. Jake added more power and tweaked the nose higher.

“Joe and Corky, huh? And you, Shotgun?”

“Belenko and Smith, sir.”

“Well, this is how it is, guys. I’m going after those terrorists. Sixth Fleet ordered me not to. The president will probably approve of a pursuit, but we’ll lose the chance if we wait around. Those people killed a bunch of our guys and stole two nuclear weapons. I’m going with or without you. If you want to go back, that’ll be fine. If you go along, the fact that I’m the man responsible and you’re just following orders may not be a big enough piece of armor plate to cover your ass. I don’t have any steel underwear to give you. Think about it.”

Silence. He had 90 percent RPM on both engines now and they were passing through 12,000 feet. He was wasting fuel climbing this slowly, but the tanker pilot probably had his throttles almost to the stops.

“Uh, CAG,” Toad said over the intercom. “Don’t I get a vote in this? I’d like to stay out of prison if at all possible. I’m pretty young, you know. Whole life before me and all that. It seems to me—”

“Shut up,” Jake Grafton said. “You’re flying with me.”

The scrambler beeped. “What do you think they might do with those weapons, CAG?”

“They’re not going to mount them on a wall somewhere as trophies.”

The jets passed thorough a thin cloud layer. Above it, Jake could see the pink light of dawn to the southeast. The stars were fading rapidly. It was going to be a good day to fly.

“Red Ace Two Zero Six. This is Volcano on Guard.” “Guard” was the emergency frequency, 243.0, which was constantly monitored by a separate radio receiver in each plane. “RTB. Return to base. Contact Volcano on …” and he named a frequency.

When that transmission ceased, the scrambler beeped in, and the voice from the other fighter said, “CAG, we hold Palermo five degrees port. What are we gonna do when we get there?”

“What about you, Belenko?”

“If you guys are going to tilt some windmills, we wanta be there to watch.”

“Oh, shit,” Toad sighed.

From his seat Colonel Qazi could see the light in the eastern sky. The airplane was heading right for the spot where the sun would shortly appear. The windows were round and small and covered with scratches which suffused the pink dawn.

El Hakim was in the after part of the cabin watching Jarvis complete the task of wiring the trigger to the bomb. In the seat facing him, the bodyguard with the Uzi kept the gun pointed at Qazi’s stomach. Qazi shifted in his seat and tried to get comfortable. His wrist and head hurt from the blows of the night and his entire body ached from the exertion.

He heard someone walking this way. The dictator fell onto the seat beside the guard and leered at him.

“You know, I assume,” Qazi said, “that the triggers won’t work.”

El Hakim’s lips pulled away from his teeth, exposing them. “Oh yes. I thought you might do something along those lines, so Jarvis checked them before he left Africa. He replaced the timing devices.” The dictator leaned forward. “They’ll work now.”

Qazi looked out the window. The fiery disk of the sun had peeped over the horizon. “You tipped your hand when you subverted Ali,” he said just loud enough for El Hakim to hear. “He was not a good double agent.”

El Hakim sat with his hands on his knees, the knuckles whitening. The muscles in his cheeks tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed, rhythmically. “Another possibility to be guarded against. Another precaution to be taken.” He leaned across and slapped Qazi hard. “Look at me!”

Qazi complied.

“You knew I might discover your sabotage of the triggers. What precaution did you take against that?”

Qazi merely looked at him.

“Answer!”

“Your only viable alternative,” Qazi said slowly, calmly, “is to take these weapons back to Africa and use them as diplomatic tools. They will give you stature and respect in international councils. Your voice in the Arab world will … That is your only alternative, Excellency.”

“What else did you do, Colonel? Tell me now.”

“I called the Israelis and told them you were coming. You won’t get within a hundred—”

El Hakim stood speechless, his mouth open. He licked his lips. It wasn’t true, of course, Qazi reflected. Too risky to give an aggressive bunch like that any advance warning of his acquisition of weapons that would change the entire power structure in the Mediterranean. But El Hakim was accustomed to calculating different risks.

“You’re lying,” El Hakim spluttered. “You’re bluffing.” He tried to laugh. “It won’t work with me.”

“The number in Rome is 679 93 62.”

El Hakim had him around the throat. He shook him like a dog shakes a snake. “Traitor! You filthy, slimy traitor!”

Qazi’s cuffed hands wouldn’t reach. He fought for air. He bit his tongue. The darkness closed in and his vision shrank to pinpoints. He could hear El Hakim shouting, but the words were being replaced by a roaring in his ears. Then suddenly the pressure on his neck ceased, leaving him gasping, chest heaving.

“… too good for you. Oh, no! I will kill you slowly, make you die by inches.” El Hakim stood over him, staring down. Perspiration glistened on his face. “You betrayed us. You betrayed me. And we will get through. We will use the weapon on the Jews.” El Hakim leaned down. Saliva flecked his lips. “I have fighters coming to rendezvous. They will escort us in and we will push the weapon out the back and the parachute will open and it will detonate in an air burst a thousand meters above Tel Aviv.” The perspiration was making rivulets on his face. “You will live to see it, Colonel.” El Hakim struck him, then turned away toward the flight deck, breathing hard.

The three American jets came from the north, from the sea. Far below, the airmen saw the city of Palermo and they saw the thin, irregular line where the land surrendered to the sea. The land was rough, convoluted, and as the sun crept over the rim of the earth the ridges cast long shadows into dark, misty valleys.

With his throttles pulled back to max conserve, Jake remained at 25,000 feet and watched Joe Watson’s plane fall away toward the city below as he listened to yet another transmission from the Gettysburg on Guard. The tanker was behind and to Jake’s right. Both fighters had topped off just before they made landfall. In the rear cockpit Toad was scanning the sky with the radar. Nothing. At dawn on a Sunday morning in September, the sky over Sicily was empty.

“That’s the seventh time they’ve called,” Toad said, his voice revealing his irritation.

“Persistent beggars, aren’t they?”

“Goddamn, CAG, Sixth Fleet! You can’t give the finger to Sixth Fleet. For the love of—”

“I’m not in the mood for you today, Toad. A lot of good men died trying to stop these assholes, and you’re whining. Now shut the fuck up.”

The sun was a fireball just above the horizon. As his plane turned through the easterly heading Jake was blinded by the glare coming straight through his heads-up display. He squinted behind the green visor of his helmet and tried to see the instruments. They were almost indecipherable. His eyes couldn’t look from brightness to darkness and accommodate anymore. It irritated him, as Toad did. So much at stake and nothing going right. What would Joe and Corky find down there? Was Qazi still there? Even if he was, where were the weapons? It was an impossible problem. He engaged the autopilot, knowing it would fly the plane more smoothly than he could and thereby save a few pints of fuel. A few gallons. He unfastened one side of his oxygen mask and swabbed his face with a gloved hand and let the mask dangle. Come on, guys. What’s down there?

“There’s a chopper here on the mat beside a hangar with the door closed, CAG. As near as I can tell, it looks exactly like one of those that was on the ship. No one in sight. Not a solitary soul. Nothing down here but light planes, Cessnas and Pipers. What do you think?”

Jake refastened his mask. “How many hangars?”

“Two.”

“How about big trucks? Any semis parked around?”

“Empty as a politician’s promise.”

Had the bird flown? Jake had to make a decision and make it fast. Joe Watson was down low, burning gas at an appalling rate.

“Could they be in the hangars?”

“It’s possible, I guess,” Watson said, his voice dubious.

Jake cursed to himself and swung his F-14 to the south. He leveled the wings and pushed the throttles full forward as he trimmed the stick aft. “Joe, climb to about five thousand and orbit the field as long as you can. If anybody gets nervous and tries to drive off in a van or semi, or if they open a hangar and you see a big plane parked in there, shoot it up. Understand?”

“Roger.”

“Watch your gas and get back to the ship. Keep your eyes peeled. Belenko, I want you to go down to Cape Passero, on the southeastern tip of the island south of Syracuse, and orbit overhead at forty grand. Wait for me there.”

“Red Ace Two roger.”

“Shotgun roger.”

“Good luck, Joe,” Jake said.

The mike clicked twice.

As they knifed upward through 30,000 feet headed southeast with the unfiltered sunlight filling the cockpit Toad murmured over the intercom. “Qazi got away, CAG, and you know it.”

He did know it. Qazi had two nuclear weapons that belonged to the United States Navy and he was gone. Gone where? Tripoli or Benghazi or somewhere else? If he was on his way to Africa, he was talking to Air Traffic Control. Jake began frantically flipping through the bundles of cards on his kneeboard, looking for the Air Traffic Control sector and frequency list. Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner?

He selected the frequency for the southeastern coast of Sicily and, after turning off the scrambler, dialed it in on the radio. His radio was UHF, and a transport, even a military one, would be using VHF. But the controllers normally transmitted on both VHF and UHF. Jake leveled at 40,000 feet. The throttles were in high cruise and he was clipping along at.86 Mach.

“See anything?” he growled at Toad.

“No, sir. Empty sky.”

How about that frigate that went through the Strait of Messina last night? It was supposed to be off the east coast of Sicily now. Jake looked up the frequency on another kneeboard card and dialed it into the second radio. He gave them a call and got an answer. They assigned a discrete IFF code, and he squawked it. He wondered how much help he would get if Vice-Admiral Lewis was talking to them. He had to use his real call sign because the frigate could read the classified IFF code, which was specific to this aircraft. Here goes nothing. “Buckshot, we’re running a little intercept exercise this morning and I wonder if you’ve observed any traffic out of Palermo in the last several hours headed south or southeast, over.”

“Wait one.”

Mount Etna was off to his left, spectacular with the sun on its flank. Normally Jake Grafton would try to make a mental note of every detail to include in his next letter to Callie, but this morning he glanced at the mountain, then ignored it.

“Red Ace, Buckshot. We can’t see quite that far, but we had a North African Airways flight cross the coast southbound from Palermo about fifteen minutes ago, speed about three five zero. And we had a TWA flight cross Catania eastbound six minutes ago. He’s about fifty miles east, apparently on course for Athens. Then there was a Red Cross transport eastbound past Syracuse twenty minutes ago.”

“Any destinations?”

“Not specifically, but the controller asked the North African Airways flight if their trip was going to become a regular one. I gathered it was some kind of a one-time deal.”

“Thanks for your help, Buckshot.”

“For further assistance, give a shout. Buckshot, out.”

“Just what the world needs, another clown,” Toad grumped on the ICS.

With another anxious glance at the fuel readout, Jake shoved the throttles into afterburner. If Qazi was up ahead, he was going to have to catch him. He flipped the switches on the radio panel so he could monitor the Air Traffic Control frequency. Static! Someone was transmitting! He turned down the squelch and heard words in English, but they were too garbled to understand. Then the transmission ceased. Okay! Someone was on this frequency this morning. It could be anyone, but maybe, just maybe …

“North African Airways Three Zero Six, you are departing Italian airspace. You are cleared to leave this frequency. Good day, sir.”

“I may have ’em, CAG,” Toad said. “Right on the edge of the scope, heading south. We’re following them. They’re headed for Africa all right. Tripoli if they hold this heading.”

Jake nudged the throttles deeper into afterburner. The Mach meter indicated 1.5. He could go faster, but he was using fuel at a prodigious rate.

“He’s below us, about twenty-five thousand feet or so, making three hundred fifty knots, the computer says. No, about three hundred sixty knots. Pretty slow for a jet.” They crossed the coast of Sicily and headed out to sea. Malta was off to the left there, someplace.

At forty miles Jake pulled the throttles back slightly and lowered the nose. Toad turned on the Television Camera System and Jake punched up the picture on his Horizontal Situation Display. “Looks like a C-130 Hercules to me,” Toad said. “Same high wing. Right speed for a turboprop.”

“There aren’t any Hercs going to Africa this morning,” Jake said as he studied the picture. The image was still so small and it shimmered as the light was diffused by the atmosphere.

“Maybe an An-12 Cub? Didn’t the Russians sell those things all over North Africa?”

“Yeah.”

“What’re you going to do?” Toad asked.

“Rendezvous so you can give the pilots the Hawaiian good luck sign.”

“Well, we can’t just shoot ’em down,” Toad said acidly. “We can’t just blast ’em out of the sky.”

At ten miles Toad said, “Looks like this guy has a gun turret or something in the tail. That’s no Herc.” It’s no airliner, either, Jake thought as he looked through the heads-up display and picked out the speck in the sky near the symbol that was the transport.

He came out of burner and let his speed drop as he approached the turboprop from the stern. There was a man in the gun turret, but the twin barrels remained pointed upward as the fighter rapidly traversed the last mile and Jake pulled the engines toward idle and cracked the speed brakes to kill his speed.

He slid up on the right side of the transport. A four-engine turboprop. An Antonov An-12 Cub, all right, with a glass chin for the navigator to peer out of. The Americans hadn’t put a chin like that on a plane in forty years. This plane was painted in desert camouflage but lacked markings of any kind. That’s curious, Jake thought. Not even a side number.

He let the fighter drift forward so he could see directly into the transport’s cockpit. Both pilots were looking this way. He used his left hand to signal a turn to the left. Nothing. They just stared. Jake flipped the switches on the armament panel and triggered a short burst from the Vulcan 20-millimeter cannon mounted in the port side of the F-14’s forward fuselage. He could feel the weapon’s vibration as the tracers shot forward and disappeared from sight.

The Cub continued on its heading. Jake signaled vigorously for a left turn. Nothing. “They’re a thick bunch,” Toad muttered.

Jake triggered another burst. Still the plane continued on course. “What if the weapons aren’t in there?” Toad demanded.

“What do you want me to do? Let him go to Africa and drop the bomb next week on New York?” Jake reduced power and let the transport pull ahead. Maybe a few rounds right over the wing would change this guy’s mind.

He glanced left just in time. The twin barrels in the tail turret were swinging this way. He rammed the stick forward and orange fireballs flew across the top of the canopy. The negative G slung the two men upward as far as the slack in their harness restraints allowed. Jake dove under the transport and added power and kept the nose down.

“What do you want to do now, Tarkington, you goddamn flea on the elephant’s ass. Got any ideas?” When Jake was several miles ahead of the Cub, he began a turn. “How many people have to die before you’re willing to get your hands dirty?” He craned his neck to keep the transport in sight. It turned the opposite way and dove, trying to flee, a fatal mistake. Jake relaxed his turn and reset the armament switches. “No smirches on your lily-white soul. What do you think Farrell was fighting for?”

The Cub was in the forward quadrant now, several miles ahead as Jake completed the 270-degree turn. The tailgunner was blazing away but the shells were falling short. Jake put the pipper in the heads-up display on the plane, and got a rattling tone in his ears, the locked-on signal from the heat-seeking Sidewinder that had given the missile its name. He squeezed the red trigger on the stick pistol grip. A missile leaped off the rail in a blaze of fire. It tracked. Jake got another tone and squeezed the trigger again. The second missile shot after the first.

The gunner shot at the missiles. It was futile. They slammed into the engines of the Cub at two and a half times the speed of sound. Their 25-pound warheads flashed. The Cub rolled onto its right wing and began a spiral. The nose fell steeply.

Jake dipped a wing and watched the transport going down. It was going too fast. A piece of wing came off and the plane began to roll about its longitudinal axis, out of control, going down, down, down. Jake added power and eased the Tomcat into a climbing turn toward the north, still watching the falling plane far below. Then it exploded.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Toad said.

Jake took off his oxygen mask and wiped his face. He felt like he was going to be sick. “I’m sorry, too,” he muttered to the Gods, who were the only ones who could hear.

“Do you think they had the bombs?” Toad asked.

When Jake had his mask back on and adjusted, he said, “I doubt it.” Qazi didn’t seem the type to let himself be waylaid quite so easily. “Get on the radio. Find out where that frigate thinks that Red Cross plane is and ask the tanker to fly straight east at top speed. We’ll rendezvous with him and get some more gas, then try to catch the east-bound jet.”

“You don’t think it’s a Red Cross plane?”

“That has the earmarks of our colonel friend. An airline flies certain known routes every day, so you can’t just pretend you are an airliner without confusing the controllers. He needed a one-time flight plan.” Toad did as requested.

Or, Jake thought, Qazi could do what Jake was doing right now, which was fly around illegally without a flight plan and hope the controllers had their radars tuned to just receive transponder codes, not skin paints. But Qazi didn’t run risks like that. Oh, no. He would be covered, with a perfectly legal international flight plan filed days in advance. For a one-time trip.

The II-76 with Qazi, El Hakim, and the weapons aboard was circling, waiting. The fighters were late, Qazi heard one of the crewmen say. They had been circling for ten minutes. Out his defective window he could see only the blue of the ocean and the changing shadow of the wing as the transport flew a lazy circle.

El Hakim had never understood the importance of timing in clandestine operations, Qazi reflected. This ocean was an American lake, with missile-carrying surface combatants sprinkled at random. There was a carrier battle group off Cyprus. When the Americans sorted out the mess aboard United States, they were going to be in a very pugnacious mood, and Sovietbuilt transports wandering erratically in international airspace were going to attract unhealthy attention, especially if escorted by fighters. El Hakim’s time was fast running out, and he didn’t know it.

Noora and Jarvis were in the last row of seats in the module, their heads only occasionally visible. The guard with the Uzi had looked that way four or five times and was showing an increasing interest in their activities. That Noora, she could be relied upon to put her pleasure first. Qazi permitted himself a hint of a smile. He had not considered the possibility that she would be attracted to Jarvis. I am getting too old, he thought ruefully.

He sighed and watched the guard crane his neck, trying to see. The sexual curiosity of the Arab male could also be relied upon. He folded his hands across his lap and closed his eyes and tried to relax. The plane continued to circle.

The guard stood. It was too noisy to hear him, but Qazi sensed it. He opened his eyes to slits. The man was at the end of the aisle, looking aft. Then he passed behind the row of seats Qazi was in. Qazi lifted his right leg and drew the Walther PPK from his ankle holster. He thumbed the safety off. He laid it on his lap and covered it with his left hand.

Jake approached the tanker from the stern. The refueling drogue was extended. He flipped the refueling switch, and his refueling probe came out of the right side of the fuselage just under and forward of his cockpit. He added power and began closing on the tanker.

The drogue on the end of the fifty-foot hose hung down and behind the tail of the Intruder. Looking exactly like a large badminton birdie, the drogue oscillated gently in the lower edge of the tanker’s slipstream. The air displaced by the nose of the Tomcat would push the drogue away if Jake closed too slowly, so he used the throttles to make his closure brisk and sure. But at this altitude, at this low indicated airspeed, only 210 knots due to the tanker’s capabilities, the Tomcat was sluggish, responding sloppily to the controls. There, he snagged it. He pushed the drogue toward the tanker until the lights above the hose exit in the tanker’s belly turned from amber to green. He was getting fuel.

“How much do you want, CAG?” the tanker pilot asked.

“All you can give me and still make it to Sigonella.” They were flying east at 40,000 feet. The island of Sicily lay over a hundred miles behind them.

Toad was talking to the frigate on the other radio, as he had been for five minutes. Apparently he was conversing with one of the enlisted men in the watch section of the frigate’s CIC, all very low-key, though with the scramblers engaged. Toad handled it well, seeking aid on an “oh, by the way” basis, a few traffic advisories for a Tomcat crew out for a spin and some practice intercepts this fine Sunday morning.

“Here’s something interesting, Red Ace,” the sailor on the frigate said. “The spooks say we have some MiGs airborne north of Benghazi. We picked up the radar emissions and some radio traffic.” The transmission broke, then resumed, “And this is funny. There’s an airplane circling about a hundred ten miles or so north of Benghazi.”

“Ask him if he can pick up a squawk,” Jake said to Toad, who made the transmission. He checked the fuel readout. Twelve thousand pounds aboard. The tanker’s light was still green.

“Uh, it’s that Red Cross flight. Pretty weird, huh? You guys may want to return to Sicily or turn northbound to avoid the MiGs, over.”

“Yeah,” Toad said. “Thanks a lot, Buckshot.”

“That’s it, CAG,” the tanker crew said as the light over the hose hole turned red: 13,200 pounds of fuel. That would have to do.

“Thanks guys.” Jake backed away from the drogue and watched his probe retract. He eased up onto the tanker’s right side and gave the pilot a thumbs-up when the drogue was completely stowed. Then he pushed the throttles forward to the stops and flapped his hand good-bye. The tanker’s right wing came up and the plane turned away to the left as it fell behind the accelerating fighter.

Jake reset the radio switches so he could transmit on the second radio. “Buckshot, Red Ace. Get your watch officer and put him on the horn.”

The Tomcat was in burner, accelerating through Mach 1.4 when the watch officer came on the radio.

“Buckshot, this is Captain Jake Grafton. Please notify Sixth Fleet ASAP that Colonel Qazi and the weapons are probably in the Red Cross flight your controller has tracked. We are on course to intercept now. Got it?”

“Yessir. But what—”

“Just send the message. Red Ace out.”

Someone was there. Qazi opened his eyes. It was El Hakim, livid, trembling with fury. “679 93 62. That is the telephone number of the Israeli embassy in Rome. Tripoli confirms it. That was the number! How did you know it?”

“I called it.”

“Traitor!” The dictator’s lips drew back in a sneer and he threw back his head, his favorite gesture. “You are lying. Hypocrite!”

“You have the weapons,” Qazi said carefully. “Fly to Benghazi. The fighters are late. It’s suicidal to continue to remain out here over the ocean with the Americans soon to be swarming and the Israelis on the alert. Madness. Go to Benghazi and announce your triumph. The Arabs will come to you like iron to a magnet.”

“I am the Messenger, returned to lead my people from the godless ways, to purify them—”

A member of the flight crew stuck his head through the door. “Excellency, the fighters are joining us with their tanker. We have them in sight.”

“East. Now!” He turned back to Qazi, nostrils flaring. “My mission has just begun. The unbelievers shall fall before our swords—”

“Inshallah,” Qazi said softly, fiercely. “If Allah wills it.” El Hakim was mad, of course. The ruler was a small, foolish, hollow man whose ambition and appetite had long ago won control of his soul. Ashes. Qazi’s plan was ashes. He had wanted so much to give these people hope and a future, and yet this vainglorious petty tyrant was the man who ruled them. “If the Israelis don’t shoot you down,” Qazi muttered, suddenly laden with fatigue. “If the Americans don’t strike you down. If Allah doesn’t destroy you as an abomination.”

El Hakim seized the Uzi of the bodyguard who stood on his right, but the weapon was on a strap over the man’s right shoulder. The ruler pulled at it, trying to rip it from the strap.

“Excellency, American fighters! The ECM! They are here!”

The ruler struggled with the gun as the bodyguard tried to pull the strap from his shoulder so he could pass the weapon.

“No!” It was Noora. She leaned across El Hakim and grabbed for the gun. “No! We are pressurized. The pressure—”

Qazi was so tired. He raised the pistol from his lap and pointed it at the window beside him and pulled the trigger. The report was loud. A hole appeared in the crazed glass, then cracks as the scream of the escaping air dropped in pitch. Then the glass exploded outward.

The sun was well above the horizon now, an hour and ten minutes after launch. High above was a thin cirrus layer, but it would not soften the strength of the sun for at least an hour. The air was clear, visibility perfect, and Jake and Toad sat in the middle of it under their bubble canopy. The wings were swept full aft, sixty-eight degrees. The two men rode on the tip of this flat arrowhead.

Toad was busy with the radar and computer. He gave Jake a running commentary. “Six targets, two large and four small…. We can shoot anytime.” They were well within range of the two Phoenix missiles slung under the belly, million-dollar super-missiles with a maximum head-on range of over a hundred miles. Yet Jake had to be sure; he would not shoot until fired upon. “I figure,” Toad said, “that we have no more than another minute in burner before we have to bug out for Sigonella on a max-range profile.” Jake eyed the fuel. Maybe not even that.

Forty miles out Jake pushed the throttles forward to the stops. His speed crept up to Mach 1.9. He lowered the nose and selected the two Phoenix missiles on his armament panel.

“The little guys are turning our way. Fighters, most likely. Nice rate of turn. They’re accelerating toward us.”

The ECM beeped. Jake eyed it. A J-band warning from straight ahead. MiG-23s? If so, they were armed with guns and short-range missiles.

He checked the TCS. Toad had it locked on a fighter; a small dot with lines for wings. A head-on picture.

“Twenty-six miles. They’re over Mach 1, forming a line abreast.” The Tomcat was in a slight descent, passing 32,000 feet, speed Mach 2.1. The planes were closing at over 2,000 knots, a mile every two seconds. They would come together in less than a minute.

“Where are the big planes?” Jake asked.

“Proceeding east, range fifty-four now.”

“Don’t lose them.”

The tone from the ECM gear rose in pitch. One or more of the enemy fighters had switched to a higher pulse repetition frequency, trying to track him. These guys are gonna shoot!

“Mother of God,” Toad breathed. “Fifteen miles. Phoenix is fire and forget.” It would go with an active radar, illuminating its own target and steering itself to it.

The display in front of Jake had the targets numbered in the order of priority, one through four. Even as he glanced at it, Toad shouted, “Missiles inbound. Two.”

Jake squeezed the trigger on the stick. The first Phoenix left in a blaze of fire. It would go after the target with the highest priority.

He punched the chaff button on the right throttle four times in quick succession with his left thumb and looked outside. A thin smoke trail on a downward vector slightly left marked the Phoenix’ path.

The defensive countermeasures system was on automatic repeat; it should defeat the incoming missiles. He squeezed off more chaff while looking outside, trying to catch a glimpse of the oncoming machines and missiles in this age of superspeed war in the sky.

“Incoming’s gonna miss us … Phoenix tracking … Bull’seye!”

The large planes were shown on the display as targets five and six, now separating. Jake turned fifteen degrees left to intercept.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a planform view of a sweptwing fighter turning hard, vapor pouring off the wingtips as the pilot pulled maximum G. Even as the sight registered on Jake’s brain, he was by and gone, through the formation and hurling onward, nose still down a couple of degrees, Mach 2.2 on the airspeed indicator.

When the MiGs completed their turn they would fire more missiles, since it would be impossible to overtake him in a tail chase.

“Quick, the second Phoenix on that guy ahead turning south.” There was no time to spare. The nuclear weapons had to be in one of those two airplanes, and a missile from the MiGs might come up their tailpipe any second.

“Locked on,” Toad reported. “You can shoot!”

Jake squeezed off the last Phoenix. It, too, departed in a blaze of fire and was gone in a few heartbeats, accelerating to Mach 4 and climbing as it sought its target forty miles away.

“We’re at bingo fuel,” Toad said.

When the window blew out, Qazi was blinded by the dirt and trash that filled the air. His seat belt and handcuffs saved him. Eyes shut, he fought the hurricane that tried to rip him from the seat and hurl him bodily through the window.

And then the hurricane subsided, although the noise level remained unbelievably high. He opened his eyes and looked around. El Hakim was gone, as was the guard. Noora was lying on the floor at his feet, her head at an odd angle and her skirt up around her waist.

He became aware of a painful ache in his ears. And the plane was descending, its left wing down steeply. The wind coming in the empty window socket was very cold.

His hands were numb and blood oozed around the handcuffs where they had cut his wrists. He fumbled with the seat belt and got the buckle unfastened and used the pistol on the chain of the cuffs that held him to the arm of the seat. When he stood he swayed uncertainly, the pain in his ears still severe. He stepped carefully over Noora’s naked legs.

Jarvis was still in his seat. Apparently he had had his seat belt fastened. He looked at Qazi terror-stricken as the aircraft continued its downward plunge. The pain in Qazi’s ears was lessening, but he was beginning to feel light-headed. How high had the plane been?

El Hakim’s second bodyguard, who had been in the rear cargo bay with the weapons, came staggering through the door. Qazi shot him. He stumbled before he reached the fallen man and had to crawl toward him. The man was still alive. Qazi shot him in the head this time and seized the Uzi.

He lay there by the body gasping. His vision was coming back. And the wing of the plane seemed to be rising. He could feel the Gs pressing him toward the floor as the pilots fought to pull out of their uncontrolled descent.

When the Gs subsided, he pulled himself erect and went forward toward the cockpit, steadying himself with the seat backs as he proceeded. Jarvis was cowering in his seat, still gasping for air.

He still had a chance. He would make the pilots fly to Benghazi. Once there he could put together a coalition of colonels to take over the government. It could be done. The professional soldiers had loathed and feared El Hakim and would not be sorry to see him gone. Nor would they spurn the opportunity to rule. Then all of this would not have been in vain.

The radar in the nose of the last Phoenix missile went active when the missile was still fifteen miles from the Il-76 at which it had been fired. This was the aerial tanker which had accompanied the MiGs from Benghazi and whose pilot had decided to return there forthwith when informed that the MiGs’ electronic countermeasures equipment had detected the emissions of an F-14’s radar. The Phoenix’ small radar transmitted its signal and picked up the returning echo, and the computer sent digital signals to the canards, positioning them. This process was repeated several thousand times a second as the missile closed its target.

The missile smashed though the Ilyushin’s fuselage just under the starboard wing root, at the point where the returning echo had been strongest, and was halfway through the port side of the fuselage when the warhead detonated. The shrapnel from the exploding 132-pound warhead severed the main spar of the port wing, among other things, and the wing immediately separated from the aircraft. The large plane began to roll violently as the nose fell through to the vertical. Then the starboard wing tore off under the tremendous stress. Seconds later the tail ripped away. Rolling slowly now and streaming fire, the remainder of the fuselage continued its four-mile plunge toward the sunlit, glistening sea.

Jake Grafton went for the remaining Il-76, now only twentytwo miles away, but low, only 8,000 feet or so. It was turning southward, toward the land. Great, he would be there that much sooner. He lowered the right wing and altered course to intercept.

He had used chaff to help the DECM foil the three missiles hurled after him by the MiG-23 Floggers behind. Not even a near miss. They were hopelessly behind now and would be out of the play if he could drop this Ilyushin on the first pass. Then he would turn north and fight his way toward Greece. He wouldn’t make it, of course; he didn’t have enough fuel. But he could get away from Africa and out over the main shipping lanes before he and Toad punched out. Maybe they could even find a freighter or oil tanker to eject alongside. But that was in the future. First he had to drop this transport. And fast. Only 5,000 pounds of fuel remaining. He eased the throttles back out of burner.

He would come in from the rear stern-quarter and pour shells in at the Vulcan cannon’s maximum rate of fire, over a hundred shells a second. That should do it and then some. Automatically he fingered the switches and checked the display on the Air-Combat Maneuvering panel immediately under the heads-up display. Guns selected!

“More MiGs. Two. They were masked in the transport’s return. Dead ahead. Now turning, one left and one right.” Toad swore.

The symbols were on the scope and the heads-up display. But Jake had no more missiles. The tanker was moving from left to right, and one fighter was turning left away hard, probably intending a 270 degree turn. God, he was turning tightly; he must have the burner plugged in and the nose up, using the vertical plane. The other MiG had turned right and was already head-on to Jake. The ECM was beeping.

Jake altered course to the right to approach him head-on. Down to 1.5 Mach. He looked through the heads-up display. The symbol was on him. There. Coming faster than thought. A flash. Missile!

Chaff. The missile didn’t track. Going under.

Jake put the pipper just short. He was aware of the fireballs from the MiG just as he pulled the trigger and eased the pipper up. A streak like lightning shot forward as the Vulcan cannon wound up to maximum rate-of-fire and the Tomcat vibrated. The MiG exploded. Jake jerked the stick aft as he released the trigger. He felt a thump. Something had hit the F-14.

“Where’s the other guy?” he asked Toad as the Gs tore at him and he scanned the engine instruments and warning light panel. All okay.

“High. Ten o’clock.” Right! Symbol on the heads-up display was there.

Jake kept the stick back and the Tomcat’s nose climbing. He smoothly advanced the throttles and the burners kicked him in the back. There, he saw the high man.

Jake was going up with the burners wide open, closing the gap on the MiG. He rolled, trying to pull his nose toward his opponent. The enemy pilot dumped his nose, twisting away, his burner lit and his energy level still high. Jake neutralized the stick and pulled the throttles aft, out of burner. He still had a speed advantage and was closing, but he was closing too fast to get the nose around. He opened the speed brakes, the big slabs that came out from the top and bottom of the fuselage between the twin vertical tails. The MiG was going out the left side. Boards in, burners lit, roll and pull hard, get that nose around….

“We gotta get this guy quick, CAG,” Toad prompted, straining against the G to get his words out. As if Jake needed a reminder. The fighter pilot’s imperative was never more urgent — go in fast and kill fast. He was running out of gas and there were three more MiGs coming this way supersonic and the Ilyushin was escaping. This MiG pilot would win if he could just stay alive for a few more turns, a few more seconds.

Now, he was behind the MiG, in its stern quadrant. Burners full open. The MiG’s nose was down, below the horizon, his tail white-hot. Oh for a Sidewinder … The MiG rolled hard right with G on. Jake slammed the stick over and followed, narrowing the distance, but the MiG was still above the plane of his gun. There, his left spoiler coming up and a max-rate roll left. Jake slammed the stick back left. Five Gs on, corkscrewing. The Tomcat had a better roll rate than the MiG, but the Mig pilot knew when he was going to roll.

“This guy’s pretty fucking good, CAG,” Toad said. “But we ain’t got time to dance.”

The Flogger’s nose was too high, so now the MiG pilot slammed the stick forward and he snapped below the plane of Jake’s gun. Too late Jake squeezed off a burst. Jake used forward stick to follow and the negative G threw him upward against his harness restraints. He was tempted to roll, but the instant he did the MiG would pull positive Gs and scissor away and the fight would be back to neutral.

He jammed the stick full left and squeezed the trigger on the stick. The Tomcat spun 180 degrees about its longitudinal axis vomiting shells, and as it completed its roll Jake neutralized the stick with the trigger still down. The MiG tried to fly through the river of lead. It exploded.

Stick back to avoid the expanding fireball. Roll toward Ilyushin, six Gs, get the nose up. Ten miles away. 2,500 pounds of fuel remaining. We can still get this guy!

The ECM was chattering. The other MiGs were coming back.

Qazi stood in the cockpit of the Ilyushin behind the pilots. He felt a great calm. They would either make it or they wouldn’t. The pilots were nervous enough for everybody. They talked incessantly and craned their heads, trying to see behind them, and the copilot kept trying to bend the throttles over the forward stop. They were headed southwest, toward Benghazi.

He could hear the chatter of the MiG pilots over the loudspeaker. One lone American F-14. Qazi smiled wryly. It was probably Captain Grafton. I should have killed him and done a better job of destruction of the planes on the flight deck of the United States. Ah well, it went as Allah willed it. For all his professed piety and bombast, El Hakim had never understood that basic fact. A man must accept his fate; though he can use every ounce of brains and cunning he has in the interim, he must in the end submit.

Qazi squatted and looked aft, through the door to the passenger module and beyond. Hard to believe this flying leviathan could be torn to shreds …

He straightened and leaned against the bulkhead, listening. The MiGs had the American fighter on radar and were almost within range. Perhaps, just perhaps …

Jake put the pipper on the Il-76 and pulled the trigger. This would be a stern quartering deflection shot, from the starboard side. The gun spit a few shells, then went dead. Fuck! And it’s not empty! Over a hundred rounds remaining on the counter. Sonofabitch has jammed!

He lifted the nose and flashed across the top of the transport.

“The gun’s jammed,” he told Toad. “Pull your harness as tight as you can stand it.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means we’re going to ram the bastard.”

“Like fucking shit we are. I’ll eject first. I’m not—”

“Oh yes you fucking are, Tarkington, you asshole. We’re not blowing the canopy off until we’ve killed this guy. There ain’t no other way.”

Jake was craning back over his right shoulder. He popped some more chaff. He was about three miles ahead now. He lowered the right wing and racked the plane into a six-G turn.

“Jesus! You really mean it.”

“Yep.”

Toad struggled to talk above the G. “You’re one crazy son of a bitch, Grafton.”

Jake had his head back. The Tomcat was in a 90-degree angle-of-bank turn and the transport was straight overhead. He kept the G on. “I hope you make it, Tarkington. Just don’t pull the handle until after we hit. Promise me.”

“I’m behind you all the way, CAG,” Toad mumbled.

They were almost through the turn. The ECM was wailing. Those MiGs were close. They’d be fools to risk a missile shot this close to the transport.

“I don’t think you’re cut out for this business, kid.”

He rolled wings level and pulled the throttles aft to about 80 percent RPM.

Inside the Ilyushin the crew heard the roar of the fighter’s engines as it shot over them and watched it depart toward their ten o’clock position. They cheered, then watched in silent horror as the fighter began a level turn toward their twelve o’clock.

Now it was coming back, head-on. The copilot was sobbing.

Qazi squatted behind the crew and looked forward through the windscreen, waiting for the fighter’s cannon to erupt. The Tomcat looked like a bird of prey from this angle, closing, growing larger, its wings waggling as the pilot adjusted his course, straight for the Ilyushin’s cockpit. The pilot must be Grafton. Why doesn’t he shoot? Yet even as Qazi wondered, he knew. Without thinking, he seized a handhold and braced himself. His wrists were still cuffed together.

Oh, too bad, too bad!

At first the transport was just there, in the great empty blue sky in front of the F-14, fixed in space. Then it grew visibly larger. And larger. Now it filled the windscreen. At the last possible instant Grafton slammed the left wing down and pulled.

The planes hit.

Jake’s head slammed against the starboard side of the canopy and the Gs smashed him and threw him forward and he lost his grip on stick and throttles. Incredibly, the Gs increased. He was flung forward and sideways and upward all at the same time.

He fought for the lower ejection handle, between his legs, but he couldn’t reach it. Even with his straps tight, the G had pushed him up and forward away from the seat and as the G tore at him, he couldn’t reach the lower handle, which was closer than the upper handle. It had to be back under him. If Toad would only pull either of his ejection handles then both seats would fire. He saw red as the little veins in his eyeballs burst and he screamed through clenched teeth to stay conscious and fought with superhuman strength to reach the handle between his legs with his left hand while he used his right to push himself backward toward the seat.

Then the cockpit disintegrated and he was slammed by wind-blast, as if he had been hurled into a wall, and his arms were flailing. The windblast subsided and the G was gone.

He was falling, still attached to the seat, falling, spinning slowly, unable to move. Through a reddish haze he saw the sun and the sea blink past, changing positions over and over. It seemed to go on forever, this fall through space. An awareness that the parachute had not deployed was there somewhere on the edge of his consciousness.

Falling and slowly spinning, under a brilliant sun toward the sea deep and blue, falling as the Gods fell, falling, falling.