Flash Point

21

Ricketts checked the rearview mirrors on the gray panel truck. He was pulling a trailer with five new Honda motor scooters in it, two purple, one white, one red, and one black. The truck had tools, and various Honda parts. He entered the main street of the town, scanning every window, alley, and rooftop as he went, checking for security. He wished Dar al Ahmar was closer to the coast.

Ricketts was in favor of having a talk with the Sheikh. He was interested and willing to have a very personal conversation with him. To let him know how the Americans felt about his murder of one of its Navy officers. But he had been overruled in the DO. We want him brought back alive, for trial. Only in America. Capture murderers, take them to Washington, give them room and board and attorneys paid for by American taxpayers, have some ACLU asshole find some reason to call a press conference, and sue the government because the murderer was discriminated against somehow, or deprived of his rights, or “captured” illegally in Lebanon or where the hell ever. They always spoke with great offense and outrage.

Ricketts tried not to think about the U.S. side of the operation. That wasn’t his job. His job was to get the Sheikh. And he had just the plan — if his agents were right, and hadn’t sold him and the entire operation out to somebody else for more money. The agents who would help with the transfer were already in place. He had visited them during the night. The decoys were set, the helicopters ready, and the shooters standing by. The actual grab was the last piece, though obviously the most important.

Ricketts drove around three sheep, which were wandering through town, and manuevered his truck and trailer into a narrow street lined on both sides with two-story buildings. The motorcycle shop was on the far corner. It was small and crowded and there was no place to park in front of the shop. A large van had been waiting there and when the driver saw Ricketts coming in his mirror he pulled away from the curb. It was timed perfectly. Ricketts turned into the spot and switched off the engine. He checked his watch.

The shop didn’t open until ten. Through the shop window, Ricketts could see almost all of the inventory of motorcycles, motor scooters, and mopeds. He knew that most were used, but a few were new. He also knew that the shop had been asked to bring in several new motor scooters because Assam — an elusive man whose family had come from Dar al Ahmar and who was known mostly for his apparently unlimited influence and money — wanted to buy one for his niece for her birthday. Assam had promised to personally pick it out with her, not just to send a lieutenant to do it for him. He would be in between eight and ten that morning to choose, before the shop opened.

Ricketts stepped out of the truck and stretched. He wore old Arab clothing and moved stiffly, as if he were twenty years older than he was. His dark face was covered with what looked like a one-week beard that had a lot of gray, unlike his actual beard. As he went to the door of the shop he noticed the four armed men on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, already in place to protect their boss, Ricketts’s target. Nice work, he thought to himself. They were exactly where they should be. The other six bodyguards that Assam would bring would undoubtedly go inside the shop with him. They had to. If they didn’t, all would be lost.

It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet. Ricketts shielded his face as he pressed against the locked glass door. He knocked loudly and shouted in perfect Arabic, “Hondas are here! Open up!”

There was no reply. He banged again, and glanced around as if concerned about waking somebody up. “Hey! You said to be here early! I’m here. Where are you!? Hey!”

Finally he heard something inside the store. He stood back and nodded expectantly. He glanced over at his Hondas to be sure someone wasn’t trying to unchain them. The shop door opened. “Yes. You made it.”

“Of course, I made it. I brought the motor scooters. Where do you want me to put them?”

“Right in the front of the store. Our guest will inspect them there, his niece can ride whichever ones she wants, and then we will do business inside.”

Ricketts nodded several times. “Coffee?”

“Of course,” the man said, indicating the inside of the shop.

They went through the door and left it standing open. In the back of the shop, the man poured steaming thick coffee out of an ornately decorated copper pitcher into a dark blue cup. Ricketts drank and took in the room. He could quickly see that everything had been prepared and all was in place. The line on the floor was almost invisible, more a line drawn in the lingering dust by a finger. He could see it clearly though, and knew the others who needed to could as well. All they had to do was get the Sheikh beyond the line toward the back of the store and they would be in business.

Ricketts looked into his agent’s eyes. “Is everything ready to close the sale?”

The man’s eyes flickered knowingly. “Yes.”

“Are you sure our friend will come?”

“I am never sure of anything.”

Ricketts poured himself more coffee. “I drove a long way with my new Hondas. I don’t want to waste the trip.”

“He does what he wants. If he decides not to buy the motor scooter for his niece, then that will be that. We cannot tell him what to do. We were fortunate to get the notice we did.”

“Do you have any more information on when he will be here?”

“He will be here when he wants to be here.”

“Before the store opens. Yes?”

“That is what he said. He might come today or another time. We will see.”

“So we wait,” Ricketts said, sipping his thick coffee.

“We wait.”

“Here we go,” Woods said, going hot mike as they taxied toward the catapult. The two Tomcats were to be the first planes to be shot off on the earliest launch of the day, just west of Israel.

Wink was studying the chart he had been given an hour before the brief. He was starting to get anxious.

The sun was rising over the horizon on a spectacular morning. The calm Mediterranean lay in peaceful surrender underneath the Washington, gently holding it up. The water was an uncharacteristically dark purplish blue, with occasional foam.

Since waking Pritch, Woods had been up planning the flight. He had gone over all the information the Major had given him until he had everything memorized. The schedule, the frequencies, everything.

“Tiger know what he’s supposed to do?” Woods asked as he turned the nosewheel toward the catapult with the rudder pedals.

“He just hopes nobody looks too close.”

“Don’t we all,” Woods said, his voice revealing some tension.

They taxied to the catapult and stopped. They put their hands up while the ordnancemen removed the pins from the six missiles they carried on nearly every flight: two Phoenix, two Sparrow, and two Sidewinder. The ordie gave them a thumbs-up and showed them the long red flags attached to the safing pins they had pulled from the weapons and counted them for Woods to see. Woods inclined his head, and the ordie turned away. They taxied forward and kneeled the Tomcat. The airplane was ready and so were they. Woods stole a quick glance forward to cat two; Big and Sedge were ready, wings forward, engines at full power. He watched as their catapult jerked. The nose of the Tomcat went down toward the deck, then raced toward the bow. Big rotated the Tomcat as it left the deck, sucked up the gear, and climbed away in a right-hand clearing turn. After a quarter of a mile he turned left to parallel the ship’s course.

Woods felt tension go into the catapult as the shuttle pulled on the nosewheel launch bar. He hurried through the final items on his takeoff checklist with Wink. The radios were silent.

“Ready?” Woods asked quickly. “Ready,” answered Wink just as quickly. Woods saluted and put his head back. The Tomcat jerked downward, then shot down the deck.

“Good speed,” Wink called calmly the way he always did as the Tomcat flew off the end of the carrier.

Woods automatically raised the landing gear, pulling up and away from the carrier in his left-hand clearing turn. He climbed to five hundred feet and leveled off. He felt exhilaration; he was full of coffee and energy. The weather was spectacular, the water was beautiful, and the plane was performing perfectly. He was finally doing what he had been training to do for years. He felt calm and completely alive. He accelerated and caught up with Big, who tapped his helmet and pointed to Woods, giving him the lead. As they passed seven miles away from the ship, Woods pulled back steadily on the stick until they were climbing quickly away from the water.

Woods returned overhead the ship and orbited at six thousand feet for five minutes waiting for the S-3 tanker to arrive at its station. It felt like an hour and a half. His heart was beating rapidly and his breathing was deeper and faster than he was used to.

“Where’s that stupid S-3?” Woods said, frustrated.

“He was sitting on the deck when we launched. You really think he’s gonna get here before we do?” Wink replied.

Woods scanned the sky anxiously.

“Got him,” Wink said. “Forty left, four thousand feet, climbing.”

Woods looked to his left. “Tallyho,” he said as he brought the Tomcat sharply left to head for the S-3.

“Better let him get to altitude or he’ll yell at us,” Wink cautioned.

“We don’t have a lot of time to screw around today, Wink.”

“I know that, Trey. Just lighten up.”

Woods frowned under his visor and oxygen mask as he rendezvoused with the tanker. He motioned for the pilot to deploy the basket and moved quickly back when it was in place. After both the Tomcats had taken as much gas as they could hold they broke off from the tanker and headed for their air intercept station to practice intercepts.

Wink switched to button eight on the radio in the backseat, and Woods changed to the radio frequency in the front that he and Big had agreed on, Jolly Roger common — the frequency used by the squadron, but they added one digit in case anyone else was listening.

“Big, you up?” Woods asked.

“Two,” Big replied.

Wink consulted his card to see what the Washington was calling itself and what the squadron’s code name was for the day. “Gulf November, this is Bright Sword 211.”

“Bright Sword 211, Gulf November, your station is 020 at 30. Who wants to go first?”

Woods checked his clock. They had to go now.

“211 will be the first fighter, and 207 will be the bogey,” Wink transmitted to Tiger, the familiar voice of the controller. They had met at 0300 that morning.

“Roger 211, squawk 3234. Take station 020 for 60. Break — 207, squawk, 3353. Take station 020 at 30.”

“211,” Wink said.

“207,” Sedge transmitted.

They headed out the 020 radial as they climbed out toward their stations. Big kept his place on Woods’s starboard wing waiting for the signal. They approached thirty miles and Woods leveled off at fifteen thousand feet.

“Thirty miles,” Wink transmitted.

“Roger, 207, you can orbit there, and 211, continue outbound.”

Woods nodded and the two F-14s pitched over and headed toward the ocean. Wink and Sedge turned off their IFFs — Identification, Friend or Foe — and changed the Link 11 frequency that allowed automatic communication for data link from that of the Washington to the frequency Trey had given them of the Israeli Air Force E-2C Hawkeye, the radar plane identical to those on the Washington. It was orbiting somewhere in northern Israel.

“Should be getting their picture any minute now,” Wink told Woods as he switched the displays in the back cockpit and Woods adjusted his own displays so he could see Wink’s radar picture. They descended rapidly to the water with Big on their wing. Wink looked around for airplanes, but saw none. The radar showed no ships or airplanes in any direction closer than twelve miles.

Woods turned east, heading 086. It was 0715. They were a couple of minutes behind the rigid schedule Woods had set for them in his planning. They had no room for error. “We may be late. I’m going to push it up a little.”

“Whatever you do, don’t go super.”

“Don’t worry,” Woods said, advancing the throttles to military power as he leveled off at fifty feet. The sea raced by, a dark purple comforting blur. Big stayed above Woods, long ago having learned the lesson that when flying very low the wingman should stay above the lead or risk being scraped off the ground or a tree. “Head 080,” Wink said.

“How do you know that?” Woods asked without looking into the cockpit. He was concentrating to keep from flying into the sea. If he sneezed, they’d hit the water going five hundred knots.

“We’ve got good data link. They’re showing Ramat David, and all the airplanes that are airborne.” Wink leaned forward and raised his hand above the green on black screen to block out the reflected sunlight. “I’m going lead nose. No radar from here on.”

“Don’t turn it on accidentally, Wink. That’s all we need is for someone to detect our radar.”

“Don’t worry,” he replied. “I’ll set the frequency to sniff in case I hit the switch.”

“211, come south to 200, Bogey 200 at 30, angels 15,” Tiger transmitted.

“Roger. 211 coming to 200,” Wink replied. “Sounds like Tiger’s on board.”

“Think he’ll pull it off using fake symbols?”

“He thought so. We’ll soon find out.”

“You didn’t tell him where we were going, did you?”

“No. Don’t want them to run out of room at Leavenworth. Less he knows the better.”

“What if he doesn’t pull it off?”

“We’re cooked,” Wink said, shrugging. “We could still say we were doing unauthorized dogfighting. Didn’t want Admiral Sweat dirtying his shorts.”

“Good idea.”

“Radar altimeter set?”

“Forty feet.”

“That should keep us dry.”

“How far to the shoreline? I think I can just make it out.”

“Without the radar it’s hard to tell, but about fifteen miles.”

“Big doing okay?”

“Yep. Sedge has his arms up on the canopy rails. Looking for birds or something. Very casual.”

“Good,” Woods said as they accelerated through five hundred fifty knots.

The two Tomcats with their white skull and bones painted on the tails screamed toward Israel fifty feet off the water. They cut through the smooth air like parallel daggers, their wings working their way back to a 68-degree sweep, programmed by the onboard computer as they approached supersonic.

“211, Bogey 199 for 20 miles, angles 15.”

“Roger. Judy,” Wink said, taking control of the imaginary intercept.

Woods’s heart was pounding as it had been since they took off. His throat was usually dry when flying this fast this low, but now he could barely swallow. His palms were sweaty as he gripped the stick and throttles with his bare hands, not wearing the required Nomex fireproof gloves.

“I’ve got the shoreline,” Woods announced, trying to sound calm.

“Come to 084,” Wink replied.

Woods immediately made the small correction. In the green projection of the HUD on the windscreen, he could look right at his heading, weapons status, and altitude without taking his eyes off the terrain in front of the plane. The HUD symbols were focused at infinity, the same as looking off in the distance.

Suddenly the beach shot by underneath them, giving them a sense of speed the passage of constant blue water never did. Palm trees snapped by only a few feet under the Tomcats. Woods stole a glance sideways to see if there was anyone on the beach this early, but saw no one. They passed directly over a car as they crossed the coast highway, the highway where Vialli had been killed. Woods breathed deeply and drank in the pure oxygen. He pulled slightly on the stick and climbed to five hundred feet. He brought the throttles back and slowed to three hundred knots.

“How far to Ramat David?” he asked.

“Thirty miles or so. Six minutes,” Wink said. “Fox Two, knock it off and set up another one,” he transmitted.

“Roger, 211. 207, head north as the fighter, 211, south as the bogey,” Tiger said calmly.

“211. Roger.”

“207. Roger.”

Woods looked at his clock — 0730. “We’re late.”

“I doubt it’ll matter,” Wink said. “Nobody gets that organized on time.”

Woods could make out every detail of the houses and farms. He could see the animals’ breath in the cool morning air as they moved away from the screaming sound he brought from the sky when he approached them. People looked up even though all over the country they were accustomed to low-flying jets at any hour of the day or night.

Woods felt invincible. He was completely in control and found his heart settling down, but just as he relaxed, his heart jumped into his throat. “You see what I see?”

Wink leaned over and looked forward through the side glass of the windscreen. “Holy hell, Trey. There must be seventy-five airplanes!”

“They’re all over the place” Woods said, reducing the throttle to slow to two hundred fifty knots. “Well,” he said with relief. “At least we’re not too late.”

“Directly overhead at five hundred feet? Is that where the Major said to rendezvous?”

“Yep. That’s where I’m going, but there are still airplanes taking off. They’ll just have to avoid us. There’s quite a gaggle in a racetrack over the field at five hundred. Seems about twenty planes or so.” Woods turned slightly right to head for the group of Israeli planes circling over Ramat David Air Force Base. “Let’s push and catch up with them so someone else trying to rendezvous doesn’t hit us.”

“Roger that,” Woods said, advancing the throttles slightly. He glanced down to his left at the air base and saw two F-15s in afterburner lifting off the runway in formation. “I don’t see any others. They must be the last.”

“211, come north. 207, come port, your bogey is 197 for 32, angels 25.”

“211, Roger.”

“207, Roger.”

“207, bogey 196 for 30 miles, angels 25.”

“You getting a good picture?” Woods asked Wink, unable to take his eyes off the F-15s and F-16s with their blue Star of David in a white circle.

“Holy shit! It’s unbelievable,” Wink said, hunched over his screen as if watching a show. He had the screen on the large scale with their F-14 in the middle. The Israeli E-2C Hawkeye was flying north of Ramat David, south of the Lebanon border. Wink stared at the radar picture. It was what the E-2 saw. The symbols on his screen were upside down, indicating they were data link symbols. The Israeli airplanes appeared as half circles, and the other airplanes — designated as hostile — were upside-down chevrons. Wink could see them all without even turning on his own radar.

“Look at this gaggle!” Woods remarked as he searched the sky over Ramat David. Dozens of Israeli fighters circled, waiting. F-15s, F-16s, F-4s, all ready to go to battle. Itching for the chance. Suddenly, the group of F-4s peeled off and headed northwest.

It was the second group of Phantoms. The first was crossing the Lebanese border while the real strike rendezvoused. Dozens of Top Secret Ze’ev Antiradiation Missiles streaked north into the sky from Israel — the missiles had been used only once before, and their existence had never been confirmed. Thanks to the silent Arava, the electronic monitoring plane, the ground launchers knew where to aim and the missiles homed hungrily toward the radars trying to shoot down their fellow unpiloted Israeli drones. F-4 Phantom Wild Weasels, positioned by the E-2 in southern Lebanon, raced forward on the silent signal and fired American-made HARM antiradiation missiles toward the northern targets out of reach of the Ze’evs. The drones flew directly into the SAM and AAA radar envelopes over Lebanon, looking like airplanes being flown by very stupid pilots. The operators salivated and turned on their systems to get firing solutions to shoot into what looked like a large number of Israeli planes. The SAMs flew off the rails as the radars guided the missiles toward their targets. The Phantoms rolled in with their bombs and antiradiation missiles on the SAM and AAA sites to clear the way for the real raid. All over Lebanon, in the Bekáa Valley, around bases and camps, and along the border, antiradiation missiles slammed into radars and control vans wiping out the antiair capability of the Syrians, who had controlled Lebanese airspace for years. Even those operators smart enough to detect the ruse and turn off their radars before the Ze’evs hit, soon learned that the missile remembered where the last transmissions came from.

The F-4 Phantoms that had been assigned to attack the SAM sites screamed across the border toward the bases in southern Lebanon. They carried thousand-pound laser-guided bombs, with the laser illumination provided by yet more drones circling over the designated targets.

Just then Major Micah Chermak, in the lead F-15 of the aft-most group of airplanes over Ramat David, rolled his wings level and headed north. In front of Woods, Chermak’s group of eight fighters spread out into two boxes of four, five hundred feet above the ground. Woods let them accelerate ahead and signaled Big to move out to combat spread a mile and a half directly to the right and a mile behind the last F-15. There were fighters everywhere, gray, light blue, and camouflage, flying in loose formation with missiles hanging from every rail, ready for the fight.

“Here we go,” Woods said to Wink as he pushed up his throttles to stay with the F-15s. They accelerated to four hundred fifty knots.

Wink studied the radar picture being steadily transmitted to them by the Israeli E-2C. “Trey, I’ve got six or eight bogeys on the screen, headed south toward the border. This could be a fur ball,” he said.

“Are they headed for us?”

“No. The F-4s that went in to bomb all went from the east to west, and are now headed toward the coast. The bogeys are falling in behind them. I think the Phantoms are dragging them. Son of a bitch. The whole thing is a setup! They should be in front of us about fifty miles, twenty degrees right, moving right to left, about five hundred knots.”

“Combat checklist,” Woods said, excited.

“Roger,” said Wink, reaching for the cards attached to his knee board. “Wings.”

“Auto.”

“Missile prep.”

“On.”

“Sidewinder cool.”

“On.”

“207, bogey 195 for 25, angels 25.”

“Roger. Judy,” Wink said, responding to Tiger to keep the pretend intercept alive in case anyone on the Washington was listening to the radio communications. His mind wanted to shut down the ruse to allow more processing time for reality, but Wink knew it would be too risky.

“Weapons select.”

“Sidewinder.”

“Master arm.”

“Off, for now.”

“Put it up now so we don’t forget.”

“Roger,” Woods said. He reached over and flipped up the red switch. “Master arm, on.”

“You ready?”

“Ready. Sure you want to do this?”

“Yep.”

“Me too.”

The fighters moved apart slightly as they closed on the MiGs now streaming down from Syria. Woods took his eyes off the radar picture and looked around. He could faintly see another group of twenty fighters or so east of them, and yet another group to the west. Woods had never seen so many airplanes airborne at once in his life and he couldn’t believe he was flying into combat with the Israeli Air Force.

The group of fighters to their west angled northwest to intercept the incoming MiGs. The F-4s the MiGs were chasing were supersonic over western Lebanon, circling back toward Israel in what appeared to be a desperate attempt to avoid the Syrian planes. The EC-135 activated its jammers, clogging the Syrian Ground Control Intercept radar as well as its SAM and AAA radars.

“I’ll bet those Syrian pilots have their fangs out,” Wink said. “They think they’re finally going to be able to catch one of the Israeli bombing strikes. If only they knew — but I’ll tell you one thing. They’re coming in force. There must be thirty MiGs coming, maybe forty, and probably others taking off. The E-2C is picking them up as soon as they’re airborne. We’ll have to watch the northeast.”

Woods pushed the throttles forward slightly as the Tomcats fell behind the F-15s and F-16s. “They’re accelerating ahead. What’s the speed of the MiGs?”

“About five hundred fifty to six hundred knots.”

“We’ll push it up a little.”

“Say hello to Lebanon. We’re in their airspace now.”

Woods looked around and down at the ground, still only five hundred feet below. “Looks the same to me.”

“May look the same, but if we get shot down, it won’t be the same, I promise you that.”

“Don’t even think that,” Woods replied. Unconsciously, their voices had moved up in pitch.

They followed the Israelis deeper into Lebanon. No turning back now, Woods thought.

“005, for ten miles for the first of them, the rest are east and north from there, angels — they’re all over the place, all above us! The E-2 is showing about thirty bogeys! I have no idea how many targets are real,” Wink said.

“I see some specks, but nothing clear,” Woods said, half in frustration, half in anticipation.

“Five miles. Here we go,” Wink said, watching the F-15s ahead of them begin a climb. The Tomcats started uphill right behind them, going to military power to accelerate in the climb. They saw no sign that the Syrians knew they were there. They passed through five thousand feet on their way to ten.

“Check our six,” Woods said.

Wink grabbed the handle in front of him on top of his radar panel, and forcibly turned around so he could see between the tails. “Nothing,” he grunted. “Belly check,” he added.

Woods rolled the airplane into a knife edge so they could see directly underneath them to the ground, to make sure no MiGs were doing to them what they were doing to the MiGs — sneaking up on them from below. He rolled back level and saw Big do the same thing. He checked behind Big to make sure there weren’t any bogeys following him. All clear.

Suddenly Wink remembered. “Fox two, Tiger. Set up another one,” he said.

“Roger, 211. New heading, 005, 207, head 175.”

“211, Roger.”

“207, Roger.”

Woods scanned the sky around him again, quickly. Suddenly it was full of white smoke as the Israeli fighters shot their AIM-9M heat-seeking Sidewinders at the Syrian MiGs head-on. Dozens of missiles streaked toward the bogeys, flying toward the targets on the corkscrew paths, which gave them their name.

“Geez, Trey! You see that?” Wink shouted.

“Fight’s on!” Woods replied calmly, tightening his lap belt.

The Sidewinders tore toward their targets. Some of the MiGs saw them as soon as they were fired, others only after the missiles hit their wingmen. Two on the left pulled up in an emergency break and dropped burning magnesium flares to avoid being hit. But the heat-seeking Sidewinders were hungry missiles, especially looking up, away from the ground, at a target streaking through the sky riding a hot jet engine.

The missiles smashed into the MiGs across the sky as far as Woods could see. MiGs exploded all around and fell out of the heavens. F-15s and -16s climbed through the disintegrating MiG formations. As the Sidewinders raced in all directions, the lead F-15s broke through the first group of MiGs and went after the others. The MiGs panicked. They watched as their wingmen dropped from the sky like clay pigeons, missiles exploding in their bellies. Chermak was the first to fire a second missile. Woods watched in fascination as the supersonic missile flew off the F-15’s underwing rail and silently hurled itself at a MiG-23 two miles ahead. The missile hit the MiG in the chest, right in front of a drop tank full of fuel. It absorbed the blow like a wounded animal and immediately lost speed, rolling over and heading for the ground ten thousand feet below, upside down, flames licking skyward.

“I’ve got MiGs to the right and left,” Wink said excitedly, straining to see behind the Tomcat.

“I’ve got Israeli fighters everywhere,” Woods said, looking carefully at the melee all around them. He checked to make sure he had Sidewinder selected and went to full power.

“There goes the Major. He’s made the turn to the target!” Woods exclaimed as Chermak and three other F-15s peeled off and headed east. Woods and Big fell in behind them, slightly higher, in a position of cover and fighter escort. “How far is it to that town?”

Wink looked at the chart and at their position listed as latitude and longitude in a continuous readout on his PTID. “Thirty miles.”

“No sweat. As long as a bunch of MiGs don’t close in behind us and cut us off, we’ll be okay.”

“The F-15s are heading down. I think they’re doing a pop-up delivery.”

“Where do they want us?” Wink asked, growing anxious. “They must be trying to stay low on the radar. If we stay high we’ll give them away!”

Woods looked around. “Let’s take a low trail position on them,” he said as he pushed the Tomcat over and followed the F-15s downhill. Before he knew it they were tearing across eastern Lebanon at five hundred fifty knots toward a town he had never heard of forty-eight hours before. The F-15s were flying in two sections of two, in a welded wing formation — Chermak was in the lead, the wingman right on the his wing.

Woods watched Lebanon streak by under their jet as they followed the Israeli fighters to their target. Every few miles they would see AAA, antiaircraft artillery that tried to reach the strike group. It was always poorly aimed or too far away to do any damage. They weren’t heading toward a predictable target. All the known targets were protected by SAMs or AAA. But Dar al Ahmar? There wasn’t anything there. No reason to be surrounded by a multimillion-dollar defense — except today, when the new scourge of the Middle East was there.

“Bogeys!” Wink shouted. “Eleven o’clock high!”

Woods headed up and to the left to meet the MiGs head on. Big moved at the same time, still flying in combat spread, one mile to Woods’s right and a little higher. The two Israeli F-15s flying behind Chermak and his wingman left the low-flying strike group and went after the MiGs with Woods and Big behind them.

Tiger, sitting on the Washington, interrupted with instructions for the fantasy intercept, “211 come south to 195, your bogey 193 for 40 miles, angels unknown.”

“Roger, 211, south.”

“Shit,” Wink said. “I wish we didn’t have to keep talking to him. Come port harder, Trey,” he said, trying to run the intercept off the E-2C data link symbols.

“207 as the bogey, come north to 014.”

“207, Roger,” Sedge replied to Tiger, feeling the same frustration and mounting adrenaline party that Wink was experiencing.

“Hard port!” Wink said suddenly. “Bogey, left ten o’clock, slightly high, descending left turn. There are two coming toward us, and two more after the F-15s!”

Woods threw the stick to the left and rolled the F-14 on its side. He pulled the nose of the airplane toward the MiG-23 Flogger. He sucked the pure oxygen out of the rubber mask as his body readied for the G forces it knew were coming. He checked their speed. Four hundred fifty knots. The MiG still didn’t see him. He pulled 7 Gs to get the nose of the F-14 onto the MiG three miles away.

“Break right!” Big yelled over the front cockpit radio.

Woods immediately slammed the stick in the opposite direction and came back to the right. He saw the MiG-23 Big had seen. It was accelerating toward them. Suddenly a large missile flew off the MiG and headed their way. Woods turned into the missile, rolling the F-14 over on its back. He pulled toward the ground, hoping the missile would lose them in the ground clutter, praying it was a radar-guided missile.

In heading toward Woods the MiG-23 had turned right in front of Big. Big pulled gently left and put his pipper on the MiG. He listened for the growl of the Sidewinder, then heard it, louder and louder as the seeker head on the missile acquired the heat signal from the MiG. The MiG made it easy by staying in afterburner as he went after Woods.

Big squeezed the trigger on the stick and the Sidewinder flew off the wing rail toward the MiG. It was there in seconds. It hit the Flogger in the tail. The exploding warhead cut the tail off and the MiG fell toward the ground. Big looked away quickly for other bogeys, and didn’t see the MiG pilot eject from the wreckage.

The missile streaking toward Woods pitched over and headed for the earth.

Woods rolled his wings level and checked around. There were no airplanes in front of them or to their right. “Where is everybody?” he asked Wink.

“211, your bogey is 190 for 39, angels 17.”

“Judy,” Wink transmitted quickly. Damn it. “They’re all behind us. We’ve flown through most of the fight,” he said, holding his hand up to block the sun on his screen. “About three miles behind us.”

Woods started a hard right turn, and Big, reading his mind, started his own left-hand turn; they passed each other close aboard to clear the other’s tail, and headed back in the other direction.

“I wish we could turn our radar on,” Woods said, squinting through the windscreen.

“No way,” Wink replied. “This E-2 picture is good enough.”

“I sure hope these Israelis don’t mistake us for a MiG-23. We both have wings that sweep.”

“That would be bad,” Wink agreed. “Fox, two, set up another one.”

“Roger, 211. Head north as the bogey, 207, south as the fighter.”

“207.”

“211.”

“This is incredible,” Woods said as they headed southeast toward the F-15 fight that was continuing. There were missile contrails and smoke everywhere, white ribbons that cut across the sky in every direction. “Tallyho!” he cried. “Wink, I’ve got at least six bogeys. We’re way outnumbered.”

“Let’s get back into position behind the Eagles,” Wink said, looking for the F-15s that were to drop on the Sheikh.

“Roger that. I’ve lost them,” Woods said, scanning the blue sky to his east. He jammed the stick left and right, checking for bogeys anxiously, not feeling at all comfortable about the way this was going.

“MiGs!” Wink yelled. “Left nine o’clock low. Come port hard!”

“No! The fight is to our right! We’ve got to support Chermak.” Woods jerked the F-14 into a hard right turn and followed Chermak, who was now pulling up from the arid desert floor into his pop-up maneuver. Woods looked past the F-15 and saw the town. The F-15s formed up into a nearly vertical position as the one-thousand-pound laser-guided bombs came off gently heading up, away from the ground in a graceful arc. The F-15s continued up as the bombs flew off in their lobbed trajectory toward the building in Dar al Ahmar that was being lased by two separate F-15 laser designators simultaneously.

Woods watched the bombs fly with fascination. “That Sheikh will never know what hit him.”