Tom Clancy's HAWX

Chapter 53

"Who are you?" Raymond Harris growled.

Nobody answered. Nobody was listening.

He was flying radio silent, answering to no one, because he was Raymond Harris, who answered to no one.

He had climbed into the Raven for a twenty-minute strike mission, planning to be back at the White House by midafternoon, reporting the results. He would tell a world waiting with baited breath that Albert Bacon Fachearon was no more. The weapon chosen to dispense with Fachearon, deliberately chosen by Raymond Harris, would get the attention of everyone and underscore the fact that he and Kynelty meant business.

Soon the Fachearon era would be in ashes — literally. The Transition would have occurred.

In the grand plan of The Transition, the United States would move forward as it was meant to move forward — smoothly, expeditiously, and under the steady, guiding hand of Raymond Harris.

But the plans changed.

The last thing that Harris could have imagined as he began his takeoff roll was tracers racing past his cockpit. "Who are you?" Raymond Harris howled.

Out of nowhere, someone was shooting at him.

Harris, who had flown combat missions going back to the second Gulf War, considered himself a fighter pilot of the first order — even if he was a bit rusty.

Was he really all that rusty?

He had certainly proven himself when he neatly sidestepped that bastard in the F-16 who was shooting at him when he took off.

"Who are you?" Raymond Harris barked.

Where had this F-16 come from?

Wait, there were two.

"Who are you?" Raymond Harris snarled.

Where had they come from?

Somebody was trying to interfere. Had Fachearon somehow called in the U. S. Air Force to aid him? Even so, how had they managed to catch up to the Raven so fast? Just a few seconds sooner and this fabulous product of the HAWX Program would have been smoldering crud on the Andrews Air Force Base runway. It was a miss, Harris breathed thankfully, but it was a near miss.

Harris had intended to continue the mission as planned, but with F-16s diving all around him like crows attacking a hawk, he couldn't fly his mission profile, the "low-high-higher" profile that would keep him from winding up as a radioactive ember.

"Shake them… gotta shake them," Harris muttered as he turned hard to the right and dashed across Baltimore.

"Shit," was all Harris could mutter as he found himself over Chesapeake Bay presenting a clear shot to his pursuers.

"Shit," Harris repeated as he heard the ping of a radar lock-on and saw that one of his pursuers took that shot.

But the Raven performed. Thanks to its heat-shielding characteristics, the AIM-9 lost its lock-on like a blind man in a crowded room. Nevertheless, being shot at raised Harris's ire considerably.

"You wanna fight, bastards?" Harris shouted, again out of the hearing range of anyone.

Harris was also armed but had chosen evasion as a defensive tactic — until now.

Like the older F-22 Raptor, the Raven carried all of its armament within an internal weapons bay to preserve the clean lines and stealth characteristics of the aircraft. Like the Raptor, the Raven was capable of carrying six AIM-120F Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles. They were the latest variant of the weapons acronymed as AMRAAMs but known to aircrews informally as Slammers. However, with the B61 weapon installed in the Raven's central weapons bay, all but two of the Slammers had been removed that morning. At the time, Harris gave no thought to having to use them. Now he was glad to have them.

Heading south over Chesapeake Bay, he was putting five miles between himself and Camp David every second, so he yanked back on the stick and threw the Raven into a climbing right turn that took him over Maryland's Western Shore.

He had given up wondering who was in those two F-16s. He just wanted them dead, and he knew that the Raven plus its Slammers was more than a match for F-16s and Sidewinders.

Harris lit up the datalink guidance system for the AMRAAMs as he came out of the turn, acquiring a target almost immediately. He didn't especially care which one — there were two targets and he had two AMRAAMs. He could see on his radar that one of the two F-16s had greatly overshot him and only one now stood in his way.

One of the Raven's weapons bay doors popped open.

The F-16 pilot was smart, beginning to jam the Slammer's radar lock-on instantly. However, Harris had an ally in the form of the missile's home-on-jamming capability.

As soon as the AMRAAM detected an attempt to jam its radar homing system, it switched from active homing to passive.

Harris fired.

The AMRAAM left the rail homing not on the F-16 itself, but on the F-16's own radar-jamming signal.

Having fired, and having left the destruction of the other aircraft in the capable, albeit inhuman, hands of the missile, Harris banked left and headed north by northwest.

"Have to get back on target," he muttered to himself.

With one F-16 going down in flames, and another too far away to catch him now, it was time to resume his primary mission. He could deal with the second F-16 while its pilot gawked at the mushroom cloud over the Catoctins.

Suddenly, there was a pinging in the Raven's cockpit. What?

Harris had been made. He had been acquired in a missile lock-on.

Who?

On his scope, there was the unmistakable image of two aircraft pursuing him.

How?

The Slammer must have been slammed!

Harris knew that just about the only way to achieve a lock-on against the stealthy Raven was from directly behind. Essentially, the F-16 was looking up his ass, up the high-Fahrenheit tailpipes of his afterburning engines.

Once again, Harris threw the Raven off course to save his ass.

Harris knew that under the circumstances, just about the only way to break the F-16's lock-on against the Raven was to get out from in front of the F-16.

Once again, Harris found himself flying away from Camp David.