With Hostile Intent

Chapter Twenty-Four Blue on Blue

Maxwell was deep inside Iraq, heading north.

He checked his fuel state. Six point one. Six thousand one hundred pounds of JP-5. The furball with the MiG had consumed all his reserves. He would be fuel critical by the time he got to the KC-10 tanker. Running out of gas over a country you had just bombed was a lousy idea.

But first he had to collect his wingman. “Chevy Six, say your posit and state.”

“Your twelve o’clock, fifteen miles, Chevy Five,” answered B.J Johnson. “I’m eight-point-zero. You want me to anchor here and join on you?”

Maxwell studied his situational display. He saw the blip of B.J.’s Hornet to the south of his position, with the rest of the strike group. She had more gas than he did, but she wasn’t fat either. “We won’t waste fuel joining up. Egress south, B.J. See you at the tanker.”

“Roger that. By the way, I confirm your MiG kill. Congratulations.”

“You too. YoYo for now.”

“YoYo” was tactical brevity for “You’re on your own.”

Maxwell had to grin as he remembered how he had worried about his wingman. A nugget — a female nugget — on her first combat sortie. From this day on, B.J. Johnson would be considered the equal of any pilot in the squadron.

Maxwell was still more than twenty miles northwest of Latifiyah. He could see columns of black smoke billowing skyward from the ruined complex. One of the buildings was still blazing fiercely. Probably one of the propellant storage facilities, Maxwell guessed.

He gave the complex a wide berth.

In his situational display, he saw that all the Reagan group strikers were southward bound. No targets on his radar, no data-linked targets from the AWACS.

It meant that he was the last Hornet out of the target area.

But then he looked again. Wait a second. There was something else. Another blip was showing up on the display. He wasn’t alone.

DeLancey made one last sweep along the northern arc of the target area. If any MiGs were still alive and flying out here, he wanted them.

He’d already had a sweet day. The big number five! A number six would be even sweeter.

Too bad about Undra, he reflected. It was his own fault. If the dumb shit had stayed in position, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten whacked by the MiG.

With his radar DeLancey was sorting out the Hornets as they egressed the target area. His own second section, Craze and Hozer, had been the first out of the target area. They were almost to the tanker at the southern Iraq border. Not far behind were Flash and Leroi, who had each collected a MiG before making their egress.

By listening to the tactical frequency, DeLancey knew that Maxwell and his female wingman had also somehow gotten MiGs. Now she was on her way south, on her own.

Maxwell was the last one in the target area.

DeLancey had the symbol of Maxwell’s Hornet in his situational display. He was almost straight ahead, ten miles. He was slow, probably to conserve fuel.

DeLancey switched off his radar transponder — the device that identified him on the AWACS radar screen. He steered the nose of his Hornet toward the symbol for Maxwell’s fighter. He had a thirty-knot speed advantage.

Peering through his HUD, DeLancey picked up the grayish profile of Maxwell’s Hornet.

“Chevy One, this is Sea Lord,” came the voice of the woman AWACS controller. “Do you read Sea Lord?”

DeLancey did not answer.

“Chevy One, we’re not getting a transponder squawk. If you read, squawk Mode two.”

DeLancey ignored the call. He left his transponder switched off.

He saw Maxwell’s Hornet make a thirty-degree turn to the right. Maxwell knew he was back there, and he was getting a visual ID.

“Chevy One, is that you at my five o’clock?” he heard Maxwell call.

DeLancey kept his silence. On his stores display, he selected SIDEWINDER. He heard the low growl of the seeker unit as it acquired its target.

Maxwell was getting an uneasy feeling.

The guy behind him was definitely a Hornet. But why wasn’t he talking or squawking a code? Perhaps he had combat damage and had lost his radios. If so, he would need help getting home.

Maxwell slowed his jet down and started a right turn. The radioless Hornet could join up, and Maxwell would escort him back to the ship on his wing.

But the Hornet wasn’t making any attempt to join up. Instead he was bore-sighting Maxwell with the nose of his fighter.

As if he were tracking him.

A warning signal went off in Maxwell’s brain. He looked again at the Hornet behind him. The range was close for a missile shot, but within limits. With his left hand he reached over and touched the hard rectangular lump of the audio cassette in his breast pocket.

Like the last pieces of a puzzle, it was coming together. The pilot in the Hornet behind him was the same one who killed Spam Parker by talking her into the ramp. The same one who claimed a MiG in Desert Storm that someone else shot down.

He knows that you know.

Maxwell slammed his jet into a hard turn.

A second later he saw it. A flash on the Hornet’s right wingtip. The missile was off the rail. Behind it trailed a telltale wisp of gray smoke. It looked like a stubby pencil, flying a pursuit curve toward him.

Turning hard inside the curving path of the missile, Maxwell hit the flare dispenser. Flares were decoys. They were supposed to fool the Sidewinder missile’s heat-seeking head.

The missile wasn’t fooled. It was boring straight toward Maxwell’s jet.

Maxwell felt sweat pouring down from his helmet into his eyes. His only hope was to outturn the missile at the last second.

He forced himself to wait. It was his only chance. Wait. Wait until the missile was almost —

Now. He hauled back hard on the stick and shoved the throttles into full afterburner, using the extra thrust of the afterburners to tighten the Hornet’s turn.

He winced as the Sidewinder passed behind the Hornet’s tail.

There was no explosion.

The hard turn in afterburner had been too much for its finned control system. The missile hadn’t come close enough to Maxwell’s Hornet to detonate the proximity fuse.

DeLancey’s Hornet was in a steep bank, going for Maxwell’s tail. With his speed advantage, DeLancey was almost in gun range.

Maxwell knew he had to keep DeLancey outside his turn radius. Keep him from drawing a lead with his 20 mm. Vulcan Gatling cannon.

He knew the odds were against him. Killer DeLancey was the toughest air-to-air opponent in the fleet. And the most successful.

He saw DeLancey’s jet slide to the outside of the sharp turn and pitch up into a high yo-yo. He was conserving his airspeed, trying to set up for a shot with the cannon.

Maxwell reversed his turn. He rolled back into DeLancey’s jet.

The distance between them had narrowed. Because of DeLancey’s greater speed, and because Maxwell’s turn had been tighter, the two Hornets were nearly parallel.

They turned into each other, passing nearly nose-to-nose.

As Maxwell turned hard again back toward DeLancey, he heard the robotic voice of Bitchin’ Betty, the F/A-18’s aural warning system: “Bingo. Bingo.”

He was almost out of fuel.

But he couldn’t exit the fight. The two jets were in a classic scissors duel. Neither could quit without exposing his tail to a shot from the other. It was a fight to the finish.

By the third reversal, neither had gained any advantage. Each pilot was flying his Hornet to its maximum. Maxwell knew that DeLancey would stay in the fight until they ran out of fuel. Or until one of them was dead.

Another reversal, another head-on pass.

Maxwell realized it couldn’t last much longer. DeLancey would know that he was low on fuel. All he had to do was wait for Maxwell to flame out.

Okay, Maxwell said to himself. Let it happen.

He pulled both throttles back. As if the engines had flamed out, the Hornet lost airspeed rapidly.

Maxwell rolled out of his steep turn and rocked his wings. It was a signal of surrender. DeLancey could either fire on him now or wait and strafe him in his parachute.

He saw DeLancey’s Hornet roll in for the kill.

The Hornet was closing rapidly. He hoped DeLancey was eager. So eager he would wait for an extremely close range before he opened up with the 20 mm. The Hornet carried only 400 rounds of ammunition. At the Vulcan cannon’s high rate of fire, the ammo would be gone in a few seconds.

He saw the shape of the Hornet swell behind him. A thousand yards back, closing.

Eight hundred yards. Any second the Vulcan would fire —

Now. Maxwell rolled the Hornet inverted and jammed the throttles forward to full thrust. He pulled hard on the stick, yanking the nose of the Hornet toward the earth below.

He saw tracers arcing past his wing. The surprise move had gained him a split-second’s advantage. But no more. DeLancey was dangerously close behind him.

Maxwell was betting everything on DeLancey’s ego. DeLancey had been so sure of a kill, he might make a mistake. He would follow him down.

And he did.

Maxwell abruptly reversed his own turn and hauled the nose of his jet back up. Up toward a vertical line.

DeLancey’s nose was already deep below the horizon, and he was too fast. He was committed. By the time he reversed, pointing his Hornet upward again, it was too late. He had veered outside Maxwell’s tight climbing turn.

Maxwell had a precious altitude advantage. Keeping the nose of his Hornet pointed high, he reversed direction again. Beneath his nose he saw DeLancey going into a high-G roll, trying to initiate another scissors duel.

Maxwell didn’t join the scissors. He kept his jet perched on its tail as he executed a rudder pirouette, changing directions, pulling his nose back below the horizon.

DeLancey’s F/A-18 was directly in front of him.

Maxwell rolled upright and eased the nose of his fighter back up, fanning his speed brake to keep from overshooting. He was pointed at DeLancey’s jet, so close he could read the numbers on the tail. He pulled the throttles back to keep from overrunning.

DeLancey’s jet was inverted, at the apogee of its scissors roll. The sleek gray shape of the Hornet filled Maxwell’s windscreen.

Maxwell’s radar gun director was locked on. He tracked DeLancey’s jet with the gunsight pipper in his HUD. The range indicated only 500 feet.

Peering through the gunsight, he flew the pipper onto the forward half of DeLancey’s jet.

He had a clear view of DeLancey’s helmet in the cockpit. He slid the pipper directly over the helmet. His finger wrapped around the trigger.

He hesitated.

You can’t do this. For an instant he argued with himself. You can’t kill a friendly.

Then he remembered: The tape in the pocket of his flight suit. DeLancey had killed Spam Parker.

DeLancey was trying to kill him.

Maxwell squeezed the trigger. And held it.

Brrrrrraaaaaaaaaaap! The airframe of the fighter vibrated as the Vulcan spewed out bullets at 6,000-rounds-per-minute.

He was shocked by the ferocity of the cannon. The cockpit where DeLancey’s helmet had been exploded in a blur of fragments.

Brrrrrraaaaaaaaaaap! The stream of bullets worked aft, opening the fuselage like it was a tin can. The F/A-18 in his gunsight disintegrated. The fuselage fuel tank ignited. DeLancey’s Hornet erupted in a pulsing orange blob of fire.

A cloud of debris appeared in front of his nose. Instinctively, Maxwell ducked.

Whap! Thunk!

He emerged from the cloud into clear sky. No more debris. No more hostile fighters. No one trying to kill him, at least for the moment.

But his troubles weren’t over. He glanced at his fuel quantity display. He was down to less than one thousand pounds of fuel.

He wouldn’t make it out of Iraq.

He heard something else. “Engine Left, Engine Left,” said Bitchin’ Betty, the robotic aural warning.

His left engine was no longer running.

Butch Kissick ran his hand through his close-cropped hair. “Would someone tell me what the fuck is going on?”

“I had two targets,” Tracey Barnett said. “Chevy Five and someone else.”

“Whaddya mean someone else? Someone who else?”

“I don’t know. Maybe another Hornet. Chevy One went EMCON, no squawk, no reply. It could have been him. But now he’s gone.”

“You mean —”

“Like he was morted, Butch. It looked like they were in a furball. Then something happened. Someone — or something — took him out.”

Kissick stared at her. “You mean Chevy Five? No. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I know. But I didn’t see anything —”

“Sea Lord,” came a voice over the tac frequency. “This is Chevy Five.”

Kissick and Tracey looked at each other. Kissick grabbed his microphone. “Sea Lord copies, Chevy Five. What’s going on out there?”

“I’m low state. I’ll flame out in five minutes. I need the tanker.”

“Texaco tanker is on East Chicago station. Can you make it that far?”

“Negative. My left engine is shut down. I don’t have the fuel to make it out of country.”

Kissick lowered the microphone and stared at the console. Jesus, this entire strike was turning into a world class cluster fuck. One Hornet confirmed lost, another probably down under very strange circumstances. Now Chevy Five was about to punch out over a country full of extremely pissed-off Iraqis.

He needed a miracle.

“Hang in there, cowboy,” Kissick said. “I’m working on it.”

“Texaco Tanker, this is Sea Lord. Got a hot vector for you. You ready?”

The voice of the KC-10 tanker pilot crackled back over Butch Kissick’s headset: “Say the bearing and distance, Sea Lord.”

“He’s heading south, Boston one-four-five degrees, two-two-five miles.”

“Sorry, Sea Lord. Unable.”

Kissick blinked as if he’d been slapped. “Guess I didn’t copy right, Texaco. Sounded like you said ‘unable.’”

“Affirm, Sea Lord. Rules of engagement. We can’t go in country.”

Kissick couldn’t believe this shit. He knew that big lumbering tankers like the KC-10 — a militarized version of the DC-10 commercial jetliner — were considered too vulnerable to send into combat areas. Instead, they orbited at the periphery of hostile territory, like airborne gas stations.

But damn it, this was war. You did what you had to do. You took risks.

“What are you talking about, rules of engagement? We got an egressing shooter about to flame out in Indian country.”

“Rules are rules, Sea Lord. Wish I could help.”

Kissick’s eyeballs bulged to the size of golf balls. Rules are rules? Kissick wanted to wrap his hands around the tanker pilot’s windpipe. He knew the guy from back in Riyadh. He was an Air Force captain named Dexter who could quote chapter and verse from the operations manuals. Dexter was going to make a great airline pilot someday.

“Listen, jerk face, I don’t give a flying fuck about your rules. This is Hammer, your Airborne Command Element, and I’m in charge here, understand? I’m giving you a direct order. Steer three-five-zero degrees and descend to 22,000 feet.” Kissick’s voice was rising in a crescendo of wrath. “Now! Do you copy?”

Kissick knew that he had overplayed his hand. He glanced over at Tracey Barnett. Her lips were moving in a silent supplication.

For several seconds the frequency was quiet.

They heard the tanker pilot’s voice: “Texaco copies. We’re steering three-five-zero and descending. We’ll try to pick up your shooter.”

Kissick sighed and put down his microphone. Before this day was over, he knew he’d be on the carpet in the general’s office. Dexter was right about rules being rules. But what the hell. He’d had a good career. Maybe it was time to go fishing.

Forty miles.

They were closing rapidly, but not rapidly enough. Still a hundred twenty miles inside Iraq.

As much as he hated doing so, Maxwell forced himself to glance again at the fuel quantity indicator. Three hundred pounds. It was no longer a precise number. At such a low quantity the Hornet’s fuel quantity indication system could have a plus-minus error of several hundred pounds.

Thirty miles. He saw the distant speck appear in his windscreen.

On his situational display, he could see that the tanker was in a turn. By the time the big ship had completed the one-hundred-eighty-degree turn, Maxwell would be in position behind him.

If he didn’t flame out. He glanced down again.

Two hundred pounds.

“Chevy Five, this is Texaco. You got us in sight?”

“Gotcha, Texaco.”

“That’s good. You gonna last long enough to plug in?”

“If I don’t, you’ll be the first to know.”

Almost close enough to glide out of country. But not quite. He was down to twenty thousand feet. From this altitude, he still wouldn’t make it clear of Iraq. Maxwell checked the Colt .45 still holstered beneath his torso harness. He reached down and reassured himself he could find the ejection handle. Just in case.

The speck in the windscreen was growing in size. The big three-engine ship was still in its turn. Maxwell could see the basket-like refueling drogue trailing behind the tanker.

He reached down inside his cockpit and actuated the switch that extended the Hornet’s refueling probe.

One hundred pounds.

It was a joke among fighter pilots that air-to-air refueling was easy — except when you really needed it. You had to fly the probe that was affixed to the side of your jet into a three-foot basket dangling at the end of the tanker’s long refueling hose. If the air were turbulent or, worse, you were so filled with adrenaline that you missed the basket, then you had to back off and try again. That was providing you hadn’t broken your canopy with the flailing basket. And providing you had enough fuel for another try.

Fifty feet behind the drogue. He slid the jet down, flying beneath the great mass of the KC-10. He had no time to waste making his approach to the drogue. He had fuel for one shot.

Maxwell lined up the Hornet with the drogue, then eased forward.

Ten feet. He knew the fuel quantity was indicating zero.

Five feet. Hurry. Keep it moving.

Two feet.

Klunk. The probe poked into the center of the drogue. A bow briefly rippled down the length of the hose as the probe shoved the basket forward.

“Here comes your gas, Chevy Five,” came the voice of the tanker pilot. “Now can we get the hell out of this place?”