Think. You know the terrain; he doesn’t. Kill him like you killed that fool in the Red Flag exercise.
He knew where he was. The valley was a relic from an antediluvian period when Yemen had flowing rivers and green hills. Now it was a brownish ravine that wound northward into the barren high desert. Within a few kilometers, the valley deepened and widened into a twisting canyon.
Yes, that was it. The canyon.
This is crazy, thought Maxwell. It was also dangerous as hell.
The canyon twisted one way, then the other, sometimes making ninety-degree turns. Towering rock formations sprang up, looking like monuments from the Stone Age.
Sweat poured from his helmet as he weaved and dodged, staying on the Fulcrum’s tail. The MiG was flitting like an insect across the display in the HUD. He had the Sidewinder seeker head uncaged, tracking the Fulcrum’s tailpipes. The low acquisition growl would swell in his earphones, then cease as the MiG vanished around a corner of the canyon.
A female voice barked at him: “Bingo! Bingo!” It was Bitchin’ Betty, the aural warning. Bingo meant that he was fuel critical. He would have to refuel from a tanker or he wouldn’t make it back to the ship. A prolonged duel with the MiG would exhaust his reserve fuel and he’d be forced to punch out.
The thought of another ejection over Yemen filled Maxwell with dread.
They were no more than a hundred feet above the floor of the canyon. It occurred to him that Al-Fasr knew where he was going.
And Maxwell didn’t. This is stupid. He’s setting you up. He’s going to plant you into a canyon wall.
The MiG rolled into a hard right bank. A second later it disappeared around the corner of the canyon. Maxwell rolled the Hornet into a vertical bank and followed the MiG around the corner.
The MiG was gone.
Suddenly he saw why. The canyon made a zigzag turn back to the left. Ahead, the far wall of the canyon rose in front of him, approaching at a speed of four hundred knots. He could see sprigs of scrub brush and dwarf trees protruding from the slanting wall.
He wrenched the stick to the left and pulled hard. The acceleration jammed him down into the seat as the jet wheeled into a maximum-G turn to the left.
Bzzzzttt. Bzzzztt. Bzzzzt. It sounded like the croak of a cicada. He could feel it through the airframe of the jet — and he knew what it was.
The Hornet was clipping the trees on the slope of the canyon wall.
The buzzing noise abruptly ceased.
Ahead Maxwell could see the canyon straightening out, then bending back to the right. The MiG was still there, low and fast.
The MiG rolled into another bank, knifing into the next turn. Maxwell’s heart was pounding from the near-miss with the canyon wall. He nudged the throttles forward.
The canyon made a gradual turn back to the east. Vertical clusters of sandstone jumped up at him as he skimmed the deck. Both jets were weaving through the canyon, each dodging the rock formations that rose from the floor like primordial monoliths.
Again the MiG made a sharp right bank and disappeared around a sheer precipice. Maxwell wheeled the Hornet around the same corner — and his heart nearly stopped.
Across the canyon stretched a natural stone bridge. The opening looked like the eye of a needle. It was high, a hundred feet or more, but too narrow for the Hornet’s wingspan.
He glimpsed Al-Fasr’s MiG-29 disappearing through the eye of the needle in a vertical bank.
In a millisecond the realization flashed through Maxwell’s mind: This is what he was waiting for.
Instinct took over. As the narrow passage rushed at him, he reacted. He snapped the Hornet into a knife-edge bank. Into the eye of the needle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE COMPOUND
Maxwell squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the impact.
In the next instant the Hornet was through the eye of the needle, in the clear. He rolled the wings level and peered around. Ahead, the canyon opened into a broad valley. No more rock formations, no more bridges.
The MiG was gone.
Maxwell’s eyes flicked to the radar display. Where was the Fulcrum? No return. No blip, no target where the MiG- 29 should have been.
He looked outside again, scanning the terrain. Had the Fulcrum hit the ground? Crashed against the slope of the valley?
He saw nothing.
An alarm was going off in Maxwell’s head. When he was visible, Al-Fasr was a dangerous adversary. Invisible, he was deadly. The old fighter pilot’s maxim came to Maxwell’s mind — Lose sight, lose the fight.
He had lost sight. The eye of the needle was another Al-Fasr surprise. Now he was defensive again.
Something alerted him — a flicker of light, a momentary shadow in the cockpit.
He tilted his head back and peered straight up through the Plexiglas.
Directly above him — the Fulcrum. It looked like a bat, wings swept back almost to the tail, inverted, diving on him like a predator.
Suddenly he understood. Passing through the eye of the needle, Al-Fasr had flicked the MiG’s wings level and pulled straight up into a loop. From six thousand feet, he was sweeping back down on the Hornet’s tail.
Maxwell hauled the nose of the F/A-18 up in a tight Immelmann, the upper half of a loop. As his nose passed through vertical, he saw the MiG-29 countering him. The jets passed canopy to canopy, pulling hard into each other.
Another vertical scissors. This time there would be no exit.
They crossed again, and Maxwell got a good look at the yellow helmet, the oxygen-masked figure staring at him. This is the guy who killed Josh Dunn. The guy who tried to sink the Reagan.
He nudged the stick back, coaxing the Hornet through a maximum-performance loop. With each sweep of the vertical scissors, he was gaining a tiny advantage on the MiG.
The scissors was depleting the energy of both fighters. By the third opposing pass, they were bottoming out only a few hundred feet above the terrain. In tiny increments, Maxwell was inching his way behind the MiG.
Another vertical scissors. As Maxwell completed the loop, he brought the nose of the Hornet to bear on the Fulcrum. The Sidewinder’s acquisition tone warbled in his earphones. He squeezed the trigger.
The AIM-9 missile streaked toward its target.
Again the MiG pilot sensed imminent danger. He snapped the Fulcrum into a barrel roll to the left, spewing a trail of flares to decoy the missile.
Maxwell rolled with him, staying high and outside. Keeping his eye on the MiG, he rocked back his air-to-air weapons selector to A/A GUN. With grudging admiration he watched the MiG execute a roll, its nose coming down, pulling hard as the jet dived close to the earth.
The Sidewinder flew to the trail of flares, briefly wobbled as its guidance system sorted out the decoys, then went again for the big tailpipes of the Fulcrum. Too late, the missile overshot the hard-turning MiG and impacted the base of a ridge.
Maxwell watched the MiG, still in a knife-edge bank, slicing toward the earth. The Fulcrum was close to the terrain, skimming the scrub brush along the ridgeline. Vapor puffs spilled off the wings as the pilot pulled the nose up.
The right wing clipped the top of the ridge. A geyser of dirt and debris erupted from the earth.
Maxwell skimmed low over the disintegrating MiG. As he pulled up in a climbing reversal, he glimpsed the hulk of the shattered fighter caroming across the desert, shedding pieces. Over his shoulder he glimpsed what he had been praying for — an orange fireball.