The Tomcat was indeed descending to his level. Santana smirked. It was as he’d thought Americans were not nearly as well trained and proficient as they pretended to the rest of the world to be. Here, in the sky, mono a mono, there was no disguising their foolishness. He swung the MiG around, calculated the intercept, and bore in for the kill. In the last twenty minutes, he’d discovered a real taste for knife fights.
“I see what you’re up to, buddy,” Tombstone said. “It worked on that youngster you splashed, but I’ve been around guys like you too often.
Your kind always does like the close-in fight. That’s because you treat those funny little things hanging on your wings like your balls, protecting them and not using them like you should. Well, if you want to learn some knife fighting, I’m not above teaching it to you.” He watched the MiG bore on in until he was almost within range. The Cuban pilot would be running the geometry through his mind, calculating the exact intercept.
To encourage him to continue thinking the American had made a mistake.
Tombstone toggled off another Sidewinder.
He knew it was well inside the minimum range for shooting one, but he hoped the Cuban would think he didn’t.
It seemed to work. The Cuban MiG didn’t even flinch from its course, continuing to bore on in toward him.
Tombstone felt his eyes go squinty and a muscle in the side of his jaw start to jump. One more kill, one last kill that would be it.
Just as the vectors approached range and optimum angle for firing.
Tombstone did three things simultaneously. First, he swept the wings of the Tomcat forward, overriding the automatic angle configuration that selected appropriate sweep angle for speed. Moving the wings forward decreased his lift, rendering the Tomcat slightly more ungainly in the air, but from this angle was also an almost imperceptible way of draining off airspeed without the other pilot’s noticing. Second, in one quick motion, he popped the speed brakes and dropped his landing gear. Dirtying up all of his airflow surfaces peeled one hundred knots off his airspeed almost instantaneously. Instead of a graceful, powerful fighter, the Tomcat was now a lumbering aircraft configured for landing.
An ugly turkey in the air with a MiG right in its sights.
Third, Tombstone switched the selector over to guns, pressed the buttons, and heard the delicate beelike hum of the gun in his port wing firing. It was almost anticlimactic at first, watching the delicate line of bullets trace their way down the fuselage. He jinked the Tomcat slightly to the right, watching the tracery elevate up and penetrate the other aircraft’s canopy. An explosion of glass and body, followed shortly by a fireball.
“Fuel,” Tomboy insisted, for all the world sounding as though she’d completely ignored the knife fight going on in front of her. “Stoney, vector three-two-zero. Now!”
Tombstone did as ordered, then said, “No comment?
Aren’t you going to congratulate me on that last kill?”
“If it is your last kill, you idiot,” she snapped. “The next one will be us if you don’t get some fuel into this bird.”
The tanker was waiting only one mile away. Tombstone vectored straight in on it, and pulled off the most remarkable plug of his entire aviation career. The probe slid in smoothly, as if the basket had been coated in Vaseline. Two other fighters hung nervously off his port and starboard bow, acting almost as though they could somehow buoy him up should his fuel tank suddenly run dry.
Ah, but the luck was flowing his way now. A smooth plug, fuel good at probe tip within minutes. The tanks sucked the fuel in, and within moments he felt the Tomcat start to grow heavier. He corrected automatically, keeping the probe centered in the basket while the sun rose behind him.
Fifteen minutes later, they’d topped off enough to make a run on the boat. Tombstone thanked the tanker crew, then peeled away from the formation.
“Now about that last kill …,” he said casually. “Not bad for an old guy, huh?”
Tomboy was silent for a moment, then said, “It was brilliant for any pilot. And that it was you just makes it that much better.”
A grin crept across Tombstone’s face. Nothing like having your new bride admiring your latest kill.
Four minutes later, he dipped quickly into the starboard marshal, then was vectored in toward the ass end of the carrier to make his approach.
The trap went smoothly, as professionally done as anything he’d ever executed in his life. He followed the yellow shirt’s direction across the flight deck, moving the Tomcat into an unoccupied spot right behind the island. He popped the canopy and waited for the plane captain to safe the seat and assist him in unfastening the ejection harness.
“Really something. Admiral,” the airman said as he climbed up the side of the Tomcat. “I heard about that MiG sir, I mean it was-I mean.
Admiral” The airman’s voice trailed off into a confused panic as he realized who he was talking to. Behind him. Tombstone could hear Tomboy chuckling.
Finally unstrapped. Tombstone sauntered back into the carrier and headed for Flag Plot. Bird Dog might have thought he was hot shit flying JAST birds back at Par River, but he was willing to bet that he’d earned bragging rights after today’s kill.
Tombstone strolled into TFCC and was greeted by a wave of cheers. He started to wave in a self-deprecating manner, ready to display the traditional false modesty over a daring aviation exploit. Then he realized that none of the cheering men and women were even looking at him. Batman clapped him on the back. “Good news. Tombstone! An American sailboat just outside of Cuba’s territorial waters just picked up one of our aviators. You probably remember him Gator, Bird Dog’s RIO. That damned ejection seat of his must have had an extra forty pounds of charge or something.
He was way the hell off where he ought to have been.”
Tombstone tried to smile. “That sure is good news. Hey, about that MiG” “Hold on, old buddy. I need to get some SAR on this boy, then we’ll talk.”
Tombstone stood silent for a moment in the middle of the roiling pack of aviators, each one celebrating Gator’s rescue. Finally, he Chuckled and headed off for his stateroom. It was always dangerous, getting too damned impressed with oneself. He’d be better off going to the Dirty Shirt and grabbing a quick slider than looking for a pat on the back.
SEVENTEEN
Ambassador Sarah Wexler smiled as she walked into the crowded subcommittee meeting room.
In the last twenty-four hours, there had been more than adequate proof that Cuba was in possession of nuclear weapons and intended to use them against the United States. While all of the island nations might not feel completely supportive of everything the United States had done in this scenario, neither were they willing to have that capability so easily retargetable and so deadly to the flora and fauna of the Caribbean basin unleashed against them. They would side with her, of that she was certain. The behind-the-scenes discussions with each of them had confirmed what she’d already known.
The tiny island nations that crowded the Caribbean basin would insure that the United Nations sanctioned every action the United States had taken. War on this scale, involving weapons of mass destruction, was far outside of anything they ever saw their nations playing a role in.
She surveyed the ambassadors and assembled staffs, favoring all of them with a calm, confident smile. There were times during the last two days when that smile would have been a lie, and victory was all the sweeter for having been uncertain. In the delicate balance of international politics, sometimes appearances mattered more than reality.