"Papa Bear. Eagle Three. Missile in the air!"
MiG-29
Codename Fulcrum Four
30 miles north of Tbilisi, Georgia
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. The strident alarm brought Staas's eyes to the flashing red monitor on the cockpit control panel. Next to the Engine Failure alarm, this was the one alarm most dreaded by fighter pilots.
Missile lock! Missile lock! Missile lock!
Staas felt cold sweat all over his body. Kapitan Giorsky had tried radioing him, but he could not hear because of the alarm. His hands trembled as he hit the transmit button.
"Kapitan! He has locked onto me! Help me!"
There was no answer.
"Kapitan! Missile in the air!"
MiG-29
Codename Fulcrum Three
28 miles north of Tbilisi, Georgia
The petrified voice came squeaking over the air-to-air frequency and into Giorsky's headset.
"Help me, Kapitan! Please, help me!"
Giorsky saw the Eagle downrange, but Staas's Fulcrum was out of sight.
"Kapitan! Missile in the air!"
"Staas, pull up! Pull up now! Pull up and hit afterburners!"
Giorsky armed the R-73 Archer missile and pushed the launch button.
F-15 Eagle
Codename Eagle Three
30 miles north of Tbilisi, Georgia
A. J. Riddle could do nothing but wait. The seconds seemed like an eternity as he watched the Sidewinder close in on its target.
Time to impact. Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One.
A burst of smoke in the sky five miles downrange.
Smoke and debris fell in multiple plumes, streaking down, down toward the ground.
Captain Riddle checked his radar screen. The target had vanished.
Riddle looked for signs of a parachute. Nothing on the horizon.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
The warning indicator light located directly above the radar sceen was flashing. A fast-moving heat-seeking missile was closing in!
A. J. pulled up on the stick and shot the Eagle up, up directly into the sun, which at this altitude was a blazing ball. He tried looking away, but the G-forces pushing him back in his seat made it difficult to turn his face away.
The missile came fast, like a bloodhound sniffing a deer, homing on the exhaust from the Eagle's turbofan engines. Cockpit monitors showed the missile closing distance.
2000 yards.
1500 yards.
1000 yards.
A. J.'s life flashed in a lightning bolt in front of him. Memories of Christmases and Thanksgivings past, with his cousins and grandparents around the dining room table for holiday meals. His graduation from USC. His marriage to Mary Frances. The birth of their son Michael and daughter Holly.
500 yards.
400 yards.
A. J. gripped the joystick with his right hand.
300 yards.
200 yards.
He punched the button, firing five decoy flares into the blue sky. The flares popped out like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
As the flares exploded, he jerked the stick a hard left.
The plane twirled and tumbled out of its ascent. The horizon spun like a gyroscope. The altimeter dropped like a rock. A. J. was on a roller coaster ride. His stomach was still at twenty thousand feet. The rest of his body was somewhere well below that. He thought about ejecting, but an upside-down ejection could be fatal.
He fought, desperately, to regain control of his aircraft. At six thousand feet, the horizon leveled out again, and his stomach caught up with the rest of his body.
A. J. looked up. The Russian missile had flown through the decoys and locked onto the sun's rays, exploding harmlessly in the sky. He scanned the sky above him, looking for the Russian.
"Eagle Three. Eagle Four. You okay?"
"Eagle Four. Eagle Three. Piece of cake."
"Great flying, boss."
"No time for that. Where's our bandit?"
"Got him on my scope, " Lieutenant Travis Martin said. "Still at course one-eight-zero at ten thousand. He's over the outskirts of Tbilisi."
A. J. looked down at his radar scope and spotted the MiG. "It's payback time, Travis. Let's go get him!"
Captain A. J. Riddle set the Eagle for a course of 180 degrees and hit the afterburners.
MiG-29
Codename Fulcrum Three
Over the northern outskirts of Tbilisi, Georgia
Another fifteen minutes or so, and the danger would have passed, Gior-sky thought. He had continued monitoring his radar scope for signs of the two F-15s. Perhaps the R-73 Archer missile had done its job.
Nothing like a heat-seeking missile up another plane's rear to jar the enemy's confidence a bit.
If he had only fired the Archer before the American launched the Stinger that hit Staas. Giorsky had scanned the skies for parachutes, but saw nothing. Under the circumstances, he couldn't circle the area looking for signs of life.
Poor Staas. Shot down on his first combat mission only three months before his first child was to be born. The ultrasounds showed that it would be a boy. Staas was building a plastic model of the Fulcrum that was to be his boy's first present. What pride he had taken in building that model. He had spent hours painting the tiny red star on the plane's tailfin.
Giorsky would write to Staas's widow. He would tell Irina that Staas spoke of his unfailing love for her. Then he would finish building the model for Staas's son. He would write to the boy. He would remind the son that Staas died the death of a combat hero in defense of the Motherland.
Giorsky wondered about the pilot who shot Staas from the skies. Was he still alive? Did he have a wife or children? If so, who would write his family and tell of their father's death? But was the American really dead? Had he even been shot down?
Surely he had killed the American. True, he had wanted to tangle with an F-15. But not this way. Not by firing a missile up the American's jet stream without first a test to see who was the better pilot.
It seemed so unchivalrous. To let a missile fight for a warrior. Whatever happened to gladiator against gladiator? Or ace against ace?
He felt like he had shot a man in the back. Then again, that is exactly what the American had done to Staas. But this was part of the age of high-tech warfare.
Even still, he admired the American's tactics against the missile attack. The evasive maneuver was just what Giorsky would've done against a fast-moving infrared missile: climb for the sun, then at the last second before impact, release decoy flares and roll out.
In theory, the missile would be fooled by the decoy flares, and come out on the other side sniffing the heat from the sun. At least that was the theory.
In reality, this was a desperate do-or-die maneuver that could work, but only if the roll-out was not premature.
Roll away too early, and the missile would recover, catch up, and not be fooled again.
Roll too late, and the warhead was up your tailpipe.
All this was a nerve-wracking game of Russian roulette. And nobody played Russian roulette like the Russians. Not even the mighty Americans.
Giorsky checked his radar screen again.
Still nothing. Only forty miles to the Armenian border. Just a few more minutes and he would be home-free.
Perhaps this was his lucky day.
F-15 Eagle
Codename Eagle Four Over Tbilisi, Georgia
First Lieutenant Travis Martin was piloting his F-15 Eagle a quarter of a mile ahead of Captain A. J. Riddle's plane.
"Eagle Three, Eagle Four."
"Eagle Three, " Captain Riddle said.
"Sir, he's within range of my Sidewinders. Shall I do the honors?"
"By all means, Lieutenant. He's all yours."
Martin armed missile number two, then fed the tracking data from the plane's radar into the fire launch computer.
A red flashing light appeared on the console.
Target acquired. Target acquired. Target acquired.
Travis Martin hit the fire button. The Sidewinder dropped from the wing of the Eagle and fell through the air. A second later, the missile burst forward like lightning, painting a white streak through the blue skies above Tbilisi.