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These three — Wing-lei, Jian, and Choi — were his handpicked students. For weeks he had drilled them in the complex discipline of four-ship tactics. They were eager and aggressive, almost worshipful in the way they emulated Bass’s jargon and body language.

Bass’s radar was showing a gaggle of at least four, maybe six fighters, clustered together at 25,000 feet. Forty miles and closing.

His left thumb pushed the mike button, “Razor, gate.” The signal for afterburners. The four F-16s accelerated to supersonic speed.

Bass squinted at the horizon. He knew he’d see a firing solution in his multi-function display long before he could visually acquire the Communist fighters, but he wanted a mental picture of how the fight would flow. Judging by their speed and altitude, the bandits were probably Chinese F-7s, home-grown variants of the Russian MiG-21 Fishbed. They were fast but obsolete. They might even be hauling iron bombs to a target on Taiwan. So much the better.

These gomers were toast.

The night before, Bass had stood on the blackened tarmac of the fighter base, his stomach churning, and watched his young pupils launch on the first wave of attacks against the mainland. Much as he wanted to go with them, he knew better. He couldn’t risk having the Chinese capture an American pilot in the act of bombing them. If the Communists didn’t kill him, Major General Buckner would do it for them.The initial attacks had gone well. The F-16-launched HARM missiles had succeeded in shutting down the Chinese coastal air defense sites. Behind the HARM-shooters, the F-16 and Mirage 2000 strikers had smashed their mainland targets — air defense complexes, the fighter bases at Fuzhou and Longxi, the supply depots and the port facilities at Xiamen and Mawei.

In all, sixty-three F-16s and forty-five Mirage 2000s participated in the attack. Two Vipers and three Mirages had not returned. That was an amazingly good ratio, considering the grim pre-strike threat appraisals. They would have suffered a much higher loss rate if China had not been caught flatfooted.

Well, thought Bass, kiss that advantage goodbye. Taiwan’s lean little air force was outnumbered three-to-one. Their best hope was their qualitative advantage. In addition to the new F-16s, the Taiwanese had sixty-some French-built Mirage 2000s, plus a hundred older Northrop F-5s. Overall, they were superior to anything the Chinese could put in the air — with the exception of the Russian-built Su-27 Flankers.

As in every air war, it depended on the guys in the cockpits.

As the dawn approached, Bass had reached a decision. He could no longer keep himself out of the fight. He assigned himself to lead a CAP — combat air patrol — over the strait. At least he wouldn’t be hanging his unauthorized American butt out over the forbidden Chinese mainland. Really, he told himself, it wasn’t much different than a regular training mission over the strait.

Yeah, right. Try running that one by the general.

The voice of the controller in the Hawkeye broke through his thoughts. “Fat Boy has bandits flanking north.”That meant the Fishbeds had taken a thirty degree or so turn to the north. Setting themselves up for the fight. Bass was sure they were getting GCI — ground controlled intercept — commands.

The strait between China and Taiwan had become an electronic shooting gallery. “Razor flight, check right forty.” He would answer the bandits’ flanking maneuver with an offset intercept.

As he brought the nose of his F-16 forty degrees right, he saw each of his other fighters moving with him, adjusting their positions to maintain a line abreast formation. Bass wanted to head off the oncoming Fishbeds, stay in front of them, keep them from getting around his wall of Vipers. At the right moment, he would turn into them, bracket them, kill them with AIM-120 missiles.

With his right thumb, he slid the armament selector to AMRAAM. The AIM-120—called AMRAAM for Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile — was the great equalizer. The most modern missile in the U.S. inventory, it was one of the items withheld from the Taiwanese until just a few weeks ago. With a range of over thirty-five miles, the AMRAAM could kill from a greater distance than anything the Chinese possessed. Or so Catfish Bass fervently hoped.

Again he checked his scope. Range twenty-five. Six of them, still in a cluster. No, make that two flights of three, stacked in a vertical split of two thousand feet.

Like fat geese waiting to be killed.

“Razor, bracket,” he ordered, banking his Viper hard to the left. Wei-ling matched the turn, and they rolled out forty-five degrees off their original heading. Jian’s element rolled hard to right, also offsetting by forty-five degrees.Now the flight of Vipers was split, heading ninety degrees apart. The maneuver would put the Vipers on either side of the Fishbeds.

Almost in range. Bass’s plan was to target, shoot, and shoot again. Take out as many as he could before they merged. He had no intention of getting into a turning fight.“Fat Boy shows the bandits maneuvering.”

The Chinese fighters were waking up to the bracket attack. Two Fishbeds were angling toward him. Another pair was turning into Razor Three’s element. The center two were in a steep dive, running for the deck.

Range twenty-two miles.

“Razor One and Two will take the south group,” Bass called. “Razor Three target the north group. Razor Four strip and take the center group diving for the deck. Fat Boy watch for spitters.”

The Fishbeds would be armed with AA-11 Archer missiles, he figured. The Archer was an infra-red guided, heat-seeking missile. It was a vicious close-in weapon, but it also had a head-on range of seven miles. The trick was to shoot before they came into IR range.

Approaching fifteen miles, Bass had two clear targets in the southern group of bandits. Shoot them both. He squeezed the trigger. The missile roared away from his jet like a giant bottle rocket. He could see the fire from its motor as it streaked towards the target.

“Razor One, Fox Three,” he called, signaling the launch of an AMRAAM.

He stepped the target designator over to the second Fishbed and squeezed the trigger again. Another AMRAAM roared off the rail.“Razor Three, Fox Three,” he heard Jian call, announcing his own shot. A second later, Jian called a second missile away. Another target.

“Razor Two, Fox Three,” called Wei. Then he took a second shot.

Six missiles in the air. Shit hot, thought Bass. That should give the gomers something to think about.

“Range ten miles,” called Fat Boy. “Throttles.” A reminder to pull their throttles out of afterburner and minimize hot IR emissions. Deny the enemy heat-seekers a target. Bass squinted into his HUD. In the target designator box he saw the speck of the first Fishbed. As he watched, the speck erupted into a ball of bright yellow-orange fire. It looked like a cherry bomb going off in the distance. Splash one Fishbed. To the left he saw a second speck, morphing into the delta-winged shape of an F-7 Fishbed. It had somehow evaded his second missile.

But not Wei-ling’s. As Bass watched, the Fishbed burst into a yellow-orange fireball.

Splash two.

Both fireballs were plunging toward the sea below. Thank you, God, Bass muttered in his oxygen mask. And thank you, Uncle Sam, for the AMRAAMs.

Bass looked over to his right. How was Jian doing? He was about to key the mike when he saw.

Two more yellow-orange fireballs. Two black smoke trails.

Jian yelled on the radio, “Razor Three killed two rats, northern group!”

Bass grinned in spite of himself. Rats? They’d work on Jian’s radio discipline in the debrief.

Now he was worried about Choi, Razor Four. He was supposed to be targeting the—