The two French fighters regrouped at the north end of the box they had been given to fly in, then banked back toward the Warthog in a coordinated attack. The truth was, a radar missile at this range would have meant the end of the Hog and its guffawing pilot, but that wasn’t in keeping with the spirit of the encounter. As the Rafales moved in, they separated nicely, one high, one low, one to the east and one to the west, basically positioning themselves to cover anything Beast tried to do.
But that left the trailing wingman vulnerable to Turk, assuming he could accelerate quickly enough to make an attack. A “stock” A–10A couldn’t have managed it, but with the uprated engines, the refurbished Warthog had just enough giddy-up to pull it off. Turk jammed his throttle and pointed the A–10E’s nose at the Rafale’s tail, pulling close enough to have spit a dozen pellets of depleted uranium into the Frenchman’s backside before Provence Two realized where he was.
The Armée de l’Air pilot’s first reaction was to try to turn — he was hoping to throw the Warthog in front of him, essentially turning the tables. But the Hog was at least as good at slow-speed flying as the Rafale was, and Turk was able to dial back his gas just enough to stay behind the other plane. Only when the Rafale put the pedal to the metal and accelerated was he able to shake his sticky antagonist.
Beast was having a bit of difficulty shaking the other pilot, who wisely kept just enough distance to shadow the Hog without getting too close. The front canards on the Rafale — small winglets that added greatly to its maneuverability — worked overtime as the French flight leader remained figuratively on Beast’s shoulder. The two planes’ speed dropped down toward 100 knots — extremely slow, even for the straight-winged Hog. Still, the French-built fighter was able to hang in the air, a tribute both to the man at the stick and the gentlemen who had designed her.
Turk cut in their direction, making sure to clear over them by several thousand feet. A few touches on his trigger and the Frenchman would have had his pain buttered.
“OK, OK,” said the French flight leader. “Knock it off.”
“You owe us drinks,” laughed Beast.
The Frenchmen were good sports, promising that they would pay off at their earliest opportunity. They also added that they would have beaten the two Americans in anything approaching a fair fight.
“That’s your first mistake,” said Beast. “Never, ever fight fair.”
Ginella was waiting for them at their parking area when they returned.
She was not happy.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” she said to Beast as he stepped onto the tarmac. “Where do you think you were, kindergarten? That action was dangerous and unauthorized. It was completely against regulations and, damn it, common sense!”
“I, uh—”
“Don’t speak,” she snapped. She turned to Turk. “And you — you! You’re a test pilot. An engineer.”
“Well, no, I—”
“Is this what they teach you at Dreamland? I’m really disappointed in you, Captain. Really disappointed. I’ve seen your record — you’re supposed to be a mature pilot with a good set of decision-making skills. Quote, end quote.”
Turk wanted to shrink into the macadam below his feet. She was absolutely right to bawl him out, and he knew it. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground as she continued, giving him one of the sternest lectures he had ever received.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” she asked finally.
“I was stupid,” he said. “I lost my head and acted like a jerk.”
“Get out of here before I do something rash,” she said. “Report to the maintenance officer.”
Beast took a step to leave. Ginella whirled toward him. “You and I are not done.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Beast softly.
Turk didn’t hang around to hear the rest. He practically ran to get out of his flight gear, then quickly made his way to the squadron’s offices.
“Colonel talked to you?” asked the major sitting at the desk when he came in.
Turk nodded.
“I assume the plane checked out.”
“Yes.”
They went over the flight quickly. Turk wanted to finish as quickly as possible, hoping to avoid seeing Ginella again.
No such luck, though. She was standing in the doorway when he finished.
“Give us a minute, Major?” she snapped. It wasn’t a question.
“Wanted to grab a coffee,” said the officer, who quickly slipped past her.
“I’m sorry,” said Turk, sitting back in his seat. “I know I was out of line. I know it.”
She frowned, but the quick admission of guilt seemed to take a little of her anger away. She went over to the desk the major had been using and sat behind it.
“I realize that I run things a little loose at times,” she told him. “On the ground. Yes. But that doesn’t mean it’s OK to act like a cowboy in my squadron. In the air, we are all business. Do you understand that?”
“I know. I was totally out of line.”
She stared at him. Her eyes were a light blue with small wrinkles of brown in them, as if the blue were tiny pages of a book arranged one on top of the other around the pupil.
“You’re a good pilot, at least,” said Ginella finally.
“Thank you.”
“I wouldn’t grin.”
“No.” Turk shook his head.
“All right, Captain. You can go.”
Turk rose and started to leave.
“Thank you for helping us,” said Ginella.
Turk turned around.
“It was my pleasure,” he said.
“Good.”
He left the room chastened, but unbroken.
12
“It’s not possible that the Sabre didn’t know where it was.” Brad Keeler thumped his hand against the wall, tapping the map image projected there. “We have the GPS data all the way through.”
“And it functioned optimally?” asked Rubeo. “You’re positive of that?”
“As positive as we can be.”
“Was there interference through the control channel?”
Keeler pursed his lips. The one vulnerability of all unmanned aircraft systems was their reliance on external radio signals, for control and navigation. Much progress had been made in the area over the past decade but it remained at least a theoretical vulnerability.
“We don’t believe so,” said Keeler, weighing his words. “It would fail-safe out. Even if it were done very well, we should have a trace somewhere in the system.”
“The GPS?”
“GPS is trickier to track,” admitted Keeler. The Sabre got reads on where it was by querying the global position satellite system. In theory, the system could be fooled or even infiltrated. But it was difficult to do technically.
“Harder to catch,” noted Marcum.
“Absolutely,” admitted Keeler. “But there should be some trace of that.”
“Simple interference?” asked Rubeo.
“Again — it’s theoretically possible. But if so, they’re doing it in a way that we haven’t seen before. And the NATO sensors didn’t pick up any direct interference.”
“They hardly know what to look for,” said Rubeo. Interference in this case meant some sort of radio jamming, which generally was fairly obvious but could be done very selectively. In fact, Rubeo’s companies were working on a system that jammed only select aircraft — in theory, one could confuse a single UAV in a flight, turning it against its fellows.