“Negative,” said Hack quickly. “Devil Flight stay on course. Acknowledge.”
“Two. Kick butt,” said A-Bomb.
“Three. We’re right behind you.”
Before Gunny could respond from Devil Four, the AWACS crewman blurted out a fresh and ominous warning — the Iraqis had launched two missiles heading this way.
CHAPTER 12
RAF Captain John Conrad started to laugh as the Panavian Tornado hurtled toward the ground. The Turbo-Union RB1999 Mk104 engines were in fine mettle. The nose of the plane shuddered slightly, then smoothed out; the jet’s speed sliding over Mach 1.2. The altimeter ladder nudged downward, breaking through three thousand feet as the world rushed brown and black, an abstract splatter of paint and speed dashing at odd angles around him.
Conrad laughed and laughed, riding the adrenaline of the high-speed run. Wings tucked tight at a sixty-seven-degree sweep, the plane shot smooth toward the terrain, knifing through the low-level turbulence. Conrad pulled back on the stick, leveling off just under a thousand feet, spotting the long gray splotch of his target area ahead.
The pilot giggled to himself as he held the plane steady so his backseat systems operator or “nav” could manage the sophisticated array of reconnaissance equipment in the weapons bay. Three BAe infra-red cameras and a Vinten Linescan 4000 IR surveillance system filled the hold originally designed for a 27mm IWKA-Mauser cannon; together, the wide-angle line-scan and thermal-image modules probed every inch of the Iranian base. Conrad counted off three seconds, saw two matchboxes at the edge of the rectangle and then he was beyond them; he yanked back on his stick, climbing quickly, gravity smacking him in the chest. He pushed the Tornado to the left as blue sky filled the canopy, the altimeter ladder galloping upwards, mission accomplished.
“Good go, Sister Sadie. Oh, good go, my girl,” he told his plane, which had been named partly for a Beatles song, and partly for the buxom tart bending over her nose. Conrad’s squadron included one of the best nose art painters in the RAF — no mean accomplishment.
The pilot asked his backseater if he had enough data.
“Not quite sure,” said the navigator, Lieutenant Charles Nevins. Besides the normal Tornado backseater duties, as recon officer, Nevins handles an array of sensors that included an infrared camera. “Revetment empty. Zeus 23’s on the hill and below the field.”
“Missiles?”
“Didn’t seem so.”
“Need another run?” asked the pilot, barely containing his enthusiasm.
“SA-6 eight miles north of Splash. They’re tracking,” warned the nav.
“Let’s have a go. Yank Weasel will take care of the missiles,” said Conrad, and before his lieutenant could answer he had knifed the Tornado back toward the Iraqi runway.
Originally designed as a long-range interceptor, the Panavian Tornado lacked the furball maneuverability of American fighters. It could, however, go very fast, and its terrain-following radar and quick-response engines allowed it to do so in all sorts of situations, day and night. In fact, to Captain Conrad, this mission was rather bland — clear sailing in daylight without nearby defenses to worry about.
But it was still a hell of a lot of fun. Flying was always fun.
“SAM tracking,” shouted his nav, warning that there was another anti-air battery hunting them. “ECMs!”
“Stay on it,” Conrad said, winding the Tornado’s altimeter toward zero.
As the rectangular shape of the abandoned runway came into view, Conrad cut hard left to run over it, speed washing from the plane. He was at five hundred feet… now three hundred… and still lower, getting personal with his target. He pushed his wings level, saw a speckle of something out ahead of him, cursed and felt a light thump as he pulled the plane upwards. The smell of fried chicken filled the cockpit — the Tornado had mashed through a flock of birds, sizzling at least one of them.
“Clean!” yelled the navigator. Either the ECMs or their hard maneuvers or both had shaken the Iraqi defenses. The radar warning screen, which had shown the missile battery’s radar to be quite some distance to the west, was now blank.
Conrad banked south, quickly reorienting himself. The A-10A’s escorting the Chinooks blipped on the radar screen, just over fifty miles away. The helicopters should be somewhere nearby, but Conrad was no longer interested in them — his job now was to get home. He sailed through his turn, running to the west out of their path. Climbing steadily now, the Tornado’s altimeter nudged through six thousand feet, then headed toward ten. He was north of the Euphrates, circling south in the same area as the base, lining up for his getaway leg home.
“More guns beyond the runway,” announced the navigator. “Nothing big.”
“Tank?”
“No.”
“Other defenses?”
“Road south of the base, bunker, maybe just a defensive post.” The navigator’s voice trailed off as he checked the videotaped sensor image. “Maybe some cached weapons there. Can’t tell.”
“Jolly good. Feed the Yanks the positions of the guns, and remind them where the SA-6 was, in case the Weasel hasn’t gotten her yet.”
“Right.”
But before the backseater could hail Devil flight, their detection gear threw up another radar warning.
“Roland on us. Where’d that come from? Fuckers, fuckers!” The navigator’s voice hit an octave so high Conrad thought his helmet’s faceplate would break.
“ECMs,” Conrad said calmly, though of course the instruction was unnecessary; his backseater was already trying to jam the enemy trackers. The Roland — a German missile — was a nasty medium-range missile that could detect aircraft at roughly ten miles and nail it around four. The RWR had it pegged straight ahead, five miles away, two miles north of Splash.
“Missiles in the air! Missiles!” yelped the nav.
Once launched, the Roland moved at roughly 1.5 times the speed of sound, somewhat slower than the Tornado was capable of. But Conrad was in a poor position to outrun it; his best bet were the countermeasures his beackseater was furiously working, along with the fact that the Roland had been launched just beyond its lethal envelope.
He flooded the afterburners and pushed the Tornado into a sharp jink. Newton’s Laws struck him with a vengeance, gravity smashing every inch of his body. He flicked his wrist left, flicked right; the fly-by-wire controls faithfully fought the turbulent shockwaves to fulfill his commands, whipping the plane back and forth to accentuate the confusion.
“Lost one!” yelped the navigator, but the words barely registered. Conrad could feel the second missile, gunning for him. It had somehow managed to follow his twists and was now behind him, burning through its second stage in an all-out effort to bring him down.
But if it was a race, Conrad was going to win. He shut out the voices blaring in his headphones, shut out the blur of the sky, the rumble of the jets, the hard rush of gravity against his chest and face. His fingers were wrapped on the throttle, holding the Turbo-Unions at the firewall.
It came down to him and the missile and the plane. Sister Sadie wasn’t giving in, and neither was he.
Roland would be reaching the end of its range now.
A fresh rush of adrenaline hit Conrad’s veins. He was going to make it; he had it.
This sure as fuck was fun.
“Come on you bleedin’ bugger,” he yelled at the missile, laughing again. “Hit me, fucker. I dare you. I dare you.”
And then it did.
CHAPTER 13