Four hundred klicks maybe? But that was really slow, much too slow.
He did remember the procedure for arming the gun — the HUD flashed into gun mode.
Hack killed it. He had to fly onto to Saudi Arabia. That was his job.”
Let his guys go down?
That he couldn’t do.
Hack hesitated for a moment, then pushed against the stick. It took more effort than in the F-15 to start a turn, but less than in a Hog.
CHAPTER 58
Skull tore his eyes away from the canopy glass as the RWR began to bleat. A Slot-Back radar was looking for him twenty miles ahead, at roughly twenty thousand feet.
Either Hack had just turned around, or Saddam had somehow managed to get a MiG in the air without telling anyone.
“Coyote, this is Devil One. Splash MiG has turned back in my direction.”
“Coyote confirms,” snapped the voice from the AWACS. It was older and sharper than before — the sergeant he’d been talking to had been replaced by the officer in charge. “What’s our boy up to?”
“I believe he’s looking for me,” Skull said. “How are our escorts?”
“Still approaching.”
Knowlington clicked back on to the French frequency and tried his hail again. This time he got a response.
“Jacques One reads you, Devil Leaders,” said the French pilot, giving his position. They were a little over eighty miles away, descending from thirty thousand feet.
“I have a visual on Splash Bird. I make him twelve miles away, he’s descending a little, but still around twenty thousand feet.”
“Twelve miles away, and you have a visual?”
“I eat a lot of carrots,” said Knowlington. Despite the immense distance, he knew he saw the MiG.
Maybe his eyes weren’t aging at all. He pushed his nose up but kept his course steady, feeling a bit like an old-fashioned commuter train chugging along as the express raced by.
So why the hell had Hack turned around? He was maybe five minutes from the border. The MiG didn’t carry all that much fuel.
Probably he had realized the wires were crossed on the escorts and decided to look for Skull. Without a radio, he might worry that he wouldn’t get clearance to land at KKMC. He’d know what he was doing fuel-wise.
Idiot was probably worried about him. Shit.
He’d have done the same thing.
“Devil Leader, Splash reports two packages aboard along with prisoners. The entire family is headed home,” said the AWACS controller. “Thought you’d like to know.”
“Devil Leader acknowledges,” said Skull, taken by surprise.
Had they gone back and found them? Who? Wong and Hawkins and the D boys were the last to leave; he’d heard them clear the base himself.
Wong.
“Well done,” added the controller.
Knowlington didn’t respond. Congratulations always waited until you touched down and stowed your gear. That wasn’t superstition; it was experience, hard-earned.
But. But. Hell of a way to go out. Last mission — recovered two lost SAS men, stole an Iraqi MiG.
Stole an Iraqi MiG. You couldn’t top that.
Skull glanced up and saw the Mikoyan continuing toward him. Its nose rode up at a slight angle, and the wings tucked up and down, as if she were a bronco and Hack a cowboy trying to break her.
Knowlington put the Hog on her side, showing his belly to the approaching plane.
Here I am, you son of a bitch,” he said. “Come on, Hack. Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER 59
Hack bounced the radar controls back and forth, trying to cajole the radar into action. He’d hit the buttons, then jerk his head back up and grab the control column, nervous about taking his attention off the sky for too long.
He ought to be able to see the Hogs, at least. And any Iraqis coming for them.
The smoke from Splash — he hoped it was Splash — filled a small finger of the hazy horizon in the lower left quadrant of his windscreen. His eyes hunted for a black stick in the mist, or a glint, or anything moving.
Turning back was dumb. He was eating up fuel.
Although not according to the gauge. Three hundred kilos for takeoff, only two hundred since then. Much better than expected.
And it was all flowing fine. Forget the gauge — he could hear the engines humming.
Go by time in the air. Forget the tanks, he told himself.
He glanced at his watch.
Twenty-five mini-minutes after the hour.
Mini-minutes. What a joke.
Wisdom and folly, folly and wisdom. It depended on who was making the interpretation.
They were going to think he was very, very wise after this.
A black bird flapped in the sky below him, rolling its wings before belly flopping down.
One of his Hogs.
About time. Hack banked, turning the MiG back toward Saudi Arabia. She had a tight turn — he could feel the g’s popping him in the chest, even with the suit.
Too bad for the Iraqi pilot. Might have been interesting if they had captured him alive, gotten him to talk to them.
Hack hadn’t been thinking of that in the hangar. Wong had mentioned it as a possibility before.
Wong. What a character.
Hack glanced at his watch. It was still 7:25 A.M. Had it stopped?
No. Time was just moving very slowly. He must not be having any fun.
His left arm jerked upward, the wrist and forearm muscles spasming. Hack stared at them as if they belonged to a creature that had somehow invaded the cockpit from a cheap sci-fi movie. Finally he put his hand back down on the throttle, slowly palming the thick level.
Time to go home. His legs and arms and head were heavy as hell.
So were his eyes.
Jesus, he was tired. Normally, Hack carried a small packet of amphetamines in one of his small flap pockets. While he loathed using them — had in fact never used them — he reached down now, afraid he wouldn’t be quite up to the demanding task of landing the unfamiliar plane without them.
He tapped his fingers against his leg, then felt a wave of disorienting panic — the pocket with the pills wasn’t there.
He’d forgotten he was wearing the Iraqi gear.
The Hog was on his right, climbing through maybe fifteen thousand feet, struggling to reach his altitude. Hogs were great at everything except climbing.
The MiG jerked sharply to the left, plunging downwards as its wing tipped toward the ground. Hack’s head floated somewhere above his body as warning lights flashed. As his lungs gasped, he stared at the dials, unsure what had happened.
Fuel. He was out of fuel.
Fuel?
No, the RPM gauge indicated that the left engine had stopped working.
Hack struggled to clear his head, struggled simply to breathe. His hands seemed to work on their own, stabilizing the MiG as if fell through sixteen thousand feet, grabbing it by its bootstraps.
Restart, he told himself. Go.
His fingers fumbled; his brain stuck in a block of plastic, unable to communicate with the rest of his body.
The fuel flow. What was the stinking gauge saying?
Why was he so concerned with fuel? He had plenty — just go for the start.
The engine rumbled, seemingly on its own. Hack tried to calm his breathing, pulling the MiG back level. Knowlington had swooped on his right, trying to close up the distance. Hack gave him a thumbs-up but was too busy to try any other hand signals.
Both of his briefers had said the Mikoyan never flamed out, and if it did, it would be easy to keep from spinning.