Easy for them to say.
Forget that. Both power plants were working now.
He’d been doing nothing that should have given the engines trouble. More than likely, the problem was a result of crappy Iraqi maintenance, not his flying — hardly reassuring. Hack gingerly pulled back on the control column, leveling off at 4,500 meters, roughly fifteen thousand feet.
Fifteen thousand white-robed angels, fluttering in the sky.
He glanced at the yellow handles beneath his leg. The seat would save him, but damn, no way he was going out now. Not this close. They couldn’t be more than two minutes from the border.
The RWR lights blinked on.
Two contacts, on his left wing. The lights’ colors would have given him more information, but he couldn’t remember the code.
Had to be friendlies. Where the hell was his Hog?
On his right, maybe a hundred yards away. Knowlington.
It would be Knowlington, that son of a bitch. He was an alky in D.C., but here, damn it, here he was a hero. Couldn’t ask for a better commander or wing mate.
Jesus, his head hurt. He blew a wad of air into his mask. Sky was dark.
Fifteen thousand feet. Damn low. The lowest he’d ever flown.
High for a Hog driver.
His head felt too light. The amphetamine had kicked in.
He hadn’t taken the amphetamine.
Oxygen, numbskull.
Problem with the oxygen.
You’re hyperventilating.
CHAPTER 60
Skull pushed his nose level as Hack knifed downward on his left wing, slinging the MiG nearly parallel to him. It was a nice piece of flying, actually, thought for a moment if seemed as if the MiG’s engines had flamed, the plane stuttering in the sky.
“Jacques One to Devil Flight, we are advised that you and your friend are now on course.”
“Devil One. Affirmative. You still don’t have us on radar?”
“Negative,” said the Frenchman, whose accent sounded slightly British. In any event, his voice was clear and crisp. “We should be within radar range shortly.”
The French warplanes were equipped with a pulse-Doppler unit that was supposed to be able to pick up targets from outside fifty miles. But the specs were proving too optimistic: the AWACS commander told Knowlington they were now within forty miles, and he should correct due south five degrees if possible to complete their intercept.
“Hang with me, Hack,” said Skull, turning to eye his silent wingman. He waved again, trying to signal the course adjustment and that the Mirages were ahead, but Preston’s eyes remained fixed dead ahead.
“Won’t be long now,” he said, checking his position against the map. He made it five minutes to the border.
The MiG spurted ahead as Skull made his adjustments. Coyote asked for a situation report, and Skull told him they were still looking for the Mirages.
“You have clear skies to Emerald City,” said the supervisor, sounding jaunty — or at least jaunty for an AWACS controller. This was one mission no one was going to forget. “How’s his fuel?”
“No way of knowing,” replied Skull. “Maybe tight, maybe not.”
“You’re over Saudi territory. Anything happens and he wants to bail, he’s safe,” said Coyote. “Half the Air Force’ll be there to grab him.”
“Thanks.”
“Affirmative.”
No way Hack would bail now, thought Skull. He pushed his throttle, trying to keep up.
CHAPTER 61
The MiG’s altimeter pegged 4,800 kilometers. He’d never gone over 6,5000 klicks, which was about twenty thousand. Too low for him to suffer decompression problems — in theory.
But when Hack looked at the panel, he saw that not only wasn’t his oxygen hose snugged, it wasn’t in at all. He must have pulled it out at some point, probably twisting his arms across his body. He’d been hyperventilating for God knows how long. No wonder he thought everything was a joke.
Preston reached over to the panel, angry that he’d let himself get tripped up by something so simple. He shouldn’t even need oxygen here. This was a Sunday drive. All he had to do was breathe slow and easy.
His wrist gave way as he touched the nozzle end and shrieked with pain. He pushed back in the seat, gathered himself, made sure the MiG was flying all right, then did his instrument check. Finally, he reached across to push the nozzle in with his right hand.
The left engine picked that moment to quit again. But this time, the right engine joined it.
Hack slammed the tube adaptor home. Then he grabbed the stick, pulling back in an attempt to stop the MiG from entering a dive. Realizing he’d pulled too hard, he eased off. Two full, clean breaths of pure oxygen later, the black haze that had been slowly strangling his brain melted away.
Hack began working through the restart procedure, fingers fumbling against the panel on the right side of the cockpit as he tried to hold the control column with his left hand. But the buffeting against the hydraulic controls was too much for his injured wrist, and the plane jerked from his weakened fingers
He grabbed for the stick with his right hand. As he did so, his gaze fell on the fuel gauges, and he realized that he had been misreading the indicators from the start.
The engines hadn’t stalled. They’d run out of fuel. The flow seemed to be restricted somehow, but at this point, he no longer trusted the indicators or his ability to read the gauges.
And in any event, it was rapidly becoming academic.
The plane yawed sharply to the left, fighting the stick. He was losing altitude fast.
He calculated what he had to do: keep his hand on the stick, get the plane stable, then play with the fuel selectors and try to restart.
Glide you son of a bitch. Glide!
He got the wings even, got the nose almost level. He gave a push against the stick, nudged his left elbow there, holding the plane as he tried to restart the engines.
But it was too much to do with only one good arm.
Out! Out! I have to get out.
Out!
Fuck that. Not now.
Restart. There had to be fuel in the damn thing. Switch the tanks. Get into the sumps.
You’re not flying a Hog.
Out! Out! Level the wings and get out!
Just out!
His body seemed to spin from inside his spine. His stomach pushed out through the flightsuit, past the restraints. His left hand screamed with pain and his legs were being pushed against the seat.
The handle, pull the handle.
He already had. The canopy failed to clear but Hack shot through it anyway, propelled like a human cannon ball from the plane as it turned upside down. He was shooting toward the ground faster than the speed of sound, yanking around as the seat did its magic, the world a complete blurry rush. He remembered his father, saw him now smiling at him when he was nine, a Little League game.
“Hey dad, I hit a home run. I hit a home run.”
And then the strap from the Iraqi pilot’s suit, which had been ever so slightly torn by the shrapnel from the grenade that killed its owner, gave way.
CHAPTER 62
The crash happened so quickly that Skull didn’t realize what was going on until the MiG started to spin.