As they had just demonstrated, the small UAVs could fly a precise, preprogrammed course. But freelancing was a different matter entirely. They generally relied on outside radar to guide them to a target. Without that he would have to rely on their native sensors—which meant they would have to stay close to the Cessna until the MiG showed up on the infrared.
By then it might be too late.
Turk hit on the idea of widening the search area by putting the two aircraft into a long trail—the first UAV, 36, could stay within four miles of the Cessna, and 37 could stay four miles away from 36. That way they’d see the MiG before it got too close to escape.
Hopefully.
Several minutes passed as the Hydras stretched out behind them. Their air speed was starting to become critical.
There was the MiG, two miles from UAV 36.
A MiG-29 Fulcrum. Iran’s best.
“Control,” said Turk, putting both hands on a control stick and flying the planes simultaneously. “Designate unidentified contact oh-one as target.”
The computer complied, marking the Iranian with that legend. The computer analyzed the aircraft, using the library in the control unit—essentially the same database used by the Sabres and Flighthawks. It ID’ed two R-27 air-to-air medium-range missiles and six short-range heat-seeking R-73s.
The MiG was moving south about 5,000 feet above them, only a mile to the west. Their direction, eastward, was almost exactly abeam of it. Apparently it couldn’t see them.
Yet. It was only a matter of time.
The nano-UAVs were at 10,000 feet. He pushed both noses downward.
“Show intercept,” he told the computer. “Fuel full use.”
The computer plotted the course. Turk nudged the trail plane to the right, but otherwise he was dead on.
“Intercept in thirty seconds,” predicted the computer as the speed of the small aircraft increased.
As the MiG turned left, the computer began recalculating. Turk altered course as well, then realized why the MiG had made that maneuver.
“He sees us!” yelled Turk, raising his head as he yelled at the pilot. “Turn west. Tell him to turn west!”
“OK, OK,” said the Israeli, starting to speak in Farsi.
Turk ducked back down. “Contact range critical,” the computer told Turk.
“Complete intercept,” Turk told the computer. “Autonomous.”
The Hydra engines slammed to life. As UAV 36 twisted toward the MiG, Turk saw two flares light under the MiG’s wings, then two more. They’d just been fired at.
“TWO MISSILES LAUNCHED. REPEAT MISSILES launched,” Vahid told the controller. “I—”
He heard a sharp snap behind him. In the next moment the plane seemed to fall away from him, the left wing veering down. Vahid forgot about everything else—the aircraft he was pursuing, the nuclear research facility, the missiles he had just launched—and fought to recover the plane.
The dive sent him earthward so quickly that he felt light-headed. His breathing was shallow and sharp, reverberating in his head.
One Eye spoke to him from beyond the grave, advising him to roll out, to get his nose attitude right and keep his power up. He recovered from the unexpected roll as if he’d planned it all along, except of course he would never have planned to go down to just barely 2,000 feet, lower than most of the peaks around him. He turned back west and felt the plane thumping. There was something wrong, definitely wrong.
Vahid cut his speed and adjusted his trim. It wasn’t clear what the problem was. He craned his head upward, staring down the side of the aircraft. He saw only jagged shadows.
“I have a flight emergency,” he told the controller finally. “I need to return to base.”
“What happened to your target?”
“I—I’m not sure. I need to land immediately.”
THE FIRST MISSILE MISSED SPECTACULARLY, FLARING IN the sky more than a mile away, its final arc a fiery, flamboyant semicircle above a nearby mountain.
They weren’t as lucky with the next.
The pilot turned sharply into a box valley as it approached. The missile continued straight, temporarily lost, then veered to follow. Either the maneuver caused a malfunction or the circuitry sensed a near miss and the warhead exploded, sending a small stream of shrapnel into the air.
Some of the spray hit the Cessna’s left wing, tearing jagged holes in the skin. Worse, bits of the shrapnel flew into the side of the fuselage. Two large pieces of metal struck the engine. A third barely grazed the windshield, etching a jagged line across a third of it, yet somehow leaving it intact.
Two more went through the pilot’s window, striking him in the head and neck. He slumped; as he did, his body hit the wheel and pushed the plane downward.
Half realizing what was happening as the plane tipped, Turk dropped the control unit and reached forward, grabbing the pilot’s shoulders and pulling him back against the seat.
“Hold him back, hold him back off the stick,” Turk told the Israeli. “Help me.”
As the other man pushed the pilot back, Turk tried leaning over him to grab the yoke. The plane was still nosing down, though not as dramatically. The ground closed in. This wasn’t going to work.
“Pull him out of my way,” said Turk, trying to squeeze into the seat as the Israeli pulled the pilot away.
Taking hold of the control yoke, Turk pulled back against the momentum of the plane as he struggled to get the nose level. The Cessna was not reluctant; she wanted to stay in the air, and finally pulled her chin up to comply with her new master’s commands. But the loss of the engine and closeness of the ground were a problem neither she nor Turk could fully solve. He struggled to keep the wings level as the plane continued. She was steady and tough; if there’d been a runway ahead, the approach would have been near perfect.
But there wasn’t a runway ahead.
“Brace!” yelled Turk. “Brace!”
MISSIONARY
1
Iran
THE CESSNA STAYED LEVEL TO THE LAST SECONDS, HER wheels touching the earth nearly together. A great deal of speed had already bled off with the destruction of the engine and subsequent descent, but she was still moving at a good clip, racing forward with no brakes to help slow her.
The only piece of luck was the fact that they had cleared the last of the low hills, coming to ground in the desert behind them. Baked by the sun and scraped by the wind, the ground was hard if not perfectly smooth, and they bumped along for a few hundred feet until the right wing found a patch of loose dirt. The plane pitched and turned sharply, skidding along for another hundred feet before tipping back the other way. The left wing snapped; the Cessna dug into the earth for a few yards, then teetered back upright, as if the laws of physics had decided to give the occupants a break.
By the time the aircraft stopped, Turk had been tossed around like stone in a polishing machine. He was dizzy and his nose felt as if it was broken; his face, neck, and shirt were covered with blood. He’d fallen or been dumped into the narrow space between the rear and front row of seats, wedged sideways against one of Grease’s legs. Unfolding himself upright, he flexed his arms, surprised that though disoriented, he still seemed intact. He coughed, and felt as if he was drowning—the blood from his nose having backed into his sinuses.
Grease grabbed Turk’s arm and pulled him in his direction, yanking Turk across the folded forward seat and out the passenger side.
The Israeli stood a few feet away, waving an AK-47. “Come on. We have to get out of here,” he yelled at them.
Turk turned back to the plane, not quite comprehending where he was or what had happened. He put his hand to his lip, then his nose.