Get me out of here, Old Girl, he thought. Let’s dance.
He pressed again on the throttle and jerked the stick back. He was dangerously close to one of the Phantom’s peculiarities—the aircraft had a tendency to fall into a spin when the stick was muscled too hard at a high angle of attack. But the F-4 wasn’t ready to call it a day; she managed to keep herself in the air and moving forward despite the pilot’s nightmares. There was damage to the tail—he could feel the rudder lagging—but the old iron hung together.
The plane began gaining altitude. There was no question now of doing anything fancy; he would have to get away, straight line, balls out.
Water, then find the coast.
One thing he had going for him—the MiG pilot probably thought he’d splashed him with the missiles.
There were mountains ahead. Turk nudged the F-4 skyward, aiming to skim over them so close he’d chip paint.
VAHID’S RADAR FOUND THE PHANTOM AHEAD TO THE east, roughly a hundred kilometers from the Caspian if it kept on its present heading. He was over the Elburz Mountains and using them to good effect, tucking well below the peaks and hoping the irregular topography would make it hard to track him.
He was right, but Vahid realized he didn’t have to stick too closely to his prey. It seemed obvious that the pilot was going north to the Caspian. He would simply beat him there.
Other fighters were scrambling now. The radio was alive with traffic and orders: shoot the enemy down.
Vahid blocked everything out, concentrating on his plane and the pursuit. The Phantom was fast, but his MiG was faster. He was also higher. He titled his nose back and climbed some more, planning how he would take the Phantom in their final encounter.
THE MOUNTAINS SEEMED ENDLESS. TURK HAD BACKED off the throttle, worried about his fuel supply, but he was still moving at over 650 knots, yet there seemed no end to the damn things. They were green, greener than anything he’d seen in Iran. The sun glowed overhead, the sky clear. He imagined there were vacationers somewhere below, enjoying the day and the sea.
Wherever the hell it was.
Hang in there, Turk told himself. Just hang in there.
He examined the dials in the cockpit. He still had a decent amount of fuel. The damage to the tail was light, if the controls were to be believed: the plane seemed ever so slightly slow as it responded to the rudder, but not so much that it wouldn’t go where he wanted.
Come on, come on. Let’s get there.
Nothing but green and brown below.
Damn!
And then there was sea, a green-blue sheet spread in front of him.
Free, he was free.
Except: there was the damn MiG, three o’clock in his windscreen, heading due west but pushing onto his wing in what Turk recognized was the start of a sweep that would end with the Phantom in the fat heart of his targeting pipper.
VAHID FELT A RUSH OF GRAVITY AS HE PULLED THE MIG hard to complete the sweeping intercept. The Phantom, riding straight and true, rose into his screen as he put his nose down. He had the MiG dead on its enemy’s tail. He had his gun selected; he was close to the other plane and wanted the satisfaction of perforating it.
The distinctive tail of the American built plane seemed to droop; Vahid edged his finger onto the trigger as it filled out his target.
Even as he fired, the other plane disappeared. Vahid started to pull up, then realized what the other pilot was doing.
It was almost too late.
Using its control surfaces like speed brakes while it throttled back, the F-4 had dropped below and behind the MiG in an instant. The hunter was now the hunted—Vahid tweaked left and right as a stream of tracers exploded over his right wing. He began a turn, then changed course, hoping to catch the Phantom overshooting him. But whoever was flying the F-4 was very, very good—he not only didn’t bite on the fake turn, but managed to stay behind him long enough to put a few bullets across his right wing. Vahid rolled, trying to loop away, but that was nearly fatal—the F-4 danced downward, drilling two or three more bullets into his left wing and fuselage before passing by.
You underestimated him, One Eye would have said. I didn’t teach you that.
Vahid pulled up, selecting his IR missiles. But the panel indicated they wouldn’t arm. Some of the bullets that struck the plane earlier had disabled the controls or the missiles, or both.
So it was down to guns, one on one.
Vahid leveled off, looking for his opponent.
TURK FELT HIS THROAT CLOSE WITH THE SHARP TURN. His head pressed in and his heart clutched. It was as if a huge hand had grabbed hold of him and squeezed with all its might.
Don’t do that again. You’ll pass out and crash.
He’d gotten bullets into the other plane. Enough to splash the damn thing, he was sure.
Had he? Where was it?
Head clearing, Turk began a climb. After only a few seconds a tiny shadow passed to his right—cannon fire from the MiG.
He steepened the climb and rolled, surprised to find the MiG practically alongside him.
Within seconds Turk realized they had managed to put themselves into a classically difficult position. They were two fighters locked in a deadly embrace. Neither could afford to accelerate or drop away; doing so would allow the other to slide behind him.
How long could they keep this up? Turk nudged his rudder gently, edging the plane right in hopes that he might be able to let the MiG spurt ahead. But the MiG pilot was too sharp for that—he came with him, rolling his wing around about a quarter turn just as Turk did.
Turk thought of various ways to break off. The best seemed to be to mash the gas, turn tight and get his nose facing the other plane. The MiG would have to turn outside to keep from being thrown in front; Turk would be risking a quick missile shot but he was confident he could get his own shot in first.
The trouble was, he doubted he could stand the roller-coaster force needed to pull that maneuver. Nor could he afford to stay in the climb much longer; the thin oxygen would kill him.
The man flying the other plane had good instincts. Maybe he could use those against him.
Both planes were flying almost straight up, canopy-to-canopy, turning a tight, ascending scissors pattern in the sky. Neither could afford to stray.
Turk had an idea. As he turned his wing to start a twist, he pushed the Phantom closer to the MiG. In an instant, he jerked the nose forward and at the same time fired the gun.
His idea was that it would look to the other pilot as if the Phantom was trying to crash into him. Whether it did or not was impossible to tell, but the maneuver had the desired effect: the MiG spun off to the right.
Turk’s own instincts were to follow. Everything he knew told him that he had the other plane where he wanted him. And certainly he would have if he’d had a flight suit and oxygen.
But he told himself his job now wasn’t to shoot down the MiG. It was to get himself and Stoner home. And so instead he pushed the Phantom back around to the north and accelerated again, sure he was home free.
He’d barely caught his breath when a fresh set of tracers exploded ahead of his right wing. The Iranian didn’t want to quit.
21
CIA campus, Virginia
REID RAISED HIS HAND AND GAVE BREANNA A THUMBS-UP, indicating that the American military consul in Baku had convinced the Azerbaijan air force to scramble its forces. The SEAL command had already released the MC-130 in Baku; it was preparing to take off and fly over the Caspian.