blade.
Target is still hostile, Joe confirmed that they were within Israeli
territory, but his tone was not as well guarded as David's. David could
detect the huskiness in it, and knew that Joe was feeling that anger
also.
It would be another fifteen seconds before they had completed their turn
across the enemy's stern, and David assessed the relative positions and
saw that so far it had been a perfect approach. The formation sailed on
serenely, unaware of the enemy beneath their tail, creeping up in the
blind spot where the forward scanning radar could not discover them and
rapidly moving into a position up sun. Once there, David would go to
attack speed and climb steeply up into a position of superior height and
tactical advantage over the enemy formation.
Looking ahead now, he realized that chance had given him an added bonus;
one of the huge tower blocks of cloud was perfectly placed to screen his
climb into the sun. He would use it to cover his stalk, the way the
Boer huntsman of Africa stalked wild buffalo from behind a herd of
domestic oxen.
Target is altering course to starboard, Joe warned him, the AUGs were
turning away, edging back towards the Syrian border. They had completed
their taunting gesture, they had flaunted the colours of Islam in the
face of the infidel, and were making for safety.
David felt the blade of anger in his guts burn colder, sting sharper,
and with an effort of restraint he waited out the last few seconds
before making his climb. The moment came and his voice was still flat
and without passion as he called to Joe, Two, this is leader, commencing
storm-climb. 'Two conforming. David eased back on the controls and
they went up in a climb so vicious that it seemed to tear their bowels
from their bellies.
Almost immediately, Desert Flower picked up the radar images as they
emerged from the ground clutter.
Hullo both units Bright Lance. We are now tracking you. Show friend or
foe. Both David and Joe were lying en their backs in the thrust of
storm-climb, but at the order they punched in their IFF systems.
Identification Friend or Foe would show a distinctive pattern, a bright
halo, around their radar images on command plot identifying them
positively even while they were locked with the enemy in the close
proximity of the dogfight.
Beseder, we are tracking you in IFF, said the Brig, and they went
plunging into the pillar of cloud and raked upwards through it. David's
eyes darted between the boule that contained his blind-flying
instruments and the radar screen on which the enemy images shone bright
and with hard outline so close now that the individual aircraft in the
enemy formation stood out clearly.
Target is increasing speed and tightening starboard turn, Joe intoned
and David compensated for the enemy's manoeuvre.
David was certain that they had not detected his approach, the turn away
was coincidental. Another glance at the screen showed that he had
achieved his height advantage. He was now two miles off their quarter
above them, with the sun at his back. it was the ideal approach.
Turning now into final leg of attack pattern, he alerted Joe to his
intention and they began to pitch in.
The last-second strike which would send their speed rocketing as they
closed.
The target centred dead ahead, and the gunsight lit up, glowing softly
on the screen ahead of him. The sidewinder missiles caught the first
emanations of infrared rays from their victims, and they began to growl
softly in David's earphones.
Still blinded by thick grey cloud they raced in, and suddenly they burst
out into the clear. Ahead and below them opened a deep through of
space, a valley between cloud ranges and close below them the five MIGs
sparkled silvery in the sunlight, pretty and toylike, their red, white
and green markings festive and gay, the clean geometrical sweeps of wing
and tail nicely balanced and the shark-like mouths of the jet intakes
gaping, as they sucked in air.
They were in loose V-formation, two stacked back on each flank of the
leader and in the fleeting seconds that David had to study them, he had
assessed them. The four wingmen were Syrians, there was an indefinable
sloppiness in their flying, a looseness of control. They flew with that
lack of polish and confidence of the pupil.
They were soft targets, easy pickings.
However, it did not need the three red rings about the leader's fuselage
to identify him as a Russian instructor.
Some leery old veteran with hawk's blood in his veins, tough and canny,
and dangerous as an angry black mamba.
Engage two port targets, David ordered Joe, reserving the MIG leader and
the starboard echelon for his attack.
In David's headphones the missiles were growling their anxiety, they had
sniffed out the massed jet blasts below them and already they were
tracking, howling their eagerness to kill.
David switched to command net. Hello, Desert Flower, this is Bright
Lance on target and requesting strike. Almost instantly the voice came
back, David, this is the Brig- he was speaking, rapidly, urgently,
discontinue attack pattern. I repeat, disengage target.
They are no longer hostile. Break off attack Shocked by the command,
David glanced down the deep valley of cloud and saw the long brown
valley of the Jordan falling away behind them. They had crossed over a
line on the earth and immediately their roles had changed from defender
to aggressor. But they were closing the target rapidly. It was a fair
bounce, they were still unaware.
We are going to hit them, David made the decision through the cold
bright thing that burned within him and he closed command net and spoke
to Joe. Two, this is leader attacking. Negative! I say again
negative! Joe called urgently. Target is no longer hostile? Remember,
Hannah! David shouted into his mask. Conform to me! and he curled his
finger about the trigger and touched left rudder, yawing fractionally to
bring the nearest 1VUG into the field of his sights. It seemed to
balloon in size as he shrieked towards it.
There was a heart-beat of silence from Joe, and then his voice strangled
and rough. Two conforming. Kill them, Joe, David yelled and pressed
against the spring-loaded tension of the trigger. There was a soft
double hiss, hardly discernible above the jet din, and from under each
wing-tip the missiles unleashed, they skidded and twisted as they
aligned themselves on the targets, leaving darkly etched trails of
vapour across David's front, and at that moment the MIGs became aware.
At a shouted warning from their leader, the enULC formation burst into
its five separate parts, splintering silvery swift like a shoal of
sardines before the driving charge of the barracuda.
The rearmost Syrian was slow, he had only just begun to turn away when
one of the sidewinders flicked its tail, followed his turn and united
with him in an embrace of death.
The shock wave of the explosion jarred David's machine, but the sound of
it was muted as the MIG was enveloped in the greenish-tinted cloud of
the strike and it shattered into fragments. A wing snapped off and went
whirling high and the brief blooming flower of smoke blew swiftly past
David's head.
The second missile had chosen the machine with the red ring, the
formation leader, but the Russian reacted so swiftly and pulled his turn
so tight that the missile slid past him in an overshoot, and it lost the