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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