in sector, the Brig gave the coordinates, Scan for your own contact.
Almost immediately Joe's voice came in. Leader, this is Two. I have a
contact. David dropped his eyes to his own radar screen and amputated
his scan as Joe called range and bearing. It was a dangerous
distraction when flying in the sticky phase of high subsonic drag at
zero feet, and his own screen was clear of contact.
They raced onwards for many more seconds before David picked up the
faint luminous fuzz at the extreme range of his set.
Contact firming. Range figures nine six nautical miles. Parallel
heading and track. Altitude 25, 5oo feett. David felt the first
familiar tingle and slither of his anger and hatred, like the cold of a
great snake uncoiling in his belly.
Beseder, Two. Lock to target and go to interception speed.
They went supersonic and David looked up ahead at the crests of the
thunderheads that reared up from the solid banks of cumulo nimbus lower
down. These mountainous upthrusts of silver and pale blue were
sculptured into wonderful shapes that teased the imagination towers and
turrets embattled and emblazoned, heroic human shapes standing proud or
hunched in the attitude of mourning, the rearing horsemen of the
chessboard, a great fleecy pack of wolves, and other animal shapes of
fantasy, with the deep crevasses between them bridged in splendour by
the rainbows. There were hundreds of these, great blazes of colour,
that turned and followed their progress across the sky, keeping majestic
station upon them. Above them, the sky was a dark unnatural blue,
dappled like a Windsor grey by the thin striation of the cirrocumulus,
and the sunlight poured down to shimmer upon the two speeding warplanes.
As yet there was no sight of the target. It was up there somewhere
amongst the cloud mountains. He looked back at his radar screen. He
had taken his radar out of scan and locked it into the target, and now
as they closed rapidly he could appraise their relative positions.
The target was flying parallel to them, twenty miles out on their
starboard side, and it was high above them and moving at a little more
than half their speed. The sun was beyond the target, just short of its
zenith, and David calculated his approach path to bring him into an
attack vector from above and into the target's starboard quarter.
Turning to starboard now, he warned Joe, and they came around together,
crossing the target's rear to put themselves in the sun. Joe was
calling the range and bearing, it showed a leisurely patrol pattern.
There was no indication as yet that the target was aware of the hunters
behind and far below.
Two, this is leader. Arm your circuits. Without taking his eyes from
the radar screen, David pressed the master switch on his weapon console.
He activated the two air-to-air sidewinder missiles that hung under each
wing-tip, and immediately heard the soft electronic tone cycling in his
earphones. That tone indicated that the missiles were dormant, they had
not yet detected an infra-red source to excite them. When they did they
would increase the volume and rate of cycle, growling with anticipation,
claniouring like hunting dogs on the leash. He turned them down so he
could no longer hear them.
Now he selected his cannon switch, readying the twin 30-men. weapons in
their pods just below his seat. The trigger flicked forward out of its
recess in the head of the joystick and he curled his forefinger about it
to familiarize himself with the feel of it.
Two, this is leader. I am commencing visual. It was a warning to
Joe to concentrate all his attention on the screen and feed David with
directional data.
Target is now ten o'clock high, range figures two seven nautical miles.
David searched carefully, raking the billowing walls of blinding white,
breaking off the search to look away at a ground point or a pinnacle of
cloud to prevent his eyes focusing short, and to sweep the blind spot
behind them, lest the hunters become the hunted.
Then he saw them. There were five of them, and they appeared suddenly
out of cloud high above and were immediately outlined against it like
tiny black fleas on a newly ironed bedsheet. just then Joe called the
range again.
Figures one three nautical miles, but the targets were outlined so
crisply against their background that David could make out the
delta-winged dart shape, and the high tail plane that identified them
beyond all doubt as IUG 2i J.
I have target visual, he told Joe. Five MIG 2i's J. His tone was flat
and neutral, but it was a lie, for now at last his anger had something
on which to fasten, and it changed its shape and colour, it was no
longer black and aching but cold and bright and keen as a rapier's
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