“How much do you want, CAG?” the tanker pilot asked.
“All you can give me and still make it to Sigonella.” They were flying east at 40,000 feet. The island of Sicily lay over a hundred miles behind them.
Toad was talking to the frigate on the other radio, as he had been for five minutes. Apparently he was conversing with one of the enlisted men in the watch section of the frigate’s CIC, all very low-key, though with the scramblers engaged. Toad handled it well, seeking aid on an “oh, by the way” basis, a few traffic advisories for a Tomcat crew out for a spin and some practice intercepts this fine Sunday morning.
“Here’s something interesting, Red Ace,” the sailor on the frigate said. “The spooks say we have some MiGs airborne north of Benghazi. We picked up the radar emissions and some radio traffic.” The transmission broke, then resumed, “And this is funny. There’s an airplane circling about a hundred ten miles or so north of Benghazi.”
“Ask him if he can pick up a squawk,” Jake said to Toad, who made the transmission. He checked the fuel readout. Twelve thousand pounds aboard. The tanker’s light was still green.
“Uh, it’s that Red Cross flight. Pretty weird, huh? You guys may want to return to Sicily or turn northbound to avoid the MiGs, over.”
“Yeah,” Toad said. “Thanks a lot, Buckshot.”
“That’s it, CAG,” the tanker crew said as the light over the hose hole turned red: 13,200 pounds of fuel. That would have to do.
“Thanks guys.” Jake backed away from the drogue and watched his probe retract. He eased up onto the tanker’s right side and gave the pilot a thumbs-up when the drogue was completely stowed. Then he pushed the throttles forward to the stops and flapped his hand good-bye. The tanker’s right wing came up and the plane turned away to the left as it fell behind the accelerating fighter.
Jake reset the radio switches so he could transmit on the second radio. “Buckshot, Red Ace. Get your watch officer and put him on the horn.”
The Tomcat was in burner, accelerating through Mach 1.4 when the watch officer came on the radio.
“Buckshot, this is Captain Jake Grafton. Please notify Sixth Fleet ASAP that Colonel Qazi and the weapons are probably in the Red Cross flight your controller has tracked. We are on course to intercept now. Got it?”
“Yessir. But what—”
“Just send the message. Red Ace out.”
Someone was there. Qazi opened his eyes. It was El Hakim, livid, trembling with fury. “679 93 62. That is the telephone number of the Israeli embassy in Rome. Tripoli confirms it. That was the number! How did you know it?”
“I called it.”
“Traitor!” The dictator’s lips drew back in a sneer and he threw back his head, his favorite gesture. “You are lying. Hypocrite!”
“You have the weapons,” Qazi said carefully. “Fly to Benghazi. The fighters are late. It’s suicidal to continue to remain out here over the ocean with the Americans soon to be swarming and the Israelis on the alert. Madness. Go to Benghazi and announce your triumph. The Arabs will come to you like iron to a magnet.”
“I am the Messenger, returned to lead my people from the godless ways, to purify them—”
A member of the flight crew stuck his head through the door. “Excellency, the fighters are joining us with their tanker. We have them in sight.”
“East. Now!” He turned back to Qazi, nostrils flaring. “My mission has just begun. The unbelievers shall fall before our swords—”
“Inshallah,” Qazi said softly, fiercely. “If Allah wills it.” El Hakim was mad, of course. The ruler was a small, foolish, hollow man whose ambition and appetite had long ago won control of his soul. Ashes. Qazi’s plan was ashes. He had wanted so much to give these people hope and a future, and yet this vainglorious petty tyrant was the man who ruled them. “If the Israelis don’t shoot you down,” Qazi muttered, suddenly laden with fatigue. “If the Americans don’t strike you down. If Allah doesn’t destroy you as an abomination.”
El Hakim seized the Uzi of the bodyguard who stood on his right, but the weapon was on a strap over the man’s right shoulder. The ruler pulled at it, trying to rip it from the strap.
“Excellency, American fighters! The ECM! They are here!”
The ruler struggled with the gun as the bodyguard tried to pull the strap from his shoulder so he could pass the weapon.
“No!” It was Noora. She leaned across El Hakim and grabbed for the gun. “No! We are pressurized. The pressure—”
Qazi was so tired. He raised the pistol from his lap and pointed it at the window beside him and pulled the trigger. The report was loud. A hole appeared in the crazed glass, then cracks as the scream of the escaping air dropped in pitch. Then the glass exploded outward.
The sun was well above the horizon now, an hour and ten minutes after launch. High above was a thin cirrus layer, but it would not soften the strength of the sun for at least an hour. The air was clear, visibility perfect, and Jake and Toad sat in the middle of it under their bubble canopy. The wings were swept full aft, sixty-eight degrees. The two men rode on the tip of this flat arrowhead.
Toad was busy with the radar and computer. He gave Jake a running commentary. “Six targets, two large and four small…. We can shoot anytime.” They were well within range of the two Phoenix missiles slung under the belly, million-dollar super-missiles with a maximum head-on range of over a hundred miles. Yet Jake had to be sure; he would not shoot until fired upon. “I figure,” Toad said, “that we have no more than another minute in burner before we have to bug out for Sigonella on a max-range profile.” Jake eyed the fuel. Maybe not even that.
Forty miles out Jake pushed the throttles forward to the stops. His speed crept up to Mach 1.9. He lowered the nose and selected the two Phoenix missiles on his armament panel.
“The little guys are turning our way. Fighters, most likely. Nice rate of turn. They’re accelerating toward us.”
The ECM beeped. Jake eyed it. A J-band warning from straight ahead. MiG-23s? If so, they were armed with guns and short-range missiles.
He checked the TCS. Toad had it locked on a fighter; a small dot with lines for wings. A head-on picture.
“Twenty-six miles. They’re over Mach 1, forming a line abreast.” The Tomcat was in a slight descent, passing 32,000 feet, speed Mach 2.1. The planes were closing at over 2,000 knots, a mile every two seconds. They would come together in less than a minute.
“Where are the big planes?” Jake asked.
“Proceeding east, range fifty-four now.”
“Don’t lose them.”
The tone from the ECM gear rose in pitch. One or more of the enemy fighters had switched to a higher pulse repetition frequency, trying to track him. These guys are gonna shoot!
“Mother of God,” Toad breathed. “Fifteen miles. Phoenix is fire and forget.” It would go with an active radar, illuminating its own target and steering itself to it.
The display in front of Jake had the targets numbered in the order of priority, one through four. Even as he glanced at it, Toad shouted, “Missiles inbound. Two.”