“High. Ten o’clock.” Right! Symbol on the heads-up display was there.
Jake kept the stick back and the Tomcat’s nose climbing. He smoothly advanced the throttles and the burners kicked him in the back. There, he saw the high man.
Jake was going up with the burners wide open, closing the gap on the MiG. He rolled, trying to pull his nose toward his opponent. The enemy pilot dumped his nose, twisting away, his burner lit and his energy level still high. Jake neutralized the stick and pulled the throttles aft, out of burner. He still had a speed advantage and was closing, but he was closing too fast to get the nose around. He opened the speed brakes, the big slabs that came out from the top and bottom of the fuselage between the twin vertical tails. The MiG was going out the left side. Boards in, burners lit, roll and pull hard, get that nose around….
“We gotta get this guy quick, CAG,” Toad prompted, straining against the G to get his words out. As if Jake needed a reminder. The fighter pilot’s imperative was never more urgent — go in fast and kill fast. He was running out of gas and there were three more MiGs coming this way supersonic and the Ilyushin was escaping. This MiG pilot would win if he could just stay alive for a few more turns, a few more seconds.
Now, he was behind the MiG, in its stern quadrant. Burners full open. The MiG’s nose was down, below the horizon, his tail white-hot. Oh for a Sidewinder … The MiG rolled hard right with G on. Jake slammed the stick over and followed, narrowing the distance, but the MiG was still above the plane of his gun. There, his left spoiler coming up and a max-rate roll left. Jake slammed the stick back left. Five Gs on, corkscrewing. The Tomcat had a better roll rate than the MiG, but the Mig pilot knew when he was going to roll.
“This guy’s pretty fucking good, CAG,” Toad said. “But we ain’t got time to dance.”
The Flogger’s nose was too high, so now the MiG pilot slammed the stick forward and he snapped below the plane of Jake’s gun. Too late Jake squeezed off a burst. Jake used forward stick to follow and the negative G threw him upward against his harness restraints. He was tempted to roll, but the instant he did the MiG would pull positive Gs and scissor away and the fight would be back to neutral.
He jammed the stick full left and squeezed the trigger on the stick. The Tomcat spun 180 degrees about its longitudinal axis vomiting shells, and as it completed its roll Jake neutralized the stick with the trigger still down. The MiG tried to fly through the river of lead. It exploded.
Stick back to avoid the expanding fireball. Roll toward Ilyushin, six Gs, get the nose up. Ten miles away. 2,500 pounds of fuel remaining. We can still get this guy!
The ECM was chattering. The other MiGs were coming back.
Qazi stood in the cockpit of the Ilyushin behind the pilots. He felt a great calm. They would either make it or they wouldn’t. The pilots were nervous enough for everybody. They talked incessantly and craned their heads, trying to see behind them, and the copilot kept trying to bend the throttles over the forward stop. They were headed southwest, toward Benghazi.
He could hear the chatter of the MiG pilots over the loudspeaker. One lone American F-14. Qazi smiled wryly. It was probably Captain Grafton. I should have killed him and done a better job of destruction of the planes on the flight deck of the United States. Ah well, it went as Allah willed it. For all his professed piety and bombast, El Hakim had never understood that basic fact. A man must accept his fate; though he can use every ounce of brains and cunning he has in the interim, he must in the end submit.
Qazi squatted and looked aft, through the door to the passenger module and beyond. Hard to believe this flying leviathan could be torn to shreds …
He straightened and leaned against the bulkhead, listening. The MiGs had the American fighter on radar and were almost within range. Perhaps, just perhaps …
Jake put the pipper on the Il-76 and pulled the trigger. This would be a stern quartering deflection shot, from the starboard side. The gun spit a few shells, then went dead. Fuck! And it’s not empty! Over a hundred rounds remaining on the counter. Sonofabitch has jammed!
He lifted the nose and flashed across the top of the transport.
“The gun’s jammed,” he told Toad. “Pull your harness as tight as you can stand it.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means we’re going to ram the bastard.”
“Like fucking shit we are. I’ll eject first. I’m not—”
“Oh yes you fucking are, Tarkington, you asshole. We’re not blowing the canopy off until we’ve killed this guy. There ain’t no other way.”
Jake was craning back over his right shoulder. He popped some more chaff. He was about three miles ahead now. He lowered the right wing and racked the plane into a six-G turn.
“Jesus! You really mean it.”
“Yep.”
Toad struggled to talk above the G. “You’re one crazy son of a bitch, Grafton.”
Jake had his head back. The Tomcat was in a 90-degree angle-of-bank turn and the transport was straight overhead. He kept the G on. “I hope you make it, Tarkington. Just don’t pull the handle until after we hit. Promise me.”
“I’m behind you all the way, CAG,” Toad mumbled.
They were almost through the turn. The ECM was wailing. Those MiGs were close. They’d be fools to risk a missile shot this close to the transport.
“I don’t think you’re cut out for this business, kid.”
He rolled wings level and pulled the throttles aft to about 80 percent RPM.
Inside the Ilyushin the crew heard the roar of the fighter’s engines as it shot over them and watched it depart toward their ten o’clock position. They cheered, then watched in silent horror as the fighter began a level turn toward their twelve o’clock.
Now it was coming back, head-on. The copilot was sobbing.
Qazi squatted behind the crew and looked forward through the windscreen, waiting for the fighter’s cannon to erupt. The Tomcat looked like a bird of prey from this angle, closing, growing larger, its wings waggling as the pilot adjusted his course, straight for the Ilyushin’s cockpit. The pilot must be Grafton. Why doesn’t he shoot? Yet even as Qazi wondered, he knew. Without thinking, he seized a handhold and braced himself. His wrists were still cuffed together.
Oh, too bad, too bad!
At first the transport was just there, in the great empty blue sky in front of the F-14, fixed in space. Then it grew visibly larger. And larger. Now it filled the windscreen. At the last possible instant Grafton slammed the left wing down and pulled.
The planes hit.
Jake’s head slammed against the starboard side of the canopy and the Gs smashed him and threw him forward and he lost his grip on stick and throttles. Incredibly, the Gs increased. He was flung forward and sideways and upward all at the same time.
He fought for the lower ejection handle, between his legs, but he couldn’t reach it. Even with his straps tight, the G had pushed him up and forward away from the seat and as the G tore at him, he couldn’t reach the lower handle, which was closer than the upper handle. It had to be back under him. If Toad would only pull either of his ejection handles then both seats would fire. He saw red as the little veins in his eyeballs burst and he screamed through clenched teeth to stay conscious and fought with superhuman strength to reach the handle between his legs with his left hand while he used his right to push himself backward toward the seat.