It took a while for the E-3 Sentry to respond.
“Affirmative. We will try to assist any way we can.” The controller paused, then added, “How’s your fuel situation?”
“We should be at Texaco in ten,” Doberman said. Even with all the stops out, the estimate of the time it would take to reach the tanker was wildly optimistic.
“Affirmative. Don’t worry about your buddies; we have some CAP coming up from the south to assist. Should arrive in three or four minutes.”
“Appreciate that,” he answered.
“Hey,” barked A-Bomb after the transmission with the AWACS was complete. “How come it’s Texaco? Why not Sunoco? My cousin works for Sunoco.”
“I didn’t know you were related to a suit.”
“What suit? He makes change in a little booth on the Jersey shore. You’re ever around Cape May, tell him I sent you. He’ll give you some free window-wash.”
“Can’t wait.”
CHAPTER 55
“They’re firing at the choppers, not us.”
Dixon had already pulled the Hog down and hit the chaff and flares before Mongoose’s words sank in. Gravity and momentum whacked him broadside as he tried to yank the plane back onto the intercept course. The leading-edge wing slats groaned as the Hog literally slid sideways, engines whining. The pilot felt as if he was being stabbed in the chest as he worked the stick and rudders a hundred feet off the ground. Something whizzed by the canopy — the missile that had been launched; one of the helicopters; maybe even an angel.
“You go high, I’ll go low,” said Mongoose, unaware that Dixon’s position had changed so radically.
Mongoose didn’t wait for the kid to acknowledge as he angled after the darting grasshopper. He knew now that his opponent was hardly a utility chopper. Iraq had something like forty of the Mil M-24 Hind helicopter gunships, extremely potent warbirds that combined the best features of the American Apache with the Blackhawk. Like the Apache, it was primarily a ground attack weapon, but its nose-mounted Gatling cannon was not to be taken lightly by anybody, Warthog included.
Mongoose angled upwards, taking the Hog into a banking turn toward the helicopter’s vulnerable rear as he approached. But the chopper had been waiting for his move, and pushed to get inside him. Mongoose realized it too late to spin back sharply enough to get a firing solution. That left him further away as the chopper broke for all it was worth, running about two inches off the ground.
He lost it in the confusion. Mongoose went into a wide bank and started sweating. Maybe it was only a helicopter, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t shoot him down if it was in the right position.
The pilot whirled his head around, eyes flailing the empty sky. Cursing, he yanked back in the other direction, then saw the black cricket kicking dust north. It fluttered through the diamond aiming cue on his HUD screen as he worked to bring his adrenaline — and the plane — back under control.
The AIM-9 growled at him, telling him it thought it could make the shot from here. He hesitated a second, then pushed the button.
Dixon found himself swimming in the cockpit, as if trying to get up from the bottom of a very deep lake. His head pressed back against the seat so hard it felt like it was would break through.
Oxygen gulped down his throat, his heart galloped. He was losing it again.
Look at the throttle, Knowlington had told him.
It was stupid advice. Take your eyes off the windscreen where they belonged, and look at the throttle? Maybe back in Vietnam they did that kind of thing, but not here. He might just as well get out of the plane and kick the tires.
Gravity was an immense piano, smashing down from twenty stories. His maneuvers robbed his brain cells of oxygen, robbed him of sensation. He couldn’t think, couldn’t see, couldn’t fly.
Look at the god damn throttle, he told himself.
What the hell.
Dixon wrenched his head to the left, forced his eyes downward, forced a slower breath into his lungs, saw the handle pushed all the way to max.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, he said, pulling his head back to the front of the plane, focusing on the HUD. Start from scratch. Slow down.
Altitude 1250 feet, climbing.
Okay, okay, okay, he told himself, forcing an excruciatingly long exhale from his lungs. You don’t have to be calm, just in control.
Okay, okay, okay, he told himself. Level off. Check your heading. Find the bastard.
Okay, okay, okay. The Hind darted across the upper right quadrant of his screen, gun flailing at the Pave Lows and the major they’d come to save.
“Fire Fox Two,” said Mongoose, announcing the heat-seeking missile shot as the Sidewinder clunked down from his wingtip. But even as the unfamiliar words left his mouth, the pilot realized that no matter what the missile thought, he’d fired from too great a range and angle to guarantee a hit. The helicopter was already whipping hard to the east, letting off a succession of flares to confuse the heat-seeker.
It didn’t matter now. His job was to protect the Pave Lows, not collect a kill. Whether the missile got it or not, that Hind was no longer a treat. Mongoose swung back to help Dixon crash the other bird.
He saw the rescue helicopters first; both were on the desert floor dead ahead. The Hind materialized on his left, cannon smoking as it roared into the middle of his screen.
The Sidewinder growled. Mongoose punched the button, felt it kick off, and in the same instant realized Dixon was cutting across from the right toward the Iraqi, crossing directly for the path the AIM-9 would take.
CHAPTER 56
The Iraqi pilot cursed as the cannon beneath the helicopter’s nose began to rumble. His gunner had begun firing much too soon.
No matter. The distance between himself and the two American helicopters was closing rapidly. It was only a matter of ten or fifteen seconds.
The appearance of the American planes had caused him only a second’s hesitation. He couldn’t blame his companion in the second Hind for turning off; those were, after all, their orders.
But it was something Captain Vali would never do. The two American planes had flown past, obviously trying for a better position for attack. They were odd planes, nearly black with forked tails and strangely placed engines. He guessed that they had decided to concentrate on the other helicopter first, and would soon be coming for him.
He had several evasive maneuvers planned. But he would wait until he had accomplished his first mission — the enemy helicopters. Galloping forward, he heard his co-pilot shouting something in his com set, and realized the cannon was whirling around on its axis toward another target.
CHAPTER 57
The helicopter’s slow speed crossed him up. Dixon misjudged his approach and lost any possibility of a shot, not even with his cannon. As he pulled off he saw Mongoose coming out of the northwest; some inexplicable pilot’s sense made him roll the Hog hard to the right even as the launch warning sparked the radio.
The indium-antimonide in the guidance section of the AIM-9M Mongoose had fired had its heart set on the Hind. Even so, the proximity of Dixon’s exhaust was so tempting that for a half-second the little brain couldn’t decide what to do.
In that half second, two things happened: The targeted Hind shot off flares and changed course momentarily, away from the Pave Lows. And Dixon rolled the Hog and his IR signature away from the missile.