As always in the cockpit of an airplane, Ramad was entirely comfortable. He rarely became nervous, and if he did, he never demonstrated the condition to observers. He knew that he exuded confidence, even arrogance in regard to his talents. That was as it should be. His talents had brought him the command of an entire air base at the tender age of thirty-five.
He was more than a little disappointed at al-Qati’s reaction to supersonic, ground-hugging speed. Others from Tripoli, from military staff, who had taken the orientation flight with Ramad, had paled significantly and allowed the fear to cloud their eyes. Some had gallantly attempted to retain their previous meals for minutes before ripping off the oxygen masks and spilling vomit over their borrowed flight suits.
Ahmed al-Qati’s hands rested lightly and unclenched in his lap. Not even his shoulders betrayed an elevated sense of tension. This was a man, Ramad decided, who filled the large cup of his reputation.
He was not to be underestimated.
But then, neither was Ibrahim Ramad to be underestimated.
He had no illusions about the reasons for al-Qati’s presence at Marada Base.
Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed al-Qati was there to spy on him.
Ramad knew that Kamal Amjab, the Leader’s closest advisor, and Colonel Ghazi, chief of the army, considered him brave but untrustworthy. He had never done anything to invoke their distrust, and he suspected that they were jealous of his rapid rise in rank and responsibility as well as envious of his abilities and his close relationship with Farouk Salmi, head of the air force. So they had sent an army man to watch over him, though not as a guardian angel.
It was all right; Ramad could adapt.
He began to ease back the throttles for the Lyulka turbojet engines. The velocity readout flickered, then the numbers began to descend.
“Twenty-two kilometres to target, Ahmed,” he said over the internal communications system.
Al-Qati turned his head to look at him. “I trust that you do not expect me to operate this thing, Ibrahim.”
The infantry commander tapped the hood of the radar.
“Of course not,” Ramad said. “We will concern ourselves less with accuracy than with demonstrating the concept.”
The airframe shuddered as they came down through the sonic barrier.
Ramad reached out for the armaments panel and armed the two bombs. They were simulated bombs, of course, each filled with three-hundred kilograms of white powder and three kilograms of high explosive.
He switched the HUD display to Continuously Computed Impact Line.
The airspeed dropped to 450 knots.
Then four hundred knots.
Ramad checked the wings. The computer was slowly rotating them forward as the speed deteriorated.
Automation. He loved it, and he had, after many flying hours of doubting it, come to rely on it.
Al-Qati leaned toward him, to get a better view of the HUD.
“Do you understand it?” Ramad asked.
“No.”
“The circle in the centre is the estimated location of the target, data that I programmed into the computer earlier. The almost vertical dotted line leading toward it is the recommended flight path from our present position. Our current heading, one hundred and forty-two degrees is indicated at the bottom. The number to the right, minus fourteen, is the distance in kilometres to the target.”
Al-Qati leaned back into his seat and retightened his harness. “We have similar targeting computers for our artillery.”
“We may give thanks to Allah for his beneficence,” Ramad said.
“Or to the Soviet Union,” al-Qati said.
Ramad let his eyes go icy. The oxygen mask hid his scowl.
He forced himself back to the task at hand.
As they topped a line of high dunes, he assumed manual control of the aircraft. In the faraway, hazy distance, he saw the tiny white tent that had been erected in a geographical depression as his target. He utilized the electro-optical targeting system to verily its location and found it to be nearly a kilometre away from the position he had estimated for the computer. He punched the correction into the keypad and watched the HUD symbols shift minutely. With a little right rudder, he realigned the bomber on the target.
Assuming the bombardier’s role, and with the small joystick located between his seat and the bombardier’s seat that controlled the electro-optical targeting symbol — a set of red cross hairs inside a red circle, he shifted the target rose until it covered the target circle on the HUD. Then he depressed the stud that locked the attack computer onto the target.
He committed the attack by depressing the button on the head of the control stick.
No matter what he did with the airplane now within predetermined parameters, the computer would determine the optimum release point.
At six kilometres from the target, Ramad pulled the stick back and shoved the throttles into full afterburner. The immediate thrust from the turbojets pressed him back into his seat. The gravitation readout climbed to five Gs. He felt the skin around his eyes forced backward.
The Su-24 aimed its nose toward the blue sky. In seconds, the altimeter indicated two thousand meters of altitude.
He felt the bombs release.
And eased the stick forward, centring it into the vertical climb.
Altitude five thousand meters.
The gravitational forces eased.
He snap-rolled 180 degrees to the right, jerked the throttles back, then pulled the stick toward his crotch. The aircraft went inverted, and he looked up toward the earth, found the small white square that was his target.
The bombs had not reached it yet.
“Do you see, Ahmed?”
“Yes. I see.”
By the tone of his voice, al-Qati seemed unimpressed by the precision flying that Ramad was performing for him. He certainly gave no indication that the aerobatics had upset his equilibrium or stomach.
The simulated bombs impacted in the sandy surface of the earth, their small explosive charges destroying the bomb cases and creating geysers of white powder. He estimated each to be within forty meters of the target, which would have been destroyed had the bombs not been dummies.
As he came out of the loop at near ground level, Ramad passed to the right of the target so that they had a clear view of the bomb impact.
“That was very well executed, Colonel,” al-Qati said.
The man sounded sincere.
“Thank you, Ahmed. The technology and the training of my pilots — and I say that proudly — will allow us to deliver… whatever it is we wish to deliver with similar ease and precision.”
“And we are to develop the tactics which will coordinate your bombs with my ground advance?”
“Exactly! Just think, Ahmed, how we will complement each other. Would it not be better for your tanks and armoured vehicles to arrive at a target site that has already been devastated.”
“Infinitely better,” al-Qati agreed.
Again, he advanced the throttles to afterburner and climbed toward the heavens, performing one victory roll during the ascent.
“Together, Ahmed, we will show the world what we are capable of accomplishing.”
“I am certain that is true, Ibrahim.”
“Allah akbar!”
Ibrahim Ramad was but the tool of Allah, to be used as necessary to achieve the goals of Islam.
He knew that.
He also knew what Allah had in mind.
Wyatt parked the Citation in the transient section at College Park Airport and ordered it refuelled. He rented a Mercury Topaz, drove north to the Capitol Beltway, and jammed himself into the eastbound traffic. His fellow travellers were of the hunt-and-peck variety, searching for spaces in adjacent lanes and jumping into them, only to be disappointed by the lack of progress and jumping back to where they had been.