Galvin cursed as the water came up and splashed into his nose as he landed. As he released his parachute, he began to hope he wasn’t bleeding and inviting a shark attack.
Ahmed felt the pod detach; he counted off the seconds waiting for it to release its energy, one eye on his central console.
For a moment he wondered if the pulse would send the Firestar in a spin to crash into the sea. At that thought the central console blinked out, the display shrinking to the size of a pencil dot, then fading altogether, the dying panel evidence of the death of the onboard computer. Ahmed waited for his aircraft to shut down but the engines purred on, their control circuits still functional. He pulled up slightly on the stick, to see if the control surfaces were still working, and the Firestar began to climb. It was only then that he noticed the Tomcats were no longer with him. He continued climbing, aware that colliding with one of the F-14s would kill him as swiftly as a missile would, and saw the jet that had been his port wingman spiral in a dive toward the sea, vibrating and oscillating as it descended. As he watched, the canopy blew off and two ejection seats flew out. The F-14 banked violently and went broadside into the airflow. The slipstream blew the wings off, broke the plane in half and ignited the fuel in an orange ball of fire that rapidly dispersed in a black cloud. Two parachutes bloomed. Ahmed leveled the jet and flew a circle, trying to find the other F-14. He searched for it, finally seeing it only as a splash and a brief explosion as it crashed into the sea. There was no sign of the pilots of the second jet.
Ahmed glanced at the sun and turned the aircraft to the west and flew on toward the rendezvous point, hoping the submarine captain had waited for them. He had lost perhaps only five minutes, but sea captains were an impatient lot, an independent lot, and sometimes resented or even ignored their orders.
The computer systems were no longer functional, now that the console screen had died — that had remained electronic, and so had perished, but the navigation backup system remained up. It was an old-fashioned set of numbers engraved on plastic wheels and rotated by the nav backup system’s calculator from inputs from the geosynchronous navigation satellite over the Mediterranean. By the display readout on the console there was not much more to go to get to the rendezvous point.
Soon he could see the tall fin of the submarine Hegira, the ship stopped, waiting for them. Ahmed circled the ship, now at only a few hundred meters altitude, then climbed into the sky in preparation to abandon the Firestar.
“Khalib? Are you awake?”
“I am …” Sihoud sounded drugged, barely conscious.
Perhaps that was better, Ahmed thought. He had worried that the trauma of ejecting from the Firestar would be too much for the general, but there was nothing else to do.
Ahmed climbed, uncertain of his altitude, flying the aircraft by the seat of his pants now that the computer was gone. He throttled the jet down, losing his forward speed. He had to get the aircraft to be just at stall-point before ejection to lessen the force of the slipstream.
“General, in a few moments we will be ejecting. If you can, try to keep your elbows tucked in tight to your chest and your feet on the footrest. I’ll be ejecting the seat for you. All you have to do is ride the parachute down.”
There was no answer. Ahmed’s mouth felt coppery and his flightsuit felt wet with his sweat. He could not help thinking again that this was a bad idea … the ejection could easily kill the general. He needed immediate medical attention and floating for an hour in the Mediterranean was not a way to get it. Ahmed knew he was out of options — then pulled the stick steadily back while reaching for the canopy manual-release handle. He rotated the red handle to the arm position, then all the way to the release position. Thirty explosive bolts fired and the canopy vanished, the cold air of the slipstream blasting into the cockpit, threatening to knock off their oxygen masks and flight helmets. The violence of it smashed Ahmed’s helmet against the headrest several times, reminding him to get on with the eject sequence before they were both beaten into comas. Ahmed throttled the engines down to idle and pulled the stick all the way back to his crotch. The jet inclined upward, the forward airspeed decaying. The stick trembled as the jet protested the lack of lift on the wings. At the moment of complete wing-stall, the jet’s kinetic energy at a minimum, Ahmed lifted the protective cover off the switch marked rear seat eject and popped the toggle switch past its detent, then inward at a right angle.
Behind him Sihoud’s ejection-seat rocket motor ignited, spraying Ahmed with heat and flames as the general flew out into the atmosphere. The jet then stalled completely, its nose diving for the sea. Ahmed held on long enough to get the aircraft out of the way of Sihoud’s descent, then armed the switch between his legs for his own ejection seat. Just before hitting the switch he keyed the jet’s turbines to full thrust and felt the acceleration for a moment, then released the stick and snapped the ejection switch.
It happened so fast that Ahmed’s senses were overwhelmed. His spine shuddered as the ejection seat blasted into his posterior, the downward g-forces threatening to black him out. The airflow smashed into him, carrying away his oxygen mask and ripping his thigh pad off his flightsuit.
The world tumbled around him in a vicious spiral, leaving Ahmed feeling like he was being bounced down a blue tunnel. Finally the turbulence ended, leaving only the wind of free fall. The seat parachute deployed, jerking Ahmed upward. He looked for Sihoud’s parachute but couldn’t find it.
He floated down toward the water.
The end of the ride came, the inviting blue water soaking him. He cut away the seat and found the parcel strapped into the seat cushion and pulled it free, then released the pin. The parcel blew up into an inflated raft, big enough for two men, a small compartment of rations and water tucked into one section of it. When the raft steadied, Ahmed climbed into it and began his search for General Sihoud and the submarine.
Chapter 5
Thursday, 26 December
The snow had been falling since nightfall Wednesday and was now, in the early hours of a sleepy Thursday morning, piled almost a foot deep. Adm. Richard Donchez’s staff car rear door opened and the admiral burst out and took the icy steps to the V.I.P entrance two at a time. Captain Rummel met him just inside the door. Donchez barely acknowledged him, ignoring the V.I.P elevator and sprinting up the stairs to the fourth deck. As he hurried he doffed his heavy overcoat and unloaded it on Rummel, his hat next.
Donchez scanned into Flag Plot and entered the room, his first Havana firing up as he joined Admirals Dee Watson and John Traeps at a chart table littered with messages, code publications, and intelligence briefs. At the far wall an enlarged electronic chart glowed dark green, a lighter shade marking the shores of the Mediterranean. Hieroglyphics denoting ships and aircraft and bases cluttered the chart, vectors drawn from some of the symbols, others moving visibly as the chart updated every thirty seconds.