But the Eagle jocks would wait a few seconds more, closing the gap. At the last second the MiG pilots would sense something, catch a reflection, a shadow, a hint—they’d start to maneuver, but it would be too late.
“Fox Two!” said both pilots, nearly in unison, as they launched their heat seekers.
“Connection loss in five seconds,” warned the computer.
Zen tucked Hawk One back to the east and gave Two a little more gas, catching up to Quicksilver. He got another contact in the bushes; it seemed to be turning.
MiG-29. Bingo.
“Quicksilver, I have a bogie. I need you to break ninety,” Zen told Breanna, asking her to cut hard to the east.
“Negative, Flighthawk commander. Give the contact to Eagle Flight.”
Screw that, thought Zen. The MiG turned toward him, and now there was a second contact. The planes were flying so low they could be pickup trucks.
Twenty-five miles away. If the Flighthawks had radar missiles, they’d be dead meat. But the U/MFs were fitted with cannons only.
“Mission on Eight-eight Bravo is complete,” said Ferris. “We’re cleared.”
The MiG-29s continued their turns, heading south now, running away. They’d probably caught his radar.
He’d have to juice it to nail them.
Hit them now before they got within range of the RAF
flight.
RAZOR’S EDGE
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“Bree! I need you to stay with me. Check the Flighthawk screen.”
“Hawk commander, we’re following our game plan.
The bogies are out of reach.”
“Shit! I have them positively ID’d as MiG-29s. There’s an RAF attack package just southeast of them.”
“Location has been given to Eagle flight and Coyote, ”
said Ferris.
“Shit!” Zen fought the urge to rip his helmet off and throw it against the side of the cabin.
“Jeff, they’re out of range,” said Bree.
“Yeah, now.”
“Missiles in the air!” warned O’Brien. “Launch—no wait—no launch, no launch. Slot Back radar, may be looking at an SA-2. Jeez—everything’s crazy. What the hell? I’m blank.”
“ECMS,” BREANNA TOLD CHRIS.
“On it already. We’re clean.”
She nosed Quicksilver ten degrees to the west, following their briefed course.
“Bree—we could have nailed those MiGs,” said Zen.
His voice frothed with anger.
Her thumb twitched, but she stayed on her course.
“Flighthawk leader, our priority was the attack mission.”
“We could have nailed them,” Zen told her.
She didn’t answer.
“Our fuel’s okay,” Chris told her.
She nodded instead of saying anything, checked her instruments quickly, then asked O’Brien about the SA-2
contacts he’d reported.
“I’m not sure—I got some sort of indication, a flash from the east. I’m not sure if it was a screw-up or what.”
“No missiles?”
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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“Not that I could find. Maybe they tried a launch and had an explosion, or it could have been something on the ground totally unrelated. Two or three radars flicked on at the same time, including at least one standard airport job.
Iran had a long-distance air traffic on as well. I haven’t had a chance to go back and sort it out.”
“Laser?”
“Well, not that I can tell. No IR reading. I can go back and run Jennifer’s filter over the data.”
“Wait till we get down. We’re fifteen minutes from High Top, maybe a little closer.”
“Hey, Bree, you might want to listen in to this,” said Chris. “AWACS is reporting they lost contact with an RAF Tornado. The plane disappeared completely from their screens.”
IV
Unnecessary Risk
High Top, Turkey
29 May 1997
1200
“NEVER EVER TALK TO ME THAT WAY WHEN WE’RE FLYING.
Never.” Breanna felt her heart pumping as she confronted her husband beneath the plane.
“I could have had those MiGs,” Zen said.
“The attack flight was our priority.”
“Those MiGs nailed the Tornado.”
“No way.”
“Listen, Bree—”
“No, you listen, Jeff.” Breanna clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking. “Anyone else talked to me that way, I’d have them thrown off the plane.”
“Oh, bullshit. I outrank you.”
“I’m in charge of the aircraft, not you.”
“Those MiGs nailed the Tornado, and I could have gotten them,” said Zen. He pushed his wheelchair back slightly on the pavement below the right wing of the Megafortress. “We could have prevented that.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“Bullshit yourself.”
“I have work to do.” Breanna turned, furious with him, furious with herself. She had done the right thing, she 180
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
thought, and there was no way the MiGs nailed the Tornado. The F-15s would have been all over them.
Each stride was a grenade as she stomped toward the mess tent. Every glance pulverized the rocks around her.
The large tent was nearly empty; only Mack Smith sat in the far corner, nursing a cup of coffee. She took a bottle of water and a sandwich from the serving counter, then walked to the table farthest away from him, even though it was also the farthest from the heaters.
The wrapper claimed the sandwich was ham and cheese, though the meat looked suspiciously like roast beef. She bit into it; it tasted more like pastrami.
“Better than MREs, huh?” said Mack, coming over.
“Next Pave Low’s bringing steaks.”
“Leave me alone,” she snapped.
“Uh-oh, somebody’s in a bad mood. Tell Uncle Mack all about it.”
“One of these days, Major, someone’s going to knock that smirk so far down your throat it comes out your ass.”
“I only hope it’s you,” said Smith, taking another swig of his coffee.
ZEN FURLED HIS ARMS IN FRONT OF HIS CHEST. BREANNA was right—he’d been out of line to talk to her that way in the plane.
He was right about everything else, but he still shouldn’t have talked to her that way.
But damn—he could have nailed both of those bastards. The Eagles claimed they chased the MiGs away—they said they headed into the bushes and ran back to base—but that was just cover-my-ass bullshit, he thought.
If the MiGs didn’t get the Tornado, who did?
There were a dozen candidates, starting with a stray Zeus flak dealer and ending with General Elliott’s Razor clone. Not to mention plain old mechanical failure or RAZOR’S EDGE
181
even pilot error; he knew of at least one Tornado that had pancaked into a mountain during the Gulf War because the pilot had lost his situational awareness.
Still, the Eagles should have made sure the MiGs were down. And out. He would’ve.
But Breanna was right about their priorities; where Quicksilver went was her call. His job was to escort, to protect her. Yes, he extended their reach, flushed out threats, and passed along the information to everyone else in the air. But his job, bottom line, was to protect her, not the other way around.
Had he wanted to nail the MiGs for the glory?
Bullshit on that.
But he could have nailed the mothers.
He owed Breanna an apology. Unsure where she’d gone, he wheeled himself toward the mobile Whiplash command post, then decided the mess tent was a better bet.
I’m sorry, he rehearsed. I was a hothead. I used to becool but now I’m just a hothead. I’ve lost a lot of self-control since the accident.
No. Don’t blame it on the accident. That was bush league.
I’m sorry. I was out of line.