Still, he pressed on in pursuit of Lucifer. He had a good idea of where the madman was heading. He knew his headquarters was near Jidda, in the southwest part of old Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea. He was just hoping he’d find out where before his JP-8 gave out.
Flying more on instinct than anything else, Hunter navigated by the Canal and then the Suez estuary itself. Along the entire way he saw the results of the bombing raids by his now-lost air wing. He flew over a gang of ships two miles south of the Canal’s southern entrance. An earlier air attack had clogged the entrance. No ship could get in, no ship could get out. The ships on the outside were simply at anchor, awaiting orders. The world’s most powerful fleet had fallen victim to a traffic jam.
Hunter continued flying until he saw the outline of a city about forty-five miles to his southeast. His acute vision detected several gas-flare tubes, indicating a refinery was working at the city. Cities were few and far between in the area — inhabited ones especially. He steered toward it.
The closer he got, the more he was convinced this was Lucifer’s destination. There were hundreds of military vehicles parked on the roads below him, and even more barracks — all empty, he imagined. He flew over an open area near a dock and saw what looked to be an execution ground. As many as 700 bodies lay rotting in the sun. He didn’t even want to think about what had happened there.
He continued on over the typically Arabian city, over the barely working refinery, over its substantial port facilities. Yet he hadn’t seen a person or any movement below.
But then he saw Lucifer’s helicopter …
It was just going in for a landing at what looked to be a military base on the edge of the city. Hunter immediately put the hurting F-16 into a dive. There were definitely people at the base — armed people. And Hunter knew they had spotted him.
The AA guns opened up with a ferocity that surprised him. This must have been a heavy-duty HQ for Lucifer, he thought, as he twisted and turned around the ack-ack shells. At once Hunter knew that he had to prevent the chopper from landing. Because if it did, he’d need an army to get Lucifer out.
He roared in and peppered the two minaret gun posts with his Six Pack. There was a courtyard nearby and that was the intended landing site for the chopper, now hovering about 150 feet above. Hunter swooped down underneath the copter and raked the courtyard with cannon fire. As he streaked by he noticed several barrels sitting on one side of the landing pad. They looked like they contained fuel.
He pulled back up, did a loop, and came back in on the courtyard. A push of the cannon trigger and the barrels of fuel went up like fireworks. The courtyard was instantly enveloped in flames. The chopper got the hint and backed off.
But as he pulled up, a burst of AA fire caught his tail section. He felt the F-16 yaw out of control temporarily, and he nearly lost it avoiding a radio tower. He brought the plane under control, although it took all his might on the foot pedals to keep it level.
He spotted the chopper once again, this time flying out away from the city and toward the desert. Hunter turned the 16 around to pursue, only to see a small SAM flash up toward him. He peeled off instantly, but the warhead exploded close by, shattering his already cracked canopy. Hundreds of pieces of the exploded missile got sucked into his jet’s air intake. The plane stalled, but he quickly restarted the engine. It stalled again, and he pumped the emergency fuel-release lever and started the engine again.
“C’mon, baby,” he said under his breath. “C’mon, stay with me.”
His airspeed now was down to less than 100 knots. The noise inside the cockpit was deafening, and things were flying in and out at alarming speeds. He felt like he was losing his beloved F-16 piece by piece. Still, he kept the chopper in sight ahead of him.
His engine coughed once again, and the 16 pitched to right. He regained control and throttled up a little more. The chopper was going at about the same speed as the crippled jet fighter. He throttled up even more and started to gain on it. He had no more Sidewinders — he couldn’t have used one anyway. This was a job for his cannons.
He placed himself on the chopper’s tail and fired a short burst. The shells streaked by the white and gold Hind’s tail rotor, several of them finding targets.
He closed in on the copter and fired another burst. The force of the powerful cannons going off nearly jolted the 16 out of control, but he quickly regained level flight. This time the cannon fire found its intended target, the chopper’s fuel tank.
Now, as the misty cloud of fuel flew back into his open cockpit, he fired a third time. He saw pieces of the Hind’s tail rotor fly off. Just as the chopper started to drop, the F-16’s engine stalled again. Hunter put the jet into a shallow dive and crossed his fingers. The engine came back on again.
He was now at barely 1000 feet, the chopper was at 700. Its rear end was smoking and its fuel leak getting worse. They were getting farther out in the desert with only an hour of sunlight left — he had to wonder if Lucifer knew where he was going.
He dropped down even farther and put another burst in the Hind. That did it. The smoke started pouring out of the chopper now and it veered out of control. He followed it down. The pilot put the burning craft into a semihover, and Hunter shot by it, his own plane doing a fair amount of smoking.
He did a careful loop and came back just as the copter was going through a controlled crash. It slammed into the side of a large sand dune, bounced hard, and came down for good.
One more loop and Hunter spurted right over the Hind. Two figures jumped out of the chopper, one of them wearing black robes and a hood, the other a standard flight uniform. He had no trouble figuring out which one was Lucifer.
But now the F-16 stalled again, and he knew that this time it was for good. He pulled the nose up and started looking for a level piece of sand to set down on. The engine coughed a couple times, telling him he couldn’t get fussy about a landing spot. A fairly flat stretch of desert just below the dune where the Hind went down looked to be his best bet.
He glided in, wheels up, the cracked canopy obscuring his view somewhat. Then he hit—hard. He was jostled around the cockpit, as every light and buzzer went off at once. Waves of sand flew everywhere as the jet plowed into the soft ground.
“There goes the paint job,” Hunter said grimly.
The battered fighter finally came to a stop. Its nose was buried three feet into the sand, its tail end was smoking. But he didn’t have time to think about it.
He jumped out of the cockpit, grabbed his M-16, and looked around. Lucifer and his pilot were climbing the dune in front of him. He couldn’t lose them now. He checked his rifle’s magazine. It was full. He pulled his helmet visor up and took off after the two men.
The chopper pilot foolishly took a shot at him as he was coming around the back of the smoking F-16. Hunter aimed and pumped off three rounds, dropping the pilot with three bullets through his heart.
Lucifer picked up the dead man’s rifle and continued climbing the top of the dune. Hunter double-timed it up the dune, drawing even with the heavy robed man just as they reached the summit.
They stood and faced each other. Hunter in his ripped and worn flight suit and helmet, Lucifer in his black robes right out of central casting. It was the first time Hunter had seen the madman since he had crashed his party on top of the World Trade Center. It was also the first time he saw the horrible facial scars.
Each was holding a rifle on the other.