“Break left, Rhodes Four. Rhodes Two, Rhodes Three, this is Rhodes Leader. Scratch one Mig!”
“Roger, Rhodes Leader, scratch one here! Remaining bandit is breaking south, rejoining your three!”
“Air Defense said there were seven!”
“I’ve only counted six, Rhodes Leader.” laonnis’s head searched frantically from side to side for the missing Libyan.
“Maybe one fled when we showed up? You got one and we got one and now there are four heading south.”
“Still one unaccounted for. Rhodes Two, Three; rejoin Rhodes Leader in pursuit! Tallyho!”
“I have lock-on! Fox two!” yelled Rhodes Four as he launched his second missile. The missile drove right up the tail of the trailing Mig-23. The aircraft exploded into a massive fireball. Rhodes Leader and Rhodes Four pulled up on their controls and rode over the conflagration, avoiding the falling debris that filled the sky ahead of them. No parachute came from the Mig.
“Yasoo, Ya Guppy Moo!” shouted Rhodes Two. “This is better than sex, Demetri. You should see what I have between my legs now!” laonnis reached down and tugged his crotch.
Rhodes Two and Rhodes Three pulled up alongside Rhodes Leader and Rhodes Four. Rhodes Two executed a victory roll.
“Steady, lo annis Rhodes Leader ordered.
“No names, please. You may call me “Ace,” ” lo annis answered.
“Now, let’s add to our scorecard and tonight, Demetri, you may buy the Metaxa as the women caress and smother me with kisses as they congratulate me on my victories.”
The four Greek Mirage F-l aircraft tore off in angry pursuit of the fleeing Libyan Mig-23 aircraft. Thirty miles south of Crete Corfu Formation joined Rhodes for a few minutes before low fuel forced the second Mirage formation to break off. Chania Airfield was untenable when Corfu Formation soared overhead. With crossed fingers and red-flashing low fuel lights, Corfu Formation continued to Herakiion and landed safely.
Fifty miles south of the airfield, Rhodes Leader ordered break-off when the Migs disappeared into the haze surrounding the North African landmass. Thirty minutes later, during their return to Crete, his formation was intercepted by eight fully armed Greek Mirage F-is. Two escorted the first air heroes of the twenty-first century back to the mainland.
The other six established a combat air patrol between Greece and Libya like angry hornets searching for something to sting.
In the deepwater port of Souda Bay, Greek sailors rushed to their ships as the Greek destroyers and frigates began casting off lines. Gun crews scurried to unlimber their weapons. New white surface-to-air missiles slid out onto the rails of the ships’ SAM batteries. By the time Rhodes Formation landed in Heraklion thirty-three minutes later, two gas turbine-powered Greek Navy frigates, which had arrived the day before for a port visit, were knifing through the water at twenty knots as they departed the deepwater bay.
The aged swept-wing Tupelov-20 jet bomber flew low over the coast, startling the midmorning beachcombers, some walking their dogs, others searching the sands with metal detectors, and the few early morning sun worshippers who had already staked out their part of the beach.
The flight path circumvented the port city of Catania in favor of the direct route to NATO’s Sigonella Air Base.
“Salim,” the copilot said, “look in the harbor. An American warship.”
Salim leaned forward to peer out the copilot’s window.
“It is not a warship, Aboul. It is what the Americans call an auxiliary. It’s an oiler. Or, one of their pre positioning ships.”
“I think we should bomb it.”
“We shall see, we shall see,” Salim, the older pilot at thirty-three, replied. Salim was a Taureq Bedouin; a member of a hidden tribe of Saharan warrior-herders who had kept the French from conquering the interior for over one hundred years. He was only six years older than Aboul. He also knew he was the only Taureq to ever become a pilot, even if the plane he flew was an aged, cantankerous bomber.
Salim had joined the Libyan Air Force fifteen years ago after spending a lifetime of moving with the tribe between Tripoli and the interior, trading and racing camels and selling sheep to the city dwellers and stealing the few odds and ends that drifted their way. During his last visit with the tribe to Tripoli, Qaddafi’s draft board — a patrol of five soldiers — grabbed him and he disappeared directly into the military amidst the screams and oddle-op ping of his mother and sisters. Although determined to run away, each day brought Salim new curiosities of the modern world. Within weeks he discovered military life to be easier than plodding the desert, food more plentiful and sleeping on a cot much more comfortable than the desert floor. Also, by five months he had decided he was going to fly the aircraft that daily passed over the armed camp. By then, his tribe would have had to kidnap him to rescue him. Salim was hooked.
A year later, he finished technician school and three years later the Libyan military, in a gracious and short moment of equal opportunity, decided to give the ignorant Taureq a chance in flight school. Salim was not surprised to discover his superiors never expected him to graduate.
The three Tripoli Mig-25s and four Benghazi Mig-23s, flying above the Tupelov, broke off and ascended to four thousand feet. The TU-20 and Mig-23 formation quickly covered the final ten miles to the defenseless NATO base.
Above them, the Mig-25 Foxbat fighter aircraft began a defensive fighter patrol to protect them during their mission.
“I see the base, Salim,” Aboul said. He thought Salim had a lot of common sense, for a Taureq. But Taureqs were known to die for nothing, his father had warned when Aboul told him who his pilot commander was. They would charge over a dune, with their ancient rifles misfiring, into the face of modern weapons and never understand why they died, when they outnumbered the victims they sought to massacre.
His father had cautioned him to be careful. Death was a one-time event to be put off as long as possible.
Aboul would feel better if Salim’s face ever showed any emotion.
The starboard two Mig-23s broke right toward United States Naval Air Facility One, where the base hospital, the headquarters building, the high school, the kindergarten, and base housing were located. The base exchange and commissary were just opening and the American children had started their second-period class for the day.
The TU-20 and remaining two Mig-23 bombers continued toward NAF Two.
“Open bomb bay doors!” Salim ordered.
The other two Floggers broke left and right.
The squealing of rusty gears and hydraulics announced the opening of the double bomb bay doors. Five racks, each with four five-hundred-pound bombs, filled the interior of the TU-20. Each aligned so that when the active rack dropped its load of five-hundred-pounders a full one rolled forward to replace it as the empty bomb rack moved aft. The Yugoslavian technicians had done an excellent job restoring this old 1970s bomber.
“Aboul, our first run will be against the apron. How stupid!
The aircraft are packed side by side. Why is that, you think, my friend?” Salim asked.
“That’s what happens when you station more aircraft than the airfield will handle tactically, Salim.”
“Red Formation,” Salim called to the two Mig-23s with him, “Blinder One on final with bomb bay doors open.
First run on aircraft, second along runway, and third against the hangars.”
“Roger, Blinder One. Good shooting! I’m straight in to outer taxiway. Making my run,” said Red Leader.
“Blinder, I am taking the buildings to the right of the road,” Red Two reported. To the right of the road, four four-story buildings dominated the ball fields, small exchange, and mess hall. The four-story brick buildings housed the bachelor officer and enlisted personnel.