"Damned good shooting, boys," Raymond Harris shouted as Troy opened his cockpit.
The two pilots were surprised to see the Firehawk, LLC, Director of Air Ops standing next to Joe Turcios in the hangar when they returned. He had arrived on an inspection tour just after the two F-16s had departed. "If I had known you were out on a mission, I woulda had the G-5 pilot follow you out so I could watch."
Troy and Preston glanced at each other. It was a good thing he had not. To have an unexpected airplane show up in airspace where ordnance was flying around would have been dangerous.
"Scratch two, sir," Troy said succinctly. "We were engaged for only a couple of minutes, but both of the bogies were destroyed."
"Good work," Harris effused. "If our luck continues like this, we'll have this thing wrapped up in about five minutes… ten at the most."
Chapter 24
The ten minutes had a slow way of manifesting themselves. Troy and his wingman stood by, suited up and ready to respond to word that the Zapatista Air Force had shown themselves again. A week and a half later, they were still lounging in their hangar, ready to scramble into their cockpits and take off. They had set up a ready area twenty feet from their F-16s with folding aluminum longue chairs and a television set.
Harris had remained at Mundo for a couple of days, hoping to be on hand for a quick second round in Fire-hawk's air war against the Zapatistas, but he was disappointed and had flown out on his G-5. for parts unknown.
The two pilots speculated on whether they would fly another mission. Preston figured that the remaining enemy aircraft would lay low indefinitely.
"We may never see those clowns," Preston postulated as he sipped a Coke and leafed casually through a magazine. "They saw what happened to their buddies and they've been hiding under their beds ever since. They don't wanna die… but who can blame them? You tangle with the best… you die like the rest."
Troy was more pessimistic.
"I'm worried that they've spent the last ten days shopping for Aphids or Atolls," he said, using the common nicknames for widely available Russian air-to-air missiles.
"Maybe, but we've got the edge on the Frogfoot in terms of performance," Preston said, turning the page of his magazine.
Troy was about to reply when Joe Turcios entered the hangar.
"We got incoming," he said. "The general's back. His G-5 is on final."
The two pilots folded their chairs, tossed their empty soda cans in the trash, and were standing next to their aircraft when the G-5 rolled in.
"Still no action?" Harris said as he exited the forward door.
"Still no action," Preston confirmed.
"Guess we scared 'em off." Troy laughed.
"I only wish," Harris said, shaking his head. "We got word from a guy who knows a guy that they're shopping for air-to-air missiles."
"Told ya," Troy said, looking at Preston.
At that moment, Joe's cell phone rang.
"Turcios, what's up?… There are?" Joe asked. "Okay, give us a window of five."
"Speak of the devil," he said, closing his phone.
The two pilots were already on their ladders.
The Zapatistas had crossed the border about a hundred kilometers east of the previous incursion and were attacking a Guatemalan army post. This time Preston was flying as Firehawk One, while Troy flew behind and to his left. On their radar they saw two aircraft orbiting a common point, occasionally breaking into the center of the circle to attack. There was other traffic on the radarscope, but it was well away from the action.
On their previous mission, the Americans had seen plumes of black smoke just as they made visual contact with the aircraft. This time, though, they watched them break off their attack and climb out quickly. These pilots had been paying attention to their own radar and were not taken off guard. Knowing that they were outclassed by the F-16s, they were taking their Su-25s and heading for the border.
"They're running," Troy said impatiently. He had been sitting on his ass for ten days doing nothing, and the thought of these targets getting away was more than he could bear.
Taking the lead, Preston banked left and accelerated. Troy followed, eager to overtake the fleeing Frogfeet. Though the Su-25 is essentially a slow-moving bomb truck, its twin Tumansky R-195 turbojets gave it considerable power in a pinch, and these two pilots felt pinched.
"I think we're close enough," Troy suggested after two long minutes of pursuit. As Firehawk Two, he had to follow Preston's lead in launching an attack, and he was recommending that now was the time to take that first shot.
"Firehawk Two, I wanna get closer… don't wanna miss."
Troy impatiently moved his thumb above the trigger. If Preston wouldn't, he would.
"Fox Two," Preston announced, just as Troy was about to fire.
The two Su-25s broke hard, left and right.
The contrail from Preston's Sidewinder followed the aircraft that broke right.
For a second the two hard-turning objects looked like they would merge, but the Frogfoot turned harder and the Sidewinder slid by.
Troy broke left to follow the other Frogfoot and jammed his throttle forward.
"Fox Two," Troy said, finally taking the opportunity to thumb the trigger.
The Su-25 had been turning hard, the idea being to outmaneuver any missile launched by his pursuer — the same tactic that had worked for his wingman. However, the turn also eventually bled off momentum, slowing the aircraft ever so slightly.
The slight reduction in velocity meant that Troy's Sidewinder did not lose its lock on the target.
"I've been made," Troy heard Preston say just as he watched the Frogfoot explode. "Taking fire."
Where was he? How did he let the other Su-25 get behind him?
Troy put his F-16 into a four-G turn and scanned the sky for Preston.
"Firehawk One, I'm on it," Troy promised. He wasn't, not yet, but he would be and he wanted Preston to know that he was coming.
A patch of sky a couple of miles distant was filled with the streaks and dashes of tracer rounds.
Just as Troy was wondering how the other pilot had managed to let a Frogfoot outmaneuver him, he saw the Su-25 that Preston had missed with his first shot. The one that was now diving on him was a third enemy fighter, and one that both of them had missed. It had been flying a CAP high above the other two, expressly for this purpose, to attack anyone who attacked them.
He was going after the F-16, with his GSh-30 cannon blazing. Designed for the Frogfoot's ground attack role, the two-barreled automatic cannon was a formidable gun. Preston was rolling and dodging, trying to stay out of the stream of thirty-millimeter shells that it was pouring out at a rate of fifty rounds per second.
With its altitude advantage, the Frogfoot had Preston like a cat with its paw on a mouse.
Even though the F-16 had a far better thrust-toweight ratio than a Frogfoot, Troy knew that he did not have time to try to get above the Su-25, so he maneuvered in below and behind.
It was a dangerous place from which to fire a Sidewinder.
If the heat-seeking missile missed the Sukhoi, it would be headed straight toward the heat of Preston's F-16.
Fortunately, the Firehawk pilots caught a break.
The weather over Peter' that day was mostly clear, but the rolling, twisting chase had rolled and twisted toward a line of cumulus that was starting to form. Preston ducked into a cloud, and the Frogfoot pilot pulled back slightly. He had been firing on the F-16 visually, not using his radar, and this was a reflex reaction as he looked around for his prey.
Rapidly overtaking the Su-25, which was now in level flight, Troy fired his second Sidewinder. The distance was short, and the missile was much faster than the Zapatista aircraft.