However, Harris had gotten creative in his interpretation of the rules of engagement. The Task Force Sudan aircraft were not permitted to fly strike missions against targets inside Eritrea, but anyone fired upon could return fire. Harris had decided that if one of his reconnaissance aircraft was fired upon by a missile site or a ZSU-23, the pilot could attack the site and destroy it.
A week ago, Harris had ordered all his reconnaissance aircraft to carry AGM-88 HARMs (High-speed Anti-Radar Missiles) and to attack any ground-based weapon that locked its radar on a friendly aircraft. Then he went a step further. In Falcon Flight, he ordered Jenna and Troy to specifically track enemy radar. Hal would fly at the center of the formation, running his Sigint pods as usual, while the other two flew off his wing to the right and left, concentrating their attention on killing the Al-Qinamah antiaircraft sites.
If Hal felt as though he were bait in the fishing expedition that Harris had concocted, there was a reason. He was.
If Troy felt as though he were a player in an increasingly competitive game that Jenna had concocted, there was a reason. He was.
"I'm gonna be the first, y'all."
Those words, which Munrough had spoken on the flight line three days ago, had startled Troy. He hadn't thought of being the first to kill an enemy antiaircraft site as part of a race, but if that was what she wanted to play, he was more than willing to oblige.
Thinking about it today, as he watched her Falcon in the distance off Hal's left wing, it startled him that he was startled. He should have predicted this. Competitiveness was in her nature. In the boredom of base life, he could see it in the way she played cards and the way she played basketball. In the air, aggressiveness defined Jenna Munrough.
Today's mission was taking them deeper into Eritrea than normal. The Denakil Depression was an uninviting wilderness where the Al-Qinamah were massing to infiltrate into Sudan by way of Ethiopia.
Eight clicks north of the town of Kulul, Hal dropped from fifteen hundred feet, and the others followed.
"Falcon One… flight level… two hundred feet," Hal reported.
"Falcon Three holding at four hundred," Troy confirmed.
"Falcon Two… let 'em start pinging me at four hundred," Jenna said. The girl who had carried a squirrel gun in the Ozarks when she was barely six was itching for a fight, and it showed. Being at higher altitude, Jenna and Troy were more likely to have enemy radar lock on to them than Hal.
"Let's do this," Hal said as Kulul came into view, the spire from its mosque clearly discernible.
Nobody saw them coming.
Nobody down there perceived the AN/APY-77 and AN/ASD-83 electronics pods sucking up data like milk through a straw.
Wherever in the vicinity of Kulul the Al-Qinamah nerds had their Wi-Fi connection, it was being routed into the surveillance pods at a bit rate that would have made their heads spin.
By the time the thunder of the three General Electric F110 jet engines hit the town and rattled its windows, the Americans had come and gone.
"Falcon One… resuming flight level… turning ninety degrees… north."
"Roger, Falcon Three climbing out… right behind you."
Troy could see Jenna below and to his left as she started to turn to follow Hal.
"I've been made, y'all," Jenna shouted. "I'm going missiles hot."
She'd been pinged. Somewhere, someone had locked on to Falcon Two.
Troy had to hand it to her, she had reacted instantly. Suddenly, he too heard a pinging in his headset, and he turned hard to line up on the source.
As Jenna and Troy banked hard to get into firing position, Hal was getting farther and farther from the other two. Carrying the heavy surveillance pods, he had a harder time turning at high speed than did the others, who were encumbered only with the lighter HARMs.
When the formation turned left on exiting the Kulul area, Troy, being on the right wing, came around at a higher altitude. Jenna, being on the left, was closer to the ground. So Troy had a cleaner shot as he came around and locked his HARM onto what he could now see was a surface-to-air missile battery on a hilltop.
"Fox One," Troy said. He decided that he'd be damned if he'd wait for Jenna to take her shot.
"Damn you," Jenna barked as she saw Troy's HARM streaking toward the SAM site at supersonic speed.
Troy missed seeing the impact but saw the column of smoke beginning to rise as he came around.
He had no time to gloat. The sound of another radar lock-on was screaming in his ears.
"This one's mine," Jenna demanded.
"Not if I get to him first," Troy replied.
He knew he shouldn't have. It was all about impulse, and Troy didn't have the best head for sorting out his impulses.
He cut Jenna off, firing his second and last HARM less than a quarter kilometer from the SAM site just as a surface-to-air missile left the tube.
As the SAM site erupted in smoke and flame, he could see the contrail of the SAM as it arced up and away. "Bogies at eleven o'clock," came the call.
It was Hal.
Bogies?
Bogies were enemy aircraft. In nearly two months in country, nobody from Task Force Sudan had ever been challenged by enemy aircraft.
There has to be a first time for everything.
"I got two MiGs incoming," Hal said.
Troy jerked his head around, trying to spot the flight leader in the dome of blue sky as he turned.
He saw the lead F-16, the pods heavy under its wings, making a slow banking turn.
He also saw the enemy, a pair of dark check marks maneuvering in the sky, too far away to identify as to type. They had apparently made one pass to check out the American Falcon and were banking around for a second pass — their kill pass.
For the first time during their series of encounters since exiting Kulul, Troy felt the creepy sensation of dread.
If Hal was planning to try outmaneuvering the MiGs, he was a goner. He was between a rock and a hard place. The surveillance pods inhibited his ability to turn, but to drop technology so sophisticated inside Eritrea would compromise the whole Falcon Force operation.
There was no way that Troy could get there before they pounced on Hal.
As he lit his afterburner, Troy spotted another aircraft.
It was Jenna.
She had executed a Split S maneuver and was above the enemy and beginning to dive. The bad guys were so focused on getting into firing position behind Hal that they hadn't seen her.
Troy saw a flicker of orange flame erupt as an AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile left the rail at the tip of the F-16's wing. From above and behind, it was a no-miss shot, and it didn't.
It was over in a second.
Troy watched the contrail of the Sidewinder as it overtook an aircraft that he could now make out as a MiG-29 Fulcrum.
The fireball briefly continued the forward momentum that it had when it was an airplane, then fell like a rock.
The other MiG broke off his attack against Hal and ran.
Jenna, whose higher altitude could be translated into speed, gave chase.
There was another flicker of orange flame, but this time the MiG jinked at the last moment. The contrail shot past with inches to spare.
It seemed as though the panicked pilot had just caught a lucky break, but his turn brought him face-to-face with Troy.
Two fighters closing on each other both face a difficult shot. With an aggregate speed of more than a thousand miles per hour, a second is a long time.
Troy impulsively thumbed the trigger of his M61 Vulcan cannon. Had he had a moment to think, he'd have known that a heat-seeking Sidewinder would have a hard time acquiring the MiG in a head-on dash, but something in his instinct had told him to use his gun.