above the sand-coloured air-craft. Then the Brig was through, missing
with every shell, spiralling up and around in a great flashing circle,
raging internally at his failure.
At the instant that David recognized the MIG's manoeuvre he reacted with
a rapidity that was purely reflexive. He closed down his power, and hit
his air brakes to punch a little to the speed off the Mirage.
The MIG turned steeply away to port, standing on one wing-tip that
seemed to be pegged into the bleak desert earth. David released his air
brakes, to give his wings lift for the next evolution, and then he
dropped his own wing-tip and went sweeping round to follow the Syrian's
desperate twists with the Mirage hovering on the edge of the stall.
The Syrian was turning inside him, slower and more manoeuverable; David
could not bring his sights to bear, his right forefinger was curled
around the trigger but always the dark shape of the MIG was out of
centre in the illuminated circle of the sight as the aiming pipper
dipped and rose to the pull of gravity.
Ahead of the two circling aircraft rose a steep and forbidding line of
cliffs, . rent by deep defiles and gullies.
The 1VUG made no attempt to climb above them, but selected a narrow pass
through the hills and went into it like a ferret into its run, a
desperate attempt to shake off the pursuit.
The Mirage was not designed for this type of flying, and David felt the
urge to hit his afterburners and ride up over the jagged fangs of rock,
but to do so was to let the MIG escape, and his anger was still strong
upon him.
He followed the Syrian into the rock pass, and the walls of stone on
either hand seemed to brush his wingtips, the gully turned sharply to
starboard and David dropped his wing and followed its course. Back upon
itself the rock turned, and David swung the needle nose from maximum
rate turn starboard to port, and the stall warning device winked amber
and red at him as he abused the Mirage's delicate flying capabilities.
Ahead of him the MIG clawed its way through the tunnel of rock. The
pilot looked back over his shoulder and he saw the IIirage following
him, creeping slowly up on him, and he turned back to his controls and
forced his machine lower still, hugging the rugged walls of stone.
The air in the hills was hot and turbulent, and the Mirage bucked and
fought against restraint wanting to be free and high, while ahead of it
the Syrian drifted tantalizingly off-centre in David's gunsight.
Now the valley turned again and narrowed, before climbing and ending
abruptly against a solid dark purple wall of smooth rock.
The Syrian was trapped, he levelled out and climbed steeply upwards, his
flight path dictated by the rocks on each side and ahead.
David pushed his throttle to the gate and lit his afterburners, and the
mighty engine rumbled, thrusting him powerfully forward, up under the
Syrian's stern.
The eternal micro-seconds of mortal combat dragged by, as the Syrian
floated lazily into the circle of the gunsight, expanding to fill it as
the Mirage's nose seemed to touch the other's tail plane and David felt
the buffeting of the Syrian's slip-stream.
He pressed the cannon trigger and the Mirage lurched as she hurled her
