Ilse heard a man’s voice over the radio. She thought he must be in the airborne warning-and-control plane Barrows mentioned. He was guiding other Raptors to meet with Barrows and her wingman.
After a while, Ilse spotted the Raptors. Two came in from the right, and two from the left. They closed up on Barrows and her wingman. They all tucked into a tight arrowhead formation, with Barrows and Ilse in the lead.
“Now for some high-speed aerobatics,” Barrows said with obvious relish. “If it makes your head spin, imagine how the Axis satellites will feel. And yes, they’re definitely watching us now.”
Ilse’s heart began to pound, in anticipation and dread. Already this was like no airplane ride she’d ever had in her life.
The F-22 went into a steep dive. Ilse seemed to float against her harness, weightless, with her stomach in her throat. The formation of six F-22s drove back into the overcast together, then down under the clouds. When they broke through, Ilse could see lights of towns and roads below. They were well in from the Atlantic, beyond the official Coast Defense Zone; here the blackout didn’t apply so strictly.
The F-22s began to break and zigzag right and left, crossing over and under each other in a giant high-speed shell game. Raptors came so close to Ilse’s wings and tail and canopy that she was terrified. Sometimes Barrows and the other pilots all flew upside down, and Ilse hung from her shoulder straps. Her F-22 buffeted viciously, from hitting the other fighters’ vortex wakes. The lights on the ground were Ilse’s only solid point of reference, and they barely prevented her from getting completely disoriented.
On a command from the man in the AWACS, all six aircraft pulled up hard. The g-force this time pressed Ilse firmly into her seat, more and more. She began to feel faint, and her vision narrowed and darkened, even as the G- suit bladders squeezed her lower body. The F-22s stood on their tails and took off vertically on afterburner. They thrust back through the overcast and up into the sky. They broke into the clear but still kept climbing. The acceleration wasn’t as brutal now, and Ilse’s vision returned. The stars got closer and closer; she saw a meteor streak past Orion’s sword. Ilse panted inside her oxygen mask. Her ears were popping painfully, and she kept trying to clear them, but her throat was parched by the oxygen. She could hear Barrows breathing too, much more calmly. Ilse managed to form spit in her mouth, and swallowed.
The planes closed into a tighter formation, making a hollow circle as they climbed straight up, wingtips of each jet almost touching those of its neighbors, all still standing on their tails. They began to rotate slowly to the right in unison, as if to follow a giant helix spiraling into the heavens, as if they were playing ring-around-the-rosie. They began to spiral faster and faster. Ilse didn’t believe the maneuver was possible, let alone that anyone in their right mind would try it.
“Having fun yet?” Barrows said. The planes kept climbing and climbing.
“No,” Ilse said very nervously.
Their altitude was so high, Ilse saw another meteor streak actually
At last the fighters peeled off, and each plunged toward the ground in an almost vertical dive. Suddenly Ilse’s F-22 seemed to shiver, then the ride got smoother and quieter.
“We just broke the sound barrier,” Barrows said.
“How come I didn’t hear the sonic boom?”
“You never do. It’s the people on the ground who feel our shock wave passing over them.”
“Right.”
“
Five of them lined up side by side, wingtip to wingtip again. Ilse was in the second Raptor from the left. Another plane took the lead, positioned in front of the middle Raptor in the line. Slowly that lead Raptor drew ahead of the others. Then all six aircraft kicked in afterburners, and held formation going supersonic in level flight.
Barrows laughed. Ilse got it. Any satellite watching, using radar or visual or infrared, would see a giant five- fingered hand, sticking out its middle finger, in a gesture impossible to miss.
The AWACS man — Ilse realized he was calling this whole dance — said something Ilse didn’t catch. Suddenly the planes broke into a dive and went through the clouds. Lost in the mist once more, Ilse couldn’t make out the dim anticollision lights of the planes around her; she did see their brilliant afterburner glows. Under the clouds the afterburners stopped.
“Last act of the play,” Barrows said.
Ilse was glad. She was sweating inside her helmet and flight suit. It wasn’t just the fear. The ride was so very rough, the maneuvers and g-forces so aggressive, it was tremendous physical labor to just stay in the seat and breathe and not black out.
The F-22s went back up through the clouds, gaining altitude again. Suddenly Ilse heard popping sounds, and felt thumps. She grew alarmed. She saw flames spewing all over, and thought her plane had hit another and they were exploding and they would die.
“Heat flares,” Barrows said. “Infrared countermeasures.” The aircraft made tight turns. They passed back under their own burning flares. There were more pops and thumps. By the light of the flares, Ilse saw thousands of thin metal streamers floating everywhere.
“Radar chaff.”
The planes all did a tight turn once again. They flew under the flares and clouds of chaff, and started another mind-numbing three-card monte shuffle, passing over and under one another with barely inches to spare. The maneuvers were so violent, Ilse’s arms were thrown around the cockpit. She almost hit one of her ejection loops.
“Just a little more of this,” Barrows grunted, “and the bad guys will have no idea which plane you’re on.”
“Then what?” Ilse grunted back. It was hard to talk as the G suit squeezed her abdomen.
“We all break away.” Grunt. “Each Raptor refuels in midair.” Grunt. “Then heads to a different installation.” Grunt. “Somewhere in the U.S.”
“Where do
“Alaska.” Grunt. “Aleutian Islands.”
The maneuvers under the screen of infrared and radar countermeasures got even
NINE
Jeffrey’s train arrived on time in New London, and he did get a seat, but that was the best he could say for the ride. His mood — his morale about life in general — was at a low. It was just one thing after another the past forty-eight hours: the New York raid; him and Ilse fighting, and then her being sent God knows where; running into his father, and arguing, and separating again; the slaughter on Diego Garcia.
The worst thing for Jeffrey personally was his mother. He’d taken it for granted that she’d be around forever. He’d always just assumed that one day he would patch things up with his folks, like maybe when he got married and had kids and gave his mom and dad some grandchildren. Now Jeffrey might be running out of time, fast, to even say good-bye to his mom.
The whole trip from Washington to New London, as the sun set outside the windows and people got on and off the train at different stops, all this had swirled in Jeffrey’s mind, eating at him. The one thing he did sort out during the time on the train was that he’d put in for compassionate leave, if only for a day, to try to visit his mother
