The Venezuelan saw it too. He cursed in Spanish, eyes flicking over the instruments. ‘I can’t stop the leak.’ The wing tank had been punctured top and bottom by the cannon shells; no way to shut off the flow.
The Mirage blasted overhead with an earsplitting scream, the Cessna crashing violently through its wake. The jet had come in too fast, unable to slow enough to match the weaving transport’s speed. Instead, it ignited its afterburner with another sky-shaking roar and powered into the distance.
Eyes wide, Osterhagen watched it thunder away. ‘He’s leaving,’ he gasped.
‘No, he’s not,’ Eddie replied grimly. The Mirage was making a long, sweeping turn, the pilot about to swing back round . . . and fire a missile. ‘Can we get to Caracas without that fuel tank?’ Valero shook his head. ‘Shit! How much fuel’s still in it?’
Valero checked a gauge, the needle of which was slowly but steadily dropping. ‘Four hundred litres, and falling.’
Eddie thought for a moment, tracking the distant Mirage as it turned. ‘Head away from him, and take us up,’ he ordered.
Valero stared at him, confused. ‘What?’
‘Up, take us up – we need all the height we can get!’ He unfastened his seatbelt as Valero put the Cessna into a climb, heading northwest.
‘What are you doing?’ Macy demanded as he stood.
‘The emergency kit – where is it?’ The yellow plastic case had contained the first aid supplies used to patch up Becker, and more besides. He spotted it at the back of the cabin and slid down the sloping floor to retrieve it.
The glowing dot of the Mirage’s afterburner cut out. ‘Eddie, the jet’s turning,’ warned Valero.
‘Just keep climbing!’ Eddie opened the case. Inside were a Very pistol and several distress flares. He loaded one and snapped the breech closed, then looked through the window. The fighter was coming back towards the Cessna. ‘Okay, Oscar. Can you dump the fuel from the knackered tank?’
‘Yes – but why?’
‘Get ready to do it! Level out, and turn so he’s directly behind us.’
‘But that’ll make us a really easy targ—
‘Nope,’ said Eddie, shaking his head. ‘That only works in movies. We need something a lot hotter!’ There was a small hatch opposite the main door; he unlocked it and swung the top section upwards. Wind shrieked into the cabin – along with the stench of fuel, the leaking avgas swirling in the vortex created by the plane’s wing.
Macy’s hope was replaced by appalled disbelief. ‘You’re going to blow up the
‘Not if I time it right.’ The Mirage was moving in behind them, now some miles distant – the ideal range for a heat-seeking missile. ‘Oscar! Dump the fuel when I say, then head for the ground.’ The jet disappeared behind the tail.
Valero, with considerable trepidation, pulled the fuel-dump lever.
The plumes of red-dyed avgas streaming from the holes in the wing were joined by a much denser spray as the main valve opened. The needle on the fuel gauge plummeted. Eddie leaned out of the open hatch, the slipstream tearing at the back of his head as he searched for the Mirage. The dark dot was directly astern. He readied the flare gun—
Another flash of fire from the jet, this time beneath a wing. A line of smoke trailed behind a white-painted speck. A heat-seeking missile, either an American Sidewinder or a French Magic, but it made no difference – neither would have any trouble locking on.
The missile closed in a sweeping arc. Travelling at over Mach 2, it would take just seconds to reach its target.
Fuel was still gushing from the dump valve. Eddie held his breath, feeling droplets soaking his skin. If he fired too soon, Macy’s fear would be realised – the igniting fuel vapour would consume the plane and its passengers.
And if he fired too late, they would be dead anyway . . .
The deluge stopped, the tank empty but for the last dribbling dregs.
He pulled the trigger.
The pistol bucked, the flare spiralling into the dissipating red cloud. For a moment nothing happened . . .
Then the sky caught fire.
Flames spread like an exploding star, greedily swallowing up the drifting fuel. Searing tongues lashed after the Cessna, trying to reach the last morsels in its ruptured wing. Eddie threw himself back into the cabin as a wave of heat hit the plane.
The missile was an R550 Magic, carrying a fragmentation warhead of twelve and a half kilograms of high explosive wrapped in frangible steel. Its infrared seeker was overwhelmed by the fireball, the heat source of its target’s engine lost amidst a much bigger, hotter signal. It ran through its programmed options in a millisecond. Target lost at close range: only one response.
The missile was less than a hundred metres from the Cessna when the warhead exploded, sending red-hot shrapnel out in all directions. Most of the chunks of metal hit nothing . . . but only a fraction had to strike their
