Smith pull himself up from his seat and stepped over Jackson, who was sleeping in the aisle. Howland was hunched two rows back, snoring into the seat back. Mack’s head had stopped hurting, but his ribs throbbed worse than ever. He slid in the seat behind Melfi, his leg irons clanking as he pushed his face to the window.
A long strip of black jutted roughly parallel to the sea, lit by the full moon. A phalanx and leveling. On the other, crews were erecting a shelter of some sort; from here it looked like a curved pizza box. There were planes lined in a neat row near the middle. They were far away and the light was poor, but one was definitely an airliner or similar transport. There were at least two others, smaller military jets, possibly MiG-21’s. The buss bounced and turned around the road, its path taking them out of view.
“The strip’s being extended. They’ve paved it pretty recently,” Mack told Gunny. “We had a small airstrip on the map up north here somewhere when we briefed the mission; I think we had it pegged as a dirt strip. It’s a lot bigger than that now.”
One of the guards at the front of the bus grunted an instruction to keep quiet. Mack held up his hands as if he would, then leaned close to Gunny.
“There’s a transport down there, an airliner. I can’t tell in the dark what it is, but I’d bet they’re going to fly us out.”
“I say we don’t,” hissed Gunny. “I don’t think they’re going to be taking us home. And I don’t want to star in this trial the raghead is talking about.”
“I agree,” Mack said. he felt his ribs tug at him, as if to remind him they weren’t exactly loaded with options. “I don’t know what sort of chances we’re going to have, though.”
“Were you thinking of that when you slugged the raghead’s guard?”
“No,” said Mack. “But I should have.”
“You make a move, we’ll follow,” said Melfi solemnly. “Should we stall getting off the bus?”
What would that get them? A few more minutes? For what?
Odds were the Iranian would just shoot them and be done.
Preferable to being turned into cowards and traitors. That was where this was headed.
Mack grunted noncommittally, unsure what to say, much less do. He put his head back against the stiff seat top. The anger that had exploded inside him had disappeared; it seemed foreign now, as if it belonged to someone else – Melfi most likely. He was a pilot – logical, careful, precise.
Except when he let himself get shot down. That had been a fuck-up, despite what Gunny had said.
Unlike him. He was too damn good to get whacked so easy. Too damn good to do something stupid.
So what the hell was he doing sitting here?
As the bus started down the winding road, the moon stabbed his eyes. Mack sighed, but didn’t close them.
Northern Somalia
23 October, 0430
Fort Two squealed as it tucked and rolled through the air, almost as if the Megafortress welcomed the seven-g back flip. Breanna felt her world narrow to a small cone as she rolled into a dive and recovered in the opposite direction. She had become the plane, pushing through the air like a force of nature, turbines spinning, wings slicked back. It took several seconds for them to gain momentum in the new direction; she rode the air current gracefully, plunging her nose down and picking up speed. By the time the MiGs reacted to their radar, they had narrowed the gap to thirty miles, the outer edge of the AMRAAMs’ range.
“Open bay doors, prepare to launch,” she told Chris.
“Bay. They’re taking evasive maneuvers.”
Breanna’s HUD showed the radar’s air-combat-mode projection, with the enemy bandits displayed as triangles with directional and speed vectors. Confident that it could nail each of the aircraft, the combat computer displayed red hatch marks over each plane.
“Which ones are near the F-117’s?”
“Good question. Hold on.”
The stealth fighters were too far away to be detected directly; Chris set the computer to look for atmospheric anomalies – essentially canceling some of the correction it normally did to erase interference from the wind. He managed to find two of the F-117’s, just starting their attacks.
“One MiG within theoretical visual range,” said Chris.
“Targeting.”
A box appeared around the triangle. The tiny symbol blinked, as if the computer were jumping up and down, yelling at them to nail it.
“Fire,” said Breanna.
The Scorpions AMRAAM missile slipped out of its launcher so easily that only the launch indicator told Breanna it was gone. With a one-hundred-pound explosive warhead, the Scorpions packed roughly twice the explosive power of a standard AMRAAM, while retaining its high speed and superb active radar capabilities. Once launched, the missile took care of itself.
“Tracking,” said Chris. “F-117’s have buttoned up. I can’t see them at all. Okay. One MiG heading north. They’re out of it. more evasive maneuvers. They’re looking for us. SAMs are up! Shit. We’re spiked by that MiG. They’re targeting us for air-to-air.”
“Vector One to Fort Two, what’s your situation?”
“Hold tight, Vector,” said Breanna. The threat screen painted the sky ahead yellow, overlapping radrs probing for them. two fingers of red appeared at the sides; Breanna snapped the Megafortress ninety degrees, trying to beam the MiG that was now targeting them. the computer, meanwhile, began emitting electronic fuzz to confuse
