16.
Fortunately, the Firehawk pilots caught a break.
The weather over Peter' that day was mostly clear, but the rolling, twisting chase had rolled and twisted toward a line of cumulus that was starting to form. Preston ducked into a cloud, and the Frogfoot pilot pulled back slightly. He had been firing on the F-16 visually, not using his radar, and this was a reflex reaction as he looked around for his prey.
Rapidly overtaking the Su-25, which was now in level flight, Troy fired his second Sidewinder. The distance was short, and the missile was much faster than the Zapatista aircraft.
Troy was dodging pieces of Frogfoot six seconds later.
He stood the F-16 on its tail and grabbed at the altitude he figured to be necessary if other bandits appeared.
Rolling out at nearly ten thousand feet, he checked his radarscope.
The original Frogfoot, which Preston had missed with his first shot, had escaped across the border into Mexico. Troy thought of giving chase, but realized he had shot both his Sidewinders.
Far below, Preston was climbing out of the cloud tops.
There were no other aircraft anywhere to be seen, either visually or on radar. The score was Firehawk two, Zapatistas zero, but the game was not over.
Chapter 25
'Firehawk one,' Troy said, watching Andy Preston's F-16 running westward through the cloud tops below. 'Shall we call it a day?'
'Roger that, Firehawk Two,' Preston replied. 'I'm making a slow ninety-degree turn here.'
By the way he described his turn, Troy knew that something was wrong. In the spirit of keeping their communications to a minimum, he would not have explained the details of any problem that he might be having. The airwaves have prying ears.
As Troy took his own bird down to Preston's level, he could see that a few of the thirty-millimeter rounds fired by the Sukhoi had connected. None of the hits had been sufficient to knock down the plane, but a punctured left aileron had 'potential disaster' written all over it. The sight of the damaged F-16 reminded Troy of that morning over Eritrea when he was watching Jenna's F-16 just before it went down.
'I'm with you,' Troy said, pulling in next to the other aircraft and snapping off a friendly salute. He had appreciated a similar offer when his own aircraft had been riddled with gunfire.
Despite some close calls when the marginally controllable aircraft was hit by turbulence, they made it home. When Preston asked the tower for permission to land, there was no other traffic in the area, so he decided to keep a low profile and not declare an emergency. If he crashed, his would be the only day ruined.
'You got one of my airplanes into a fender bender, I see,' Raymond Harris said as he greeted the two Firehawk pilots at the hangar. The shorter chain of command within Firehawk meant that he was much closer to the budget discussions than he had been in the U. S. Air Force.
'Two planes got home,' Preston said as Harris walked beneath the wing to investigate the damage.
'And two pilots,' Troy added.
'We'll have to fly in a repair crew and some parts from the States before we can fly this one again,' Harris said, shaking his head in disgust.
'The damage cost the Zaps a lot more… cost them two Su-25s,' Preston said defensively.
'The Su-25 is an attack plane, not a fighter,' Harris said. 'You ought to able to outfly and outshoot an Su-25 in a dogfight when you're flying an F-16.'
'We did,' Troy interjected. 'We left two of their 'air force' smoldering in the Peten rain forest, and we left both F-16s parked in this hangar.'
'For that I'm grateful,' Harris said in a conciliatory tone as he emerged from beneath the wing. 'Tell me all about it.'
'We engaged two, as we had on the previous mission,' Preston began. 'The first one evaded my Sidewinder, but Loensch nailed his.'
Preston wanted to say something about Troy's overeagerness in urging him to take a shot too soon, but so much had happened since — including his coming to Preston's defense moments ago — that he chose to let his feelings about the earlier incident slide.
'There was a third one flying CAP that jumped us using guns,' Troy interjected. 'That's where the damage came in.'
'Loensch got him,' Preston said, giving credit to his wingman. 'But by that time, the lone survivor was well into Mexico.'
'I didn't pursue him because I was out of missiles and I didn't want to have to chase him back to his home turf in order to get close enough to engage him with my gun,' Troy explained. 'Besides, the other plane in my element that day had been battle-damaged.'
'These guys were pretty damned good,' Preston said. 'A lot better than you'd expect of some guys who are used to living in jungles.'
'Like I said earlier… I don't think you'll find too many native Zaps among the people who are flying those Sukhois.' Harris smiled.
'Who in the hell are they?' Preston asked. 'Who is this other PMC?'
'We found out that's a European outfit,' Harris said in a matter-of-fact way. 'They're called Svartvand BV.'
'I knew that the aircraft were bought on the open market,' Troy said. 'But it still amazes me that the Zapatistas can afford to hire professionals to fly 'em.'
'There's a lot of money in marijuana.' Harris shrugged. 'Follow the money… just like it was with the Taliban and opium in Afghanistan.'
'The Zaps make enough selling weed?' Preston asked.
'They've always made money protecting the growers,' Harris explained. 'The growers sell to the cartels and the cartels have the money to buy the weapons and hire the hired guns. It's complicated, but if you follow the money, it all makes sense.'
'Why are they attacking the Guatemalans, then?' Troy asked.
'Because it's in the interest of the guys with the money to keep the Guatemalan army out of the Chiapas pot fields and get control of the Peter' pot fields. Pot knows no borders. It grows as well in Peten as it does in Chiapas. They also like to control governments of smaller countries… and Central American governments are so ripe for influence. Y'know, forty, fifty years ago, it was the Communists who wanted to control all these places. Before that it was the banana companies. It's been like this for years.'
'These guys that the Zaps hired,' Troy asked, 'where did they hire the pilots that we've been flying against?'
'On the international market.' Harris smiled. 'There are guys just like you two all over the world who used to fly jets in some air force or other who want to get back into action. There's probably quite a few Russians… a Brit or two… there may even be some Americans. The guy who put the holes into that F-16 may have flown F-16s once upon a time.'
Chapter 26
'Intel shows that the zaps are down to just one Frogfoot,' Joe Turcios said, placing an aerial photo on his desk for Troy and Andy to examine. 'As you can see, there's only one parked here in this picture.'
