stay at five thousand, so you have the altitude advantage if the Sandies react and launch their fighters.'
'Two against one.' Troy smiled, having been assigned as the lone CAP.
'As the others exit the target area without ordnance, they'll be ready for air-to-air. Your job is just to protect them at their most vulnerable. Then the odds will be two against seven.'
This time, there was no long way around. The Firehawk F-16s headed straight down the coast, flying low enough to hope that ground clutter would mask their approach for at least part of the half hour it would take. Sandringham probably didn't anticipate a surprise attack, but then Firehawk had not anticipated the presence of F- 16s at the Sandringham base. Surprises can happen, even to surprise attackers.
Troy made his return flight to the Sandringham base flying above and behind the strike aircraft, watching the sky and waiting to engage his search radar until he reached an initial point about five minutes out. If the Sandies detected search radar, they would know that a fighter aircraft was in the area.
The first wave of strike aircraft descended to the prescribed altitude as Troy lit up his radar. Watching the three aircraft going in abreast reminded him of the old days in Sudan, when he had flown a similar pattern with Jenna Munrough and Hal Coughlin.
'Bombs away.'
The crackly radio sounds of the first wave attack echoed in Troy's ears.
'One 16 on the runway… don't see the second.' At that moment, Troy saw the other F-16 on his radar. It was airborne.
'I've been made,' Troy heard someone say as he twisted his neck to get a visual on the Sandy F-16. There!
He saw it closing on one of the first-echelon Firehawk F-16s.
A Firehawk F-16 coming in at low level, laden with bombs, didn't have the ability for evasive action. It became a huge ball of flame as its own ordnance was ignited by a Sandringham Sidewinder.
'Fox Two!' Troy shouted as he locked on to the enemy aircraft and picked off a Sidewinder of his own.
The Sandy F-16, obviously in the hands of an excellent pilot, twisted left, then right. Troy's AIM-9 made the left turn but was going too fast to make the right.
Troy climbed to stay above the other F-16, to maintain his altitude advantage as he attacked again.
With one Sidewinder left, Troy wanted to narrow the distance as much as possible. He wanted to be sure that his next shot was a kill shot.
Just as he tried to achieve a lock-on, though, the other plane sidestepped and broke the lock.
Troy bored in, eager to close in and finish the fight. Closer.
Closer.
Whoa! What happened?
One second, he was closing on the other F-16; the next, he was watching it slip beneath him like sand through your fingers at the beach. The opposing pilot had throttled back and let Troy overshoot.
Troy banked hard. Having overshot, he was outside the other pilot's turn radius. If the other plane continued its turn, Troy knew he could possibly get back inside, but the pilot reversed his own turn as Troy turned. Again, Troy overshot him.
Troy throttled back, trying both to jockey himself back into shooting position and to prevent his opponent from getting a clean shot.
As the two aircraft scissored across the Malaysian landscape, Troy knew that if he could coax the other guy into maintaining his defensive turn, rather than reversing and turning the other way, he would have the opening that he sought. But this wasn't working. The other pilot could not be coaxed.
Again and again, Troy turned and watched the other F-16 slip away.
Gotta try something, Troy thought.
As he got behind the other aircraft, and just before the guy reversed his turn, Troy throttled back, allowing him to stem their lateral separation and turn with the other F-16.
This gave him the split second that he needed. 'Fox Two,' Troy whispered.
The other F-16 banked hard to the left to avoid the missile.
This deft maneuver worked.
The missile missed by no more than a few feet from the aircraft.
However, the shock wave from the Sidewinder blowing by prevented the other pilot from reversing his turn as he had become accustomed.
Troy was very close and still in firing position as the other plane was momentarily locked in a turn and unable to execute a turn reversal.
Within a second, this situation would change, but that was then, and Troy was in the moment.
He thumbed the trigger of his M61 and watched the stream of twenty-millimeter rounds streak toward the other plane — and connect.
Troy saw a piece of the tail tear off and cartwheel upward.
Troy watched the puffs of dust and smoke as his rounds struck home and watched the hits march up the belly of the F-16, which was still locked in its leftward bank.
Everything turned into a blinding sheet of light as one of Troy's twenty-millimeter high-explosive rounds connected with the fuel tank of the other aircraft.
The whole engagement had lasted less than thirty seconds, the burst from the Vulcan cannon no more than two or three.
Troy looked around to get his bearings.
He saw the plume of black where once there had been another F-16. Beneath him, there was only jungle. There was no ocean to be seen. His rolling, running dogfight had taken him deep into the mountainous middle of Malaysia, far from Kuantan.
'Firehawk CAP here, scratch one bogie,' he reported. 'This is Firehawk Leader, CAP. We're over the target. Firehawk Three didn't make it. No chute.'
Part of the strike package had continued to orbit the target area looking for signs of life in the wreckage of the aircraft that was shot down by the F-16 that Troy had killed.
As he passed over the newly paved, now newly cratered, Sandringham runway, Troy could see the wreckage of the Firehawk F-16 and the other Sandy F-16. The latter had the misfortune of being ready for takeoff just as the bombers arrived. It didn't stand a chance.
When it was determined that the Firehawk pilot had not survived, the eight surviving Firehawk aircraft formed up and headed back toward Kota Bharu.
The score was Firehawk two, Sandies one. As far as the bombing was concerned, Raymond Harris had wanted to deal a blow, and a blow had been dealt.
Chapter 31
Troy Loensch opened one eye and glanced at the red numerals staring back at him from the clock radio.
5:47.
His open eye traveled to the slit of window beneath the heavy curtain. The light was the weak, faint light of midwinter.
5:48.
Was that A. M. or P. M.?
With the faint light, it could be either.
He had arrived well after midnight. Had he slept for four or five hours — or sixteen or seventeen? He couldn't tell. Troy staggered to the bathroom, fumbled with the coffeemaker for a moment, gave up, and collapsed back onto the bed.
5:56.
He had arrived well after midnight, flying in on the Firehawk Gulfstream by way of Tokyo and Barking Sands in
