'Shit,' was all Harris could mutter as he found himself over Chesapeake Bay presenting a clear shot to his pursuers.
'Shit,' Harris repeated as he heard the ping of a radar lock-on and saw that one of his pursuers took that shot.
But the Raven performed. Thanks to its heat-shielding characteristics, the AIM-9 lost its lock-on like a blind man in a crowded room. Nevertheless, being shot at raised Harris's ire considerably.
'You wanna fight, bastards?' Harris shouted, again out of the hearing range of anyone.
Harris was also armed but had chosen evasion as a defensive tactic — until now.
Like the older F-22 Raptor, the Raven carried all of its armament within an internal weapons bay to preserve the clean lines and stealth characteristics of the aircraft. Like the Raptor, the Raven was capable of carrying six AIM-120F Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles. They were the latest variant of the weapons acronymed as AMRAAMs but known to aircrews informally as Slammers. However, with the B61 weapon installed in the Raven's central weapons bay, all but two of the Slammers had been removed that morning. At the time, Harris gave no thought to having to use them. Now he was glad to have them.
Heading south over Chesapeake Bay, he was putting five miles between himself and Camp David every second, so he yanked back on the stick and threw the Raven into a climbing right turn that took him over Maryland's Western Shore.
He had given up wondering who was in those two F-16s. He just wanted them dead, and he knew that the Raven plus its Slammers was more than a match for F-16s and Sidewinders.
Harris lit up the datalink guidance system for the AMRAAMs as he came out of the turn, acquiring a target almost immediately. He didn't especially care which one — there were two targets and he had two AMRAAMs. He could see on his radar that one of the two F-16s had greatly overshot him and only one now stood in his way.
One of the Raven's weapons bay doors popped open.
The F-16 pilot was smart, beginning to jam the Slammer's radar lock-on instantly. However, Harris had an ally in the form of the missile's home-on-jamming capability.
As soon as the AMRAAM detected an attempt to jam its radar homing system, it switched from active homing to passive.
Harris fired.
The AMRAAM left the rail homing not on the F-16 itself, but on the F-16's own radar-jamming signal.
Having fired, and having left the destruction of the other aircraft in the capable, albeit inhuman, hands of the missile, Harris banked left and headed north by northwest.
'Have to get back on target,' he muttered to himself.
With one F-16 going down in flames, and another too far away to catch him now, it was time to resume his primary mission. He could deal with the second F-16 while its pilot gawked at the mushroom cloud over the Catoctins.
Suddenly, there was a pinging in the Raven's cockpit. What?
Harris had been made. He had been acquired in a missile lock-on.
Who?
On his scope, there was the unmistakable image of two aircraft pursuing him.
How?
The Slammer must have been slammed!
Harris knew that just about the only way to achieve a lock-on against the stealthy Raven was from directly behind. Essentially, the F-16 was looking up his ass, up the high-Fahrenheit tailpipes of his afterburning engines.
Once again, Harris threw the Raven off course to save his ass.
Harris knew that under the circumstances, just about the only way to break the F-16's lock-on against the Raven was to get out from in front of the F-16.
Once again, Harris found himself flying away from Camp David.
Chapter 54
'Care to sit down?' Aron Arnold asked the young petty officer. 'I'm not going to bite you.'
'No, sir,' Tiffanie Talleigh replied. 'Rather not, sir.'
Arnold sat at a table near the window of the commissary sipping his coffee. His escort remained standingnervously — at a discreet distance. Perhaps he wouldn't bite, she thought, but a man associated with the overthrow of the government that she was sworn to protect was certainly dangerous.
'How do you expect this whole thing to play out today?' Arnold asked in a making-conversation tone. 'Can't say, sir. Wouldn't speculate.'
'Above your pay grade?' Arnold smiled.
'Couldn't say, sir, I just don't know.'
'It's above my pay grade too,' he admitted. 'You're a lot like me in a lotta ways.'
'How so?'
'Like we were talking on the walk over here… we're just a couple of people doing our jobs and following orders… right?'
'Can't speak for you,' she said suspiciously. 'Why are you here?'
'You know why I'm here, Petty Officer Talleigh. You've been with me every step of the way since I walked through that gate. You drove me to Laurel Lodge in your vehicle… you listened to what I told Fachearon…'
'I mean, like what are you doing here?'
'You mean, me personally?'
'You said you were a pilot. Why did they send a pilot to drive up into the mountains in a Lexus?'
'Why did they send a twentysomething petty officer to guard a guy whom they see as 'a traitor?'
He watched her blush slightly. She was obviously on the long side of thirtysomething, but nobody ever lost ground underestimating the age of a woman over thirty.
'They have confidence in my ability to do a job,' Tiffanie replied.
'There you are.' Arnold nodded as he took another sip of coffee. 'That was, I assume, why I was sent on this little errand this morning. Like we were saying… we're both doing our jobs.'
'What do you hope to gain by this?'
'Gain?' Arnold asked. 'By coming up here? I was sent here to ask Fachearon to give it up and get with the program.'
'I meant, like what do you expect to gain by being involved in this 'program' as you call it?'
'I keep telling you… it's my job… I'm paid to do what Firehawk needs me to do. It's nothing more than that. I'm a very straightforward person.'
Tiffanie Talleigh just shook her head.
'I think we'd better go, sir,' she said assertively. Her resuming the use of the formal term indicated to Arnold that their chat was over. 'The president indicated that you could stay for lunch; are you staying for lunch, or not?'
'I guess not,' Arnold said. 'Not that it hasn't been a fun conversation. Maybe I should check in with him again — y'know, give him one more chance to reconsider.'
'I don't think so,' Tiffanie said tentatively. 'The president's orders were explicit. You were to stay for lunch, then leave. Since you're not staying for lunch—'
'What if he did want to reconsider the Firehawk proposal?' Arnold. 'You'd be the one who made the call that stood in the way… made it not happen.'
'But he said—'
'But he could change his mind.'
'I don't know,' Tiffanie said, furrowing her brow. 'What can it hurt?' Arnold insisted. 'He'd just tell me to get the hell out of Camp David and never come back—'
