miniaturized homing transmitter — although the presence of this gadget had not been part of his briefing.
Raymond Harris had no idea where Fachearon was within the Camp David complex, but he did not care. The blast radius of the B61's active ingredients was considerable — but best of all, the weapon would be directed to its target by the GK356a4 transmitter that was ideally standing within a few feet or a few yards of Albert Bacon Fachearon.
'Falcon Three, he's broken off his attack on me,' Jenna said. 'He's broken off and is heading toward the target.'
'Got him,' Troy promised hopefully, willing it to be true.
He lit his afterburner and felt the F-16 lurch as it went supersonic.
At nine thousand feet, the two planes raced toward the crest of the Catoctin Mountains. Had they crossed the path of any other jetliner in the crowded northern Maryland skies, it would have been catastrophic — but quick.
Troy could not afford to think about such a thing. Closing to within missile range was the only thing on his mind — it had to be.
Troy knew that the Raven was fast — probably capable of something north of Mach 3—but he knew that Harris couldn't deliver a payload from an internal weapons bay at that speed. He would probably have to slow to below Mach 1. Troy still had one Sidewinder and one chance to catch the Raven before Harris got to Camp David.
Harris was running hard and fast. He had picked up the GK356a4 arid was homing in on it.
It was a matter of minutes.
He glanced at his radarscope as he throttled back for his bomb run.
Damn. There was an F-16 still on his tail. It was many miles back, but still coming. It had to be the one that still had a live Sidewinder. Harris made a fast, educated guess that whoever the pilot was, he would wait to fire until he was at a no-miss distance.
Harris figured that he had time to reach his release point.
Once the B61 was away, he could ratchet up the Raven's throttle and outrun any F-16. He could even wring enough speed out of the Raven to outdistance the Mach 2.5 Sidewinder.
But that was then; Harris was still in a now that meant covering fifty miles of Maryland countryside at subsonic speeds with his weapons bay door open.
As he urged the Raven forward, he heard the pinging of a lock-on.
In his F-16, Troy saw the Raven slow and knew that this was it — the bomb run.
Could he catch Harris and take a no-miss shot? Never mind. Lock on now!
The Sidewinder had an effective range of around ten miles. He was almost there. He could ride the lock-on all the way.
Raymond Harris, meanwhile, still had an advantage. His maneuverability options increased proportionally to his slower speed. Because he had only one vulnerable spot — straight back — any evasive action, no matter how slight, was potentially effective. He could remain on course, weaving slightly, and still interrupt the F-16's lock- on.
Troy watched his lock-on stop and start, flicker and hiccup, like a bad connection on his iPod jack.
There was nothing he could do but put the pedal to the metal and get closer to the Raven.
Seven miles separated the two aircraft.
Inside the Raven, Harris dodged between trying to interrupt and evade the pinging and maintaining his own lock-on to the GK356a4 at Camp David.
Six miles.
Rocking and rolling, Harris raced onward as the F-16 gained on him. He counted the seconds before he could arm the B61 for his strike against Albert Bacon Fachearon — and all that for which he stood.
Five miles.
When? Troy sweated the decision to shoot.
Four miles.
Okay, this is it.
'Missiles hot,' he announced.
Jenna was barely two miles away, also on afterburner and following Troy into battle.
'Roger, Falcon Three, you are a go with missiles hot.'
Three miles.
Okay, dammit, this is it.
'Fox Two!' Troy shouted.
Chapter 57
In the cockpit of the Raven, Raymond Harris battled to evade the F-16 lock-on, while also fighting to keep his own weapon homed in on its target.
Each time the pinging stopped, it bounced back a moment later.
When the pinging stopped and stayed stopped, he couldn't believe his luck.
Was there something wrong with the system?
He glanced at his mirror. There was no coiling contrail back there. The F-16's Sidewinder was a dud. Harris couldn't believe his luck.
There was no contrail, but there was the F-16. The bastard must be coming at nearly Mach 2. Suddenly, Harris felt the turbulence of the aircraft roaring past him. The blast of air nearly caused him to lose control.
The bastard was on top of him, then a short distance away.
He was matching his speed to the Raven.
What was the bastard trying to do?
Harris considered evasive action, but he was seconds from the release point.
The F-16 was so close that he could read the specs stenciled on the tail.
The F-16 was so close that he imagined feeling the heat of its engine.
The F-16 was so close that he felt its wing touch the forward fuselage of the Raven.
This was the last thing that Raymond Harris ever felt, for in the next infinitesimal slice of time, the two aircraft became one, an enormous ball of wreckage.
Imagine two dozen tons. Of scrap metal hurtling through the air at several hundred miles per hour, a mile and a half above a verdant, wooded hillside.
Fragments, many fragments, of scrap metal spun off the main ball of wreckage and began plunging earthward.
Within that ball of wreckage, the remnants of what had been a human being were pulverized and shredded by the slicing and dicing of a thousand knifelike shards.
High above, Troy watched the burning wreckage tumble, lose momentum, and fall. He hung from the straps of his parachute, having punched out of that mass of scrap metal at the moment that it had ceased to be two separate airplanes. When his second Sidewinder — his second hand-me-down Virginia Air National Guard Sidewinder — had failed, Troy decided to ram the Raven and hope for the best.
Watching it fall, from his silent perch in the sky, the wreckage seemed so unreal, so far away in both time and space. Yet Troy knew that within it were the remnants of a nuclear weapon whose fireball would very much encompass him in both time and space — if it had been armed.
Had Harris armed the weapon?
He knew that all of this was happening close to Camp David, but he didn't know exactly how near.
Had Harris armed the weapon?
