Cassidy was already out of burner and popping flares. He didn’t have the Zero visually, but this guy wouldn’t wait. He would shoot as soon as possible, and Cassidy was betting that since he wasn’t using his radar, he would shoot a Sidewinder.
When the missile came popping out of the yellow haze from almost dead ahead, Cassidy rolled hard right, then pulled the stick into the pit of his stomach.
Pull, pull, fight the unconsciousness trying to tug you under while the chaff dispenser pops out decoy flares And the missile went off behind the F-22. The Zero was turning back toward Chita. Cassidy had him again on the tac display. How far is Chita?
Holy … it’s only thirty miles. This guy is almost there!
With his nose stuffed down, Cassidy came down on the fleeing Zero like a hawk after a sparrow. At six miles, he visually acquired the Zero, which appeared as a small dot against the pale, yellowish sky. The speed he gained in the descent was the only edge Cassidy had or he would never have caught Jiro Kimura. Perhaps he should have launched his last missiles at him, or closed to gun range and torn his plane apart with the cannon. He did neither. Cassidy came down, down, down, closing the range relentlessly. He knew Jiro was flying the Zero. He had to be. He wanted it to be Jiro.
Looking over his shoulder, holding his helmet and infrared goggles, Kimura saw the F-22 at about three miles. The pilot kept the closure rate high.
There is time, Jiro thought. If I yank this thing around, I can take a head-on shot with the cannon. But he didn’t turn. He was flying at four hundred feet above the ground. He put his plane in a gentle left turn, about a ten- degree angle of bank. He glanced over his shoulder repeatedly, waiting for the approaching pilot to pull lead for a gun shot. And he waited. It’s Cassidy! He’s going to kill me because I couldn’t kill him. The distance was now about three hundred meters. Two hundred … One hundred meters, and the F-22 was making no attempt to pull lead. It was still closing, maybe thirty or forty knots. Jiro realized with a jolt what was going to happen. He grabbed a handful of stick, jerked it hard aft. The damned helmet … He couldn’t hold it up, so he lost sight of the incoming F- 22.
Bob Cassidy’s left wingtip sliced into the right vertical stabilizer of the Zero. The planes were climbing at about fifty degrees nose-up when they came together. Jiro felt the jolt and instinctively rolled left, away from the shadowy presence above and behind him. This roll cost him the right horizontal stabilator, which was snapped off like a dead twig by the left wing of the F-22.
Two feet of the left wingtip broke off the F-22, which was in an uncontrolled roll to the right. Bob Cassidy’s eyes went straight to the airspeed indicator. He’d had enough time in fighters to have learned the lesson well — never eject supersonic. Fortunately, the climb, the lack of burner, and the retarded throttles- he had pulled them to idle just as his wing sliced into the Zero — combined to slow the F-22. In seconds, it was slowing through five hundred knots. Amazingly, Cassidy regained control. He automatically slammed the stick left to stop the roll, and the plane obeyed. He dipped the wing farther, looking for the Zero. There! The enemy fighter was slowing and streaming fuel. Get out, Jiro! Get out before it explodesst
Jiro Kimura fought against the aerodynamic forces tearing at the crippled fighter. He had no idea how much damage his plane had sustained in the collision, but at least it wasn’t rolling or tumbling violently. He glanced in the rearview mirror, then looked again. The right vertical stab was gone!
And the right horizontal stab!
Even as the damage registered on his mind, the plane began rolling. He saw the plume of fuel in his rearview mirror. Jiro tried to stop the roll with the stick. The roll continued, wrapping up. Sky and earth changed places rapidly. The airspeed read three hundred knots, so Jiro pulled the ejection handle.
When he saw the Japanese pilot riding his ejection seat from his rolling fighter, Bob Cassidy devoted his whole attention to flying his own plane.
With full left rudder and right stick, the thing was still going through the air. Chita was fifteen miles northwest. Bob Cassidy gently banked in that direction. He looked below, in time to see Jiro Kimura’s parachute open. He pulled the power back, let the badly wounded fighter slow toward 250 knots. As the speed dropped he fed in more and more rudder and stick. He sensed that the airplane would not fly slowly enough for him to land it. Forget the gear and flaps — he would run out of control throw before he slowed to gear speed. He was going to have to eject. And he didn’t care. A deep lethargy held Bob Cassidy in its grip. Ten miles to Chita. After all, in the grand scheme of things, the fate of individuals means very little. Nothing breaks the natural stride of the universe. But he was still a man with responsibilities. “Taco, this is Hoppy.”
“Yo, Hoppy.”
“All four of the enemy strike planes are down. I am the last one of ours still airborne.”
“Copy that.”
“Relay it, please, on to Washington.”
“Roger that.”
“And tell the crash guys to look for me. I’m about to eject over the base.”
“Copy. Good luck, Hoppy.”
“Yeah.”
He kept the speed up around three hundred. The plane flew slightly sideways and warning lights flashed all over the instrument panel as the base runways came closer and closer. When he was past the hangar area, with the plane pointed toward Moscow, Bob Cassidy pulled the ejection handle.
26
Two mechanics driving a Ford pickup found Jiro Kimura in an area of scrub trees on the side of a hill ten miles from the air base. Jiro had broken his right leg during the ejection. When found, he was still attached to his parachute, which was draped over a small tree. After the mechanics got the Japanese pilot to the makeshift dispensary, Bob Cassidy went to see him. He just stood looking at him, trying to think of something to say. “I figured it was you flying that plane, Jiro.”
“And I knew it was you behind me.”
Cassidy didn’t know what to add. “The doc is going to set your leg. They’ll give you a sedative. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“You should have killed me, Bob.”
“Shizuko would have never forgiven me.”
Jiro didn’t say anything. “I would have never forgiven myself,” Bob Cassidy said to Jiro Kimura. Then he walked away. Cassidy sat down on a rock outside the building and ran his fingers through his hair. He could hear a television that someone had turned up loud. The satellite dish was in the lawn in front of Cassidy. President Hood was speaking. Cassidy could hear his voice. The sun was warm on his skin. He was sitting like that, half-listening to the television, imagining the faces of his dead pilots, when he realized Dick Guelich was squatting beside him. “Hoppy, I was thinking perhaps we should send the Cessna to look for survivors. The others who went with you this morning? Did anyone … “They’re dead.” His mouth was so dry, the words were almost impossible to understand. He cleared his throat and repeated them. “They’re dead.”
“Dixie?”
“Midair with a Zero,” Cassidy whispered. “In a dogfight. Didn’t see a chute.”
“Scheer and Smith?”
“Hit by missiles, I think. At those speeds …” He gestured to the east. “Send the Cessna. Let ‘em look.”
“I’m sorry, Colonel.”
“Get those other two airplanes up. Have the pilots go out at least a hundred miles. Make sure they are no more than twenty miles apart, so one can help the other if he’s jumped.”
“I’ve briefed them, sir.”
“When those planes from Germany land, fuel them and get them armed. Send the pilots to me for a brief. I don’t think the Japs will try it again but they might.”
“Yes, sir,” Guelich said, and he was gone. It felt good to sit. He had neither the energy nor desire to move. Poor Dixie. Now, there was a woman. The sun seemed to melt him, make him so tired that he couldn’t sit up. He
