an appalling rate.
“Could they be in the hangars?”
“It’s possible, I guess,” Watson said, his voice dubious.
Jake cursed to himself and swung his F-14 to the south. He leveled the wings and pushed the throttles full forward as he trimmed the stick aft. “Joe, climb to about five thousand and orbit the field as long as you can. If anybody gets nervous and tries to drive off in a van or semi, or if they open a hangar and you see a big plane parked in there, shoot it up. Understand?”
“Roger.”
“Watch your gas and get back to the ship. Keep your eyes peeled. Belenko, I want you to go down to Cape Passero, on the southeastern tip of the island south of Syracuse, and orbit overhead at forty grand. Wait for me there.”
“Red Ace Two roger.”
“Shotgun roger.”
“Good luck, Joe,” Jake said.
The mike clicked twice.
As they knifed upward through 30,000 feet headed southeast with the unfiltered sunlight filling the cockpit Toad murmured over the intercom. “Qazi got away, CAG, and you know it.”
He did know it. Qazi had two nuclear weapons that belonged to the United States Navy and he was gone. Gone where? Tripoli or Benghazi or somewhere else? If he was on his way to Africa, he was talking to Air Traffic Control. Jake began frantically flipping through the bundles of cards on his kneeboard, looking for the Air Traffic Control sector and frequency list. Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner?
He selected the frequency for the southeastern coast of Sicily and, after turning off the scrambler, dialed it in on the radio. His radio was UHF, and a transport, even a military one, would be using VHF. But the controllers normally transmitted on both VHF and UHF. Jake leveled at 40,000 feet. The throttles were in high cruise and he was clipping along at.86 Mach.
“See anything?” he growled at Toad.
“No, sir. Empty sky.”
How about that frigate that went through the Strait of Messina last night? It was supposed to be off the east coast of Sicily now. Jake looked up the frequency on another kneeboard card and dialed it into the second radio. He gave them a call and got an answer. They assigned a discrete IFF code, and he squawked it. He wondered how much help he would get if Vice-Admiral Lewis was talking to them. He had to use his real call sign because the frigate could read the classified IFF code, which was specific to this aircraft. Here goes nothing. “Buckshot, we’re running a little intercept exercise this morning and I wonder if you’ve observed any traffic out of Palermo in the last several hours headed south or southeast, over.”
“Wait one.”
Mount Etna was off to his left, spectacular with the sun on its flank. Normally Jake Grafton would try to make a mental note of every detail to include in his next letter to Callie, but this morning he glanced at the mountain, then ignored it.
“Red Ace, Buckshot. We can’t see quite that far, but we had a North African Airways flight cross the coast southbound from Palermo about fifteen minutes ago, speed about three five zero. And we had a TWA flight cross Catania eastbound six minutes ago. He’s about fifty miles east, apparently on course for Athens. Then there was a Red Cross transport eastbound past Syracuse twenty minutes ago.”
“Any destinations?”
“Not specifically, but the controller asked the North African Airways flight if their trip was going to become a regular one. I gathered it was some kind of a one-time deal.”
“Thanks for your help, Buckshot.”
“For further assistance, give a shout. Buckshot, out.”
“Just what the world needs, another clown,” Toad grumped on the ICS.
With another anxious glance at the fuel readout, Jake shoved the throttles into afterburner. If Qazi was up ahead, he was going to have to catch him. He flipped the switches on the radio panel so he could monitor the Air Traffic Control frequency. Static! Someone was transmitting! He turned down the squelch and heard words in English, but they were too garbled to understand. Then the transmission ceased. Okay! Someone was on this frequency this morning. It could be anyone, but maybe, just maybe …
“North African Airways Three Zero Six, you are departing Italian airspace. You are cleared to leave this frequency. Good day, sir.”
“I may have ’em, CAG,” Toad said. “Right on the edge of the scope, heading south. We’re following them. They’re headed for Africa all right. Tripoli if they hold this heading.”
Jake nudged the throttles deeper into afterburner. The Mach meter indicated 1.5. He could go faster, but he was using fuel at a prodigious rate.
“He’s below us, about twenty-five thousand feet or so, making three hundred fifty knots, the computer says. No, about three hundred sixty knots. Pretty slow for a jet.” They crossed the coast of Sicily and headed out to sea. Malta was off to the left there, someplace.
At forty miles Jake pulled the throttles back slightly and lowered the nose. Toad turned on the Television Camera System and Jake punched up the picture on his Horizontal Situation Display. “Looks like a C-130 Hercules to me,” Toad said. “Same high wing. Right speed for a turboprop.”
“There aren’t any Hercs going to Africa this morning,” Jake said as he studied the picture. The image was still so small and it shimmered as the light was diffused by the atmosphere.
“Maybe an An-12 Cub? Didn’t the Russians sell those things all over North Africa?”
“Yeah.”
“What’re you going to do?” Toad asked.
“Rendezvous so you can give the pilots the Hawaiian good luck sign.”
“Well, we can’t just shoot ’em down,” Toad said acidly. “We can’t just blast ’em out of the sky.”
At ten miles Toad said, “Looks like this guy has a gun turret or something in the tail. That’s no Herc.” It’s no airliner, either, Jake thought as he looked through the heads-up display and picked out the speck in the sky near the symbol that was the transport.
He came out of burner and let his speed drop as he approached the turboprop from the stern. There was a man in the gun turret, but the twin barrels remained pointed upward as the fighter rapidly traversed the last mile and Jake pulled the engines toward idle and cracked the speed brakes to kill his speed.
He slid up on the right side of the transport. A four-engine turboprop. An Antonov An-12 Cub, all right, with a glass chin for the navigator to peer out of. The Americans hadn’t put a chin like that on a plane in forty years. This plane was painted in desert camouflage but lacked markings of any kind. That’s curious, Jake thought. Not even a side number.
He let the fighter drift forward so he could see directly into the transport’s cockpit. Both pilots were looking this way. He used his left hand to signal a turn to the left. Nothing. They just stared. Jake flipped the switches on the armament panel and triggered a short burst from the Vulcan 20-millimeter cannon mounted in the port side of the F-14’s forward fuselage. He could feel the weapon’s vibration as the tracers shot forward and disappeared from sight.
The Cub continued on its heading. Jake signaled vigorously for a left turn. Nothing. “They’re a thick bunch,” Toad muttered.
Jake triggered another burst. Still the plane continued on course. “What if the weapons aren’t in there?” Toad demanded.
“What do you want me to do? Let him go to Africa and drop the bomb next week on New York?” Jake reduced power and let the transport pull ahead. Maybe a few rounds right over the wing would change this guy’s mind.
He glanced left just in time. The twin barrels in the tail turret were swinging this way. He rammed the stick forward and orange fireballs flew across the top of the canopy. The negative G slung the two men upward as far as the slack in their harness restraints allowed. Jake dove under the transport and added power and kept the nose down.
“What do you want to do now, Tarkington, you goddamn flea on the elephant’s ass. Got any ideas?” When Jake was several miles ahead of the Cub, he began a turn. “How many people have to die before you’re willing to
