altitude of which the Firefox was reputedly capable was in excess of 120,000 feet — more than twenty-five miles high. Gant intended to use as much of that staggering height as he could. It was unlikely, he knew, that he would be able to avoid infra-red detection, even at that height. However, moving as fast as the aircraft was capable, in a vast leap over the Barents Sea, it would be impossible for any interception to take place. A little before he crossed the coast, he would descend to sea level, and begin his complicated, top-speed dash across Finland to the Gulf of Bothnia, and Stockholm.
There was no aircraft that could touch him, no missile that could home on him, at that height, that speed. He smiled to himself as the altimeter indicated 50,000 feet and still climbing. Now, he thought, now he could put the Firefox through its paces, really
There was a fierce, cold joy in him, his closest approximation to an ecstatic emotion. There was nothing to compare, he knew, not with this.
He had read the army psychiatrist's report in Saigon — he had broken into the records office, late at night. An emotional cripple, that's what they had called him, though not in those words — an emotional cripple scarred for life by his early experiences. That Clarkville crap that he had fed the head-shrinker, he'd based his judgement on that, his judgement of a man who had flown more than fifty combat missions, who was the best, the judgement of a fat-assed head-shrinker hundreds of miles from the nearest 'Cong soldier, or missile-launcher.
He calmed the adrenalin that was beginning to course through his system. There was no point, he told himself, no point at all. He was the best. Buckholz knew it, knew it when he picked him. The Firefox climbed through 60,000 feet.
There was no thought for Upenskoy, for Baranovich, and Kreshin, and Semelovsky, and all the others. Since he had left Bilyarsk, they had dropped from his mind, gone more completely than faded, sepia photographs of the dead on wall and mantel.
Tretsov saw him punching through 60,000 feet, the vapour-trail ahead and below him was clear against the grey sea across a gap in the cloud. He knew it was Gant. There was infra-red, but no radar image on his screen. It had to be the stolen Mig-31.
Tretsov's mind worked like surgical steel. He knew what he had to do. He knew Gant's file, knew his experience in combat. His own combat experience, in the old Mig-21, was limited to engagements with Israeli Phantoms in the Middle East as a very young pilot seconded to the Egyptian Air Force, one of a select few reinforcing the inedequate pilots the Red Air Force had trained. Gant was better than he was…
On paper.
Gant had flown the Mig-31 for perhaps five hours — less. Tretsov had flown the aircraft for upwards of two hundred hours. Gant wanted to complete his mission. Tretsov had Voskov to avenge. And fear — always, the fear. He would kill Gant. He had to.
He had to get into the tail-cone of the other Mig, so that the missiles would have the best chance of homing on the heat-source of the huge engines — and because Gant's infra-red would only pick him up when it was too late to do anything about it. At that moment, watching the Mig still climbing steadily, he knew that Gant was not aware of him, that crossing his path and being on Gant's starboard flank, the infra-red's blind spot hid him temporarily. He would have to slot in swiftly behind the American, and then…
The Mig moved above him now, through his own cruising height of 70,000 feet, still climbing. He changed course, still holding a visual sighting on the contrail, confirming the information of his screen. He eased the Firefox PP 2 in behind the American until the bright orange blip on the screen was directly ahead of him, along the central ranging bar. The thought-guided weapons system launched two of the Anab missiles and he watched them slide up the ranging bars, homing on the brighter blip of the American's heat-source.
The ECM equipment bleeped horrendously in Gant's earphones, tearing at his memory. He saw the two missiles, sliding up the ranging bars towards him. Impossible, but there… The mind deliberated, refused to comprehend, sought the source of the heat-seeking missiles — even as the body responded, seized the electronic means of survival, reaching back into old patterns and grabbing at an old technique.
There was one, he knew, of avoiding infra-red missiles — only one chance. It had been used by Israeli pilots in the Six-Day War, and by Americans in Vietnam. If he could change direction with sufficient suddenness, then the heat-source from his engines would be lost to the tracking sensors in the nose of the missiles and they would be unable to maintain or regain contact with the Firefox.
He chopped the throttles, pulled the stick back and over into a zoom climb, seeking to bend the plane's course at an acute angle to his former course, removing the heat-source of his engines from the sensors of the closing missiles. He rolled the aircraft to the right at the same time, and allowed the nose to drop, following a curve which brought him under the line of the missile's path. His vision tunnelled with the G-effect. He stared at the G- meter, and saw that he was pulling plus 8-G. If his vision narrowed any more, he knew it would be the direct precursor of a black-out. Ten G, and he would black out for certain, and the plane could go out of control. All his vision now showed him was the ominous G-meter, the pressure suit a distant sensation as it clamped on his legs and stomach. He cursed the fact of finding himself with a lower G-tolerance at that critical moment in time.
The missiles, suddenly and violently altered in position on the screen, slid past him on their original course, past the point in space and time of expected impact. They had lost the scent and would continue, vainly, until their fuel ran out and they dropped into the sea.
He eased back on the stick, and his vision opened, like blinds being drawn in a room. His speed was beginning to fall off, and he found himself sweating desperately. He had almost been taken; like an inexperienced boy. There was nothing on the screen. Tretsov, though Gant did not know it, was still directly behind him and in the blind spot of the infra-red detection. A sense of panic mounted in him. He had to find the enemy visually, or not at all. He was blind, a blind man in the same room as a psychopath. The cold fear trickled down his body, inside the pressure-suit. He suspected the nature of the enemy, but would not admit it yet.
The pilot of the other plane — aircraft it had to be had obviously climbed to follow him, angry no doubt at his failure to press home the surprise, make the quick kill.
In the rear-view mirror, Gant caught a glint of sun-light off a metal surface. Still nothing on the radar. Now he knew for certain. Baranovich and Semelovsky had not immobilised the second Firefox by means of the hangar fire. Somehow, whatever damage that had been done had been repaired, and they had sent it after him.
Now he felt very cold. The rivulets of sweat beneath his arms chilled his sides, his waist. Beneath the pressure-suit, he could sense the clammy coldness of his vest. The other plane was the equal of his, the mirror- image — and the pilot was vastly more experienced…
The mind proceeded, its infection of imagination unabated, raging in his system while the body calculated that if they continued on their climb turn, the Russian would intercept him. The eyes picked up the glint of light again in the mirror, the hands pushed open the throttles savagely, and the body was comforted by the release of energy from the huge turbines. The body was pressed back into the couch.
The body stopped the climb and pulled the Firefox even more sharply to the left. The Russian kept with him, coming inside him to the left, closing the range. Gant pulled even tighter to the left, then straightened out with a suddenness that caused the inertia of the head to bang the helmet against the cockpit. His hand operated the lever, and the couch dropped into its 'battle position', flattening the body almost to the horizontal.
In the mirror, the Russian stayed with him, and the body was only able to hold off the hunter behind from an optimum firing position which the Russian pilot would now be seeking, now that he had wasted two of his four missiles. He might even be closing for a cannon burst, to cripple and slow his quarry.
The man was good, the mind admitted, overheating with its own fever. It was unable to free itself from past and future, the moments before, the moments to come. He had been taken — whatever he did, the Russian would stay with him, behind him, closing the range.
The body registered the appearance of the second Firefox on the screen as an orange blip. It was old information, useless to the body. He already knew what plane it was tucked behind him.
The body tried another strategem, because the Russian's plane was coming into the 'up-sun' position. Gant flicked the aircraft to the left, then continued into a barrel-roll. At the same time, he saw in the mirror the series of ragged puffs of mist from the wings of the Russian plane, the burst of cannon fire they signified. Orange globules drifted with apparent slowness towards him, accelerating as under a great depth of water to overtake him. Tretsov had fired because he, too, was on edge, anxious to end the developing drama, make the fictitious quick kill. The