juicing the throttle too much might send him flying in front of the Iranian. Finally, as the indicator on the Sidewinder growled at him to fire already, he realized he had the MiG nailed and goosed the Sidewinder into the air.
The Iranian tried jinking right, but the American air-to-air missile was nearly in his tailpipe when he started to turn. The explosion ripped the backbone out of the plane; the enemy pilot did well to bail out and escape the fireball.
“We have two more planes to get by,” Salerno told his wingman. “Hang with me.
“Two,” acknowledged Klein. He felt his heart pounding in his throat and tried to force the elation of his first kill away — they were a long way from home, with a gauntlet yet to run.
Salerno checked his fuel matrix once more. If they drove straight on through to the tanker, they’d get there with perhaps five minutes of airtime to spare — more than a little close for comfort. But flying on a direct path to the tanker meant flying right through the two Iranian MiGs, which were just turning to meet them about fifty miles ahead.
“Let’s take it to them,” Salerno told his wingman. “I’m going to ask the tanker to come south.”
“Roger that,” acknowledged Klein, his voice an octave higher than normal.
3
Van Buren trotted off the ramp of the MC-130, an A-4 carbine under his arm. A captain in charge of the initial assault team was waiting for him a short distance away, ready to lay out the situation.
“Talk to me,” yelled Van Buren as soon as he saw the officer. “Some sort of fabrication facility there,” said the captain, jerking his hand back toward the mountain. “Plane must’ve been in there. We have the two buildings on the north side of the base. Guerrillas in the southern one, holed up at the far end. First building is empty; we’re checking it out now. Looks like trace radiation only. Defensive position on the south was taken out by the Stealth fighters; same with the other SAM site at the north. We think there are a couple of people in the hills farther out,” he added, gesturing in the direction of the base’s external guard posts. “At the moment, we have the road secured, and we’re gathering prisoners. There’s one area I want you to see.”
“Conners and Ferguson,” said Van Buren. “You find them?”
“No, but that has to do with what I want to show you,” said the captain. “Prisoner of theirs, I think.”
The SF troops had brought two small ATV-like vehicles in the Hercules to use as utility rovers and help with transporting captured material. One of the trucks — usually called a “Gator” — was just coming down the ramp of the aircraft. Van Buren commandeered it and rode with the captain toward the perimeter area where Conners and Ferguson had infiltrated. The fence had been flattened by the paratroopers, and the entire area, now secure, was lit by a searchlight confiscated from the Chechens. Several bodies were up in the rocks, mangled by large, bloody wounds. One of the men was handcuffed to a large piece of metal in the ravine.
“The manacle on their hands, I think it’s a Russian manacle,” said the captain. “That’s one of our plastic jobs, holding him to the girder there.”
“He must be their informer,” said Van Buren. “The guerrillas must have ambushed them here.”
“Captain!” shouted one of the troopers. Van Buren turned and walked toward the soldier, who was trotting from the area of the runway. “Sat telephone, sir. Found it back over there by the runway.”
Van Buren picked up the phone and slid open the antenna.
“They might have gotten away,” said the captain. “Could be anywhere in those hills. Or they could be with the guerrillas in that other building.”
Van Buren nodded. Knowing Ferguson, he was sitting back in the Hercules, smirking while Van and his men searched the area.
God, he hoped that was the case.
“Let’s secure the building and find out,” said Van Buren, closing the antenna on the phone and heading back for the Gator.
4
The two American F-15s thundered over the mountains, nearly nose-on for the two MiGs and closing at a rate of roughly twenty-five miles a minute, which gave Jenkins about thirty seconds to decide on a strategy.
The encyclopedic brief Jenkins had received before his mission had covered Iranian aircraft capabilities and declared that the MiGs would most likely be equipped with heat-seeking Russian-made R-73 missiles, known in the West as “AA-11 Archer.” These were potent weapons, and in theory they could be fired from any aspect in a dogfight. As a practical matter, however, the Iranians would probably choose between one of two strategies — either breaking and turning as the F-15s came close, spinning and trying to gain momentum for a close-quarters attack from the rear; or taking head-on shots as the Americans drove by.
The MiGs were roughly three thousand feet below them and had to anticipate an attack as well as line up their own. The Iranians couldn’t carry a lot of fuel, which was likely to limit their ability to pursue at high speed. They would have to play for a single shot and make the most of it.
Though flying superior planes with better weapons systems, the Americans had one disadvantage — they were very low on fuel. Their powerful radars and easily detected airfoils left no doubt about where they were. And by the time they reached firing range for the AMRAAMS, the enemy fighters would also be able to attack.
“I have the one on the right,” Jenkins told his wingman. “If they break, just fire your AMRAAM and go on through — we don’t have the fuel to fuck with them.”
“Two.”
Technically, Jenkins’s ROE or rules of engagement allowed him to fire only if directly threatened; that clearly covered the first engagement, where he had been tracked by hostile fire-control radar. He might be open to second-guessing, as neither MiG had yet made an unambiguous move to shoot him down. But there was no way — no way in the world — that he was going to allow himself to be a sitting duck, much less paraded through the streets of Tehran as an American imperialist.
As the planes closed to within forty miles of each other, the Eagle’s RWR blared. The two MiGs were carrying radar-guided R-77 series missiles, supported by an upgraded radar; known to NATA as the AA-10 Adder, the Russian-made air-to-air weapon was roughly the equivalent of an American AMRAAM — a little surprise for the intelligence folks back home, who had claimed the Iranians didn’t possess such missiles.
Jenkins took it in stride. The next few seconds passed like a rap riff — the lead MiG launched two missiles; the other began to cut right; Klein fired an AMRAAM, then another; Jenkins fired his; the radio went crazy with static; Jenkins watched his MiG tack downward into a turn, trying to get behind him; Jenkins’s RWR whined; Jenkins dished chaff and flares but held to his course; the AWACS operator belatedly warned that they were being targeted; Jenkins leaned on the throttle for half a second; something exploded in the far corner of his canopy behind him; the air in his face mask suddenly felt heavy, reminding him of a summer afternoon before a storm.
And then they were past the MiGs, Klein yelling that there were missiles in the air, Jenkins calmly unleashing the last of his decoy flares. Something exploded behind him; he heard a light pop, the sort of sound a cap gun might make. His plane stayed true, the emergency lights off.
The AWACS controller scored two more MiGs down.
Not a good day for the enemy. Just a routine ho-hummer for the U.S. Air Force.
Even before he realized he hadn’t been hit, Jenkins worried about his wingman. He clicked the mike button twice, fear suddenly overwhelming him.
“Patsy?” he asked, feeling his voice starting to edge toward a tremble.
“I’m here. You?”
“Looks like it.”
“I fired a second missile,” said the wingman. “I got all juiced up and fired without even a lock. Shit.”
