They had briefed safety precaution endlessly, and certainly the range of his missile had not required him to move in so close to the civilian airliner.
What had he done? Professional suicide, or some deeper need to actually have a strong visual on the civilian aircraft he was about to destroy?
A new tone beat in the cockpit, and simultaneously a missile symbol flashed up on his heads-up display. AMRAAM — the new, long-range replacement for the Phoenix. A fire-and-forget weapon, one with an improved secret head.
He thought he could see figures inside the black canopy of the American airliner. There was a pale oval as the pilot turned to watch him, and Chan even imagined that he could see the man’s mouth open slightly as though in protest. Against the bulk of the airliner, the missile seemed minuscule, a mere sliver of metal that posed no threat to the complicated airframe it was tracking.
Chan knew better. And, he suspected, so did the airliner pilot.
For the merest second, the missile was a bright white lozenge against the side of the silvery body. Then it penetrated the fuselage and it was all over.
Captain Mitchell saw the white contrail crawl across the sky toward him and knew immediately what it meant. He jammed the yoke forward, putting the airliner into a steep dive. The airframe shuddered, protesting against G-forces it had not experienced since the days of its final acceptance trials. Loose gear in the cockpit slammed forward against the windows, virtually obliterating his view.
The needle on the altimeter unwound at a furious rate. Auto-alarms and indicators howled their warnings. The only thing silent in the cockpit was his copilot, who knew as well as Mitchell did just how close they were to dying.
They had no chance, absent divine intervention or serious mechanical malfunction in the missile. Even if it didn’t detonate, it would surely crack open the fuselage and spill both cargo and passengers into the thin air. Mitchell could see in Nevins’s pale face a full acknowledgement of that fact, and he saw Nevins’s lips moving silently as though in prayer. He hoped his copilot offered up one for him as well, and he hoped whatever God Nevins prayed to would understand just why Mitchell was a little too busy right now to ask for help himself.
Even with no possibility of survival, though, he had to try. Had to challenge the fate that was looming up in front of him, blocking out any possibility of a future. His wife, his children — they flashed through his mind for a split second, and then he concentrated on watching the altimeter and the alarms. If the wing nuts held, if he kept power and hydraulics for just a few seconds more —
He stamped down on the controls, throwing the airliner into a hard, breaking turn to the right. For just a moment, he thought he’d overdone it, and that she’d go into a wingover. But the control surfaces bit into the air and hauled her around in an impossibly tight turn. The debris that had crowded his windscreen now pelted Nevins.
Descending again, with no spare time to try to catch a glimpse of the missile headed their way. Heat- seeking? Would it find the jet exhaust or would it impact the fuselage? For some reason, it seemed important to know that.
As the ocean rushed up to meet them, Mitchell pulled up hard, manhandling the airliner out of both the turn and the dive simultaneously. Air speed peeled off at an alarming rate, and he caught the look from Nevins that warned him to avoid a stall. They were three thousand feet above the ocean, still descending as they waited for a miracle.
In the last few seconds, a strange peace swept over the captain. He looked up at the voice recorder microphone mounted high on the cabin and said, “I love my wife, my children, and my country. God bless us all.” Perhaps, he thought, the message would be of some small comfort to them in the days that would come.
Nevins started to speak, but too late, far too late. A sharp
SIX
Hot Rock stared in horror at the picture unfolding on his heads-up display. The MiG, the civilian airliner, the missile — a simple, uncluttered geometry, entirely too elegant to result in the death of almost four hundred civilian passengers.
He could see in the first instant that he was too late to stop it. Too far away, too out of position — even if he had wanted to drive his Tomcat into the path of the missile, take the hit to save innocent lives, he couldn’t have. The inexorable equation of time, speed and distance wouldn’t allow it.
Fury boiled in his veins. They were going to die, right there while he was watching, and there was nothing he could do about it except avenge their deaths.
“Lobo — you see that?” Hot Rock demanded, anger searing in his voice. “Come on, let’s go get the bastard!”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a little problem with doing that,” Lobo said acidly. “Like an island. Like a couple of Chinese ships probably loaded with surface-to-air missiles. Like the MiG himself, who’s bound to have some more buddies out here to play patty cake with. In case you haven’t checked recently, maybe I ought to let you know — it’s you and me, and that’s it.”
Just then, a black spot appeared on the horizon. It mushroomed immediately into a boiling cloud of orange, yellow, and black. Smoke billowed up as well, quickly obscuring the flames. It streamed out behind a central mass, evidence that even though the aircraft as such had ceased to exist, its shattered remains were still traveling south at about three hundred knots.
Hot Rock swore violently. This wasn’t a war. It was a massacre.
He yanked his Tomcat into a hard turn, heading directly for the MiG. Three miles of island lay below him, and he offered up a silent prayer for forgiveness, knowing that he was violating orders. But anyone would understand, under the circumstances — there was no doubt in his military mind.
Within seconds, he was feet dry, streaking over the island like a silver rocket. Over tactical, he heard the startled yelp from the
“Tomcat 207, this is the admiral. Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” an all-too-familiar voice demanded over tactical.
Hot Rock winced, then answered, “
“That’s not going to work, son,” the same voice continued calmly. “Anything you can think of pulling at this point I’ve already used in every part of the world you can think of. I know what you’re thinking, but you’re not being paid to think. You get your ass back to the carrier this instant, you hear? There’s nothing you can do about it now.”
The answer came quickly: “She’s going buster to catch up with us.”
Batman paced the small compartment that housed TFCC like a caged lion. “Get his squadron skipper up here — and I mean now!”
He turned and faced the carrier Air Wing Commander, who was just entering the compartment. In a glance, CAG took in the situation with the Tomcat.
