The situation with the terrorists, however, was anything but. The Royal Brunei Police Force now reported several disturbances and attacks throughout the kingdom; Mack told the liaison officer to call over to the headquarters and see if any of the units needed assistance.
“Already have. They’ve declined.”
“Call the regional offices, as well,” said Mack. “Let’s see if they have a different opinion.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Minister.”
The Brunei border ran parallel to his flight path about five miles off his left wing; it extended only about fifty miles south. Doing roughly four hundred knots, they would have to turn in six or seven minutes if they were going to stay over their part of the island.
“Sukhois are changing course, Mack,” said Deci.
“Where are they going?”
“Not clear at the moment. Heading …” Deci hesitated. “They’re coming west, picking up speed, uh, angling down a bit.”
The Sukhois had made a sharp left turn and started to descend from twenty thousand feet. The two Malaysian planes were now flying a course that would take them directly over the border. According to Deci, they hadn’t seen the Megafortress — they were not using their radars, a sign to Mack that they didn’t want to be detected. They had also selected their afterburners for a burst of speed as they dropped down closer to the mountain tops.
“Setting up for a bombing raid?” Mack asked Deci.
“Too soon to tell.”
“Get on with the liaison and have him send an alert.”
“Got it.”
Mack continued southward for another minute and a half, trying to visualize what the Malaysian jets were up to. They continued to descend, passing through seventeen thousand feet en route to sixteen; it wasn’t a rapid descent but by the same token they showed no sign of leveling off. They’d backed off the afterburners but were still moving very quickly, up around five hundred and fifty knots.
“There guerilla camps in that direction?” Mack asked. He meant the question for Deci but Jalan answered.
“There are guerillas along the mountain sides, yes, Minister, but on the south side, not north,” said the copilot.
“One thing I’d point out, this model Su-27 ordinarily wouldn’t be carrying air-to-ground weapons,” said Deci.
“Yeah,” said Mack. The early Su-27s were intended primarily as interceptors, but they did have some capability to drop bombs, and in any event might have been upgraded to do so. “You talk to ground?”
“Passed it along. Entire army is already on alert.”
“Minister, two helicopters approaching Brunei territory southwest of Labi,” said one of his operators. It was the first time the crewmen had called out a contact on their own.
“Good work,” said Mack. He clicked into McKenna’s frequency. “Yo, Dragon One, I got a job for you. Stand by for a brief.”
McKenna acknowledged the information about the helicopters and snapped onto the new course, her hand slapping the throttle to full military power. Her wingman, Captain Yayasan, acknowledged tersely when she called over to make sure he was following along.
“Pedal to the metal,” she told him. “Look sharp, eh?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The Bruneians didn’t particularly like taking orders from women, and McKenna could hear the resentment in her wing-man’s voice.
Have to kick his butt when we get down, she thought to herself.
“Make sure your cannon is ready and keep your head in the game,” she told Yayasan. Not expecting a response, McKenna leaned forward against her restraints, urging the A-37B to get a move on. At roughly one hundred miles away, it would take just under eight minutes for them to get there. By then it might be too late.
The Sukhois took another sharp turn to the northwest, now at five thousand feet over the Limbang River Valley. They were still over Malaysian territory.
“I think they’re aiming for one of the guerilla camps at the southwest side of the river,” said Deci.
“What do we have near there?” Mack asked.
“Police barracks on the other side of the border,” said Jalan.
Mack punched up the map on his left-hand display screen, studying the border area. He was just over three minutes away.
“Deci, can we jam the Sukhois?”
“Uh, you mean screw up their bombs with ECMs?”
“Exactly”
“No way. Unless it’s an air-to-ground missile working off a GPS system, and even then it’d have an internal backup.”
“Then I guess we’ll just have to get in their faces,” said Mack.
“Minister, are you sure they’re going to attack our barracks?” asked Jalan.
“Not at all,” said Mack. “But I don’t intend on giving them the chance”
He reached to the throttle slide at the side of his seat, coaxing more power from the EB-52’s four engines.
“It’s going to get a bit twisty at the end:’ he told his crew. ‘The pilot has put on the no-smoking sign. Please fasten your seatbelts. Remember to keep your hands inside the car at all times.”
He pitched the plane onto her wing, sliding down in a three-dimensional pirouette as he got the Megafortress’s nose turned toward the border post. The EB-52 growled at him as the G-forces shot up exponentially, but it complied nonetheless, speed increasing as he dove down toward the border. The copilot began reading off the altitude as the altimeter ladder revolved downward. Meanwhile, the Sukhois had not altered course.
“Try getting them on the radio,” Mack told Jalan. “Tell them they better not go over the border.”
Jalan broadcast on the Malaysian air-force frequencies, but got no response.
“They’re sixty seconds from the border,” said Deci.
“There they are!” said Jalan. His voice lost its professional calm and he jerked his hand toward the windscreen, pointing out the window toward the two airplanes, black blurs in the lower left-hand quadrant of the glass. “Motherfuckers.”
It was the first curse — in English at least — Mack had heard from a member of his crew.
“You’re starting to get the hang of this piloting thing, Jalan,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”
“Computer’s optical system confirms they’re carrying bombs beneath their wings,” said Deci. “Something in the 250-pound range”
Mack held to his course to the last possible second, then pulled sharply on the stick, sending the EB-52 into a controlled skid across the sky in front of the two Sukhois.
“Where are we? Our territory or theirs?” he said as gravity slapped his head and chest back against the ejection seat.
“Ours!” managed Jalan.
“Stinger:’ Mack told the computer. “Track one.”
“Target tracked. Target locked,” replied the computer. A bracket had appeared on his HUD, boxing the lead Sukhoi.
“Fire.”
Six airmines flashed from the rear of the Megafortress. The airmines were essentially unaimed canisters of metal shards which exploded behind the rear of the Megafortress, producing a cloud of engine-killing shrapnel. The Malaysian jets, belatedly realizing they were in trouble, dove violently away, then escaped to the north. The computer recorded a minor hit on its target, but not enough to take it down.
“They dropped their bombs in the jungle:’ said Deci. “They definitely missed the border post — they may have landed on in their side of the border.”
“Great,’ said Mack, wrestling his wings level and preparing for the inevitable counterattack. “ECMs. Full suite — play every song in the jukebox.”
The Sukhois’ weapons radars tried desperately to poke through the electronic fuzz kicked out by the Megafortress’s countermeasures. The radar warning detector indicated that the planes were carrying R-27Rs, known to NATO as AA-I0 Alamo-As. These were radar-guided anti-air missiles, efficient killers but easily confused by the Megafortress. One of the Malaysian pilots fired anyway; the ECMs blew out its brain circuitry and sent it sailing off to the west.