Woods pushed the throttles forward slightly as the Tomcats fell behind the F-15s and F-16s. “They’re accelerating ahead. What’s the speed of the MiGs?”
“About five hundred fifty to six hundred knots.”
“We’ll push it up a little.”
“Say hello to Lebanon. We’re in their airspace now.”
Woods looked around and down at the ground, still only five hundred feet below. “Looks the same to me.”
“May look the same, but if we get shot down, it won’t be the same, I promise you that.”
“Don’t even think that,” Woods replied. Unconsciously, their voices had moved up in pitch.
They followed the Israelis deeper into Lebanon. No turning back now, Woods thought.
“005, for ten miles for the first of them, the rest are east and north from there, angels — they’re all over the place, all above us! The E-2 is showing about thirty bogeys! I have no idea how many targets are real,” Wink said.
“I see some specks, but nothing clear,” Woods said, half in frustration, half in anticipation.
“Five miles. Here we go,” Wink said, watching the F-15s ahead of them begin a climb. The Tomcats started uphill right behind them, going to military power to accelerate in the climb. They saw no sign that the Syrians knew they were there. They passed through five thousand feet on their way to ten.
“Check our six,” Woods said.
Wink grabbed the handle in front of him on top of his radar panel, and forcibly turned around so he could see between the tails. “Nothing,” he grunted. “Belly check,” he added.
Woods rolled the airplane into a knife edge so they could see directly underneath them to the ground, to make sure no MiGs were doing to them what they were doing to the MiGs — sneaking up on them from below. He rolled back level and saw Big do the same thing. He checked behind Big to make sure there weren’t any bogeys following him. All clear.
Suddenly Wink remembered. “Fox two, Tiger. Set up another one,” he said.
“Roger, 211. New heading, 005, 207, head 175.”
“211, Roger.”
“207, Roger.”
Woods scanned the sky around him again, quickly. Suddenly it was full of white smoke as the Israeli fighters shot their AIM-9M heat-seeking Sidewinders at the Syrian MiGs head-on. Dozens of missiles streaked toward the bogeys, flying toward the targets on the corkscrew paths, which gave them their name.
“Geez, Trey! You see that?” Wink shouted.
“Fight’s on!” Woods replied calmly, tightening his lap belt.
The Sidewinders tore toward their targets. Some of the MiGs saw them as soon as they were fired, others only after the missiles hit their wingmen. Two on the left pulled up in an emergency break and dropped burning magnesium flares to avoid being hit. But the heat-seeking Sidewinders were hungry missiles, especially looking up, away from the ground, at a target streaking through the sky riding a hot jet engine.
The missiles smashed into the MiGs across the sky as far as Woods could see. MiGs exploded all around and fell out of the heavens. F-15s and -16s climbed through the disintegrating MiG formations. As the Sidewinders raced in all directions, the lead F-15s broke through the first group of MiGs and went after the others. The MiGs panicked. They watched as their wingmen dropped from the sky like clay pigeons, missiles exploding in their bellies. Chermak was the first to fire a second missile. Woods watched in fascination as the supersonic missile flew off the F-15’s underwing rail and silently hurled itself at a MiG-23 two miles ahead. The missile hit the MiG in the chest, right in front of a drop tank full of fuel. It absorbed the blow like a wounded animal and immediately lost speed, rolling over and heading for the ground ten thousand feet below, upside down, flames licking skyward.
“I’ve got MiGs to the right and left,” Wink said excitedly, straining to see behind the Tomcat.
“I’ve got Israeli fighters everywhere,” Woods said, looking carefully at the melee all around them. He checked to make sure he had Sidewinder selected and went to full power.
“There goes the Major. He’s made the turn to the target!” Woods exclaimed as Chermak and three other F-15s peeled off and headed east. Woods and Big fell in behind them, slightly higher, in a position of cover and fighter escort. “How far is it to that town?”
Wink looked at the chart and at their position listed as latitude and longitude in a continuous readout on his PTID. “Thirty miles.”
“No sweat. As long as a bunch of MiGs don’t close in behind us and cut us off, we’ll be okay.”
“The F-15s are heading down. I think they’re doing a pop-up delivery.”
“Where do they want us?” Wink asked, growing anxious. “They must be trying to stay low on the radar. If we stay high we’ll give them away!”
Woods looked around. “Let’s take a low trail position on them,” he said as he pushed the Tomcat over and followed the F-15s downhill. Before he knew it they were tearing across eastern Lebanon at five hundred fifty knots toward a town he had never heard of forty-eight hours before. The F-15s were flying in two sections of two, in a welded wing formation — Chermak was in the lead, the wingman right on the his wing.
Woods watched Lebanon streak by under their jet as they followed the Israeli fighters to their target. Every few miles they would see AAA, antiaircraft artillery that tried to reach the strike group. It was always poorly aimed or too far away to do any damage. They weren’t heading toward a predictable target. All the known targets were protected by SAMs or AAA. But Dar al Ahmar? There wasn’t anything there. No reason to be surrounded by a multimillion-dollar defense — except today, when the new scourge of the Middle East was there.
“Bogeys!” Wink shouted. “Eleven o’clock high!”
Woods headed up and to the left to meet the MiGs head on. Big moved at the same time, still flying in combat spread, one mile to Woods’s right and a little higher. The two Israeli F-15s flying behind Chermak and his wingman left the low-flying strike group and went after the MiGs with Woods and Big behind them.
Tiger, sitting on the Washington, interrupted with instructions for the fantasy intercept, “211 come south to 195, your bogey 193 for 40 miles, angels unknown.”
“Roger, 211, south.”
“Shit,” Wink said. “I wish we didn’t have to keep talking to him. Come port harder, Trey,” he said, trying to run the intercept off the E-2C data link symbols.
“207 as the bogey, come north to 014.”
“207, Roger,” Sedge replied to Tiger, feeling the same frustration and mounting adrenaline party that Wink was experiencing.
“Hard port!” Wink said suddenly. “Bogey, left ten o’clock, slightly high, descending left turn. There are two coming toward us, and two more after the F-15s!”
Woods threw the stick to the left and rolled the F-14 on its side. He pulled the nose of the airplane toward the MiG-23 Flogger. He sucked the pure oxygen out of the rubber mask as his body readied for the G forces it knew were coming. He checked their speed. Four hundred fifty knots. The MiG still didn’t see him. He pulled 7 Gs to get the nose of the F-14 onto the MiG three miles away.
“Break right!” Big yelled over the front cockpit radio.
Woods immediately slammed the stick in the opposite direction and came back to the right. He saw the MiG-23 Big had seen. It was accelerating toward them. Suddenly a large missile flew off the MiG and headed their way. Woods turned into the missile, rolling the F-14 over on its back. He pulled toward the ground, hoping the missile would lose them in the ground clutter, praying it was a radar-guided missile.