In heading toward Woods the MiG-23 had turned right in front of Big. Big pulled gently left and put his pipper on the MiG. He listened for the growl of the Sidewinder, then heard it, louder and louder as the seeker head on the missile acquired the heat signal from the MiG. The MiG made it easy by staying in afterburner as he went after Woods.
Big squeezed the trigger on the stick and the Sidewinder flew off the wing rail toward the MiG. It was there in seconds. It hit the Flogger in the tail. The exploding warhead cut the tail off and the MiG fell toward the ground. Big looked away quickly for other bogeys, and didn’t see the MiG pilot eject from the wreckage.
The missile streaking toward Woods pitched over and headed for the earth.
Woods rolled his wings level and checked around. There were no airplanes in front of them or to their right. “Where is everybody?” he asked Wink.
“211, your bogey is 190 for 39, angels 17.”
“Judy,” Wink transmitted quickly. Damn it. “They’re all behind us. We’ve flown through most of the fight,” he said, holding his hand up to block the sun on his screen. “About three miles behind us.”
Woods started a hard right turn, and Big, reading his mind, started his own left-hand turn; they passed each other close aboard to clear the other’s tail, and headed back in the other direction.
“I wish we could turn our radar on,” Woods said, squinting through the windscreen.
“No way,” Wink replied. “This E-2 picture is good enough.”
“I sure hope these Israelis don’t mistake us for a MiG-23. We both have wings that sweep.”
“That would be bad,” Wink agreed. “Fox, two, set up another one.”
“Roger, 211. Head north as the bogey, 207, south as the fighter.”
“207.”
“211.”
“This is incredible,” Woods said as they headed southeast toward the F-15 fight that was continuing. There were missile contrails and smoke everywhere, white ribbons that cut across the sky in every direction. “Tallyho!” he cried. “Wink, I’ve got at least six bogeys. We’re way outnumbered.”
“Let’s get back into position behind the Eagles,” Wink said, looking for the F-15s that were to drop on the Sheikh.
“Roger that. I’ve lost them,” Woods said, scanning the blue sky to his east. He jammed the stick left and right, checking for bogeys anxiously, not feeling at all comfortable about the way this was going.
“MiGs!” Wink yelled. “Left nine o’clock low. Come port hard!”
“No! The fight is to our right! We’ve got to support Chermak.” Woods jerked the F-14 into a hard right turn and followed Chermak, who was now pulling up from the arid desert floor into his pop-up maneuver. Woods looked past the F-15 and saw the town. The F-15s formed up into a nearly vertical position as the one-thousand-pound laser-guided bombs came off gently heading up, away from the ground in a graceful arc. The F-15s continued up as the bombs flew off in their lobbed trajectory toward the building in Dar al Ahmar that was being lased by two separate F-15 laser designators simultaneously.
Woods watched the bombs fly with fascination. “That Sheikh will never know what hit him.”
22
Ricketts was startled when a man he didn’t recognize ran into the shop with a frenzied look on his face yelling something incomprehensible. “What?” Ricketts asked in Arabic.
“Big plane battle near. They’re heading this way! Come and see!”
The shop owner looked at Ricketts as if to ask whether they should go outside.
“We’ve got to stay here,” Ricketts said gravely, annoyed that the shopkeeper would even consider leaving the shop at this critical point in the operation. He stared at the owner, who understood and tried to find something to keep him busy until the Sheikh showed up. Any minute now.
Chermak’s one-thousand-pound laser-guided bomb slammed into the Honda trailer Ricketts had driven so carefully to the right spot. The explosion, like a huge car bomb, detonated the C4 explosives that lined the inside of the van. Ricketts had set the van up to create the much needed diversion while he and the Sheikh disappeared into another section of buildings. His group was waiting to secret them out of Dar al Ahmar in a highly detailed and rather brilliant plan, at least Ricketts thought so. The guards and supporters of the Sheikh would be left to sort through the rubble and confusion for days after the Sheikh was out of the country and on his way to justice. As it turned out, Ricketts only had three-one-thousandths of a second to realize that his van had exploded at exactly the wrong time. The second American-made laser-guided bomb landed directly on the roof of the single-story building and penetrated right to the floor between Ricketts and the owner of the shop before exploding with all its force.
“Yes!” Woods said into his mask as he saw the explosions in Dar al Ahmar some six miles away. He couldn’t judge how close to each other they’d really hit but what he could tell was that they were close to each other in time and proximity. Which meant they had gotten their target. It would be unlikely in the extreme for both to miss in the same direction at the same time. “They got him!” Woods said to Wink, fighting the urge to do a victory roll.
“Yeah, well, they’re going to get us in about a minute if we’re not careful. Syria has come in force, and we can’t even talk to the airplanes around us. Stay off the radio, the Major said. Fine, right. But we don’t know what the hell is going on!”
“Relax. We’ve just got to get back to Israel.”
“We’ve got to get back to the damned boat, Trey! We’re due to land in forty-five minutes and we’re two countries away in the middle of the biggest fur ball I’ve ever seen!”
“We’re heading south.” Woods took in the sky around them in amazement. There were at least twenty planes, MiGs, F-15s, and F-16s, turning toward each other. Some were in afterburner, others not, some trying to escape, others trying to pursue. He didn’t see any MiGs on the tail of any Israeli, but there were plenty of MiGs in deep trouble from the fighters with the blue Star of David on their sides.
“We’ve got to help out,” Woods said as he moved sharply to the right to head toward the fight. Approaching, he could see another cluster of planes to the west, and another farther south. He selected Sidewinder on his stick.
Wink changed the display on his screen to show their plane in the center. The symbols showed planes, friendly and hostile, to the east, behind them. Wink turned to look, but couldn’t make any of them out.
Without any warning an F-15 shot up in front of them from below, with a MiG-23 following it a mile behind. Woods was sure the Eagle pilot didn’t know the MiG was behind him. He looked to his right at Big, went to military power, and pulled straight up to follow the MiG after the F-15. They were much slower than he was and he gained on the MiG quickly. His airspeed started to bleed off. He went into afterburner and pulled his nose up to the MiG, flying straight up away from the earth. He heard the hungry growl of the Sidewinder missile and pulled the trigger. He felt a slight shudder and listened to the characteristic whoosh as the missile raced off the rail and headed for the tailpipe of the Flogger. Woods’s heart pounded, as he watched the first missile he had ever fired at an airplane fly toward it with mindless dedication. Unknowing, uncaring, unmerciful, wanting only heat, and more heat. The hotter, the more intense, the more concentrated, the better.