passed twenty feet below the MiG. The small trainer almost rolled inverted before Matthews could snap the wings level.
"They're going to blow our asses off!" Evans shouted, sliding open his canopy. "The MiG driver has to be one mad sonuvabitch."
Matthews was working the controls in an effort to constantly change their path of flight. He guided the Yak-18 through a series of skidded turns, slips, and porpoise maneuvers while maintaining the general heading to Key West. He looked over his left shoulder again, then sideslipped the Yak close to the water. "Keep an eye on him!"
The Foxbat pilot wrapped the fighter around in a tight turn, continuing to slow, then eased the nose toward the fleeing trainer. The MiG pilot was in a perfect guns position.
"Hang on!" Matthews cautioned as he rolled the low-flying Yak-18 into a seventy-degree right turn and chopped the power to idle. The deceleration was instantaneous.
Straining under the g loading, Matthews looked over his right shoulder as the MiG-25 snapped into a tight right turn, stalled, then slammed into the water a split second after the afterburners were lighted. The Foxbat exploded in a blinding flash as cold water rammed through the air intakes into the red-hot turbojets.
"You suckered him in!" Evans shouted, pounding the cockpit glare shield. "You did it!"
Matthews added power and leveled the wings, then looked up and scanned the dark sky. "Where's the other MiG? I've lost him!"
"Ahh… okay, I've got him," Evans responded, tightening his seat belt. "Four o'clock and coming down fast."
Anatoly Sokolviy, adrenaline pumping through his veins, was in a frenzy. The pilot knew that Director Levchenko, the omnipotent mastermind of the B-2 operation, would have to answer for the loss of Lieutenant Colonel Zanyathov. Sokolviy's mission had changed. He was driven to stop the wily Americans-any way possible-and avenge the death of his flight leader.
The MiG-25, Sokolviy knew only too well, had not been designed to fight slow-moving light aircraft flying on the deck.
Many fine pilots had lost their lives the same way as Zanyathov. He had let his aircraft get behind the power curve, then attempted an abrupt maneuver low and slow.
Sokolviy adjusted his armament panel, selecting his single AA-7 Apex missile. If he missed, he had two more AA-8 Aphids to fire at the fleeing aircraft. He checked the missile arming control, then heard the rescue helicopter.
"Sudak Chetirnatsat [perch fourteen] is on station," the excited Soviet helicopter pilot blurted. "Did the runner go in the tank?"
"Nyet," Sokolviy growled over the frequency. "Stay off the radio."
The Yak-18 was only three kilometers ahead of Sokolviy when the fighter pilot lowered the MiG's nose. "Kiss your asses goodbye, you clever bastards," Sokolviy said under his breath when the ready-to-fire light glowed. "Come on… track…"
Sokolviy raised the MiG's nose a couple of degrees, then rolled into a gentle right turn to line up with the tail of the Yak-18. "Got it!" Sokolviy said triumphantly as he squeezed off the air-to-air missile.
"Break right! Break right," Evans screamed. "Missile!"
Matthews tightened his stomach muscles, then groaned under the snap g load he forced on the trainer. The Yak-18, in knife-edged flight, changed course ninety degrees in three seconds. "Coming back!" Matthews said in a strained voice. "We gotta stay down—"
The pilot's statement was cut off by a flash and a deafening explosion forty yards in front of the aircraft. The AA-7 Apex had missed the trainer and impacted the water, detonating with a thunderous roar.
"Oh, shit!" Matthews swore as he leveled the wings and yanked back the stick.
The Yak-18 flew through the geyser of water and debris, staggered, shuddered, then dropped off on the right wing.
"Hang on!" Matthews shouted, chopping the throttle. "We're goin' in!"
Both pilots grabbed their glare shields and braced themselves for the impact. The Yak-18's right wingtip sliced into the water, sending the trainer into a cartwheeling, end-over-end crash landing. The crumpled fuselage, missing the right wing and three feet of the left wing, came to rest inverted.
Matthews yanked repeatedly at his seat belt, thrashing from side to side. Finally, when his lungs felt as though they had been set on fire, the pilot freed himself and struggled out of the sinking aircraft. Orienting himself with the rising bubbles from the sinking wreckage, he kicked off from the side of the cockpit and clawed his way upward.
Gasping and sucking air, he broke the surface and looked around frantically for Paul Evans. The slightly injured pilot could see bits of floating debris surrounding him, but nothing that resembled his friend.
"Paul!" Matthews shouted, treading water and turning constantly. He could taste the foul, greasy aviation fuel. "Paul!"
Matthews, who had been on the swimming team at the Air Force Academy, gulped more air and dove below the surface. He fought his way downward in the pitch-black water, felt the stub of a propeller blade, then crawled along the side of the mangled fuselage. He passed the front cockpit, cutting his right hand on the fractured canopy, and reached into the rear seat. His left hand touched Evans's arm, then moved up to his face. Matthews yanked back his hand, recoiling in horror.
Paul Evans had not suffered long, if at all. His face had slammed into the instrument panel, breaking his neck. Matthews was sickened by the unnatural twist and angle of his friend's head.
Feeling the water pressure build as the Yak-18's fuselage sank below twenty feet, Matthews tugged at Evans's seat belt. The locking device opened easily and Matthews pulled on Evans's torso.
He yanked repeatedly on his copilot, then realized the problem. Evans was trapped in the twisted cockpit, crushed between the seat pan and the glare shield.
Matthews, in agony and frustration, and feeling the onslaught of oxygen starvation, let go of his close friend and shot for the surface.
His oxygen-starved mind was slipping into unconsciousness, a kaleidoscope of colored lights dancing in front of his eyes, when his face popped out of the water.
The pilot treaded water instinctively while his lungs heaved in an effort to suck in life-sustaining air. He felt his head clear rapidly and his strength return. His mind shifted from concentrating on survival, to rage.
Four seconds later, Matthews heard the combined sounds. They had been there all along — the MiG-25 overhead and the approaching Soviet helicopter — but he had blocked them out in his mental trauma.
"You SONS OF BITCHES," Matthews bellowed, watching the approaching searchlight from the rescue helicopter.
Pete Vecchio stared at the APS-138 radar screen as he recorded the time and exact location. "Ah… Willie, I can't believe this."
"Believe it, Pete," Overholser replied quietly, energizing the LINK-11 secure data communications system. "The MiG flight leader went in the drink, and his wingman, as I see it, splashed the slow mover."
Vecchio turned to the air control officer (ACO). "We better get on the horn."
"Yeah," Overholser responded, keying the communications button. "Stay with 'em." The ACO adjusted his lip microphone, rechecked the radio frequency, then spoke to their operations center. "Corpus Operations, Tar Baby One Five."
"Corpus Ops, One Five," the Texas-based coordinator replied, "go ahead."
"One Five has a priority," Overholser radioed in an even voice. "We just witnessed two aircraft crash in the water seventy nautical miles west of Havana. One of the aircraft, we believe, was a Cuban MiG."
Vecchio and Overholser listened to the surprised operations officer as they watched the three MiGs return to their respective air bases.
Gennadi Levchenko anxiously waited at the control tower for the rescue helicopter to return. The tower chief, Starshiy Praporshchik (Senior Warrant Officer) Yevgeny Pogostyan, had just sent word that the helicopter was nine minutes out.