“She starts to get squirrelly below two hundred,” McKenzie said. “I want to keep my speed up until I’m over the threshold.”
“Okay, but remember you might not have all your brakes, and you have no speedbrakes,” Vincenti said. “Use aerodynamic braking all you can, and use every inch of the runway. Go get ’em, babe.”
“Thanks, Al,” McKenzie said; then she added, “We should’ve done it, Al, you know that, don’t you? It would’ve been sooo good.”
Leave it to Linda McKenzie to think about sex just seconds before making a 220-mile-per-hour flameout approach in the dark to a strange airfield in a damaged F-16 fighter, Vincenti thought grimly.
He did not reply, because there was no time. With Vincenti flying just a few feet above the right edge of the runway, McKenzie hit the pavement, traveling at 210 knots.
… and the worst-case scenario happened.
The nose gear never came down, but McKenzie held the fighter’s nose high in the air to let the jet’s fuselage create enough drag to slow down. A stream of fire trucks began their chase after her down the runway. Suddenly, Vincenti saw a flash of light — sparks caused by the damaged right fuel tank separating from the wing and dragging the runway. The fighter’s nose slammed hard into the runway, then began to spin clockwise. Fire erupted in the engine compartment and right wing — and then McKenzie ejected. Vincenti caught a glimpse of two full bums of her seat’s ejection motors before he passed the runway and began his climbout.
“Foxtrot Romeo Zero One, this is McClellan Tower, say your intentions.”
Vincenti knew the runways would be closed at McClellan and Mather, the two large military-capable airports in Sacramento. Metro Airport was just a few miles away— they might send him there, although the Air Force didn’t like to send armed combat aircraft to civil airports. Beale and Travis Air Force Bases were both less than fifty miles away, and he had plenty of fuel to make it all the way back to Fresno Air Terminal. He wanted to see Linda, wanted to stay with his flying partner. No doubt they’d be convening an accident board, and as the original flight leader and close chase plane he’d be the star witness.
Screw ’em, Vincent thought angrily. He jammed the throttle to MIL power and keyed the radio button: “Tower, Foxtrot Romeo-01 requesting handoff to Approach and vectors to the suspect aircraft that just overflew Mather.”
“Roger, Foxtrot Romeo, stand by.” The wait did not last long: “Foxtrot Romeo-01, your control requests you land at Beale as soon as possible. You can contact Sacramento Approach on one-one-nine point one.”
Vincenti turned his aircraft south westbound, not northbound, and began searching the skies with radar for a target.
“Foxtrot Romeo-01, did you copy? You are requested to land at Beale. Over.”
Vincenti cut off the tower controller’s insistent orders by tuning the radio to Sacramento Approach Control’s western sector frequency. “Sacramento Approach, Foxtrot Romeo- 01 with you climbing to six thousand, active air scramble, requesting vectors to the suspect aircraft that overflew Mather, over.”
“Foxtrot Romeo-01, Sacramento Approach, roger, last reported position of your target is at one o’clock, approximately fifty-three miles, altitude unknown. You are leaving my airspace, contact Travis Approach on one-two-seven point one-five.”
That wasn’t much of a vector, but it was enough. A minute later Vincenti picked up a low-flying aircraft thirty- two miles to the west, at the foot of the coastal mountains between Sacramento and San Francisco, traveling at two hundred knots at only a few hundred feet above the terrain.
That had to be Cazaux.
He was trying to sneak away under local radar, avoiding the TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control) center near Travis Air Force Base. “Travis Approach, Foxtrot Romeo-01 requesting clearance to intercept the aircraft at my twelve o’clock, thirty-one miles, with a three-hundred- knot closure rate. Over.”
Henri Cazaux’s characteristically ice-cold heart started to pump superheated lava through his veins as he listened in on the exchange between the Air Force fighter and the civilian radar controllers: “Foxtrot Romeo-01, Travis Approach, maintain two-fifty maximum airspeed, stay clear of Travis class D airspace, and stand by on your request.”
“The wingman is after us,” Cazaux said to the Stork. “I thought they’d both land after the bitch was hit.” He shrugged. “I was wrong.”
“He was ordered to land,” the Stork said incredulously. “He was ordered to land! Why is he disobeying orders?”
“Revenge,” Cazaux said simply. “Something I know all about. And this fighter jock, he smells revenge. This pilot is the real leader, not the other. She was the inexperienced one. This one… will not let us live. He will try to kill us.”
“Oh, great!” Jones moaned. “You mean that Air Force jet’s gonna flame us? What the hell we gonna do?”
“Foxtrot Romeo-01, Travis Approach, sir, reduce speed and do not exceed two-five-zero knots indicated, do you copy?” they heard once again on the radio. “Reduce speed now… leaving my airspace, Foxtrot Romeo-01, contact Bay Approach on one-two-seven point zero. How do you copy, Foxtrot Romeo-01?”
“He ain’t answerin’ back,” Jones said. “What’s he doin’?”
Cazaux switched the radio to the same frequency, which was the terminal radar controller for the dozens of major airports in the San Francisco Bay Area. Still no response, no check-in. “This man, he is no longer taking orders from either his superiors or the federal aviation authorities,” Cazaux said. “He is going to pursue us until… the end game.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Jones shouted.
“It means he’s a renegade, you idiot. He will put a two- second burst of cannon fire into this aircraft, whether or not he receives orders to the contrary,” Cazaux said calmly. “That will be approximately one hundred depleted uranium shells about twice the size of your thumb, weighing approximately one pound, hitting us with supersonic force. He will blow this plane apart as easily as a baby bursting a soap bubble… get it?”
His eyes scanned out the window to the south, toward San Francisco, Oakland, Alameda Naval Air Station, Hayward, and San Jose — the San Francisco Bay region, busy even late at night. The landing lights of dozens of aircraft filled the skies. Like gigantic strings of Christmas lights, the airliners formed long sparking lines of light in the sky, strung out for nearly a hundred miles in all directions, all sequenced to land at their various air terminals. Finally Cazaux said, “That way,” and moved the control yoke hard left and pushed, descending even farther toward the dark, light-sparkled earth below.
“What now, man?”
“We cannot escape the pilot who pursues us,” Cazaux said. “So perhaps we can force him to retreat — if he will.”
“How you gonna do that?” But Krull soon realized how. In just a few minutes, the answer was obvious — they were heading right for San Francisco International Airport, the locus of the greatest number of those strings of light in the sky.
He was heading directly into the airspace of one of the busiest airports in the United States.
“Oh, shit… you’re gonna fly into the middle of all that?”
“It is the ultimate game of chicken,” Cazaux said with a grin on his face, “the ultimate game of Russian roulette.” He changed his radio frequency to Bay Approach, listening in as the busy controllers vectored aircraft for landings into Oakland, Martinez, Alameda, Hayward, and San Francisco International. They were already approaching the northern shore of San Pablo Bay, with the city of Vallejo on their left and the dark forested expanse of Marin County on their right, illuminated by the lights of small communities along Highway 101. Soon they were over San Pablo Bay at one thousand feet, traveling three miles per minute through the wispy fog and haze.