He hit the chaff button, then hit it again, dispensing bundles of the aluminum foil to decoy the Acrid missile’s guidance system.
He was turning into the other three Hornets of his flight, but he knew the evasive turn would take him underneath and behind them. In the darkness he couldn’t see other fighters. No enemies, no friendlies. It was like knife-fighting in a blacked-out room.
Over his shoulder, he saw the white torch of the missile coming for him. He stabbed the chaff button once again.
It worked. The missile went for the chaff. Then it wobbled, lost guidance, went dumb.
Maxwell kept pulling. Now to get back on the run-in line. Get the nose pointed back at the bogies.
He found himself under the second section, a couple of thousand feet beneath Rasmussen and DeLancey. He checked his radar, then peered out in the darkness.
Above and to the left — a plume of fire! An air-to-air missile leaving its rail. By the distinctive torch of the missile, Maxwell knew that it was an AIM-7 Sparrow missile. The thing looked like a fire-tailed comet.
Raz had taken a shot. But in the heat of battle, he hadn’t called a Fox One.
Damn, thought DeLancey, watching the trail of Rasmussen’s missile rocketing into the night. He was out of position, a mile too far back. He had been playing catch-up, trying to juggle all the radio calls, checking his position, setting up the armament panel before they got to the HARM-firing point.
Now that goddamn Rasmussen was about to bag a MiG.
DeLancey went to his radar, trying to sort the bogey. Wait! Over there, gimbals left, was that another bogey? Were there two?
Which one had Rasmussen taken his shot at?
DeLancey didn’t care. Quickly he locked up the lead bogey.
Whoom! His Sparrow missile leaped out ahead of the jet, aiming for the unseen enemy.
“Anvil Forty-one, Fox one,” Delancey called on the radio. “Bandit on the nose.”
Jabbar knew that Rashid’s missile had missed. It should have impacted by now. The enemy pilot had somehow evaded the Acrid.
Now he and Rashid were too close to get off another shot. In fewer than fifteen seconds they would merge with the enemy fighters. Jabbar’s only hope was that they could somehow convert to a stern attack.
Then he heard it: Chiiiiirrrrrp! Chiirrrrrp! The Sirena. It was howling.
The enemy had awakened to the fact that the MiGs were out here. Chiiiiirrrp! Chiirrrrrrp! A radar-guided missile was inbound.
Toward whom? Him or Rashid?
“Break!” he yelled to Rashid. “Break to the —”
Kablooom!
The fireball of Rashid’s MiG lit up the sky.
For a moment Jabbar closed his eyes. Then he opened them and saw the flaming debris of the MiG falling toward the black desert. So Rashid was the first to keep his appointment with Allah.
The Sirena resumed its slow chirp. Jabbar could not believe his luck. They had targeted Rashid’s jet without spotting his wingman. But Jabbar knew it wouldn’t last. He had to close the remaining distance between them quickly, before they acquired a missile lock. Get behind the bastards.
Jabbar shoved the throttles past the detent. Baroom! He felt the two big Tumanksy afterburners jolt him forward like the kick of a mule. He knew he was trailing two great columns of fire, perhaps giving away his position.
So be it. Now he needed speed. Speed was life.
Maxwell saw the bogey explode. He felt like cheering. Attaboy, Raz!
Then, seconds later, coming from behind — another missile.
DeLancey, Maxwell realized. It had to be. DeLancey was behind Rasmussen, displaced to the right. What was he shooting at?
Fascinated, Maxwell watched the second missile arcing… arcing… veering downward…
Toward the wreckage of the destroyed MiG. With a brilliant flash, the missile exploded in the burning hulk of the Foxbat.
Then Maxwell spotted something else. Off to the right, two bluish streaks of flame. Afterburners? Yes, thought Maxwell, peering into the night. The long blue flames were the twin afterburners of a Russian-built fighter.
Another bogey. But where? He scanned his radar, searching.
Nothing. The bogey had vanished. That was bad news.
Jabbar hauled the MiG-25’s nose hard left. He completed the 180-degree turn as he came out of afterburner.
Still no warning from the Sirena. He was behind the enemy fighters. And they didn’t know. The trick now was to lock one of them up and —
There. On his radar. He judged that it was an F/A-18. If the geometry of his turn had been correct, then it was the same fighter that killed Al-Rashid.
It was appropriate, thought Jabbar. An eye for an eye. An F/A-18 for a MiG-25.
He selected ripple fire and squeezed the trigger. Whoom! Whoom! The two Acrid missiles streaked out beyond the long, pointed snout of the MiG.
Jabbar waited, listening for the shrill warning of his Sirena. It was slow-chirping. They still didn’t know he was there.
In his peripheral vision, off to the left, DeLancey saw the streaks coming from behind. For an instant he was confused. What the hell? Was someone shooting from behind them? Was that goddamned nugget Maxwell taking a shot?
Or was it…
The MiG?
DeLancey felt a sudden stab of fear. How could the MiG have converted them? If he had gotten behind them, he would pick them off like grapes.
DeLancey keyed the mike, about to tell Raz to break hard right when —
Kabloom. An orange ball of fire lit up the night.
Dumbstruck, DeLancey watched Rasmussen’s Hornet plunge like a meteor toward the floor of the desert.
“What was that?” he heard Gracie Allen say. “An air-to-air kill?”
DeLancey removed his thumb from the transmit button. There was nothing to say.
Captain Jabbar watched with satisfaction as the fireball plummeted to the earth. Rashid would not die alone tonight.
But now what? He had other Hornets on either side. He wasn’t painting them on his radar — and they weren’t painting him — because they were nearly abeam. But they certainly knew he was here. They would be searching for him.
In the distance, to his right and to the left, Jabbar could see the flashes of missiles being launched. Air-to-air? Air-to-ground missiles? Anti-radar? They were all rocketing off toward targets in Baghdad.
Jabbar considered his situation. He would love to kill more of the murderous bastards. But he was in the middle of a hornets’ nest. If he swung his nose right or left, he would appear on their radars. They would pounce on him like dogs on a rat.
Jabbar decided he would live to fight another day. He eased the throttles of the MiG-25 back to idle and commenced a sweeping descent to the left.
He had avenged the death of his leader, Lieutenant Colonel Al-Rashid. Most surprising of all, he was still alive. For having downed an American fighter, he could expect to receive the highest decoration his country could give him.
That made it a very good night indeed.
From across the CVIC room, Maxwell watched DeLancey. He was describing with his hands how he had shot down an Iraqi MiG-25.
Adrenaline was still flowing. The mood in the debriefing swung from mourning the loss of their squadron mate, Lieutenant Commander Rasmussen, to elation at having conducted the first massive air strike against an enemy since the Vietnam War.