He didn’t like flying low and slow over a cloud deck. Especially one that overlay enemy SAM sites. Bass knew the F-16’s RWR would pick up an inbound SAM, and he was fairly sure the EA-6B, with its array of electronic warfare equipment, could jam the enemy’s control radar. Still, it was better when you could see the damned things coming at you.
Bass glanced at his nav display — then looked again. Shit! A shot of adrenaline surged through him.
“Scrapes,” he radioed, “check our position. I show us five south of Basra.”
“Negative. We’re now twenty — uh-oh. Standby.”
Bass was getting a bad feeling. He saw Williams’s Viper begin a hard left turn.
“Coming back to the south,” called Williams. “I — uh, plugged the wrong waypoint in the inertial.”
Bass stayed with him, flying a combat spread formation. Fucking beautiful, he thought. Scrapes was taking them right over the goddamn SA-3 ring. That wouldn’t be so bad if they were hauling ass at five-hundred-plus knots. But they were poking along at a leisurely two-sixty to conserve fuel. And the Ironclaw was probably not watching that close because…
Eeeooowweeowww!
His RWR. It was warbling.
“Burner Three Hot!” came the warning from the Ironclaw.
An SA-3 was in the air.
Bass heard the warble change in his headset. Two SA-3s!
Scrapes heard it too. Bass saw the lead F-16 roll out of the turn, begin to crank the other way, then reverse. Scrapes was confused.
Then Bass saw it — the SA-3 — popping out of the cloud deck. It looked like a telephone pole trailing a long plume of fire.
The missile was drawing a bead on Scrapes Williams.
“Hard left, Jugs Lead!” the Electronic Warfare Officer in the Ironclaw called, using their flight call sign. “Hard left now!”
Williams got the message. It was definitely time to get out of Dodge. The afterburner of William’s jet ignited. The F-16 honked into a maximum-G turn. Bass stayed with him, selecting his own afterburner and opening the chaff dispenser.
Then he saw that Williams had forgotten to put out his own chaff — confetti-like metal foil that obscured targets on radar. “Chaff, Scrapes!” he yelled on the radio.
A second later, a cloud of chaff appeared in the wake of Williams’s hard-turning Viper.
It was working. The SA-3 stopped flying a pursuit curve, and veered onto a path perpendicular to Williams’s fighter. The missile wobbled, then tilted over in a ballistic arc.
Bass took a deep breath. Jesus, that was close…
Another warning: Eeeeoowww!
The second missile erupted from the clouds like a fiery comet. It was flying a perfect pursuit curve. But this SA-3 was not aimed at the lead F-16.
It was locked onto Catfish Bass.
Bass dropped the nose of his jet and pulled harder. Eight-and-a-half Gs. Nine.
Even in full afterburner, the F-16 was losing airspeed in the hard turn. Turn! Turn inside the missile!
He pulled until the jet shuddered. It wasn’t enough. The SA-3 had an energy advantage. Bass tried to tighten the turn. The missile was nearly within detonation range.
BLAM! The concussion came from behind.
Bass could feel pieces departing his jet. The SA-3 warhead had detonated close to the tail, he guessed.
Bass saw the fire warning light come on. The F-16 skidded, then went into a sickening roll. The control stick went dead.
“Mayday! Mayday!” Bass yelled in the radio. He reached for the ejection handle.
Maxwell awoke in the early afternoon, possessed by an idea. He had a mission to perform. He would have to hurry before the market closed. He dressed in a hurry and left the hotel.
The souk in old Dubai was just as he remembered it. All the wares of the Middle East were for sale in the vendors’ stalls — carpets, gold, leather goods, T-shirts, sandals, live poultry.
Maxwell wandered through the rows of stalls, perusing the merchandise, until he found the kiosk he was looking for. He examined each of the scarves, holding them up to the light. Finally he found a scarf that was very close to the one he remembered. It was black, with gold stitching and the image of a bird in flight.
“How much?” he asked the leather-faced vendor.
“For you, three hundred Dirham.”
It was a bargain, but the vendor would be insulted if he did not at least negotiate. Maxwell countered with an offer of one hundred Dirham. The vendor came back with two-fifty. Finally a deal was struck at two-hundred Emirian Dirham, which amounted to about seventy-five dollars. For an extra ten Dirham, the vendor agreed to gift-wrap the scarf.
When Maxwell returned to the hotel, a message was waiting for him. He was to call the Air Wing duty officer.
He couldn’t believe it. “Damn!” Maxwell grumbled into the phone. “Why?”
“Can’t say.” said Frisby, the duty officer. “But it’s no drill. Everyone’s due back by six o’clock.”
Something had happened. No one knew anything, only that the party was over. The Reagan was sailing.
Maxwell could imagine the groaning going on throughout Dubai at that moment. After nearly a month of continuous flight operations, working twelv and fourteen-hour days, the crew of the USS Reagan had been in port exactly three days. It was supposed to be a time for relaxation, partying, chilling out, forgetting about the requirements of the United States Navy and the USS Ronald Reagan and the politics of the Persian Gulf.
Instead, an emergency sortie. The Reagan was headed to sea.
Maxwell knew the drill. All hands ashore were being ordered back to their stations. In a mass migration toward the fleet landing, two thousand sailors and officers would come walking, riding, staggering, and in some instances being hauled comatose to the utility boats that would shuttle them out to the carrier. As always, a few enterprising sailors would get wind of the recall and lie low. No, sir, I swear. Never knew a thing about it till I saw the ship headin’ out …
Maxwell called Claire’s number. She didn’t answer. He left a message with the concierge, letting her know their date was on hold. He promised he would e-mail her from the ship.
He took his place in the line of disgruntled officers waiting to check out of the Hilton. No one was happy.
“Another fucking exercise,” said a pilot from the Tomcat squadron.
“It’s punishment,” said a young lieutenant. “We were having too much fun.”
“Someone probably got caught with his pants down,” said a lieutenant commander from the S-3 squadron. “This means war.”
Maxwell’s taxi pulled up to the landing. More than two hundred sailors and a several dozen officers were already clustered on the concrete pier waiting for the next boat. In the evening twilight, the temperature had cooled.
Waiting on the landing when he stepped from the cab was Claire Phillips. She wore a Levi jacket over a polka-dot dress.
“You heard the news,” he said.
“I deliver the news, remember? I couldn’t let you go without saying goodbye.”
“Sorry about our date tonight.”
“I had you for one whole evening. That’s a beginning.”
She gave him an impulsive kiss. Then he noticed Killer DeLancey and Hozer Miller at the edge of the landing. They were watching him curiously.
Another gray 120-man utility boat came gliding up to the pier. A boatswain’s mate snubbed the bowline to the dock. Sailors lined up to step onto the loading ladder.