Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (70 page)

 
          
“Fishbed-Js,”
Powell announced, and reeled off specifications like a manual. “They’ve got the
old Tumansky turbojets instead of the newer R-33D turbofans, and they don’t
have the dorsal spine fuel tanks. They’ve three external fuel tanks, two
air-to-air missiles— standard K-13AA infrared—and two 57-millimeter
ground-attack rocket-pods. These guys are ready. Hold on, Major.”

 
          
Powell
yanked back on the control stick, the G-forces slamming McLanahan back in his
seat as if a boulder had fallen on his chest. His arms and legs, every part of
his body, even his nose and his fingers, suddenly felt as if they weighed
hundreds of pounds.

 
          
“See
them out there, sir?”

 
          
“What?”
'

 
          
“Look
for the MiGs, sir. Find them for me.”

 
          
McLanahan
tried to arch up to look up through the top of the cockpit, but it was almost
impossible to move his head—he could hardly even lift his eyelids. “I can’t,”
McLanahan grunted, forcing the words out in strained coughs. “I can hardly move
. . .”

 
          
“Look
behind us,” Powell said. His voice was a bit huskier but it was still quiet,
even, despite the G-forces. “Search between the tails. See if he climbed with
us.”

 
          
“Can’t
you unload a little . . . ?”

 
          
“Find
them yet, sir?” When McLanahan didn’t answer, Powell grabbed handholds on the
canopy sill and pushed and pulled himself around so he could look behind
him—McLanahan couldn’t figure out how Powell, who couldn’t have weighed more
than one-fifty soaking wet, could fight past the tremendous G-forces and move
around so easily. “Like I thought. One tried to climb with us. He forgot about
all that gas and drag he’s got.” Powell took the Sukhoi inverted, then aimed
the nose straight down at the first MiG. By then, the MiG that had tried to
climb after the Sukhoi had slowed down, appearing to be almost frozen in the
sky.

 
          
“He’s
running out of airspeed,” McLanahan said, and as he did the MiG flopped over,
lolling, skidded sideways, exposing his entire right side to the descending
Sukhoi fighter. “You got him . . .”

 
          
“Where’s
the other MiG?” Powell said, emotion now in his voice. McLanahan searched the
sky, spotting the second MiG a few seconds later. A tiny dot was rising off the
horizon, slightly higher than the Sukhoi, then beginning to lower its nose to
cut off the angle and intercept Powell. “I see him,
three o’clock
high . . .” And over the radio they heard
something in Spanish—a loud shout of victory?

 
          
“These
guys are good,” Powell said, and rolled hard right, checked his altitude,
shoved the nose down to build up some speed, then yanked it back up to try to
put his guns on the second MiG. But for a brief moment the higher MiG-21 had
the speed and position advantage and Powell had no choice but to roll under the
MiG and escape before the second MiG locked him in his gunsights.

 
          
McLanahan,
who found himself sucking in volumes of oxygen, snapped off his oxygen mask to
avoid breathing any more pure oxygen until he got his hyperventilation under
control. The dogfight with these Haitian MiGs was bringing back some scary
images of another dogfight over eastern
Russia
—images he’d hoped had been buried forever.
Damn Powell, he’s having a good ol’ time playing with these guys. He could
easily see the blazing guns and the missile launch from that second MiG—he
could easily see himself getting shot down in a huge fireball. He’d seen it
before, see what those things do, the devastation ... For all his skill, Powell
didn’t realize that this was a damned serious business. He needed to be
bloodied . . .

 
          
“These
guys are aggressive, downright hot shit,” Powell said. McLanahan could hear
rising excitement in Powell’s voice as well as a few heavy sighs as he fought
to control his own racing pulse and breathing. “Classic loose-deuce
engagement—one guy plays dead while the other peels away, then comes back and
goes in for the kill—and they pulled it off. Did you keep the first fighter in
sight, Major?”

 
          
McLanahan
felt his lower lip trembling slightly and hated himself and Powell for it. “I
can hardly see straight. You want me to keep a damn speck in sight after all
that rolling around?”

 
          
“Sir,
you’ve got to help me out here,” Powell said, his cool back. “When I go for one
guy you have to keep the other one in sight. If I switch or extend you need to
keep both in sight until I reengage. We don’t have an operable radar or
search-and-track system in this beast, so our eyes are our only sensors . . .
How’s our fuel?”

 
          
McLanahan
strained to look at the standby gauge in the aft cockpit instrument panel.
“Reading ten thousand five hundred liters.”

 
          
“We’ve
got another few minutes before we need to head back. We’ll ... I got one of
them,” he called out suddenly. “
Nine o’clock
low. Now keep on searching for number two,
Major. Don’t fixate on any one object until you find the second fighter.”
Powell threw the Sukhoi-27 fighter into a hard-left banking dive and began to
line up on the MiG. The MiG below them suddenly turned sharply right.

 
          
“He’s
seen us,” Powell said. To McLanahan’s surprise, he did not turn right to chase
the first MiG.

 
          
“He’s
getting away—”

 
          
“Look
up over your left shoulder,
eight o’clock
, our altitude or slightly higher,” Powell
interrupted. He paused for a second, then asked, “See him?”

 
          
McLanahan
scanned the sky, then shouted, “I see him, eight-thirty to
nine o’clock
, our altitude.”

 
          
“Half-split
maneuver,” Powell said. “Another classic, right out of the textbooks. These
guys could be teaching our pilots a thing or two. Sir, watch the guy peeling
off to our right. Keep an eye on him. What’s he doing?”

 
          
“High-tailing
it out of here.”

 
          
“Good.”
Powell watched the second MiG off to their left—he stayed there, not
maneuvering.

 
          
“I
see smoke from the first MiG,” McLanahan called out. “Looks like he’s slowing
down, too.”

 
          
“He
wants us to chase him,” Powell said. “Wait . . . wait. . .
now.
”

 
          
Powell
made a hard turn right, jinking toward the first MiG escaping to the north but
keeping an eye on the second MiG off to their left. As soon as the second MiG
began its right turn to pursue, Powell yanked the control stick up and left
toward the pursuing MiG. As he did, McLanahan’s helmet slammed against the
right cockpit railing, and he grunted loudly as the G-forces began their
pressure once again.

 
          
“Powell!”
McLanahan heard himself yell. The MiG-21 was all around them—it seemed only a
few feet away, close enough to touch . . .

 
          
Powell’s
Sukhoi-27 executed a fast, wide barrel roll over the second MiG, continued into
a second full roll, and emerged several moments later directly behind and to
the right of the second MiG, in firing position. “Splash one MiG,” Powell
announced over the radio. Simultaneously he threw the Sukhoi fighter into full
afterburner and accelerated out past the MiG just as it started a defeated
right turn back to base. “Where’s the first MiG, sir?”

 
          
“Turning
left,
one o’clock
,
below us.”

 
          
“Got
him. The first MiG should be coming back to help his buddy,” Powell predicted.
“He extended a little too far . . . here he comes.” The first MiG that had
tried to draw Powell into attacking was now in a left turn and picking up
speed, but it was turning directly in front of the Sukhoi-27 now. Powell
tracked it through its turn, keeping the Russian fighter’s nose on it for
several seconds. “Missile, missile, bang, bang,” Powell radioed to Salazar.
“Switching to guns.” The MiG tried to dive and twist away, but the damage had
already been done.

 
          
McLanahan
fought to relax his tensed-up thighs and toes. A game to Powell. Sure, he was
very, very good at it. But one day it would not be just for pictures but for
real . . .

 
          
Salazar
and Hermosa were still amazed by the maneuver the Sukhoi- 27 had made to get
around and behind the second MiG-21 when they suddenly realized that the first
MiG was under attack as well. In a few seconds, both Cuchillos had been beaten
by the seat-of-the-pants flying of the young pilot in control of the Su-27.
“Lieutenant Miguel extended five seconds too far,” Hermosa said. “They had this
stranger in a perfect rolling pincer—”

 
          
“The
Sukhoi is much more maneuverable than the MiG-21,” Salazar interrupted. “It’s
not difficult for such a plane to outmaneuver a less capable adversary. The
MiGs are carrying extra fuel tanks, which would normally have been jettisoned
before the flight, so their drag ratio was much higher than normal. Still,
Thomas had the Sukhoi dead after the loose-deuce engagement ...”

 
          
“He
did not call that he was locked on or firing ...”

 
          
“It
doesn’t matter,” Salazar said. “They executed properly and sucked the Russian
in with precision—the contest was over before it began—”

 
          
“Knock
it off, gents,” Salazar heard the pilot of the Sukhoi-27 call over the radio in
Russian. He waited until he was sure both planes weren’t going to try another
run at him, then turned the Sukhoi-27 westward toward
Jamaica
and their planned recovery base. “I’d love
to hang around, boys, but I’m getting low on fuel. Time to go home. Thanks for
the action, Colonel.”

 
          
The
mocking tone in the Sukhoi pilot’s voice was too much for Salazar. On the
Cuchillos’ command radio net he ordered, “Alert units one and two, I want that
plane to land here. Force them back to the base. Use your guns to get his
attention, but do not lock weapons on him.” The last said reluctantly.

 
          
The
Cuchillo pilots reacted quickly. When Powell and McLanahan last fixed the MiG’s
position, the two Soviet-made fighters had completely turned away from the
Sukhoi-27 and joined on each other in preparation to land; the next moment they
had expertly boxed in the Sukhoi, surrounding Powell and Powell’s Russian jet.

 
          
“Talk
about sore losers,” Powell deadpanned. “I think we may have pissed these guys
off a little.”

 
          
“I’ve
got a message out to headquarters,” McLanahan said, checking the receipt
messages on the satellite-terminal keyboard on his lap. “We’ve got an F-lll
bomber and a Special Operations Black Hawk helicopter at Hurlburt Field on the
way to help if they force us down.”

 
          
“I
think we can evade these guys,” Powell said. “It’ll be risky. We don’t have any
weapons, these guys are loaded for bear. And they’re good. But I figure this
jet can outrun those older MiGs ...”

 
          
“I
don’t think we have any choice, Lieutenant,” McLanahan said after a short,
strained pause. “We’re going to have to land.”

 
          
McLanahan
could see Powell’s head shake and his shoulders stiffen. “You can’t be serious.
You actually want to
land
on this
guy’s
base?”                                             
.

 
          
“As
long as he thinks we’re Russians, this Salazar character will be afraid of
retaliation if he does anything to us. This will be a great opportunity to
check out this guy’s operation. I can get more pictures and—”

 
          
“What
am I supposed to do? Ask this guy if he’s a smuggler? Ask to see his cargo?
We’re wearing American flight suits, American boots and carrying American
charts. You don’t think he’ll be a little suspicious?”