Could they find him in this valley, which was fast ceasing to be a steep gorge and was spreading out as the creek flowed its last few miles to the Volga?
There — on the left — another valley coming into this one. Jake dropped the left wing and pulled the plane around. He went back up the new valley, still seeking shelter as the EW light blinked intermittently.
Jake Grafton had flown his first combat mission in Vietnam over twenty years ago. He knew the hard, inescapable truth: in aerial combat the first pilot to make a mistake is the one who dies. The two men who had died in the Sukhoi fighters had each made fatal mistakes. The first man pursued too fast, so he had overshot when his victim unexpectedly slowed down. The second was overanxious, had pulled too hard and departed controlled flight too close to the ground. He was dead a half-second later, probably before he even realized what was happening.
The next time Jake might not be so lucky.
He swabbed more sweat from his eyes as he examined the fuel gauge. Still plenty. Like the A-6, the engines of this Russian attack bird were easy on fuel and the plane carried a lot of it. That was the only advantage he possessed when compared to the fighters, which sacrificed fuel economy to gain speed and range to gain maneuverability.
Where were the other two fighters? Chasing Rita?
A flicker of concern for Rita crossed his mind, but he forced it away. Rita was a professional, she had been an F/A-18 Hornet instructor pilot for two years before she went to test pilot school — she could take care of herself.
He hoped.
No time to worry about her. If only he knew where she was…
They came in shooting from the rear quarter on each side. His first inkling that they were there was the sight of glowing cannon shells passing just in front of the nose, from left to right. He rammed the stick forward and his peripheral vision picked up shells passing just above the canopy from right to left. Just streaks really, but he knew exactly what they were.
The negative G lasted only for an instant before he had to jerk the stick back to avoid going into the ground. But it was enough. Even as he fought the positive G he saw the pair of fighters flash across above his head and arc tightly away for another pass.
He wouldn’t survive another pass.
Slamming the throttles full forward, he kept the nose coming up and topped the cliff on the right side of the valley, then ruddered the nose down. He pulled hard in a tight turn, trying to turn inside the faster fighter.
And the fighter pilot wasn’t looking!
The idiot had his head in the cockpit — he was worried about flying into the ground. That was a serious threat this close to the earth, the brown land whirling by at tremendous speed just scant feet below the right wingtip.
The nose of Jake’s plane passed the fighter and he began to pull ahead. Range closing as the aspect angle changed. The fighter was turning into Jake. Angle off about seventy degrees, now eighty, ninety as the two planes flashed toward each other. Jake eased out some bank. A full deflection shot—
Now!
He triggered the cannon. The tracers passed in front of the fighter’s nose, then in an eyeblink the fighter flew through the stream, which stitched him nose to tail. His nose dropped and his right wing kissed the earth.
Jake raised his nose a smidgen to ensure he didn’t share the same fate, banked and pulled.
If he could get around quickly enough, he would present the second fighter with a head-on shot, and if that guy had any sense he would refuse the invitation and pull up into the vertical, where Jake lacked the power to follow.
And that is what happened as the two planes flashed toward each other nose to nose. Jake wanted to take a snapshot but couldn’t get his nose up fast enough. He slammed it back down and was pulling hard to get the plane’s axis parallel to the canyon when he flashed over the rim. He let the plane descend on knife edge until the rock wall shielded him.
His heart was threatening to thud its way out of his chest. Talk about luck! Three mistakes, three dead men who would get no wiser.
But this last guy — he was no overeager green kid who thought he was bulletproof. He had pulled his nose up the instant he saw the head-on pass developing. This guy would take a lot of killing.
And Jake Grafton didn’t know if he had it in him. Somehow he got his visor up and swabbed away the sweat that poured into his eyes when he pulled Gs, this while he threaded his way up the valley and looked above and aft to see what the Russian was up to.
What would you do, Jake Grafton?
I’d slow down to almost coequal speed and follow along, getting lower and lower, and when my guns came to bear I’d take my shots. And he would fall.
Jake got a glimpse of his opponent. He was high up and well aft, on a parallel course, his nose down. He must have lost sight for a moment and allowed Jake to extend out. But now he was closing.
You’ve had a good life, Jake. You’ve known some fine men, loved a good woman, flown the hot jets. Maybe your life has made a difference to somebody. And now it’s over. That man up there is going to kill you. He’s going about it just right, slowly and methodically; he isn’t going to make any mistakes. And you are going to die.
The Russian was throttled back, coming down like the angel of doom.
What’s ahead? I’ll out-fly the bastard. I’ll fly that son of a bitch into the ground.
Even as the thought raced through his mind, he knew it wouldn’t work. This guy wasn’t going to make any mistakes unless Jake forced the action. If he were allowed to play his own game he would win.
Jake Grafton risked another over-the-shoulder glance to see if he had room. Maybe. It was going to be tight.
He kept the wings level and pulled the stick straight aft. The throttles were up against the stops. A nice four-G pull so he would have something left on top. If this guy were wise and had plenty of fuel, he would light his burners and climb, avoid the head-on that was developing. A head-on pass that gave each guy a fifty-fifty chance — that was the best Jake could play for when the other pilot had every performance edge.
But the Russian pilot accepted the challenge!
Upside down at the top of the loop, Jake fed in forward stick and placed the pipper in the reticle high to allow for the fall of his shells, then pulled the trigger. The Russian was already shooting. Strobing muzzle blasts enveloped the nose of the opposing fighter as Jake pulled his trigger.
Jake felt the trip-hammer impacts as cannon shells ripped into his plane. Then the Russian blew up.
Jake knifed through the falling debris and tried to right his machine. Fuel was boiling out the left wing and the left engine was unwinding. He shut it down. A big red light on the left side of the bombsight was illuminated — fire. He needed a lot of right rudder to control his plane.
Now he was level. And alive.
For how long?
That depended on the fire warning light. It flickered several times, then went out. Maybe he had a chance after all.
He glanced at the compass. He was heading east. He dropped the right wing into a gentle turn and let the nose drift down as he juggled the rudder to maintain balanced flight. He had to get low again, avoid the radar that was probing this sky.
He steadied up heading south, descending. One of the Russian’s cannon shells had impacted the second weapons pylon on the left wing, shattering it and twisting it so badly fuel was coming out of the wing. Even as Jake stared at the damaged pylon the last of the wing fuel rushed away into the slipstream. Primary hydraulic pressure was on its way to zero. If that was the primary system gauge.
The warning lights seemed predictable. The damaged engine hadn’t blown up — if it did there was nothing he could do but die. His heart was still beating, thud, thud, thud. He was still alive!
That Russian must have been low on fuel. In a hurry. Too bad for him.
* * *
Jack Yocke tapped aimlessly on his laptop computer and from time to time glanced at Toad Tarkington sitting in the big
chair. Toad had a pistol in his hand and kept looking at it, turning it this way and that, wrapping his fist around the grip and hefting it.
Herb Tenney lay on the couch with his hands taped together behind his back, his ankles taped together, and a strip of tape over his mouth. Herb seemed calm.
Jack Yocke had done the taping with a roll from the first aid kit when Toad brought him into the room at gunpoint.
Now the three of them sat — Herb calm, Yocke full of questions, Toad playing with that goddamn pistol.
“Did he come willingly?” Jack asked, breaking the silence.
“Uh-huh.”
“Where did you find him?”
“In the cafeteria. Waited until he had finished his coffee and followed him out.”
“Would you have shot him if he didn’t come along?”
Toad merely glanced at Yocke, then turned his gaze back to the pistol in his hand. The reporter saw the same thing that Herb Tenney must have seen fifteen minutes ago. Toad would have pulled the trigger with all the remorse he would have had swatting a fly.
Jack Yocke had another question, but he didn’t ask it. Did Jake Grafton tell you to corral Tenney? Toad didn’t do anything unless Jake Grafton told him to, Yocke told himself, and once told, Toad would do literally anything. The asshole was like a Doberman, ready to rip the throat out of the first man his master sicced him on.
Yocke sighed and went back to tapping. He was listing what he knew about Nigel Keren, about the Mossad bribing Russians to get Jews out of the country and assassinating Russian politicians, about the KGB blowing up the Serdobsk reactor, about a hangarful of nuclear-armed mobile missiles and warheads that were going south into Iraq a planeload at a time. He was sitting on at least four huge stories, any one of which would win him a Pulitzer prize, and all he could do was tap on this frigging keyboard and pray that someday soon he could telephone something to the Post. If he still had a job!
He felt a little like the prospector who has spent his whole life looking for traces of color when he finally stumbles onto the mother lode. And doesn’t know where the vein leads.
All he really had were pieces of stories. Jack Yocke had spent five years chasing stories and he knew that he didn’t have all of any one of them. Oh, he had some great pieces, but he didn’t know where the roots led.
Jake Grafton knew. Of that he was convinced.
Damn, he was getting as goofy as Tarkington. Toad sat there playing with his pistol and if you asked, he would tell you that Jake Grafton knows everything. What’s your problem? Grafton will tell you what he wants you to know when he wants you to know it. If that time ever comes. And if it doesn’t, then you shouldn’t know.
Jack Yocke didn’t think Jake Grafton knew all the answers. He thought Jake was feeling his way along, examining the trees, trying to size up the forest. Jack Yocke didn’t have Toad’s faith.
The truth, he decided, was probably somewhere in the middle.
He jabbed the button to save what he had written and then turned off the computer. He closed the screen over the keyboard and pulled the plug out.
“You done?” Toad asked.
“What’s it look like?” Yocke snarled. He was extremely frustrated, and Toad marching in a big CIA weenie at gunpoint hadn’t helped.
“Would you like to help me?”
“Do what?” Jack asked suspiciously.
“Well, you gotta sit here with this pistol and watch our boy Herb. I have an errand. If Herb twitches, blow his fucking head off. If anybody comes through that door besides me, blow their fucking head off. Think you can handle it?”
“No.”
“You ought to be the pro-choice poster child, Jack. If your mother only knew how you were going to turn out she would have grabbed a rusty old coat hanger and done it herself.”
“Any time you get the itch, Tarkington, you can kiss my rosy red ass. I am not about to get mixed up in the middle of a war or shoot anybody. And no more goddamn cracks about—”
Toad tossed the gun at him. Yocke snagged it to prevent it from hitting him in the face.
Toad stood up. He looked over the items from Herb’s pockets that were spread on the low coffee table and selected a ring of keys, then faced Yocke. “Anyone besides me comes through that door, they’ll kill you if you don’t kill them first. And you can bet your puny little dick that Herb would cheerfully do the job if he had his hands free. Think about it.”
With that Toad went to the door and carefully opened it. He looked out. Now he checked to ensure the door would lock behind him, passed through and pulled it closed.
Jack Yocke looked at Herb Tenney to see if he had any big ideas. Apparently not. He then examined the pistol in his hand. This thingy on the left side looked like the safety. Is it on? Yocke kept his finger well away from the trigger, just in case.
He had had a journalism professor who once told the class that the problem with the profession was the company a reporter had to keep to get his stories. Truer words were never spoken, Jack told himself ruefully.
“If I get out of this alive,” he informed Herb Tenney, “I’m going to get a job washing beer mugs in a bikers’ saloon. Associate with a better class of people. Keep better hours. Make more money. Get laid more.”
* * *
Out in the hallway Toad slowed to talk to the marine sergeant sitting at the head of the stairs with an M-16 across his knees. He also wore a pistol in a holster on a web belt around his middle. “Everything okay?”
“Yessir. Not a soul’s been around.”
Toad glanced down the hall at the marine on the other end, who was looking his way.
Satisfied, Toad said, “He’s in there with Jack Yocke. If he comes out shoot him in the legs. Whatever you do, don’t kill him.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
When he was inside Herb’s room, Toad scanned it, then went straight to the bathroom and Herb’s shaving kit above the sink. Yep, the shit still had that plastic pill bottle with the child-proof cap. Toad glanced at them to ensure they were what he wanted, then pocketed them. He considered taking Herb his toothbrush. Naw. His fucking teeth could just rot.
Out in the bedroom Toad got Herb’s suitcase and opened it. Well, ol’ Herb was a neat packer. His mother would be proud.
Toad dumped everything into a pile in the middle of the bed and examined the lining of the suitcase. He and Jake Grafton had been through Herb’s stuff once before, but it wouldn’t hurt to do it again. Carefully and thoroughly.
Underwear, socks, shirts, trousers, a sweater. A spare can of shaving cream. Toad squirted some onto the carpet. Yep, shaving cream.
The closet held several suits, ties, white shirts and a spare pair of shoes. Toad examined the shoes. He got out his penknife and pried off the heels. Nothing. He felt the suits carefully and threw them on the floor. Except for a spare pen and a pack of matches that Herb had overlooked, the pockets were empty.
Now he turned his attention to the room, systematically taking everything apart. As he worked he thought about Rita.
Pregnant. Refusing to stop flying.
If he were her, he would… But he wasn’t Rita. Rita was Rita and that was why he married her.
You just have to take women as they come. It’s hard to do at times, considering. Amazing that hormone chemistry could make such a big difference in the way men and women’s brains worked. It was like they were a different species, or creatures from another planet.
He threw himself into the chair and sat staring morosely at the mess in front of him. There was nothing here to be found, of that he was sure. So he thought some more about Rita in the cockpit of that jet, flying through a strange sky over a radioactive landscape, nursing the stick and throttles and dropping bombs and fighting the Gs.
There were so many things that could go wrong. And a Russian jet for chrissake, designed, built and maintained by a bunch of vodka-swilling sots.
She can handle it, he told himself, wanting to believe. She’ll get back all right. She�
��s with Jake Grafton. I mean, she’s good and he’s great. They’re a good team. They’ll make it.
Fuck, they’d better! He wasn’t up to losing Rita just now. She had damn near died in a crash a few years back — just the memory of those days made him nauseated.
And he didn’t want to lose Jake Grafton either. Grafton told him to snag Herb Tenney, and if Grafton didn’t come back, Toad was going to have to figure out what to do next. Not that he had a lot of options. One thing sure, though — Herb was going to be finishing off his supply of happy pills if Jake Grafton didn’t make it.
* * *
When he opened the door to the apartment, the first thing he saw was Jack Yocke’s pasty face, then the Browning Hi-Power which he held with both hands. It was pointed askew at nothing at all.
Toad locked the door behind him and took a look at Herb, who was pretending to sleep.
Yocke held the pistol out to Toad butt-first. Toad took it and stuffed it into his waistband. “Thanks,” he said. “I kept waiting to hear the shots.”
Yocke didn’t think that comment worth a reply.
“Would you have used this?” Toad wanted to know.
“I don’t know.”
After they had sat Herb Tenney on the ceramic convenience in the bathroom, then fixed a can of chili for lunch, Yocke asked, “How can you just walk around sticking pistols in people’s faces?”
Toad looked mildly surprised. “I’m in the military. Jake Grafton gives orders, I obey them.”
“This isn’t a movie, you know. That’s a real gun with real bullets.” Toad helped himself to another spoonful of chili. When it was on its way south he said, “You keep looking for moral absolutes, Jack. There aren’t any. Not in this life. All we can do is the best we can.”
“But how do you know you’re doing the right thing?”
“I don’t. But Jake Grafton does. It’s uncanny. He’ll do the right thing regardless of the consequences, regardless of how the chips fall. I’ll take that. I do what I’m told knowing that the CAG is trying to do right.” Even as he said it his mind jumped to Rita. He had bowed to Rita’s decision to fly while pregnant based on faith in her judgment. Now the chili made a lump in his stomach. He dropped the spoon into the bowl and shoved it away. “You gotta believe in people or you’re in a hell of a fix,” he said slowly.
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