Khan and Rashim climbed through three thousand feet, heading up toward the MiG-29s that were passing through eight thousand feet on their way down. The F-16 radars scoured the sky in front of them. The MiGs’ electronics countermeasures in the humps behind the cockpits were effective in convincing the F-16 radar to look elsewhere.
Luke could now clearly see the waves breaking on the beach behind San Onofre, behind the white steam shooting into the sky. Cars were piling up on the freeway below them.
Vlad pulled to the right of Luke, trying to gain an angle on Khan so he would have to choose to go after one of them. Khan chose Luke, who was straight ahead of him. Luke and Khan raced at each other at nearly twice the speed of sound, now three miles apart. Vlad pulled hard into a high-G turn and tried to get his helmet-mounted sight on Khan. Khan had fought the MiGs enough to know what the outside limit of the helmet-mounted sight was and when he was in danger. He knew that Vlad was nearly to the point where he could fire an Archer. What he didn’t know was that Vlad didn’t have any more missiles. Khan broke off his attack on Luke to defend himself from Vlad. He pulled hard to his left as Rashim passed him on his right and headed toward Thud and Stamp.
Luke was tempted to fire his last Archer missile at Rashim, but knew that the other F-16, the one in the lead, was Khan—and he wanted him. Luke pulled hard right after Khan’s F-16.
Vlad screamed in Russian and pushed his throttles into afterburner to regain airspeed as Khan turned into him. Luke saw his chance. He squeezed the autolock on the radar to find the nearest airplane and lock it up, flooding it with radar illumination, then to slave the Archer missile’s seekerhead to the radar. The MiG had too many switches and moves required, though; he had to keep looking into the cockpit.
He pulled hard on the stick and banked to the right to get his nose on Khan, now only a mile away and turning toward Vlad. Luke pulled harder, with his nose only forty degrees behind the tail of the F-16. He pulled through seven Gs, then eight. His face distorted under the force, his cheeks pulled down. His radar suddenly showed a good lock on the F-16 and good missile parameters. He slipped his finger around the stick until it rested on the trigger and he waited for a clear shot, but Vlad’s MiG was in the windscreen. The Archer was just as likely to go after Vlad as Khan.
Luke pulled harder still to get a better shot and maybe get Khan to reverse himself and see Luke as the threat. Vlad could escape, or even drag Khan northeast into the low-level California mountains over Camp Pendleton, where Luke could get a clear shot. Luke fought to keep the blood in his head and to keep from blacking out. He noticed he was already seeing in black and white, his vision beginning to get grainy around the edges.
“Eagle 105 flight six miles out. State your posit.”
Luke grunted as he tried to speak through the eight-G turn. “Splashed two. Still over San Onofre. Plant has been . . . ugh . . . hit.”
“We have you. We’re right behind you.”
Vlad was in a low rolling scissors with Khan that Luke couldn’t get into or stop. They were heading toward the ground at three hundred knots as each tried to turn inside the other without gaining any angles.
Luke eased the stick forward and rolled left to see Thud and Stamp. They were two miles south, embroiled in their own 2 v. 1 with the other F-16. Luke watched them for five seconds, to make sure they weren’t in trouble. He instantly knew that the F-16 was Rashim. Overly aggressive.
Luke turned back hard right to head down toward Vlad and Khan. As he relocated the F-16 against the dark landscape behind them, a small explosion on Khan’s airplane startled him. Too late he realized it was the rocket motor of one of Khan’s Sidewinder missiles. It raced across the circle toward Vlad, less than half a mile away. Luke fumbled for the radio transmission button, but he couldn’t warn Vlad in the short time it took for the missile to cross the gulf between them. The Sidewinder slammed into the tail of the MiG-29, and the airplane burst into flames. Vlad immediately pulled the ejection handle, and his ejection seat rocketed him out of the burning wreck.
Khan knew he had the MiG-29 as soon as he launched his Sidewinder. He pulled up, somehow now aware of the F-15s closing on him. Khan was between four F-15s coming from the north and Luke coming from the east.
Rashim had his own problems with Stamp and Thud. He turned into the two MiG-29s, hoping to avoid the combination of their Archer missiles and their helmet-mounted sights. He turned hard, keeping them at bay but not trying to get behind them. He was playing a defensive game, knowing that there were now four F-15s in the mix.
Rashim suddenly dumped his nose and headed for the ground toward the power lines that climbed up the hill from the nuclear plant. He couldn’t see the plant from his current position, but he knew the fat wires would lead him right back to it.
He performed a split S as he headed down toward the power lines, hoping to avoid Thud and Stamp as they locked their radars onto his fleeing airplane. He leveled off just above the freeway, crowded with stopped cars, the drivers of which had gotten out to watch the aerial dogfight and gawk at the flames coming from a building on the property of the nuclear power plant, wondering what the screaming sirens meant.
Rashim hugged the ground as he screamed north, then pulled up to climb over the power lines. He was half a mile from San Onofre. He glanced at the growing plume of steam. It was now illuminated by the morning sun and was starkly white and radiant. Rashim pulled hard left and headed toward the steam as he looked over his right wing toward Khan.
On his left, what he couldn’t see was that Thud had stayed at altitude and was racing downhill toward him, rapidly closing the distance. To Rashim’s right, Luke was locked in a death fight with Khan.
Luke was on the ragged edge of the aircraft’s performance. He reversed his airplane and pulled his nose up to slow down and to slice in on Khan’s F-16. He waited for Khan to pull into him aggressively again, as he knew he would. Luke would be ready to cut inside his turn and drill him. Khan had wrestled back, keeping the fight neutral, no one gaining an advantage, countering every one of Luke’s moves, but this time, instead of pulling into him, Khan suddenly broke off and headed for the power plant behind Rashim.
Luke was surprised. He leveled his wings, waiting for Khan to commit himself. He saw Rashim with Khan following him. He jerked his MiG over on its back and pulled down toward the ground, his throttles at full throw, accelerating with gravity’s help to chase the fleeing F-16s. They were bugging out. Luke made sure his spine was straight so his head wouldn’t get buried in his lap by the huge Gs he was about to pull. He yanked back hard on the stick and loaded up the MiG with eight Gs. He went to full afterburner and stayed after Khan, who fell in a mile behind Rashim.
Luke had no idea what Khan was doing, but he was going with him. He eased back on the stick as they leveled out at ground level. Khan tore toward the Pacific. Luke glanced up to his left and saw another MiG descending, much faster than Luke, cutting across toward the lead F-16.
The F-15s finally arrived and crossed from Luke’s right to left, above and behind the MiGs, joining in the tail chase of the fleeing F-16s. There were too many airplanes too close together for anyone to lob a missile.
“Thud, that you going after the westernmost F-16?”
“Yeah, Stick. I’ve got him. No way he’s getting away.”
Thud was going at least two hundred knots faster than the F-16. Luke watched as he closed on Rashim. Thud had pushed his MiG-29 toward the F-16 nearly supersonic. Rashim stayed low. He knew that Thud was too close for a missile shot and, with the closure he had, was likely to overshoot and expose himself. Rashim was content with that.
Thud rushed in with reckless abandon.
Luke didn’t like what he saw. He transmitted, “Thud, watch your closure.”
Thud didn’t reply.
“Thud, pull off and let me have a shot at him. They’re bugging out! Thud!”
“I’ve got him,” Thud replied. “As soon as he sees me closing on him, he’ll come
back at me. Then I’ll have him.”
He had gotten it almost completely right. Rashim was looking over his shoulder. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to get away. He’d done what he’d come here to do. Rashim pulled back on the stick, and the F-16 instantly went to 9.5 Gs, as much as the computer would allow. He pulled up and back, directly into Thud.
Thud pulled back on his throttles and tried to increase his distance from Rashim.
Rashim expected that. He kept his eye fixed on the nose of the MiG-29 as he pulled, and flew his fighter right into Thud.
The two fighters collided like cymbals and burst into flames. Airplane and canopy parts littered the sky and fell to the ocean.
“Thud!” Luke cried. He fought the instant nausea that ripped into his gut. “No!” Luke gasped for oxygen through his mask. He pulled back on his throttles and came out of afterburner. He put his head back against the ejection seat. He couldn’t do it.
“You want us to take the last one?” the F-15 lead asked.
Luke watched as Khan’s F-16 got smaller as it headed out into the Pacific. He waited, then jammed the throttles forward as Glenda spoke in his ear, “Low fuel! Low fuel!” His eyes darted to the fuel gauge. She was right, but it didn’t matter. If he had to go swimming to get Khan, then that was just how it was going to be. He’d strangle him to death in the water.
Khan had taken advantage of the midair to make his escape. He was down on the deck, fifty feet off the water. He had a mile head start on the fighters chasing him. Luke and Stamp were right behind him at the same speed. It was a race to the middle of the ocean. He had nowhere to go. The flight of four F-15s flew cover above them, ready to pounce. The lead was ready. “Nevada Fighter, pull off. We’ve got a sweet missile shot on him.”
“Negative. I’ll take my shot, then you can have him.”
“Roger. Fuel state?”
“About twenty minutes. I’m okay,” he lied.
Luke was surprised. Khan was clearly planning on running west until he ran out of gas, then crashing into the ocean. But if Khan knew he was going to die, Luke was surprised he didn’t want to go down fighting as Rashim had just done.
Stamp was apparently thinking the same thing. “Any idea on his intentions?” he asked.
“None.”
Luke didn’t want to get too close. He settled in one mile behind Khan, waiting for him to commit himself, with the image of Thud’s airplane exploding branded into his mind. If he fired a missile now, it would hit the water instead of the F-16. But if he had to wait much longer, Luke would run out of gas and crash into the ocean himself. He had to act soon to have any chance of landing back at Miramar, the Marine Corps air station in San Diego.
As Luke contemplated his options, they reached seventy-five miles off the coast, in the middle of nowhere, with no land in sight. Khan suddenly pulled into a hard left turn, still fifty feet off the ocean.
“Here we go,” the F-15 pilot said.
Luke pulled up slightly as the turn took him by surprise. He had closed the distance to Khan too fast. He pulled up quickly into a high yo-yo to keep from overshooting. He looked down at Khan from a high perch position. Khan was in a tight five-G turn right on the surface of the ocean, circling. Suddenly he pulled up into a climbing spiral away from the ocean.
Luke hesitated. He couldn’t imagine what Khan was trying to do, but it was the opening Luke had been waiting for. He rolled in and locked up Khan with his radar. He selected Archer and directed his helmet-mounted sight toward the climbing F-16. He heard the growl from the Archer seekerhead. Khan was far enough away from the water to give Luke a clear shot. The F-15s above at ten thousand feet watched in anticipation as Luke pulled hard to line up his last missile shot.
Luke leveled his wings, his breath coming in short, quick gasps. He pulled the trigger, and the Archer hissed off the missile rail toward the F-16. Luke watched in shock as the canopy came off the F-16 and Khan ejected before the missile even arrived. “What the . . .” Luke said to himself. The ejection seat and rocket motor threw Khan away from the F-16 seconds before the Archer missile hit the Viper in the belly and cut it in half. The F-16 rolled over and headed for the water in its two pieces, flames coming out of both ends. Khan floated down gently in his silk parachute as he inflated his survival vest and deployed the seat pan on his ejection seat.
Luke rolled wings level and pulled his throttles back to idle, slowing quickly. He watched Khan float to the ocean. “Catfish, splash the fourth bogey. The pilot jumped out. Get the Navy out here to take this guy into custody.”
“Roger, copy.”
Luke looked down at his TACAN. “We’re on the 298 radial for 98 from Miramar.”
“Roger that.”
Luke’s heart climbed quickly into his throat and choked off any thought of speaking as he watched Khan touch down and splash into the ocean. A hundred yards away from him, a periscope pierced the ocean’s surface. It was barely moving in the water. Seconds later the submarine’s sail broke the surface in a bath of white foam. Khan had freed himself from his parachute and swam with a gentle backstroke toward the surfacing submarine.
Two men opened a hatch in the sail of the submarine and came out onto the bridge. They saw Khan and clambered down a ladder to the flat deck behind the sail. They wore life jackets and dark clothes. Luke lowered the nose of the Fulcrum. “You seeing this?” Luke asked.
“I’m seeing it, but I’m not believing it,” Stamp replied.
This cannot be happening, Luke thought. “Catfish, we’ve got a submarine surfaced on the water. They’re pulling Khan out of the water. Call the Navy! Get some antisubmarine assets here now!”
“A submarine, sir?”
“Yes, a submarine?”
“Whose, sir?”
Luke lowered his nose and slowed down to take a hard look at the sub. It was black, in good shape, and almost clearly a diesel. He asked in desperation, “Anybody got a camera?”
“No,” Stamp said with regret.
“Negative,” the F-15 leader replied.
Luke pulled up hard and tried to get out of the way as Stamp followed him down and attempted to get a radar lock on the submarine with his MiG radar to shoot his last missile. The radar refused to lock on to the submarine. It couldn’t separate the sub from the rest of the ocean. Stamp fired anyway, hoping against hope that the missile would guide, but he was disappointed. The long Alamo went ballistic as soon as it was launched. It headed straight down into the ocean like an arrow hundreds of yards from the sub.
Luke watched helplessly as the submarine started to dive. “Emergency fuel! Emergency fuel!” Glenda warned. He ignored her. Khan stood on the bridge of the submarine, removed his helmet, and waved at Luke flying two thousand feet above. Suddenly Khan turned and dropped through the open hatch, which closed quickly behind him. The blue ocean closed over the submarine, and the deck was soon awash in white foam and surging water. The sail grew smaller, and the submarine disappeared into the ocean.
Luke reduced his throttles and pulled back on the stick as the MiG climbed away from disaster. Glenda continued to remind him of his fuel state. “Catfish, I’m emergency fuel. Request bingo profile vector for straight-in approach to Miramar.”
“Roger, Nevada Fighter 101. Fuel emergency. Take heading of 113, climb and maintain maximum-range altitude, and report level.”
“Catfish, Eagle flight RTB.”
“Roger. Take heading 060, climb and maintain fifteen thousand feet. Break, Nevada Fighter, I’ve been informed, sir, that the Navy is on their way to get to the submarine,” Catfish reported.
As Luke climbed away from the ocean, he glanced back at the vague disruption on the surface of the Pacific where the submarine had been. “Tell them they’re too late.”
19
Luke was on fumes when he landed at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego. He barely had enough fuel to taxi to the operations shed, but he wasn’t about to be towed; he’d rather flame out. His mask hung down in s
urrender, exposing his sweating face. He glanced at the operations building and was surprised to see the throng of people waiting for him. He shut down the starboard engine to save fuel. He kept his visor lowered. He didn’t want anybody to see his eyes, which were full of frustration and fury. At least the Pakistanis had missed the nuclear plants. Luke was suddenly acutely aware of why Khan had demanded more air-to-ground training.
He taxied slowly, treasuring the quiet, protective shell of the airplane cockpit that kept the world away. Vlad had lost his MiG. Four F-16s had attacked San Onofre and been lost, and his school would be blamed for everything—of that he was sure. He taxied by the windsock. The prevailing wind was from the southeast. It had allowed him to land straight in from the ocean on Runway 6, the opposite direction airplanes usually landed at Miramar. The prevailing wind in Southern California was almost always from the ocean, between 240 and 270. But not today. Today all of Southern California was experiencing a Santa Ana, a wind condition that meant the winds were coming from the east, from the desert. They were hot, dry winds that could easily reach twenty or thirty knots. He was thankful the attack hadn’t resulted in a radioactive cloud. He was sure the steam he’d seen meant they’d hit a power substation or the heating plant for the base.
Luke taxied forward slowly to the point where the lineman was indicating, waited until his wheels had been chocked, and shut down the MiG. He waited until his engine had completely stopped and then opened the canopy. A lineman put a ladder in place for him. He unstrapped methodically as he watched Stamp land and taxi toward him.
Luke climbed out of the MiG and down the ladder with his helmet in hand and began walking slowly to the operations shack. A man in a dark blue suit came jogging toward him with three other men on his heels. The man spoke to him from fifteen feet away as he slowed to a fast walk. “Are you Mr. Luke Henry?” he asked, reaching inside his coat for his identification.
Luke stood there with his hands on his hips, his helmet hanging in his left hand, and nodded. “Yeah. Who are you?”
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