Armageddon

“You want them to pick us up?” asked Jalan.

“I want them to attack us,” said Mack.

“You think they’ll attack?” Jalan didn’t sound worried so much as surprised.

“Probably not,” said Mack. ‘But if they do, we want to be ready for them. And if they come over our border, we’ll have justification to follow them. I’d like to find out for sure where they’re operating from.”

“Yes, sir.”

One thing in Jalan’s favor, thought Mack: he didn’t point out that the only weapon the Meagfortress carried was the Stinger air-mine dispenser in the tail, which was designed to work against pursuing aircraft at close range.

“Be ready with the ECMs if we get close,” Mack told his copilot. The ECMs disrupted the guidance systems of enemy missiles, rendering them useless. “The computer can blind that sucker and any missile he’s carrying, don’t worry. These planes have done it a dozen times. It knows those avionics systems better than we know our names”

“Yes, sir.”

If the Sukhois were operating from the base Mack had seen on the satellite images, he’d have to fly fairly far from Brunei territory to get the proof he wanted. It was a calculated risk, given that he didn’t know whether or not there might be more aircraft. But he would have to take some risks to find out what the Sukhois were up to; ignorance was much more dangerous in the long run.

Mack checked back with his controller at the airport to see what the situation was. The controller had double-checked with the spy network to find out if there had been activity at any of the other airfields on Borneo; a few helicopters were missing from Kuching in the southwest, but otherwise the situation seemed to be status quo.

The situation with the terrorists, however, was anything but. The Royal Brunei Police Force now reported several disturbances and attacks throughout the kingdom; Mack told the liaison officer to call over to the headquarters and see if any of the units needed assistance.

“Already have. They’ve declined.”

“Call the regional offices, as well,” said Mack. “Let’s see if they have a different opinion.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Minister.”

The Brunei border ran parallel to his flight path about five miles off his left wing; it extended only about fifty miles south. Doing roughly four hundred knots, they would have to turn in six or seven minutes if they were going to stay over their part of the island.

“Sukhois are changing course, Mack,” said Deci.

“Where are they going?”

“Not clear at the moment. Heading …” Deci hesitated. “They’re coming west, picking up speed, uh, angling down a bit.”

The Sukhois had made a sharp left turn and started to descend from twenty thousand feet. The two Malaysian planes were now flying a course that would take them directly over the border. According to Deci, they hadn’t seen the Megafortress—they were not using their radars, a sign to Mack that they didn’t want to be detected. They had also selected their afterburners for a burst of speed as they dropped down closer to the mountain tops.

“Setting up for a bombing raid?” Mack asked Deci.

“Too soon to tell.”

“Get on with the liaison and have him send an alert.”

“Got it.”

Mack continued southward for another minute and a half, trying to visualize what the Malaysian jets were up to. They continued to descend, passing through seventeen thousand feet en route to sixteen; it wasn’t a rapid descent but by the same token they showed no sign of leveling off. They’d backed off the afterburners but were still moving very quickly, up around five hundred and fifty knots.

“There guerilla camps in that direction?” Mack asked. He meant the question for Deci but Jalan answered.

“There are guerillas along the mountain sides, yes, Minister, but on the south side, not north,” said the copilot.

“One thing I’d point out, this model Su-27 ordinarily wouldn’t be carrying air-to-ground weapons,” said Deci.

“Yeah,” said Mack. The early Su-27s were intended primarily as interceptors, but they did have some capability to drop bombs, and in any event might have been upgraded to do so. “You talk to ground?”

“Passed it along. Entire army is already on alert.”

“Minister, two helicopters approaching Brunei territory southwest of Labi,” said one of his operators. It was the first time the crewmen had called out a contact on their own.

“Good work,” said Mack. He clicked into McKe

MCKENNA ACKNOWLEDGED THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE helicopters and snapped onto the new course, her hand slapping the throttle to full military power. Her wingman, Captain Yayasan, acknowledged tersely when she called over to make sure he was following along.

“Pedal to the metal,” she told him. “Look sharp, eh?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The Bruneians didn’t particularly like taking orders from women, and McKe

Have to kick his butt when we get down, she thought to herself.

“Make sure your ca

THE SUKHOIS TOOK ANOTHER SHARP TURN TO THE northwest, now at five thousand feet over the Limbang River Valley. They were still over Malaysian territory.

“I think they’re aiming for one of the guerilla camps at the southwest side of the river,” said Deci.

“What do we have near there?” Mack asked.

“Police barracks on the other side of the border,” said Jalan.

Mack punched up the map on his left-hand display screen, studying the border area. He was just over three minutes away.

“Deci, can we jam the Sukhois?”

“Uh, you mean screw up their bombs with ECMs?”

“Exactly”

“No way. Unless it’s an air-to-ground missile working off a GPS system, and even then it’d have an internal backup.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to get in their faces,” said Mack.

“Minister, are you sure they’re going to attack our barracks?” asked Jalan.

“Not at all,” said Mack. “But I don’t intend on giving them the chance”

He reached to the throttle slide at the side of his seat, coaxing more power from the EB-52’s four engines.

“It’s going to get a bit twisty at the end:’ he told his crew. ‘The pilot has put on the no-smoking sign. Please fasten your seatbelts. Remember to keep your hands inside the car at all times.”

He pitched the plane onto her wing, sliding down in a three-dimensional pirouette as he got the Megafortress’s nose turned toward the border post. The EB-52 growled at him as the G-forces shot up exponentially, but it complied nonetheless, speed increasing as he dove down toward the border. The copilot began reading off the altitude as the altimeter ladder revolved downward. Meanwhile, the Sukhois had not altered course.

“Try getting them on the radio,” Mack told Jalan. “Tell them they better not go over the border.”

Jalan broadcast on the Malaysian air-force frequencies, but got no response.

“They’re sixty seconds from the border,” said Deci.

“There they are!” said Jalan. His voice lost its professional calm and he jerked his hand toward the windscreen, pointing out the window toward the two airplanes, black blurs in the lower left-hand quadrant of the glass. “Motherfuckers.”

It was the first curse—in English at least—Mack had heard from a member of his crew.

“You’re starting to get the hang of this piloting thing, Jalan,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”

“Computer’s optical system confirms they’re carrying bombs beneath their wings,” said Deci. “Something in the 250-pound range”