Armageddon

“What if they’re carrying radar-guided missiles as they were the other day?”

“Oh, they definitely will be. You’ll just confuse the hell out of them with your ECMs,” Mack said. “I’ll handle the Sparrows.”

They had about a five minute lead on the two Malaysian planes as they reached the coast. Mack used some of it to climb to thirty-five thousand feet, then told Jalan to open the bomb bay door, preparing the Sparrows for firing. As their air speed dropped, the Sukhois came charging at them. The interceptors were spread nearly three miles apart, much more wary than they had been the other day; they’d thought about their encounter and tried to learn from it.

Which he was counting on.

“We’re going to make it look like we want to get them with the Stinger, turn, and then turn again,” he told his crew. “If you have to puke, do it now.”

One of the ops laughed and Mack smiled to himself—he was finally getting through to these guys.

“We’re spiked,” said Jalan, meaning that the targeting radar in the lead Su-27 had locked onto them.

That was the signal Mack had been waiting for.

“Break it,” he said calmly. Then he put Jersey into a wide turn to the north.

The lead Su-27 started to turn as well, pla

“Locked,” said the computer. “Range five miles.”

“Fire Sparrow One,” said Mack.

“Missile is launched”

“Fire Sparrow Two,” said Mack, seeing the diamond in the targeting screen close around the target.

“Target is locked Launching.”

With the missile away, Mack immediately turned back to the east, looking for the second Sukhoi. He expected the first to take a head-on approach, but found him flying parallel five miles ahead, and actually moving more than fifty knots slower than the Megafortress.

“Computer, lock target two.”

“Locked. Range five miles.”

“Fire Sparrow Three.”

“Missile is launched.”

Mack was about to launch another Sparrow when Jalan warned that a radar had locked on them. Mack, surprised, fired off chaff and took two quick cuts in the air. He had no idea which radar could be tracking them.

“Score one Sparrow!” said Jalan excitedly.

“What about that radar?”

“Still tracking us.”

Paranoia surged through Mack as he continued to have trouble picking up the opposing fighter. Just as he felt convinced—absolutely convinced—that the Su-27 was locked on his butt, he finally spotted the red dagger at the right corner of his screen. He started to pull the Megafortress around but Jalan yelled a warning over the interphone.

“Missiles! Missiles!”

Mack flailed back east, unable to sort the situation out in his head. He had one Sukhoi down, but must have missed the second one somehow. He blew a hard breath into his oxygen mask, trying to concentrate on what he needed to do, not on what he’d missed. Jalan and the computer ID’d the missile as a radar-guided R-27R. Mack flailed desperately in the air, zigging and zagging and dispensing the last of his chaff. The missile avoided the tinsel and hung with the Megafortress until it was about three hundred yards away; finally, the ECMs managed to shake it off. Desperate, a little angry at being jilted, the missile immolated itself as soon as it realized its date wasn’t showing up. Part of the warhead flew through the Megafortress’s number four engine, outboard on the right wing. The engine instantly lost power; Mack felt the wing tug downward before the computer helped him trim the plane to compensate.

“Jalan, we’ve lost engine four,” said Mack calmly.

“Yes. Mr. Minister,” said the copilot, already double-checking the computer’s automated safety programs.

Meanwhile, Mack spotted the remaining Sukhoi begi

“Fire Sparrow Four,” said Mack.

The missile clunked off the rotating launcher in the rear. Mack once more changed direction, but this time the Sukhoi pilot didn’t have a chance to target him.

“Score Sukhoi number two!” said Jalan.

They could see this explosion, a black puff in the distance at just about their altitude. Mack felt his shoulders sag; he’d been flying for hours without much sleep, and however good it felt to nail two enemy planes there was no way to put off fatigue forever.

“All right,” he told the crew. “Let’s take a deep breath.”

He and the copilot ran through the computer’s screens, double-checking the damage. Besides the engine, there had been some light damage to the control surfaces on the right wing. But it wasn’t too severe; the plane remained eminently controllable and they were climbing at a decent pace.

“Time to head back for the barn,” Mack told his tired crew. But as he brought up the screen to plot a course home, they reported an odd contact on the surface of the water, heading at high speed toward the Brunei oil derricks.

“Range, twenty miles, almost directly ahead,” said Jalan. “Computer can’t identify it, but it’s doing at least fifty knots” It was almost directly ahead.

“Let’s have a look,” said Mack.

Off the coast of Brunei

0844

Dazhou Ti folded his arms as they approached the oil platforms. He pla

“Sixty seconds to firing point,” a

“Captain, the aircraft we noted earlier is tracking us,” said the radar operator.

“How can that be?” Dazhou moved over to the radar station, where the indicator showed that they were indeed visible on the airplane’s radar. It was the American Megafortress that had been given to the enemy.

General Udara had promised that their spies and radar would keep track of the aircraft, and that if necessary the Malaysian air force’s two Sukhoi Su-27s would distract it—or. if the opportunity presented itself, shoot it down. But obviously the Megafortress had managed to slip by them.

Imbeciles.

“Prepare the anti-aircraft missiles,” said Dazhou Ti. “Stay on the course but lower our speed. If they come close enough, we will make them very sorry.”

Aboard Jersey, off the coast of Brunei

0848

The ship—if that’s what it was—looked like a black triangle with wings on the surface of the ocean ahead, a metal loon that was aimed like an arrow at the Brunei oil field. And it moved incredibly fast—around a hundred knots.

“I’ll bet that’s what sunk the merchant ship the other day,” Mack told Jalan. “Probably hit the oil tank as well.”

“I can alert the navy,” said Jala. .

“Yeah,” said Mack, looking at the image in the enhanced video. He wasn’t much of an expert on naval architecture, but the craft looked as if it used something similar to wing-inground effect, skimming over the surface of the water like an airplane at very high speed. The sharp, odd angles would also make it hard to spot for most radars, even the EB-52s. except at close range. The black paint made it hard to see.