Drone Strike

Vahid radioed for instructions. Neither Morad nor the controller answered. Having the Phantom follow him back to the base they had just taken off from seemed like a foolish move if it was still under attack—a reasonable guess, given Morad’s radio silence.

Vahid pushed the MiG slightly ahead, easing in front of the older plane by thirty or forty meters.

“Follow me,” he said over the emergency radio frequency, even though the pilot didn’t seem able to reply. “Take a turn slowly and gently—bank. Use your stick.”

There was no answer from the plane. Instead, Morad radioed him, finally answering his earlier calls.

“I have spoken to one of the general’s aides. We need you to switch to Western combat control.” The major added the frequency and the name of the controller, a colonel whose name sounded like arrr as the transmission broke up. Vahid tried to puzzle out the name but couldn’t work it against his memory, nor did the voice sound familiar after he found the frequency.

The colonel, though, seemed to know him, and immediately asked if he had the Phantom in sight.

“I have it on my wing,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at it. “The pilot appears to be a novice. I think he is one of the maintainers who panicked when the base was under attack. He can fly straight, but otherwise—”

“You are to proceed to Tabriz air base,” said the colonel, cutting him off. “We are scrambling fighters to meet you.”

The airfield, located outside the city of the same name, was the headquarters for Tactical Squadrons 21, 22, and 23. But it was some 370 kilometers to the east; Tehran would have been much more convenient.

“I’m not sure how much fuel he has,” radioed Vahid. “Nor do I think he can maneuver. I don’t think he’s much of a pilot. From the looks of him, he’s a maintainer who panicked to try to save the plane.”

“You have your orders, Captain. We will have escorts in the air within ten minutes.”

“Roger.”

“If the plane does not comply, you are authorized to shoot it down.”

“Destroy it?”

“Affirmative. Attempt to do so over open land. But that should not be your deciding factor. Take it down at all costs if it doesn’t comply.”

TURK WAITED UNTIL HE SAW THE PILOT GESTURING FOR him to follow. The man seemed almost desperate, moving his hands vigorously.

He needed to wait until the last possible moment. It was a contest of time now; time and distance.

The odds were not in his favor. But when had they ever been?

Turk rode the Phantom steady, watching the indicated airspeed carefully. He felt a little light-headed, but was sure that had nothing to do with the plane—they were at 4,000 feet now, and even if the cabin were wide-open he ought to be able to breathe normally. So it was nerves, a problem he could handle. He slowed his breathing, relaxing his muscles as best he could. He leaned gently on the stick, nudging the Phantom so it seemed like he was turning in the direction the MiG wanted.

His other hand settled onto the ganged throttle, waiting.

The MiG pilot saw him moving and began his bank, aiming to lead him wherever it was he wanted to go. Turk started into the turn very slowly, then, as the MiG started to pull ahead, he killed his throttle, practically stalling the Phantom. The MiG floated into the middle of his windscreen. Turk hit the trigger, spitting a burst of 20mm rounds out from the plane’s centerline.

The stream of fire missed, but he hadn’t counted on knocking her down. What he did want was what happened: the MiG pilot, seeing tracers blaze by his windscreen, rolled out of the way. By the time he recovered, Turk had the Phantom’s afterburners screaming. The F-4 jumped through the sound barrier, surging northward and moving as fast as she had gone in years.

VAHID’S INSTINCTS TOOK OVER AS THE TRACERS FLEW past. He ducked and rolled, spi

He couldn’t spot it. He practically spun his head off his neck, making sure the Phantom wasn’t on his six somewhere he couldn’t see. What the hell?

The other plane was way out in front, moving north at a high rate of speed. Vahid armed his air-to-air R-27s, got a strong tone in his helmet indicating he was locked, and fired both. Only after the second missile was away did he radio the controller to tell him what was going on.

TURK EXPECTED THE MIG WOULD FIRE ITS RADAR MISSILES almost immediately. Under most circumstances in a modern American plane, that wouldn’t be a problem: the weapons would be easily fended off by the ECMs.

In the Phantom, things were a little different. He had to rely on his guile.

He pushed lower to the ground, still picking up speed. The plane was equipped with a radar warning receiver, which ordinarily would tell the crew when it was being tracked by a radar. But the receiver hadn’t worked earlier, when the MiG was coming up from behind, and it remained clean now, either malfunctioning or not activated correctly.

Turk assumed there was a problem with the RWR and decided to ignore it. He saw the encounter in his head, playing it over as if it were one of the scrimmages he routinely did with his UAVs. He saw the Iranian pilot recover, then launch the first missile. He’d look back at the radar, check for another strong lock, then fire again.

Or maybe he would wait and see what the first missile did. But that wasn’t going to work now.

He counted to three, then pushed the stick hard and rolled into an invert, turning at the same time to beam the Doppler radar in the MiG and confuse the missile. He drove the Phantom lower, pushing so close to the ground that the scraggly brush threatened to reach up and grab the plane as it passed. A small city lay ahead; Turk went even lower, coming in over the rooftops. He kept counting to himself, knowing that the missile was behind him somewhere, and hoping it would run out of fuel.

The R-27 had a semiactive radar; it rode to its target on a beam provided by the MiG’s radar. Turk’s maneuvers had confused the radar momentarily, and his very low altitude made it hard for the enemy radar to sort him out of the ground clutter.

He saw a canyon coming up and decided to turn with it, hoping the close sides would shield him from the guiding radar. But the Phantom was now moving well over the speed of sound, and she wasn’t about to turn easily or quickly. Worse, he felt a punch in his stomach as he tried to turn—the g forces were quick to build up. He had to ease back, and gave up his plan. Instead he stayed as low as he could over the open terrain, ru

Sweat poured from every pore of his body, including the sides of his eyes; he could barely keep his hand on the stick.

Seconds passed, then a full minute. He let off on the gas and banked, more gently this time, aiming north.

Something shot in front of him, maybe a mile away. It was one of the missiles.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Then he felt the tail of the Phantom lifting out of his hand, pitching his nose sideways.

The other missile had exploded behind him.

19

CIA campus, Virginia

BREANNA WATCHED AS THE SIGNAL INDICATING TURK’S position jerked back northward.

“What the hell is he doing?” Reid asked.

“I don’t know. Assuming he’s in a plane, they may be ducking a missile.” They could only guess what was going on; there’d been no word from Turk, or Stoner for that matter. It was clear from the intercepted Iranian radio transmissions that the Iranians had not captured them. The Iranian air force was scrambling after a Phantom that had left Manzariyeh without authorization; Brea