Too close. Maybe six miles.
He eased the nose down some more and backed off on the throttle.
Kicked the speed brakes out.
“I put my boards out, Three,” he warned.
“Three.”
When he was down to four hundred knots, he pulled the brakes back in.
The first hot spot was moving now, racing along the runway, coming toward him.
“Hawkeye, I’m reading three hot aircraft on the ground. The first is on his takeoff run.”
“Let’s take the first one first, then,” Soames said.
“Good idea, Hawkeye.”
*
Henry Loh knew that his attack radar had to have some altitude before it worked effectively, but he had expected to see at least a few moving blips among the ground clutter as he started his takeoff roll.
Maybe Chung had gotten them all?
That would be disappointing.
Speed ninety-five knots.
The compound went by on his right.
Idiot Lon Pot. He should shut off the lights.
The adrenaline pumped into his veins. He felt high, ready to soar.
He hoped Chung had not hit any of Kimball’s air craft. He needed at least five of them to call himself an ace.
And he knew that he had the advantage.
Crider had made them visible for him.
And Wilcox had made him invulnerable.
Switzer, Chung, Burov — none of them knew that Loh was invulnerable. They did not know that the Americans had orders not to shoot at him.
But he did not have similar orders not to shoot at the Americans.
The airspeed indicator showed 122 knots.
His secondary radio was set to the American emergency frequency, 243.0. He pressed the transmit button.
“Kimball, I am Henry Loh. Do you read me?”
There was no answer.
Surely, they were monitoring the emergency channel.
He began to have doubts.
They had to know which aircraft was his.
His airspeed reached takeoff velocity, and he rotated, immediately withdrawing the flaps and landing gear.
He climbed steeply, trading speed for altitude.
“Kimball, I am Henry Loh.”
“Big fucking deal,” the radio responded.
Loh peered forward through the windscreen.
And there was a slim, twin-ruddered shadow against the stars.
Coming directly at him.
No radar return.
His missiles were useless.
Worse, they were not even armed yet.
Suddenly, green tracers erupted out of the shadow.
Passing below him.
Rising.
He pulled back on the stick.
The stall warning buzzer went off.
Screaming at him.
The speed gone, his left wing dipped.
The Mirage rolled inverted.
Tumbled.
Henry Loh’s last thought was that he would never be an ace.
*
Kimball wanted to save at least two of his Hellfires. He would use two of them on the runway, to stop the last two planes from taking off. Head-on, his air-to-air missiles weren’t going to be as effective.
By the time the Kappa Kat determined the plane taking off was radiating, and illuminated him for the data-link to Bengal One, he was too close.
He heard the two radio calls coming in on his Tac Five receiver, and was mystified by them. Henry Loh meant nothing more to him than another drug runner, responsible for his brother Randy’s and his parents’ deaths.
And indirectly, the death of Sam Eddy.
He keyed Tac Five. “Big fucking deal.”
The Mirage had just lifted off the runway when Kimball opened up with the gun.
The green tracers probed below the Mirage, and he lifted the nose.
But the big fighter, trying to evade, went into a stall, whipped a wing over, and plowed into the earth off the end of the runway.
“Nice shot,” Vrdlicka called.
“Didn’t even hit him,” Kimball radioed back.
Leveled off, heading directly down the strip.
Used the yellow square to target the strip both left and right of center and launched two Hellfires.
They lanced away, slammed into the asphalt and erupted.
He jinked upward and left to dodge the debris.
Found a Mirage and two helicopters parked off the left side of the runway. Another Mirage was on the end of the runway, prepared for its takeoff run.
The parked Mirage was hot.
The infrared lens told him so, and he locked on, then launched the Sidewinder.
It streaked off the wing pylon.
He pulled up and missed seeing the hit.
But below him, the landscape illuminated white-hot.
“Two choppers and a Mirage, Three.”
“See ’em,” Vrdlicka said. “Launched.”
Kimball rolled right, and as he came around in his circle, looked back at the airstrip. He couldn’t see Bengal Three, but Vrdlicka had hit the remaining Mirage and both choppers. Four fires raged at the south end of the runway.
There were no flames on the north end, from the Mirage that had stalled out.
Henry Loh?
Kimball dipped the nose and slowed some more as he came back to the north end of the airfield.
If Loh had gotten out, he was going to rip him up with cannon rounds.
The image picked up by the night vision lens was quickly gone as he shot over the wreckage, but he would remember it.
Loh had ejected from the Mirage after it went inverted. The ejection seat had rocketed him headfirst into the ground. All he saw was the bottom of the seat and a pair of legs.
“Hawkeye, One. Any other aggressors around?”
“Negative, One. You’re clear for your final pass.”
Kimball rolled left to complete another 360-degree turn and get some distance from the compound.
He turned on his wingtip guidelights, and Vrdlicka joined with him four miles north of the compound. Together, they turned back.
“One, Hawkeye. Bengals Five and Two report total destruction at Shan Base. They caught every damned one of them on the ground.”
“Damn,” Kimball said, “now they’ll expect me to buy them a beer.”
He lined up on the compound, which was easy to do. Lights were on in some of the houses within it. He guessed that a lot of people inside were in a state of panic.
As he closed in, he saw that, down by the airstrip, more figures were running around. The headlights of vehicles dashed about.
“We want to hit the trucks?” Vrdlicka asked.
“Skip them. Dump it all in the compound.”
Two miles out, he lifted his head,enough to aim the night vision lens. The wall of the compound came up.
Roof.
Garden?
A wall of windows, brightly lit.
Two figures behind the windows, peering out.
LOCK-ON.
Committed.
The Hellfires launched.
He fired his last AMRAAM also, just to get rid of it.
Kimball eased the stick back and nosed upward.
Both Hellfires had detonated inside the house by the time he went over it.
He went into another right turn, looking back.
Vrdlicka’s missiles had gone into another house and probably a garage with stored gasoline … The flames reached for the stars, red and yellow and orange and spreading.
He hoped Mai Pot was a widow.
That’s all I can do, Sam Eddy. Is it enough?
There would be some satisfaction in Mai Pot’s becoming a widow, though it was not as great a satisfaction as he had thought it might be.
Kimball felt as if his body was becoming his own again as Soames called, “Bengals, form on me. Be tender with the throttles, please. We’ve got twenty-three hundred miles to go, and fuel may be tight
by now.”
Rolling into a westerly heading, Kimball began a climb, looking for Vrdlicka to join with him.
He was looking forward to seeing a real prince.
Landing
Twenty-three
On the third of August, Ben Wilcox and Ted Simonson reviewed the damage.
“It’s not as bad as it could have been,” Simonson said.
“No. The objectives were met,” Wilcox said. “We got rid of a drug kingpin and we suppressed a coup attempt. The anti-drug people and the State Department will both be happy, though not happy with us, since they don’t know our role. But damn, Ted, there were a hell of a lot of collateral problems with this operation.”
“First, there’s Crider.”
“He’s in jail in Riyadh.”
“Right, and though we’ve made overtures, it looks as if they’re going to go ahead and try him for the sabotage of the Alpha Kat.”
“The punishment can be brutal in Saudi Arabia.”
“We can count on that, I think.”
“Knowing how Dixon has worked in the past, though, I don’t think Crider can name names,” Wilcox said.
“I’m sure that’s true. Still, the trial has scared the hell out of Dixon. He’s afraid we may leak his telephone connection with Crider to the Saudis.”
Wilcox was certain that Simonson had made that point clear to Dixon before he released the general from custody. “I’ll bet he retires.”
“He’s already turned his papers in. Not unsurprisingly, a general named Ailesworth who has something to do with procurement is also retiring.”
Wilcox grinned. “Kimball shot down some people he’ll never know about. Still, I regret the loss of Henry Loh. He’d been on my payroll for twenty years.”
“But, damn it, Ben, you knew he grabbed the bucks anywhere he could. He didn’t care whether he was on the winning side or the losing side, as long as he came out of it unscathed, with a few more millions in his accounts.”
“Yeah, but I understood him, Ted. And I’d promised him that his information wouldn’t get him killed.”
“Did you also tell that to Kimball?”
“No. I don’t give out the names of my best sources. What’s the current status in Burma?”
“Lon Pot’s army kicked off its own coup attempt. Apparently, there was a major disruption of communications. My analysts don’t think the army knew that their air support had evaporated. Colonel Mauk crushed the major advances with air-to-ground suppression, and all that’s left is some mopping up.”
“Mauk will come out of this a hero,” Wilcox said. “We may have to get close to him.”
“I think it’s a good idea.”
*
Susan McEntire arrived in Riyadh on the morning of the fourth of August, and Kimball met her at the airport. The short white skirt and print blouse had been left behind in favor of a smart blue traveling suit.
She was very subdued on the drive to the hotel. Since he had already taken a room for her, he carried her two pieces of luggage directly up to her suite.
He unlocked the door and ushered her inside.
Turning slowly, she surveyed the expansive and elegant sitting room, but he felt she wasn’t really seeing it. She settled onto the sofa and lit a cigarette.
“I don’t suppose a girl can get a drink?” she asked.
“No. Not unless it’s soft.”
“Seven-up?”
“Sure.” He went to the small refrigerator and got it for her. He even poured it in a glass over ice cubes.
“Thanks. Do you want to hear about what’s going on in Phoenix?”
“I do,” he said, taking one of the chairs opposite her.
“As soon as the governor heard that the Saudis were buying sixty airplanes, and that they’d subsidize a new factory here if the U.S. wouldn’t restore our airworthiness certificates, he and a contingent of congressmen began a blitz of Washington. He assured me that Kimball Aero would be staying in Arizona.”
“Paying taxes there,” Kimball added.
“Of course. No one in the state wants to lose a promising and substantial industry. There’s employment, as well as a tax base, to think about.”
Kimball retrieved the emerald ring from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Sam Eddy bought this for you.”
“What?”
“He stuck it in the pocket of my slacks. I’d left them in a locker on the Starlifter and didn’t find it until we landed here.”
Susan stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table and held the ring in her fingers, twisting it so that the light from the lamp reflected in brilliant green splatters on her hands.
He realized for the first time that the emerald was the exact shade of her eyes, something Sam Eddy probably knew when he bought it. The silver flecks around the irises seemed particularly intense. The tears were welling up in the corners.
“Sam Eddy didn’t intend to return from this trip,” she said.
It was Kimball’s turn to say, “What? That’s crazy, Susie.”
“I went up to his apartment to water the plants. All of his plants were plastic.”
“Uh —”
“There was a letter for me. Along with his will. He named you executor.”
Kimball had known that.
“All of his KAT shares go into a trust administered by me,” she said. “The income is to go to AIDS research.”
Kimball hadn’t been aware of that.
“He was HIV-positive, Kim.”
“Oh, shit.”
“That’s why he divorced me.”
“You …?”
“I’m fine. He gave me up. He gave up all women. That was his problem. Always had been.”
Kimball felt devastated. He wished he’d known, but he didn’t know what he would have done about it.
“I never stopped loving him,” she said.
“I know.”
“And I was kind of like him.”
Kimball didn’t say anything.
“Because I loved the two of you.”
And she started bawling.
Women.
He got up, went around the coffee table, and sat on the sofa beside her.
Put his arm around her shoulders.
And held her while she cried.
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Characters
Kimball Aero Technology:
Bryce Kimball, “Cheetah,” President Sam Eddy McEntire, “Irish Eyes,” Executive Vice President
A.J. Soames, “Papa,” Vice President, Administration Susan McEntire, Comptroller
Pilot/Engineers:
Conrad Billingsly, “Frog”
Howard Cadwell, “Cardsharp”
Phillipe Contrarez, “Speedy”
James Alan Gander, “Gandy Dancer”
Gaston Greer, “Gray Ghost”
Jay Halek, “Barnfire”
Alex Hamilton, “Flamethrower”
Thomas Keeper, “Miner”
Warren Mabry, “Dingbat”
Ito Makura, “Falcon”
Dave Metger, “Uncle Pete”
Sam Miller, “Dart”
Frederick Nackerman, “Flapjack”
Mel Vrdlicka, “Downhill”
George Wagers, “Gambler”
Mechanics:
Tex Brabham, chief mechanic
Carl Dent
Paul Diamond
Luke Frale
Zack Freeman
Walt Hammond
Wes Overly
Elliott Stott
Virgil Thomas
Perry Vance
Mark Westergood
Darrell Williams
Washington, D.C.:
Benjamin Wilcox, Deputy Direct
or of Intelligence, CIA Ted Simonson, Deputy Director of Operations, CIA Brock Dixon, Major General, USAF Intelligence Jack Ailesworth, Lieutenant General, USAF Weapons Procurement
Mercenary Force:
Derek Crider, Mission Leader
Wheeler, sniper, medic
Alan Adage, sniper
Emilio Lujan, pilot
Del Gart, munitions
Corey O’Brian, munitions
Lon Pot Organization:
Lon Pot, Prince of Southeast Asia
Henry Loh, Air Force Chief
Dao Van Luong, Finance Chief
Vol Soon, Army Chief
Micah Chao, Police Chief
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