LITMIR.BIZ

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more seriously. So how did he prove he was serious enough about her to take on more responsibility? She’d be good for him. And he’d be good for her. Why couldn’t she see that?

      “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”

      “Are you calling me uptight?”

      “If the shoe fits.”

      “Now you’re mixing up your fairy tales. That’s ‘Cinderella.’”

      Zach chuckled. “United. Think about it. Lead’s breaking for a G warm-up.” He banked the jet right ninety degrees, diving one thousand feet in a 4G maneuver to test his reaction times.

      Four times the force of gravity meant he now weighed eight hundred pounds and his movements were harder to control. When the aircraft’s weight sensor detected the increase, air from the engine rushed in, inflating his anti-G suit and squeezing the lower half of his body to keep blood pumping to his brain and to keep him from passing out. No one could ever accuse a jet pilot of thinking with his lower extremities.

      At least not while flying.

      “Renegade, checks out okay,” Zach reported.

      “Magician, okay.”

      “Two breaking.” Michelle followed his lead.

      Zach gave her enough time to pull off the stunt, but she didn’t report back right away. “Two?”

      “Roger. Skeeter, okay.”

      “Rapunzel, okay.”

      She’d hesitated a moment too long. “Two?” he asked again.

      “Let’s put the pedal to the metal,” she responded.

      “Negative, Two.” A body reacted differently to the G force from one day to the next. And as far as he knew, she’d skipped breakfast. As squad leader, if he suspected a serious physical impairment to her flying, he could order her back to the carrier. She wouldn’t like it. But he’d do it. “Run through that G warm-up again.”

      “What—”

      “Humor me. That’s an order, Two.”

      “Two breaking for another G warm-up,” she answered back with a little too much sass.

      Just the way he liked it.

      Zach craned his neck to watch her jet bank, then dive against the backdrop of blue sky.

      “Rapunzel, checks out okay,” she reported back, right away this time.

      “Skeeter, okay.”

      “Copy, Two. Recommend Mach I.” The speed of sound.

      “Roger, Tomcat leader. I concur.”

      Zach maintained a somber mood for the rest of the flight. It went against his nature, but playtime was over. They were without backup. And it wasn’t that long ago he’d been a raw ensign flying sorties over Iraq. That thought was enough to sober him up fast.

      F-14 Tomcats were fighters. So he hadn’t participated in bombing runs. Though he’d thrilled to the experience of hair-raising dives and recoveries in trainers, he wouldn’t trade his fighter for a bomber or the new fighter/attack bomber like the F/A-18 Hornet for the world.

      It would be even worse than a jumbo jet.

      Give him a good dogfight any day, the last arena of gentleman warfare. There were rules of engagement, and both pilots had chosen to be there.

      “Tomcat Leader, this is Tower. We have a bogey 800 knots and closing.”

      “Single?” Zach queried the tower and his RIO at the same time. “Magic Man?”

      “Got him on the screen,” Steve answered first. “Looks like a single.”

      “I see him, too,” Skeeter reported.

      “Eyes open,” Zach ordered.

      “One o’clock, MiG-28. Headed straight for us,” Steve supplied as the more maneuverable Russian-made aircraft bearing the red, white and black colors of Iraq broke through the clouds and into their line of vision.

      Nothing to lose his breakfast over, Zach surmised. Since the Gulf War, Iraqi and American fighters did everything they could to avoid confrontation with one another. Zach didn’t expect today to be any different.

      “He’s not supposed to be in the no-fly zone. Let’s chase him home,” he ordered, maneuvering his jet into a split S, a quick U-turn that would bring him in low on the bogey. He craned his head to the left as he turned right.

      “Copy. Got you covered, Tomcat Leader.” Michelle followed his lead.

      Dogfighting had changed little since WWI, but it wasn’t as easy as it looked on the big screen. First you had to get in the control zone, the cone behind the other jet. And you could only attack from the same angle of plane. A dogfight lasted all of sixty seconds or less. After that first minute survival rates dropped dramatically.

      At any given moment a pilot handled a dozen or more calculations in his head. In training they practiced juggling tennis balls and solving mathematical equations at the same time. A well-trained fighter pilot’s instincts were so honed he could fly without thinking and concentrate on making split-second decisions.

      The MiG pilot had enough maneuvers to keep them on the edge of their seats as they raced through the skies at speeds that exceeded the sound barrier.

      “This guy’s pissin’ me off. Why isn’t he leaving the zone?” Zach questioned the Iraqi pilot’s motives. “Let’s see if we can get him to panic and run.” He zeroed in on the target. “I’ve got a lock!” The beep of the HUD—heads-up display—confirmed it. “He’s bugging out.” The MiG sped ahead just as alarms blared in the cockpit. “Shit! Surface-to-air missiles.” They were about to cross over into Iraqi airspace.

      “Radar’s trying to get a lock,” Steve confirmed.

      “We’ve got bells going off here,” Michelle warned.

      “Bug out!” Zach ordered as he switched to evasive tactics.

      “Affirmative.” Michelle took the lead in the turn.

      “Renegade, MiG’s in pursuit,” Steve informed him.

      “What does this guy think he’s doing?” They were back in the coalition controlled airspace, the no-fly zone over southern Iraq and Kuwait.

      Something wasn’t right. Zach felt it in his gut.

      If this was all for shits and giggles, the MiG pilot would have bugged out by now. This guy was playing cat-and-mouse as if he wanted to get caught. Which could mean only one thing—this MiG was the cheese. So they’d better keep their eyes open for more enemy fighters.

      “Tower, this is Tomcat Leader—”

      “Keep your cool, hotshot,” Captain Greene broke in with instructions. “See if you can lead him out over the gulf.”

      “How much fuel do we have, Magic Man?”

      “Not enough for this shit,” Steve answered even before calculating the amount of fuel in exact pounds. Dogfighting was the difference between a Sunday drive and drag racing when it came to fuel consumption.

      “Keep an eye on it for me. Copy, Tower. Two, whaddya say we make a MiG sandwich. Can you get behind this guy?”

      “Affirmative. I’m pulling around behind.”

      “Renegade, two more bogeys closing in,” Steve warned.

      “Copy. What’d Iraq do—send up their whole damn air farce today?” The Iraqi fighters wouldn’t be led out to sea, and keeping the three jets out of southern Iraq and away from Kuwait forced them all deeper into the Republic of Iraq. But every time the Tomcats gave up chase the Iraqi fighters came back around. “Tower, recommend radio Saudi for some backup from the Air

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