Rogue Element

The guys in the AWACS had said that the bandits were BVR negative, which meant they didn’t have beyond visual range missiles. That was a relief. Fire-and-forget over-thehorizon missiles were expensive and only America and her best buddies had access to them. They weren’t even available on the black market. It meant the aircraft closing on them had nothing smart they could launch at them and then bug out. The Indons would have to get up close and visual and use AIM-9 heaters — heat-seekers — and guns.

Indonesia was not a rich nation. They’d be running older F-16A Falcons, planes that had been superseded more than ten years ago by F-16Cs with numerous upgrades, including more powerful engines and weapons. Toad and his wingman were up against aircraft that, while not quite museum pieces, were not far from it. Their AV8Bs, on the other hand, were the upgraded Harrier 11 Radar type, AV-8s with more powerful Pegasus engines, avionics, and the OSCAR on-board computer, which made life in the cockpit about as difficult to manage as playing a Nintendo game. Toad’s weapons systems could define who was friend or foe, acquire targets, as well as arm and deploy the aircraft’s weaponry, and do it all in the same instant. Once on its way, the AMRAAM missile’s own systems would take over, directing the warhead to the target. Toad didn’t even have to keep the target painted or illuminated in any way. Once launched, the missile was its own extremely smart, extremely deadly master.

Toad checked his ordnance by setting the correct mode and toggling from one weapons station to the next; two Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles and a couple of AIM-9M missiles, the new, more intelligent heaters with a longer range, and a 25 mm fuselage-mounted machine gun loaded with HEI, high-explosive incendiary shells. His wingman was similarly armed. The V22? Zip. Not even a spitball. Toad glanced left and right and was reassured by the sight of his own AIM-120 AMRAAMs. Seeing them snuggled under his wing gave him an enormous sense of security.

Toad wondered what would be going through the minds of the F-16 pilots. The poor bastards would be shitting bricks. Their threat indicators would be frying like eggs on a skillet under the barrage emitted by the EA-6B. Those Prowlers were bloody frightening. Get too close to one of them while it was emitting and you could forget about ever having any children. It was highly unlikely that the Indons would have experienced anything like the EW they were now being subjected to. It meant that they were literally heading into the unknown, against an unknown enemy of unknown strength from an unknown origin. It was a fighter pilot’s nightmare.

Less than four minutes to intercept. He was running passive, emitting no radar waves. Given the probable state of confusion in the cockpits of the Indonesian F-16s, he was being overcautious. But why take the risk if it was avoidable? The AWACS was providing intelligence on the F-16s rushing towards them, then beaming the ACI straight into Toad’s aeroplane. He was getting all the information he could have asked for, without giving his existence away by emitting his own radar energy to get it. His threat indicator had all six bandits. Closing speed, 1.9 Mach.

Toad banked sharply and took in the terrain below. The dominating feature was the threatening cone of a huge volcano that rose from the jungle around ten klicks to the south. It towered into a duvet of cloud.

* * *

The V22 sucked negative gs as it hugged the contour of a ravine and plunged into a deep volcanic channel. Suryei just managed to pull a bag from the seat pocket in front of her and place it under her mouth before her stomach let go. The extreme movement recalled the terror of the final moments of QF-1, and the memory of it now made her gag with fear. The SAS men were all clipping in their shoulder straps and the negative-g strap between their legs. Suryei followed their example between stomach convulsions.

* * *

Toad checked his fuel pressure. Barely enough, but so what else was new? Fuel load was the AV-8B’s Achilles heel. The aircraft’s range, or lack of it, was a bit of a joke. He was carrying external tanks and they’d been topped off three times by KC-135s yet, despite the numbers they’d been flying to ensure best range since the last fill, he’d burned a high percentage of the aircraft’s juice already.

* * *

Major Loku Shidyahan rolled his F-16 left and right, trying to pick out anything unusual against the green of the jungle below. He had the eyes in his head but nothing else to help him find the intruder. His radar was being jammed. The major had never experienced it before but he’d read enough about it to know it was happening to him and his flight.