Rogue Element

‘I… I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘I think something fast just went past us. Pretty close.’

‘I didn’t see anything. Are you sure?’ asked Rivers, looking out the window, craning her neck to see down the 747’s flank.

‘No, but…’ Granger wasn’t sure. He’d been daydreaming, mind not really on the job. Was it possible that some kind of military fighter had just buzzed them?

He’d practised the manoeuvre himself hundreds of times. It was almost basic training for dogfighting: two aircraft flew head-on at each other, passing no more than fifty feet apart. Both aircraft would then pull up into inside climbing turns — known as high yo-yos — rolling out at the top to gain as much height as possible. The two aircraft would then continue turning in at each other in a succession of high and low yo-yos until one managed to turn inside the other and bring its guns/cannon/missiles to bear, or one of the aircraft ran out of sky and ploughed into the ground.

Have we just been challenged to a dogfight? No way, he decided. The outcome of such a thing overloaded his common sense. It could also have been … what? A bit of cloud?

Rivers relinquished the left-hand seat to her captain, climbing out of it as if it were quicksand. ‘I have the aircraft,’ said Flemming, once he’d strapped in.

‘You have the aircraft,’ Granger said, trying to recall exactly what it was he’d seen.

The jumbo, although a lumbering barge compared to Raptor’s F-16, was cruising close to the speed of sound at.82 mach. If he was careless, the barge would slip outside his envelope of opportunity. Fuel reserves for this interception weren’t unlimited.

Raptor rolled out of the yo-yo 1000 feet above the 747. He was positioned perfectly, high and behind the flying kangaroo. He hung there briefly, like a wasp poised for the kill. Raptor opened the throttle to close the distance. It was too easy.

Raptor’s squadron had been flying almost constantly this last six months. It was a welcome relief after the years of only part-time flying. The financial crisis of ’97 had hit his squadron hard. There was not enough money for spares. Not enough money for missiles. Not even enough money for fuel. The lowest point for his squadron was the realisation that only three F-16s were serviceable.

The country was falling apart. Morale was nonexistent. And then suddenly, virtually overnight, the money started pouring in. Spares and fuel became available, and he logged more hours in the next six months than over the previous three years. Flying, dogfighting, was why he joined the air force. Now he felt invincible. Let me go head-to-head with one of those Australian F/A-18s, he often wished. Shooting down a Qantas 747 was hardly the contest he’d hoped for. He reminded himself of the briefing officer’s assertion that there were sound tactical reasons for the action.

The Indonesian pilot swooped behind the 747. He hung above his quarry’s tail, keeping the distance between the two aircraft constant, and depressed the radio transmission button on the throttle a half dozen times, broadcasting clicks in a pre-agreed sequence that announced he was in position to make the shot. Raptor allowed his F-16 to fall back behind the 747; the AIM-9L sidewinder needed more air to get a lock on the Boeing’s giant Rolls-Royce turbo fans.

He activated the missile’s targeting system and watched the glowing red diamond float across the Head Up Display searching for prey. A tone sounded through his helmet phones. The missile’s fire control system had locked on to the 747’s right-hand, outboard engine. Raptor expected that. The AIM-9 was a heater. It was attracted to an object’s infrared signature, its heat output, and an outboard engine had a greater heat differential between itself and the surrounding freezing high-altitude air than an inboard turbine snuggled against the warm fuselage.

Seconds later, he received the clicks from Hasanuddin AFB, confirmation that gave him permission, or rather the order, to fire the missile. A moment of doubt punctured Raptor’s conscience. But the uncertainty lasted for the briefest instant in a part of his brain that had long been subdued by hundreds of hours of training.

His finger depressed the fire button on his side stick controller. It was a subconscious reaction to the command, like the way a leg twitched when the knee was tapped with a hammer. The missile slid from its rail. He watched it snake until its guidance system stabilised the missile and delivered the warhead unerringly to the target. It flew up the tail pipe of the Rolls-Royce engine where the fragmentation warhead, packed with 3.6 kilos of HE, detonated. Red-hot metal spikes ripped through the engine and annihilated its delicate balance. The massive turbine, now with smashed bearings and spinning at 3 500 rpm, leapt out of its housings, blasting the shattered titanium fan blades into the thin air.