Vortex

The word RELEASE blinked into existence in the lower left hand corner of his HUD. Aggressive instincts and years of training paid off as he stabbed the release button twice and yanked the Hornet up into a forty-degree climb. Two separate shudders rippled through the plane as a string of Durandals tumbled out from under its wings-falling nose-down toward the runway below.

Grunting against g forces that quadrupled his effective weight, Garrard pulled the climbing F/A-18 into a tight turn and craned his head all the way around to stare at the scene now behind and to his right. He wanted to see what happened when his bombs went off.

Small drogue parachutes snapped open behind each bomb. At a preset altitude above the runway, rocket motors inside the Durandals fired. All six weapons accelerated straight down, smashing into the earth below before exploding. Six flowers of flame, smoke, and spinning chunks of shattered concrete blossomed in a ragged line, angled across Waterkloof’s primary strip. Two actually struck the narrow runway, heaving and buckling the thick concrete for eight or ten meters, in addition to a five-meter crater.

One of the two South African fighters racing down the runway ran into a smoking, jagged crater at more than one

hundred miles an hour. The jet slammed nose first into the concrete in a fiery shower of sparks, broke in half, and blew up. Garrard whooped into his oxygen mask. Scratch one Mirage! One down and one to go.

But the other South African interceptor emerged from the wall of smoke and tumbling debris apparently unscathed. Afterburner blazing, the Mirage F. ICZ soared off the runway-clawing frantically for altitude.

Garrard clicked his mike button.

“Tiger Lead, one hostile airborne.

Engaging. “

He shoved his throttle forward and pulled the Hornet into a rolling, vertical climb, groaning involuntarily as the Hornet’s g force meter flickered past seven. At the same time, he switched his HUD to air-to-air mode. Two concentric circles leapt into view in the middle of the display.

The circles identified cones of vulnerability-areas of the sky in front of his plane where his heat-seekers had the best odds of scoring a hit.

The sky and ground seemed to spin around, changing places, as Garrard pulled his F/A-18 inverted. Just a little more. Almost…

The climbing Mirage came into view in his HUD’s upper left corner. A target designation box appeared around the South African jet’s dim, wavering shape. Garrard rolled his plane back upright and accelerated. The Homer streaked after its opponent.

As the F/A-18 closed, the box surrounding the enemy plane moved slowly down and across its HUD-sliding toward the center. Garrard’s finger poised over the fire button on his stick. Come on, you bastards, lock on! It might not make much sense to swear at the simpleminded circuits inside the two

AIM-9L Sidewinders his plane carried, but somehow it did make him feel better.

One of the missiles growled suddenly in his earphones letting him know that its IR seeker had finally locked on. A flashing diamond appeared over the

South African jet now barely a mile ahead and starting to turn.

Garrard squeezed his fire button and felt a small shudder as the Sidewinder mounted on his plane’s starboard wingtip dropped off and ignited. A streak of orange flame arced across the sky. The heat-seeker flashed across the gap between Tiger Four and its prey in less than five seconds. It exploded just yards behind the F. I’s brightly glowing tailpipe.

The South African Mirage seemed to disintegrate in midair-tearing itself apart as fuel, ammunition, and missile propellant all went up in a thousandth of a second. Burning bits and pieces of torn metal and plastic fell earthward beneath an ugly, drifting cloud of oily black smoke.

Garrard doubted that the enemy pilot had even known he was under direct attack. Nothing unusual in that. Most ai rto-air kills were scored on planes that never saw their attackers. And getting bounced just seconds after takeoff was every fighter pilot’s nightmare.

He keyed his mike again.

“Tiger Lead, this is Tiger Four. Splash one hostile. Runway is out of action.”

The strike commander’s laconic voice carried well over radio.

“Roger,

Four. Nice work. What’s your fuel state?”

Garrard took a quick look at his fuel display.

“Approaching Bingo.” The

Hornet was a shit-hot fighter and attack plane -much better than either the F-4 Phantom or the A-7 Corsair, the two aircraft it had replaced. But the F/A-18 was short on legs. Pretoria, three hundred and fifty miles inland, was near the limit of its un refueled combat radius.

“Okay, Four. Head for Gascan flight at Point Tango.”

Garrard clicked his mike twice to acknowledge and turned southeast, flying back toward a rendezvous with KA-61) tankers topped full of aviation fuel.

Behind him, the rest of the Vinson’s aircraft went to work with a vengeance.

VOORTREKKER HEIGHTS MILITARY CAMP, NEAR PRETORIA

A stick of four 500-pound bombs landed just two hundred yards away from