And with that, he rolled his plane earthward once more, soaring downward toward the coming missiles, breaking the tight-beamed connection with his fellow conspirators as he flew out of range, and leaving Jack and Martin in silence. The ground-to-air missiles were bigger and more powerful than anything a fighter could carry, relying more on brute force than the agile finesse of a fighter plane’s AMRAAM air-to-airs. But he came at them nonetheless, with the confidence of the phenomenally skilled, and the abandon of the just.
As he approached them, he spun his plane into a wide spiral as the wall of missiles came up at him, confusing their systems as their paths crossed and re-crossed. The first missile flew by within twenty feet, its detonation a moment too late as it exploded harmlessly behind him.
A quarter of a second later, the next was too far away to connect with him as it flew past and it didn’t trigger, instead starting a tight, powered turn so it could pursue his engine trail once more. But the third and fourth came in together, detonating as one on either side of him. A wild maneuver saved him from a direct hit, but the detonations rocked his plane like a die thrown across a backgammon board. Before alarms had even had a chance to go off, his canopy had shattered, air racing in like a thousand hurricanes and ripping his puny helmet off his head to snap the vestigial oxygen tube from behind his back.
His remaining instruments told him that his right wing had been perforated in three places by the explosion, and that he had lost missile control on that side. His engine was down to two-thirds power and he had lost a large part of several of his flaps, as well as a majority of control of the trailing surfaces of his wings. Continuing down the growing list of other problems, he could not help but be amused by the fact that he had also lost control of his landing gear … like he was going to get to use it anyway.
Back on the bomber’s flight deck, they did not have long to mourn the loss of their friend as the beeping of their radar began afresh. Jack glanced down at his screens once more, but Martin already had a fix on the new source.
“I have another set of bogies inbound from the east,” he said, “coming in hot, Mach 1.3. Jesus, those things are supersonic.” He whistled in spite of himself, but Jack was less nonchalant.
“They can’t be missiles that far out.” Jack said, studying the screen himself. It tore at him not to spend a moment on what he had just seen happen to Lord Mantil below them, but his training told Jack to focus on what he could affect, and he did so.
“I have them at three hundred miles out, but closing fast.” said Martin, “At that rate they’ll be on us in no time.” he went on, turning to face the major, “But they can’t see us, right? They can’t get missile lock. They’re just coming to investigate … right?”
Jack paused a moment then said, “Well, it’s true that they can’t get a bead on us too far out, but once they close enough, they’re going to be able to go to guns, and that is bad. To be coming in that fast, they must be either F-22s or one of the European Typhoons, Rafales, or Gripens.”
“So, they’re on our side then?” said Martin, hopefully.
“Well, not quite: the moment we stole a B-2 Bomber, there ceased to be anyone that was on ‘our side’ … except Mr. Mantil,” he said, soberly, “but either way, I can tell you that there are also no F-22s currently deployed in Afghanistan. Which means it must be either the French or the British.”
Jack looked pensive, then changed tacks, “Martin, do you have the sniffing salts to hand?” Martin looked over at his friend and then back at the two pilots unconscious behind them. Then he nodded and rifled around in his flight bag to find the small canister.
“You want me to wake them up?” said Martin, retrieving the salts.
Jack nodded, “We have only a few minutes before those planes are in visual range, and once they see us I don’t know what is going to happen. Under the circumstances, I think those two deserve to be awake for this. In case it goes badly.”
Martin nodded, unbuckled his restraints, and started to climb out of his chair, Jack suggesting that Martin recheck the ties binding the pilots’ hands before he woke them. Martin agreed and then set about waking the two unwitting combatants. They were about to find out that they were deep in enemy airspace, on the other side of the world from their patrol route, and about to be assaulted by several of the most deadly war machines on earth. Not quite your morning cup of joe, but what can you do?
“Enjoying yourself, Serge?” said Agent Jean-Paul Merard into his mask. Their ‘regular patrol’ had turned into something much more when their Dassault Rafale had been redirected shortly after takeoff to join a small squadron made up of two British Typhoons, and one other French Rafale. They were all breaking the sound barrier in a race to get a bead on the objects apparently exploding above Pakistan, but only one amongst them knew what the pods were, and that the explosions were not a planned part of their deployment. Pilot Jean-Paul Merard, flying the second of the two French Rafales, intended to find out who was blowing his satellite’s viral pods out of the sky. Then he intended to return the favor, even if it meant destroying the squadron around him to do it.
The British fighters were led by Captain Sarah Hutcheson on Lightning One, with Lightning Two flying close on her starboard wing. The Eurofighter was faster than the Dassault, and slightly more heavily armed, but not significantly, and the two more maneuverable Dassaults were keeping up, flying behind and to the left of the Typhoons in a V-formation. Jean-Paul and his unwilling copilot Serge Latral were in the left wingman position, and they could see all three other planes arranged out to their right in an extraordinary display of destructive power.
Jean-Paul surveyed the other planes with a predator’s eye and weighed his options. Soon they would come into range of one of the pods and then it would not take long to see whatever it was that was shooting them down. Jean-Paul wasn’t certain, but the fact that no other plane was showing up on his radar was sign enough that it was some kind of stealth plane, possibly an F-35 or a B-2. What either of those was doing out here he had no idea, but either way he would happily blow them out of the sky. The only question was whether he would need to kill his ‘allies’ before or after he went after the culprit. He thought a moment. He didn’t know yet what was out there, or if it was alone. If it was a B-2, then that shouldn’t pose too great a problem, but it could be a wing of F-35s, in which case that could strain even his extensive abilities. If these two Typhoons were to come in on his side because of a miscommunication he could engineer, well, that could even the balance. So whether these three other fighters were a hindrance or a tool to be used depended on what he was about to find out there.
But his decision process was suddenly thrown into disarray when a new factor entered the scene.
“Balbuzard One and Two, this is Lightning One,” came the voice of the British pilot leading their formation. “Ground radar reports another signature crossing the border at extreme low altitude. Also they are reporting several missile signatures across the border in Pakistan. We are being asked to drop our ceiling to 10,000 feet on a course of one-five-eight and intercept.”
As he was the wingman, Jean-Paul left it to Balbuzard One to reply, and his colleague did just that, confirming the new bearing. The small squadron broke right in a rolling turn, dropping to the new altitude with a roar of their tumultuous engines.
The mild-angled dive, combined with their already supersonic speed, combined to close the distance to the border even faster, and soon they had a radar bead of their own on the object darting between the mountain peaks far below. But Jean-Paul’s attention was elsewhere, his powerful eyesight was scouring the sky for whatever was firing on his virus pods, and suddenly he saw it. Far, far above them, its profile was distinctive, its silhouette like no other plane in the world, old or new.
The flying wing configuration of the B-2 Spirit Bomber could mean only one thing: the Americans were attempting to take out the viral pods, and as his squadron had been dispatched to investigate them, the bomber must be working without Allied approval. Most likely the pilots were members of the same organization that had launched the attack on Jean-Paul’s four support satellites, destroying his entire defense and communications network in one harrowing night.
He would not need his squadron mates, after all, but he could expend whatever bullets and missiles he had left killing them later, if they still posed a threat. First things first: time to slice up that bomber.
Before the squadron even realized what was happening, Jean-Paul had pulled back hard and engaged his afterburners, soaring back up into the sky like a bullet, homing in on the distant bomber. His copilot Serge Latral strained in his seat behind him and tried to grasp a breath as the massive G-force crushed him into his harness, driving the air from his lungs. His hands were heavy, he could barely speak, let alone engage his external comms, as he strained to ask his colleague why they had suddenly broken formation and gone rogue. The other pilots barked questions into their radio, but Jean-Paul stayed eerily silent, driving the plane upward and away from the other three fighters as he started to engage his weapons systems.
Jesus, thought Serge, staring at the weapons screens as they went active. Why is he doing this? We don’t have permission to go weapons hot. Holy shit, it’s happening. This is what Serge had been warned about. And now he was onboard while the crazy man in front of him engaged the multi-million dollar arsenal of the Dassault and flew like a demon into upper atmosphere.
Serge struggled to master his hands, switching on his comms he spoke in rasps, “Jean-Paul, what are you doing? Where are we going?” the strained voice went out over the airwaves, and the other pilots in the squadron called in alarm bells to mission control back in Kabul, asking for orders. The other French pilot also registered confusion at the name Jean-Paul. Weren’t Michel and Etienne flying Balbuzard Two?
Hearing Serge’s strained voice over the comm, Jean-Paul remembered that the copilot was back there and threw the plane into a violent turn. The overwhelming power of the twenty-thousand-horsepower engine forced Serge’s eyes back into his head. The poor man tried to control his body’s reaction, to master its instinctive responses to the pressure wrenching at him. But it was too much. As the blood was forced to the back of his head, his heart struggled to keep the oxygen pumping, but it was an impossible task for any human, and in a few moments the man blacked out.
His final act had been singularly important, though. For the pilot of the other French fighter was not the only one surprised by the mention of Jean-Paul’s name over the radio.
* * *
With little left of his cockpit, Shahim wrestled to keep the hurtling hulk of his F-16 off the ground as he tried to stay low and keep the other pilots guessing as long as possible. The remains of his communications systems were dying or dead, and his comms were barely audible over the titanic scream of the wind about his ears. But his ears picked up bits and pieces through the storm, and the name of the French Agent rang out like an alarm.
Jean-Paul. The name was not unusual in France, but the fact that it was here, and it was the name of a pilot breaking formation to fly up toward Jack and Martin’s B-2 could only mean one thing. Like it had been catapulted from the grave, Shahim’s plane came launching up out of the valley in a blur of smoke. The two Typhoons reacted instinctively, their advanced weapons systems got a lock on him almost instantaneously, and the two pilots stopped shouting at their errant comrade long enough to bark a warning at the foreign plane to disengage.
But Lord Mantil was also locking on as he tried to get as many of his remaining weapons online as possible. The two Typhoons and Jean-Paul’s fellow Rafale also changed course, pulling back on their controls to send their planes arching upward to intersect Shahim’s, all combatants now banking upward to converge on Jean-Paul’s jet stream. Shahim could no longer get his relatively antiquated and thoroughly perforated F-16 to break any speed records, and he could sense the other planes coming at him even as Jean-Paul started to stretch away. He knew he didn’t have much longer. Punching at his semi-responsive control board, he fired all his available missiles in unison, the four explosive lances belching from under his wings and racing ahead with a speed he could not hope to match.
Jean-Paul registered the launch immediately and was surprised. Surely they would not fire on him so soon, he had assumed. But turning his attention back to his pursuers, he did not spare much time to assess which plane had fired on him, or why. Instead, Jean-Paul pulled a hard G-turn and tracked the missiles’ pursuit with the same machine skill Shahim had used to avoid his own destruction at the hands of the Pakistanis.
Though Jean-Paul’s Rafale jet was slightly outclassed by the British Eurofighters, it was still an evolutionary leap above the F-16, and Lord Mantil looked on with a mix of jealousy and sadness as the fighter completed an impossibly tight turn. With the Agent at its helm the plane would fly faster and with more agility than its designers could possibly have dreamed of, and Shahim knew the aging missiles he had sent after it had little hope of taking it down. Lord Mantil’s only remaining hope was that Jean-Paul did not know that he was facing another Agent. And so, factoring in how beaten his plane was, he set his machine mind to a tactical analysis of the other’s flight path and response patterns, and began defining an intercept course.
Lightning One shouted as he registered the firing of missiles at the Dassault that had broken formation, reporting the incident quickly and cursorily to Allied Force Command. Their response was equally fast. An unidentified foreign plane had fired on an Allied jet. Their orders were clear. Take the unknown pilot down.
Jean-Paul’s own mind was offering up tactics at a blinding pace, and he selected them as they arose. The plane dropped decoys earlier than would have been tactically wise, but it was not to fool the missiles, but to throw off further missile lock from whatever had fired on him. As he spun his plane hard back down toward his pursuers, he noted the mangled F-16 coming up behind him and allowed his tactical computers to assess the plane’s threat potential, while he came nose to nose with the other three Allied jets.