The Fist of God

“We have five unidentifieds, ten o’clock low,” the wizzo muttered, and engaged IFF. The other three wizzos in the flight did the same.

Identification Friend or Foe is a sort of transponder carried by all combat airplanes. It sends out a pulse on certain frequencies, which are changed daily. Warplanes on the same side will receive this pulse and reply: “I am a friend.” Enemy aircraft cannot do so. The five blips on the radar screen crossing the track of the Eagles miles ahead and close to the ground might have been five friendlies coming back from a mission—more than likely, since there were far more Allied aircraft in the skies than Iraqis.

Tim questioned the unidentifieds on modes one, two, and four. No response.

“Hostiles,” he reported. Don Walker flicked his missile switches to Radar, muttered, “Engage,” to his other three pilots, dropped the nose, and headed down.

Abdelkarim Badri was at a disadvantage, and he knew it. He knew it from the moment the Americans locked onto him. He knew without any IFF to tell him that these other aircraft could not possibly be fellow Iraqis. He knew he had been spotted by hostiles, and he knew his young colleagues would be no match for them.

His disadvantage lay in the MiG he flew. Because it was the trainer version, the only type with two seats, it was never destined for combat. Colonel Badri’s radar had only a sixty-degree sweep out of the nose.

He could not see who had locked onto him.

“What do you have?” he barked at his wingman. The reply was breathless and frightened.

“Four hostiles, three o’clock high, diving fast.”

So the gamble had failed. The Americans were bucketing down the sky from the south, intent on blowing them all out of the air.

“Scatter, dive, go to afterburner, head for Iran!” he shouted.

The young pilots needed no second bidding. From the jet pipes of each MiG a blast of flame leaped backward as the four throttles went through the gate, punching the fighters through the sound barrier and almost doubling their speed.

Despite the huge increase in fuel consumption, the single-seaters could keep their afterburners going long enough to evade the Americans and still reach Iran. Their head start on the Eagles meant the Americans would never catch them, even though they too would now be in afterburn.

Abdelkarim Badri had no such option. In making their trainer version, the Soviet engineers had not only fitted a simpler radar, but to accommodate the weight of the student and his cockpit, they had considerably reduced the internal fuel capacity.

The fighter colonel was carrying underwing long-range fuel tanks, but these would not be enough. He had four choices. It took him no more than two seconds to work them out.

He could go to afterburner, escape the Americans, and return to an Iraqi base, there to be arrested and handed over sooner or later to the AMAM for torture and death.

He could engage afterburner and continue for Iran, evading the Americans but running out of fuel soon after crossing the border. Even if he and his brother ejected safely, they would fall among the Persian tribesmen who had suffered so horribly in the Iran-Iraq war from the cargos dropped on them by Iraqi aviators.

He could use the afterburner to avoid the Eagles, then fly south to eject over Saudi Arabia and become a prisoner. It never occurred to him that he would be treated humanely.

There were some lines that came into his head from long ago, lines from a poem he had learned at Mr.

Hartley’s school in that Baghdad of his boyhood. Tennyson? Wordsworth? No, Macaulay, that was it, Macaulay, something about a man in his last moments, something he had read out in class.

To every man upon this earth,

Death cometh soon or late.

And how can a man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers

And the temples of his gods?

Badri pushed his throttle through the gate into afterburner, hauled the MiG Fulcrum into a climbing turn, and went up to meet the oncoming Americans.

As soon as he turned, the four Eagles came into his radar range. Two had scattered, racing down after the fleeing single-seaters, all of them with afterburner engaged, all beyond the sound barrier.

But the leader of the Americans was coming straight down and at him. Badri felt the shudder as the Fulcrum went supersonic, adjusted the control column a fraction, and went for the diving Eagle ahead of him.

“Christ, he’s coming straight at us!” said Tim from the rear seat. Walker did not need to be told. His own radar screen showed him the four vanishing blips of the Iraqi aircraft fleeing for Iran and the single glow of the enemy fighter climbing toward him to engage. The rangefinder was unwinding like an alarm clock out of control. At thirty miles, they were hurtling toward each other at a closing speed of 2,200