Wingman (44 page)

There were Soviet pilots behind the controls. The rats had come out of their holes.

The remaining 30 or so planes were made up of rogues-F-104 Starfighters, F-100

Super Sabres, some A-4s, a few A-7s, even some ancient F-94s. The planes in this rogue group had one thing in common: they were all types of aircraft favored by the air pirates.

The circle was thus closed, he thought. The Family and the Soviets had finally openly teamed up with the aerial bandits.

The enemy aircraft were flying in a tight formation, spread out over two miles.

It was a tactic indicating they were expecting to be intercepted. He knew his plane was already showing up on their radar systems, but he could have cared less. He was willing to let them use their electronic eyes for this fight. He would use his own.

He was 15 miles from them and closing when he put the '16 into a steep dive. Within a half minute, the enemy formation was right above him, but no fighters had broken off from the main group to chase him. That was exactly what he wanted. It told him that a Soviet pilot was the group leader and he was using inflexible Soviet tactics. The crude Soviet military way of thinking discouraged individual shows of initiative. Junior officers, whether they were on the ground or in the air, had to adhere to the higher officers' plans, no matter how flawed or ill-conceived. The goose-stepping, group-think spoke of everything wrong with the Soviet mind, and it had infected their system ever since they staged their completely phony revolution back in 1917. In this case, the infection had turned into a disease-a deadly disease.

On the other hand, Hunter was an individual. He thought for himself. That was the very heart of his people. He was more than a number. He was a human being. He could act and react as his instincts and experience and his inner vision told him to. He was free in his actions. They were slaves to theirs. He knew the formation would stick together no matter what. It was their biggest mistake.

He let the attackers pass over him, then put the F-16 into a winked climb. There were heavy cloud banks all the way back to Football City. He would use them to his advantage. His heart was pounding, his muscles flexed. His mind was crystal clear. He took a few deep gulps of oxygen from his face mask, then reached down to the breast pocket of his flight suit. It was still there-the bulge of the neatly-folded flag. He took it out. His hand tingled when he touched it. He felt himself drawing even more power from it. He felt filled up. He folded the flag and put it away. Then, he leveled the plane off and found himself directly behind the enemy formation.

He was ready. More ready than he had ever been in his life.

"Hey Jones," he said aloud as he booted the jet up to afterburner. "I hope you're watching this . . .

The Soviet colonel leading the flight first knew something was wrong when he saw four of his planes at the rear of his flight suddenly disappear from his radar screen. He heard the static-filled cries for help and the telltale squeals of feedback which indicated a plane had been destroyed. The next thing he knew, a

red-and-white-and-blue F-16 flashed by his left wing. He never saw it coming; it had never registered on his Su-17's radar screen.

The F-16 was twisting and turning like it was in the middle of an aerial

demonstration. And it was moving incredibly fast. The Soviet flight leader watched in awe as the plane, which he saw was carrying an unbelievable number of Sidewinders, shot out ahead of his formation, wheeled a 180 and headed back toward him, all in a matter of seconds.

The Soviet began screaming into his radio, "Stay tight! Stay tight!" It was as if all the jets in the formation were frozen in place. And the '16 was moving fast.
Too
fast, the Russian thought. And, still, it refused to show up on his radar screen.

The F-16 unleashed a spread of four more Sidewinders, each missile finding

its mark instantly. Four more jets-a MIG, a Mirage and two Su-17s-were sent plunging toward earth. The plane then looped and disappeared into a cloud at the formation's rear, only to emerge at the front of the column yet again.

"This is impossible!" the Soviet flight leader screamed in broken English into his radio. "Are there two of them?"

His radio was filled with static and the panicky chatter of the pilots in the formation.

"Two of them?" he heard a voice come back to him. "My radar doesn't show one of them!"

Four more Sidewinders rocketed off the F-16's wings. Four more enemy planes

exploded and began to fall. But this time, the wreckage of one of the doomed planes smashed into two pirate planes flying toward the rear of the column.

"
Szechezva
!" the Soviet flight leader said into his microphone. "He gets six planes with four missiles!"

Still, the formation flew on. The Soviet leader, his radar screen still blank on the attacking jet, strained his neck looking for the F-16. "Where is he?" he shouted, getting no reply from his charges. Suddenly, the Soviet was aware of something flying directly above his plane. He looked straight up and into the underside of the F-16 which was no more than 10 feet away. The Soviet panicked and put his plane into a sharp dive.

"How can this be?" the Soviet said into his microphone but to no one in particular.

He watched as the F-16, turning an eight-point acrobatic turn, fired four more Sidewinders, hitting four more MIGs even though they were twisting out of the way. Then the plane accelerated and did a reverse loop so quickly, the Soviet colonel knew no pilot could stand the g-force that would be generated by such a maneuver. Yet, the F-16

flew on.

"This is not possible," he said, his brain disbelieving what his eyes were plainly showing him. "This pilot. This plane. Are they a ghost?"

The formation was still 50 miles from the target, and already 15 of the planes had been shot down. Finally, the Soviet knew he had to give the order

"MIGs. Break formation," he called into his radio. "Break formation and attack that F-16!"

The remaining MIGs obediently broke from the stiff, boxlike flight path, paired up and began searching the sky for the attacker. Suddenly, he was coming at two of them, head on. The pair of MIGs split, but not before the F-16 delivered a burst of cannon fire, hitting both of the jets and causing them to explode. two more MIGs vectored toward the F-16, firing two air-to-air missiles apiece before entering a large cloud bank.

When they emerged, not only was the F-16 behind them, so were their missiles! The MIG

pilots were frozen at their controls. How was it possible? Did the F-16 pilot actually draw the heat-seekers to him then shake them off, all in the time it took to pass through the cloud? They never figured it out. Their own missiles impacted on their exhaust pipes instantaneously, blowing them to pieces and scattering their bodies to the winds.

Four MIGs ganged up and found themselves on the mystery plane's tail. "We are chasing him now," the Soviet colonel heard one of his junior Soviet pilots say. Another cloud bank rolled by. Upon reaching the other side, the MIG pilots were astonished to see the F-16 high above them and diving in
their
direction. "
Impossible
!" one pilot screamed in Russian. The flight leader heard the sound of cannon fire over the radio, then four snaps in succession. He knew that four more of his airplanes were gone.

The air pirates flying to the rear of the column took it upon themselves to break formation. One pirate, a bandit named Rocko, found himself alone in his F100 Super Sabre, isolated from the rest of the group.

"Why did I ever get mixed up with these crooks and Russians," he asked himself, nervously searching the sky for the F-16. He passed through a small cloud bank. When he came out, the F-16 was riding right beside him.

He was stunned. He could clearly see the pilot of the ghost plane looking back at him. The man
looked
so strange! He had a helmet on, with the dark green visor pulled down, yet Rocko could feel the man's eyes burning through him. The pirate felt his mind go blurry. Suddenly, a vision flashed into his head. An airliner, full of people. It was over the Great Lakes. He had shot it down. It was just for sport. The Free Canadians had hunted him ever since, but they'd never caught up to him. Now he saw inside the fiery cabin of the plane as it had fallen to earth. The people were screaming. Women.

Kids. Old people. On fire. Dying. Their blood-curdling screams were coming over his headphones.
He couldn't stand it!
It was as if the pilot in the F-16 knew what he had done. The man with the burning eyes was compelling him to have the haunting vision.

The screams got louder. He shook away the vision but the screaming remained. He closed his eyes, looked to his left and prayed the F-16twould be gone. He opened his eyes.

It was still there.

Rocko felt a blood vessel in his head go pop. Suddenly the sky and the clouds were on fire. His plane was on fire. The F-16 was on fire. Red filled his eyes. He began to cry. He popped the canopy release lever and the bubble glass top on his F-100 flew away. The dials and switches inside the jet's cockpit instantly froze up and began to crack and burst. The force of the wind struck him, disintegrating his oxygen mask and carrying away his flight helmet.

Unprotected, the wind began to rip the flesh from his face. He was paralyzed, completely unable to move. His eyes began to clog. He began to take blood into his lungs.

The pain was excruciating. He knew he was dying. Dying a death even worse than the people on the airliner he'd shot down. Worse than any of the innocent people he had killed.

It was as if the pilot in the ghost plane willed him to do it. He vomited a wad of blood.

Blood poured from his nose. His plane was really on fire now; the flames were catching on to his flight suit. The jet started to take the final plunge. With one last effort, Rocko managed to look to his left.

The F-16 was gone.

One by one, the Soviet flight leader saw the jets in the formation disappear.

Four Mirages had simply evaporated from his radar screen. Confused and shaking, the colonel considered calling off the bombing mission. He quickly reconsidered, knowing full well the wrath of his superiors he would face if he abandoned the attack. Especially when he reported only one jet had turned them back.

The Russian collected himself and called for every remaining plane in the

formation to count off. He wasn't surprised to learn that all of the pirates that hadn't been shot down had scattered and fled. He was left with 40 planes in all, a mix of Mirages, MIGs and Su-14s. Still a formidable, if confused force.

Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of the F-16 as it streaked by off to his right.

If possible, he believed it was moving even faster than before. The plane still carried eight Sidewinders, clearly evident as the plane split off and away from the main formation. Was the crazy pilot breaking off the attack?

The answer was no. In a matter of seconds, the F-16 was right below him, twisting, turning, going through impossible gyrations. The Soviet saw four flashes. Four missiles streaked by him and struck a MIG and three Mirages riding above him. The colonel had to dodge the flying debris. How can the man shoot four missiles and have them fly right by me, yet hit planes above me? He had given up trying to figure things out. What he was witnessing was metaphysical, he believed. At this point he simply wanted to unleash some bombs-one bomb-on target just to please his superiors. Then, he planned to escape, land his plane and never take to the air again.

He wouldn’t live that long. Although the F-16, after firing the missiles, had passed right off his left wing, a few seconds later, it was streaking toward him from the dead right. A Sidewinder flashed from underneath the wing, and in an instant the F-16 disappeared. The missile kept coming and crashed into the canopy of the Soviet Su-17. It actually lodged there for one, long terrifying second. The Soviet was face-to-face with the tip of the Sidewinder missile. He could hear it ticking. He knew it would soon explode. The last thing he remembered before becoming one with the cosmos was the writing printed on the side of the missile. It read: "MADE IN AMERICA."

Without its leader, the attacking formation began to break up for good. Hunter was able to pick the stragglers off one-by-one, using the remaining Sidewinders, and when they were gone, the M61 cannon six-pack. Some of the enemy pilots simply ejected when they saw him coming. Others would swear they saw two of their comrades go down at once, hit by missiles fired from opposite directions. The handful that survived were permanently scarred for life. They would never dream again without seeing the ghostly F-16.

Fifty miles before the Football City airport lay a trail of wreckage of more than 60 airplanes. Not one attacker reached the target. In the years that followed, and in the many retellings, the story of how Hunter had stopped the 100 planes would past from fact to history to legend.

He brought the battle-weary jet in for a landing at the Football City airport, its fuel tanks running dry just as the wheels touched the runway. He rolled the plane toward the nearest fuel truck. The place was strangely deserted. No radios were working.

All the aircraft were gone, except for the B-58 which stood by the edge of the runway, its engines stopped cold. Off to the east, he could see columns of smoke rising from the battle scene. Every once in a while, an aircraft would break through the smoke, its guns firing, dodging antiaircraft fire, only to plunge back into the dark abyss seconds later.

He felt completely drained, and hard-pressed to explain his action against the attacking force. The "feeling"-100 times stronger than he'd ever felt it before-had completely taken him over. He had felt as if he were disembodied and watching someone else fly the F-16, while at the same time, knowing it was him at the controls. He had performed maneuvers he knew were impossible. He had hit targets he knew were unhittable, even with the help of radar systems. And he'd gone into the battle with his turned off.