The Fly Boys (49 page)

The tactic had a couple of advantages, Steve reassured himself as he pushed the stick forward and the BroadSword began to
lose altitude. First and foremost was the element of surprise. Steve was gambling that the commies would never expect a BroadSword
to attack their heavily fortified base from deep within their own territory. Hopefully he could get in and out before the
commies would have time to bring their antiaircraft defenses to bear, or scramble their jets. The second advantage came from
the fact that Steve was planning on bouncing Charlie as the Russian was preparing to land; at low altitude his Broad-Sword
had superior performance capabilities over Charlie’s MiG.

The gray-green, tobacco-brown terrain was rising up at Steve. He punched his tanks, checked his guns, and began his approach
toward the Red airfield. He was now in the enemy’s backyard, so he went down on deck to avoid being picked up on their radar.
There were no trees—the commies had likely chopped them all for firewood. Steve concentrated on his flying as he got
real low
. His screaming Broad-Sword rose and fell with the hills and dips of the North Korean terrain as he flew at four hundred knots
toward the enemy airfield, his jet wash throwing up rocks and dirt in his wake as the bramble tickled his fighter’s silvery
belly.

The scruffy hills dropped away, and then he was traveling down a broad slope, toward Bao Kung Cheng’s airdrome and complex
of runways. Dead-on, Charlie’s flock of MiGs were raising dust as they taxied along the concrete airstrips toward their revetments.
The blue lightning MiG was still in the air. As Steve had hoped, Charlie had waited to land last. He was just committing to
his landing approach.

Steve pulled up to get the altitude he would need to bounce Charlie. The commie maintenance workers and other base personnel
were all staring up at Steve in what he guessed was disbelief at seeing the red, white, and blue over their heads. He had
no time to think about them, however. He cobbed the throttle to come around fast and hard, sustaining punishing G’s through
the 180-degree turn that put him on Charlie’s six-o’clock high.

Evidently Charlie hadn’t noticed Steve, and clearly nobody had radioed the Russian to warm him of what was coming. The blue
lightning MiG was still settling down toward the runway as Steve dived, then chopped his throttle and popped his speed brakes.
His shoulder harness strained to keep him from bashing his visor against his gun sight as he centered the cherry-red circle
of his gun sight on the MiG’s spine and squeezed off a burst.

Armor-piercing incendiaries spilled out from the Broad-Sword’s six .50-caliber nose guns. The APIs raised dust spouts and
chips off the concrete runway, and blindingly white sparks off the blue lightning MiG’s dirty aluminum wings and fuselage.
Charlie’s airplane began to yaw as Steve’s tracer rounds caged it in bars of fire.

Steve held down his trigger, spraying Charlie with APIs.
It’s all over
, he thought.
You’re one cooked commie goose. With the runway a few feet below you, and me point-blank above, you’ve got nowhere to go
.

He was gently bringing up the BroadSword’s nose in order to dance the APIs along the MiG’s fuselage toward its canopy, when
the Russian pilot touched down on the concrete runway.

Beautiful move
, Steve thought, even as he cursed Charlie for outsmarting him. As the Russian’s tires hit the runway, the suddenly earthbound
MiG experienced an abrupt drop in speed which caused the BroadSword to overshoot.

Steve was suddenly looking at empty runway. He pulled up to execute a hard starboard chandelle to try to once again come around
behind Charlie, who had only bounced the concrete and was now airborne again. Steve watched as Charlie retracted his landing
gear and came around in a chandelle of his own.

Airborne, Yalu Charlie was one wet hornet, shaking off water and spoiling for a fight.

And I’m the guy to give it to you
, Steve thought.

The MiG might have been faster at high altitude, but at any altitude the BroadSword could make the tighter turns. As Charlie
did his best to come around, Steve rolled his BroadSword inside of Charlie’s wide turn and again locked on to the commie’s
six o’clock. He centered the gun sight’s red circle on the MiG’s glowing tailpipe and squeezed off a burst. Once again the
MiG began sparkling with hits. Charlie pitched and yawed, trying to throw off Steve’s aim as he led his tormentor back over
the field.

Steve guessed that the Russian was hoping that Bao Kung Cheng’s antiaircraft batteries might put the Broad-Sword on his tail
out of business, so he stayed close to the MiG, just outside the turbulent reach of Charlie’s jet wash. As the two jets streaked
the field at great speed and low altitude, there was no way the commie gunners could fire without the risk of hitting their
own airplane.

Charlie made a climbing turn away from the field, avoiding the hills to the north and heading out toward the lower ground
approaching the Yalu.

Steve grinned. Charlie had obviously realized that the ground defenses couldn’t help him, and had probably decided that the
smart thing for him to do was clear the airspace over the field so that other MiGs could take off to join the fight. Whatever
Charlie’s motives, taking the chase toward the Yalu suited Steve as well. For one thing it took him closer to home. For another,
it gave them some privacy—at least five minutes’ worth—in which to conduct their business.

“Now you get the idea, Charles,” Steve muttered. “This little dance is just between you and me.”

The MiG’s desperate attempt to gain altitude exposed its upper fuselage and canopy to Steve’s guns. There was no time to aim.
Steve just led the MiG with his own jet’s snout and held down the firing button.

It was Charlie who flew into Steve’s hose spray of tracers. The APIs shattered the MiG’s canopy, sending sparkling shards
of plexiglass spinning away. As Charlie banked away from the gunfire, Steve saw the wind tear away the Russian’s oxygen mask.

Steve laughed in triumph. Without a canopy or mask there was no way Charlie could take the fight up into the cold, thin higher
reaches, where the MiG had the performance advantage.

Charlie leveled off at five hundred feet and began to really pour on the speed, but Steve was able to stay right on his six
o’clock, firing bursts whenever he could get the gun sight’s red pipper on target. The MiG began smoking as Steve repeatedly
raised sparks off its pocked aluminum hide.

But Steve was beginning to worry about his ammo supply. The BroadSword carried 1,602 rounds, which translated into only 276
shots per gun, and the nose-mounted .50s spat them out fast.
What if I run out of bullets before I can knock Charlie down?

The chase had taken them farther south. They were coming up on the Yalu. Steve once again centered the red circle on Charlie’s
tailpipe and mashed his trigger. This time bits and pieces of the MiG began spinning off.

He’s got to go down any time now
—Steve reassured himself.

The MiG banked out over the river and then
dropped down
to
skim
the turbulent waters.

You are one fucking expert pilot, Charles
, Steve thought in admiration.
But if you can do it, so can I
.

He nevertheless found himself gritting his teeth in apprehension as he dipped toward the Yalu’s rushing silver waters. BroadSwords
did not come equipped with pontoons.

It immediately became clear just what Charlie was up to. He was flying so close to the surface of the river that the watery
wake he was throwing up was splashing Steve’s canopy, obscuring his vision. He couldn’t see to
steer
, never mind
shoot
.

Steve pulled up. The river was a glinting metal ribbon giddily unspooling fifty feet below his wings. Charlie was flying about
twenty-five feet above the water, less than one hundred feet ahead. Steve dropped his nose a bit to align his guns on the
MiG. He intended to hammer Charlie into the river.

Charlie must have read his mind. The commie chose that moment to climb to starboard, leaving the river and heading out over
North Korean territory.

Steve wrenched back his stick to stay with the MiG. Both jets were screaming as they clawed their way into the sky. At twelve
hundred feet Steve managed to once again get his gun sight on Charlie and fired.

His guns spat out a handful of rounds and then went dead.

Nothing left—godammit!
Momentarily distracted, Steve didn’t notice Charlie popping his own speed brakes.

As his BroadSword overshot the MiG Steve turned his head to watch in despair as Charlie raised his MiG’s nose and began firing
from point-blank range.

The first flurry of crimson fireballs from the MiG’s trio of cannon lobbed past Steve’s canopy, but then Charlie adjusted
his aim.

Steve felt the jarring impact, and the BroadSword skidded and yawed out of control as the MiG’s cannon rounds clipped off
the BroadSword’s port-side horizontal stabilizer, and the tip of its port wing.

No question about it
, Steve thought.
This baby is going down
. He was sending out a breathless, speedy SOS when he saw the MiG fly past him and falter in midair before Charlie ejected.

Evidently Charlie must have been so close behind the BroadSword that some of the whirling debris that he’d shot off the F-90
had gotten sucked into his air intake, totally destroying the MiG’s already ravaged engine.

Time for me to get out as well
, Steve thought.

He hunched down and pulled up the hand grips on both sides of his seat. His shoulder harness automatically locked as his canopy
blew off, exposing him to the shrill wind which bit at him like something rabid. He rocked his body back into the seat, bringing
up his knees tight against his chest as he placed his boots in the footrests. He pressed his helmet back against the headrest
and tucked in his chin.

He squeezed the seat-ejection triggers.

He cried out as the explosive charge brutally booted him up and out of the cockpit. His shoulder harness released, and Steve
kicked away from the seat to fall, tumbling in space. The ground was hungrily reaching up to embrace him—

And then the automatic chute deployed, and Steve’s belly went out through the top of his head as his downward tumble was joltingly
checked. As he swung beneath the chute he could see the oily black smoke that marked the spots where his BroadSword and Charlie’s
MiG had gone down. The smoke was a mixed blessing. It would act as a beacon to Search and Rescue, but also bring the North
Koreans. Their jets must have scrambled by now. They’d be here any moment. The NKPA ground forces would take a little longer.

First things first
, he reminded himself.
I’ve got to land in one piece
. He worked the suspension shrouds the way he’d been taught at jet fighter training school, keeping his eyes on the horizon,
resisting the urge to look down at the ground rushing up between his legs.

Keep loose
, he reminded himself.
Knees bent, fall and roll when you hit, then move fast to get out of the harness before the wind catches the silk and it begins
to drag you
.

A couple of hundred feet away Charlie was also preparing to land. Charlie had tried to work his chute to carry him across
to the northern, Manchurian side of the Yalu, but he hadn’t the altitude to make it. He was coming down on the North Korean
side, just like Steve.

Steve just had time to glimpse Charlie hitting the ground, and then it was his turn. He made an awful splattering noise, like
what you’d hear at a butcher shop, as he hit the muddy riverbank, and rolled like a rag doll to absorb the impact. Dripping
mud, he jumped to his feet, astounded that he hadn’t broken anything, and slipped out of his harness. He disregarded his helmet,
Mae West, and the rest of his flight gear, and then looked around for Charlie, fearful that the Red might try to ambush him.
He saw the Russian about sixty yards away, still trying to get out of his own harness.

It must be jammed on him
, Steve thought.
Hey, my luck’s still holding. If I play my cards right, I can go home with a Russian POW
.

He began to run toward Charlie along the boggy, weed-strewn riverbank. As he closed on the Russian he drew his four-inch-barrel,
Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver from his waist holster.

Charlie had finally gotten out of his chute harness. He was wearing a dark blue flight suit and a quilted jacket. He wore
no G-suit. The commies didn’t have them.

The Russian removed his helmet. He had short-cut blond hair. As Charlie threw the helmet aside, he caught sight of Steve.
His right hand began to claw at the flapped holster on his hip.

Steve was less than twenty-five feet away when he yelled, “Stop!” at Charlie, and then fired a shot in the air.

Charlie ignored Steve’s shout, but froze at the sound of the gunshot. His hand moved away from his holster. Then both of his
hands went up above his head as Steve approached, his .38 leveled at the Russian.

As Steve got closer he saw that Charlie looked to be in his thirties. He was clean-shaven, with high cheekbones and dark eyes
that were spaced wide apart.

“You speak English?” Steve called out over the sound of the rushing river splashing against its banks.

“
Da
—yes,” Charlie said.

“You’re my prisoner!” Steve declared. “Do you understand?”

Charlie smiled.

“What’s so funny?” Steve demanded.

“NKPA forces will soon be here,” the Russian said in heavily accented English. “I think you would be well advised to place
yourself in my hands.”

“Listen, Charlie, I want you to—” Steve paused. “What’s your name?”

“Vladimir,” the Russian said, and then smiled. “What is your name, might I ask?”

“Steve.”

“You are an excellent pilot, Steve.”

“Same goes for you, Vladimir.” Steve gestured with his revolver. “I’ve got to ask you to get rid of your gun. Take it out
slowly and throw it in the river.”