The Sikorski S-92 flew low and fast over the water. The moon was setting in the western sky and a band of thick sea fog was developing below it. The moonlight cast shadows across the top of the fog, creating an illusion of flying over a landscape from the moon, endless miles of smooth and barren nothingness that stretched into the darkness of space.
Crown Prince Saud sat alone in the luxurious cabin. The lights were turned down and though his eyes were closed, he was not asleep. His body was numb with heartbreak and fatigue, but sleep was far from him. He was in too much pain. Over the past forty-eight hours he had lost everything he had ever loved; his wife and three children and his son yet unborn, his second wife and his last son, who were hiding now in Iran, his kingdom, his power, everything of any value to him—it was slipping away, a fistful of fine sand. He felt a blackness settle over him, a suffocating blanket of defeat, and he stared out at the darkness and sucked in a sudden, deep breath.
The helicopter vibrated around him, a smooth hum that developed from the rotors spinning over his head, a comforting vibration that settled into his bones. At the front of the cabin, one of the flat-screen TV monitors had been tuned to Arabic All News, but the sound was turned down and the prince paid no attention. The TV screen cast silver shadows through the cabin, causing his face to reflect in the oval window by his seat.
As the helicopter flew toward Saudi Arabia, the crown prince plotted in silence, his mind determined, the rage and grief mixing like a black storm inside. He wasn’t thinking clearly and he knew it, but he didn’t care any more. Patience was for cowards. It was time to act! Prince Abdullah was the one who killed his family. He knew it, he had known all along. His private intelligence officers had warned him. Now he had to move quickly to protect what little he had left. His father. The kingdom. It all was in danger. They were not finished with their killing. Al-Rahman would strike again.
Unless he acted quickly to take him down first.
He balled his fists as he thought, his arms taut, his temples pounding with each heartbeat. He plotted in the darkness of the cabin and the darkness of his soul.
The enormous helicopter flew west, moving toward the low fog and the night grew thick and full as the moon fell toward the horizon. The Saudi coast began to shine in the distance, a silver shadow in the starlight where the fog broke and the seas hit the shores.
* * *
The American-made F-15 Eagle fighter flew in a shallow circle at twenty-three thousand feet. At this altitude, the stars were clear and bright and the light of the moon glinted off the Eagle’s composite wings. The pilot, a senior colonel in the Royal Saudi Air Force, had been in the air for almost an hour and was running low on fuel. In another fifteen minutes, he would have to return to base, which meant his career, and maybe his life, would be over. Prince al-Rahman had been very clear. Complete the mission, or die. And the colonel wasn’t stupid. He knew his life was at stake.
He glanced nervously at his fuel readout, a sick knot in his stomach, then scanned his radar again. He had the APG-63 radar looking down, skimming the ocean below him, searching for his target. Why he had to shoot down the helicopter—who it was and why it was flying over the Persian Gulf toward Saudi Arabia at three in the morning—he didn’t know. Bandits. Terrorists. A rebellious OPEC minister from Oman, an Iranian businessman who had crossed the young prince, he hadn’t been told. And it didn’t matter. All he knew was his instructions came from Prince al-Rahman himself. And one did not disobey the royal family, especially this prince. He was ruthless and cunning and, many speculated, on his way to the throne. So a smart man such as he would attach himself to the winner and ride with him for all he was worth, a calculation which made the situation before him very simple. Shoot down the helicopter and earn his first star. Fail and be shot. It was easy to be motivated with his life on the line.
The pilot flew the fighter aggressively, whipping the controls as he desperately searched the night sky. His digital fuel readout clicked again, decreasing to eighteen hundred pounds. The radar found nothing. The sky was empty and dark. The knot in his stomach grew. His readout clicked off another fifty pounds and he went through the numbers again in his head. Five hundred pounds of fuel to get back to base, a couple hundred pounds to fly his overhead approach, three hundred pounds for emergency reserve, two hundred to land. He had nine minutes, maybe ten, before he would have to turn back to base.
His palms had already sweated through his gloves, wetting the controls. “Shoot down the helicopter or die trying,” the prince’s brutal instructions sounded again in his head.
The truth was, he didn’t mind the thought of dying in combat. He’d give his life happily for the Kingdom of Saud, but he bitterly hated the thought of dying because he had run out of gas or worse, having the prince shoot him because he had failed.
He cursed, punching an angry fist on his knee.
Where was the target? What was he going to do? He glanced at his fuel gauge, then cursed once again.
Rolling the fighter up on its wing, he scanned the expanse of dark ocean almost five miles below him, staring through the side of his Plexiglas canopy. He counted no less than six oil tankers moving through the Persian Gulf, each of them trailing a long line of sea foam that shimmered in the moonlight. A couple enormous cargo transports moved parallel to the tankers, heading in the opposite direction toward the ports at Al Kawayt and Abadan. To the west, a bank of thick sea fog had developed and he watched as it drifted toward the Saudi coastline a little more than fifty miles away. He flew his aircraft north and then east, keeping it constantly banked up on her side, and the enormous oil derricks along the Iranian coast slipped into view, their dark towers rising over the shimmering waters of the Persian Gulf. He rolled the nimble fighter level then jerked the stick to the right and pointed the nose toward the Saudi coastline.
His radar swept across the horizon, hitting a couple targets, civilian airliners moving toward Riyadh and Al Manamah, but it was almost three in the morning and the civilian airline traffic was light. He commanded the look-down, shoot-down radar to search low once again, knowing the helicopter would stay near the water. His radar reflected a deep green shadow on his facemask as he focused on the screen. Nothing. Empty airspace. No helicopter there.
He shook his head in frustration. The sweat had moved from his armpits to soak the flight suit on his back.
“Kill the helicopter or die.” His instructions were clear.
But he couldn’t kill the helicopter until he found it first.
He glanced at his fuel gauge as it clicked through fifteen hundred pounds. He reached up and adjusted his radar out to eighty miles. The Saudi coastline cluttered the display and the phase-array system sought to cut through the radar energy that bounced back from the rocky coastline. The computer automatically adjusted the beam to cut through the ground clutter and the radar display was cleaner on the next sweep.
Then he got it. A quick hit almost sixty miles away. It was low and moving quickly toward the coastline, just above the fog. He commanded his radar to hit the target again. It measured the distance and ground speed difference between them and began to click in his ear.
Target. Helicopter. Fifty-six miles off his nose. He yanked the fighter twenty degrees to the right and hit the afterburners for eight seconds to get a quick burst of speed. The Eagle accelerated very quickly, reaching almost Mach one. Lowering the nose, he armed up his missiles and the targeting computer instantly began to growl in his ear.
He had a lock on the target. In ten miles he would shoot. Ten miles. Fifteen seconds. From here, it was easy. His mission was almost complete.
* * *
The Crown Prince had barely drifted to sleep when the Sikorski suddenly reeled on its side. Then he felt his stomach lurch as the helicopter fell toward the ocean. His eyes flew open, his heart slammed and the adrenaline surged through his body. The helicopter lurched again and nosed over. The airspeed picked up and he heard the building noise of the airstream slipping over the cabin faster and faster. The helicopter rolled left and then right and his stomach turned again. He caught a glimpse through the window and saw the sea shimmering but a few feet off the left side. They were right on the water, no more than four or five feet in the air. He cried as the aircraft lurched, then started climbing again. A sudden burst of light, bright as the sun and moving off the left side, cast a freak shadow under its light. The ocean lit up like at noonday as the flare burned across the night sky.
The helicopter’s defensive counter-measures were kicking out anti-missile flares!
The crown prince knew what was happening.
And somewhere inside him, though he didn’t acknowledge it yet, a small voice whispered that he was soon going to die.
Grabbing the side of his chair, Prince Saud stumbled toward the cockpit door. The helicopter lurched again and he was knocked to the floor. The aircraft rolled on its side to almost ninety degrees and he slid like a doll across the carpeted floor, smashing his head against the conference table as he slid by. He felt the warm blood in his eye, but wiped it away and struggled to his feet again. The helicopter groaned around him, vibrating and shaking like an amusement park ride. They were exceeding their main rotor speed limit, he could tell by the screeching sound. He reached for the cockpit door and jerked it open just as the helicopter rolled again, throwing him to the side. Cursing, he crawled back to the cockpit and pulled himself to his feet.
He saw the amber caution lights and heard the warning horns. The two pilots were in a panic, one of them rolling the aircraft left and then right. He heard the warning system growling, warning him of an imminent attack. “Coming around!” the pilot screamed as he rolled the helicopter again. The prince’s eyes shot to the defensive display and his heart turned to a cold rock in his chest. A fighter had locked on with its radar and was about to attack. “Who is it?” he screamed to the copilot on his left side. The Saudi colonel turned to him, his eyes wide with fear. “F-15,” he cried. “He is lighting us up with his radar!”
The night illuminated again as the copilot spit out another bundle of phosphorous flares. The flares ejected from behind the main rotors and lifted into the night, trailing above and behind the helicopter in a white-hot trail of heat designed to pull away any heat-seeking missiles. The copilot reached to punch the flare button again, but the prince slapped his hand back. “Stop it,” he screamed. “That is not going to help!” He jammed a finger toward the threat display. “He’s hasn’t fired a missile yet. And when he shoots, it will be a radar-guided missile, not a heat-seeker anyway. All you’re doing is lighting us up like a flashlight, showing him where to shoot.”
The copilot only nodded, ready to panic again. The pilot flew the helicopter like a madman who had been shot in the eyes, jerking it left and then right, rocking her up on her side. The prince saw the ocean rise up to meet them as the pilot rolled the helicopter again. The rotor blades slapped the ocean and the helicopter lurched to the side. The pilot panicked and climbed and the helicopter shuddered toward the night sky.
The prince braced himself, grabbing the top of the pilot’s seats, then looked at the counter-measures display. It was an APG-63 radar. Yes, an F-15. Forty miles behind them. Closing very fast.
His mind raced as he considered their options. They were over the water. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to land. The helicopter’s spinning rotors would bounce back enormous beams of the radar energy to the F-15’s receiver. They had no guns, no weapons, only a few counter-measures. He grimly shook his head. He was a fighter pilot. He had targeted helicopters from an F-15 before. A helicopter, over the water, against an F-15 with its missiles and guns
He swallowed, almost crying.
Abdullah was about to kill him. Then he would kill his son. There would be no freedom for the kingdom. All of his dreams were dead.
The pilot continued flying like a crazy man, breaking right and then left, climbing and descending, trying to break the lock on the radar that was tracking them from behind. But the helicopter was enormous and no more stealthy than a Mack truck. The missiles couldn’t miss it. They had maybe a few seconds left to live.
Saud’s brain slowed down as a sudden calm filled his mind.
He was going to die. He knew that already. But he might yet save his last son, if he could just reach his friend.
He turned to the panicked copilot and tore the radio headset from off his head. “Tune up the VHF,” he screamed.
The copilot stared at him blankly, his eyes glazed with fear. “The VHF frequency?” he repeated.
“Give me control of the VHF radio!” the prince cried again.
* * *
The Saudi fighter pilot checked his airspeed and altitude. Five-eighty knots. Fourteen thousand feet. The target was forty-one miles in front of him, almost straight off the nose. He watched as it rolled left and then right, a lumbering giant in its final dance of death. As if any of it mattered! It could rock, it could roll, it could climb or descend—his radar couldn’t miss it now that it was locked on. He lifted his eyes and scanned the darkness. Searching the open ocean, he saw a tiny trail of white light burning across the water. He squinted, saw another trail, then laughed to himself. The idiot pilot was shooting flares! He smiled under his mask. A real genius! He hadn’t even fired his missiles. It was pure panic down there.
Then he startled, his mind racing.
What kind of helicopter carried anti-missile flares?
His heart stopped, his mouth growing dry.
No civilian helicopters would carry defensive systems . . . maybe a government aircraft . . . no, none of them . . . except for maybe the royal family!
He almost threw up in his oxygen mask.
He was about to shoot a member of the royal family!
He didn’t know what to do!
The firing computer continued to growl in his helmet. He was in firing range. The system was armed and ready. Radar locked. Ready to fire.
Am I about to shoot a member of the royal family?
Then Prince al-Rahman’s words shot like electricity through his mind, “Shoot down the helicopter or I will kill you myself.”
He wondered for half a second, then pushed the thought from his head. Royal family? Maybe it was. But what did it matter? His instructions were clear. If he failed, Abdullah would kill him. He didn’t have any choice.
“Insha’allal,” he whispered as he decided what to do.
He checked the distance and radar lock, then moved his left hand across the throttles, flipped off the safe switch and fired two advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles into the night air. The missile engines fired together in a trail of white smoke and flame and accelerated before him, then began to track downward toward the target.
* * *
The helicopter copilot reached for the radio console and flipped the selector to manual. The crown prince leaned over the center console and changed the frequency to 122.5 MHz, which is the emergency channel. Every U.S. aircraft in the air was required to monitor this frequency. The prince pulled on the headset and jerked the microphone to his lips.
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,” he said into the mike. “This is an emergency call for any U.S. aircraft. Mayday, Mayday, does anyone read?”
The prince released his broadcast button and listened, but the radio was silent. “Mayday, Mayday,” he repeated. “Any U.S. aircraft, this is an emergency!”
The helicopter pilot cried out and pointed toward the threat display. Two missiles had been fired and were tracking them. Twenty miles and closing. The pilot screamed in panic. He rolled the helicopter and climbed then threw the nose toward the ocean again. The copilot reached up and released another five bundles of burning flares. The missiles continued tracking toward the helicopter, accelerating as they descended through the night air. The pilot racked the helicopter into a tight left turn, pulling back toward the missiles, trying to throw them off his tail. The copilot saw the missiles turn toward them, then slowly bowed his head.
Prince Saud watched the missiles track toward him. In seconds they would strike. Yet he felt no panic. No fear. His mind was peaceful and calm. He was empty as a basket that had been turned upside down, the emotion having been drained from his body and his soul. He thought of Tala and his children. He believed they were waiting, and he was ready to go to them now. He knew it was over, but he was prepared to die. He’d done everything he could to win the battle. Now the war was left to someone else.
Then he thought of his son and the last thing he could do. He pressed the transmit button and started broadcasting again.
“Mayday, Mayday,” he said over the radio. “This is an emergency call to any U.S. aircraft in the region. This is Saudi Crown Prince Saud bin Faysal with an emergency message for Major General Neil Brighton of the national security staff. Neil, my friend, all of my family is dead. I have one son who is living and you must rescue him. The Agha Jari Deh Valley . . . you will find him there. He is there with my . . . .”
The missile hit the helicopter in the left engine bay. Prince Saud felt the fire and heat but only half a second of burning pain.
* * *
The F-15 pilot saw the explosion lighting up the night sky, a yellow fireball with a billowing white and black core. He saw the smoke rising as the scattered pieces of the helicopter began to rain from the sky, pelting the ocean in a hailstorm of smoking metal and burning debris. The fireball disappearing quickly as the pieces fell. Then he smiled, satisfied, and turned his jet back toward his home.
His mission was successful. Looked like he would get his first star.