Heat waves roiled through the atmosphere, rattling the MiG violently through the churning skies like a pickup truck racing down a pot-holed country lane until it cleared the sonic ripples and the jet slid in smoother air. Karl flipped on the radar to find the other two planes. Although they were less than ten minutes ahead of him, the speed with which these jets traveled could translate into hundreds of miles of distance separating them.
The small, round radar screen flashed to life, pulsing with eerie green fluorescence. Two bright blips glowed on the edge of the screen, barely within range, streaking across the sky southeast of his position, headed to the coastal border of Pakistan, where the U.S. Naval fleet was anchored. The relationship between Iran and Pakistan had always been tenuous at best; it looked like the Iranians were planning to ramp up the angst.
His best estimate was at least fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, to catch up. By then, they’d be only a couple hundred miles from the border, leaving him little time to destroy the planes before they reached their targets. He’d have to get the MiG up to and keep running at least mach-2, faster if the ship could do it; otherwise, there was no way to make up the distance. Not up to date on the fuel economy statistics of the MiG’s engine and unsure if the MiG31s were prepped for a suicide mission like the 27s had been, he wasn’t sure if he had enough gas to go that far at the necessary speed and remain airborne long enough to engage the others in a fight.
Fuel was not the only issue. Esther was still unconscious in the back seat, adding difficulty to the decision he had to make. The force of high-speed maneuvering on her bleeding and unconscious body could cause serious problems for her, if she was even still alive.
Karl mentally slapped himself. Here he was, chasing a nuclear-armed suicide bomber about to kill thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, in a single blast, and he was concerned about a woman he had only met the day before. Liam, Kharzai, Manoosh, and Haran were dead and burned up on the runway at the base. Faisel’s beaten body lay, probably still undiscovered, in a spice warehouse in Birjanshah. Gilles the traitor was dead in the alley. Soren “The Wolf” Stagel, after three days of desert heat, had been reduced to an unrecognizable pulp in the smashed StrataCorp ship. And Esther was very likely already dead in the backseat.
Temptation whispered in his mind. No living person knew where he was or what he was doing. If he failed, no one would know that he had even tried. If he succeeded, he would probably still die when his fuel ran out. Why keep trying? Why not turn away and escape with the girl? If she lived, he could tell her they tried, but failed, and maybe they could live in a tropical paradise on Fiji and sit on a white beach watching the tide roll in under endlessly blue skies.
He could escape, but he would always know, whether or not anyone else did, that he had allowed thousands of unsuspecting people to be killed in a nuclear attack he may have been able to stop. He swore at himself, imagining the angels in heaven looking down in bewilderment at the thoughts of men in moments of such significance, while all the demons in hell laughed themselves silly at the easy diversions that could be thrown before them.
He punched the throttle forward, crushing his body tightly into the back of the seat. A continuous stream of muttered prayers rolled over his lips as they raced through the sky. Karl rose to an altitude just above the mountain peaks, the darkened landscape a blur as they broke the speed of sound, and then doubled it, roaring towards the confrontation that would decide so many destinies. He could almost hear the clock ticking. The fate of nations was in his hands, but time was running out.