Smith braced himself and managed to find enough leverage to turn slightly in his seat. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the plane only a few hundred yards back, using its superior maneuverability to counter their pathetic attempts to shake it. In the distance he could see the contrails of the ongoing dogfight, but individual planes were impossible to make out.

Smith faced forward again, staring blankly at the back of the pilot’s seat. Did Takahashi know what was happening? Was he laughing while he watched the Chinese destroy their last hope?

Smith’s teeth were clenched so tightly that he could hear them grinding together in his head. He closed his eyes and waited, but nothing happened. He assumed that waiting helplessly to be incinerated had thrown off his ability to mark time but eventually the seconds stretched out long enough to suggest that this wasn’t it. Finally, he opened his eyes and twisted around. The plane was still there, lined up right behind them.

“Why isn’t he firing?”

“I’m not sure, sir.”

“Could he have a weapons malfunction?”

“Maybe. But I don’t think so.”

They leveled out and the J-11 disengaged, setting a course back to help his comrades.

The first thing that came to Smith’s mind was that it was a trick. But to what end? That pilot could have killed them with the flip of a switch. Had Castilla managed to get through to his Chinese counterpart? Convince him to pull back?

Smith looked past the plane hurtling away from them and squinted at the dogfight still in progress. As near as he could tell, there were only two Chinese aircraft remaining and both were being double-teamed by the surviving F-15s. It was time to make a decision. The J-11s weren’t going to last much longer, even with the plane coming to their aid.

“Disengage!” Smith said, opening a channel to his men. “I repeat: disengage. Defensive actions only.”

66

66

Over Eastern China

General Masao Takahashi adjusted the focus on his binoculars and panned them slowly across the jet’s side window. On both sides of him his men were doing the same with their naked eye—silently watching the events unfolding in the sky to the south.

It was impossible to follow the chaos of the dogfight, or even to reliably differentiate between the US F-15s and the Chinese J-11s. What he could say with certainty, though, was that the Americans’ surprise attack had been successful. The odds were roughly even now.

He dropped the binoculars and went forward to the cockpit where he grabbed a headset. “Connect me to Chengdu tower.”

The pilot flipped a switch on the radio and then returned his attention to the windscreen, leaning into it and scanning the tangled contrails being created by the warplanes.