“What are you doing?” Wickland asked.

“We’ve got to nail those guys before the fighters join- up,” Tanaka said. “Those are Tupolev-22s—they’re just as fast as the MiGs. Once they join up, they’ll accelerate to attack speed, and we’ll never catch them.”

Wickland was silent, but Tanaka could sense the fear in his body as they quickly closed in. “Eight miles to go ... seven miles, coming up on max missile range,” he said. “Six miles . .. five ... the bombers will still get away. . . .”

“At this point, we’ll just have to hope we take the tail- end Charlie fighters out—maybe the bombers will break up once they find out their fighters are gone,” Tanaka said.

“We’re in max range.” Wickland quickly touched the supercockpit display and spoke: “Attack target.”

“Attack MiG-23 Scorpion, stop attack ," the computer responded. Moments later, the first AIM-120 air-to-air missile shot out of the starboard external weapon pod and streaked off into the darkness.

But the MiGs must have sensed something was wrong, or maybe one of the pilots was checking his six, because the MiG-23 fighters suddenly peeled away from the formation, dropped decoy flares, climbed rapidly, then reversed direction. Seconds later, they heard a high-pitched DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE! warning and a female computerized voice announcing, “Warning, fighter search radar, MiG-23, eleven o'clock, sixteen miles," followed immediately by a fast-paced DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE! and “Warning, fighter radar lock, MiG-23, eleven o'clock, high, fifteen miles."

“The Scorpion broke lock,” Wickland said. At that moment the second MiG-23 turned sharply right, and the two Tu-22 bombers accelerated and rapidly descended. “The second fighter is coming at us, and the bombers are getting away!” Wickland cried.

Tanaka hit his voice command button: “Evasive action! Configure for terrain following!” he spoke. Immediately the flight computer responded to the voice command, nosing the EB-52 bomber over in a hard twenty-degree nose- down dive. Tanaka kept the power in, diving right to max airspeed—the throttles automatically pulled themselves back to keep from exceeding the airframe’s design speed. “Where are those fighters, dammit?”

“Got ’em!” Wickland shouted. “Closest one is coming around to our nine o’clock. The nearest bomber is at our one o’clock, thirty-two miles.” He touched the icon for the Tu-22 bomber, then hit his voice command stud: “Attack priority,” Wickland told the attack computer.

“Target out of range," the computer responded.

“We know the bomber’s heading for Jaghbub,” Tanaka said. “We’ll head over that way and bushwhack him.” He turned the bomber farther to the northeast, cutting off the corner of the route to try to head the Libyan bombers off.

“Warning, MiG-23, seven o’clock, eleven miles, high.”

The Megafortress was now down at three hundred feet above the desert, flying at nearly full military power at four hundred and twenty knots airspeed. “I think we’re losing the MiGs,” Wickland said. “They’re trying to get a shot off from up high.”

“Warning, MiG-23, six o’clock, eight miles, high.”