“Hibr flight, you are ordered to return to patrol altitude and proceed north to intercept inbound aircraft!” the ground radar controller shouted again. “And you do not have permission to open fire!”

The Libyan pilot whipped off his oxygen mask in frustration. “I tell you, Control, there are numerous enemy aircraft out here!” he shouted again. “I am tracking one now, and there were one, maybe two others up here as well. I think Tripoli is under attack from the south!”

“You are ordered to proceed immediately to point Amm and intercept and identify unknown aircraft inbound toward the capital!” the ground controller said. “Backup aircraft are being prepared now. Proceed immediately!”

The MiG-23 pilot had no choice. No ground radars had picked up these low-flying bandits. Aircraft north of the city could mean anything—inbound passenger airliners, cargo planes, anything but an attacker. Low-flying unidentified aircraft weaving and jinking around south of the city could mean only one thing: enemy aircraft. But the controller was telling him to chase the target he could see. He was an idiot—but he had complete authority, too.

He angrily jammed his throttles forward and yanked the stick hard right, zooming northward. He didn’t even think of his wingman, trailing to his right and slightly higher—he hoped he was paying attention and didn’t get fried as his leader cut right in front of him.

It took only four minutes for the pair of MiG-23s to reach the intercept anchor point. “Hibr flight, proceed on heading three-zero-zero. Your bogey will be at your twelve o’clock, range fifty K, descending through four thousand meters.”

“Acknowledged, Control,” the pilot said. “How about sending some fighters up to track down the bogeys I found near Kadra?” No response from the controller—he couldn’t see any targets down south of the city, so he wasn’t going to send any planes there.

“Hibr flight, bogey at your twelve o’clock, forty-five K, still descending, now through three point five K meters. Report when tied on.”

The MiG-23 flight leader activated his intercept radar and found the aircraft almost instantly—it was a solid radar lock-on, not weak and intermittent like the other one. “Hibr flight has a bogey at my twelve o’clock, forty-two K meters range, three point zero K meters altitude.” He keyed two switches on the instrument panel near the throttle that sent out coded interrogation signals. “Negative mode two, mode C, and mode four IFF.”

“That’s your bandit, Hibr flight.”