“I know I’d have a tough time if my cockpit was filled with smoke like that,” the flight leader said. “We’ll wait until he crosses the twenty-kilometer mark, then open fire if he doesn’t turn away.”

It seemed to take forever—the big American plane was definitely slowing down. The other Libyan fighters circled, jockeyed around, and generally tried their best to fly night- staggered formation with the crippled American plane. No one departed—all the pilots wanted to watch when Hibr lead fired his missile and brought the big plane down.

Tripoli Air Defense Control confirmed the orders moments later: shoot to kill if the plane crosses the twenty- kilometer ring.

“Three Sierra Mike, this is Hibr flight, you are ordered to turn away now,” the flight leader radioed. “I am ordered to shoot you down if you do not comply. This is your last warning.” He then angled upward, clearing the DC-l0s powerful wake, and started to maneuver behind the big plane. The lights of Tripoli were brilliant, filling the horizon below—he was afraid that maybe he was too late, that twenty kilometers was still too close. Even if the plane was hit, could it still glide on fire and hit the city?

At that moment, the smoke stopped streaming out of the DC-l0’s cockpit, and the big plane started a slow ten-degree bank turn to the left. It took almost ninety seconds, but finally the big plane was heading away from Tripoli. It was just thirty seconds—about three kilometers—away from the flight leader pressing the button on his control stick that would send the DC-10 crashing to earth.

“Too bad, Hibr flight,” one of the other pilots radioed. “We thought you’d finally get a chance to hit something this time.”

It wasn’t funny, the lead pilot thought—he was sure that this was nothing but a feint for an attack from the south. This plane had managed to draw off nearly all of Libya’s alert fighter patrols away from the capital. Something was not right here. ...

“Suf and Kheyma flights, this is Hibr lead. I’m getting close to bingo fuel,” the flight leader radioed. “Hibr flight is going to depart the formation and head to base. Escort this bastard out of our airspace.”

“You got it,” one of the other pilots said. “Suf flight has the lead. We’ll stay in formation with the American until he’s well away.” The leader of the flight of two MiG-23s descended to five hundred meters below the American cargo plane, then turned south; a few moments later, his wingman was in loose fingertip formation.

“Hibr flight, this is Control. Understand you are declaring bingo fuel at this time.”

“Negative, Control,” the flight leader said. “We’re twenty minutes from bingo. I want vectors to the last position of those unidentified radar contacts south of Tripoli.”