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.Keeping the engines in afterburner was absolutely necessary at the moment, for they were running on partial thrust from the right engine and he needed everything the left engine would provide.But that meant sucking fuel from the tanks at a disastrous—in fact, prohibitive—rate.He had to cut back on the power to reduce their fuel consumption, but he also needed that power to climb.Another problem: His right arm felt as if a hot poker had been stabbed into the muscle, and a hundred tiny devils were twisting the poker with agonizing effect against the nerves.Normally he flew with his right hand, but now it was only an extension from his body that wracked him with pain.No time to see what had happened, how bad it was, how badly he might be bleeding.Not much use in stopping bleeding if in the process you fly into a mountainside.He kept the MiG in a right climbing turn, watching the gauges, talking to the engine to keep going, to keep running.If he could get to altitude then he could not only clear the mountains but he might also fly this beast on only one burner.It would be limping home, but what the hell, if it made it.The long sweeping turn to the right helped him with his bearings—settlements and communities along the Nile River provided a long, twisting ribbon of speckled lights.The lights of river traffic also helped.He completed the wide climbing turn and eased in left stick and a touch of rudder as he came around to three hundred forty degrees.But not too long for that because that was taking them straight toward Cairo, and by now they must be very nervous up there—The airplane shuddered violently throughout its length.Needles trembled.Instinct brought the nose down to reduce the power requirements.He glanced at the altimeter.Eight thousand.More than enough to clear anything this side of the Red Sea or the Straight of Jubal.He didn't dare fly any farther north; he'd be sliding into range of defensive missiles, and the radar nets could bracket him easily for interceptors.No doubt they'd be scrambling by now.When the Russians in Cairo got word that one of their precious MiG-27 fighters had been heisted by a couple of Jews who wandered in from the desert, there would be dedicated action to bring down the plane.He began a sweeping turn to the right, rolling out on forty-five degrees, to take them north of the Gebel Katherina peak that dominated the lower Sinai at nearly nine thousand feet above the Negev.His world was a bank of glowing instruments, and lights on the horizon to his left, far to the north, where Cairo still cast a clear spray of light into the sky.But there was other light now and he vacillated between pleasure and disappointment.They were flying generally into the east, and the first pink touch of dawn showed before them.Well, it took away some of the sting.He wouldn't need to fly her strictly by the gauges; he could eyeball their way now with that horizon reference.It would also make it easier for pursuers to catch sight of him.To hell with that; it was the least of his problems.Keeping in the air was first, running so long as they had fuel.He didn't know the capacity of the tanks in the MiG, but flying at nine thousand feet in an airplane designed for efficiency at much greater heights was a sure way to suck the damn tanks dry.The MiG shuddered badly again, the instruments dancing in wild vibration before his eyes.He felt no strain flying with his left hand; the bionics limb gave him more than enough strength.But the right arm… in the dim cockpit light he saw the glistening reflection of his blood.It wasn't too bad, and he attempted to move his hand.It hurt but he was able to flex his ringers.Moments later he was moving the entire arm, wincing from the pain but grateful nothing had been broken or severed.He toyed with the idea of a tourniquet, but it would be a clumsy job at this moment.It would wait.Again the shuddering of the machine throughout its length, and then a low, booming thunder.The engine was going.If the thing exploded, it could tear the entire ship apart.He had enough altitude and—he hadn't thought of Tamara all this time.He looked into the small mirror, saw her face, tense, her lips pressed tightly together.She was taking all of this in silence, not bothering him, but knowing they were committed to the MiG, that they lacked even the option of ejecting.No chutes.Either they made it back to an Israeli field or he'd have to put her down somewhere in the desert.And wouldn't that be a job in a fighter that probably stalled out at a hundred and twenty or so? A vision of a silvery lifting body slamming into the flat surface of the California desert came to him with stunning clarity, and he shook his head to throw it off.Another booming sound and he had no choice now but to shut down the right engine.He studied the panel, trimming just a hair nose-down pitch.The gauges again followed the basic pattern of the earlier MiG fighter.He held his breath and began flicking switches, then brought the throttle all the way back to cut-off.There wasn't much yaw.This was a beautiful machine and he corrected the slight tendency of the nose to veer with the trim.He took the time to study their position.No charts.He was doing it all by memory.They'd crossed the Arabian Desert; no doubt of that, because there was the Strait of Jubal which, to his left, the north, became the Gulf of Suez.Ahead and slightly to the right he barely made out in the morning haze the high reaches of the lower Sinai mountains, capped by the dominating peak of Gebel Katherina.They moved across the water beneath them.Then the shore line of the Sinai Peninsula slipped beneath the wings and he began to have new hopes that—A red warning light flashed at him.The fuel warning light.Maybe five or ten minutes left.He'd never have time to figure out the fuel cross-feed situation.That meant getting down now.He dropped the nose to pick up some more speed and eased off on the left engine throttle.Even a minute could make a tremendous difference at this point.He knew he must land while he still had power.That would give him the chance to dodge anything unexpected.He could maneuver with power; otherwise they'd be dropping down into the desert with a lead sled on his hands that couldn't get out of its own way.He turned as much as he could in the seat."Can you hear me?" he shouted to Tamara.She nodded."We're going down.Low on fuel." She nodded again."Put on the shoulder harness," he ordered.He did the same, realizing for the first time he'd never bothered to fasten the shoulder straps.It was a bitch of a job and he grimaced with the pain of slipping his right arm through the strap.But when they hit… without those straps tight, their faces could go slamming hard into the panels.The red warning light was now blinking furiously at him, and a warning buzzer sounded.There couldn't be more than five minutes of fuel left.The west shore of the Sinai was far behind them now; that could help.They faced the prospect of walking out of the Sinai.Knock it off, he told himself.Get this thing on the ground while you can…The low horizon light helped, casting long shadows.He wouldn't slam into a gully or a rise that was being washed out by a bright overhead sun.Just like setting her down on the moon.He almost laughed aloud at the image.He figured they were well up into the Plateau of Eltih, in the midst of the Sinai Peninsula.The deathlands of the Egyptian armies… remember how it went? The Israelis slashed the roads, forced them out into the open desert, the plateau, and the depressions, and left them there… He did some swift calculations, computing speed and time to determine distance, and as the desert moved up to meet them, they were beyond most of the Plateau of Eltih, moving into the huge depression beyond [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]