Ivan had said that the lake stretched forty kilometers north to south, and Malone could believe that claim seeing nothing but water toward the horizon.
“Let’s see what’s down there before we land.”
He eased the yoke forward and reduced airspeed.
The flight northward across Yunnan province had been quiet, the skies clear of traffic. He’d grown accustomed to the smooth journey but, suddenly, the Twin Bee’s wings skipped air.
Engines sputtered, then quickly refired.
Projectiles pierced the hull and rocketed through the cabin.
Air rushed in through holes.
The right wing sheared further from more impacts and the ailerons went loose. The plane arched left as the starboard side failed to respond to commands.
“What was that?” Cassiopeia said.
The answer came as a jet roared passed overhead, its afterburners flaming in the late-morning sky.
“Cannon fire,” he said.
The fighter’s delta-winged triangle disappeared in the distance, but a vapor trail indicated a turn for another approach.
“That’s a People’s Liberation Army fighter,” he said. “And it ain’t here by accident. The Chinese knew we were coming.”
He worked the rudder and used airspeed to regain some semblance of control. He’d been annoyed the entire flight by the lack of synchronization in the two engines. Pitch was a pilot’s best warning, but the Twin Bee’s engines screamed at each other like an arguing soprano and baritone.
“What can I do?” Cassiopeia asked.
“Tell me where that jet is.”
“He’s coming straight toward us, from behind,” Pau calmly reported.
They were plowing through thick air, only a few hundred feet above the lake. He added altitude and rose to 1,000 feet. The Twin Bee was little match for modern avionics, cannons, and radar-guided missiles.
There was, though, one weapon they did possess.
“How far away?”
“Hard to say,” she said. “Several miles.”
He’d been around enough fighter pilots to know how they thought, no matter the nationality. Hell, he’d wanted to be one himself. This was easy prey, a hawk challenging a pigeon. The pilot would wait until he was close before firing.
He checked his airspeed.
A little under 110 kilometers.
He recalled what his instructor had taught him.
“He’ll be here in a few seconds,” Cassiopeia said.
He hoped the Twin Bee could handle what he was about to do. The starboard control surfaces were damaged, but the port side and tail rudder seemed okay. Most important, the engines were working. He waited another two seconds, then slammed the throttle wide open and pulled back on the yoke. The amphibian rose in a steep climb, prying upward with a groan from her hull. Tracer rounds rocketed past as their altitude increased.
2,000 feet.
2,500.
3,000.
The fighter shot passed beneath them, its turbofans leaving a trail of black smoke. Fighters were not low-altitude machines. They worked best in the stratosphere, not near the ground where fuel and computers could be tapped to the max.
He topped off at 3,300 feet.
“My stomach is in my throat,” Cassiopeia said.
“I had to do something he wouldn’t expect.”
“That certainly qualified.”
He knew small planes were not her favorite mode of transportation, recalling a rough helicopter ride in Central Asia, when Viktor had been at the controls.
He focused through the windshield. The Annihilator loomed in the distance. He realized the fighter could easily shoot them down with air-to-air missiles. Another navy lesson flashed through his mind.
“We’re going in,” he said.
He lowered speed and cranked the elevators. The outside air was capricious and inconsistent, which only aggravated the situation. He dropped the left wing and slipped into a slow bank. After a sharp turn he angled the nose and leveled off at 800 feet above the lake.
“You see the jet?” he asked.
Cassiopeia’s head spun in every direction. “No. But that doesn’t mean anything. He could still have us in his sights.”
A fact he realized. He struggled to keep the wing level as the port side control surfaces ignored his commands.
“Apparently this was a trap,” Pau Wen said.
“Brilliant observation.”
He threw Cassiopeia a glance that she seemed to understand.
Treetops grew in size as he glided toward the lake. Luckily, the nearest junk floated a mile or so away.
A rush of wind shoved them to the right.
He held the nose high.
