Free Z by Bob Mayer

Skeleton, too, though,” Trent noted. “For the diamonds.”
    “No,” Quinn disagreed. “We don’t need him. Push comes to shove, we can take the rocks on the black market.”
    Trent nodded toward the merks. “Speaking of that, some of these boys just want to take their share of the diamonds and split.”
    Quinn laid a hand on the stubby barrel of his Sterling. “We move out in two hours.”
     
    Atlantic Ocean, Vicinity 12 Degrees East Longitude, 12 Degrees South Latitude,
    12 June
     
    “Hawkeye Three, you are clear to launch. Over.”
    “This is Hawkeye Three. Roger. Out.”
    The catapult roared and the Grumman E-2 Hawkeye accelerated down the flight deck of the Abraham Lincoln and was airborne in less than three seconds. It turned due east and within twenty minutes a dark line appeared on the horizon through the cockpit window.
    The twenty-four-foot-diameter radome piggybacked on top of the fuselage began rotating, and inside the craft the radar officer checked out his equipment. He picked up the CAC—combat air cover—over the Abraham Lincoln, then he began coding out all known civilian flights in the area, of which there were currently only four recorded.
    As the Hawkeye went farther east over Angola, the four-hundred-mile reach of the radar covered more and more of the sky above that embattled country. A pair of F-14 Tomcats roared by, waggling their wings: the power to enforce the no-fly rule in case the electronic eyes picked up a target. The pilot of the surveillance craft kept them in a figure-eight pattern over the center of Angola as they settled in to their duty.
    They had their first unknown contact exactly two hours and twenty-two minutes into their tour of duty. The combat information officer was very careful to note the time in his log. After the debacle in 1994 over Turkey where air force jets downed two army Black Hawk helicopters, killing all on board, already tight procedures had been given a few extra turns of the caution screw. The CI officer knew that there were Black Hawks from the Special Operations Command operating below. And this target was moving in a manner that told the radar operator it was a helicopter. The contact was over what was tentatively identified as rebel territory in the north central part of the country. It was moving to the north.
    The CI keyed his radio as his fingers flew over his keyboard. “Stallion One, this is Hawkeye Three. I’m feeding you an unidentified bogey. Looks like rotary wing. Over.”
    The pilot of the lead F-14 confirmed he had the target information in his computer. “I’ve got it. Over.”
    “Vector in. Over.”
    “Roger. Over.”
    The CI checked to make sure he had all listed army flights accounted for. Then he double-checked. Then he triple-checked. He interrogated it, looking for a transponder code. Nothing. He tried calling the rogue flight on the radio. Nothing. Regardless, he started broadcasting a warning, ordering the flight to immediately set down, giving flight instructions to the nearest government airfield.
    “Any change?” the CI asked the radar man.
    “Yeah, he’s going lower, trying to get into terrain masking. Must think he got picked up by ground radar.” That was the advantage of the E-2’s radome—it wasn’t blocked by intervening hills, since it was looking down.
    “Stallion One, this is Hawkeye Three. I have you intercepting in thirty seconds. Over.”
    “Roger. We’re slowing. Wait one. Over.”
    The CI watched the dot representing the two F-14s merge with the target.
    The pilot came back on. “We’ve got one MI-8. No markings. Over.” The CI knew that both the rebels and the Angolan government had MI-8s. He made communication through the Abraham Lincoln with the coordination cell of the Joint Task Force headquarters in Luanda to check whether it might be a government aircraft that had both failed to file a flight plan and was in the wrong place. The JTF headquarters confirmed that it was not a government