Trident Squadron
"There's an AWACS to the east. I saw the pulses on the MPCD." Hassan said. His breathing had only just started to steady.
"But I don't see it."
"I don't think it was the usual HS 748. Probably one of the Israeli-supplied sets."
Major General Islam turned to Sami as if to say something, then said nothing.
"The Indians are getting better at exploiting their technological edge." Sami spoke the words the general could not bring himself to say.
"In twenty minutes we lost a quarter of our F-16Cs. You know the Americans have frozen our deliveries. We cannot sustain this for long." The general said, with effort. Sami could hear the sudden age in his voice. Today's ambush plan had been Islam's own; he had committed his most precious F-16Cs in the hope of catching a few Indian aircraft in his net, and instead the day had ended like this. Islam had once commanded No. 5 Squadron. During his tenure the unit had maintained its zero-loss record, a byword for invincibility. That era was now over.
"Listen to me, old friend. Our air force has never depended on the Falcon squadron's few advanced aircraft to fight its wars." Sami said. The words worked. The general's eyes recovered some of their light. Whether Sami had meant to denigrate No. 5 Squadron or not, Islam realised he could now expect the group captain to deliver a counter-stroke. Sami had never failed. He had shot down a string of enemies and had become Islam's last card.
"We need a counter-attack. Today."
"Yes. Counter-attack. Today, or tomorrow."
"We have to kill some of those Su-30s. Even one."
"…Agreed in principle. But we should start with the MiG-29s or something else." Sami said.
"Good. Return to 26 Squadron at once. I am relying on you entirely." The general said, gripping Sami's arm with both hands, as though clutching a piece of driftwood that would not sink.
"No problem. But those J-10Bs have to be returned to No. 33 Wing."
"Don't worry. They'll be delivering the remaining twenty-two soon. I guarantee 33 Wing will get some of them."
"How soon is soon?"
"One to two months." The general said cautiously. He knew the aircraft would eventually arrive; the Chinese kept their word. But probably not as quickly as he was promising.
"Old friend, you know the whole air force needs to adapt to new tactics. And BVR missiles are the foundation of every one of those new tactics."
"I know. I'll do what I can. Pilots who have flown the J-10 already, you could scrape together half a squadron. Pilots who have used the simulator, more. So…"
"But we don't have much time. We are counting hours. Even this place is inside the Indian Air Force's strike envelope." The group captain cut him off and pressed on.
"The army has an air-defence brigade covering us here."
"Don't be careless. Our low-altitude coverage has enormous gaps. Remember how the Americans slipped in?1 The Indians will have studied that. They will exploit their advantage in ultra-low-altitude penetration. Remember those Mirage 2000s?" Sami finished. Islam nodded. Sami was telling the truth: PAF search radars and AWACS were too few to hold complete coverage below 2,000 metres.
"If they invest in ECM, even a little equipment from Israel, they can cut our radar coverage even further. I will bet they are thinking about exactly this." Sami finished. Islam's face had gone grey again. The thought was frightening on its own.
"All right. Let's talk about the counter-attack." Sami clapped his shoulder, pulling him out of the uneasy silence.
"Yes. Tell me your plan." Talking about the counter-strike was the only thing that let the general's nerves relax. He was certain Sami would be the one to save him.
"I have an idea. We might be able to lure some of Adampur's MiG-29s out.2 Then we kill a few. The Indians' plan today gave me the idea."
"And if they send the Su-30s?"
"Then we abandon the plan."
"Why?" The general thought Sami's plan sounded tepid. What he wanted now was revenge against the Su-30MKIs.
"Because behind their border they have an AWACS we cannot see. And No. 26 Squadron's Thunders cannot yet use data link to read the full battlespace picture. That is the reason."
"You're confident?"
"Yes. But I need some of Griffin Squadron's F-16As3 to make a feint. For example, a strike on the Indian 15th Infantry Division headquarters near Amritsar."
"Damn it. You want to use F-16s as bait for your Thunders? Griffin's pilots will lose their minds."
"Don't tell them the full details. Their F-16s are the most valuable bait we have. The Indians will be unable to resist."
"There's no operational value in that mission. That command post on the border is an obvious fake target, put there for us to see."
"I know perfectly well it's a few rows of huts. But precisely because of that, the Indians will not commit the Lion Squadron's Su-30s. They will scramble the Tridents from Adampur instead."
"Why?" The general glanced at the wall map and noticed that the two bases were roughly equidistant from Amritsar.
"Because the Indian Air Force has a rigid command system. They divide their airspace into defensive sectors, and their sector commanders squabble. We exploit that."
"Fine. Griffin will go. I am relying on you entirely." The general clapped Sami on the shoulder and agreed on the spot. The morning's disaster had left him scattered, his mind fixed on revenge. There was no plan Sami could have proposed that he would have refused.
At four in the afternoon, Sami was back at Attock and seated in the cockpit of his No. 101 Thunder. The Indian cruise-missile strike on the base the day before had not cratered the runway, and the airfield was still operational.
Two F-16As from Griffin Squadron flew over Sami's aircraft heading east. Under their wings he could see bombs and anti-radiation missiles. The timing was Sami's choice. He reckoned that by the time he launched, the sun would be setting.
"Griffin calling. I can see four Black Spider aircraft still on the runway with umbilicals attached. They won't be airborne for ten minutes." Uhak's voice came over the radio, sounding put out; evidently he had looked down as he passed the field. Uhak did not know the full mission, and he did not know that Sami, rather than Major General Islam, was now running the show. From where he sat, a hasty border-crossing raid into India with no value beyond the symbolic was pointless. He knew the Trident Squadron's MiG-29s4 would be waiting for him somewhere. Days ago, his wingman had been killed by an R-77 fired by an Indian fighter from that very squadron.
1. The Abbottabad reference: Sami is referring to Operation Neptune Spear, the May 2011 US raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, roughly sixty kilometres from the PAF base at Kamra. The modified Black Hawk helicopters that inserted the SEAL team flew for more than ninety minutes through Pakistani airspace without being detected by PAF radar. The incident exposed critical gaps in Pakistan's low-altitude air defence and is cited by PAF pilots in the novel as evidence of a persistent vulnerability. ↩
2. Adampur (亚当布尔): IAF Adampur Air Force Station in Jalandhar, Punjab. Home to IAF No. 223 Squadron "Tridents," a MiG-29UPG unit. In Chapter 20 and Chapter 21, Captain Rawal of the Tridents described the engagement in which his flight shot down a PAF F-16 while Sami destroyed three IAF MiG-21s. Sami's plan exploits the fact that Adampur's sector responsibility covers the Amritsar region, making a Trident intercept almost automatic. ↩
3. Griffin Squadron (格里芬中队): PAF No. 9 Squadron "Griffins," operating F-16A Block 15 aircraft from Sargodha. These older F-16s lack the conformal fuel tanks and Block 52 avionics of No. 5 Squadron's premium fighters, but they remain among the most capable air-superiority platforms in PAF service. Sami's willingness to use them as bait reflects the cold calculus of the novel's Pakistani air command: the remaining F-16Cs are too valuable to risk, but an F-16A is still irresistible to an Indian interceptor controller. ↩
4. The Isa incident: The "wingman killed a few days ago" is Uhak's former wingman Isa, shot down by Rawal's R-77 during the first day's engagement near the Kashmir border. That kill was one of the two claimed by the Tridents in the propaganda broadcast of Chapter 23; it was the F-16 whose pilot was climbing after a bomb run. Uhak now has a personal reason to fly this mission, which the planners have counted on without needing to tell him explicitly. ↩