Two down. Four left.
But I had bled off too much airspeed to make the kill. As I pulled up, trying to regain my energy, the master caution alarm on my panel screamed.
A solid, continuous tone filled my headset. Missile lock.
I slammed the stick forward, popping flares and chaff in a desperate attempt to blind the incoming weapon. I threw the jet into a violent corkscrew, praying the countermeasures would spoof the heat-seeker.
A massive, concussive force slammed into the rear of my jet.
My head whipped forward, my helmet striking the front console with a jarring impact. The world spun wildly out of control. The cockpit instantly filled with the acrid, choking smoke of burning insulation. Every alarm on the panel was blaring at once in a deafening chorus of failure.
“Hydraulics failure! Engine fire, starboard side!” the automated voice of the jet’s computer announced calmly.
The control stick went completely dead in my hand. I was in an unrecoverable flat spin, plummeting toward the jagged, forested peaks of the Appalachian Mountains hidden beneath the clouds.
I reached down and grabbed the yellow-and-black ejection handle between my legs.
I pulled hard.
The canopy blew off with an explosive crack that shattered the remaining silence. A fraction of a second later, the rocket motors under my seat ignited. The brutal, instantaneous acceleration felt like being kicked in the spine by a horse. I was blasted out of the burning jet and into the freezing, thin air of the upper atmosphere.
The wind tore at my limbs, threatening to rip my helmet from my head. I tumbled wildly for what felt like an eternity before the automatic parachute deployment sequence engaged. The sudden, violent deceleration of the canopy opening jerked me upward, driving the breath from my lungs and sending a sharp ache through my shoulders.
I hung in the harness, gasping for air, the cold wind biting at my face through the open visor. Below me, the rugged, heavily forested mountains stretched out in every direction, an endless sea of dark green pine and gray rock. A mile away, I saw the black plume of smoke rising from where my F-22 had impacted the side of a ridge.
I looked down, scanning the terrain. A few miles to the west, another, smaller column of gray smoke marked the crash site of the first American jet I had shot down.
The ground rushed up to meet me. I braced my legs, keeping them bent, and slammed into the canopy of a massive pine tree. Branches whipped and tore at my flight suit. I crashed through the heavy boughs, my momentum slowing until I finally jerked to a halt, suspended about ten feet above the forest floor.
I hit the quick-release on my harness and dropped the rest of the way, landing heavily on the damp, needle-covered ground. My knees buckled, but I forced myself to stand. I did a rapid physical assessment. Everything hurt, a deep, pervasive ache radiating from my spine, but nothing felt broken.
Silence descended on the forest, heavy and absolute. The sky above was empty.
I unzipped the survival vest over my flight suit, my hands shaking violently. I needed answers. I needed to know who had tried to kill the President, and who had just tried to kill me.
I checked my compass and set off toward the smaller column of smoke—the wreckage of the first jet I had downed. The hike took over an hour through dense underbrush and steep, rocky inclines. My breath came in ragged gasps, the cold mountain air burning my lungs.
The smell of aviation fuel and scorched earth hit me before I saw the clearing.
The enemy jet had shattered upon impact, creating a long, charred scar through the trees. The main fuselage was a twisted, smoking heap of unrecognizable metal. I approached cautiously, my hand resting on the grip of the standard-issue 9mm sidearm holstered at my hip.
I found the pilot a hundred yards from the main wreckage. His ejection seat had malfunctioned, deploying the parachute too late. He was lying motionless against the base of a shattered oak tree, his limbs splayed at unnatural angles. The impact had been catastrophic.
I knelt beside him, my stomach churning. His helmet had been torn off during the crash. He looked completely ordinary. A man in his late thirties, short-cropped hair, wearing a standard American flight suit.