Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (38 page)

 
          
Suddenly,
like some eerie Martian fog, green sky descended and engulfed him, and then the
sky turned yellow. The AWACS had found him, started to track him. Maraklov
tried to dodge closer to the river-valley edges to hide in any available radar
shadow. No use. Once he was spotted and identified—an aircraft at two hundred
feet above ground traveling at six hundred miles an hour could hardly be
mistaken for a civilian plane—the AWACS would change position farther west to
maintain a solid track on him in the valley . . .

 
          
“Unidentified
aircraft ten miles north of Blythe, altitude twelve hundred feet MSL, airspeed
five hundred forty knots. This is the United States Air Force air intercept
controller on
GUARD.”
The radio
message was being broadcast “in the blind” on
GUARD,
the international emergency frequency, to prove to him that
he had indeed been spotted. “You are ordered to climb to ten thousand feet MSL,
reduce speed and lower your landing gear immediately.” Military aircraft being
intercepted were ordered to lower their landing gear because as a safety device
the weapon systems on most fighters were automatically deactivated when the
landing gear was down. “Contact me on two-three-three point zero immediately,
repeat, contact me on frequency two-three-three point zero.”

 
          
DreamStar’s
weapon system did not deactivate unless Maraklov deactivated it, gear up or
down, but it was a moot point—DreamStar had only one AIM-120 missile left and
very little fuel, not enough for any sort of engagement. The F-15 fighters
would not have much chance of catching him on their own, but with the AWACS up
and locked-on they could be vectored in with high precision and even process a
missile launch, all without one watt of energy being transmitted from their own
radars. So DreamStar would have to use its attack radar to find the F-15S, and
that would give away DreamStar’s position to them.

 
          
Maraklov
set one of his radios to the discrete frequency but did not reply—that would be
suicidal. But he did hear: “DreamStar, this is Colonel Harrell, Eagle Squadron
commander. We’re following vectors toward you. We’ll be all over you in a few
seconds. Climb out of there, slow down and drop your gear or we’ll consider you
a hostile and blow your shit away. Answer up. Over.”

 
          
A
one-second burst of energy on the attack radar told Maraklov the story—six
fighters, three pairs, all at different altitudes, arranged along the Colorado
River and spaced about twenty miles apart. The closest was about thirty miles
ahead, only two hundred feet above ground. The AWACS had moved northward a few
miles to get a better look down the valley and to get away from the radar
shadows from the
Kofa
Mountains
.

 
          
“We’ve
got lock-on, James,” Harrell said. “I got you at my
twelve o’clock
, twenty-eight miles. My wingmen know where
you are. The Marines have set up a little surprise for you. Hiding down here in
the mud ain’t going to help. Give it up before you get yourself smoked.”

 
          
That
bit about Yuma Marine Corps Air Station was not exactly true, but it came
close. The Marines could easily set up a surface-to-air missile blockade of the
Colorado River
mouth from Yuma Marine Corps Air Station.
Harrell wouldn’t reveal that, though. But the odds were starting to pile up
here, and they were all against him.

 
          
There
was no way to even the odds, but Maraklov decided he wasn’t going to just
surrender. Giving up DreamStar was unthinkable. It would make everything he’d
done pointless. But if the
F-15S
didn’t
get him, his lack of fuel reserves would. Well, he wasn’t going to make it easy
for the
F-15S
to bring him down. It
was time to put his DreamStar through its paces.

 
          
Maraklov
pushed DreamStar to full power, trimmed for max speed and put her right down on
the deck—fifty feet above the river bed.

 
          
“That
was stupid, James,” Harrell called over the radio. “Very damn stupid. We’ve got
you all the way. You can’t get away ...”

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
Maybe,
maybe not. But he wasn’t about to drive right into their laps so they could
take easy shots at him. If they wanted him they’d have to work for a shot. He
had been cruising at about two to three hundred feet above ground, popping up
occasionally to pass over bridges and power lines strung across the
Colorado River
. Now, two hundred feet would seem like two
thousand compared to his present altitude. Using his computer-enhanced
responses and DreamStar’s powerful radar in terrain-avoidance mode, Maraklov
kept DreamStar less than fifty feet above ground. He did not try to pop up over
tall transmission lines—he went under them. He could clearly see rafters and
campers lined up on the banks, plugging their ears against the sonic boom that
rolled over them as he roared past at Mach one—if he could have seen behind
him, he would have seen a huge plume of white exploding off the Colorado River
as DreamStar’s sonic wake crashed against the water. Birds pinged and slammed
into the canopy and fuselage, but Maraklov kept going, too close now to be
brought down by a damned duck.

 
          
Near
the town of
Picacho
the steep mountain ranges on either side of
the
Colorado
disappeared. He was only forty miles to the
border. He broke away from the river and headed directly south for
Yuma
.

 
          
Suddenly
ANTARES screamed
“missile tracking”
in his brain. The threat receivers had detected that an AIM-120 Scorpion
missile had activated its radar and was tracking him— more likely, the F-15 h
^a
d
fired two missiles, since he probably was carrying two more and had at least
three other wingmen with missiles. They had a lot of firepower on their side;
they could afford to be generous.

 
          
Maraklov
commanded a hard seven-G climb, almost straight up. He gained altitude to about
a thousand feet, then flipped over and pulled hard in a nine-G descent straight
down. Fifty feet above ground he yanked his fighter upright and pulled hard to
the left behind a hill. The missiles followed his turns but overshot on the
climbout, and when they turned to follow he had disappeared. The missile’s
computer brain allowed the radar seeker to attempt to reacquire a target for
three seconds, then tried to lock-on to any jamming signals in the area. None
was present. The missile then began following steering signals from the E-3
AWACS radar plane and turned back toward DreamStar, but by then it was too
late. The Scorpion missiles, designed for medium-range engagements at higher
altitudes, ran out of fuel and self-destructed seconds later.

 
          
Maraklov
rolled hard right and found himself back in the
Colorado River
valley near Laguna Airfield. He commanded
DreamStar back down on the deck just in time to fly under a transmission line.
At that moment, the scanner on the aft fuselage detected a growing heat source
and issued a
MISSILE attack
warning.
An F-15 dived down from its patrol altitude right on top of DreamStar and had
quickly closed in to IR missile range.

 
          
In
the literal blink of an eye Maraklov commanded DreamStar from max speed mode to
max alpha—the slowest speed DreamStar could sustain. Within seconds DreamStar’s
wings went from nearly flat to steeply curled; the two-dimensional louvers
shuttled forward to redirect thrust down instead of aft; and DreamStar’s
canards snapped upward, holding the nose high while the plane decelerated. In
ten seconds DreamStar went from Mach one to two hundred knots—only DreamStar’s
composite structure, lighter than steel but a hundred times stronger, could
withstand the strain.

 
          
The
two F-15 fighters had closed to three miles behind DreamStar when suddenly
their quarry seemed to freeze in mid-air. At only a hundred feet off the ground
there was no room to maneuver, especially with two fighters together in close
formation. The lead F-15 broke hard right to avoid DreamStar, then managed to
pull up hard enough to escape crashing into the low hills north of
Yuma
. His wingman was not so lucky—not able to
keep up with the five-G pull, the second F-15 fighter pancaked into the desert
floor and exploded before the pilot could eject.

 
          
Twenty
miles to go. Gradually, Maraklov applied power and began to transition back to
max-speed, being careful not to use gas-guzzling afterburner. He was over
Yuma
now, skimming just above tall buildings and
radio antennae. The F-15S were still behind him but they weren’t attacking
until DreamStar passed clear of the city. He screamed over Yuma Marine Corps
Air Station with his airspeed nearly back at Mach one and saw F/A-18 fighters
at the end of the runway, probably being held because of the F-15 fighters in
pursuit. There was something else at the southeast end of the main runway but
he didn’t have time to make it out before—
AAA
LOCK-ON,
blared in Maraklov’s mind. ANTARES reacted first, banking hard
right and pulling away as warning messages flashed in his mind and streaks of
black raced past his canopy. It was an M173 Bulldog anti-aircraft artillery
vehicle, a small tank with two 40-millimeter radar-guided guns that fired
prefragmented tungsten-alloy shells out to a range of over four miles. There
were only a few Bulldog regiments in the
United States
; Maraklov was unlucky enough to run into
one. Without jammers, the only defense against the Bulldog was to fly as far
and as fast away from it as possible—its twin cannons could pump out two
hundred rounds per minute per barrel. Maraklov now had no choice but to kick in
full afterburner.

 
          
ANTARES
reported damage to several mini-actuators in the wings. One Bulldog was not an
affective weapon against highspeed ground-hugging fighters, but even so it had
been a narrow escape. The Bulldog was quickly deactivated as the
F-15S
came into range. Maraklov pulled
his throttle out of afterburner as fast as he could, but the damage had already
been done. DreamStar had no fuel reserves left. Every mile in any direction
other than toward the landing point meant one more mile Maraklov would end up
short of it.

 
          
Maraklov
rolled DreamStar left and headed directly for Laguna de Santiaguillo, staying
at one hundred feet above ground, flying directly over a small town. He
activated the attack radar and completed a three-second sweep of the sky . . .
the F-15 fighters had turned around, and at another mental inquiry he found out
why—DreamStar was in Mexico, two miles south of the border, over the town of
San Luis. He had made it.

Aboard the lead F-15 over
southwest Arizona

 
          
“What
the hell do you mean,
turn back?”
Colonel Jack Harrell, the Eagle Squadron commander from Davis-Monthan AFB, said
over the scrambled radio channel. He lowered his oxygen visor with an
exasperated snap. His four remaining squadron members were arranged in extended
fingertip formation around him, two on his left and two others about a
half-mile farther off to his left. “Tinsel, verify that last transmission.
Over.”

 
          
“Eagle
flight, this is Tinsel,” the senior controller aboard the E-3B AWACS replied,
“your orders are verified. Permission to cross into Mazatlan Fighter Intercept
Region sector one with live weapons on board has not been received. You must
comply with International Aeronautics Organization chapter one- thirteen until
permission to cross has been received.”

 
          
Harrell
was livid. He had watched one of his best fighter pilots auger into the desert
not two minutes earlier, and here he was sitting by while their target was
escaping—and there was nothing between them but a lousy line on a map. Harrell
made a decision—that line was not going to stop him.

 
          
“Copy,
Tinsel,” Harrell said. “Understand permission received to cross into Mazatlan
FIR sector one. Blue Flight and

 
          
Red
Two and Three, report back to Goalie for refueling. Red Flight is turning right
in pursuit. Eagle leader out.”