Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (39 page)

           
“Blue Flight copies,” the leader of
the second group of two
F-15S
replied
before the controller aboard Tinsel could interject. As Harrell banked right,
those two
F-15S
maintained their
heading northeast toward Goalie, their waiting KC-10 aerialrefueling tanker.
But the two
F-15S
accompanying
Harrell stayed in fingertip formation on their leader.

 
          
“Eagle
Leader, this is Tinsel,” the angry voice of the senior controller aboard the
AWACS finally said over the command radio. “I repeat, you are
not
authorized to cross the ADIZ. Turn
left heading zero-three-zero and climb to—”

 
          
Harrell
shut off the radio. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the F-15
^on
his left wingtip raise and lower his airbrake to get Harrell’s attention. The
pilot extended two fingers ahead of him, visible to both Harrell and the third
F-15. Harrell nodded that he understood the signal and switched his second
radio to the scrambled Squadron-only frequency.

 
          
“I
thought I ordered you characters to hook up with the tanker,” Harrell radioed.

 
          
“If
you’ve got radio or navigation problems, sir,” the pilot of the second F-15,
Lieutenant Colonel Downs, replied, “we wouldn’t leave you. If you’re going
after that stolen fighter, we’re sure as hell not leaving your wing.”

 
          
“We
are
going after that guy, aren’t we?”
the third pilot, Major Chan, asked. “I’d hate to think we’re gonna lose our
wings for nothing.”

 
          
“Tinsel
sounds pretty pissed,”
Downs
said.
“Sure you want to do this, sir?”

 
          
“We’re
doing it, aren’t we?” Harrell checked his heads-up display, which had been
slaved to provide AWACS-generated steering signals to the stolen fighter. He
was pleased to find the data-link still active. “I’ve still got a steer on the
XF-34. Lead’s coming right ten degrees, descending to two thousand feet. Two,
take the mid-patrol at six thousand; three, take the high CAP at twelve. Let’s
waste this guy.”

 
          
“Two.”

 
          
“Three.”

 
          
The
two wingmen began slow climbs to their assigned altitudes. Harrell began a
descent, following DreamStar’s flight path. Moments later he received a soft
beep in his headset telling him that one of his Scorpion missiles had followed
the

 
          
AWACS’
data-link instructions and had locked onto it’s target. Harrell made sure his
wingmen were clear, then radioed “Fox two” once on the Squadron-only frequency,
and pressed the launch trigger . . .

Over northwest Mexico

 
          
The
green “sky” surrounding DreamStar was still present, meaning that the AWACS was
still tracking him, but Maraklov allowed himself a moment to relax. They had
turned back. He had overestimated these reservist weekend-warrior fighter-
jocks. They had a reputation for tenacity, for an itchy trigger finger, for not
following the rules. These guys had more to lose.

 
          
Maraklov
commanded a thousand-foot climb to pad his safe terrain-clearance altitude and
began to retrim his engine from best-speed to best-endurance mode. There was
still a chance he could make it. In best-endurance mode the fuel computer and
autopilot would work together to step-climb the aircraft to take advantage of
better flying conditions and greater endurance at higher altitudes, without
wasting fuel in the—

 
          
He
was startled by a sudden
MISSILE LAUNCH
indication
from the tail sensor. Momentarily stunned into indecision, he called on ANTARES
to execute an evasive maneuver.

 
          
Instead
of diving for the ground ANTARES pitched DreamStar up in a hard climb, lit the
afterburner, leveled out, then activated the attack radar. Instantly the radar
image of Harrell’s F-15 appeared, dead ahead at five miles. ANTARES’ radar
locked on and launched the last remaining AIM-120 missile at the lone pursuer.
At only five miles and slightly above the F-15, the Scorpion missile did not
miss. DreamStar then flew directly toward the flaming remains of Harrell’s
F-15, dodging away right at the last moment. The moves were executed so quickly
that Harrell’s Scorpion missile, which had dutifully followed DreamStar in its
wild Immelmann maneuver, now locked onto Harrell’s flaming F-15 fighter and
added its own destructive fury to the already doomed plane.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
“Sweet
mother of God . . .”

 
          
Downs
banked left away from the blossoming
fireball that erupted just below and in front of him. There were only a few
seconds between when he left Harrell’s wing and when that fireball appeared.
One moment his squadron commander was lined up for a perfect missile shot, at
the closest possible range without getting into an inner-range warhead arming
inhabit, the target straight and level in front of him; the next moment, the
target had leapt into the sky, evaded the missile, turned and launched a
missile of his own. Immediately after, Harrell was part of a cloud of metal and
exploding fuel.

 
          
“Eagle
Three, this is Two. Lead’s been hit. He’s going down—no ‘chute, no ‘chute . .
.”

 
          
“I
see him, Two, I see him . . . Jesus Christ . . .”

 
          
Downs
took a firm grip on his stick and
throttles. “I’ve got the lead. Take the mid CAP and follow me in. This
bastard’s not getting—”

 
          
“Eagle
flight, this is TINSEL on
malibu
”—
malibu
, FM frequency 660, was the Squadron’s
discrete scrambled channel. Great,
Downs
thought, they found our so-called secret channel. “Eagle flight of two, we copy
that Eagle Lead is down. Search and rescue has been notified. You are to return
across the ADIZ immediately or you will be considered a hostile intruder.
Acknowledge and comply. Over.”

 
          
“TINSEL,
this is Eagle Two. That son of a bitch just shot down Colonel Harrell. Are you
ordering us to
let him go?
Over.”

 
          
“We
don’t have any damned choice,
Downs
.” It
was a new voice on the radio—obviously the AWACS mission commander cutting in
over the senior controller. “We can’t start a major international incident by
ignoring the rules. You’ll get another shot at him when we get permission to
cross. Now get your asses back over the border before you have to fight off the
damned Mexican Air Force—and
then
you
and I get to tangle. That’s an order from Air Division. Over.”

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
DreamStar
was only a dozen feet above a rocky dry-river bed snaking through the
Pinacate
Mountains
. Occasional radar sweeps showed the skies
above him were clear, but that last attack was so sudden and so close that
Maraklov kept DreamStar in the dirt to avoid any more sneak attacks. He stayed
in the rugged mountains and dry desert valleys until he reached the fringes of
the AWACS coverage zone, then slowly step-climbed out of the rocky terrain,
being careful to stay under detectable radar emissions in the area. After a few
minutes, as he cruised down the
Magdalena
River
valley at five hundred feet, he was finally
out of range of all American surveillance radars. The military radar nets from
Hermosillo seventy miles south of his position were searching for him as well,
but they were high-altitude-only surveillance radars and not capable of finding
low-altitude aircraft. As he approached the northern foothills of the
Sierra Madre Occidental
mountains he was finally able to climb
above ten thousand feet for the first time and reestablish best-endurance
power.

 
          
Not
time to celebrate, though. Maraklov was starting to search for places to
crash-land DreamStar, taking seriously the fuel-endurance figures he was
receiving. He was three hundred miles from Laguna de Santiaguillo with five
thousand pounds of fuel. His best endurance speed was only fifty-five percent
of full power—idle power, barely enough to maintain altitude and control. He was
at slightly over eleven thousand feet, which put him right at the minimum safe
altitude for the region—he could see Cerro Chorreras, one of the highest peaks
of the Sierra Madre, looming off to his right and looking like an impenetrable
wall, a fist ready to reach out and pull him out of the sky.

 
          
He
didn’t have the fuel to climb any higher; in fact, the best routine would
command a descent soon to prevent DreamStar from stalling at such slow
airspeeds. The high terrain would then force him further eastward toward the
Mexican fighter base at
Torreon
only two hundred miles away. After successfully evading four squadrons
of high-tech American fighters, Maraklov thought ruefully, he might end up
dropping himself right into the very appreciative laps of the Mexican
government.

 
          
ANTARES
needed to search its own database for landing sites within range. Not easy.
DreamStar was well within the Sierra Madre mountains now. Below were hundreds
of grass- and-dirt strips—every plantation owner, every mining town, every timber
mill, every drug dealer had his own airstrip. Most were simply cleared sections
of land or dirt roads. Many were on high plateaus far from any usable roads or
towns—if Kramer and Moffitt, his two KGB contacts from
Los Angeles
, were bringing a fuel truck it would take
days for them to arrive.

 
          
After
a few moments Maraklov was presented with a chart of north-central
Mexico
with landing-site choices depicted. He
quickly discarded the unimproved runways of San Pablo Bal- leza and Rancho Las
Aojuntas. Likewise the paved airport of Parral—the computerized chart showed
the airport had a rotating beacon and even runway lights, which meant it
probably was used by the militia or local police. Too active to maintain any
secrecy.

 
          
The
last choice seemed the best, a paved sixty-four-hundred- foot-long runway named
Ojito. Detail of the runway showed it to be like the valley road nearby, which
meant it probably
was
the road, just
widened and strengthened some to serve as a runway. Several of such
quasi-runways dotted central
Mexico
, where air access was occasionally desired
but there wasn’t enough room to build an airport. Ojito was a hundred miles
northwest of the original landing site, and in these rugged foothills that
meant at least a four-hour wait.

 
          
Once
that decision had been made, Maraklov commanded radio two to a special UHF
frequency. “Kramer, this is Maraklov. Come in. Over.”

 
          
The
radio crackled, and the pilot filtered out the noise, careful not to decrease
the radio’s effective range. No response. He was over two hundred miles from
Laguna de Santiaguillo. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to hear him in the
mountains

 
          
“Maraklov,
this is Kramer. We read you. Welcome, you made it.”

 
          
For
the first time, Maraklov allowed himself to feel the exhilaration he’d not
thought possible. “Kramer, listen. Change of plans. New runway is at grid
coordinates kilo-victor-five-one- five, lima-alpha one-three-seven. Situation
critical. Over.”

 
          
“We
understand. We have been monitoring your progress. We are airborne and will
meet you at your designated landing point. You are almost home. Kramer out.”