Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (71 page)

 
          
Oh,
God,
Duncan
thought. That guy got
Berry
, too. He closed his eyes, trying to force
the image of his two squadron buddies out of his mind. It was no use. Two hours
ago they were together making plans for a luau on the beaches near the
casinos—now he’d have to make plans for a funeral.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
That
last guy was good, Maraklov thought as he pulled his power back from full
afterburner to military power. Very good. The F-16 pilot had maneuvered so fast
that he never got a clean shot off at him, but he had apparently taken some
damage because he wasn’t pressing the fight. Maraklov had taken his shot, then
immediately turned south at full power and headed back toward
Nicaragua
to join up with the stricken II-76
transport and Escort Four.

 
          
DreamStar
... his
plane ... was still safe,
still with one AA-13 missile and two hundred rounds of ammunition. Fuel was the
problem now—almost none left for another dogfight with any more F-i6s. He’d
have perhaps fifteen minutes of fuel remaining once he returned to Sebaco.

 
          
“Escort
Four, this is Maraklov,” he called on their assigned frequency. “Approaching
your formation at fifteen thousand feet, twenty miles behind you. Area is
clear.” There had been three F-i6s in the attack formation, but his spherical
scan showed clear. The third F-16 must have returned with his leader.

 
          
The
pilot in Escort Four acknowledged. The Ilyushin transport and the MiG-29 had
managed to climb back to a safer altitude, but the transport looked worse every
second. “Clear to approach. Flight Kepten Kameneve reports that the Ilyushin is
very unstable and landing may be impossible. He is briefing the crew on
ditching procedures at this time.”

 
          
“Understood.”

 
          
It
seemed the game was up. The Americans weren’t likely to send in another jet
with a camera over Sebaco. Next time they’d send in bombers. One aircraft
carrier loaded with F/A- 18 fighter-bombers, or one B-52 like the Old Dog he
destroyed in
Nevada
, could devastate
Nicaragua
’s whole defense network and waste Sebaco.
Should he fly his plane back to Sebaco—or to
Nicaragua
for that matter?

 
          
Maraklov
initiated a computer database search for all available runways within
DreamStar’s current safe-endurance range. Possibilities—
Belize
,
Costa Rica
, offshore islands belonging to
Colombia
. All had isolated runways along with
possible nearby sources of fuel.

 
          
The
Americans, it now seemed, were out to destroy DreamStar if that was the only
way to keep it from escaping, and the Russians seemed incapable of stopping
them. Why shouldn’t
he
take charge of
defending his aircraft? Besides, maybe if
no
one
knew where DreamStar was he’d have a better chance of getting it to
Russia
. . .

 
          
...
or anywhere else. He tried to be practical, not sentimental. DreamStar was a
commodity, wasn’t it? A bargaining chip. If he was so worried about what would
happen to him in the
Soviet
Union
, maybe the
Soviet Union
wasn’t where he should be. The Americans,
Elliott and the rest, would pay a stiff price to have DreamStar back, enough
for Maraklov to live like a . . . like an American—

 
          
The
warnings came in rapid succession. Aware that he hadn’t scanned the skies for a
few minutes, Maraklov commanded a two-second spherical sweep of the skies, and
instantly an aircraft was detected directly beneath them, climbing right toward
them at terrific speed.

 
          
“Warning,
target beneath us . . .” But at that same moment the
MISSILE LAUNCH
warning sounded—a radar-guided missile was in the
air. “Escort Four, break away, bogey at your
five o’clock
low—”

 
          
Escort
Four ejected chaff, rolled inverted and began a steep dive toward the ocean,
but with the combat damage he had taken in the dogfight he could not maneuver
fast enough. The Scorpion missile plowed directly into the center of the
canopy, and the last MiG-29 fighter exploded and crashed into the sea.

 
          
DreamStar
had no chaff or electronic countermeasures, but it had maneuverability that
equaled the Scorpion missile.

 
          
Maraklov
turned DreamStar as hard as he could directly for the F-16 that had appeared
out of nowhere. He found himself eyeball-to-eyeball with the Scorpion missile
itself, seconds before impact . . .

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
The
plan had worked, nearly to perfection,
Berry
had said to himself. It was obvious why the
XF-34 could defeat them so easy—if he had access to the AWACS’s data he could
see the attack coming and plan against it. So Berry had decided to disappear
from the AWACS scope—shut off the IFF and the data transceivers and drop down
low enough to the ocean that his radar blip would be surrounded by clutter from
the ocean. It was easy for him to approach the Russian aircraft unseen from sea
level, climb directly underneath them, designate both fighters on his attack
computer and launch his two AIM- 120 Scorpion missiles at the Russians.

 
          
The
first fighter went down with near-textbook precision, but something must had
gone wrong with the second AM- RAAM. It was running hot and true right on
target, but the missile’s plume passed by the XF-34 without even a proximity
explosion.
Berry
flipped on his IFF and data-link
transceiver.

 
          
“Barrier,
this is Five-Nine, splash one MiG.”

 
          
“Five-Nine,
this is Barrier Control . . . Roger ...” came the confused voice of the
surprised AWACS controller. “Do you need a vector?”

 
          
“
Berry
, where the hell are you?”
Duncan
called out, interrupting the controller.

 
          
“Head
to head with that stolen fighter,”
Berry
said. “He’s mine.” The data-link image of
the last fighter seemed to hover in front of him—his velocity had decreased to
less than three hundred knots.
Berry
selected an AIM-132 missile and centered
the line-of-sight infrared aiming-reticle on the target. This was easy. The
reticle eased into place, and the missile’s computer reported a lock-on—

 
          
But
Berry
did not notice the range rapidly decreasing
until it was much too late. DreamStar had heeled sharply downward to avoid the
Scorpion missile attack; the maneuver had been so fast that it appeared that
the fighter had stopped all forward motion. The only warning Berry had was the
rapidly growing black spot under the reticle and the sudden
SHOOT
indication on the heads-up
display, but by the time his right thumb had pressed the weapon-release button,
DreamStar had cut loose with its cannon in a Mach-one gun-pass. The
twenty-millimeter shells missed the cockpit but tore into the fuselage and
engine compartment.
FIRE
and
EJECT
lights snapped on as the cockpit
filled with smoke.
Berry
clawed for the ejection handle just as the first rolling waves of fire
hit the fuel tanks.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
“Emergency
locator-beacon coming from Five-Nine’s last plotted position,” the controller
reported. Elliott could hear the faints clicks of the intercom as the
controller relayed position-data to Communications, which would relay them to
the tilt-rotor CV-22 Osprey search-and-rescue aircraft out of Guantanamo Naval
Base and
Puerto Rico
.

 
          
“Dragon
Five-Seven looks like he’ll make it, sir,” the controller reported. “He’s
approaching the initial approach-fix for landing at
Georgetown
.”

 
          
“Dragon
Six-Zero flight of three will be on station in ten minutes,” a third controller
reported. “Do you want them on a high CAP?”

 
          
Elliott
had kept silent ever since the third F-16 got hit. He could do nothing but
watch DreamStar head south with the stricken Ilyushin transport.

 
          
“Soviet
aircraft moving out of range,” Marsch, the AWACS commander, reported from his
console. “Shall I reposition to maintain contact?” No reply—Elliott closed his
eyes as the computer data block that read “XF-34 USSR” froze on the edge of the
screen while it cruised out of range. “Sir?”

 
          
“I
heard you, Colonel,” Elliott said. “I heard you. We will stay on station over
Five-Nine’s locator beacon until the Osprey picks him up. Bring the tanker
south and arrange a refueling for us if we need it. Arrange a refueling with
Dragon Six-Zero flight and have them stay with us until we withdraw from the
area.”

 
          
“Are
you going to pursue the XF-34 any further, sir?” Marsch pressed, his own anger
rising. “We’ve got three more fighters on the way, plus three more on the
ground—maybe you can waste the entire squadron this morning. Like the
commercials used to say—‘we do more by
nine
A.M.
than most people do all day . . .’”

 
          
“Knock
it off, Colonel,” Elliott said, too tired to react to Marsch’s heavy sarcasm.
“If you’re looking to get yourself busted ... oh hell, we’ve got a pilot in the
water—I want you to make sure he gets picked up ASAP. Okay?”

 
          
“May
I remind the general, we’ve got pilots in little
pieces
in the water,” Marsch said. “We got three pilots killed,
sent up against known superior forces. For what? One lousy fighter already in
Soviet hands?”

 
          
“You
just worry about getting that pilot out of the water, Colonel.”

 
          
Marsch
glared at Elliott, but turned to his interphone to give the orders. Elliott
slumped in his high-backed seat overlooking the master consoles. Any other
thoughts except the images of five out of six F-i6s damaged or destroyed and
three out of six pilots dead was all but impossible. True, they had exposed the
true intentions of the Soviets, but at a shocking cost. Now the decision had to
be made—what were they going to
do
about it? DreamStar may have been headed back for
Nicaragua
, but it was certainly not going to stay
there for long. It might just refuel, arrange for another escort and try
again—with the
U.S.
air task-force decimated by fifty percent it now had a much better
chance of making it.

 
          
Elliott
hit his intercom button. “Communications, this is Elliott. I want a secure
satellite link direct with JCS set up soon as possible. Get Air Force on the
line, Secretary Curtis direct—he should be standing by for a report on
transponder kilo seven. Set up the call with JCS on that channel if possible.”

 
          
“Yes,
sir. Kilo seven is active. I should be able to conference JCS and Air Force in
a few minutes.”

 
          
The
mission had gone sour, but its objective, no matter how terrible the price, had
been achieved—to intercept the XF-34 and prevent it from leaving
Nicaragua
. The question remained—would the price
Elliott paid to reveal the
Soviet Union
’s
deceit be too high for the President of the
United States
to accept? And what would he do about it?