can do that, you know. Wouldn’t even kill you, just make you mute for
the rest of your life. You got that?”
Huerta felt her head move in his tight grip as she tried to nod. He
rewarded her by loosening his hold slightly, while still keeping his
hand lightly over her mouth. “We wait eight minutes, like the
commander said. When I want you to do something or say something, I’ll
tell you.”
Garcia took out his silenced pistol and checked it for the thirtieth
time, even though they all knew they were as ready as they would ever
be. Eight minutes. They waited.
0450 Local (+5 GMT) Tomcat 201
“Everybody’s here. Bird Dog,” Gator said impatiently.
“What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?”
“Nope,” the pilot said cheerfully. God, it was good to be airborne
again! And on a strike mission, too. Nothing could match the heady
feeling of a Tomcat with wings dirtied, anti-air missiles and
five-hundred-pound bombs slung up under the wings on hard points, just
waiting to be used. It made the Tomcat a bit more ungainly, true, but
the added inertia during turns and maneuvers kept him conscious of the
enormous firepower now under his command. “One more guy’s gotta finish
tanking a Hornet, topping off his tanks, of course. I’m telling you.
Gator, if I ever get out of the Navy, I’m going to invent a fuel line
that spools out from the carrier and runs straight up to those
bastards.
Thirsty little motherfuckers you can’t even run a strike without giving
them time to suck down the fuel.”
“Lightweights,” Gator agreed. “Can’t even carry enough bombs to do any
serious damage. But that’s what we’re here for. Anyway, you wanna get
the rest of us headed in? The Tomcats are a little slower we can start
and the Hornets will catch up.”
“Roger.” Bird Dog flipped the communications switch to tactical.
“Okay, people, let’s make it happen.” He heard Gator moan in the
background. He’d catch hell back at the carrier later for his lack of
circuit discipline, but for the moment, he didn’t care. It was his
plan, his mission, and he was about to see it work. One disgruntled
captain hell, even a pissed-off admiral!couldn’t change that.
Behind him, the Tomcats broke up into groups of two, flying a close
formation in tight station-keeping circles.
Once they left the sponge, the area where an attack force clustered to
meet unexpected threats or to wait for ingress onto a target, they’d
break into high-low pairs, one taking station at altitude to back up
the lead down lower. It was a method of aerial combat that the
Americans had perfected as no one else in the world had.
Finally, the last gas-sucking Hornet was ready. “Better get inbound
before they have to go again,” Bird Dog grumbled. He gave the signal
over tactical.
Twenty minutes until feet dry, the transition from flying over water to
flying over ground. But before that happened, it all went according to
plan “Got the first one,” Gator said suddenly. “Solid radar contact on
contact breaking off from USS Arsenal.”
“Good blackshoe,” Bird Dog said approvingly. “Take your shot we’re
next.”
0448 Local (+5 GMT) USS Arsenal In addition to its vertical launch
system for Tomahawks and antiaircraft missiles, the USS Arsenal had two
four-missile Harpoon assemblies on either side of the ship. The
longrange antiaircraft missiles, originally developed for launch
against surface Echo 2-class Soviet missile submarines, were thick
cylinders tapering into a pointed nose, wind and control surfaces
folded during its storage in the selfcontained launch box and popping
out after it was ejected with pressurized air. It was controlled from
Combat using the Harpoon shipboard command and launch control set
(HSCLCS, pronounced “sickles”). It was a fire-and-forget missile, and
a potent anti ship threat.
“We’ve never fired one, except in tests,” the captain remarked to no
one in particular. No one answered. This was the first of many first
launches for the Arsenal, and proving the operational capabilities of
the Harpoon from it was almost as important as validating its land
attack capabilities.
The captain watched the small camera screen mounted to the left of the