CARRIER 2: VIPER STRIKE By Keith Douglass

Intruders of Thunderbird didn’t count since they were strictly

ground-attack aircraft and mounted neither machine guns nor air-to-air

missiles.

So that made it eighteen friendlies against twenty-two hostiles …

twenty-two known hostiles, Tombstone added to himself.

And a hell of a lot worse than that if the That formation fell apart.

Tombstone didn’t like relying on the unknown quality of the That pilots.

He didn’t know how they would stand up to the killing stress of ACM. He

knew how his people would react … but the Thais were untested, hence

unreliable.

They might prove themselves yet, but Tombstone couldn’t count on them

until they did.

So until the Hornets of Chickenhawk arrived on the scene, Tombstone

could count on six Tomcats against no less than twenty-two MiGs.

“We’re closing, Tombstone,” Dixie said. “Closing fast. Bogies now

inbound, bearing three-one-zero, range five miles. They’re closing on

Trapdoor, coming fast.”

“This is Eagle Leader,” Tombstone said. “Let’s go down on the deck.” He

nosed the Tomcat over, dropping toward the jungle. The tactic was

called terrain masking, hiding the aircraft in the ground clutter of

ridges and hills. It might give them some precious time before someone

started loosing SA-6s at them.

Of course it also put them within range of the small and highly portable

SA-7s, like the one that had nailed Batman.

Trees and ground flashed past the cockpit of his aircraft, a green blur.

With startling suddenness, jungle gave way to a broad, open clearing

littered with buildings and the dark-gray slash of an airstrip. U Feng!

The runway appeared clear. Perhaps all of the MiGs were airborne.

As quickly as it had appeared, U Feng vanished behind the hurtling

aircraft. Sunlight flashed from the surface of a river dead ahead …

in the Taeng Valley.

“Watch it now, people,” Tombstone said. “Watch for snakes in the

grass.”

“Looks like they’re turning and burning with the Thais,” Price Taggart

said. “We’ve got some major ACM up there.”

“Bandits!” Tombstone’s RIO called. “Six … correction, eight bandits,

inbound, range three miles! Bearing three-four-zero!”

“Tally ho!” Batman called. “I’ve got visual on the bandits.”

MiG-21s. The sky over the Taeng Valley appeared to be filled with

aircraft, That F-5s and MiGs, turning and burning in a twisting,

far-flung dogfight.

“Two-four-four confirms,” Nightmare added. “We’re picking up Jay Bird

here.”

Jay Bird was the code name for the MiG-21 J-band radar used to

illuminate targets for the Atoll AA.M.

“Arm missiles!” Tombstone brought the Tomcat up, turning to meet the

new threat. “Here we go!”

0744 hours, 21 January

U Feng

Hsiao held the radio microphone to his mouth. Before him on the table

was a map, vectors and sighting tracks plotted on it in grease pencil.

“Area four-seven,” he said. “Fifteen kilometers southeast of U Feng. A

number of enemy radar tracks converge there, and we believe it may be a

helicopter staging area for a airmobile assault, almost certainly. Get

the Q-5s airborne at once.”

“They are armed, fueled, and ready to go, General, the voice on the

radio replied. “But what of the enemy fighters?”

“Colonel Wu has them at bay, Group Commander. You should have a clear

run to the target.”

“We go.” He could hear Dao Zhu Qingtong’s confident grin over the radio

link. “Sheng li!”

“Victory, Group Commander Dao!” Hsiao repeated. “U Feng out!”

Hsiao had been holding Dao’s ten Nanchang Q-5 ground attack planes in

reserve at Mong-koi, the final part of his trap for the That forces.

Launching from the Burmese air base now, they could be over the That

assembly point within five minutes.

CHAPTER 26

0746 hours, 21 January

U Feng

The walls of the shed trembled under the deafening onslaught of noise.

For one moment, Pamela thought that someone had planted a bomb squarely

on the fuel pump nearby. As she lowered her hands from her ears and

looked up toward the shed’s small window, though, she realized that the

sound had been caused by jets flying low overhead. She could still hear

them, engines shrieking, as they pulled over the airstrip and

corkscrewed into the sky.

They’d come! The That army had come … possibly the Navy as well. She