CARRIER 3: ARMAGEDDON MODE

“Victor Tango, this is Viper Leader. Go ahead.” “Viper Leader, please give stores listing, over.” Stores? “Uh, roger, Victor Tango.” He switched the VDI jilfisplay to his stores listing and read them off, not trusting to |f memory in his current, somewhat battle-fogged state. “Two AIM-9Js, two AIM-54s. Six hundred seventy-five rounds.”

He’d taken off with two Phoenix, one Sparrow, and four Sidewinder missiles. They’d already launched the Sparrow and , two Sidewinders. What was Victor Tango One-one looking

“We copy you have two Phoenix missiles, Viper Leader. What about your squadron?”

Three of the other five Tomcats still had AIM-54 Phoenix Jaissiles on board. Shooter and Ramrod had both already fired both of their Phoenix missiles, while Coyote still had his two and Nightmare and Batman each had one left.

Viper Leader, we copy you have six missiles remaining in JOur squadron.”

/”That’s a roger,” Tombstone replied. /’Hey, Stoney?” Hitman said over the ICS circuit. “What ihe hell’s goin’ on?”

“Wish I knew, Hitman. Orders.”

“Viper Leader, we have a new target for you. Ah … be advised that this is an extremely hazardous target . . . but it is extremely important. Extremely important”

“Give us the vector.”

“Roger. Come to new heading zero-four-zero at angels base phis thirty-nine. Make your speed five-five-zero knots. Do you copy that?”

“Copy. Zero-four-zero at five-five-zero knots, angels base pins three-niner.”

“Hold mat course and speed for fourteen, that’s one-four minutes.”

“Roger. Fourteen minutes.”

“Endpoint is designated Point Lima. Your target will be at extreme Phoenix range at that time, bearing zero-zero-zero to zero-one-zero.”

310

Tombstone was doing some fast calculations in his head. He reached down to the clipboard on his thigh and shuffled through the papers and checklists, exposing a map of northwest India.

Their current location was north of Highway 101, close to the Indian-Pakistan border and thirty miles from a border town called Gadra. He used the stub of a pencil to lightly sketch in lines. Point Lima, if he’d followed the instructions of the Hawkeye controller right, was deep within the Thar Desert, just south of the Rajasthan Canal. The closest settlement marked on the map was a village called Bikampur. He measured north one hundred nautical miles—the approximate range of a Phoenix missile. The end point was across the border into Pakistan, somewhere near a nondescript town called Fort Abbas.

“Okay, Victor Tango. I’ve got all that. Uh . . . we may have a problem, though.” He was staring at his fuel gauge. “Fuel state eight point five.”

They’d used a lot of JP-5 in the dogfighting over the border. Now the Hawkeye controller was telling them to fly another one hundred thirty miles inland. Then, from Point Lima, it would be almost four hundred more long desert miles before they were back over the Arabian Sea.

Well over five hundred miles before they could refuel, or even before they could eject with any hope of being picked up by friendly forces. They might just make it … but it would be damned tight.

‘ ‘Copy your fuel state, Viper. I repeat, target is extremely important.”

He sighed. ‘ ‘Roger, Victor Tango. How many missiles will target require, over?”

“Estimate four, Viper.”

But he already knew he would have to take all six aircraft, just to make sure that at least four AIM-54s made it to Point Lima.

And God help their fuel state if they were forced to dogfight along the way. “Okay, Victor Tango One-one. That’s roger. Viper Squadron is in.” He swung the Tomcat onto its new heading, the other five F-14s matching the maneuver.

The dun and barren wastes of the Thar Desert flashed past beneath them as they accelerated, climbing toward fifty thousand feet.

CHAPTER 29

1235 hours, 26 Hath Hue King Leader

The Sea Harriers had been stalking their prey, traveling slowly and at low altitude in an attempt to lose themselves in the radar clutter at the surface of the ocean. The “waves that had been so high and powerful earlier had dwindled, and the sea was relatively calm.

But Lieutenant Tahliani knew that death was near.

They’d first been challenged by an American frigate, one of the escorts that formed the picket line of ships around the Atnerican fleet, and had detoured far out of their way to evade it Standard missiles had arced through the sky, locking onto die Harriers as they scattered, spewing chaff. One aircraft— Chani’s—had been hit, the missile’s warhead blasting it apart. A second—young Prakash Garbyal’s—had flown into the sea while trying to evade the American missile that had locked onto him.

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