a little. Tyrone, you and me are gonna play tag with the number-two MiG. Got
it?”
“We’re on it, Caped Crusader!” That was Lieutenant Commander Dallas
Sheridan, “Big D,” flying Tomcat 212. His aircraft peeled off, followed
closely by Lieutenant Adam “Loon” Baird in number 205. “We’ll be all over
that guy like ugly on my mother-in-law!”
“Let’s show the Commies what a real aviator can do!” Powers added.
“They’ll never know what hit ’em!”
“Just remember the ROES, children,” Batman said, mostly for the benefit
of Powers and Cavanaugh. Even though they’d done a good job in the encounter
Monday night he still regarded Powers as a potential troublemaker. The man
wanted to score a kill, and Batman was afraid he’d get too eager. He could
remember how it had felt when he’d been looking for his first ACM kill. “Do
not fire unless fired upon, or until you get the Weapons Free call from the
Jeff.”
“Yes, Mother,” Sheridan’s RIO, Lieutenant j.g. Edward “Fast Eddie”
Glazowski, replied. “We’ll be good.”
Under the lighthearted banter there was an underlying seriousness. These
men knew what was at stake today. After years of training for just this kind
of confrontation, it was still hard to believe that they were so close to the
brink this time.
“One minute, Batman,” Malibu announced quietly.
He tightened his grip on the stick and swallowed.
0916 hours Zulu (0616 hours Zone)
Tomcat 208 Redwing Flight
“Damn it, why don’t they let us do something?” Koslosky muttered. He was
maintaining the Tomcat’s position above the Bear, but so far there was no sign
that the Russians were willing to turn back. By now they would know about the
four new fighters from Ajax Flight, and that hadn’t seemed to change things
either.
“Stay frosty, kid,” Kirshner advised him.
Koslosky fumed. It seemed like everyone from the admiral down to his own
RIO was letting the Russians get away with murder just because things were hot
in Norway. He knew how the Soviets operated … hell, everybody knew. They
would push as hard and as far as they could just to see how much they could
get away with, but the first time they faced really determined opposition they
caved in. That had been the story of the whole Cold War era. It had led to
the end of the Wall and the retreat of the Red Army from Eastern Europe into
the Russian heartland.
“The hell with this,” he said aloud. With a quick movement he banked the
Tomcat right, standing it on one wing and letting the plane lose altitude.
He’d give that Bear pilot the fright of his life. Then they’d see how long
the Russians ignored the carrier’s exclusion zone!
“Jesus!” Kirshner swore. “What the hell’re you doing, Kos?”
“Trust me, Wild Card,” he said with a grin. “I’m just raising them
another few dollars.”
His hands worked the stick and the throttles deftly, settling the fighter
close alongside the huge reconnaissance plane’s starboard wing. It was a
tricky maneuver, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Sliding up to a tanker for a
midair refueling was no more hazardous than this. Slowly he edged his speed
up so the Tomcat would pull forward alongside of the cockpit. Koslosky
grinned again, his mind flashing back to the scene from the movie Top Gun
where the hero had inverted his Tomcat a few feet over an enemy plane. There
was no room for that kind of bravado out here … but you could make your
point clearly enough just by crowding the opposition a little. Tomcat and
Bear edged closer together.
0916 hours Zulu (0816 hours Zone)
Tu-95 Misha Three Misha Flight
“New American aircraft have split up,” the electronics officer reported
nervously. “Comrade Captain-Lieutenant, if they are serious about exclusion
zone we will be easy targets.”
Captain-Lieutenant Viktor Petrovich Kolibernov had been thinking the same
thing. It was easy enough for the Boishoi Chirey, the “Big Boys” who gave the
orders, to claim that the Americans would never initiate hostilities. Things
looked different from the cockpit of an antiquated Tu-95 with a swarm of
American fighters closing in.
He realized he was sweating. Kolibemov wiped his forehead with one
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