gloved hand and then reached up to adjust the large fan positioned above the
right side of his seat. He darted a glance at the copilot, but if Lieutenant
Adriashenko realized how nervous his commanding officer was he gave no sign of
it.
Much as Kolibemov wanted to back off before the Americans got any more
persistent, his instructions were specific and allowed him no freedom of
action. If he deviated from the reconnaissance mission now, he would have to
be ready to face the consequences back at Olenegersk. Captain-lieutenants
were not supposed to take that kind of decision on themselves without a very
good reason.
“Weapons lock! Weapons lock!” The electronics officer’s voice rose an
octave. “They have a lock on us!”
Kolibemov hesitated. In ten years of flying maritime reconnaissance
patrols Kolibemov had never felt so close to the edge before. He could
finally understand how his father had felt when he served as an officer aboard
one of the freighters that had tried to run the American blockade of Cuba back
in the tense days of the Missile Crisis. Knowing that if both sides persisted
on this course the only result could be war, perhaps the total war of nuclear
annihilation. And for all the talk of glasnost and perestroika and the end of
the age of confrontations, history was repeating itself again.
“Fuck it!” he said suddenly, wrenching the steering yoke to starboard.
He wasn’t going to give the Americans an excuse to start something, no matter
what the orders said. Next to him Adriashenko was gaping at him in disbelief.
“Look out! Look out!” someone shouted. Too late Kolibemov saw the
American F-14 to starboard.
Too late …
0917 hours Zulu (0817 hours Zone)
Tomcat 208 Redwing Flight
Koslosky felt the Bear brush against the Tomcat’s wing, a jarring impact
that drove the F-14’s wingtip downward with a screech of crumpled metal. He
cursed and jerked his stick hard over, ramming the throttles full forward to
afterburner zone five. The fighter shuddered as it turned, bucking like a
Wild horse. He fought for control, but the combination of the Bear’s impact
and the abrupt acceleration he’d applied to get clear made it that much harder
to keep from falling into an uncontrolled spin.
“Shit!” Kirshner yelled. “You idiot!”
He ignored the RIO and wrestled with the stick. “Tomcat Two-oh-eight,”
he announced on the radio. “He hit me! I’m hit!” The aircraft plunged
toward the angry gray sea.
0917 hours Zulu (0817 hours Zone)
Tomcat 211 Ajax Flight
Powers heard Koslosky’s shout in his headphones. “I’m hit!”
“Goddamn!” he yelled. “They’ve hit Koslosky! The goddamned Russkies
have opened fire!”
Don’t fire unless fired upon … Though he hadn’t seen the attack,
Koslosky’s plane had been hit. That scrapped all the Rules of Engagement.
The American aviators were in a whole new ball game now … one where speed
and reaction time counted most. Victory in air-to-air combat went to the
pilots who were quickest to acquire their targets and get off their shots.
He thumbed the selector switch on the stick to choose a Sidewinder. On
his HUD the target reticule fixed on the distant bulk of the Bear and flashed
red. The hum of a solid lock-on filled his ears.
“Tone … I’ve got good tone.” His thumb jabbed the firing stud. “Fox
two! Fox two!”
The AIM-9M ignited and leapt from under the Tomcat’s wing, streaking
toward its target. Mouth dry, Powers watched the plume of fire racing across
the sky.
The heat-seeker struck the Bear squarely in the outermost engine on the
port wing. Powers could see the fireball even from his position, a distant
gleam of flame in the sky.
“Yahoo!” he shouted. “That’s a hit!”
He pushed the throttle forward into afterburner, ready to close in and
finish the job.
0917 hours Zulu (0817 hours Zone)
Escort Leader Misha Flight
Terekhov’s head came around as the explosion lit up the overcast sky
behind the MiG. He hadn’t believed it could happen. But it had … the
Americans had fired on the Bear.
His orders covered what he was supposed to do in that case.
“Escort Leader to Escort Two,” he said grimly. “Weapons are free. Fire