from friendly aircraft when battles were raging at supersonic speeds across
ranges of tens or hundreds of kilometers. The Roland system’s computer would
refuse a target lock on a target tagged by IFF as friendly. Briefly,
Snorisson wondered whether the fact that there were no signals from the
aircraft circling overhead meant the computer was down.
It was by pure mischance that Snorisson had missed the directive
filtering down from the command staff in Bergen, warning that friendly
American naval aircraft had been operating recently in Norwegian airspace …
and that their IFF codes did not correspond to those used by Norwegian forces.
At that moment, there could be no doubt at all in Snorisson’s tired and
pain-ragged mind that the jet diving toward him from the contrail-streaked sky
was hostile. He dropped through the turret opening, banging the hatch shut
above him. “The target!” he yelled at his sergeant. Rage burned like fire.
“To the southeast! Get him!”
“We’re locked. Tracking.
“Then fire!”
There was a shriek like escaping steam, and first one, then the other
Roland missile burst into the sky. At almost the same moment, the target
thundered past, less than a mile away and a thousand feet above the rocky
ground. The missiles swerved sharply in midair as their target swept from
southeast to north. Boosters dropped away and sustainer motors took over,
accelerating the rockets to Mach 1.6.
CHAPTER 3
Wednesday, 18 June
1427 hours Zulu (1527 hours Zone)
Tomcat 218
Near Grotil, Norway
“Missile lock!” Juggler called over the ICS. “SAM! SAM! SAM!”
Oh, shit! They must be over Russian lines! He could hear the thrum of a
pulse-doppler lock over his headset. Funny. It was unfamiliar, unlike any of
the radar tones he associated with Soviet SAMs. What the hell was it?
No time to wonder. Most of the speed he’d won from his dive had been
lost positioning himself for the climb back toward the enemy. He saw the
contrails, two of them, racing across the terrain. He kicked in the Tomcat’s
afterburners as Juggler pumped chaff to decoy the missile’s radar.
Sluggishly, sluggishly, the F-14 began to arc higher. If he could pull into a
tight enough turn, the oncoming SAMs might overshoot, might even lock onto the
chaff clouds and detonate harmlessly.
The first Roland missed by thirty yards and failed to detonate. Its
radar lock broken by Scorpion’s maneuver, it plunged harmlessly toward the
horizon.
The second Roland, too, missed … but passed close enough that its
proximity fuse was triggered. The warhead detonated twenty feet from the
Tomcat’s belly, sending a storm of shrapnel blasting through the thin metal of
the fuselage. A dozen red lights flashed on across the warning console, and
Crandall was screaming “Eject! Eject!” as he reached for the handle that
would rocket them clear of the disintegrating aircraft.
But fuel gushing from ruptured lines splashed across hot metal and
exploded into flame before he could complete the action. The fireball
consumed the Tomcat in a series of explosions that ate their way forward from
engine to wing tanks, each detonation more savage than the last.
Seconds later, the wreckage slammed into a mountain, and the smoke of its
burning was a black pillar staining the sky.
1428 hours Zulu (1528 hours Zone)
Tomcat 201
Near Grotil, Norway
Coyote saw the smoke, and he’d heard Crandall’s last, desperate cry over
the radio. With growing dread, he banked his Tomcat toward the crash site,
searching for parachutes, for some sign that Crandall and Tyson had managed to
eject before their F-14 hit the rocky slope below.
“Camelot, Camelot,” he called. “This is Icewall Two-zero-one. Icewall
Two-one-eight is down, repeat, down, apparently from SAM fire. I see no
chutes.”
Two MiGs from Group Alpha were rock-hopping back toward the east. Two
more had been downed in the brief, fierce engagement.
Coyote and John-Boy were alone now, three hundred miles from the
Jefferson.
There was a long silence on the radio. Then Coyote heard Tombstone’s
voice, ragged with some hard-suppressed emotion. “Roger, Two-oh-one. Camelot
copies, Request an update on target Bravo, over.”
Target Bravo … the unknowns he’d been ordered to pursue. CAG was
not-so-gently reminding him that he’d dropped the ball on that one. The