the American carrier. The attack plan he’d suggested that morning to Kreml’s
wing commander had worked perfectly, though not quite as Chelyag had
anticipated. Chelyag’s planes were falling from the skies like nuts from a
shaken tree, while Terekhov’s flight had flown all the way around the
Americans to come upon them from the south, slipping in under their CAP and
radar umbrellas, sneaking in close for the kill. His second AS-7 whooshed
clear of the mid-wing pylon. Seconds later, the other MiG-29s of the flight
began launching their ship-killers as well.
Ten AS-7 Kerry ship-killers sped north across the water at Mach 1,
targeting the Jefferson. At Mach 1, they would reach their target in less
than one minute.
0907 hours Zulu (1007 hours Zone)
Hornet 300
Over the Vestfjord
Flying low, staying in the radar shadow of the rugged, sawtooth mountains
of the Lofotens, Tombstone led the formation of Hornets and Intruders
west-southwest, following the island chain so closely that it was unlikely
Soviet radars would pick them out from the background clutter. They
maintained strict radio silence. Other formations, Tombstone knew, were
making their way down the Vestfjord, from Evanskjaer and Andoya, and, skimming
the wave tops from the southeast, from the newly liberated field at Bodo. So
many aircraft, taking off from widely separated airstrips and traveling at
different speeds.
Jefferson and her escorts should by now be rounding Vaeroy Island, at the
southwestern fringes of the Lofotens. According to the latest update from the
E-2Cs, Bifrost One and Bifrost Two, the Kreml was now about forty miles north
of the Jefferson and twenty-five miles west of Moskenesoya Island, moving
northeast at thirty knots.
Tombstone checked the COMED display, which showed data both from his
Hornet’s APG-65 radar and from one of the Hawkeyes, which let him, in effect,
see beyond the mountains. There they were, on the nose. The cluster of blips
marking Kreml, two Kirov cruisers, and an array of smaller vessels was clearly
visible. Prompts on his display showed course, speed, and waypoints.
He looked to his right. Off his starboard wingtip, between him and the
sheltering, gray-green mass of the Lofotens, was Hornet 301, flown by
Commander Jake “Red” Bledsoe, the skipper of the Javelins. Beyond him was
Hornet 304, Red’s wingman, Lieutenant Commander Norman “Hurricane” Hawker, a
fiery young aviator who nevertheless flew with the ice-cold precision of an
engineer.
No radio communications yet … but he could attract their attention with
a brief waggle of his wings. Get ready. Almost there …
The other aircraft responded with waggles of their own, and he saw
Bledsoe’s helmeted figure give him an answering thumbs-up from his cockpit.
Their turning point lay just ahead, a narrow pass like a saddle, winding
between two rugged hills on the island of Moskenesoya. That island was the
southernmost of the major Lofotens, a rugged strip of land twenty miles long.
Five miles beyond was the tiny islet of Mosken.
The gap between was the fabled Maelstrom. When Tombstone had been a kid,
fourteen, maybe fifteen years old, he’d read Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues
Under the Sea and wondered if the “Norway Maelstrom” was real.
Apparently it was, though not so wild or deadly as Jules Verne had
suggested when he had it swallow Captain Nemo and the fabled Nautilus.
Tombstone was sorry that he wouldn’t get to see it.
He checked his map, comparing the terrain to the land forms drifting past
his right wing. There it was, the pass. He cut back on his throttle and
descended, sliding in front of and below Red and Hurricane and angling toward
the gap. The other Hornets and the six A-6s of the Blue Rangers followed.
Hillsides exploded on either side of the Hornet, gray and green blurs
sloping down to meet somewhere a few hundred feet below his aircraft. Houses,
a tiny village, checkered farmland flashed by. Ahead, the open sea filled the
notch between the mountains with searing blue.
The Soviet fleet was now twenty-five miles away. At 560 knots, the
maximum speed of the A-6 Intruders at sea level, they would be there in less
than three minutes.
CHAPTER 26
Thursday, 26 JUne
0908 hours Zulu (1008 hours Zone)