CARRIER 5: MAELSTROM By Keith Douglass

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)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *