headset. Delta Tango One was the current call sign for one of the two E-2C
Hawkeyes coordinating alpha strike operations. “Do you copy, over?”
“Delta Tango, Cowboy One-one,” Coyote replied. “COPY.”
“Large contact bearing from your position, three-four-one, range
eight-five.”
“Got ’em,” Coyote’s RIO called from the backseat. Lieutenant Terrance C.
James, call sign “Teejay,” was a young, self-assured black kid who’d started
off running the electronics suites aboard E-2C Hawkeyes but managed to wangle
a reassignment to RIO school and Tomcats because he loved fighters. “Four
bogies. Looks like they’re wave-hopping, comin’ in hard and fast.”
“Delta Tango One, Cowboy One-one,” Coyote said. “We have your contact,
four bogies, at three-four-one.”
“Oh-oh,” Teejay added. “Looks like it’s jammin’ time. I’m losing ’em.”
“Cowboy One-one. One-two, come to three-four-one and close with contact.
Dragon’s Lair requests hard ID, over.”
“Cowboy One-one copies.” Dragon’s Lair was Jefferson’s CIC. Coyote
brought the stick over, felt the Tomcat’s left wing drop. “Coming left to
three-four-one.”
“One-two copies,” Trapper’s voice added. “Hey, Coyote! You think this
is it?”
Coyote glanced at the other F-14, still holding position on his wing as
he leveled off from the turn. “Could be, Trapper. They’re coming from the
right direction.”
As they streaked northwest toward the sea, they were rapidly closing the
range between themselves and the snow-blurred contact. Closer to the target
than the E-2C, they were trying to get close enough to burn through the
jamming.
“Delta Tango One, Delta Tango One,” Teejay called. “This is One-one.
Contact is definitely multiple targets. Ah, bogies appear to be deployed from
Citadel. Can you confirm, over?”
“Roger, One-one,” the Hawkeye controller replied. “Citadel is
confirmed.”
Citadel, code name for the Russian carrier. If Soyuz was sending
aircraft toward Norway, it could be that the strategy worked out in
Jefferson’s CIC was working. The alpha strikes had succeeded in drawing the
Russian carrier’s planes into the fight.
Sheer cliffs and a rugged headland flashed away beneath the two F-14s.
Coyote glimpsed white surf, the crystal blue of the sea. “Cowboy One-one,
feet wet,” he called.
“Contact now resolving as two groups of six targets each,” Teejay
reported. His voice was cool, hard-edged and professional, not at all like
the surging emotions Coyote was feeling at the moment. “That’s twelve,
repeat, twelve targets in two groups. Designate targets, Red One through Six,
Blue One through Six. Range five-eight miles.”
Coyote licked lips gone dry beneath his face mask. He felt the fear, a
snake uncoiling in his belly, the familiar inner tightness aviators joked
about as their pucker factor, but worse, much worse than he’d ever known it
before. It was a replay of the encounter of the Jostedalsbre, two Tomcats on
a collision course with a number of enemy aircraft, with fuzz cluttering the
radar and the knowledge that a wrong choice now meant death. His next order
should have sent Trapper high and right, increasing the separation between the
F-14s to get a clearer radar picture of what was ahead.
But he couldn’t do it, couldn’t give the order. That was what had
happened last time, with Scorpion and Juggler over the mountains.
“Hey, Coyote,” Trapper called. “What say I break right for a look-see?”
“Negative, One-two.” He snapped the reply. “Hold position.”
“Cowboy, this is Delta Tango. Be advised that contact is on converging
course with Linebacker. Dragon’s Lair requests that you assume contacts are
hostile, repeat, hostile, and execute TACCAP.”
TACCAP-TACtical Combat Air Patrol. Linebacker was a flight of Blue
Ranger Intruders now making its way down Norway’s mountain spine, returning to
Romsdalfjord after its second alpha strike against Bodo. Eight A-6 Intruders,
unarmed and low on fuel, would make splendid targets for interceptors launched
from the Soviet carrier. Jefferson’s CIC was asking Coyote and Trapper to
place themselves between the Intruders and the oncoming Russian fighters, to
protect the attack aircraft until they could get under the cover of the
carrier battle group’s protective anti-air screen.
Coyote swallowed. Two Tomcats on twelve MiGs–odds of six to one. “What
do you say, Teejay?” he asked. “Can you get Phoenix lock through the
clutter?”
“Working on it, Coyote,” his RIO replied. “Wait one … got it! We have