AWG-9 lock on target Red One. Missile armed, ready to fire.”
“Delta Tango One, this is Cowboy one-one. We have Phoenix lock on
contact.”
“Ay-firmative, Cowboy. You are cleared to fire.”
“Copy.” Coyote took a deep breath. “Okay, Teejay. Punch it!”
“Fox three!” his RIO called, and the Tomcat lurched as the heavy missile
dropped away, then arrowed toward the northeast on a rippling plume of white.
“Tango Delta, this is Cowboy. We are engaging.”
The battle was joined.
0751 hours Zulu (0851 hours Zone)
MiG 501
Over the Norwegian See
Captain First Rank Sergei Terekhov heard the warning tone in his headset
and knew that American aircraft had locked onto his flight. Tomcats–only the
American F-14 carried the long-range Phoenix missile and the characteristic
fingerprint of the AWG-9 radar–and that meant that the American carrier was
somewhere close, close.
He could almost smell it, eighty thousand tons of fighting steel, hidden
somewhere among these damned fjords. He knew he was right about the American
carrier hiding in the fjords, knew it, and Tomcats over the Norwegian coast
proved it.
Terekhov had an intense admiration for American technology born of
extensive travels in the West during the brief period of relaxed tensions
between East and West a few years before. He knew what the F-14 was capable
of … just as he knew to the finest degree the advantages possessed by his
MiG-29.
The American Tomcat was a superb fighting machine, a legend among the
flyers of nations around the world, but it had weaknesses. The F-14 was huge
for a fighter, almost two full meters longer than the MiG-29, and more than
twice as heavy. The MiG’s twin Tumanski 33D engines gave it a higher
thrust-to-weight ratio and better handling. The Tomcat was slightly faster at
high altitudes, but the MiG-29 could out-climb the F-14 and, vital in a
dogfight, it could out-turn it.
Where the Americans excelled was in the quality of their pilots. Their
Fighter Weapons School–Top Gun–where their Navy aviators honed their aerial
combat skills by pitting themselves man-to-man against experienced
adversaries, was legendary. Similar programs had been tried in the Soviet
Union, at Frunze, at Leningrad, and at the Black Sea training center for
Soviet carrier aviation, but so far, at least, the Americans’ success with
such training programs had not been matched.
The individual superiority of American naval aviators would not count for
much in the coming engagement, however. Radar jamming made the picture ahead
fuzzy, but so far only one Phoenix had been launched, and Terekhov doubted
that there were more than two Tomcats on patrol–four at the most–and he was
thundering toward the Norwegian coast at the head of a squadron of twelve
MiG-29s.
And the enemy’s vaunted Phoenix missiles would not be a deciding factor
either. Soviet jamming and their wave-hopping approach had brought them to
within sixty miles of the enemy before they’d been spotted. The four AA-10
missiles under his wings, dubbed “Alamo” by the West, had a range of better
than sixty miles, and the two massive AA-11s slung inboard were Russian copies
of the Phoenix. The Soviet MiGs had long-range talons as swift and as deadly
as the Americans.
“Cossack, Cossack,” Terekhov called, using Soyuz’s code name for this
operation. “This is Harvest Reaper. Enemy targets acquired. Engaging.”
Centering the targeting pipper on his tactical screen over one of the
blips marking an enemy aircraft, he acquired a lock. Fire! The missile
ignited, streaking toward the enemy. The exultation of man-to-man combat sang
in Terekhov’s blood as a second MiG launched, then a third. Victory!
0752 hours Zulu (0852 hours Zone)
Tomcat 200
Over the Norwegian Sea
“I have bandit launch, repeat, bandit launch,” Teejay reported from the
backseat, still the cold professional. “Now multiple launches. They’re gone
active and have acquired locks. Looks like AA-11s. One-point-four minutes to
intercept.”
“Okay.” Coyote took a deep breath, forcing nerves and hands steady,
forcing the image of Julie from his mind. “Okay, Cowboy One-two. You with
me?”
“We’re tracking the launch, Coyote. Three missiles inbound so far.”
“Let’s take ’em down on the deck. Hold course and speed until my mark.
Then break right while I go left. Steady …”