flashed and dazzled in myriad sparkles from the cold, azure blue of the
Norwegian Sea. Ahead and to the left, still forty miles distant, a
Purple-gray blur topped by billowing cumulus clouds lay across the horizon,
dividing blue sea from bluer sky.
“How about it, John-Boy?” he called over the Tomcat’s intercom. “What’s
going down?”
In the seat directly behind his, Coyote’s RIO, Lieutenant John Nichols,
was still trying to pierce the clutter of mountains and Russian jamming. The
target, whatever it was, was closer now than when it had first been tagged
from the Hawkeye–much closer.
“Nothing yet, Coyote,” John-Boy’s voice replied over the ICS. “I dunno.
We should be close enough to burn through this hash by now.”
“The bastards probably dropped low,” Coyote said. “Hiding in the
mountains. Stay sharp. They’ll be popping up any moment now.”
He looked away from the coast and out to sea. His wingman was tucked in
tight, less than twenty feet off his starboard wingtip. He could easily see
the helmeted heads of Scorpion Crandall and his RIO, Juggler Tyson. Scorpion
noticed him watching and touched one gloved hand to his helmet in a mock
salute.
Coyote acknowledged with a wave, then turned his attention back to the
coast. The two Tomcats were on a converging course with the coastline. He
could see monolithic rocks standing in the sea, the bulk of glacier-scoured
headlands, the crooked meander of a small fjord. The surf seemed motionless
at this distance.
But the coastline rapidly grew closer. He glimpsed beaches and fir
trees, and the blurred impression of a cottage with a steeply pitched roof.
“Skywatch, Icewall,” he called. “Feet dry at base minus ten. Still no joy on
bogies, over.”
“Copy, Icewall. Maintain heading. Be advised, if bogies maintained
course and speed, they should be coming round the mountain any time now.”
“Affirmative.” But of course they would have cut their speed if they
were threading their way through some icebound pass in the mountains.
“Skywatch, Icewall is splitting up. Let’s see if we can get them in stereo.”
“Roger, Icewall.”
“Two-one-eight, Two-oh-one. Scorpion, are you with me?”
“Right on your wing, Coyote,” the other aviator replied. “It’s getting
lonely up here. Whatcha got?”
“Not a thing. How about breaking high and right and taking eyeball.”
“Roger. You got it.” Scorpion’s Tomcat stood suddenly on its starboard
wing, turning its belly toward Coyote’s aircraft. He could see every detail
of Scorpion’s weapons load–four AIM-54C Phoenix long-range missiles, two
AIM-7M Sparrows, and two AIM-9M Sidewinders–a standard interception load for
a mission that might require sudden death at almost any range.
Then Scorpion’s afterburners flared, and his Tomcat arrowed into the
distance. By splitting up, the two Tomcats could get better radar coverage of
the still-masked target. In combat, the winner was usually the guy who
spotted the other guy first.
Mountains bulked ahead, ice-capped and forbidding. Coyote could clearly
make out the timberline along the mountain flanks. The ground below was
rugged and divided among patchwork fields, thick forest, and boulder-strewn
slopes. “Skywatch, Icewall,” he called. “Say, do you have any idea if we’re
over friendly territory?”
“Hard to tell,” the Hawkeye operator’s voice came back. “You ought to be
well on the good guys’ side of no-man’s-land. Of course, if the Norwegians
think you look like MiGs, they’re as likely to shoot you as the Russians.”
“My, but we are cheerful today,” Coyote replied. He watched the rugged
ground flashing past. The landscape seemed peaceful, even idyllic. There
were no signs of war, no burned-out tanks or APCs, no military vehicles on the
roads. “Negative ground activity. I think we must be clear of the lines.”
“Roger that, Icewall. But keep your mark ones peeled. There’s a war on
over there, remember, and you’re in the thick of it.”
Mark ones … meaning his mark one eyeballs, the first and best sensors
an aviator carried with him aboard his aircraft. Even in modern, high-tech,
long-range warfare, a man’s own senses, coupled with reason, gut instinct, and
years of training, were still the most important tools he carried.
“Coyote, Scorpion!” Scorpion’s voice was shrill, harsh with excitement
in Coyote’s headset. “I got bogies! Bogies!”
“Slow down, Scorp,” Coyote replied. “What’s the bearing?”