check his oxygen-flow panel to make sure his mask was still working.
He had no doubts now. His feelings for Chris Hanson had gone way beyond
any merely sexual desire. Sex might have explained his initial
attraction for her, that and their shared lust for the exotic and the
dangerous that had led them to break the rules in the first place. But
now, he knew he loved her, knew that he was going to marry her the
moment Jefferson returned to Norfolk.
The thought of anything happening to Chris …
He glanced to his left out of the cockpit. Batman and Malibu were just
off his port wing, and beyond them, Brewer and Pogie and C.T. and
Junker.
None of them had been involved in that short, sharp dogfight a few
moments before, and they were maintaining their position at one thousand
feet, between the two White Lightning Intruder flights.
Striker still wasn’t sure he knew what he thought about women flying
combat jets. He’d always thought of himself as a progressive liberal,
and that meant believing implicitly in a woman’s right to do anything a
man could do, including defend her country. Since he’d begun feeling
this way about Chris, though, he’d started questioning the whole idea.
Every time he thought of her going down in flames, maybe punching out
over the cold, empty sea …
“Shotgun, Shotgun” he heard over his helmet phones. “This is Echo
Whiskey Two-one. We’ve got more aircraft coming off the ground at Ura
Guba, at least four new bogies. We’re also reading four new contacts at
very low altitude, heading in your direction just south of Port
Vladimir.”
“Copy that, Echo Whiskey Two-one,” Coyote replied. “Heads up, Shotgun.
We’ve got more company coming.”
Striker was already checking relative positions on a small map of the
northern Kola Peninsula he carried clipped to a pad on his thigh. Two
groups of Russian planes, one just a few miles to the west at Ura Guba,
the other coming in behind them, from the north. That northern group,
the Russian planes at Port Vladimir … they must be heading straight
for Chris and Slider.
Chris! …
“Shotgun Two-one, this is Two-two!” he called. “Batman! Those Port
Vladimir bogies must be moving to pick off Shotgun One-three and
One-four!”
“I hear you, Striker,” Batman replied. “Hold your formation.”
“But Batman! We’ve got to-”
“Hold your formation, Striker! If those MiGs are after anyone, it’s
White Lightning!”
“Hey, Striker,” Lieutenant j.g. Ken Barringer called from the back
seat.
“Stay frosty, man! She’ll be okay!”
“Stuff it, K-Bar!” he snapped back. White Lightning’s target, a
collection of dockyard facilities along the Kola Inlet, was less than
five miles ahead. For one wild moment, he wondered what would happen if
he broke formation heading north to cut off those Port Vladimir bandits
before they jumped Chris.
Besides, of course, his being court-martialed the moment he got back to
the Jefferson.
1145 hours
Tomcat 202, Shotgun 2/1
Batman glanced to his right, trying somehow to read the expression on
the face of the masked and helmeted Striker, flying a few feet off his
starboard wing. Could he depend on his wingman to stick with him?
“Batman, this is Coyote.”
“Batman here. Go ahead.”
“Take your flight high and to the north. See if you can pull an end run
on those bandits coming in from Ura Guba.”
“Roger. Everybody hear that?” One by one, the other three aircraft of
Shotgun Two acknowledged. “Okay. Let’s make our move. Break!”
The four Tomcats peeled off to the left, rolling onto an intercept
course.
1145 hours
MiG 871
Ura Guba
Podpolkovnik Yevgenni Averin pulled back on his stick, lifting the MiG
smoothly off the runway. Excitement burned in his heart and gut and
brain.
Yesterday, when the American air strikes had begun, he’d been furious at
the orders his interceptor regiment had received from Kandalaksha,
orders requiring them to remain on the ground in carefully hidden
revetments, safely camouflaged from the spying senses of Yankee
satellites or high-flying reconnaissance aircraft. It had seemed
cowardly, hiding like that as bombing strikes and cruise missiles had
slammed into military targets from Pechenga to Kandalaksha itself.
He and his men had followed orders, however, obeying the system even if