able to grope for the striped ejection ring between her legs.
“Vader!” she called. “Punch out!” There was no answer. “Vader! Eject!
Eject! Eject!”
Then she yanked the ring. The canopy exploded away over her head, and
then the rocket motor built into the base of her ejection seat fired,
kicking her into a roaring, shrieking hell of wind and noise and flame.
CHAPTER 26
Tuesday, 17 March
1148 hours (Zulu +2)
Over the Kola Peninsula
Lobo fell through space, the roar of her ejection gone now, replaced by
the eerie shriek of air rushing past her helmet. A moment later, her
chute opened with a savage jerk at her shoulders and groin. Looking up,
she was rewarded by the heart-filling sight of an open and undamaged
canopy stretching overhead.
Where was Vader? His ejection seat should have triggered an instant
after she’d cleared the cockpit, but she couldn’t see him, couldn’t see
her stricken F-14, for that matter. There was a tangle of contrails off
toward the south, where Shotgun was still battling the MiGs, but she was
all alone in that wide, blue sky.
No … there was something in the distance, an aircraft approaching
from the south. But was it a MiG or a Tomcat? She watched it as she
dropped toward a barren and empty plain.
1148 hours
Tomcat 211, Shotgun 2/2
“Hit!” K-Bar yelled. “Splash one MiG!”
“Never mind the damned MiG! Do you see any chutes?”
“Negative, Striker. Negative. No! Wait a sec! At one-five-oh!”
Yes! A parachute! But only one …
“Shotgun, Shotgun, this is Shotgun Two-two,” Striker called. “I see one
chute. That’s good chute, good chute at, I make it, eight miles
southeast of Sayda Guba. That’s map coordinates Victor three-one by
Sierra niner-five.”
“Striker, this is Coyote. Get back to formation.”
“Ah, negative, Shotgun. I can see vehicles on the road below me,
heading for that chute. I’m going in to provide cover.”
“Shotgun Two-two, this is Shotgun One-one. Return to formation.
Execute immediate.”
But Striker’s full attention was on that lone chute and the vehicles on
the ground nearby. Was it Vader or Chris? There’d be no way of knowing
until he or she could make contact with an SAR emergency radio.
Keeping his distance, Striker pulled his F-14 into a long, easy circle
about the descending chute a mile and a half away.
1150 hours
Over the Kola Peninsula
There was no mistaking the distinctive bulk of that aircraft, huge for a
fighter, its wings swept forward for low-speed flight. A Tomcat was
circling her, though at this distance Lobo couldn’t tell which one it
was. The F-14’s presence was comforting, however, a sign that her
shipmates had not abandoned her.
The ground was coming up faster now. It was close enough for her to
make out details–the twin ruts of a dirt road between large patches of
mud and snow, a hut or cottage with what looked like a thatched roof,
and a nearby barn. There was a town or village a few miles to the
northwest. Beyond that was the gunmetal blue-gray of the sea, and a
smudge of black smoke where the Marines were storming ashore.
To Hanson, the landscape immediately below her dangling feet looked
unutterably bleak, a flat and barren tundra, all bare earth, brown and
stunted vegetation, and scattered patches of snow. She twisted back and
forth in her harness, still trying to spot McVey’s chute. Where the
hell was he? Had he managed to punch out? She couldn’t see him and
that worried her.
And what she could see worried her even more. There, to the south was a
line of vehicles, their shapes indistinct, a convoy of some kind picking
its way north along that muddy track of a road.
The ground was really coming up fast now. It looked like she was going
to touch down close to that house and barn.
1151 hours
Tomcat 211, Shotgun 2/2
Striker brought the Tomcat almost down to the deck, screaming over flat,
empty tundra, patches of snow and earth blurring with the speed of his
passage to a rippling brown-white-gray. The enemy convoy was a couple
of miles ahead, several trucks and at least one armored vehicle of some