thirds the length overall of the Nassau, well over half the length of
the Jefferson or the Eisenhower.
Larson handed him the radio phone, and he clutched it to his head with a
trembling hand.
“King Three! King Three!” he called. “This is White Knight Five!
Over!”
There was no immediate answer.
“King Three! This is White Knight. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, answer
me!”
1322 hours
Intruder 504
Over the Kola Inlet
“Red Hammer, Red Hammer,” the Intruder flight leader called. “This is
Red Hammer One-one. Target change. We have a new target request from
Marine Air Control.”
“Red Hammer One-three, we copy,” Willis said. Then, “God, what do they
want now?”
“Probably another truck park,” Sunshine replied. “Shit, you’d think
they’d find something interesting for us to clobber once in a while.”
But as Willis listened to the new instructions from One-one, he realized
that this target was nothing if not interesting.
It was almost damned dangerous. He brought the aircraft slightly to the
right, carefully studying the panorama of mountains and water unfolding
ahead.
1322 hours
Tomcat 200
Over the Kola Inlet
“Hit!” Tombstone yelled. “Splash that MiG!”
“Watch it, Tombstone!” Tomboy called from the back seat. “Two are
coming around behind us!”
“I see ’em! Hold on!” He jinked right, then rolled to the left, sending
the F-14 into a high, floating barrel roll that took him up and out of
the two Fulcrums’ aim. The sky was filled with aircraft, all of them
Fulcrums, it seemed. Ahead, there was a flash and an angry puff of
orange disgorging a burning meteor plunging toward the waters of the
Kola Inlet. Their second AMRAAM had scored.
“That’s two … oof!” his RIO said as Tombstone kicked in his
afterburners in a hard, tight turn pulling out of the barrel roll. The
two MiGs on their tail had just flashed past on the left, then split
apart, one cutting to the left, the other toward the right, almost
directly in front of the Tomcat. Tombstone started to follow, then
abruptly pulled back and swung left again, letting the F-14 drop a
thousand feet toward the water.
“Hey, CAG!” Tomboy called. “What … are you feeling generous? You
had a great setup there. Why’d you let him go?”
“Take a look up ahead!”
Red Hammer, the A-6 flight, had split up their original tight formation,
but each aircraft was maintaining speed and altitude, already into the
beginning of their approach run. A Fulcrum coming in from the south had
spotted them, wheeled about, and dropped onto the six of one of the
Intruders.
And Tombstone was bearing down on the six of the Fulcrum.
“I’m going to Sidewinder,” he called. “I’ve got a good shot here, right
up his tail.”
He let the Sidewinder glimpse the MiG’s hot tail pipes, then squeezed
the trigger. “Fox two!”
“We’ve got another one behind us, Stoney. No, make that two!”
“How long till the cavalry gets here?”
“They’re coming. Another thirty seconds. Threat warning! They have a
lock!”
Tombstone pulled up violently, dumping chaff into his slipstream as he
climbed.
He needed to cover Red Hammer’s tail while they made their attack, at
least until Coyote and the others arrived. Right now, though, the
chances of Tomcat 200 surviving those next thirty seconds were not very
good at all.
1323 hours
Intruder 504
Over the Kola Inlet
The Intruder rocked violently, and Willis had to pull the nose up
slightly to steady it.
“What the hell was that?” Sunshine asked, her face still buried in her
scope.
“Fulcrum on our tail,” Willis said, glancing back over his shoulder.
“Someone just took it out with a heat-seeker up the ass.”
“Rog. Thirty seconds!”
Eight hundred feet.
“On manual.” The target, according to the Marine air controller who’d
fed the data to Red Hammer, was moving … and surrounded by numerous
other targets. Willis wasn’t going to trust the computer on this one.
At his side, Sunshine was flipping rapidly back and forth between search
radar and FLIR mode; if his own system crashed or if he became
disoriented, she would be able to keep him on track.
Seven hundred feet …
1323 hours
Tomcat 200