Coyote switched his HUD back to NAV MODE and picked up Shiloh’s
directional beacon. With Jefferson off the air for the moment, he’d
have to home on the Shiloh, then when he got in close enough, find the
Jeff by Mark-One eyeball.
He was now less than 120 miles from the center of the battle group. He
cut back on his throttle to take them down closer to the water and eased
onto the new heading.
They should be in shouting distance of the Jefferson in another twelve
minutes.
0725 hours
Off North Cape
Russian naval tactics, like their tactics for land warfare, depended on
saturating the enemy’s defenses, piling on so much raw power in such
huge numbers that sooner or later those defenses began to leak. Their
bombers, the survivors of the Tomcats’ Phoenix assault plus those that
managed to get close enough to launch before being shot down, had
managed to release a total of ninety-three ship-killers, most of them
AS-5 “Keit” and AS-6 “Kingfish” antiship missiles. Over thirty feet
long, weighing over five tons apiece, and traveling at better than Mach
3, these missiles hurtled across the Barents Sea at wave-skimming
height. Some were programmed to go all the way in at low altitude;
others were set to pop up during the last few miles of their approach,
attacking the carrier group from almost straight overhead. The mix of
approaches was designed, like the dive-bomber/torpedo-plane tactics of
World War II, to confuse, divide, and overtax the target’s defenses.
0726 hours
Tomcat 201
Over the Barents Sea
“Shit! Where did he come from?”
Coyote peered past his fighter’s HUD, trying to pick out details against
the sun-sparkle off the ultramarine sea. He was at five thousand feet
now, but the bandit was below him, skimming at damn-near wave-top height
on a direct course for the center of the battle group. His low altitude
had provided excellent cover, masking him in the back-scatter from the
surface of the sea. He was definitely a “leaker,” a Russian bomber that
had managed to slip unobserved deep inside the CBG’s defenses.
“Range two miles,” Cat told him.
“Rog. I’m setting him up.”
They were close enough now that Coyote could recognize the back-swept
wings, the twin turbojets set close along the fuselage. It was a Tu-16
Badger, almost certainly the Badger-G missile-strike variant. Flying
off each wing was a smaller aircraft, indistinguishable at this distance
but almost certainly a fighter escort. Coyote edged his stick to port
and pushed it forward, nudging the F-14 into a better firing position.
The Badger grew rapidly behind the pale computer-graphic symbols and
data lines on his HUD.
Its attendants, already breaking from their larger consort and swinging
around to face him, were a pair of Sukhoi-21 interceptors, Flagon-Fs
painted in a tactical green-and-brown camouflage scheme.
But Coyote glimpsed something else in that blurred instant of approach.
Beneath each wing of the Badger-G was the slim fuselage and pointed nose
of an AS-6 “Kingfish” antiship missile. As he watched, locking his
target designator onto the hot IR glow of the bomber’s twin engines,
first one, then the other of those sleek and deadly darts dropped from
their hardpoints, igniting tails of orange flame and unraveling
contrails of white smoke.
“Launch! Launch!” Coyote yelled into his radio. “Hotspur, Gold Eagle
One, I have confirmed launch of two Alfa-Sierra six …”
Two more cruise missiles were now streaking at Mach 3 toward the center
of the fleet.
And they were now less than one hundred miles out.
CHAPTER 11
Friday, 13 March
0727 hours (Zulu +2)
Tomcat 201
Over the Barents Sea
“Fox two!” Coyote yelled, and a Sidewinder whooshed off the rail beneath
his starboard wing. Unlike Phoenix or AMRAAM, the AIM-9 Sidewinder was
IR-guided, homing on the heat given off by the target, especially the
heat thrown off by a jet engine.
Too late, he realized he probably should have retargeted on one of the
Sukhois. Its warload dropped, the Badger-G was already clumsily turning
to port, moving onto a heading that would take it back toward the Kola
Peninsula.
The Flagon-Fs, however, were thundering up from the sea, their targeting
radars already locking onto Coyote’s Tomcat.