an angry giant slammed his boot into the base of Lowe’s spine, flinging
him clear of the Tomcat in a shrieking cacophony of wind and rocket
motor.
For a few seconds, Low Down was suspended in blissful silence. He saw
his Tomcat–what was left of it, anyway–disintegrating into flaming,
tumbling fragments as it dropped toward the sea.
And then his chute opened, jerking him upright with a jolt that nearly
knocked the breath from his lungs. Reflexively grabbing the chute’s
risers, he dangled there, surveying his surroundings.
Low Down was alone in a wide, open sky. He couldn’t see the MiG that
had killed him, though the snarled white contrails of other aircraft and
missiles in the distance gave the skyscape a strange, surreal look.
Twisting in his harness, he tried to spot Bouncer. Had she gotten
clear?
He couldn’t see her chute anywhere. Minutes later, he plunged into the
frigid waters of the Barents Sea.
CHAPTER 12
Friday, 13 March
0743 hours (Zulu +2)
Combat Information Center
U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
“We’ve just lost Low Down and Bouncer,” the CIC officer said. “They’ve
routed an SH-3 for search and rescue.”
“It’ll have to be quick,” Tombstone replied. “That water’s damned
cold.”
He felt numb. He’d heard Lowe’s exultant cry of “Splash one Fulcrum”
over the tactical channel and hoped the kid might be able to shake the
second MiG. Obviously, the Fulcrum had stuck with him.
This, Tombstone thought, was what had been bothering him a few days
before, now made diamond hard. Lowe’s RIO, Beth Harper, was the first
of Jefferson’s female aviators to get shot down in combat. Had she
survived?
Could she survive, given that even in her survival suit and with her
life raft she would live only minutes in the cold Arctic water?
And yet, Tombstone surprised himself with the agility with which his
mind shifted to other things, more pressing things. The rest of the
fighters from Jefferson and the Eisenhower continued in their one-sided
struggle against superior numbers … and the Russian missiles were
starting to leak through the middle defensive zone. There was an
exclamation from several sailors at one of the consoles. Blakely, one
of the Ike battle group’s frigates, had just taken a missile amidships,
a big one. Reports were coming in that the FFG was already heeling far
over to port, furiously ablaze.
“I think the Russkis are trying to flank us,” Frazier said. “We’re
having more leakers coming around from the northeast. God damn!”
The CICO’s exclamation was in response to another report. A
radar-homing missile had just struck the Gettysburg, the Eisenhower
group’s Aegis cruiser.
It would be minutes yet before a clear picture of the damage could be
transmitted, longer still before it could be assessed.
“CAG?” A sailor handed a telephone to Tombstone. “CATCC.”
Tombstone took the call from the carrier’s air traffic control. Many of
Jefferson’s Tomcats were heading back now for rearming. He acknowledged
the information and suggested that permission be secured from the Shiloh
for air ops to go back on the air again.
Handing the receiver back to the sailor, he turned to Frazier.
“We’re going to have to start taking aircraft aboard pretty quick,” he
said. “Wind’s still from the northeast, so we won’t need a course
change, but we’ll need to break radio silence for approach control.”
“We’ll be able to start recoverin’ if those Russian Kingfishes don’t
burn our ass first.” The CIC officer paused, listening to something over
his headset. “Damn,” he said. “Dickinson’s playin’ hero!”
At one end of the darkened CIC was a row of consoles manned by enlisted
men, watched over by a chief petty officer. The consoles controlled
Jefferson’s CIWS.
“Chief Carangelo!” Frazier called. “Dickinson’s about to pass close
aboard to starboard. Make sure the starboard CIWS is on standby.”
“Starboard CIWS on standby, aye, aye, sir.”
“Better wait a sec on the recovery ops, CAG,” he added. “We got trouble
comin’in from starboard, big time, and we’re gonna be kinda busy.”
0745 hours
Off North Cape
Any attacker that made it through the carrier group’s three tactical
zones had one final barrier to hurdle: the carrier’s Phalanx CIWS, or
Close-In Weapons System, computer directed Gatling guns firing