“Guess he doesn’t see it that way.”
And the Colonel did see what his pilots were up to while on CAP. Thor
had seen his commanding officer park his tail end in CDC and watch a scope,
watching his pilots cut neat, symmetrical circles in the sky.
“Take a leak. That helps sometimes,” his wingman offered.
Thor snorted. “I’d just as soon wait. Wish Grumman built these birds
instead of McDonnell-Douglas. At least they have the common sense to put
relief tubes in their aircraft. I hate these damned piddle packs.” MD’s
solution to the inevitable calls of nature was a small plastic Baggie with
elastic on one end. Might as well use a Coke bottle, Thor thought, disgusted.
Suddenly, the E-2C Hawkeye NFO’s voice cut in on the radio static.
“Homeplate, Snoopy 601. Strangers, bearing 318, range 130 miles. Negative
mode four IFF.”
Unidentified aircraft, ones that did not broadcast the IFF modes and
codes that would mark it as a friendly military aircraft. For a moment, Thor
was interested. It was, he immediately decided, probably a commercial
airliner, heading southwest and hugging the coast. He waited. So far, there
was nothing on his own radar.
“Roger, Snoopy. Hold that contact on course 135, speed four hundred.”
Well, this was getting interesting. The unknown contact’s course would
take it directly toward the battle group. Thor’s adrenaline kicked in with a
little tingle.
It still could be a commercial airliner, headed across the South China
Sea to Brunei or Malaysia, but most of the commercial routes curved slightly
to the north, following a great circle route as the shortest distance between
two points. He glanced at his radar and noted that the E-2C’s contact was now
entered into LINK, the electronic data-sharing and targeting system that let
the battle group elements share radar information.
“Break, break, Jigsaw One, Homeplate,” the Operations Specialist said,
indicating a change of call-ups. “Jigsaw One,” Thor answered.
“Roger, come to new course 325. Request you close and VID contact in
question. Jigsaw 2, maintain current station.”
“Roger.” Thor pulled out of his gentle CAP turn and headed northwest to
intercept the contact and visually identify it.
“You get all the fun,” he heard his wingman mutter over the tactical
circuit.
1145 local (Zulu -7)
Combat Direction Center
USS Jefferson
“You got any modes and codes on that contact at all?” the carrier TAO
asked the operations specialist.
“Negative, ma’am. It’s off the normal COMMAIR corridor by at least a
hundred miles. No modes at all.”
The TAO felt vaguely uneasy. A senior lieutenant commander, an E-2C
Naval Flight Officer herself, she’d heard the slight change in pitch in her
airborne counterpart’s voice. So far, there was no real cause for alarm, but
experience born from thousands of hours in the back of an E-2C kept setting
off alarms in her mind. Better safe than sorry, she finally decided.
“Get the alert five Tomcats in the air,” she said to her assistant. He
nodded and reached for the 1MC microphone to broadcast the order. Seconds
later, she heard scurrying feet pounding down the passageway as the Air Boss
and his crew headed for Pri-Fly.
She picked up the telephone and punched the button for the TFCC TAO. If
the world was about to go to shit, she wanted to make sure the admirals watch
team was awake.
1150 local (Zulu -7)
TFCC
“Okay, what’ve we got?” Tombstone asked as he stepped into TFCC.
“Nothing solid yet, Admiral. The E-2 picked up an unidentified air
contact, and a Hornet’s vectoring to intercept. Alert five Tomcats are on the
cat–excuse me, sir, airborne,” the Flag TAO corrected himself as the
distinctive grumble of the forward catapult launching aircraft interrupted his
summary. The TAO rolled his trackball and positioned the pointer near the
symbol for the contact.
Tombstone studied the screen, watching the symbol representing the Hornet
track slowly across it. If it was a military aircraft, then it was probably
Vietnamese. Its speed leader pointed directly back to the Vietnamese coast,
near a major military airfield. Vietnamese fighters had every right to be in
international airspace, and were probably just flying out toward the battle
group to exercise their right to do so.