have to abort. I can’t take this bird in like this.”
Bird Dog swore violently and made a lightning-fast decision.
Too much was riding on this mission. The safety of the team on the
ground, the fate of the captured men, and indeed, America’s first response
to an incursion on her territory. He stared ahead at the point where the
target had been before it was obscured by blowing clouds of ice and fog,
memorizing its location, praying that the hours of training over Chocolate
Mountain would pay off. He screened out the loud protests and questions
from Gator, knowing that in a few seconds the RIO would look up and see his
dilemma. It wasn’t impossible to get the bombs on target without the laser
designator. Just very, very difficult, as decades of strike warfare in
earlier wars had proved. It took good reflexes, a superb sense of
direction, and an instinctive ability to calculate the myriad factors that
went into a launch. Airspeed, altitude, effect of gravity on the missiles,
and the safest direction to exit the target area. He felt his gut churn.
That was the critical part, at least for the two aviators in Tomcat 201.
Getting clear of the spewing debris, rock, and ice before it could FOD one
of the turbofan engines was critical.
Forty-five seconds remaining. He squinted, ignoring the sweat
breaking out on his forehead, rolling down into his eyes and stinging. In
front of him, the JAST aircraft broke off its attack run and turned back
toward the carrier.
1021 Local
Aflu
“There he is!” Morning Eagle pointed at the sky. The Tomcat was a
tiny black dot, skimming over the ocean, blending in with the dark,
blue-black, whitecapped waves.
“Too low,” Huerta said. He shook his head. “He’ll have to
abort–there’s no way he can do it.”
Morning Eagle stared at the aircraft, which was now large enough that
he could make out its features. The sleek, backswept wings, the double
bubble of the canopy perched almost too far up on the aircraft, its sleek,
aerodynamically sound nose. And the weapons, the most important part of
the aircraft for his purposes today. He stared at the undercarriage, which
looked bulky and ungainly. The two huge bombs, flanked by the smaller
air-to-air missiles, hung down below it like some phallic symbol.
“Look out!” Huerta shouted. He took two steps forward, grabbed
Morning Eagle, and pulled him back away from the rift. “We’ve got to get
the hell out of here.”
Morning Eagle blinked, startled out of his fascinated reverie of the
deadly aircraft. He whirled, following Huerta, and took five steps forward
before the world disappeared in a blinding whirl of white.
1022 Local
Tomcat 201
“Bird Dog! You get the hell out of there!” he heard Batman snap.
“You don’t have a solid fix on the target. You miss, and you hit friendly
forces. Break off; we’ll try again when the weather clears.”
“Can’t,” Bird Dog said tersely. “I’ve got a solid lock on this–I can
feel it.” He tried desperately to regain his fix on the target,
momentarily distracted by the sight of white-clad figures scurrying away
from his impact point.
Damn it all, what the hell did they think they were doing? he thought
angrily. Couldn’t someone have briefed them? The SEAL should know better
at least than to stand that close to an IP. Even with advanced avionics
and pinpoint targeting, there was still an error of five to ten feet built
into launch calculations. Even under the best circumstances–and these
were hardly those–there was a good chance he’d miss the exact spot at the
rift. He shook his head angrily.
There was no help for it now–he was too heavy and too low to recover.
In order to gain altitude quickly and clear the worst of the peaks, he had
to get rid of the bombs. And it made no sense to jettison them harmlessly,
not this close to the IP. He concentrated, bearing down on the target.
1023 Local
Aflu
“Whiteout,” Morning Eagle screamed. He swung his arms wildly, felt
them hit something, and pulled it toward him. Huerta grasped at him like a
drowning man. With a firm grip on each other, they dropped to the ground,