Countdown

CHAPTER 24

During the night, II MEF had deployed for its landings. Covered by the Eisenhower carrier group, the Marine amphibious force had taken up a position some fifteen miles northeast of the land mass called Poluostrov Rybachiy, a near-island thirty-five miles long connected to the mainland by a slender isthmus at the head of a narrow bay called the Motovskiy Zaliv.

Within the U.S. Marine Corps, the Marine Expeditionary Force is the largest modern deployable force, consisting of a Marine division, an aircraft wing, and an MEF Service Support Group, a total of 48,000 Marines and 2,600 naval personnel. II MEF, assembled off the Murman coast under the command of Marine Lieutenant General Ronald K. Simpson, included two LHAs, Saipan and Nassau; two LPDs, Austin and Trenton; two LPH helo carriers, Inchon and Iwo Jima; the LST Westmoreland County; the LKA cargo ship Charleston; and an escort of two Perry-class frigates, two destroyers, and the nuclear-powered guided-missile cruiser Virginia.

The Marines' first beachhead was a stretch of low-lying dunes and tundra along the headland west of the Kola Inlet. In this part of the Murman Coast, the northern tree line ran east-to-west some twenty-five miles south of the beach. North of that line, the terrain was tundra, a region of frozen subsoil with only low-growing vegetation, dwarf shrubs, and stunted birches. Cover was scant, and tactical advantage went to the side with superior mobility. In a lightning operation, CH-53E Super Stallions approached behind an aerial blitz of Marine Harriers and Intruders, touching down long enough to disgorge their loads of fifty-five troops apiece. Close on the Super Stallions' heels were the air-cushion landing craft, or LCACs, troop-and-equipment-carrying hovercraft capable of traveling twenty nautical miles at forty knots, crossing sea, surf, or the flat, often swampy ground behind the beaches with equal ease.

Following the LCACs, rising from the water like snarling, prehistoric monsters, were the Marines' AAVP7s, boxy, full-tracked armored vehicles descended from the amtracks of WWII. Each carrying twenty-one men and a crew of three, they were capable of swimming through ten-foot surf on twin water jets or surging across the land at up to forty miles per hour. The Marines wasted no time on the beach, using their speed and maneuverability to push past or over the coastal defenses and to get into the enemy's rear.

Resistance was sporadic, though in isolated spots it was fierce. Most of the defenders were KGB Border Guards and Internal Ministry MVD troops, indifferently trained and disoriented by the savagery of the aerial attacks.

Fifteen minutes after the Marines began hitting their beaches and LZs, those units were beginning to surrender in droves.

Some beach positions, however, were held by Naval Infantry, members of the 63rd Guards Kirkenneskaya Naval Infantry Regiment, with its main base in Pechenga. These troops, the Russian equivalent of U.S. Marines, put up a stiff fight, refusing to surrender and clinging to their positions with an almost fanatic tenacity.

As the fight for the beaches continued, however, additional Marines were being ferried far behind the coastline, angling in from the northwest toward naval and air bases scattered along the west banks of the Kola Inlet. Local radar sites were either in ruins or in hiding, and Marine Harriers off the Saipan and Nassau flew close-support missions that cleared corridors from the sea to the inland LZs. By late morning, Marines were fighting a hundred separate battles, from Port Vladimir to Sayda Guba.

Meanwhile, the attack aircraft of the carrier battle force, protected by Navy Tomcats, were picking up the tempo in their relentless hammering of the Kola bases.

Coyote glanced from one side of his canopy to the other, noting that the other aircraft in his flight were in position. The sky was clear, empty save for a few scattered wisps of cirrus at high altitudes. Ahead and below, skimming the barren land at three hundred feet, were three A-6 Intruders and an EA-6 Prowler, a strike force with the call sign White Lightning One.

Coyote and Cat were following at one thousand feet, in tight formation with three other Viper Squadron Tomcats flying close Tactical Combat Air Patrol, or TACCAP, on White Lightning. Their call sign that morning was Shotgun One.

Three miles to the west, Shotgun Two was covering White Lightning Two.

"Shotgun, Shotgun" sounded over Coyote's helmet phones. "This is Echo Whiskey Two-one. We're reading aircraft coming off the ground at Ura Guba.

Could be an intercept."

"Echo Whiskey, Shotgun One-one," Cat replied in the back seat. "Copy that. I've got them."

Echo Whiskey was the Hawkeye providing battle management for the White Lightning/Shotgun strike force. Ura Guba was a small town at the head of the narrow gulf south of Port Vladimir, about twenty miles to the east of their current position. There was a military base there, one that had been hit repeatedly during the past eighteen hours.

"Talk to me, Cat," Coyote said over the ICS. "Whatcha got?"

"Two contacts, Coyote, just coming up out of the ground clutter. Range eighteen miles, bearing zero-eight-five."

Coyote opened his mike to the flight's tactical frequency. "Okay, Shotgun One. You all hear that? Sound off."

"Shotgun One-two," Coyote's wingman, Mustang Davis, called. "We copy."

"Shotgun One-three," Slider Arrenberger called. "Copy."

"One-four." That was Slider's wingman for this mission, Lobo, Lieutenant Chris Hanson. "We copy." Coyote was well aware of the friction between Arrenberger and some of the women. He and Tombstone had discussed the matter at length several times over the past few days. Normally, Arrenberger flew wing with Nightmare Marinaro, but Marinaro's Tomcat, downgrudged the previous afternoon, was still down.

Both Coyote and Tombstone had been doubtful about assigning Lobo Hanson as Slider's wingman in Nightmare's place. Aviators flying wing with one another had to work closely, with an effortless and professional communication born of practice and mutual understanding, and Arrenberger, it was well known, had managed to irritate or outrage just about every woman in CVW-20.

But Tombstone had been running into problems with squadron assignments already. True, Coyote could have taken Hanson as his wing and let Mustang fly with Slider, but he and Tombstone had agreed that shuffling the rosters like that would cause more problems in the long run. Once people started getting the idea that either they or someone else was getting preferential treatment, morale would take a nose-dive, and there were troubles enough in that department already.

The only special treatment Tombstone had okayed ― and that in complete secrecy ― was to keep Lieutenants Strickland and Hanson in separate flights.

The rumor had managed to spread throughout the wing that those two were sleeping together. While there was no meat to that rumor beyond the strictly circumstantial evidence of their PDAs, both Coyote as Squadron CO and Tombstone as CAG agreed that having them in the same flight risked the cold and professional calm, the engineer's detachment valued in combat flying.

Human emotions didn't follow predictable patterns or lend themselves to graphs or flight data tables. What would happen to one if the other got into trouble? For the time being at least, Hanson would fly with Shotgun One, while Strickland was assigned as Batman's wingman in Shotgun Two.

Coyote's thoughts touched only lightly on the flight assignment problems.

Right or wrong, the decision had been made. The primary problem at the moment was those aircraft taking off from Ura Guba.

"Shotgun Two-one," Coyote called. "This is Shotgun One-one. Do you copy?"

"Affirmative One-one," Batman's voice replied. "What's the gouge?"

"How about taking the reins for both White Lightnings, Batman? We'll slide east and eyeball those bandits coming up at zero-eight-five."

"Roger that, Shotgun One. We'll mind the store."

"Shotgun One, this is One-one. On my mark, break left and go to a two-by-two dispersal. Let's see if these boys want to play."

"Roger that," Slider replied. "Let's nail us some of those sons of bitches!"

"Ready then, on three… two… one… break!"

As one, the four Tomcats stood on their port-side wings, slipping away from the Intruder flight ahead and angling off toward the east. Splitting into two groups of two, Coyote and Mustang moved high and to the north, while Slider and Lobo went low and to the south. The bandits were approaching rapidly, already at a thousand feet and coming on at better than Mach one.

"We're closing too fast to risk a Phoenix launch," Cat told Coyote. They were flying with a standard interception warload of four AIM-54s, two Sidewinders, and two AMRAAMs. "Recommend AMRAA.M."

"Rog." Though if they got much closer they'd be in knife-fighting range.

"One-one, this is One-three!" That was Arrenberger. "I've got four bandits now, repeat four. Range ten miles and still coming hot!"

"Confirmed," Cat said over the ICS. "Four bandits. Coyote, I've got a threat warning."

Coyote heard it in his headset, the thin, high warble that meant an enemy fire-control radar was painting his aircraft. "I'm switching to air-to-air mode on my HUD." Damn! Adding their speed to his, the lead target was closing at over 1,500 knots, a good half mile every second.

There was no time to think… only to act. "Mustang! Stay with me!

Going to full burner!" He rammed his throttles forward to zone five, felt the kick-in-the-seat boost of the F-14's powerful GE turbofan engines.

As he accelerated, his wings folded themselves to their sixty-eight-degree backswept configuration, and a moment later he slid smoothly through the sound barrier. "Launch! Launch!" Cat cried. "Bandits have launched!"

But by going supersonic, Coyote had unexpectedly closed the range so quickly that he was already inside the Russians' optimum range for a head-on radar lock. He saw two of the enemy fighters as they flashed past, a pair of specks against blue sky that appeared, then dwindled astern almost too quickly to follow.

Immediately, Coyote chopped back on the throttles and went into a hard left turn. The Tomcat shuddered as he yanked it into an edge-of-the-envelope angle of attack, his wings sliding out to full extension, the G-forces squashing him and Cat down into their seats with the force of six full-grown people sitting in their laps. Spots danced in front of his eyes… and then his vision started to turn gray, closing in from the sides as blood drained from his head.

He grunted hard, tensing the muscles of his legs and torso in order to keep the blood from draining from his head. The practice was properly called the M-1 maneuver, though aviators simply called it the grunt. A good grunt could lessen the effects of the turn by perhaps one G.

"Where… are… the… other… two?" he said, forcing each word out past clenched teeth.

He was taking a chance, letting the bandits get between him and the two Intruder flights, but the range had started out so tight that there'd been little else he could do. Now he was behind one of the bandit elements.

Mustang, with Walkman, his RIO, was still with him, on his right.

Then they were out of the turn and squarely on the six of the two bandits. "Mustang, this is Coyote!" he called, even as he slid the targeting box across one of the targets. "I've got the one on the left!"

"And I've got the one on the right."

A buzz sounded over his headset. "I've got tone. Fox one!"

An AMRAAM slid off the rail beneath his right wing.

Lieutenant Commander Gregory Arrenberger had gotten his handle from shipboard slang during his flight training at Pensacola. A "slider" was a hamburger, as opposed to a "roller," or hot dog. Commended by his CO for the cold-blooded precision of his formation flying, he'd replied, "Hell, sir, I'm no hotdog." The nickname Slider seemed inevitable after that, especially when connected with the "berger" in his last name.

Slider was using every bit of his engineer's precision now as he pulled his Tomcat out of a hard-right turn, tracking on the second element of Russian planes streaking through the Tomcat formation. For a moment there, tunnel vision had clamped down on him and he'd felt himself wavering at the edge of consciousness, but he'd grunted away at an M-1, forcing the blood to stay in his head… and then he'd been in the clear, lining up on one of the low-flying MiGs displayed against his HUD.

Where the hell was his wingman… wingperson, he corrected himself with a wry grin beneath his mask. Glancing left, outside the radius of his turn, he saw nothing and assumed she'd not been able to keep up with him. He had nothing against Hanson personally, of course ― she seemed like a nice kid ― but damn it, women had no business at the controls of a hot combat fighter.

"Lock! Blue Grass!" he called to his RIO. "I got tone! Fox one!"

The AMRAAM shrieked clear of the Tomcat, and Slider immediately pulled right, angling toward a second lock on the other Russian fighter.

"Pull up, Slider!" Blue Grass screamed in his ear. "Pull up!"

Instinctively he brought the stick back and eased back on the turn. A shadow blotted the light to his right, then slid beneath his aircraft.

"Jesus, Slider!" sounded over his headset. "Watch where the hell you're driving!"

Only then did Slider realize that Lobo must have stuck with him through the turn, had actually stayed inside his turn where the G-forces were higher… and he'd come a thumbnail's breadth from turning right into her.

"God damn it, Hanson!" he yelled back. "Give me some flying room, huh?"

But he knew even as he said the words that he should have checked right for his wingman as well as to the left.

"Let's stay frosty, guys." That was Lieutenant j.g. "Vader" McVey, Hanson's RIO. "I've got two more lifting up from Ura Guba."

"Okay," Slider said. "But stay off my ass, lady! No more of this welded-wing shit!"

"Affirmative." Hanson's voice was tight and cold. Had she been as shook by the near-miss as him? Or was she just mad because he'd snapped at her?

There was no figuring women. He'd apologize later. It was his fault, after all, and Arrenberger prided himself on being fair.

Ahead, the Russian aircraft Slider had fired at was climbing hard, close enough now that he could distinguish the characteristic silhouette of a MiG-29, with its widely separated engine nacelles and flared LERX, the leading-edge roof extensions over the aircraft's intake.

"He's dumping chaff," Blue Grass announced. "He's pulling an Immelmann."

"I'm on him." He hauled back on the stick, climbing rapidly to cut the Russian off at the top of his twisting, vertical maneuver. The AMRAAM was still tracking, but Slider wanted to position himself to nail the guy if he gave the air-to-air missile the slip.

"I'm going for a Sidewinder lock," Lobo said over the tactical channel.

"I've got a shot…"

"Get out of there, Lobo. He's mine!"

"Screw you, Slider. Fox two!" A white contrail seared into the sky ahead of Slider's F-14, swinging upward as it tracked the exhaust of the MiG.

"AMRAAM's been suckered, Slider," Blue Grass told him. "Miss!"

"Shit!" Glancing back over his shoulder this time to make sure he was clear, he threw his Tomcat right. He wanted to maneuver into a good position to catch the MiGs still rising from the Ura Guba air base. Lobo could have the damned Fulcrum.

In an ImmelMann, the aircraft goes into a twisting, vertical climb, dropping chaff or flares if it's trying to break a missile lock, then rolling out at the top in an unpredictable direction. The Fulcrum pilot had already lost the American's AMRAAM radar lock; now, he could see the Sidewinder coming up after him, and his next maneuver was designed to defeat that as well.

Releasing a scattering of fiercely burning flares, he rolled out of his climb coming straight back toward his attackers, deliberately swinging his twin engine exhausts away from the heat-seeking missile and throttling back at the same time.

While the AIM-9M was an all-aspect heat-seeker, its sensors were not infallible. This time they preferred the white-hot lure of burning magnesium to a target that had suddenly dwindled away to almost nothing. The Sidewinder flashed past and out of the fight, as the Fulcrum stooped from the top of its climb, diving straight toward the pair of Tomcats a mile ahead and below.

The Russian was grinning as he locked onto one of the gigantic F-14s with the huge, multi-barrelled 30mm rotary cannon mounted inside his port LERX.

The Fulcrum shuddered as the gun thundered.

Arrenberger was halfway into his turn when the tracers came searing past his cockpit, bright yellow globes of light that looked as big as grapefruit and close enough to touch.

Something hit the Tomcat in the belly hard, the thump rattling Slider's teeth.

"Christ, Slider!" Blue Grass was screaming, his voice ragged. "Get this turkey out of here!"

Turkey. Navy fliers reserved the name for the Tomcat, an aircraft that they loved, but which could betray them by its size and by its slow maneuvering compared to the more nimble MiG-29. Already into his turn, right wing high, Slider pulled the Tomcat into a barrel roll, sliding up and over the stream of tracers flashing toward him from the oncoming MiG.

Too late. The MiG pilot had already corrected for the changing angles between his aircraft and Slider's. Five more rounds slammed into the Tomcat with a rippling shudder of tortured metal, and Slider saw the flash of his starboard engine warning light.

"Shit!" He opened his mike to the tactical channel. "This is Shotgun One-three! I'm hit! I'm hit!"

Power in his starboard engine was dropping. Another burst of 30mm cannon fire smashed into his aircraft, and then Blue Grass was screaming, an inhuman screech of raw agony.

"Blue Grass! Blue Grass!"

His RIO wasn't operating the ICS switch on the cockpit floor, but his screams were loud enough for Slider to hear them anyway. "My legs!" And then his RIO was screaming again, a nightmare keening that went on and on as the MiG kept coming…