Countdown

CHAPTER 29

Lieutenant Ben Rivera balanced himself against the ragged top of the wall, staring down into the dock facility at the base of the hill. From his vantage point, at the top of a seventy-degree slope perhaps two hundred feet above the waters of Polyamyy Inlet, it looked as though a monster was sliding out of the rock beneath his feet.

Dark gray, most of its surface covered with a brickwork effect, or tiles like those on a space shuttle, it was Leviathan himself. Even before half of it had moved into the open water, Rivera knew that he must be standing directly above the entrance to one of the secret Russian submarine pens he'd been briefed on before the landing. There were supposed to be a number of caverns piercing the cliffs overlooking the tangled inlets near Polyamyy, each sheltering some of Russia's most powerful boomers, and by chance he'd been dropped right on top of one.

That monster sliding into the inlet was as long as forever! A Typhoon ballistic-missile sub, it had to be! Nothing else could be so huge. As Rivera watched, that long, long forward deck continued to slide out from beneath the rocks, its upper surface showing the sharply chiseled grooves of two rows of missile hatches down the forward deck.

And… most merciful God in heaven… one of those hatches was open!

Rivera nearly lost his hold on the wall as he found himself staring down into the gaping hatch, meeting the gaze of the round, white eye of an SS-N-20 ICBM peering back from its depths.

"Larson!" He scrambled back from the edge of the cliff, the spell of awe and surprise that had pinned him there broken at last. "Gunny!"

The Typhoon's sail slid into view, and then the afterdeck, shorter by far than the forward missile deck. The rudder had the span of an A-6, and that broad, flattened, eighty-two-foot beam that made it look as fat as an aircraft carrier. Hell, with an LOA of 557 feet, it was two thirds the length overall of the Nassau, well over half the length of the Jefferson or the Eisenhower.

Larson handed him the radio phone, and he clutched it to his head with a trembling hand.

"King Three! King Three!" he called. "This is White Knight Five!

Over!"

There was no immediate answer.

"King Three! This is White Knight. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, answer me!"

"Red Hammer, Red Hammer," the Intruder flight leader called. "This is Red Hammer One-one. Target change. We have a new target request from Marine Air Control."

"Red Hammer One-three, we copy," Willis said. Then, "God, what do they want now?"

"Probably another truck park," Sunshine replied. "Shit, you'd think they'd find something interesting for us to clobber once in a while."

But as Willis listened to the new instructions from One-one, he realized that this target was nothing if not interesting.

It was almost damned dangerous. He brought the aircraft slightly to the right, carefully studying the panorama of mountains and water unfolding ahead.

"Hit!" Tombstone yelled. "Splash that MiG!"

"Watch it, Tombstone!" Tomboy called from the back seat. "Two are coming around behind us!"

"I see 'em! Hold on!" He jinked right, then rolled to the left, sending the F-14 into a high, floating barrel roll that took him up and out of the two Fulcrums' aim. The sky was filled with aircraft, all of them Fulcrums, it seemed. Ahead, there was a flash and an angry puff of orange disgorging a burning meteor plunging toward the waters of the Kola Inlet. Their second AMRAAM had scored.

"That's two… oof!" his RIO said as Tombstone kicked in his afterburners in a hard, tight turn pulling out of the barrel roll. The two MiGs on their tail had just flashed past on the left, then split apart, one cutting to the left, the other toward the right, almost directly in front of the Tomcat. Tombstone started to follow, then abruptly pulled back and swung left again, letting the F-14 drop a thousand feet toward the water.

"Hey, CAG!" Tomboy called. "What… are you feeling generous? You had a great setup there. Why'd you let him go?"

"Take a look up ahead!"

Red Hammer, the A-6 flight, had split up their original tight formation, but each aircraft was maintaining speed and altitude, already into the beginning of their approach run. A Fulcrum coming in from the south had spotted them, wheeled about, and dropped onto the six of one of the Intruders.

And Tombstone was bearing down on the six of the Fulcrum.

"I'm going to Sidewinder," he called. "I've got a good shot here, right up his tail."

He let the Sidewinder glimpse the MiG's hot tail pipes, then squeezed the trigger. "Fox two!"

"We've got another one behind us, Stoney. No, make that two!"

"How long till the cavalry gets here?"

"They're coming. Another thirty seconds. Threat warning! They have a lock!"

Tombstone pulled up violently, dumping chaff into his slipstream as he climbed.

He needed to cover Red Hammer's tail while they made their attack, at least until Coyote and the others arrived. Right now, though, the chances of Tomcat 200 surviving those next thirty seconds were not very good at all.

The Intruder rocked violently, and Willis had to pull the nose up slightly to steady it.

"What the hell was that?" Sunshine asked, her face still buried in her scope.

"Fulcrum on our tail," Willis said, glancing back over his shoulder.

"Someone just took it out with a heat-seeker up the ass."

"Rog. Thirty seconds!"

Eight hundred feet.

"On manual." The target, according to the Marine air controller who'd fed the data to Red Hammer, was moving… and surrounded by numerous other targets. Willis wasn't going to trust the computer on this one. At his side, Sunshine was flipping rapidly back and forth between search radar and FLIR mode; if his own system crashed or if he became disoriented, she would be able to keep him on track.

Seven hundred feet…

The radar homer sliced past to the right, seduced by Tombstone's chaff and Tomboy's vigorous ECM jamming. Now tracer rounds slashed past their canopy, high and leading the Tomcat by a good hundred yards. Tombstone hit the F-14's air brakes and pulled the nose up sharply. Floating at the ragged edge of a stall, the Tomcat slewed to the right just as the Fulcrum, surprised by Tombstone's maneuver, flashed past, so close that Tombstone could read the regimental markings on the other plane's fuselage.

"Guns!" he snapped, and the HUD shifted to gun mode just as the MiG started a hard, climbing turn to port. The maneuver spoiled Tombstone's shot.

He was now in what was called a lag pursuit, behind his opponent but with his nose aiming to the rear of the other aircraft instead of leading it. As the MiG continued his left-hand turn, Tombstone decided to counter with a low yo-yo, going briefly to afterburners and diving to the left, picking up speed as he cut beneath the Fulcrum's track, then pulling up hard, coming out of his dive just after the MiG passed overhead. He kept his eyes on the other plane as it passed overhead; a sharp opponent would ease his turn, then plunge on the other plane from above ― the preferred counter to a low yo-yo ― but it looked like the MiG's pilot had lost sight of the Tomcat. Yes! He was holding his turn, angling back toward the Intruders. Tombstone brought the Tomcat up, using gravity to kill his speed, sliding neatly onto the MiG's tail at point-blank range, less than four hundred feet behind him.

Tombstone squeezed the trigger and the Tomcat's M61 cannon thundered, yellow tracers floating across the gap between MiG and F-14. For a moment, the MiG absorbed those globes of light, holding course, lining up with an Intruder just ahead and below… and then Tombstone saw bits of metal flaking off and a shimmering haze spilling from the Fulcrum.

Then they were past, the MiG sliding off to the left.

"He's smoking," Tomboy told him as he brought the F-14's nose up. "He's going down. He's ejected!"

"Tomcat Two-oh-oh, this is Shotgun One-one. Nice shooting, Stoney!"

"Coyote! It's about time you got here!"

"Thought you would hog all the fun for yourself, did you?" Batman's voice chimed in.

"Just like these superCAG types," a woman's voice added. "Always grabbing the glory for himself!"

"Roger that, Brewer. Heads up! Bandits at two o'clock high!"

"tombstone!" Coyote called. "Watch it! You've got two coming around on your six!"

"Never mind us," Tombstone replied. "Just help me keep those MiGs off the Intruders!"

"There! Target acquired," Sunshine said. "Come left two degrees. Range one mile."

Another seven seconds. Excitement pounded in his breast, and he could hear the mingled rasps of both his and Sunshine's breathing over the ICS.

Damn, they were using the O. His own pucker factor was damned high, fifty psi at least; he figured the lip-lock he had on his seat right now would keep him anchored against a minus-five G outside loop. Sunshine sounded as cool and as hard as the ice clinging to the hillsides flashing past either side of the hurtling A-6. On his VDI, his bomb-release marker slid rapidly down his course line.

Five hundred feet…

Leninskiy Nesokrushimyy Pravda was well clear of the submarine docking area outside of the cavern, slipping easily through oily water into the main Polyamyy channel.

"Helm," Chelyag said. "Come left five degrees. Make revolutions for ten knots."

"Comrade Captain!" the radar officer called from his console. "Enemy aircraft, approaching from the north!"

So much for Karelin's promises. "Maintain course," he said, keeping his voice as calm as ice. "Weapons officer, stand by to fire missile number one."

"Missile one ready, Comrade Captain."

"Fire number one!"

Willis could see the target now, a Typhoon ballistic-missile sub just sliding clear of the moles sheltering a Russian submarine base. It had turned its huge, blunt nose toward the north, toward him, giving him a narrower target than he'd hoped for.

But the thing was still over five hundred feet long, a target almost indecently difficult to miss.

Triple-A filled the sky, rocking the Intruder violently. Something struck the plane's nose, but he held the stick steady. A little bit more…

The release pipper hit the bottom of the screen, and Willis squeezed the pickle. Five-hundred-pound bombs bump-bump-bumped clear of the Intruder's belly, spilling into the air in a deadly rain.

Rivera had a perfect view of the attack, the huge Ballistic-missile sub turning ponderously into the Polyamyy channel, the Intruder sweeping down from the north through a sky suddenly crowded with antiaircraft and missile fire.

Bombs cascaded from the A-6's belly. One… two… three struck the water close alongside of the Typhoon's nose, raising towering gouts of water that cascaded back across the submarine's deck in a white avalanche. Then a five-hundred-pound bomb struck the Typhoon's sail squarely where its rounded foot met the forward deck. The detonation erupted in an orange fireball that preceded the sound of the explosion by several seconds… then another bomb struck, and another, opening a gash in the Typhoon's flank next to the sail and peeling back the outer hull like a flat slab of clay. More detonations in the water… and another on target, this one far aft, close by the wing-like thrust of the huge fin. Thunder echoed back from the far hills.

A final, cataclysmic blast, this one from the open hatch just in front of the torn-open sail. White flame gouted straight up into the air as though bursting from the throat of an exploding volcano.

Secondaries! Rivera thought. Something had touched off the missile's solid-fuel core- Oh, Blessed Virgin Mary, the missile must have already been fired when the first bomb hit, rupturing the ICBM's hull, or maybe a five-hundred-pounder had dropped right down the open hatch.

The explosion engulfed half of the Typhoon, rupturing its double hull, flinging burning debris hundreds of feet into the air. The shock wave raced out across the water and surged against the base of the cliff. The sound struck Rivera, an impact that staggered him back a step and sucked the wind from his lungs. Another blast, this one farther forward as another missile ruptured and exploded. For a terrified instant, Rivera wondered if a nuke had been set off, but the multiple explosions were nothing more than the violent detonation of SS-N-20 solid-fuel cores.

Flames raced out across the surface of the water.

"Wheeee-oh!" Sunshine called, and her gloved left hand slapped down hard on Willis's thigh. "Way to go! Way to go!"

The Intruder lurched again and Willis barely recovered. Glancing quickly back over his left shoulder, he saw the entire breadth of the Polyamyy Inlet filled with orange fire.

The RAW light flashed ― the Radar Acquisition Warning. "We're being tracked."

"Do you see it?"

"Negative! I can't see a damned thing but explosions!"

"Dump chaff!"

In the last instant, Willis saw the missile, streaking up from the forward deck of an Udaloy destroyer moored across from Polyamyy. He pulled the stick to the left as hard as it would go…

The explosion slammed the Intruder in the right side with a roar like thunder. The canopy beside Sunshine's head crazed to a frosty white, and a roaring sound filled the cockpit. Sunshine slumped to the left, her helmet thumping against Willis's arm. Blood sprayed across Willis, scarlet droplets splattering his windshield, his instruments, and his flight suit.

"Sunshine!" he yelled, half turning, trying to support her while continuing to fly the Intruder. "Sunshine!"

Batman saw the SAM from the destroyer detonate alongside the Intruder, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. He'd plunged into the furball and taken down two MiGs in quick succession, but then a Fulcrum had dropped out of the sky like a hawk with talons extended. Tracers drifted past the left side of his canopy and he jinked right, then jinked left again, unable to break the MiG's lock on his tail.

"Two-one" sounded in his headset. "This is Two-three!"

"Brewer! Where are you? I can't shake this guy!"

"I'm on him! When I tell you, break right!"

Batman winced at the thud-thud-thud of a trio of shells slamming into his fuselage. "Do it! Do it!"

"Three… two… one… break!"

Brewer had been angling for a clear shot with her last Sidewinder missile, but the MiG had been riding so hard on Batman's tail she couldn't get a clear shot, one that would nail the Russian without accidentally locking onto Batman's engines. When he broke hard right, however, he slipped clear of her targeting pipper and the AIM-9M system signaled a lock on the MiG.

"Fox two!"

The Fulcrum was already into its starboard turn, still dogging Batman, when the missile slammed into its right engine and detonated. Flame spilled from the MiG's tail… and then the Russian's fuel tanks detonated into blossoming orange flame.

"Great shot, Brewer!" Batman called.

"That makes the score six-to-six, dead even, Batman!"

"Listen, babe! After that shot, we concede. Right, Malibu?"

"That's affirmative," Malibu agreed. "Beer and dinner're on us!"

She laughed. "Who're you calling 'babe,' fella?"

"Anyone who handles a Tomcat like that is one hot babe. Where's Stoney?"

"I got him," Pogie said. "One-eight-five at angels one. He's got troubles."

"Let's help him! Two-one's in!"

"Two-three," Brewer added. "We're in!"

A Fulcrum had dropped in behind Tombstone for a high, plunging attack.

He'd countered by pulling into a steep climb, rolling left. Inverted now, he looked down through the top of his canopy at the Russian plane passing beneath. Damn! Now it was climbing, rolling into a maneuver identical to his.

Rolling out over the top of his climb, Tombstone tried to line up a hasty shot with his guns, but the MiG pilot had already broken into his own climb, forcing Tombstone to overshoot and pass cockpit-to-cockpit beneath the rolling Fulcrum.

The two aircraft were now locked in a deadly maneuver called a rolling vertical scissors, each plane in turn trying to line up on the other, only to have the target evade its diving approach with an inverted roll. Each repeat of the maneuver cost both fighters airspeed and altitude. The altitude ladder on Tombstone's HUD showed seven hundred feet now, and still the two aircraft were rolling around one another, each trying for the upper ― and final ― hand, neither able to disengage without giving the other an immediate advantage.

"Stoney!" Tomboy warned. "Watch your altitude!"

"I see it!"

They'd just plain run out of sky. A mountain, black rock patched with ice and snow, loomed ahead and Tombstone cut left and high to clear it. The MiG-29 tried to copy the maneuver, pulling nose high…

… and slammed into the cliff.

"Way to go, CAG!" Tomboy yelled.

Tombstone rolled out, afterburners thundering, fighting for altitude…

… and then the Tomcat's left wing disintegrated in a blaze of fire.

The shock was so sudden, so unexpected, that it took a moment for Tombstone to realize what had happened. Another MiG had been hanging back throughout those repeated vertical scissors, waiting for a chance to fire, and when Tombstone had broken left, he'd given the guy a perfect shot with a heatseeking AA-8 Aphid.

The crippled Tomcat, still climbing, went into a gentle roll, streaming flame. "That's it, Tomboy!" he called to his RIO. "We're punching out!"

"Go! Go!"

"Eject!" He yanked on the ring. The canopy blew away, filling his universe with roaring, thundering wind. Then the thunder of his ejection seat rocket drowned even that, and he was hurtling out into chill, empty sky.

The snow-patched Russian tundra spun crazily about Tombstone's head.