Flame Out

CHAPTER 14

“Sonobuoy away. Come right to three-five-zero.”

Magruder banked the Viking in response to Lieutenant Commander Meade’s order, trying to get the feel of the aircraft’s controls. The S-3B’s handling was entirely unlike a Tomcat’s. Both were responsive and graceful in flight, but where the F-14 was a sleek racehorse the Viking was more of a predatory bird, swooping low over the water on outstretched wings. Today Tombstone was having less trouble with the technical end of flying the plane — he knew the layout of the controls now, and was less awkward in making the aircraft do what he wanted — but he was still finding it hard to adjust to the difference in style and pace. In a Tomcat slow loitering and circling were anathema. Aboard the Viking everything went at a slower pace.

“Contact! Contact!” Curtis chanted. “Jezebel five is hot.”

“I’ll take her, Commander,” Harrison announced from the pilot’s seat. He put his hands on the yoke. “I have control, sir,” he added formally, but with a sidelong grin at Magruder.

His reply was just as formal. “I relinquish control, sir,” he said, feeling relieved. For a moment he’d been afraid the ASW men would require him to handle the Viking all the way through. Right now he preferred the job of observer.

“Punching in new coordinates now,” Meade said. “Jezebel five is at bearing one-two-four, range twenty-five.”

“One-two-four, range twenty-five,” Harrison echoed. He looked at Magruder. “Always best to know the target even if the computer is supposed to steer you,” he said.

Tombstone nodded. “So is this an attack run?”

Over the ICS, Meade laughed. “Hell, no. Jezebel five is one of the omni-directional sonobuoys we’ve been laying. An SSQ-41. They use passive sonar sensors to pick up underwater noise.” He chuckled again. “Nope, the fun is just getting started, Commander. We know about where the bad guys might be, but now we’ve gotta find the bastards.”

“And of course while we’re closing in they’re still moving,” Harrison added. “That means the area we have to cover as we hunt gets larger as time passes. We’ve got a nice long time to go before we start shooting at anything.”

Magruder settled back into his seat, trying not to betray his disappointment. It looked like it would be a long, boring morning.

“Vampires! Vampires! Missiles inbound!”

Major Peter Kelso could feel the tension thick within the command center. “What’s the status on the runways?”

“Four Eagles to go, sir,” someone said. “Then the Orions.”

“Damn,” he muttered to himself. “Not fast enough. Damn!” Each passing second brought a wave of missiles closer and closer to the air base. Outside, klaxons continued to blare warning, but everyone he could see on the field below was staying at his post, trying to get those last few airplanes off the ground.

“Christ Almighty, will you look at that!” someone yelled. “Captain Blackwell just nailed two of the vampires with Sparrows!” That raised a cheer in the room, though everyone, from Kelso down to the greenest enlisted man, knew that taking out only two missiles from that swarm was about as effective as trying to bail out a sinking battleship with a spoon. “He’s closing in … what the hell?” The controller paused. “Blackwell got another one … I think he rammed it.”

The room grew quiet for a moment before someone else broke the stillness. “They’re tipping over.”

Far above Keflavik the missiles were reaching their maximum altitude and starting their descent toward their targets. “Kill the radars,” Kelso ordered. “Now!”

It was a long shot, but it might confuse the missiles enough to keep a few of Keflavik’s radar installations intact. If they were radar-homers …

The first missile hit at that moment, striking near the far end of runway two with a flash of light and an upwelling cloud of smoke and debris. The sound didn’t come for several more seconds. By then more missiles were hitting, and the popping, rumbling, tearing sounds of successive blasts merged into a single cacophony of sound.

Kelso felt rather than saw the blast that struck to the south of the building. It was a close hit, and sound and pressure rolled through Air Ops like a giant hand sweeping aside all it encountered. The force of the explosion knocked him off his feet.

An unknown amount of time later — seconds? minutes? Kelso realized he was lying facedown on the hard floor.

There were shards of glass everywhere like a shimmering blanket. A radio was squawking a request from one of the Eagles, but no one answered. The rumble of missile hits went on.

Kelso struggled to rise, but his body wouldn’t obey his will. Something warm and sticky soaked the front of his uniform.

Slowly it dawned on him that it was blood, but by then it was too late for Major Peter Kelso.

The catapult officer dropped to one knee and a tremendous force pressed Stramaglia back into his seat as the F-14 roared off the deck. As the Tomcat clawed its way skyward he hit the radio switch. “Good shot! Good shot! Tomcat Two-zero-zero, Good shot!”

“Squadron’s formed up at Point Bravo, sir,” his RIO said. Lieutenant Dennis Russell was Viper Squadron’s apprentice Landing Signals Officer, but he’d been pressed into service in his old calling as an RIO to fly with Stramaglia. His running name, true to his new job, was “Paddles.”

“Lancelot Two-zero-zero, this is Camelot,” a voice said over the radio. He recognized Owens, the Junior Deputy CAG who had relieved him in CIC. “Be advised, Keflavik has been attacked by Soviet Badgers carrying Alpha Sierra Six radar-homing missiles. Red Raid One still heading course two-eight-zero.”

“Copy, Camelot,” he replied curtly.

Keflavik …

The course of the Russian Backfires, designated Red Raid One on Jefferson’s plotting boards, suggested that they were also heading for Iceland. That would make sense if they were designed to be the second half of a one-two punch, with the Badgers delivering antiradar missiles designed to neutralize the defenses and the Backfires coming in to clean up what was left. Backfires could carry either missiles or bomb racks, and were capable of delivering enough ordnance, including specialized loads like the five-hundred-pound BETAB retarded antirunway bomb, the Russian equivalent to NATO’s Durandal, to wipe out the main American base in Iceland beyond all possibility of quick repair. That could have devastating effects. Iceland was the only possible staging point for reinforcements while England remained on the fence, and the P-3C sub-hunting patrols out of Keflavik were vital in sealing off those parts of the GIUK gap out of range of the carrier-based S-3s.

It had taken balls for the Russian commander to order the Backfires to swing so far south before striking out for Iceland, Stramaglia told himself with a grim smile. They’d kept the American forces off balance by threatening multiple targets — Bergen, the battle group, and Keflavik all at once — but they had also exposed those Backfires to a quick stroke that could blunt their attack … if the Tomcats could get there in time.

“Camelot, Lancelot Leader,” he transmitted. “I want both Hornet squadrons prepped for air-to-air ASAP. Get ‘em up and feed ‘em in as quick as you can, boys. We’re going to bite those Russkies right on the ass!”

“Roger, Leader,” Owens replied. Stramaglia could hear the excitement in his young voice and felt his resolve waver. After everything he had said to Magruder he had still elected to join the interceptors in the air. Had it been the right decision? Or had he just let the years of frustration and bitterness get to him at last?

No. They needed a firm hand up here, and Commander Grant still hadn’t shown Stramaglia that he knew how to apply that firm hand.

And he was Stinger Stramaglia, who had never been defeated at Top Gun, finally doing for real what he’d practiced for over the course of nearly a decade.

“All right, Paddles,” he said to the RIO. “Talk to me, son. Where’s the party?”

The Tomcat streaked northward through the cold gray sky.

“So what happens now?” Magruder asked as a thud from the rear of the plane announced the deployment of another sonobuoy.

From his position in the right rear seat, Meade answered in a distracted tone. “Now we hunt. We just dropped a DICASS, an SSQ-62. Instead of the Jezebel’s passive sonar the DICASS will send out active pings on command. We’ve got to lay several of the suckers so we can triangulate range and bearing data and locate our underwater friend.” He paused. “The Skipper has the next set of coordinates locked into the flight computer now, and Curtis is busy working on the acoustic data from the Jezebel.”

“Anything I can do?” Tombstone asked.

“Now that you mention it, yeah. Keep an eye on the non-acoustic sensors. We ran over them yesterday, remember?”

“Yeah.” Magruder found the panel and nodded even though the TACCO couldn’t see him. “Yeah, I’ve got ‘em.”

“Good. Keep a close watch on the MAD. It’ll pick up a sub by detecting the metal in its hull … if we get close enough, and if it isn’t one of those new titanium hulls the Russkies have been playing with. Anything registers on the MAD and you sing out, Commander. Okay?”

“I think I can handle it,” Tombstone said.

Curtis spoke up from the left rear Senso position. “I make the contact a Victor III. Number five, I think, but I’m not positive. The signal’s a little bit confused.”

“Confused?” Meade asked.

“Yeah … I don’t know, sir, there might be more than one engine making the noise down there, but it’s intermittent. I thought I heard two boats for a while, then only one.”

“SOSUS reported possible multiples,” Harrison reminded them. “But you’re sure about the ID, Curtis?”

“Wouldn’t swear to the specific boat, sir, but the sounds I heard were a Victor III all right.”

“I’m tagging it on the tactical plot,” Meade said. “Curtis, pass the data back to the Jeff over the Link-II.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the enlisted man replied.

Magruder was still unfamiliar with many of the more arcane aspects of sub-hunting, but he remembered that the Link-II was the on-board Navy Tactical Data System which kept track of the ships, aircraft, buoys, and submarines in a given area. It could be monitored by the ships of the battle group. The Senso and TACCO shared the responsibility of keeping the NTDS data current and sending it off to the ASW module in Jefferson’s CIC.

“What’s the nearest help we can tap, Spock?” Harrison asked.

Meade didn’t answer immediately. “Hmmm … Gridley’s closest,” he said at last.

Harrison glanced across the cockpit at Magruder. “Commander, get on the horn to the Jeff and ask ASW if we can get a little help from the Gridley. A LAMPS helo would be a big help tracking down that sucker.”

“And the frigate’s towed array’ll spot anything trying to break out to the southeast,” Meade added. “That’ll keep the bastards from getting any closer to the battle group.”

Magruder keyed in the radio and passed the request to the Jefferson.

“Viking Seven-oh-four, this is Guenevere,” Lieutenant Nelson’s voice came back. “Request acknowledged. Wait one.”

Seconds ticked by as the Viking continued its low-level flight barely two hundred feet above the ocean. Magruder heard another sonobuoy launch, and the S-3B banked left to take up a new heading.

“Viking Seven-oh-four thanks you, Guenevere!” the radio announced. “Switch to Channel Five. Call sign is Jericho, repeat Jericho.”

“Guenevere, Seven-oh-four thanks you,” Magruder said. He switched frequencies to establish contact with the Gridley. “Jericho, Jericho, this is Viking Seven-oh-four.”

“Seven-oh-four, Jericho. Copy you five by five. We’re readying you a helo now. Call sign will be Trumpet. ETA your position is thirty Mikes, repeat thirty Mikes.”

“Roger that, Jericho,” Tombstone responded. He was disappointed at the long delay, still reacting with the instincts of a fighter pilot to whom thirty seconds, not thirty minutes, was considered a long time. But Harrison didn’t look concerned. “We’ll be in touch. Seven-oh-four is clear.”

“Got something on DICASS two, sir,” Curtis announced. “Same signature … bearing from buoy is one-eight-one …”

“Range?” Meade demanded.

“Close … damned close …”

Magruder saw the MAD indicator register a contact. “MAD is active!” he said sharply. “MAD active!”

“Christ!” Harrison said. “We’re right on top of the guy!

“Got a line from buoy one now,” Curtis said.

“That’s our boy!” Meade said. “Triangulating now.”

“Course is one-seven-five degrees, speed ten, depth two-one-five,” Curtis reported.

“Range is eight hundred yards,” Meade added a second later. “Man, what a break!”

“We’ve hooked him,” Harrison said. “But we’ve still gotta nail him. I’ll circle in for an attack run.”

“Better hurry, Skipper,” Curtis said. “The pings’ve spooked him. I’m getting changes in speed, target aspect … sounds like he’s diving, too. Updating …”

“Dropping a fish,” Harrison announced. “Bay doors opening.”

Magruder felt rather than heard the grinding sound of the bomb bay opening to expose its lethal cargo. The S-3’s internal bay held four Mark 50 lightweight torpedoes, specifically designed for the Navy’s ASW aircraft. As he heard the sound of the release mechanism dropping one of the torpedoes Magruder could imagine it falling, its parachute deploying to slow the weapon’s fall. When it hit the water the torpedo would start its own hunt with an on-board sonar system.

“Torpedo running,” Meade announced. “I think we have acquisition.”

Magruder closed his eyes. The detached air of the Viking’s crew seemed unreal to him. Down below the aircraft the torpedo was closing on the Soviet submarine at a speed of over fifty knots, yet the matter-of-fact voices in the S-3 cabin might have been discussing sports scores for all the emotion they expressed. This was a new kind of war for Tombstone Magruder. A war he wasn’t sure he’d ever really understand.

“Help me out, John-Boy,” Coyote said, trying to keep the edge of tension out of his voice. “Come on, man, you’ve got to have something for me!”

Viper Squadron was spread out in a loose formation, angling north and west at fifteen thousand feet. The carrier was far behind them now, the Russian bombers somewhere ahead and down on the deck. It was clear now that they were heading for the coast of Iceland and not the Jefferson’s battle group, but that didn’t diminish the threat they posed. They could still double back.

And right now spotting the enemy was no easy task.

“This jamming’s just too damned thick, Coyote,” Nichols complained. “All I’m getting is fuzz.”

“Well, keep on it,” Coyote snapped.

He regretted his tone at once. He was letting things get to him again, losing control of his temper. That, he thought bitterly, was a sure way to get shot out of the sky. All other things being equal, it was the aviator who kept his cool and made the fewest mistakes who got home in one piece.

But today he couldn’t seem to keep a tight rein on his feelings. There was no one cause, no one solution, and that was the real problem. Too many emotions were distracting him.

There was fear, of course. No carrier pilot left the flight deck without knowing fear, no matter what sort of facade they presented to the outside world. In a combat situation, as in a night landing, the “pucker factor” was that much worse, but it was something an aviator learned to handle. Coyote had probably come closer to death than anyone in the squadron. He’d been shot down in the Sea of Japan, and had cradled his dead RIO in his arms as he awaited the SAR helo that never showed up. The North Koreans had threatened him with execution, and wounded him in the leg during an escape attempt. And there had been plenty of tight moments in the skies over the Indian Ocean as well.

Coyote could have dealt with the fear alone. But today there were other things on his mind. The confrontation with Magruder, for instance … and the close scrutiny he felt from CAG. The captain seemed determined to find fault with Viper Squadron and its commanding officer, and the extra pressure to perform was the last thing Coyote needed right now. And on top of that Stramaglia was flying as his wingman, and that worried him. The man was a brilliant instructor and a natural fighter jock, but he’d never heard a shot fired in anger in his entire Navy career. Two years behind a Pentagon desk had changed Matt Magruder. What had nearly a decade ashore done to Stramaglia?

Too many worries … too many distractions. Coyote knew what that could do to a pilot. He remembered his first time back up in a Tomcat after the North Korean incident, when the memory of being shot down and captured, the fear of losing Julie, had been overwhelming. The same kind of uncertainty gripped him now.

“Hey, dudes, I got something!” Malibu’s cheerful voice roused him from his reverie. “Bearing three-four-five multiple targets! Multiple targets!”

“Three-four-five …” he heard Nichols muttering over the ICS. “Where …? Yeah! I got ‘em, Skipper! Got ‘em! It’s faint with all this clutter, but I got bogies on the screen!”

Over the radio Coyote heard Stramaglia’s growl. “Tighten up and go to afterburner. This is the real thing!”

“Range is one-for-oh, closing,” Nichols reported. “Angels one.”

“What’s the count?” Coyote asked as he shoved the throttles forward.

“Can’t tell … damn this shit!”

“Easy, John-Boy,” he said with a steady voice that belied his own inner turmoil. Everyone was on edge, not just him. This time there was none of the uncertainty they had felt the day of the Bear hunt, but knowing the score didn’t necessarily make things any easier. The Soviets were far more capable opponents than Libyans or Iraqis or North Koreans.

“Range one-twenty,” someone said on the radio.

“All right, weapons are free,” Stramaglia said. “Let’s get some use out of the Phoenix today.”

Coyote already had his selector switch set to launch the AIM-54 Phoenix. It was the Navy’s longest-ranged air-to-air missile, capable of reaching out and knocking down a target over a hundred nautical miles away. The Tomcat had been specifically designed to carry Phoenix, using the sophisticated AWG-9 radar/fire-control system. Each aircraft in Viper squadron carried four of the deadly missiles plus two Sidewinders for close-in attacks. Given the high success rate of the Phoenix — eighty-five-percent accuracy was the usual figure — the squadron stood a good chance of knocking out most, even all of the Soviet bombers they had detected earlier.

If only they could be sure of the enemy numbers now. The intense jamming could have covered a group breaking off from the main body.

“All right, boys, show ‘em what you’ve got!” Stramaglia said over the radio. “Fight’s on!” That was the traditional call to Top Gun students announcing the beginning of an exercise.

“Got a lock!” Nichols said. “Got a lock!”

Coyote’s finger tightened on the fire control, and a Phoenix leapt from the Tomcat’s wing with a roar of flame and thunder.