Viper Strike

CHAPTER 1

The U.S. S. Thomas Jefferson, CVN-74, surged ahead through gentle seas.

Her flight deck was a confusion of urgent motion as men in bright color-coded jerseys made ready to hurl two forty-million-dollar aircraft into the sky.

In the cockpit of an F-14D Tomcat perched on the carrier's Number One catapult, Lieutenant Commander Matthew Magruder, call sign "Tombstone," made a final check of his aircraft's systems, his eyes sweeping the gauges and dials of the F-14D's instrument console for any sign of failure or malfunction.

Turning in his ejection seat and glancing back over his shoulder, he could see the ready light showing yellow high on the island superstructure of the carrier.

Off the starboard side of his aircraft, he could see the bow catapult officer, wearing a yellow jersey and the bulbous radio headgear known as Mickey Mouse ears, cycling his hand vigorously over his head. Tombstone pushed the twin throttles under his left hand forward, feeling the Tomcat shudder under the twin-engine onslaught of raw noise and power. Glancing aft once more, he saw the air above the deck shimmering with the heat of his jet wash boiling up from the erect shield of Catapult One's Jet Blast Deflector.

The island's ready light winked to green. They were cleared for launch.

"All set back there?" he asked.

"Ready to go, Mr. Magruder," his RIO said over the Tomcat's intercom.

Lieutenant j.g. Jerry "Dixie" Dixon was Tombstone's Radar Intercept Officer, his backseater for this flight.

To port and aft, a second pate gray Tomcat crouched on Catapult Three, trembling as its pilot throttled up. The modex numbers stenciled on the plane's nose read 232, while the tail displayed the red snake device of Squadron VF-95, the Vipers. The two aircraft would be launching together.

Tombstone faced starboard again and casually tossed a two-fingered salute to the bow catapult officer, informing the deck crew that he was ready for launch. The cat officer looked left and right, checking first with the bow safety observer, who was standing at his station, arm out, thumb extended into the air, then with the sailor at the bow catapult control console, and finally checking for one last time that the Tomcat and the catapult slot running forward were both clear. Only then did he return Tombstone's salute, twist gracefully to the side with his right hand pointing forward off the bow, then drop to one knee and touch the deck.

Below the flight deck, steam exploded against the catapult pistons, and the cat shuttle attached to the aircraft's nose-wheel whipped forward, dragging the F-14 with it in billowing clouds of white vapor.

The jolt flattened Tombstone against his seat. Acceleration pressed his eyes back in his head and squeezed the breath from his body. There was a sharp rattle of steel wheels and a rushing blur of motion as the plane hurtled forward, passing 180 miles per hour in less than three seconds. For one instant the F-14 hung suspended in midair, just off the carrier's bow, and then the wings bit air. Tombstone's left hand punched the gear handle, then he trimmed the ship and brought the stick back, pulling the Tomcat up in a ten-degree climb.

"Tomcat Two-oh-one, good shot," he said, letting the carrier know the cat had delivered power enough to get him safely airborne.

"Two-three-two, good shot," said a voice a moment later.

The second plane was aloft as well. Tombstone pulled back on the throttle until his wingman could catch up. Side by side now, the two aircraft continued to climb, angling toward a patchy ceiling of broken clouds against blue sky.

"We copy, Sharpshooter," the voice of the carrier's Air Boss said over Tombstone's earphones. "Have a good one."

"Rog." Tombstone clicked frequencies on his comm select panel.

"Sharpshooter Two, this is Leader. How do you read, over?"

"Loud and clear, Stoney." His wingman was Lieutenant E.E. Wayne, better known as Batman to the rest of Squadron VF-95. "Looks like we're CAVU clear to Bangkok."

Tombstone looked to port. Tomcat 232 was holding position just off his left wing. He saw the helmeted heads of Batman and his RIO, Lieutenant Ken "Malibu" Blake, facing him. Batman gave him a cocky thumbs-up.

"Ay-firmative," Tombstone agreed. Ceiling and visibility unlimited. It was a glorious day for flying. "Next stop, ladies and gentlemen, exotic Thailand…"

The two F-14s continued to climb until they reached twenty thousand feet.

Scattered clouds spread out below them, cast into sharp relief by their own shadows against the ocean. At three hundred knots ― about three hundred forty-five miles per hour ― the Tomcat's variable-sweep wings automatically swung back until the aircraft looked like a pair of broad, gray arrowheads hurtling through the blue glory of the sky. The Thomas Jefferson, a floating combination of airport and city with six thousand men living under her four-acre roof, dwindled astern until she was lost against the endless sea.

"Sharpshooter Leader, this is Homeplate." Tombstone recognized the voice in his headphones as that of Commander Stephen Marusko, known as CAG for Commander Air Group. "Homeplate" was the call sign designation for the Jefferson.

"Sharpshooter. Go ahead, Homeplate."

"Just a reminder, people," CAG said. "Mind the ROES."

ROEs stood for Rules of Engagement, and these had been meticulously listed and discussed during the preflight briefing that morning. Jefferson's air wing was flying in support of the Royal That Air Force, a mission which would carry them over a combat zone. They'd been emphatically warned, however, not to become involved in combat. The ROEs for the op established a hard deck of ten thousand feet, a lower limit below which they were not allowed to fly, and established a shoot-only-when-shot-at protocol that required an order from the carrier for weapons release.

That would hardly be a problem. So far, the guerrilla forces fighting the That army and air units were armed with nothing more threatening to aircraft than SA-7 Grails, the shoulder-launched missiles which explained the hard deck rule. Sharpshooter's op plan called for a rendezvous with one of Jefferson's KA-6D tankers north of Bangkok for refueling, after which they were to proceed to the area north of Chiang Mai. Two of Jefferson's Tomcats were already flying cover for That aircraft, though they'd been ordered to stay out of any actual combat. It was thought that the mere presence of American carrier aircraft would reassure the Thais of U.S. commitment to their ally.

So far, everything had gone smoothly since the first patrol had been launched at 0600 that morning.

"Copy, Homeplate," Tombstone said. "We'll be good."

"Uh… Commander?" Dixie's voice was harsh over the ICS. "We're getting some kind of radar sweep. Intermittent like."

Tombstone could hear the pulse over his headset, a deep-throated twang like the plucked string on a bass, repeated every few seconds. "Search radar," he said. "Probably the airport at Phu Quoc."

"Jeez, that's creepy."

"No big deal, Dixie." He looked through the canopy to the right. The coastline of Vietnam lay a hundred miles in that direction, lost in clouds and distance. He could see a smear to the northeast which might be Cambodia's Koh Tang Islands. Vietnam. He thought of his father, shot down in a raid over Hanoi. "They're keeping an eye on us, that's all."

"Yessir." He heard the hiss of his RIO's rapid breathing over the intercom. "I guess this stuff is old hat to you, huh, Mr. Magruder? I mean, after Wonsan and all."

Tombstone wasn't sure how to answer. Dixon was a newbie. He'd come aboard at Yokosuka, Jefferson's last port of call, only three months earlier, one of the nuggets flown into Japan to replace the men lost during the raid into North Korea. He was eager, brash, and excited by the prospect of flying backseat for Tombstone Magruder, but at times the youngster's hero worship could be a bit much.

Hero. The word tasted sour. He'd never wanted it applied to him, never asked for all the fuss.

Matthew Magruder had seen nothing particularly heroic about his actions over Korea three months before. They'd just… happened. He'd led the Combat Air Patrol which covered Navy helos ferrying the crew of a U.S.

intelligence ship captured by North Korea to safety. There'd been a ferocious dogfight with North Korean MiG-21s. During the turning and burning in the skies above Wonsan, Tombstone's Tomcat had been hit, his RIO badly wounded.

Refusing to eject and lose his backseater, he'd somehow limped back to the Jefferson on one faltering engine, sliding the crippled F-14 into a flight deck barricade in a shower of sparks.

For Tombstone, there'd been no heroism at the time, no question of bravery… only a job to be done and his determination not to drop his unconscious RIO into the gray seas off Wonsan.

The medal they'd given him was a pretty thing, a gold Maltese cross set against a sunburst with the image of a sailing ship in the center. The ribbon was dark blue, bisected by a single vertical white stripe. The commendation that went with it declared that Lieutenant Commander Matthew Magruder had, during the period from 26 September to,30 September of that year, "distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in military operations against an armed enemy." It went on to mention his six combat kills and the rescue of the wounded Naval Flight Officer in his aircraft.

The Navy Cross was the highest decoration possible short of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and the CMH was awarded only for actions against a nation actually at war with the United States. The Wonsan strike had not been part of a war, not in the traditional sense; it was typical instead of this new era of international politics, when nations threatened and maneuvered, when ships and aircraft clashed… but when the victories were won or lost by politicians.

Men were wounded or killed for the sake of those victories, though, just as in a real war. That was the tragedy, one which no medal could relieve.

He pushed the thought from his mind. Tombstone decided that his father would have been proud of him. Sam Magruder had racked up an impressive display of fruit salad during his short career, including both the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

But the Silver Star had been posthumous, and the expression on his mother's face when she received it along with the word of Sam Magruder's death haunted Tombstone still. He'd gone on to make Navy flying his life, but he tended to be cynical about the medals that came with it. Personally, he was far prouder of the "battle E" Viper Squadron had won for its part at Wonsan.

He shook himself free of the dark mood which threatened to close in on him. "Leader to Sharpshooter Two," he said. "You there, Batman?"

"I'm with you, Stoney."

"Pull out the stoppers. I feel the need for speed."

"Affirm. Let's do it."

"Going to burner. On my mark, three, two, one… punch it!"

Tombstone rammed the throttles forward to full military power. The added boost kicked the F-14 forward with a shuddering jolt. As the Tomcat's speed crept up the scale toward Mach 1, the shudder increased… then suddenly vanished as the plane broke the sound barrier. Batman's 232 aircraft kept pace.

Behind them, the search radar at Phu Quoc continued to thrum its lonely, monotonous tune.

Lieutenant Commander John "Made It" Bayerly, CO of the VF-97 War Eagles, banked his Tomcat for a better view of the action on the valley floor below.

The terrain here was mountainous, forest-shrouded peaks rising in steep folds and humps above the meandering clefts of valleys. The tree canopy ten thousand feet below was unbroken save for the flash of sunlight from a twisting stretch of river.

To the south, Bayerly could see white contrails drawing themselves across the dark foliage covering the ground. Four Royal That Air Force Falcons were making an attack run on suspected guerrilla positions on the banks of the Taeng River ― the Nam Mae Taeng, as it appeared on That maps. Roads in this area were virtually nonexistent, muddy, twin-rut smugglers' tracks for the most part, but the That CIA had reported what might be a truck park and military camp down there. If the rebels were getting help from the socialist Burmese government, they would be stockpiled and distributed from such a camp.

In any case, it was the perfect opportunity for the RTAF to practice with their new purchase. The American F-16 Falcons had been delivered to the That government only recently. The nimble, dual-purpose aircraft could carry over ten thousand pounds of ordnance for ground attack. Their load on this afternoon was considerably less. Each plane carried four Rockeye 11 CBU-59s, cluster bombs designed to scatter hundreds of tiny bomblets in a broad footprint across the jungle. Against unarmored troops, their effect would be devastating.

From this high up, Bayerly could not see the attack well, but he could make out the sparkles of detonating bomblets among the trees, saw the surface of the river thrash as the Falcons rocketed up the valley. A contrail stabbed up from the shore, describing an odd, corkscrew path as it chased the That Falcons. An SA-7, Made It thought. The reason the ROEs were keeping him stuck uselessly almost two miles above the action.

So far as Bayerly was concerned, the ROEs for this op were nonsense.

What good would a show of American support for the That government do when the U.S. aircraft were so far above the jungle the guerrillas didn't even know they were there?

Below, the Grail's smoke trail gave out as its fuel was expended, and the warhead dropped unseen back into the trees. The Falcons pulled up and clawed for altitude, their pass complete, their contrails sharp as the planes bored through the humid air above the jungle.

He eased back on his Tomcat's throttles, glancing first at the RPM meter on the panel just above his left knee, then at his airspeed indicator. The thunder of the twin GE F-110 engines dropped to a smooth growl as the aircraft, its swing wings extended to their full-forward position, cruised above the rolling green carpet of jungle. His wingman, Lieutenant j.g. Peter Costello, call sign "Hitman," parked his F-14 off Bayerly's starboard wing.

"Hey, Made It," Bayerly's RIO said over the ICS. "Word from Sierra Bravo Four-six. Sharpshooter is refueled and on the way."

"About damn time," Made It replied. "Only danger we're likely to face is being bored to death."

Lieutenant "Kid" Stratton, his backseater, chuckled. "So we'll give the hero his turn on the boonie patrol. I could use a shower and a cup of coffee."

Bayerly didn't answer. Tombstone Magruder and the fuss that had been made over him since Wonsan was rapidly becoming a sore point with Made It.

Where the Jefferson's other aviators joked and bantered about Magruder's name in the headlines, the press conferences, and all the rest, for Bayerly it was all simply a bitter reminder that his own career was nearly at an end.

"Magruder can go-"

"Hold it," Kid interrupted. "Something from Sierra Bravo."

"Let's hear it."

There was a click as the RIO piped the radio call through to Bayerly.

Sierra Bravo Four-six was one of Jefferson's E-2C Hawkeye radar surveillance planes. A so-called "force multiplier," a Hawkeye increased the efficiency of American Naval aircraft by detecting targets at ranges far beyond the reach of the Tomcat's own AWG-9 radar, and by coordinating widely scattered warplanes both on routine patrol and during combat.

"Cowboy, this is Sierra Bravo Four-six," the Hawkeye observer's voice was saying. "We have unidentified bogie, bearing three-five-zero from your position, range five-two miles. Can you confirm sighting, over?"

There was an anxious moment's silence. "Can't find 'em, Made It," Stratton said. "They're lost in the clutter. Must be pretty low."

Made It opened the radio channel. "Sierra Bravo, this is Cowboy Leader.

No joy on your sighting. Repeat, no joy. Over." This was ridiculous. If the Hawkeye wanted them to sort targets from the reflected returns off the mountains, they'd have to grant permission to go below the hard deck. At this rate, they wouldn't spot any bogies until the targets were right on top of them.

"Cowboy, Sierra Bravo. Bogie may be Burmese incursion That air space.

Homeplate requests visual confirmation, repeat, visual. Come to new course, three-four-five. Over."

"We copy, Sierra Bravo." He brought the stick over, watching the compass heading slip through the numbers until the Tomcat was on the indicated bearing. His left hand nudged the throttle forward and the F-14 picked up speed. Hitman Costello's aircraft paced him.

"Yo! Got them," Stratton said. "Two bogies, bearing three-five-one, range forty. Shit, that's across the green line, Made It. You think they're Burmese?"

The green line was shorthand for the That-Burmese border. "Probably a couple of That recon planes that got lost," Made It replied. "Sierra Bravo Four-six, this is Cowboy. We have the bogies and are going to buster."

Together, the Tomcats surged forward, closing rapidly now with the two unknowns. Bayerly eyed the jungle unrolling beneath the belly of his F-14.

They were flying over That territory now, but farther north, somewhere among those ravines and jungle-covered hills, lay the Shan District of eastern Burma. The green line was clear enough on the map, but political realities were less obvious in the real world. At ten thousand feet there was nothing to distinguish country from country.

Bayerly opened the tactical channel. "Cowboy Leader to Cowboy Two," he said. "You've got overmatch, Hitman. Hang back."

"Affirm, Made It. Watch your hard deck."

Costello's F-14 broke right and cut power. In seconds, Bayerly's aircraft was far ahead.

"Bogies still coming," Stratton said. "Hey, Made It? They're not squawking. I've got IFF on a couple of That F-5s down on the deck, but not a beep from the bogies."

"We'll be able to get our primaries on 'em pretty quick," Bayerly replied. "Primaries" was aviator's slang for eyes and instincts. "We should be in eyeball range any time now."

"There are the friendlies. Ten o'clock low."

Bayerly looked in the indicated direction. Two That F-5 Freedom Fighters were flying parallel to the Tomcat's northerly course three thousand feet below and half a mile ahead, lean, dagger-slim, and deadly.

"Got 'em." He searched ahead, toward the north. Movement caught his eye, a pair of black specks just above the forest canopy. "Tally-ho!" he called over the radio. "We have bogies in sight."

The specks grew, closing with the That F-5s at better than Mach 1. They flashed past so quickly that reaction was impossible, identification was all but impossible… but Bayerly had an instant's glimpse of delta wings centered on a blunt, tube-shaped fuselage.

"Sierra Bravo," he yelled into the microphone in his oxygen mask. "This is Cowboy Leader! MiGs! MiGs!"

Bayerly pulled back and left on the stick, dragging the Tomcat into a steep turn to port.

"Cowboy Leader, Sierra Bravo." The Hawkeye operator's voice sounded remote and unhurried. "Homeplate requests verification of bandit sighting."

Bayerly wondered if they believed the report. He wasn't sure he believed it himself. There weren't supposed to be any MiGs here.

"Verified, damn it!" he yelled. "Two MiGs. Two MiGs! Coming in fast!"