Carrier Air Traffic Control Center, pronounced cat-see by Jefferson's officers and crew, was a suite of darkened compartments on the 0–3 deck directly beneath the "roof," the carrier's flight deck. Lit by the green and amber glows of numerous radar screens and the illumination from the large, transparent status boards, it was an eerie place where men spoke in urgent but subdued tones, where petty officers paced the decks behind the operators as they listened to air traffic through headsets trailing wires.
Commander Marusko slumped into one of the elevated command chairs normally reserved for the ship Captain or the admiral when they were in CATCC and rested his coffee mug against the chair's arm. "MiGs? Whose MiGs?"
"No ID yet, CAG," a senior chief said, pressing a headset earphone to one ear. "Sierra Bravo Four-six says they may have come across from Burma, but they didn't get a solid track. Ground clutter."
"Somebody check World's for me." World's Air Forces was one of the standard references for the air inventories of other countries. A third-class radarman checked the entry. "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma," he said, reading. "They've got twenty-two combat aircraft, sir. PC-7s and AT-33s." He looked up. "Nothing in here about MiGs, CAG."
"This is damned strange, Marusko thought. If the Burmese didn't have MiGs, who did? Cowboy was a long way from Laos, and China was separated from Thailand by a hundred miles of Burmese territory. "Get the admiral on the batphone," he said, referring to the special phone system which gave a direct line to every important person and department on the ship. "Let him know we could have a situation here."
"The MiGs are closing with the That F-5s," the chief announced. "We're getting the feed straight through Sierra Bravo now."
"Pipe it over the speaker, Chief."
There was a hiss of static from the loudspeaker, a burst of noise as a cockpit microphone was opened. "They're closing with the That F-5s now." The voice sounded like Bayerly's RIO. "Holy shit! Launch! Launch!"
"Who's shooting at who?" CAG asked.
"Blue bandit launch on one of the F-5s," Stratton said. "Missile in the air!"
There was another burst of static, followed by Bayerly's voice. "Sierra Bravo, this is Cowboy Leader." He didn't know yet that his words were being relayed directly to Jefferson's CATCC. "Request weapons release. Repeat, request weapons release."
"Wait one, Cowboy. Homeplate, Homeplate, this is Sierra Bravo Four-six.
Do you copy Cowboy's request, over?"
"Have him wait," CAG snapped. He turned to one of his staff nearby.
"Did you get the admiral yet?"
"On his way, CAG."
The situation was exploding out of control with horrifying speed. If one of those MiGs launched on an American aircraft, the Tomcats would return fire.
An international incident was in the making here, and Marusko didn't even know who the enemy was.
He looked at one of the transparent plot boards, where sailors practiced at writing backwards were filling in data on two other airborne Tomcats.
"Sharpshooter," he said. "Where's Sharpshooter?"
"Due to rendezvous with Cowboy in five minutes."
"Tell 'em to pour on the coal. Get them in there!"
"Aye, sir."
"And scramble the alert fifteen," CAG added, referring to pilots standing by for a launch with fifteen minutes' warning. "I want another flight up ASAP."
The pair of That F-5s had split left and right when the MiGs streaked past. The bandits had hauled around in a high-G turn, side by side in the familiar "welded wing" formation, dropping onto a Freedom Fighter's six ― on his tail and following ― before loosing the missile. Bayerly had seen the flash, had watched with disbelief as the white contrail unraveled through the sky, tracking the That plane.
And Jefferson's only response had been the order to "Wait one." The delay grated at him worse with each passing second. How long was it going to take Jefferson's command staff to debate the issue?
"Homeplate, this is Cowboy Leader!" he called. "We have two MiGs on two RTAF F-5s. Request permission to intervene. Over."
"Cowboy, Homeplate," the reply came back a moment later, scratchy as it was relayed by the far-circling Hawkeye. "Negative your last. Wait one."
The missile was turning now, following one of the F-5s. The Freedom Fighter twisted hard to port, its pilot pulling eight Gs at least as he tried to evade the oncoming air-to-air killer. The contrail swung onto the F-5's tail, still closing, and vanished into the engine exhaust. There was a brilliant flash, followed an instant later by a fireball that ate its way through the That plane, scattering fragments of burning debris across the sky…
Bayerly watched a stubby wing and a portion of the fuselage tumble as they trailed smoke into the jungle below.
"Homeplate! One That plane has been killed. Request weapons release!"
"Copy, Cowboy. Wait one."
"Kid!" Bayerly snapped. "Arm Sidewinders! We'll get a lock while we're waiting for those bastards."
"Weapons armed." The F-14 carried eight of the deadly air-to-air AIM-9L missiles slung beneath its wings.
Bayerly pushed the stick over, putting the Tomcat into a dive. One of the MiGs was cutting across his bow from right to left a mile ahead. He concentrated on the computer-generated images on his heads-up display, willing the targeting pipper to connect with the rapidly moving target symbol.
"Watch the hard deck," Stratton warned. "Watch your altitude, man!"
"Screw the hard deck!" He tightened up on the turn, feeling the Gs press him down against his ejection seat until he dropped in on the other plane's tail, half a mile behind. The MiG was at nine thousand feet and still descending, heading north.
Bayerly followed.
"I have him!" Tombstone said. "One o'clock and low!"
"Tally-ho!" Batman replied, announcing that he too had the other plane in sight.
"Homeplate, this is Sharpshooter Leader. We have visual on Cowboy Leader and one bandit." He checked his altitude and realized with a jolt that Bayerly was well below the ten-thousand-foot hard deck. "Cowboy is in hot pursuit."
"Copy, Sharpshooter. Stand by."
"Tombstone!" Dixie called from the backseat. "MiG, bearing two-seven-five. He's going for Made It's six!"
Tombstone looked to the left, searching the sky. He saw the second MiG, a thousand feet below and already lining up on Bayerly's tail.
"Cowboy Leader, this is Sharpshooter," Tombstone called. "Wake up, Made It! Watch your six! Bandit coming in hard!" but he knew it was already too late to stop the MiG from lining up the shot.
Bayerly heard the warbling growl in his headphones that told him he had a heat-seeker lock on the plane ahead. The target pipper on his HUD turned from a square to a circle, with the letters ACQ flashing beside it. "Target acquisition!"
"Cool it, man!" Stratton warned. "We don't have release yet!"
The MiG ahead leveled out two thousand feet above the jungle. Bayerly followed the target onto the deck. Green mountains flashed past on either side as the fleeing aircraft wound its way up the Nam Mae Taeng Valley. He'd heard Tombstone's warning and knew the MiG's wingman was somewhere behind him, but decided to hang on for a few more seconds. There was still time.
"Come on," Bayerly muttered, willing the carrier to give him permission to fire. "Come on, you bastards."
The target circle jittered back and forth on his HUD, but Bayerly kept the F-14 pressing in on the MiG's tail. A brilliant pinpoint of light broke free from the target, then a second and a third, all trailing smoke in graceful arcs toward the jungle. The bandit was popping flares, trying to break Bayerly's lock.
"Made It!" Stratton yelled. "I see him! The other bandit's all over us!"
"Hold on, Kid! I'm on this one."
"Oh, shit! He's going' for a lock, man!"
"Cowboy Leader, this is Homeplate. Your request for weapons release is denied. Repeat, denied. Standard ROEs apply. Fire only if fired upon."
"Kid! Where's our tail?"
"On our six, range one mile! He's got a lock! Made it, he's got lock!"
Bayerly could hear a second tone over his headset. The Tomcat was being targeted by the second MiG. "Tell me when he launches!"
"He's closing, Made It! Still no launch."
"Come on… come on…
Tombstone saw the second MiG lining up on Bayerly's Tomcat. He'd heard the order relayed from Homeplate, but he couldn't wait and do nothing while the enemy plane took a shot at Made It and Kid. He dropped the Tomcat's right wing and slipped into a steep dive. "Hang back, Batman," he called. "We're going in."
"That'll violate the hard deck, Tombstone," Batman replied.
"We'll discuss my fitness report later." He saw three aircraft symbols on his HUD now, Bayerly sandwiched between two MiGs. "Dixie! Tickle that guy with a radar lock."
He lined up on the trailing aircraft, waiting for the warble that told him he had a lock. If he couldn't fire the missile, at least he could startle the MiG's pilot, who would hear the radar lock as a tone in his own headset and know an American plane had him in its sights.
"Tone," Dixie called.
The target MiG did not waver. Either he wasn't aware of Tombstone's weapons lock, or he was gambling that the Americans would not fire first.
"He's not going for it," Tombstone said. "Going to buster. He rammed the throttles full forward, cutting in the Tomcat's afterburners.
Acceleration slammed him against his seat.
With startling swiftness, the trailing MiG swelled to fill his HUD.
Tombstone cut the burners, then finessed the stick to starboard, angling the F-14 so that it would pass the MiG on its right side with a few yards to spare. At close range, Tombstone could see details of the other plane's construction down to the individual rivets along the fuselage. It was not a Soviet export aircraft, he saw, but a Shenyang J-7, a Chinese copy of the MiG-21 built under license. He'd faced them before over Korea. It was silver with red control surfaces, and he could read the numbers on the nose. There were no national markings or unit ID, however. Was it Chinese, Burmese, or something else?
The pilot looked back at Tombstone across the narrow gap between the aircraft, eyes wide above his oxygen mask. Tombstone brought his stick back to the left, closing the gap slowly, drawing closer… closer…
The J-7 pilot needed no further urging. As Tombstone brought the F-14 tight across the Shenyang's bow, the other pilot cut his aircraft sharply to the left, breaking contact with Bayerly's plane and angling away from Tombstone with his own afterburner blazing. Tombstone held the turn, pulling a full circle as he began climbing once more.
"Cowboy Leader, this is Sierra Bravo." Tombstone could hear the Hawkeye calling Bayerly. "Cowboy Leader, be advised you are entering Burmese airspace. Come to course one-eight-zero, execute immediate."
Tombstone leveled off at ten thousand feet, searching the northern horizon. Dixie spotted Bayerly's plane first on radar and gave him the bearing. Tombstone could see him then, the second of two contrails flitting across the jungle, two miles to the north and down on the deck.
The border was invisible, but Tombstone knew that Bayerly had already crossed the line and was plunging deeper into Burmese territory with every second.
Bayerly's thumb caressed the trigger as the MiG grew large in his HUD.
"Cowboy Leader, this is Sharpshooter Leader," Magruder's voice called over the radio. "Break off, Made It. Break off!"
"Cowboy Leader, this is Homeplate," a second voice added. "Terminate pursuit. Repeat, break off and RTB."
Return to base? Bayerly shook himself. He was sorely tempted to fire.
But no, his career was in a tailspin already. A stunt like that would make him crash and burn for sure.
"Shit!" Bayerly snapped. Savagely, he yanked back on the stick, hauling the F-14 vertical as he cut in his afterburners and clawed for the sky. The MiG continued to race toward the north, dwindling into the haze on the horizon. At ten thousand feet Bayerly leveled off, bringing the Tomcat around to a southerly heading. He could see Magruder's plane loitering in the distance, Wayne and Costello circling beyond that. The realization that he'd pursued the enemy MiG miles into Burmese territory hit him like an icy wave.
Quickly, he checked the sky around his Tomcat, but it was empty of hostile aircraft.
"Where's the guy on our tail?"
"Tombstone brushed him off, man," Stratton said. The RIO sounded shaken.
"That bandit's heading out of Dodge at Mach 1."
Bayerly groaned inwardly. Magruder again. That made it worse. He pushed the throttles forward, going to buster.
The air battle, such as it was, had ended.
"Cowboy Leader, Sharpshooter." Tombstone was angry. Bayerly had deliberately violated the ROEs on two points… three if you counted mixing it up with the intruder aircraft in the first place. "What the hell were you playing at?"
"Get off my six, Magruder," Bayerly's voice replied. "I'm not in the mood." A short string of profanity followed, harsh and biting.
"Whoa there, don't go ballistic on us, Made It," Tombstone said. "You're way out of line!"
"Tell it to your damned uncle, hero," Bayerly snapped. The words carried suppressed fury, and his voice nearly broke. "I've had it with all of you bastards!"
Tombstone opened his mouth to deliver a burning reply, then stopped.
Something was riding the other aviator, and until Tombstone knew what it was, he wasn't going to push. He didn't know Bayerly that well, but he could tell that the man was on edge, more than could be explained by post-combat jitters.
The CO of the VF-97 War Eagles was a big, bluff man given to occasional bursts of temper, but he was a competent pilot. He wouldn't have been given a squadron skipper's slot if he wasn't.
In any case, the other skipper was not under his command, and the tactical frequency was not the place to chew out another pilot. The whole matter would have to rest until they got back to the carrier.
Then the voice of the Air Officer back aboard Jefferson broke in on the tactical net. "This is Homeplate. Ninety-nine aircraft, RTB. I say again, ninety-nine aircraft, RTB."
The radio call "ninety-nine aircraft" referred to all of the carrier's airborne planes. "That's it," Batman said. "They're calling us back to the bird farm."
That wasn't surprising, Tombstone thought. Not after the incident he'd just witnessed, an incident tracked on the Hawkeye's long-range radar.
Bayerly was not going to need his report to get himself hung.
But the man's attitude still puzzled Tombstone. Crossing a border in hot pursuit of a MiG he could understand. In combat, nothing existed save your plane and your opponent's plane, and the adrenaline rush of battle could wipe everything else from your mind.
It was the acid… the pain in Bayerly's voice that bothered him, that and the crack about his uncle. Made It had seemed withdrawn for the past few weeks, worried presumably, by something he'd not shared with the other men in the wing. For the first time, Tombstone wondered if the other aviator's personal problems were interfering with his flying.
Navy aviators joked about living on the edge, referring to that wild mix of speed, bravado, and arrogance which characterized the life of the typical fighter pilot… at least in the perceptions of Hollywood and the public.
They did not talk about going past the edge, about losing the self-assurance which alone let them put their lives on the line day after day, week after week.
Had Bayerly just lost it? With a trap coming up, they might all be about to find out.
Bayerly was still seething as he held his aircraft at two thousand feet, maintaining his position several miles astern of the U.S.S. Jefferson. The holding pattern, called a Marshall stack, was primarily used in rough weather or at night, but with all of the carrier's far-flung aircraft lining up for their traps, several low on fuel, the Air Marshall had shuffled them into the stack, giving each its own priority on the big green board in Ops which kept track of aircraft status.
From fifteen miles out, the Nimitz-class nuclear carrier looked tiny, a sliver of a gray rectangle almost lost on the wide, gray sea. The other ships of CBG-14, Jefferson's Carrier Battle Group, were scattered across the ocean in all directions. Bayerly could make out the lean shape of the U.S.S.
Vicksburg, the group's Aegis cruiser, trailing the carrier astern; the DDG Lawrence Kearny and the DD John A. Winslow were positioned well out on either flank. Farther out still, mere specks on the western horizon, were the CBG's two ASW frigates, Gridley and Biddle.
"Tomcat One-oh-one," Jefferson's Air Marshall said over Bayerly's headphones. "Charlie now." That was the signal to leave the Marshall and begin his approach to the carrier.
"One-oh-one, roger." He banked the F-14, descending to eight hundred feet and going into the final turn which would bring the aircraft in above the Jefferson's wake. Pulling out of the 4-G turn, Bayerly cut the throttles back to idle and popped the speed brakes. As the F-14 dropped below three hundred knots, the Tomcat's wings began to slide forward. Bayerly overrode the wings with the manual control, keeping the Tomcat looking clean and sleek as it went into the break.
Don't go ballistic on us, Magruder had said. Bayerly reached up to wipe the sweat from his eyes and found his hand blocked by his helmet visor.
Magruder's words still burned.
Bayerly's discontent had been gnawing at him, ever since the drama of Operation Righteous Thunder had played itself out in the skies over Wonsan three months earlier. He was hard pressed to even identify the emotion, but he knew it was connected with Tombstone Magruder and the lionization which had been directed at him ever since the Korean raid.
They'd been treating the guy like a genuine grade-A hero… press interviews, TV, the Navy Cross from the Secretary of Defense, the works! What Bayerly felt was not jealousy, exactly, but it was closely akin… a sense that blind luck had once again shown a vicious prejudice. As if the nephew of the carrier group's admiral needed any more luck!
His speed dropped quickly. At two hundred eighty knots Bayerly let the wings slide forward, providing extra lift and control at low speed, then lowered the landing gear. At two hundred thirty knots he lowered the flaps, still slowing, still descending, now at six hundred feet above the waves and a mile abeam of the Jefferson.
The carrier looked bigger now, but she still carried the impression of being an impossibly small target on a very large ocean. The Jefferson's island rose along the starboard side of her flight deck in a tangle of radar antennae and masts, of catwalks and windscreens. From off her port side, he could see the aircraft arrayed on her deck, appearing tiny and white against the dark surface of her "roof."
Passing the carrier's stern, Bayerly set his rate of descent at six hundred feet per minute and initiated a twenty-two degree bank to the left.
Sweeping across Jefferson's wake some three quarters of a mile behind her, he worked the controls to line up for his approach to the deck. From here, he could see the Fresnel lens system on the port side, across the flight deck from the island. The Fresnel lens, or "meatball," an arrangement of lights which changed their relative positions as he changed his, showed him whether or not he was aligned properly with the carrier's deck. It was time now to "call the ball."
"One-oh-one," he said, identifying his aircraft. "Tomcat ball. Six point one." The number gave his fuel state, sixty-one hundred pounds.
"Roger ball," the voice of Jefferson's Air Boss replied from the carrier's Primary Flight Control, "Pried-Fly" in popular jargon. The acknowledgment had just passed from the Air Boss to the Landing Signals Officer, or LSO, standing at his station just below the Fresnel lens. Bayerly was half a mile astern of the Jefferson now, seconds away from the roundoff of her flight deck.
Damn Tombstone Magruder, anyway! Him and his Top Gun airs. He never boasted about having been through the Navy Fighter Weapons School at Miramar, but he managed to let you know without saying it. There was an arrogance about the man, an assumed superiority.
"Power up!"
Damn! He'd let his speed fall too fast. His Tomcat was dropping too quickly down the glide path. He pulled back on the stick and nudged the throttles forward. The F-14 rose… too much, damn it!
"Wave off!" the LSO sang in his ear. "Wave off!"
His wheels touched the deck, but too far forward, missing all four of the arrestor cables stretched across the aft end of the flight deck in his path.
He was already jamming the throttles to full forward, building enough thrust to get the F-14 back in the air.
"Bolter! Bolter! Bolter!" The LSO's call was an embarrassing litany as the Tomcat raced down the deck, the island a gray blur off his starboard wingtip. Then he was airborne once more.