Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (23 page)

           
“A deal.”

           
“Advisory
for those patrol planes,” Colonel Walker cut in to the ship-to-orbit link.
“Several fast patrol boats operating at their
twelve o’clock
, seventy nautical miles.
Could be those new Iranian
hydrofoils or the small corvettes they took out of mothballs. If they’re
corvettes they have naval Hawk-Four surface-to-air missiles that might give the
Hornets trouble.”

           
“Copy,
Armstrong. We’ll divert the Hornets around them. No telling who the Iranians
might decide to shoot at right now.”

           
“New
contacts,” Sergeant Jefferson reported. “Low altitude jet aircraft heading
south along the west shore of the
Caspian Sea
.
No definite number yet.”

           
“Copy that,
California
?”
Saint-Michael asked.

           
Meserve and
Page were peering over the shoulders of the three radiomen who manned the data
display unit of CIC’s control console. The operators were switching the
displays back and forth, trying to keep up with the volume of data being
received. Finally Page punched the mike button in frustration.

           
“Armstrong,
we can’t keep up with that thousand-mile display. We’re going to cut ours back
down to three hundred miles. Keep us advised of activity outside the
three-hundred-mile radius of the
Strait of Hormuz
. We’ll
concentrate our surveillance in the area where the
Nimitz's
planes will be operating.”

           
Saint-Michael
said over a closed interphone, “He must think I have a hundred people up here
to watch the screens. He’s got twice the people I have but he’s only watching
one-tenth of the area.”

           
“I think I
understand his situation,”
Walker
said. “SBR is decades ahead of the
California
's
technology. It’s like trying to get a drink of water from a fire
hose.”

           
Saint-Michael
shrugged and keyed the microphone. “Roger,
California
.
Understand.”

           
“We’ve got
a count on those newcomer Soviet planes,”
Jefferson
said. His rising, excited voice made Saint-Michael swivel around to face him.
“Total of twelve aircraft.
Four slow-moving planes were
joined with two flights of fast-moving planes. The group is turning slightly
southeast, Skipper. I
think
they’re
heading for
Tehran
—”

           
“Aircraft
launching from the
Brezhnev
, sir,” a
tech reported. “Two high-speed aircraft heading east-northeast.”

           
Saint-Michael
hit the mike button.
“
California
,
this is Armstrong.
Fighters
from
Brezhnev
heading your way.”

           
The reply
was immediate and, to no one’s surprise, as excited as
Jefferson
’s.
“We got ’em, Armstrong.”

           
“Be
advised—twelve Soviet aircraft heading south from Lyaki, suspected target
Tehran
.
No positive ID; it could either be another Backfire bomber strike force or a
four-ship Condor troop transport formation with eight fighter escorts.
Or both.
Whatever, it looks like a major production.”

           
“Armstrong,
this is
Nimitz ”
Even through the scrambler interference Admiral Clancy’s rasping voice could
easily be identified. “Copy all. Your execution code is Sierra Tango November
one-zero.” Saint-Michael had been anticipating that. “Armstrong copies Sierra
Tango November one-zero. Out.” He switched to stationwide intercom. “Attention
on the station. Voice communications blackout is in effect. And repeat—this
station is on red alert.”

           
To
Walker
,
Jefferson and the three sensor technicians, Saint-Michael said, “All right,
listen up. We’ve just received an execution order directing the interception of
that Soviet attack force apparently heading for
Tehran
.
We’ll maintain surveillance over the whole region, but if it gets too much to
watch we’ll keep on the northern attack group and let Clancy and the
California
watch
the southern attack group—”

           
“New
aircraft, sir... eight high-speed aircraft eastbound from... it looks like
eastern
Turkey
.”

           
“Right on
the mark,” Saint-Michael said. “That’s Tango November, the F-15E Rapid
Deployment Force alert birds from Kigzi Airbase in
Turkey
.
We should have eight more F-15s ready for launch at Kigzi; I want them airborne
with their tanker as soon as possible. Talk to the second group on channel
eight. Remember, no voice. I want vectors for the first group of F-15s over
data-link channel nine to bring them around behind that group of Soviet heavies
and their escorts.”

           
“It will be
my pleasure, Skipper,” Sergeant Jefferson said, turning toward his screens.

           
“Picking up
two more eastbound planes,” a tech reported. “High speed, low altitude…” A hint
of surprise was apparent in his voice.

           
“It’s an...
intermittent return.”

           
“Our aces
in the hole,” Saint-Michael said. “Those are the F-19 NightHawk stealth bombers
from Kigzi—even the SBR is having trouble maintaining a solid track on them.
They’ll be on data-link channel ten. If anyone gets near them or if they get
fired on, warn them—but I’m betting nobody will.” Also hoping.. ..

           
“Tango November flight closing within one hundred nautical miles of
those Soviet formations,”
Jefferson
broke in. “The Soviet strike formations still on course, now
approaching Bandar-e Anzali on the south shore of the Caspian.”

           
Saint-Michael
turned to Sergeant Jefferson. “Jake, transmit code Foxtrot Bravo on channel
nine. Get an acknowledgement by each flight lead.”

           
Jefferson
interrupted his digitized vectoring instructions and tapped out the simple
instruction-code prefix and two-letter command. The code would be picked up on
the heads-up display on each F-15 Eagle fighter. Each pilot would then check in
with their formation leaders, who would then relay a reply via satellite
communictions system back to Armstrong Station.

           
“All
elements of Tango November acknowledge your Foxtrot Bravo command, Skipper.”

           
“Range?”

           
“Eighty
miles and closing fast. Those two separate low-altitude aircraft are passing
south of the Soviet formation. It looks like they’re going to beat the Soviet
strike formation in
Tehran
.”

           
General
Saint-Michael settled nervously back into his seat.
Looks like
... sure....

           
It took
only ten minutes for the eight advanced F-15E Eagle fighter-bombers to cover
the eighty miles between them and the huge Soviet formation. The Russian pilots
were cautious—occasionally a pair of Su-27s would peel off from the formation,
reverse course and scan the sky behind the formation to search for pursuers.
Electronic eyes scanned for radar signals that might attack from surface-to-air
missile sites, but the formation was safe from any Iranian defenses; Iran had
all but used up its resources in its long struggle with Iraq, and the Russian
pilots knew it.

           
Undetected,
though, was the threat from American bushwackers. With
Silver
Tower
as their “eyes,” the F-15
weapons-system operators, WSOs, did not need to use their position-disclosing
air-to-air radars to track the Soviet aircraft ahead, and when the Soviet
fighters would backtrack to search behind their formation, Armstrong Station
directed the Eagles away from the Flankers and then back together again once
the danger of discovery was past.

           
Just as the
latest pair of prowling Flankers had returned to their place in the twelve-ship
formation, the Eagles made their move.

           
In full
afterburner, consuming over sixteen hundred pounds of fuel per minute, Major
Alan Fourier, the Eagle formation leader, took his eight fighters screaming
toward the Soviet attack formation at twice the speed of sound. In less than
two minutes they had eaten up the remaining fifteen miles between the two
formations. As they drew within five miles the group split—four Eagles, led by
Air Force Captain Jeff Cook, took the high-patrol Soviet aircraft, and Fourier
took four Eagles down to the lower ones. By the time they caught up to the
Russian planes their fuel supply was half-exhausted, but their tactic had its
desired effect.

           
Fourier’s
group of four F-15s passed fifty feet below the first Soviet formation, flying
over nine hundred miles an hour faster than the large Soviet aircraft. The
Americans stayed in formation, in a mallard-like V formation, flying so close
that they almost looked like one large aircraft. Fourier made mental notes as
they made their fast observation pass.... The Soviet formation had broken into
two separate cells; the lower cell consisted of four Sukhoi-27 Flanker
air-superiority fighters and two supersonic Tupolev-26 Backfire bombers.

           
“Look at
all the stuff on those Flankers,” Fourier’s WSO said as he hurriedly made notes
in a logbook. “Wing-tip missile, one underwing missile each side, one underwing
bomb each side, one long-range fuel tank under the belly. Major league boom-booms.”

           
“Heavy,”
Fourier said, taking a deep breath. His WSO was typing all the information into
his satellite transceiver unit. “You’d better be getting all this out.”

           
“Sent,
repeated twice, awaiting acknowledgment,” the WSO told him. “It looked like one
full rack of six hundred pounders each under each wing of those Backfires.”

           
“Like you
said: major league.” Fourier keyed his microphone switch for the first time
since takeoff: “Tango November flight two, this is lead. Did you blow the
whistle?”

           
“Lead, this
is flight two lead. That’s a rog. Acknowledgment already received. We’ve got
four Flankers and two Condor tanker-transports up here.”

           
“Copy,
flight two lead. We’ve got four Flankers with bombs and two Backfires with
bombs down here.”

           
“Acknowledgment
coming over the SATCOM,” Fourier’s WSO reported over interphone. “Message
received says, ‘Bravo November.’” Fourier’s grip tightened on the stick and
throttle. He did not need the tiny codebook he carried on his kneeboard to
decode that message.

           
“Tango November
flights one and two, check in with last message received. Red Lead has Bravo
November.”

           
“Two.”

           
“Three.”

           
“Four,”
came the short, jabbing replies from his own flight.

           
“Blue Lead
has Bravo November.”

           
“Two.”

           
“Three.”

           
“Four.”

           
Fourier
adjusted his oxygen mask, took a deep breath. “Send the reply,” Fourier told
his back-seater.

           
Fourier
heard a few key taps, then: “Acknowledgment received.” The veteran F-15 pilot
checked his heads-up display. The laser-derived threat-display projected onto
his windscreen showed every aircraft around him, American and Russian, in
detail—without one electron of energy coming from any of the American aircraft.

           
Up until
now this had been just another routine fly-by patrol. Missions like this,
shadowing Russian, Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi planes over the
Persian
Gulf
and
Saudi Arabia
,
were a common practice. Even playing “chicken” or “tag” with Soviet naval
aviation Backfire bombers went on all the time.

           
But now the
game turned dead-serious. Fourier felt sweat trickle down the back of his neck,
felt the tension take over his body. His next command to his attack group—world
wars had started over less....

           
“Tango
November flights, execute Bravo November... now.”

           
The entire
fly-by, the sending and receiving of all coded messages and the coordination to
implement the order transmitted by Armstrong Station—all took a little over
thirty seconds. In that time they had sped ahead of the startled Soviet
aircraft by nearly ten miles.

           
On
Fourier’s order the two groups of four F-15 Eagles executed a hard left turn at
ninety degrees of bank, pulling nearly seven “g”s as each pilot applied
back-stick pressure. At the same time they decreased their throttles back from
max afterburner to military power to avoid overstressing their fighters. They
continued the hard turn until they were two hundred seventy degrees to the left
of their original heading.