'Tombstone! Tombstone! I've got a set! Hit the brakes and get clear!'
'Rog, Coyote! Take your shot! Take it!'
He feinted left, then broke hard right, killing his burner and dragging back his nose until he felt that first mushy sensation that warned him of a stall. Two MiGs dropped past him like stones, one to the left, one to the right. Tombstone pushed his nose over again, working now to win back the speed he'd lost.
'I'm on the left one,' Coyote called. 'Fox two! Fox two!' The cry was a warning they'd launched the heat- seekers.
For a long moment, Tombstone hung suspended in the sky, his eyes following that twisting, flaming point of light as it raced toward its target. The MiG was turning hard now, aware of the missile and throwing everything he had into a frantic break high and left. The Sidewinder closed the range in a steady march.
Then the burning flare of the heat-seeker merged with the MiG, eating its way up his jet exhaust. The explosion, even though expected, was startling, a blossoming fireball of orange and black which seemed to unfold, layer upon layer as the stricken plane disintegrated in flame and spinning, burning chunks of metal.
'Yow! Splash one MiG!' Coyote called.
'Great shot! Watch your six, now!' Another MiG was closing, dropping onto Coyote's tail.
'I see him!'
'I'm on him!' Tombstone rolled to port and kicked in afterburner, hurtling down across the sky, the Tomcat's wings folding back like the wings of a diving eagle. The MiG drifted across his forward field of vision, left wing high as it angled away from him, intent on Coyote's aircraft. He toggled his fire selector to Sidewinder, listening for the steady tone in his headset which told him the missile had a solid target lock. There! He pulled back on the stick, leading slightly to compensate for the target's hard turn without breaking his lock. 'Fox two! Fox two!'
With the warning, Coyote's aircraft broke left and rolled in a split-S maneuver to port. The MiG followed, the maneuver dragging the MiG's tail around to give Tombstone a better shot, straight up the MiG's tailpipe.
His finger closed on the trigger and he felt the shooshing lurch of the Sidewinder arrowing off its rail. He followed the missile's flight as it closed on its target, a bright orange-white flare of light which dwindled, trailing smoke, closing… closing…
An explosion filled the sky as the rear half of the MiG erupted in a cloud of burning debris. Tombstone watched the nose of the aircraft twist into a fiery plummet. There was a tiny flash, and a moment later the pilot's canopy blossomed. 'Splash another one!' he announced. 'Score tied, Coyote. One and one!' He turned in his seat, searching the sky. Two down, two to go…
The remaining two MiGs were dwindling into the distance, running for home.
'Tally-ho, Tombstone! Two gomers at one-niner-three! I'm on 'em!' Coyote's Tomcat twisted right, angling toward the fleeing MiGs.
Magruder almost ordered Coyote to hold position. Those MiGs had a long head start. This close to the Korean twelve-mile limit, he didn't want to risk breaking the ROEs by crossing that invisible barrier in hot pursuit.
But there was another danger as well. They'd been vectored to this spot in the ocean to locate an American ship, a ship somewhere down there beneath that unbroken floor of snow wisp clouds.
'Copy, Rodeo Two. Hold the fort while I drop to the deck. I want to find our people.'
'I hear you, Stoney. Mardi Gras and me are gonna make the score two-one while you're loafing.'
'ROEs set to Hotel-Two,' Tombstone reminded him. 'Don't cross the line.'
'Copy, Boss.'
'You still with me, Snowball?'
'Y-yeah, Tombstone. But check your fuel!'
He glanced at the gauge. They were down to less than four thousand pounds of fuel. Dog-fighting and full burner on those twin GE engines gulped down JP-5 at a prodigious rate. He checked his clock and felt a dull thump of surprise. The air battle had lasted less than six minutes.
'We've got time.' The Tomcat was already pulling negative Gs as it nosed over and dropped toward the clouds. 'The Jeff'll be sending us a Texaco.'
Once more between sea and clouds, Tombstone pulled up, leveling off at five hundred feet and angling southwest toward the coast. Radar interference had slackened, and Snowball reported two large, strong targets close together in that direction.
'Tango Seven-niner, this is Rodeo Leader. We're tracking two surface bogies, bearing two-zero-three, range about four miles. Do you have them, over?'
'Rodeo Leader, Tango. Affirmative.' They triangulated the position of the targets. The two were well inside the twelve-mile limit, on the surface and moving slowly west. One of those blips had to be the Chimera.
Homeplate, Homeplate, this is Rodeo Leader.' The people in Jefferson's CIC were following the situation as it was relayed to them by the high-flying Hawkeye. 'Request permission to cross the line, over.'
'Rodeo Leader, this is Homeplate. Negative. Break off and return, over.'
'Homeplate, Rodeo. Believe Chimera inside twelve-mile limit, repeat, inside twelve-mile limit. Request permission to overfly, over.'
'Rodeo, Homeplate. Denied. RTB immediately.'
And that, Tombstone reflected, was most distinctly that. RTB… Return to base. He brought his Tomcat into a shallow climb, as Snowball searched for Coyote. He should be off to the northwest, no more than four or five miles away.
'Rodeo, Rodeo, this is Tango Seven-niner. Be advised, we have bogies bearing three-two-one, your position.'
'Snow?'
'Got 'em, Mr. Magruder. They're all over the place! I see six… no, eight…'
Heedless of fuel, Tombstone went to full burner and blasted back up through the clouds. Sunlight dazzled from the blue glory of the sky, a panorama of eerily peaceful beauty. He rolled the aircraft, the sun dazzle in the cockpit replaced by shadow as the Tomcat went belly-up.
'Rodeo Two, Rodeo Two! Do you copy, Coyote?'
'I got 'em, Tombstone.' Coyote's voice was charged with excitement or fear. 'Your ten o'clock, and high. God damn, where'd they come from?'
He saw them then, a ragged line of dots against the western sky. For one hopeful instant, Tombstone wondered if they might be friendlies off the Jefferson. But no… not from that direction.
'Negative on IFF,' Snowball said. 'Tombstone, let's get out of here!'
He hesitated.
'Skipper,' Snowball insisted. 'We gotta! Our fuel's going' critical!'
'Not without Coyote and Mardi Gras!' Just where the hell were they, anyway?
Coyote heard the eerie, high-pitched warble in his headset which told him his aircraft had been tagged by someone's radar weapons lock. 'Tone!' he yelled to his RIO. 'I got a tone! Shit, Mardi Gras, where are they?'
'On our ass, Coyote!' said Lieutenant j.g. Vince Cooper, 'Mardi Gras' for his New Orleans hometown. 'There's a million of 'em!'
'Shitfire! We're going' ballistic!'
The Tomcat kicked him in the small of the back as he went to full burner, then rocketed past twenty thousand feet in a chest-crushing climb that made his eyes blur.
'I see 'em, Coyote! Five o'clock and low!'
Coyote looked aft. He saw a deadly white line drawing itself across the sky, the contrail of a radar-homing missile. He punched the Tomcat's chaff dispenser, then twisted away from the missile to give it a smaller radar profile.
'Bandits! Bandits!'
They were climbing to meet him from the cloud deck far below. He counted three… no, four. He checked the missile again and saw it still arcing toward him, undeterred by the rapid-fire barrage of chaff.
'They're locked on us, man!' Mardi Gras yelled. 'They're locked on us!'
'Good night, Mardi!' Coyote killed the afterburner, then snapped the Tomcat into a wingover which sent the
