penetrators. The missiles….. they called them 'telephone poles' in Vietnam….. were barely capable against low- altitude penetrators-but the Old Dog was well within the missile's lethal range.
'All radars in standby,' Luger announced, double-checking both his and McLanahan's controls. He blinked in surprise at his pressure altimeter-it read minus sixty feet. He checked the radar altimeter readout on McLanahan's video screen and saw that it was pegged at a hundred feet. One hundred fee0 If the COLA computer didn't compensate property, at this altitude with only twenty degrees of bank they'd drag a wingtip in the water.
With an unsteady hand he reset the Kollsmann window on his pressure altimeter until it read a hundred feet. He could almost see the water skimming below him at over six hundred 'I feet a second. He could do nothing else but monitor the instruments, watch and wait.
'Wendy?
'Yes?'
'Wendy,' McLanahan shouted over the intercom.
'Wendy.
Answer me.'
'Patrick, I voice. She opened her eyes, took a deep breath, again of the threat analyzer in front of her.
'Steady tracking and surveillance signals,' she reported, her voice stronger. 'Tracking us, but no guidance or uplink.'
Elliott watched the tiny blob of lights in the distance.
Suddenly he saw a small shaft of light flare brightly, erupting from the outskirts of the town.
'Missile launch!S.A-2!'from Wendy.
'I've got it, I can see it,' Elliott said.
'I've got the uplink shut down. 'Wendy carefully adjusted 'J the jammer's frequencies, as if she were adjusting the focus on a microscope. She glanced up at her radar altimeter repeater.
'How does it look?'
'It's heading right for us,' Ormack said.
'Make a hard turn into it,' Wendy ordered.
'Into it?That will-' 'Do it, General,' Wendy said over the interphone. The Old Dog rolled into a steep bank to the left.
'I can still see it… wait. 'Elliott's voice was suddenly less strained. 'I can see the whole tail of the missile… it's gone.
It went behind us 'Come back to the right, maximum bank, military thrust,' Wendy said. Elliott immediately did it.
'S.A-2 signal coming back up,' Wendy said suddenly. Her hands flew over the High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile control panel. 'Anti-radar missile one programmed and ready for launch.
Angelina checked her switches, watching her indicators as a map HARM missile on the aft bomb bay's rotating launcher was pulled into the lower launch position. 'Ready.'
Wendy hit the LAUNCH button. The fibersteel bomb-bay doors swung open, and the first HARM missile was ejected She closed her eyes, focusing on his became aware X into the slipstream. The launcher automatically rotated another HARM into launch position.
ported. 'S.A-2
'HARM has a good lock-on,' Wendy re -2 missile alert… HARM still locked on… S.A solid missile alert. 'Suddenly both the MISSILE ALERT threat signal and the HARM missile's lock-on status indication blinked off.
'S.A-2 radar down,' Wendy said, her breath coming back.
Angelina sat back in her seat, her body relaxing. 'They've the threat audio from her receivers. 'No other missile tracking switched back to wide-area search,' Wendy said, monitoring signals. They've lost us.
The town was passing out of view. Elliott watched the distant lights, now almost obscured by the horizon so close beneath them, as it slid past the left cockpit windows.
'Good shooting, people. 'He didn't say 'ladies. 'There Elliott told were no 'ladies' aboard. 'Call up the next point, the navigators. 'I don't want to head back to the same point. If they look for us, they'll plot our track and find us along that path. 'McLanahan punched instructions into the computer, the bomber made a slight turn back to the left. A few minutes later Luger announced they were crossing the coast.
ack there?'
'Hey, Tork. What the hell were you doing but Ormack said.
Wendy was waiting for him.
'Colonel Ormack,' Wendy said, 'the next time I give an evasion command, I don't want it second-guessed. An S.A leaves the rails three times faster than any speed this plane could hope to reach. At our range it gives us only a few seconds to react. Our best defense is to acquire the missile visually. Once we see it, our chances of evading it go way up if you're unsure of the right defensive maneuvers it would be best to keep quiet and do as you're told. 'Ormack closed his mouth.
She was right.
'Crew, that was only 'He got the message,' Elliott said.
the first test. There'll be a lot more before we're through with this.
Dave, how long until Kavaznya?'
Luger looked at his chart. 'I'd say we'll be overlying it in forty minutes, General.'
Forty minutes. The thought was like a damp chill permeating the' pressurized interior of the Old Dog.
THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM
silent ordered.
'Give it to me right now,' the President asked. 'Yes, sir,' General Curtis said enthusiastically The President and the JCS Chairman were alone with the President's aide Jeff Hampton and several Marine guards and military Communications technicians in the White House Situation Room. Curtis looked as spit-shined and polished as alwa, even in these early-morning hours and in spite of the short notice. The President, in sharp contrast, had pulled on a football warm-up suit after receiving the notification and ran down to the Situation Room.
Curtis walked rapidly to the rear of the chamber.
Here, Curtis thought, was a President who wanted acti Quite a switch from the political animal he'd always krim He went over to a large projection chart on the rear wall depicted the State of Alaska and most of Asia. The Kavaz laser complex was highlighted with a large triangles target symbol. Several circles were drawn: large circles around radar sites clustered all along the Russian coastline and near cities, small circles representing defensive surface-to-air-misile sites.
A very large circle was centered over the north Pac midway between Hawaii and the Aleutians-the kill zone the Soviet's new orbiting steerable mirror. The circle enc passed the entire north Pacific, the State of Alaska, all of arctic and even large parts of Canada.
One black-lined route was depicted-the attack route of B-113
Excaliburs, which were still orbiting over the Chu Sea six hundred miles west of Alaska. 'The alert was c, 293
because of an unknown aircraft that disappeared from Soviet radar here a hundred and fifty miles south of the Kommandorskiye Islands. It was under radar control from Kommandorskiye Center.
The President looked at him. 'Elliott?General Elliott's plane?'
'We know its call sign,' Curtis asked. 'Lantern. Lantern Four-Five Fox-' 'I believe so, sir. It seems he made it.
'Son of a bitch,' the President said, not knowing whether he should be elated or worried-he was happy that the Old Dog had done what the B-1s had failed to do, but now it too had been discovered. 'What about the Lantern part?'
'Lantern was yesterday's Zulu call sign of SAC's Sixth Strategic Wing at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage,' Curtis asked. 'The Sixth has several KC-135 and KC-10 tankers, Plus RC-135 reconnaissance planes.'
