canopy, shredding everything in its path. His fighter flew on for several minutes, its pilot sightless and bleeding, before crashing into the low mountains.
'Angelina!Twelve o'clock high!Another MiG coming in fast Bathed in the bright sunburst of the descending flares, the MiG-25 attacking from the nose had a solid visual contact on the intruder.
The Old Dog was approaching a high ridge line, very close to the ridge but well above the snow-covered valley behind, and the attacking MiG was well above the bomber, which was perfectly highlighted. The Russian pilot had to strain, but even after the flare plunged the sky back into darkness the bomber was still visible.
He refocused his eyes on the heads-up display for a few seconds, rapidly checking his instruments to see if he could establish a more reliable shot on the bomber below him. The infrared seeker had not locked on — that would have been difficult unless he was behind the B-52.His tracking radar was randomly locking onto hundreds of targets all over the scopecompletely jammed. Useless. A B-52, he knew, carried more jamming power than ten MiG-25s combined. He shut the radar off, banked hard to the left and began to dive at the bomber, fighting to keep it in sight as he approached the ridge.-..
'He's closing in fast,' McLanahan called out. 'Ten miles.'
Angelina had to take a few precious seconds to select a Scorpion missile and align it with McLanahan's steerin signals, then launched the Mach three missile within six seconds of McLanahan's second warning. Still, in that time the MiG had halved the distance between them.
The MiG's warning receivers immediately detected the missile launch and the pilot quickly switched hands on the stick, activated the forward deception jammers with his right hand, switched hands again and hit the chaff- dispenser on his control stick.
A B-52 launching an air-to-air missile' It was worse than he ever imagined. He could easily see the fiery plume behind the missile below him, pointed his fighter directly at the missile-showing the missile only his smallest radar profile.
The glare from the missile spoiled his night vision some, L the bomber was still in sight. The MiG saw a slight shift in the shape of the missile's plume-instead of a round dot, it was a bit more oblong. He smiled and relaxed his grip on the control stick. The American missile had locked onto one of the false targets his jammers had created.
Instantly he released another bundle of chaff and pulled right and up on his stick. The missile's egg-shaped ball of fire became a long, orange line it harmlessly passed underneath his MiG.
The pilot, who had his eyes squinted against the explosion he had feared as he watched the missile streak past, nc opened his eyes-the huge B-52 was centered in his gunsight Even so he felt he was a heartbeat too late-he should have been firing his cannon before the B-52 entered his sights. He shoved the stick down now to lead the target more, but t' snow-covered ridge line popped into view ahead of t' bomber. He had only an instant left. His finger closed on the trigger and held it until trees began to show on the edge of the ridge, then released the trigger and hauled back on the stic with all his strength…
'The missile missed,' Ormack answered as he watched the the Scorpion disappear into the night.
'Break right,' McLanahan told him, watching the rad target grow to horrifying size.
The split-second the Soviet pilot had wasted realizing he w, too late for a real kill had saved the Old Dog's life. Twenty millimeter shells plowed into the leadin edge of the Old Do 9 9 left wing where Elliott's cockpit windows had been an insta before. The shells ripped into the left Scorpion missile pylo destroying half of the remaining missiles.
The explosion would have ripped the wing apart, but one ricocheting she fired ajettison squib in the pylon and the entire burning pylon exploded into space. The pylon missed the remaining fragments of the Old Dog's V-tail and the Stinger airmine rock cannon.
The MiG's strafing track continued through the wing and fuselage, piercing the number-two main center wing and forward body-fuel tanks, but the shells created no deadly spar: and dissipated most of their heat in the fibersteel skin of the Megafortress.
Elliott could see sparks flying from the hardpoint where the Scorpion pylon used to be. 'Angelina, the left missile pylon's hit.
McLanahan glanced up and checked the selective jettison board on his weapons-monitoring panel. 'We lost the whole damned pylon,' he called out, deselecting jettison power from the pylon circuitry.
Angelina immediately reached to her overhead circuit breaker panel and pulled a group of circuit breakers. 'Pylon deactivated.'
'That left wing must be getting awful light. 'McLanahan tried for a bit of grim humor.
it was wasted on Wendy, who called out, 'Fighter at six o'clock.
'Here he comes again.'
'I see him,' Angelina said as she steered the circle-cursor on the radar return and hit the TRACK button, then began aligning a weapons-bay Scorpion for launch.
The Soviet pilot saw the missile lock-on indication on his threat receiver and immediately activated his own electronic countermeasures.
Angelina depressed the TRACK button once again. The green light stayed on but the circle cursor kept on walking away from the return.
'He's jamming me,' she said, 'Switching to manual track. 'She deselected radar-track, grabbed the steering handles and carefully tried to position the circle cursor on the fighter.
The Soviet pilot noted the persistent missile-alert signal even though his jammers were breaking the radar lock. He promptly began a series of random S-turns, rapidly closing the distance between them, trying to push his MiG-25 closer to the bomber's altitude.
The Old Dog cleared the ridge line by a scant forty feet, the wingtip vortices snapping fir trees like straw as it skimmed the ridge.
Rooster-tails of snow and dirt were blasted dozens of feet in the air.
Suddenly, a large green TERRAIN DATA PROCESS and TERRAIN DATA GOOD readout flashed across McLanahan's computer monitor. 'Computer terrain-following is active,' McLanahan asked. 'Clear to engage.'
Elliott and Ormack quickly engaged the terrain-followingpitch autopilot to the navigation computers. Now the computer, which already knew the elevation of all the terrain around them for thousands of square miles and had the accuracy of the satellite navigator for positioning, would put the Old Dog at the lowest possible altitude but climb her in anticipation of terrain ahead.
Through the MiG-25's windscreen the B-52 could be seen diving sharply toward the rocks below and disappearing. From radar, infrared, visual, everything. The pilot searched. No sign. The huge bomber had disappeared. Swearing into his mask, he throttled back and climbed to begin a search.
'I can't find him,' Angelina asked. 'I can't lock onto him. His jamming is too powerful. We can try a home-on jam launch but we don't have the missiles to waste.'
'He's back there, waiting for us to pop up into him,' Luger said, staring at the radar altimeter readout on his computer screen. 'He's not going to drive into our laps. 'He sucked in his breath as the readout dipped to thirty feet before climbing again to a hundred feet above the ground.
'We've got to suck him in,' McLanahan asked. 'Draw him in, then chop the power.'
'He'll blow us out of the sky,' Ormack asked. 'We're staying down here.'
'He's also vectoring in his buddies,' McLanahan asked. 'If he doesn't get us in the next five minutes he's gonna have lots of help.'
'We've got a dozen missiles left,' Ormack said.
'Great, but we can't take on all of them. 'McLanahan shook his head.
Ormack was about to answer when Elliott put a hand on his wrist. 'We have no choice, John.'
'If we can't find him, General,' Ormack yelled over the roar of the turbofans, 'if we lose him… if he shoots first 'We've got to be the hunter, not the hunted,' Elliott said.
The two pilots looked at each other. Then Elliott took the throttles from Ormack, placed a tight grip on the yoke and gave it a shake.
'I've got the aircraft.'ormack looked at the exhausted general as a wave of turbulence rumbled through the bomber. 'We're taking a big gamble, General.
'Now's the time for one, John.'
Orinack nodded. 'You've got the aircraft, General.'
