Foxbat

‘Got that,’ Rodgers said, and opened the intercom link to PriFly. ‘CAG, this is the Captain. What’s the state of play with the Hornets?’

‘Ready to go, sir. I’ve eight interceptors fully prepped, plus four fitted with refuelling pods that I’ll send off about forty minutes afterwards to pick them up on the way back.’

‘And the Prowlers?’

‘Two waiting on the bow catapults, sir, as you ordered.’

‘Very good. Launch the Prowlers and get the Hornets ready to follow.’

The deck was a scene of frantic but organized activity. The deck of any aircraft carrier at launch or recovery is one of the busiest, and certainly one of the most dangerous, places in the world. The Enterprise has four steam catapults, two on the foredeck and the other two amidships, and each would be used twice in quick succession to get the eight Super Hornet interceptors airborne.

But first the flight deck crews were going to get the two Prowlers into the air. The EA-6B has been around since the early 1970s, and is still the American Navy’s primary electronic attack aircraft, scheduled to be replaced in about 2010 by the EA-18G Growler, the electronic warfare version of the Super Hornet.

The Enterprise began a gentle turn as flight deck crew members checked that the Prowlers and their pilots were ready for launch. The moment the massive ship steadied, PriFly issued clearance to launch both aircraft. The blast deflector lifted behind the EA-6B on the starboard bow catapult and the pilot ran up the two Pratt and Whitney turbojets to full power. The J52 engines are non-afterburning, but are still powerful enough to give the Prowler a maximum speed of nearly six hundred miles an hour. The aircraft was heavy: although it wasn’t carrying drop tanks, it had a maximum load of four AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles and a single ALQ-99 TJS external pod.

Once the Prowler pilot indicated he was at full power, the steam catapult was triggered and the EA-6B shot along the deck. Thirty seconds later the second Prowler launched from the port catapult. Both aircraft took up a south-westerly heading and began climbing to their pre-briefed altitude of thirty-two thousand feet.

‘Climax, Zapper formation is switching to discrete.’

‘Zapper, Climax. Roger.’

The Prowler crews switched frequencies simultaneously.

‘Zapper Two.’

‘Two from One, roger. Break, break. Alpha Three, this is Zapper formation in the climb to three two zero heading two three five and squawking mode three alpha code four three two one.’

‘Zapper, Alpha Three, you’re identified. Maintain heading and call level at three two zero. Squawk standby. No traffic at present.’

‘Roger, Alpha Three.’

On launch, they were over five hundred miles from the Korean Peninsula, and at that height they were still well below the radar horizon of any DPRK surveillance sites.

The range/height calculation as it relates to radar coverage is simple enough: because of the curvature of the Earth, an aircraft at an altitude of five thousand feet will paint on a surveillance radar at a range of about fifty miles. To ensure the Prowlers stayed undetected, the Hawkeye would instruct them to begin descent before they reached the theoretical radar horizon, and set them up in a holding pattern at least one hundred miles from the east coast of the peninsula. From that point, they would be able to hit the first of the North Korean radar sites, assuming their assistance was needed, in less than twelve minutes.

Cobra and Viper formation, Sea of Japan

Flying in formation at well over four hundred miles an hour and less than five hundred feet above the surface of the sea, a pilot’s concentration has to be absolute. A split-second’s inattention and the Harrier could plunge into the waves or plough into another aircraft, and the four GR9s had widened their formation slightly to provide an added margin of safety.

‘Vipers, Cobra One. Stand by for split in thirty seconds.’

Richter took his eyes off the view through the windscreen for the bare few seconds it took to visually check his cockpit, then looked back.

‘Split now, now, now. Good hunting, Vipers.’

But as the tracks of the two pairs of Harriers diverged, the AEW Sea King radar controller passed his first traffic information message, and it wasn’t good news.

‘Cobras, Vipers, November Alpha. Picture Charlie. Launches from the airfields at T’ae’tan, Nuchonri, Kuupri, Wonsan, Toksan and Orang. Multiple bandits, all tracking towards the east coast of the peninsula. Stand by for numbers and locations.’

‘Shit,’ Richter muttered. ‘That’s all we needed.’

USS Enterprise, North Pacific Ocean

The first Hornet taxied to the starboard bow catapult, expertly directed by a marshaller, and stopped with its nosewheel in precisely the right spot. The holdback – a steel bar designed to stop the aircraft moving forwards when the engines were run up to full power prior to launch – was attached to the rear of the nosewheel landing gear, and the front hitched to the catapult itself. Steam swirled around the men carrying out these tasks, giving the scene a somewhat surreal appearance.

The blast deflector was raised behind the Hornet and the pilot ran up the two General Electric F414-GE-400 turbofans to full cold military power, then cut in the burners. The noise of the engines rose to a scream, and almost immediately the aircraft lurched forward as the catapult accelerated it down the deck. At the far end, the Hornet dipped down briefly towards the sea, then rose quickly and climbed away, but nobody except the officers in PriFly were watching it. Instead, they were busy preparing for the next launch, and the Hornet on the port bow catapult was already in place and spooling up its engines.

Five seconds later, the second Super Hornet was airborne, and in under three minutes all eight aircraft were in the air and climbing away from the Enterprise. They formed into two groups of four, climbed to thirty-five thousand feet and took up a south-westerly heading.

Mayang, North Korea

The tab-ryong was scanning the surveillance radar screens when a shout from one of his controllers drew his attention to two very fast-moving contacts approaching from the south-east. They were travelling at around five hundred miles an hour, and were heading straight towards the missile base.

‘Excellent,’ the colonel murmured, then picked up a microphone to make a broadcast.

‘Air raid warning! Air raid warning! Two aircraft approaching from the south-east. All anti-aircraft crews stand by. Fire at will, but wait until you are certain of your targets.’

Outside the bunker, every surface-to-air missile battery and antiaircraft gun position was fully manned, and the tab-ryong had also stationed an additional fifty soldiers armed with shoulder- launched missiles around the perimeter of the base. His orders had been most specific: the attacking aircraft were under no circumstances to be allowed to escape.

Next the colonel dialled a telephone number from memory, which connected him with the senior controller at Toksan, the closest interceptor base.

‘This is Mayang,’ he said. ‘We have two fast-moving contacts approaching on bearing one five zero, range twenty miles.’

‘Very good. We’ll vector four of our interceptors towards you. Ensure your crews hold fire when our fighters approach. I’ll advise you once they reach five miles from your boundary.’

‘Understood,’ the tab-ryong replied, then used his microphone to warn his gun and missile crews.

Cobra formation, Sea of Japan

Richter followed the Senior Pilot in a turn to port. When he’d steadied, he glanced briefly out to starboard to see the Vipers heading away to the north. He checked his weapon controls, making sure he knew exactly where the switches were, and almost immediately his Radar Warning Receiver sounded.