“Left one … steady now.” Without the computer, Cole would have to provide the steering from studying the radar scope.
The Red River was a black snake slithering across the city.
“Hair left. Hold it.”
The missile light began flashing and the aural warning sounded.
The strobe on the ecm gear was long and brilliant, a powerful signal indicating that enemy radar was very near. The pilot searched the fog in that direction the strobe indicated, from two o’clock.
“Steadeee …
They were much too high for the earth’s shadow to offer any cover.
Grafton felt completely naked. He pumped chaff, hoping the blossoming false targets on the enemy’s screen would fool the operator.
There! Two large fireballs … in the fog. They mesmerized him, but he managed to ease the nose down and, without thinking, dumped more chaff.
Going down, passing 1500 feet, descending….
The first fireball came out of the fog, tracking the descending plane perfectly, coming down toward it. Jake hauled the stick hard aft and the missile flashed beneath their belly where it exploded, the concussion jolting the plane. Jake kept the gees on and saw the glow of the second missile, which was correcting its trajectory. Like the plane, it was climbing.
He inverted the aircraft. Over the top at 3000 feet with the nose coming down … 2000 feet … four gees….
“Roll over. Pull out.” Cole’s voice was strained, urgent.
He waited another second, another lifetime, then slammed the stick sideways and righted the plane. At 1000 feet, fifteen degrees nose down, he pulled and pulled on the stick. The missile overshot them and exploded in a sickening crack that rocked the Intruder again and drove something through the plexiglass that stung Jake’s legs.
They were at 400 feet. “Stay down,” Cole urged. “Make a racetrack circle and give me some room to see the target.”
The pilot complied. Cole held vigil over the radar. “Hill coming up. Climb a little.” They soared to 1000 feet and the radar indicator illuminated again. More chaff. Another I R flare from the chaff dispenser, but this time the pilot merely flinched.
“You’re clear,” Cole told him. “Hold this heading. They were headed back northeast. Jake descended until he was level at 500 feet. The rear-view mirror reflected the streaking fury still rising from Hanoi.
For the first time Jake became aware of his pounding heart. “Now swing it around and we’ll try it again,” Cole said.
Though I walk through the valley …
“Seven miles. Let’s get back up there and see if we can smack ‘em good.”
I shall fear no evil …
The pilot concentrated on climbing and leveled precisely at 2500 feet.
“I’ve got it…. Three degrees right…. looking good.”
The tracers rose from horizon to horizon.
“Get ready.”
A Firecan gun-control radar locked them up and huge white tracers raced from the fog, four at a time Jake desperately pumped the chaff button.
“One degree left…. Steadeee….
Jesus Christ!
The shells streaked behind and under the bomber “Now!”
The bombs kicked loose with a stuttering whump just as a SAM ignited to the right. The visibility was better over the city. The pilot held the heading and watch the missile gain altitude and level off with no change of bearing- it was on a collision course with the plane. Their bombs exploded below as the missile-warning light flashed.
He dropped the nose and turned to the right, away from the radar-controlled gun and across the missile’s path as he released more chaff. But the missile continued tracking them very nicely. He cursed under his breath, fervently, and dropped to 100 feet. The needle on the radar altimeter jumped erratically as they swept across the rooftops. Jake, noticing that the strobe on the ecm gear was long and fat and bright, mutterd “We’re almost on top of this radar.”
“We’re out of chaff,” Cole reported.
“Man, we’re having fun now.”
The missile was at eleven o’clock now, now ten-thirty. He leveled the wings. The muzzle blasts of the flak guns formed an artificial horizon that was almost level with him. He was much too low.
The missile altered course and started down.
Wait a little longer, he told himself just a little more, a little more…. Okay, pull! He began a steady 6-G ascent. The nose wrenched higher and higher. The large needle on the altimeter zipped around the dial.
The missile kept descending. Jake kept hitting the chaff button reflexively.
At nearly mach three the missile flashed beneath them trailing a white-hot exhaust and exploded. Jake heard the pitter-patter of shrapnel pelting the plane’s skin.
“Another!” Cole cried. This one came in on the same bearing as the previous one but was lower and still climbing.
The altimeter registered 3000 feet. Jake kept the stick back and smoothly moved it left to begin a barrel roll. As they went inverted the ghostly city covered the canopy above their heads. The weaving fingers of fire were everywhere but Jake’s eyes were on the missile.
“Nose on the horizon,” Tiger said, advising him.
“Five degrees down.” Still upside down, four Gees on.
“Twenty-five hundred feet.” The missile continued rising.
“Ten down, hundred and twenty degrees of bank, two thousand. . . .”
The missile was correcting, but too slowly. They would beat it!
“Fifteen down . Cole’s voice was rising and cracking.
The missile ceased tracking and began ballistic flight.
Jake forced himself to concentrate on the instrument panel. Sweet Jesus, we’re steep! He rolled faster an the Gees squeezed them and the radar altimeter need sagged sickeningly as they went down, down to waiting death, still down….
The needle on the radar altimeter stopped at 500 feet. Jake held the stick back. Something darker than the surrounding blackness zipped underneath, seemingly close enough to take off the belly tank.
Grafton stabilized at 200 feet and turned southeast sweeping across Hanoi in a long arcing trajectory.
As they banked, it appeared to Jake as though they were below the city, as though the flashes of the guns an shadows of buildings were above them. The optic illusion disoriented him and he wrestled the stick an rudder to avoid the ground. His only hope was to believe the red instruments before him and not his instincts. Don’t lose it now, he thought. We’ve almost made it.
Then they were over the countryside at a safer 400 feet. One of the four hydraulic pumps showed zero pressure. In the rear-view mirror Jake saw the city still riddling the air with fire, trying to bring down the fleeing intruder.
The flak thinned out and the intermittent flickers reflected on the rice paddies. They stole away, the throttles at the stops.
Jake’s red anticollision light reflected on the helmet of the bombardier in the tanker. Big Augie looked across the empty space at the bomber.
“You look okay to us, Jake. You have a smear of hydraulic fluid coming out from between the exhaust pipes, but other than that you look okay. Maybe there’re some little holes we can’t see….
Jake blew the gear down and lowered the flaps electrically before they left the 20,000-foot tanker station. The tanker was dirty, it too had lowered it gear and flaps and so stayed on his wing.
Jake’s flying was erratic; he had lost all his smoothness.
“This landing’s gonna be a piece of cake,” Cole said.
