above the jungle the guerrillas didn't even know they were there?
Below, the Grail's smoke trail gave out as its fuel was expended, and the warhead dropped unseen back into the trees. The Falcons pulled up and clawed for altitude, their pass complete, their contrails sharp as the planes bored through the humid air above the jungle.
He eased back on his Tomcat's throttles, glancing first at the RPM meter on the panel just above his left knee, then at his airspeed indicator. The thunder of the twin GE F-110 engines dropped to a smooth growl as the aircraft, its swing wings extended to their full-forward position, cruised above the rolling green carpet of jungle. His wingman, Lieutenant j.g. Peter Costello, call sign 'Hitman,' parked his F-14 off Bayerly's starboard wing.
'Hey, Made It,' Bayerly's RIO said over the ICS. 'Word from Sierra Bravo Four-six. Sharpshooter is refueled and on the way.'
'About damn time,' Made It replied. 'Only danger we're likely to face is being bored to death.'
Lieutenant 'Kid' Stratton, his backseater, chuckled. 'So we'll give the hero his turn on the boonie patrol. I could use a shower and a cup of coffee.'
Bayerly didn't answer. Tombstone Magruder and the fuss that had been made over him since Wonsan was rapidly becoming a sore point with Made It.
Where the Jefferson's other aviators joked and bantered about Magruder's name in the headlines, the press conferences, and all the rest, for Bayerly it was all simply a bitter reminder that his own career was nearly at an end.
'Magruder can go-'
'Hold it,' Kid interrupted. 'Something from Sierra Bravo.'
'Let's hear it.'
There was a click as the RIO piped the radio call through to Bayerly.
Sierra Bravo Four-six was one of Jefferson's E-2C Hawkeye radar surveillance planes. A so-called 'force multiplier,' a Hawkeye increased the efficiency of American Naval aircraft by detecting targets at ranges far beyond the reach of the Tomcat's own AWG-9 radar, and by coordinating widely scattered warplanes both on routine patrol and during combat.
'Cowboy, this is Sierra Bravo Four-six,' the Hawkeye observer's voice was saying. 'We have unidentified bogie, bearing three-five-zero from your position, range five-two miles. Can you confirm sighting, over?'
There was an anxious moment's silence. 'Can't find 'em, Made It,' Stratton said. 'They're lost in the clutter. Must be pretty low.'
Made It opened the radio channel. 'Sierra Bravo, this is Cowboy Leader.
No joy on your sighting. Repeat, no joy. Over.' This was ridiculous. If the Hawkeye wanted them to sort targets from the reflected returns off the mountains, they'd have to grant permission to go below the hard deck. At this rate, they wouldn't spot any bogies until the targets were right on top of them.
'Cowboy, Sierra Bravo. Bogie may be Burmese incursion That air space.
Homeplate requests visual confirmation, repeat, visual. Come to new course, three-four-five. Over.'
'We copy, Sierra Bravo.' He brought the stick over, watching the compass heading slip through the numbers until the Tomcat was on the indicated bearing. His left hand nudged the throttle forward and the F-14 picked up speed. Hitman Costello's aircraft paced him.
'Yo! Got them,' Stratton said. 'Two bogies, bearing three-five-one, range forty. Shit, that's across the green line, Made It. You think they're Burmese?'
The green line was shorthand for the That-Burmese border. 'Probably a couple of That recon planes that got lost,' Made It replied. 'Sierra Bravo Four-six, this is Cowboy. We have the bogies and are going to buster.'
Together, the Tomcats surged forward, closing rapidly now with the two unknowns. Bayerly eyed the jungle unrolling beneath the belly of his F-14.
They were flying over That territory now, but farther north, somewhere among those ravines and jungle- covered hills, lay the Shan District of eastern Burma. The green line was clear enough on the map, but political realities were less obvious in the real world. At ten thousand feet there was nothing to distinguish country from country.
Bayerly opened the tactical channel. 'Cowboy Leader to Cowboy Two,' he said. 'You've got overmatch, Hitman. Hang back.'
'Affirm, Made It. Watch your hard deck.'
Costello's F-14 broke right and cut power. In seconds, Bayerly's aircraft was far ahead.
'Bogies still coming,' Stratton said. 'Hey, Made It? They're not squawking. I've got IFF on a couple of That F- 5s down on the deck, but not a beep from the bogies.'
'We'll be able to get our primaries on 'em pretty quick,' Bayerly replied. 'Primaries' was aviator's slang for eyes and instincts. 'We should be in eyeball range any time now.'
'There are the friendlies. Ten o'clock low.'
Bayerly looked in the indicated direction. Two That F-5 Freedom Fighters were flying parallel to the Tomcat's northerly course three thousand feet below and half a mile ahead, lean, dagger-slim, and deadly.
'Got 'em.' He searched ahead, toward the north. Movement caught his eye, a pair of black specks just above the forest canopy. 'Tally-ho!' he called over the radio. 'We have bogies in sight.'
The specks grew, closing with the That F-5s at better than Mach 1. They flashed past so quickly that reaction was impossible, identification was all but impossible… but Bayerly had an instant's glimpse of delta wings centered on a blunt, tube-shaped fuselage.
'Sierra Bravo,' he yelled into the microphone in his oxygen mask. 'This is Cowboy Leader! MiGs! MiGs!'
Bayerly pulled back and left on the stick, dragging the Tomcat into a steep turn to port.
'Cowboy Leader, Sierra Bravo.' The Hawkeye operator's voice sounded remote and unhurried. 'Homeplate requests verification of bandit sighting.'
Bayerly wondered if they believed the report. He wasn't sure he believed it himself. There weren't supposed to be any MiGs here.
'Verified, damn it!' he yelled. 'Two MiGs. Two MiGs! Coming in fast!'
CHAPTER 2
Carrier Air Traffic Control Center, pronounced cat-see by Jefferson's officers and crew, was a suite of darkened compartments on the 0–3 deck directly beneath the 'roof,' the carrier's flight deck. Lit by the green and amber glows of numerous radar screens and the illumination from the large, transparent status boards, it was an eerie place where men spoke in urgent but subdued tones, where petty officers paced the decks behind the operators as they listened to air traffic through headsets trailing wires.
Commander Marusko slumped into one of the elevated command chairs normally reserved for the ship Captain or the admiral when they were in CATCC and rested his coffee mug against the chair's arm. 'MiGs? Whose MiGs?'
'No ID yet, CAG,' a senior chief said, pressing a headset earphone to one ear. 'Sierra Bravo Four-six says they may have come across from Burma, but they didn't get a solid track. Ground clutter.'
'Somebody check World's for me.' World's Air Forces was one of the standard references for the air inventories of other countries. A third-class radarman checked the entry. 'Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma,' he said, reading. 'They've got twenty-two combat aircraft, sir. PC-7s and AT-33s.' He looked up. 'Nothing in here about MiGs, CAG.'
'This is damned strange, Marusko thought. If the Burmese didn't have MiGs, who did? Cowboy was a long way from Laos, and China was separated from Thailand by a hundred miles of Burmese territory. 'Get the admiral on the batphone,' he said, referring to the special phone system which gave a direct line to every important person and department on the ship. 'Let him know we could have a situation here.'
'The MiGs are closing with the That F-5s,' the chief announced. 'We're getting the feed straight through Sierra Bravo now.'
