word from Commander Barnes. The admiral is about to touch down on the Vicksburg and will be assuming control of the battle from there momentarily. Meanwhile, he has confirmed weapons free. As of now, the squadron is on full Battle Alert Status. Current ROES are suspended and weapons are free. That is all.”
“BARCAP Two is ready to fire,” a sailor reported. “They’re at extreme range.”
“How long before they get into position?”
“A few minutes, sir.”
“We don’t have a few minutes. How long before the Alert Five gets up?”
Tombstone glanced up at the PLAT camera suspended from the CATCC overhead. The view was forward from the island, toward Cats One and Two on the bow. Deck crewmen were prepping a pair of Tomcats for launch, “Shooter” Rostenkowski in his 248 bird, Coyote in the Tomcat Army usually flew, number 204. The squat, boxy, yellow-painted tractors called mules were hauling the F-14s up to the catapult shuttles.
“Another two-three minutes on the Alert Five,” Tombstone called.
“Closest missile now at twelve miles,” a technician at one of the consoles said. “We now have four positive Phoenix locks, closing.”
“They’re suckering us,” CAG said suddenly, as though the thought had just struck him. “Damn them, they’re suckering us into eating up our outer line!”
Tombstone had already arrived at the same conclusion. Each of the four Tomcats aloft on CAP had been armed with six long-range Phoenix missiles. Two of the F-14s — the planes of Barcap Two — were far to the north, badly positioned to defend against the Osa-launched attack from the southeast.
The Osas carried four Styx ship-killers apiece. Jefferson’s CAP could knock out those first sixteen missiles easily enough, but they would then have just eight AIM-54-Cs left between them if the Indian aircraft launched a major assault. Besides the Alert Five, the carrier was preparing for an emergency launch, hoping to get every Tomcat it could into the air before the attackers could get close enough to fire more ship-killers, but the first wave of Styx missiles would arrive long before all of the carrier’s defenders could get aloft.
And even for missiles not yet launched, it would be a deadly race, and with the numbers arrayed against the CBG, it was a race that the Americans were certain to lose.
Modern naval strategy placed the all-important aircraft carrier at the center of the task force inside a series of concentric rings. Each ring defined a volume of airspace, called a task force air defense zone, extending from sea level to 90,000 feet. The outer ring, reaching out to one hundred nautical miles from the carrier, was designated the aircraft defense zone. The middle ring covered an area out to forty miles from the carrier and was called the missile defense zone. The inner ring, a speck of sea only two miles high and reaching five nautical miles from the carrier, was the point defense zone.
The Tomcat CAP was responsible for the air defense zone. The missile defense zone was covered by missile fire from the ships. Point defense was handled by short-range missile fire and by the Phalanx Gatling guns mounted on each vessel. Protecting a task force like CBG-14 was envisioned as a layered battle, with the Tomcats knocking down everything they could, concentrating on eliminating aircraft and surface vessels before they could launch their deadly ordnance loads. Missiles that got past the Tomcats would be taken on by the fleet’s Sea Sparrows.
And any surviving missiles, the “leakers,” would be downed by the computer-controlled Gatlings.
At least, that was the way it was supposed to work. Things were feeling crowded already, since Jefferson’s hundred-mile air defense zone extended all the way to the Indian coast to the northeast, while Indian surface ships were entering the zone from the southeast. And those Osas were much closer, well inside the missile defense zone.
The British had used a similar system at the Falklands, but determined Argentinian attacks and some mistakes on the part of the Brits had resulted in the loss of several ships. More than once, it had not been just missiles but bomb-carrying aircraft that had made it into the British task force’s inner defensive perimeter … especially when the strike aircraft were able to get in close beforehand by utilizing the radar cover provided by the rugged mountains of the Falklands themselves.
There were no mountains to block radar here … but there was the heavy ocean swell, and radar jamming had already begun. Tombstone knew with a sure, sick certainty that those Indian aircraft would be moving south in waves any moment now. The Tomcats would never be able to stem that tide. How many Styx and Exocet missiles could the Indians throw at the American CBG? Would there be so many leakers that Jefferson’s three on-board Phalanx systems would be overwhelmed?
How many hits would it take to render Jefferson useless in the coming fight?
“Mr. Magruder?” Costello murmured at his side. “It’s not looking good, is it?”
“We’ve been in tough spots before, Hitman.”
But he knew Jefferson and her people had never faced anything like this.
Army Garrison studied the growing armada arrayed against them and wished Tombstone were here. The tall, quiet skipper of VF-95 had an uncanny tactical sense that had stood the squadron through some tough fights already, above Wonsan in Korea, and later over the Thai jungles.
What would Stoney do? he asked himself.
“Hey, Dixie,” he called. “Can you do anything about this fuzz on the radar?”
“Negative, Commander Garrison. I think they’re finding our windows and plugging them as fast as we open them.”
For the moment, it was a high-tech war of computers and radio. Right now, Jefferson’s EA-6B Prowlers would be doing their best to jam Indian radars while leaving clear windows for the Tomcats’ use. The Indians would be trying to locate those windows and fill them with snow. Finding the right combinations of clear frequencies for both radar and communications was part of the continuing Electronic Warfare battle between the two sides. The Indians, Army thought, probably had an EW aircraft patrolling somewhere near the coast. Where was it? he wondered.
And what were the Russians doing about EW right now? Army shook his head. This mess was becoming more confused by the second.
“Viper Two-one-six,” he called. “This is Viper-Two-oh-one.”
“Copy, Army,” Batman’s voice replied. “Go ahead.”
“We’re going to have to split up and take the missiles at knife-fighting distance.”
“Roger that.”
“See if you can run interference for Homeplate. I’ll try an end run and catch them from the flank.”
“Rog. We’ll take ‘em down on the deck.”
“Victor Tango One-one,” Army said, switching to the Hawkeye air controller’s frequency. “This is BARCAP One-One. Did you copy my last?”
“Affirmative, BARCAP One. We concur with your plan.”
The two Tomcats split apart as Batman pulled a wing-over and plummeted toward the sea. Army lined up with another target and started his descent.
With Phoenix missiles they could knock the Styx down six at a time, but that would leave them unarmed to face the Indian hordes. Perhaps the two Tomcats could take out their share of the ship-killers with gunfire.
Batman brought his Tomcat down to within two hundred feet of the ocean’s surface, skimming west at Mach 1.5. The F-14’s wings, folded all the way back along the hull, transformed the Tomcat into a giant, pale gray arrowhead. Somewhere ahead, one of the enemy missiles was already between him and the carrier, now some twelve miles ahead. “Gimme a vector, Malibu!”
“You’re fine on this heading,” his RIO replied. “Range three-one-double-oh.”
“I’m goosing it.” He pushed the throttles all the way forward into Zone Five, watching the F-14’s speed build past Mach 2. The air this close to the water was heavy with moisture. White clouds boiled off the Tomcat’s wings as water droplets were shocked into visibility by the fighter’s passage. They were well within the area covered by the CBG’s missile defenses now and rapidly approaching the innermost point defense zone. Jefferson was only nine miles ahead.
“Range two triple-oh!”
Batman eased back on the throttle. It wouldn’t do to skim past the target so quickly he couldn’t even see it.
