Army held his Tomcat level at ten thousand feet, racing south as Dixie plotted the bogies ahead. They seemed to be strung out across the sky.
If they were Sea Harriers off an Indian carrier, they must have simply launched and flown, without waiting to assemble into a larger formation.
“Victor Tango One-one,” he called. “Army Dixie Two-oh-four. We are tracking estimated twelve to sixteen bogies, now at three-five miles.
They’re low, wave-hopping. Two birds on board. Over.”
“Roger that, Two-oh-four. You are clear to fire.”
“Army Dixie Two-oh-four is engaging.”
Two Phoenix missiles against sixteen targets. After that, they’d have nothing going for them but their guns.
“Locking onto Target Alpha,” Dixie informed him. “Solid AWG track. Fox three!”
The Phoenix dropped clear of the Tomcat and ignited. The contrail etched a dazzling white scratch across the blue sky to the south.
“We have lock number two,” Dixie said.
“Launch.”
“Fox three!” The F-14 shuddered. “Okay, Army. We’re empty.”
“Right. Victor Tango, this is Two-oh-four. We’ve popped the last of our six-pack.”
“Copy, Two-oh-four. Come right to two-eight-five and hold, angels base plus five.”
“Rog.”
Army was known as a fastidious dogfighter, preferring to make a kill from long distance, with air-to-air missiles, rather than getting “up close and personal” as the more flamboyant kids in his squadron liked to say.
Most Navy aviators preferred — at least claimed to prefer — the John Wayne approach. “Would John Wayne shoot someone from a hundred miles away?” Coyote Grant had asked him once during a party in the Me Jo quarters.
“Would John Wayne use a goddamn missile?”
That attitude had grown out of the Navy’s Top Gun program. Tombstone, one of Jefferson’s resident Top Gun aces, gave regular training sessions and exercises for the other pilots. He liked to point out that Navy aviators had been getting into deep trouble early in the Vietnam fighting because they relied too heavily on missiles … and had forgotten how to dogfight. That piece of lore was basic to every lecture on ACM and was now drilled into Navy aviators from their first day in the air.
Army didn’t disagree with the concept, but he was a technical pilot, flying by the book and making his decisions by the book. No hot-dogging or seat-of-the-pants flying for him! If an aviator had a million-dollar high-tech missile with which to blow an enemy out of the sky before that enemy even knew he was being tracked, so much the better. As Patton had once put it, “The idea is not to die for your country, but to make some other poor bastard die for his.” Combat, whatever the kids with their aviator’s sunglasses and fighter jock jackets said or thought, was not a game, not a courtly joust between gentlemen, not a test of chivalry. It was fire, pain, and sudden death. “Chivalry,” he’d said during more than one Ready Room bull session, “gets you dead.”
“Grand slam!” Dixie called. “Splash one bogie!”
On his VDI, his second Phoenix closed relentlessly on another target. On the radar screen, he could see the bogie twisting away toward the south, trying to outrun its Mach 5 nemesis …
Lieutenant Commander Ravi Tahliani pulled back on his stick, urging the Sea Harrier to climb above the waves. Smoke still boiled into the sky a mile ahead where Lieutenant Venkateraman’s Harrier had vanished in orange flame and fragments.
“Viraat! Viraat!” he called. “Blue King Leader! We are under attack!
Blue King Three is hit!”
“Roger, Blue King Leader. Overwatch reports several enemy fighters north of your position, range thirty to forty miles.”
“Blue King Leader, Blue Five!” another voice interrupted. “They’ve got a lock on me!”
Tahliani twisted his head, trying to see. Blue Five had been nearly four miles behind him and to the right. “Break left, Blue Five!” Gods!
How could the Americans kill over such a distance?
He snapped his Harrier into a hard right turn, his eyes still scanning the eastern sky, looking for Blue Five. The pilot was Lieutenant Rani Gupta, son of an old family friend, and one of Tahliani’s proteges.
There! He could just make out Rani’s Harrier, a speck just above the water, streaking south. In the sky to the north, a white contrail was plunging toward the fleeing plane.
“Chaff, Rani!” he yelled into his helmet mike. “Chaff!”
There was no answer, but the speck was rising now, fighting for altitude, a standard maneuver for trying to disengage from a radar-homing missile after strewing clouds of chaff in its path.
It didn’t seem to make any difference. The contrail continued to plunge from the sky. Faster than Tahliani’s eye could follow, it stopped, merging with Rani’s plane.
A puff of flame and black smoke smeared the sky, followed by a much brighter flash as Rani’s fuel and weapons detonated. Flaming wreckage continued to climb straight into the sky, paused a moment, then fell back toward the sea. If the young Indian flyer had managed to eject, there was no sign.
“Viraat, this is Blue Leader. Blue Five has been destroyed.”
“Roger, Blue King Leader. Continue the mission.”
Continue the mission. Tahliani’s face settled into a hard scowl behind his dark visor. His primary mission had been to engage the American fighter cover protecting their carrier, opening the way for ground-based strike aircraft. Only after the ground-based aircraft were engaged were the Sea Harriers to turn their attention to the American and Soviet ships. For that purpose, Blue King’s aircraft each carried two Sea King missiles slung beneath their down-canted wings.
But for air-to-air combat, all they had were four R-550 Magic air-to-air missiles and their cannons. Magic was comparable to the American Sidewinder, IR-seekers with a range of perhaps two miles. He had nothing, nothing with which to counter an enemy still thirty-five miles away!
How was he supposed to carry out his mission when he could not even get close enough to the enemy to fire?
But possibly there was a chance. He had his Sea Harrier in a steady climb now, gaining altitude to extend the range of his Ferranti Blue Fox radar. Maximum range for an aircraft-sized target was about thirty-five miles for the system. Perhaps … There it was, a lone aircraft at the very limit of his radar’s range, traveling toward the northwest. If it was an American Tomcat, it had a top speed of better than Mach 2 and could easily out-pace his Harrier.
But perhaps there was another way …
CHAPTER 19
“You sent for me, Mr. President.”
“Yes, Admiral. Come in.”
Admiral Magruder approached the enormous desk. He’d never seen the President looking this worn. The crisis of the past two days had drained the man.
As it had drained him, he admitted to himself. Magruder had not slept well — or long — these past few nights. He didn’t expect to sleep this night either, not with the latest reports coming out of the Arabian Sea.
“I thought you should know, Tom,” the President said. “The battle group is now under full attack.”
