he’d just popped at Tombstone had been his last one. Possibly there’d not been time to rearm when he’d landed earlier. Or possibly he’d loosed five of his six AAMS earlier in the fight.
Mig and Tomcat closed with one another. At two hundred yards, Tombstone could see the other pilot, his helmet visor back. He was making no effort to escape but was watching Tombstone’s approach with what could only be described as professional interest.
The guy knew Tombstone had him and was waiting to die.
Tombstone shook his head. What was it Army had always said. Chivalry gets you dead.
True enough, and the Mig pilot still had his cannon. Still, there came a time when there was simply no point in further slaughter. The Indian Mig pilot was an opponent now, not an enemy … and there was a sharp difference between the two. Tombstone waggled his wings in salute … then broke left, passing behind the other plane close enough to feel the shudder of his jet stream.
“Hey, Hitman? Hitman! Are you still with me?”
There was no response over the ICS. The nine-G turn had knocked his RIO out.
“Viper Leader, Viper Leader, this is Victor Tango One-one.”
Tombstone jumped, wondering if the Hawkeye controller had spotted his rather unprofessional breach.
“Victor Tango, this is Viper Leader. Go ahead.”
“Viper Leader, please give stores listing, over.”
Stores? “Uh, roger, Victor Tango.” He switched the VDI display to his stores listing and read them off, not trusting to memory in his current, somewhat battle-fogged state. “Two AIM-9Js, two AIM-54s. Six hundred seventy-five rounds.”
He’d taken off with two Phoenix, one Sparrow, and four Sidewinder missiles. They’d already launched the Sparrow and two Sidewinders. What was Victor Tango One-one looking for?
“We copy you have two Phoenix missiles, Viper Leader. What about your squadron?”
Three of the other five Tomcats still had AIM-54 Phoenix missiles on board. Shooter and Ramrod had both already fired both of their Phoenix missiles, while Coyote still had his two and Nightmare and Batman each had one left.
“Viper Leader, we copy you have six missiles remaining in your squadron.”
“That’s a roger,” Tombstone replied.
“Hey, Stoney?” Hitman said over the ICS circuit. “What the hell’s goin’ on?”
“Wish I knew, Hitman. Orders.”
“Viper Leader, we have a new target for you. Ah … be advised that this is an extremely hazardous target … but it is also extremely important. Extremely important.”
“Give us the vector.”
“Roger. Come to new heading zero-four-zero at angels base plus thirty-nine. Make your speed five-five-zero knots. Do you copy that?”
“Copy. Zero-four-zero at five-five-zero knots, angels base plus three-niner.”
“Hold that course and speed for fourteen, that’s one-four minutes.”
“Roger. Fourteen minutes.”
“Endpoint is designated Point Lima. Your target will be at extreme Phoenix range at that time, bearing zero- zero-zero to zero-one-zero.”
Tombstone was doing some fast calculations in his head. He reached down to the clipboard on his thigh and shuffled through the papers and checklists, exposing a map of northwest India.
Their current location was north of Highway 101, close to the Indian-Pakistan border and thirty miles from a border town called Gadra.
He used the stub of a pencil to lightly sketch in lines. Point Lima, if he’d followed the instructions of the Hawkeye controller right, was deep within the Thar Desert, just south of the Rajasthan Canal. The closest settlement marked on the map was a village called Bikampur. He measured north one hundred nautical miles — the approximate range of a Phoenix missile. The end point was across the border into Pakistan, somewhere near a nondescript town called Fort Abbas.
“Okay, Victor Tango. I’ve got all that. Uh … we may have a problem, though.” He was staring at his fuel gauge. “Fuel state eight point five.”
They’d used a lot of JP-5 in the dogfighting over the border. Now the Hawkeye controller was telling them to fly another one hundred thirty miles inland. Then, from Point Lima, it would be almost four hundred more long desert miles before they were back over the Arabian Sea.
Well over five hundred miles before they could refuel, or even before they could eject with any hope of being picked up by friendly forces.
They might just make it … but it would be damned tight.
“Copy your fuel state, Viper. I repeat, target is extremely important.”
He sighed. “Roger, Victor Tango. How many missiles will target require, over?”
“Estimate four, Viper.”
But he already knew he would have to take all six aircraft, just to make sure that at least four AIM-54s made it to Point Lima.
And God help their fuel state if they were forced to dogfight along the way. “Okay, Victor Tango One-one. That’s roger. Viper Squadron is in.” He swung the Tomcat onto its new heading, the other five F-14s matching the maneuver.
The dun and barren wastes of the Thar Desert flashed past beneath them as they accelerated, climbing toward fifty thousand feet.
CHAPTER 29
The Sea Harriers had been stalking their prey, traveling slowly and at low altitude in an attempt to lose themselves in the radar clutter at the surface of the ocean. The waves that had been so high and powerful earlier had dwindled, and the sea was relatively calm. But Lieutenant Tahliani knew that death was near.
They’d first been challenged by an American frigate, one of the escorts that formed the picket line of ships around the American fleet, and had detoured far out of their way to evade it. Standard missiles had arced through the sky, locking onto the Harriers as they scattered, spewing chaff. One aircraft — Chani’s — had been hit, the missile’s warhead blasting it apart. A second — young Prakash Garbyal’s — had flown into the sea while trying to evade the American missile that had locked onto him.
And now, like raptor birds circling above their prey, the Russian Migs were stooping on the Sea Harriers from above.
The American carrier was less than sixty kilometers away … close enough! Admiral Ramesh might have vowed vengeance against the American and Russian forces … but the fight was over. Over! India had thrown everything she could muster at the invaders off her shores, and the result had only served to weaken her in the fight against the real enemy, Pakistan.
“Blue King Leader to Blue King,” he radioed. “All aircraft … lock on primary target and launch missiles!”
He had already let his payload “see” the target and store it in its mindless memory. His thumb came down on the firing trigger.
“Blue King Leader! Launch! Launch! Enemy missiles …” He saw the telltale blips of enemy missiles sprinkled across his own VDI. There wasn’t much time left now. He pressed the trigger and felt his Sea Harrier leap as the pair of Sea Eagle missiles dropped away, one following the other.
Within seconds, a spread of twenty missiles were racing toward the Jefferson, now thirty-six miles away.
“They have launched antiship cruise missiles,” Kurasov said. “Lavrov!
