And he was Stinger Stramaglia, who had never been defeated at Top Gun, finally doing for real what he’d practiced for over the course of nearly a decade.
“All right, Paddles,” he said to the RIO. “Talk to me, son. Where’s the party?”
The Tomcat streaked northward through the cold gray sky.
“So what happens now?” Magruder asked as a thud from the rear of the plane announced the deployment of another sonobuoy.
From his position in the right rear seat, Meade answered in a distracted tone. “Now we hunt. We just dropped a DICASS, an SSQ-62. Instead of the Jezebel’s passive sonar the DICASS will send out active pings on command. We’ve got to lay several of the suckers so we can triangulate range and bearing data and locate our underwater friend.” He paused. “The Skipper has the next set of coordinates locked into the flight computer now, and Curtis is busy working on the acoustic data from the Jezebel.”
“Anything I can do?” Tombstone asked.
“Now that you mention it, yeah. Keep an eye on the non-acoustic sensors. We ran over them yesterday, remember?”
“Yeah.” Magruder found the panel and nodded even though the TACCO couldn’t see him. “Yeah, I’ve got ‘em.”
“Good. Keep a close watch on the MAD. It’ll pick up a sub by detecting the metal in its hull … if we get close enough, and if it isn’t one of those new titanium hulls the Russkies have been playing with. Anything registers on the MAD and you sing out, Commander. Okay?”
“I think I can handle it,” Tombstone said.
Curtis spoke up from the left rear Senso position. “I make the contact a Victor III. Number five, I think, but I’m not positive. The signal’s a little bit confused.”
“Confused?” Meade asked.
“Yeah … I don’t know, sir, there might be more than one engine making the noise down there, but it’s intermittent. I thought I heard two boats for a while, then only one.”
“SOSUS reported possible multiples,” Harrison reminded them. “But you’re sure about the ID, Curtis?”
“Wouldn’t swear to the specific boat, sir, but the sounds I heard were a Victor III all right.”
“I’m tagging it on the tactical plot,” Meade said. “Curtis, pass the data back to the Jeff over the Link-II.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the enlisted man replied.
Magruder was still unfamiliar with many of the more arcane aspects of sub-hunting, but he remembered that the Link-II was the on-board Navy Tactical Data System which kept track of the ships, aircraft, buoys, and submarines in a given area. It could be monitored by the ships of the battle group. The Senso and TACCO shared the responsibility of keeping the NTDS data current and sending it off to the ASW module in Jefferson’s CIC.
“What’s the nearest help we can tap, Spock?” Harrison asked.
Meade didn’t answer immediately. “Hmmm … Gridley’s closest,” he said at last.
Harrison glanced across the cockpit at Magruder. “Commander, get on the horn to the Jeff and ask ASW if we can get a little help from the Gridley. A LAMPS helo would be a big help tracking down that sucker.”
“And the frigate’s towed array’ll spot anything trying to break out to the southeast,” Meade added. “That’ll keep the bastards from getting any closer to the battle group.”
Magruder keyed in the radio and passed the request to the Jefferson.
“Viking Seven-oh-four, this is Guenevere,” Lieutenant Nelson’s voice came back. “Request acknowledged. Wait one.”
Seconds ticked by as the Viking continued its low-level flight barely two hundred feet above the ocean. Magruder heard another sonobuoy launch, and the S-3B banked left to take up a new heading.
“Viking Seven-oh-four thanks you, Guenevere!” the radio announced. “Switch to Channel Five. Call sign is Jericho, repeat Jericho.”
“Guenevere, Seven-oh-four thanks you,” Magruder said. He switched frequencies to establish contact with the Gridley. “Jericho, Jericho, this is Viking Seven-oh-four.”
“Seven-oh-four, Jericho. Copy you five by five. We’re readying you a helo now. Call sign will be Trumpet. ETA your position is thirty Mikes, repeat thirty Mikes.”
“Roger that, Jericho,” Tombstone responded. He was disappointed at the long delay, still reacting with the instincts of a fighter pilot to whom thirty seconds, not thirty minutes, was considered a long time. But Harrison didn’t look concerned. “We’ll be in touch. Seven-oh-four is clear.”
“Got something on DICASS two, sir,” Curtis announced. “Same signature … bearing from buoy is one-eight- one …”
“Range?” Meade demanded.
“Close … damned close …”
Magruder saw the MAD indicator register a contact. “MAD is active!” he said sharply. “MAD active!”
“Christ!” Harrison said. “We’re right on top of the guy!
“Got a line from buoy one now,” Curtis said.
“That’s our boy!” Meade said. “Triangulating now.”
“Course is one-seven-five degrees, speed ten, depth two-one-five,” Curtis reported.
“Range is eight hundred yards,” Meade added a second later. “Man, what a break!”
“We’ve hooked him,” Harrison said. “But we’ve still gotta nail him. I’ll circle in for an attack run.”
“Better hurry, Skipper,” Curtis said. “The pings’ve spooked him. I’m getting changes in speed, target aspect … sounds like he’s diving, too. Updating …”
“Dropping a fish,” Harrison announced. “Bay doors opening.”
Magruder felt rather than heard the grinding sound of the bomb bay opening to expose its lethal cargo. The S-3’s internal bay held four Mark 50 lightweight torpedoes, specifically designed for the Navy’s ASW aircraft. As he heard the sound of the release mechanism dropping one of the torpedoes Magruder could imagine it falling, its parachute deploying to slow the weapon’s fall. When it hit the water the torpedo would start its own hunt with an on-board sonar system.
“Torpedo running,” Meade announced. “I think we have acquisition.”
Magruder closed his eyes. The detached air of the Viking’s crew seemed unreal to him. Down below the aircraft the torpedo was closing on the Soviet submarine at a speed of over fifty knots, yet the matter-of-fact voices in the S-3 cabin might have been discussing sports scores for all the emotion they expressed. This was a new kind of war for Tombstone Magruder. A war he wasn’t sure he’d ever really understand.
“Help me out, John-Boy,” Coyote said, trying to keep the edge of tension out of his voice. “Come on, man, you’ve got to have something for me!”
Viper Squadron was spread out in a loose formation, angling north and west at fifteen thousand feet. The carrier was far behind them now, the Russian bombers somewhere ahead and down on the deck. It was clear now that they were heading for the coast of Iceland and not the Jefferson’s battle group, but that didn’t diminish the threat they posed. They could still double back.
And right now spotting the enemy was no easy task.
“This jamming’s just too damned thick, Coyote,” Nichols complained. “All I’m getting is fuzz.”
“Well, keep on it,” Coyote snapped.
He regretted his tone at once. He was letting things get to him again, losing control of his temper. That, he thought bitterly, was a sure way to get shot out of the sky. All other things being equal, it was the aviator who kept his cool and made the fewest mistakes who got home in one piece.
But today he couldn’t seem to keep a tight rein on his feelings. There was no one cause, no one solution, and that was the real problem. Too many emotions were distracting him.
There was fear, of course. No carrier pilot left the flight deck without knowing fear, no matter what sort of facade they presented to the outside world. In a combat situation, as in a night landing, the “pucker factor” was
