Tombstone's knuckles tightened around the microphone as he continued to stare at the radar display above the console in front of him. It was cluttered with aircraft, friendlies and hostiles. Russian planes had been coming up from every air base in the Kola Peninsula, and the American aircraft were fighting for their lives.
Striker had broken formation, was circling the area where Shotgun One-four had gone down. Damn it, why wouldn't he respond?
'Shotgun Two-two, Home Plate. Come in, please.'
He'd lost sight of the chute. Chris ? it had to have been Chris! ? must be on the ground now.
He felt a small stab at the thought, then dismissed it. He scarcely knew Chris's RIO, McVey. It wasn't that he wanted the guy dead… but please, God, let Chris be alive and in one piece!
'Shotgun Two-two, Home Plate.' That was CAG's voice. 'Two-two, come in, please.'
'Ah, listen, Striker,' K-Bar said from the back seat. 'Don't you think we ought to respond?'
'Screw 'em,' Striker said. 'We got radio difficulty.'
'Oh. Right.' K-Bar chuckled. 'Yeah, I've been having all kinds of problems with this set.'
'Just so you don't have any trouble tuning in on the SAR frequency.'
'Roger that. I'm listening, but there's nothing yet.'
'Well, keep on it, damn it!'
Shit. He was angry at himself for his own conflicting emotions, angry for disobeying orders, scared to death that Chris might be dead, and here he was taking it out on K-Bar by snapping the guy's head off. He tightened the F-14's turn, scanning the ground for more Russian troops. Several vehicles were burning on the road below, but others were still closing on the area where the chute had gone down.
There was the chute, blowing free across the ground! And had that been a lone figure he'd glimpsed running through a patch of snow?
Damn it, they needed a SAR flight in here, and right now!
'Home Plate, Home Plate,' he called. 'This is Shotgun Two-two. I've got a man on the ground, repeat, man on the ground. I don't think she's hurt-'
'Striker! I've got her on the SAR!'
'Let me hear!'
'… on the ground, about eight miles southeast of Sayda Guba. This is Lobo, calling Mayday, Mayday-'
'Chris!' he cut in. 'Chris! This is Steve!'
'Steve! What are you doing here?'
'Looking after you, babe. Listen. I'll stay with you until a SAR chopper can reach you. Keep your head down. There are some bad guys about two miles south of you, and they looked real mad last time I got a close look.'
'Christ, Steve! Get out of here!'
'Not a chance. Now find yourself a ditch and stay down!' He'd just glimpsed several more Russian vehicles to the south. Joy sang in the back of his mind. Chris was alive!
He brought the Tomcat into a long, flat trajectory, lining up for another strafing run.
'How about it, Jim?' Tombstone asked the Operations Officer. He'd heard Striker talking to someone on the ground and inferred that it must be Hanson, though her SAR radio didn't have the range for him to pick up what she'd said.
'Can we get a Search and Rescue helo out that far?'
'Not a chance, CAG. We can call the Marines. Maybe they can send something out from Red Beach. They're close enough.'
'Do it, then.' He raised the microphone again. 'Shotgun Two-two, Two-two, this is Home Plate. RTB. I say again, return to base!' The hostiles were closing in, and one lone Tomcat wouldn't stand a chance by itself.
'Shotgun Two-two, this is Home Plate. Respond!'
Chris was on her knees on a low rise on the ground, staring toward the south. Even without binoculars, she easily recognized the squat, open-topped turret, the quad-mounted 23mm guns. The vehicle was a ZSU-23-4, a deadly mobile flak battery called a Shilka by the Russians, but popularly known as the 'Zoo' among American fliers. She estimated that it was still better than a mile off, sitting in the middle of that dirt road she'd seen from the air.
She grabbed the small survival radio clipped to her flight suit, pressing the transmit key. 'Steve!' she shouted. 'Steve, back off! There's a Zoo-twenty-three down here!'
The turret had already slewed to the right, and its big, blunt radar antenna, code-named 'Gun Dish' by NATO, was tracking something to the west and close to the horizon. She could see that the cannons were firing, raising a haze of smoke above the vehicle. A moment later, the sound reached her, a steady, far-off thud-thud-thud-thud as the Zoo tracked and fired… and then, God, God, no! There was Striker's Tomcat, streaking low across the tundra dead in the Zoo's sights, and then smoke was trailing from it, a white smear unraveling astern of the aircraft as it began to break into pieces, and she heard the roar of the Tomcat's engines rising above the thud of the triple-A guns, and then there was nothing but flame and smoke as Steve's plane slammed into the ground.
Several seconds later, the dull whump! of the crash reached her.
Oh, God, please, no!
'I'm sorry, sir. Shotgun Two-two is down.'
Tombstone replaced the microphone, his eyes still on the radar screen.
That was two down out of Shotgun, plus another damaged and limping back to the boat.
'White Lightning is now over the target,' the Operations Officer announced. 'Lead plane has just dumped his bombs.'
Tombstone dragged his attention away from the blank spot on the map near Sayda Guba to the ragged shores of the Kola Inlet near Polyamyy. The Intruders were swinging one after the other into their attack vectors, bearing down on the naval bases and depots lining the western shore of the inlet. He could hear the aviators and B/Ns calling to one another as they made their runs.
'White Lightning One-two-two! Pickle's hot! I'm going in!'
'This is One-two-oh! I'm in!'
'White Lightning Two, this is Lightning One-one. Watch that flak over the inlet. They've got some ships down there, a couple of corvettes, maybe a light cruiser. We're getting heavy fire from the face of the cliff above the base too.'
'Roger that, One-one. I can see the gunfire.'
'SAM! SAM! I've got a SAM launch at zero-nine-five!
'Watch for fighters. Echo-Whiskey's got bandits spotted at one-eight-zero!'
The hell with this! Angrily, Tombstone picked up a telephone receiver and punched in a number. 'Fred? Tombstone. What's the status on the CAG bird?'
'Uh… she's up and ready, CAG. But-'
'Bring her to ready and put her on the line. I'll be on the roof in ten minutes.'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
He hung up. 'Operations Officer!'
'Yes, sir.'
'You've got the watch here. I'm going up there.'
'Uh, yes, sir. Should I tell-'
But Tombstone had already left the compartment.
