operation like this one.
Ahead, the purple-gray smear of the horizon was rapidly taking form and substance. Mountains, gleaming white in the morning sunlight, rose from the azure waters of the Black Sea.
“Mal? Better check in with Dog House. Let ‘em know what we’re at.”
“I’M on it.” Dog House was the op’s code name for the Jefferson.
A thought occurred to Batman. He opened the channel to the orbiting Hawkeye. “Watch Dog, this is Bird Dog Leader,” he called. “Is Sierra One trying for an intercept on UN Two-seven?”
“Ah, that’s hard to say, Bird Dog,” the Hawkeye air controller replied.
“He’s definitely trailing Two-seven and seems to be closing. Looks like he’s about two miles behind right now. It doesn’t look like a typical intercept, though. He may just be shadowing the blue-hats. Over.”
“Roger that. We’re going to try to set up an eyeball, over.”
“We copy that. We’ll talk you in.”
“Thank you, Watch Dog. Bird Dog Two, this is One.”
“Bird Dog Two,” Dixie replied. “Go ahead, Batman.”
“Two, I want a visual confirmation on this one. We’ll go in with an extended formation. You’re the eyeball. We’re the shooter.”
“Aw, shit, Batman. You’re saving all the fun for yourself!”
Like hell I am. “You want to discuss this, son?” He put a growl behind the words.
“Uh, negative,” Dixie said. “We’ll spot for you.”
The deployment was a common one in fighter combat, especially in situations where welded wings ? wingmen sticking close together ? weren’t necessary. One aircraft, the “eyeball,” was sent several miles ahead of the second plane, or “shooter.” The eyeball could use his position to get a positive ID and could also illuminate a target with his radar for the shooter’s radio-homing Sparrows or AMRAAMS. Batman wasn’t hogging the fun, as Dixie had suggested. The fact of the matter was that he didn’t quite trust Dixie yet as shooter; if the kid launched early because he got excited or because he’d misheard a sighting report, a friendly aircraft might be downed. On the other hand, Batman trusted Cat to back up any sighting report that Dixie might call in.
Dixie’s Tomcat accelerated, afterburners glowing briefly as he arrowed ahead and down, dropping toward the deck.
Batman checked his time display. Zero-eight-twenty. Actually, it was zero-nine-twenty now, since they’d crossed a time zone on their way to their patrol station, from GMT plus three to GMT plus four. Air ops were always conducted in the local time zone of the carrier, however. Combat was confusing enough without bringing conflicting time zones into it.
“Anything on the scope yet, Mal?” he asked his RIO.
“Negative, Batman. We’re getting the track feed from Watch Dog, but the bogey’s not on our scope yet. It’s pretty rugged up ahead.”
“You got that right.” The mountains were growing larger and sharper second by second. The Caucasus Mountains followed the Black Sea’s eastern shoreline from the Sea of Azov southeast to Gagra, then angled toward the east as the coast bent away toward the south, so the range appeared nearer and higher to the left. The highest of those peaks brushed fifteen thousand feet, a rugged stone wall separating Georgia from its war-torn neighbor to the north.
“Let’s come right a bit, Batman,” his RIO said. “Bring her to zero-eight-eight.”
“Rog.”
“Bird Dog Two, feet dry,” Cat’s voice called over the radio.
Two-one-eight had just crossed the beach and was over land now.
Seconds later, Batman’s Tomcat was across the coastline as well, hurtling inland at just below the speed of sound. “And Bird Dog One going feet dry,” Malibu reported.
They were now over what amounted to Indian territory.
“Commander? There’s been a new development on the Bird Dog patrol, sir.”
Commander Grant joined Lieutenant Chadwick in front of the large screen that displayed tactical data relayed from the Hawkeye. Chadwick had just taken over the watch as Ops duty officer. Though he was the senior officer present, Grant wasn’t standing watch. He was in OPS this morning as an observer, part of a crash course in how to carry out his new assignment as Deputy CAG. Observer or not, however, he’d be drawn into any situation that might develop this morning, at least until Magruder arrived and took over.
Coyote Grant had commanded a Tomcat squadron for nearly two years, now, and he’d been an aviator for a lot longer than that. Making split-second decisions and taking the responsibility for them was part and parcel of being an aviator, something you learned to deal with if you wanted to keep flying. But there was something intimidating about Air ops, about its myriad display monitors and banks of consoles and Computers, about the technicians hunched over their screens and speaking in low tones, about the crackle of static and the radio calls coming over the speaker system. This was the heart of the whole operation, and he never felt the pressures of command as keenly as when he was in this place. Sometimes, when he was standing watch here, Coyote had to tell himself that the whole compartment was nothing more than a high-tech video arcade. The technicians, most of them, were kids; the average age of the enlisted men aboard was something under twenty years. It was easy to imagine them all as bright-eyed video game fanatics feeding quarters into their machines.
But it wasn’t a game. This time it wasn’t even a simulation.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” he asked Chadwick, his eyes scanning the monitor. A rough map ? drawn all in straight lines and sharp angles ? showed the coast of the Black Sea. Dozens of coded lights marked radar contacts, known and unknown, scattered up and down the coast.
“Watch Dog picked up an unknown aircraft, probably a low-flying helo,” Chadwick said crisply. He jabbed a stubby finger at the display monitor. “Here… a few miles northwest of Poti. Bird Dog is deploying for intercept and requesting instructions.”
Grant leaned forward to study the screen. Bird Dog Two was well ahead of Bird Dog One now, arrowing across the coast toward the interior. Inland, one of the IDED blips showed a UN designation. “Flight Two- seven?”
“Right there,” the lieutenant said, pointing again. “He’s showing IFF.
The word from the Marine liaison ashore is that it could have an Army gunship flying escort.”
“Could have? Does it or doesn’t it?”
“They’re not sure. In any case, we only have the one friendly on the screen. If there are two helos there, they’re so close together we’re only getting one return from them.”
Coyote nodded. It was a common phenomenon; often one radar blip would resolve into two or more, once you closed with the target a bit. And in rough terrain like that…
“It’s this guy a couple-three miles to the southwest we’re worried about,” Chadwick continued. “He’s not showing IFF. Watch Dog thinks he could be a local, maybe a helo flying low to avoid the radar. If so…”
“If so, it’s a violation,” Grant said. “What are their orders?”
“To check ‘em out and enforce the edict. If that bogey’s a bandit, we take ‘em down.”
In the language of naval aviation, a bogey was an unidentified target, while a bandit had been positively identified as hostile. And according to UN resolution 1026, aircraft violating the Georgian no-fly zone were to be considered hostiles.
“Where’s CAG, anyway?” Coyote wanted to know.
“Getting ready for a meeting with Top Hat, last I heard, sir. You want me to get him down here?”
Coyote shook his head. “You’ve got the deck, Chad. And you’ve got your orders.”
“Yeah, I know.” Chadwick licked his lips. “You know, Commander, it gets damned scary down here sometimes.”
“I know what you mean, Lieutenant. I know exactly what you mean.”
