Heat was blasting back at the face of the bridge, turning the compartment into a furnace. He kept his eyes on the compass, however, bringing the ship around into a more and more westerly heading, praying that she stay afloat and responsive to the helm for just a few more precious moments…
“It’s confirmed, Commander,” Lieutenant Crosby said as he hung up the telephone handset. “At least a dozen Russian aircraft just hit the northern Bosporus bridge and dumped it in the water. The Falcon Patriot was hit and is afire. Her skipper appears to be trying to put her aground near Sariyer, but her cargo is going up in flames.”
Coyote felt a dawning horror… not just at the loss of the UNREP ship ? though that was certainly a factor ? but at what the attack meant. The Falcon Patriot had been carrying almost ten million gallons of fuel ? three million gallons of aviation gasoline, and the rest diesel fuel for the nonnuclear elements of the carrier battle group.
Without avgas, Jefferson’s aircraft would not fly. Worse, while the Jefferson, the Shiloh, and the attack subs were all nuclear powered, the battle group’s guided-missile destroyers and frigates were powered by gas turbines fired by diesel fuel. With their current stores, they could operate under normal routine for perhaps another ten days… but then the entire carrier battle group would virtually have to shut down completely. And if they found themselves in combat, making rapid surface maneuvers and flying aircraft off the roof round the clock, that ten-day leeway would be cut back to two to four days at the most.
And after that time, Jefferson and her escorts would be little more than large, expensive, and utterly useless toys, locked into the Black Sea by the closing of the Bosporus Strait.
It was impossible to escape the obvious conclusion ? that someone, Russians or Ukrainians, had just found an indirect but deadly means of rendering the CBG impotent.
“Deputy CAG?”
He turned. “What is it?”
Crosby was holding out a headset. “Sir, CAG’s on the line. Something’s going on ashore.”
Coyote felt cold. Had the attack on the Bosporus bridge been timed to coincide with an attack against the UN party ashore?
He took the headset and slipped it down over his ears. “CAG? This is Coyote! What’s happening?”
“Coyote!” Tombstone’s voice sounded distant and static rough. “There’s just been an attempt on Boychenko’s life! The Ops duty officer just told me you pulled our air cover out! What the hell’s going on?”
Oh, God, no…
“Tombstone, we’ve got trouble, big-time. We picked up a flock of bogeys heading toward the Bosporus.” Quickly, he told Tombstone about the reshuffling of the three CAP groups, explaining that BARCAP Three would be on station south of Yalta in another few minutes. “But things have already started going down,” he concluded. “We’ve just had a report that unidentified aircraft dropped the northern Bosporus bridge across the channel, and fired on one of our UNREP ships.”
“Sounds like someone doesn’t want us leaving,” Tombstone said. He sounded grim.
“That’s the way it looks. We have BARCAP One and Two investigating, but it’s going to be another few-“
“Coyote!” Crosby said. “BARCAP Two’s engaging!”
He gestured toward a speaker mounted on the bulkhead, and Coyote became aware of the crackle of voices emerging from it. “I’m closing, I’m closing with bandit India-three,” Dixie’s voice was calling. “Range seven miles!”
“Watch yourself,” another voice, the voice of the air control officer aboard the Hawkeye, warned. “You have multiple bogeys swinging in on your six.”
“Okay! Okay, I see him!” Dixie replied.
Damn. Who did he see, Coyote wondered? The guy he was chasing, or the “multiple bogeys” closing on his tail?
“Badger!” Dixie’s voice called, suddenly anxious. “Badger! Where are you?”
“Missile! Missile! Bandits have launched!”
“We confirm bandit launch at one-zero-zero-niner and thirty seconds,” one of Crosby’s officers said. “Weapons free!”
“Gotta go, Tombstone,” Coyote said into the headset’s mike. “Looks like we have a situation developing here.”
“Go take care of it. We won’t be moving until we know we have air cover.”
“We’ll keep you posted. You keep your head down, Stoney, you hear me?
The natives aren’t as friendly as we thought.”
“Roger that.” He could hear Tombstone’s grin on the other end of the radio link. “And you take care of my boys and girls! You’ve got the wing, Coyote.”
“I copy. Dog House out.”
“I’ve got one on my tail!” Dixie was calling from the bulkhead speaker.
“Break left, Dixie!” Badger replied. “Break left! Fox two!”
It sounded like Dixie and Badger had just flown smack into a full-fledged dogfight.
CHAPTER 19
The bandits had dropped out of nowhere, it seemed, coming in between Dixie and the now-distant Jefferson, their approach masked by jamming and the confusion of the moment.
“Break left, Dixie!” Badger yelled in his earphones. “Break left!! Fox two!”
The cry Fox two warned that Badger had just released a heatseeking Sidewinder missile; his order to break left meant either that he was trying to set up a shot, with Dixie pulling the bad guy into position when he swung left, or that any other maneuver might expose Dixie’s hot exhaust to the Sidewinder… and break its lock on the bandit with some rather serious consequences for Dixie.
Hauling back and to the left on his stick, he pushed the rudder over and dragged the Tomcat around in a hard turn to port. Sea and sky tilted on end, and both he and Mickey began grunting heavily, fighting against the rapid buildup of G-forces in their lower bodies. As his F-14 came around through nearly 180 degrees, he caught a glimpse of his pursuer, a black, winged speck a mile and a half behind him, reaching hard to match his turn.
“I see the missile!” Mickey yelled. “I see it! Coming in at seven o’clock! Pop flares!”
“I’m on it.” Dixie hit the flare release, spilling a line of white-hot flares to confuse the incoming heatseeker. A moment later, the missile streaked past, flashing beneath the Tomcat’s belly and off to the right.
“Suckered him!” Dixie yelled.
“Who are these guys?” Mickey wondered, twisting in his seat to get a better look at the other aircraft.
“Don’t know,” Dixie said. He kept the stick hard over, maintaining a steady eight Gs of acceleration in the turn. “Where the hell is Badger?”
“There. Nine o’clock, coming in on the bandit’s six.”
“Thank God. “Badger missed. That bandit’s popping flares, too.”
“Let’s see if we can help.” Leveling off at ten thousand feet, Dixie sent the Tomcat arrowing back toward the other aircraft.
The bandit was coming toward them, nose on. They only had a second in which to register each detail as it flashed past, but Dixie recognized the bandit as soon as he could make out its twin stabilizer configuration and the widely separated engine nacelles. Back in fighter school, he’d studied silhouettes, films, and photos of all possible aggressor aircraft, and he knew that one well.
Mig-29, “Fulcrum” in the NATO code list of hostile aircraft. A deadly aircraft, capable of Mach 2.23 at high altitude, of climbing fifty thousand feet in one minute, of out-turning, out-climbing, and outmaneuvering nearly every combat aircraft in the Western arsenal.
