deck space he had in which to stop. The time-distance calculations flashed through his mind intuitively. Not enough distance heading toward the catapult, he was sure. He stamped down, slewed the taxiing Tomcat into a hard left- hand turn, and dropped the tailhook. If he could get it headed back down the flight deck toward the stern, the drag produced by the tailhook and the extra time might let the marginal brakes act. As a last resort, he could snag one of the arresting wires with his tailhook and get the jet stopped before it rolled off the stern into the ocean.
Ten knots had never felt so damned dangerous before.
“Nothing here,” Mouse said.
“Still showing contacts on the scope. Hell, according to this, we ought to be right in the middle of them!” Bouncer muttered, disgusted.
“Can’t help what isn’t here. Maybe the avionics took a hit from the cat shot.”
“Or maybe it’s ghosts. The way conditions are out here, all that warm, unstable air, it could be something else. A reflection off a contact miles away, multipathing through the atmosphere, an air burble, anything.”
“Wouldn’t be unheard of in the South China Sea. Well, whatever it was, it’s not here now. I guess the Aegis guys were right — if they don’t see it, it’s not here.”
“Shit,” Bouncer said, disgusted. “Better let the carrier know before they get all spun up about nothing.”
Alvarez felt as much as heard the jet wash from the F-14 dissipate. One moment he was leaning into the blast to stay upright. As it disappeared abruptly, he fell to his right, the heavy tie-down chains unbalancing him. He hit the deck hard and felt the nonskid scrape the skin off the back of his hand. One chain bounced off the deck and landed across his legs, curling between his ankles. He swore and struggled to his knees, wrapping the tie-down chain even more tightly around his ankles. He reached back to loosen the knot and looked forward toward the catapults for the first time.
“Jesus, Bird Dog!” Gator shouted. “Wrong end!”
The Tomcat was now nearly halfway through its 180-degree turn. Bird Dog was staring at the side of the carrier, trying to increase the rate of turn through sheer willpower. Two E-2C’s were parked directly in front of him. It looked like his wingtip Would just barely clear them. For a second, he wondered if he could fold his wings, decreasing the amount of room the massive aircraft took up. No, it wouldn’t be necessary, he decided, estimating that his wing would clear the E-2C’s by at least three feet. He shifted his gaze down to the end of the flight deck, focusing on the arresting gear, and caught his first glimpse — and last — of Airman Alvarez.
The F-14 that had been headed for the catapult was now staring straight at him. Alvarez felt the wind scream by his head, first tugging, then jerking him off his knees. He screamed and grabbed for a pad-eye inset on the deck, desperate for something to hold on to to stop his roll toward the catapults and the F-14. His fingers slid into the pad-eye loop and caught. The tendons in his wrist and the muscles in his arm flashed into instant agony. The F-14, now only ten feet away, was generating typhoon-strength winds, the hungry jets sucking up everything in their path. Alvarez screamed again as the bones in his first three fingers snapped, and he began rolling back down the nonskid toward the jet engine intakes.
Bird Dog jerked the throttle back, killing the twin jet engines. He felt them immediately start to spool down. But for the airman on the deck, it wasn’t soon enough.
Alvarez’s body lost contact with the ground when the jet was five feet away. His head hit the edge of the nacelle and was crushed just seconds before the screaming turbines inside pulverized his body.
The Yellow Shirt who’d been directing Bird Dog onto the catapult was behind the Tomcat, flat on the deck to avoid the jet wash from the engines. He caught a glimpse of the airman on the deck in front of the aircraft and had just enough time to scream a warning out on the flight deck circuit before a hot red wash of liquid and flesh spat out of the back of the engine nacelle. The spooling-down whine of the engine changed to a gritty clatter.
CHAPTER 12
The Sikorsky SH-60F Ocean Hawk helicopter hovered forty feet above the ocean. From beneath its belly, it lowered a large reflective metal ball toward the surface, the wet end of its Allied Signals (Bendix Oceanics) AQS- 13F dipping sonar. A wire cable connected the ball to the avionics equipment in the helo, making it appear as though it were tethered to the ocean. Its auto-hover capabilities enhanced the illusion by making it an exceptionally stable hovering platform, even with two Mark 46 acoustic homing torpedoes slung under an external weapons station on the port side. First deployed to the Fleet in 1991, it was the replacement airframe for the SH-3 LAMPS Mark III helicopter. ASW experts bragged about its impressive passive and active tracking capabilities. Submariners from every nation hated it for the same reasons. The Ocean Hawk was the pit bull of ASW helicopters. “Going down to one hundred feet,” the AW announced.
“What’s the surface layer?” the other enlisted technician asked.
“Sixty feet today. That ought to put us well below it,” the first AW answered.
“We’ll see. There’s nothing I like about this contact at all, not a thing. Surface-to-air missiles on a submarine! God! It’s unnatural, and unsportsmanlike!”
“You better get something here,” the pilot announced, his hands and feet moving in coordination to keep the helo hovering. “We’re too near to the twelve-mile limit to go in any further.”
“You watch the surface, sir. Any sign of her coming shallow, you’re going to want to be skedaddling out of here.” With a max speed of 150 knots, the SH-60F needed a good lead on any SAM the sub would fire to survive.
“Speak of the devil, Sir, probable periscope, bearing 285, range three thousand yards!”
“That’s it, boys!” the pilot snapped. “We’re getting the hell out of here! Reel that sucker in!”
The winch sang, heaving the sonar transducer out of the water. As soon as it was clear of the sea, the pilot kicked it in the ass.
“Hunter 710, she’s all yours!” the pilot said.
“Thanks a lot. We’ll sneak in a little closer, see if we can get a VID from outside of missile range,” Rabies answered. “Want to stick around in case we drive her back under?”
“Roger, we’ll be around — just outside of the SAM envelope.”
“Can’t say that I blame them,” Rabies said. “Now let’s see if we can get a visual.”
He circled the datum the helo had passed to him, watching the black stovepipe sticking up. A small wake, a feather, curled behind it, showing the direction of travel.
“Surfacing!” the copilot said. Slowly, a black sail emerged from the sea, water streaming off its sides. “Oh, shit,” he said after a second. “It’s not possible.”
The AW craned his head around, looked through the cockpit windscreen, and whistled. “Sure as hell is, boss,” he said softly.
“A Kilo submarine fired on Hunter 701,” the TACCO said slowly. “And that-“
“Is definitely not a Kilo. It’s a Han-class diesel boat, one of China’s own production models. We’ve been chasing the wrong boat,” Rabies said.
Tombstone studied the young pilot sitting across from him. Of all the mistakes of the day, this was the most painful to deal with. Amidst the confusion of the sub-launched missile from the Kilo, the Han submarine, the Flanker
