“Scimitar Leader to Viper Leader,” Bird Dog said over tactical. “We’re fifty mikes out. Copy?”
“Copy, Scimitar Leader. Don’t hurry on our account. I’ve always wanted to get a nice, long, close-up look at a Flanker. Or two.”
“We’re buster, Lobo. Just hang in there.”
“Copy.” Her damned voice was all business. “By the way, the inbound PLA helo is going to get here in less than a mike. You’re the War College brain; what do you advise if it makes a play for the survivor?”
“Just do what you did the other night,” he said. “Those are our orders: Just let the helo know you’re there. Make life uncomfortable for it.
“Um, Mr. Dog, it seems to me that if I run interference on this helo like you say, the Chinese could make a pretty good case that the USA is interfering in a benevolent SAR attempt.”
“Not after what happened to
Two sharp clicks indicated acknowledgment of the message. Then the ICS came on. “I don’t think she liked your advice, boss,” Catwoman said.
But then he remembered how he’d felt as he drifted helplessly in the warm Atlantic, waiting to see who was going to pick him up first — the Cubans or his own people. Remembered that, and was glad he’d kept his lip zipped for a change.
But his imagination was a different matter. When he visualized Lobo flying around out there at suicidally low altitudes, doing a job better suited to prop planes or helos, his anger and frustration surged up again, and he thought,
There was nothing worse than flying this low in a fighter plane. Lobo ached for altitude, for the superior speed and maneuverability that altitude conferred.
Right now the two SU-27s were living up to their NATO nickname, flanking her and Hot Rock throughout their long, constant turn, as if escorting the American planes. The Flankers were large craft, with twin vertical stabilizers and graceful, recurved fuselages… in fact, they looked disturbingly like Tomcats. She mentally reviewed what she knew about their capabilities: Twin afterburning Lyul’ka AL-21 turbofans each providing almost thirty thousand pounds of thrust — compared to the 27,000 pounds available to the Tomcats — which gave the Chinese planes a top speed of Mach 2.35 as compared to Mach 1.88 for the Tomcat. The SU-27 had a better ceiling, too.
According to the latest intel, the Flankers also turned tighter than Tomcats, and had radar equipped with look-down, shoot-down capability.
And these were the
In other words, for the first time since early in the Vietnam war, it was possible the American aircraft in any given air battle were not intrinsically superior. It was actually possible that the Tomcat was outmatched, not only in turn radius but in pure, brute power.
On top of that, Homeplate had warned them to be on the lookout for an “unidentified fighter aircraft of unknown abilities.” Whatever that meant.
Not that Lobo was frightened by either the known statistics or the unknown variables of the situation. Regardless of how swell a pilot’s hardware was, the plane was no better than the pilot. And that was where nobody could touch the United States Navy.
Still… there was no denying that this situation
She looked over her right shoulder, gazing down at the water on the inside of her steady turn. There was a small red-and-white dot floating on the water. The survivor, presumably, although there had been no more flares. She wondered what the poor schmuck thought about this private air show. Assuming he or she was still alive.
“Lobo,” Handyman said, “I’ve got a visual on that Chinese helo. I hate to ask awkward questions, but what are we supposed to do if it ignores us? Shoot it down?”
“I wish,” Lobo said.
“Let’s get horizontal,” Thor said into his oxygen mask. Toggling the radio, he reported to Homeplate that he and Reedy had arrived on site, at an altitude of fifty-two thousand feet — all they could manage, but still below the ceiling of the Russian planes. He and Reedy started circling well outside the orbit of the six bogeys, trying to look innocent.
But Thor could see the enemy, the dying light of day flaring silver-gold off the lower surfaces of wings and canards as the Flankers circled. Six of them, not to mention the two older models far down below, dancing with Lobo and Hot Rock just above the water.
Bad position. And a bad fuel situation for him and Reedy.
Who cares?
Thor ran his thumb over the weapons selector switch and waited for something to happen.
“Viper 304, Viper 302,” Lobo said. “Hot Rock, we’d better make things a little rough for that helo before it gets any closer. We’re going to need to spread out some.”
“If we’re going to keep that chopper off the survivor, we’ve got to put up a wall. I go past it, then you go past it, then I go, like that. Constant circles. Rip up the air. No gap big enough for him to slip through. You’re such a hot stick, you think you can handle that?”
A pause, then, “You’re the boss.”
“Then let’s do it.”
“How much farther?” Bird Dog snapped over ICS. “How much farther?”
“You sound like a little kid in the back of a station wagon,” Catwoman said. “Five mikes. Keep your shirt on — sir. What can happen in the next five minutes?”
“They didn’t teach this in flight school,” Hot Rock muttered as he eased back on the throttles, letting the distance between his Tomcat and Lobo’s lengthen. At the same time, both planes were descending. Hot Rock rarely saw the ocean this close except during launches and landings — the two most dangerous times to be a Naval aviator.
But he wasn’t worried about the water; he was too busy keeping an eye on the two escorting Flankers. For a few moments they seemed uncertain what to do; then they both rose up and took up new position, one behind each of the Tomcats. Overall, the formation was odd. Hot Rock had a clear belly-shot at the Flanker following Lobo, but at the same time he was dead in the sights of the Flanker on his own six o’clock. A Mexican standoff.
“No need to hit the deck.” Lobo’s voice was flat but intense in his hears. “Use your wingtip vortices. Got that?”
Hot Rock clicked his mike twice. Lobo was talking about taking advantage of what was usually an annoying feature of fixed-wing aerodynamics — the tilted hurricanes of air that formed at the outer ends of a wing, where compressed air from the underside met low-pressure air from above. The resulting braids of turbulence were a major source of drag, as well as a potential hazard to other air traffic because they could linger for minutes in the air, invisible and tenacious, like horizontal tornadoes.
In this case, though, Lobo was advocating using the vortices as blunt instruments to make the Chinese helo think twice about approaching the survivor in the water. Painting the air with turbulence that way would require some fine flying, and Hot Rock felt himself relaxing just thinking about it.
Ahead of him, Lobo was making her first turn toward the helo, which was a slick-looking Z-9 with retractable landing gear and a shark-fin fairing around its tail rotor. The helo was flying low enough to create a gray shimmer on the water.
Lobo increased her angle of bank, slipping down as she crossed the path of the helo. Her Chinese escort, Hot
