MiG followed. As the MiG turned, it exposed its tailpipe to Bird Dog. He snapped off a white Sidewinder, which shot out and immediately acquired the blazing hot exhaust from the MiG. It accelerated, slamming into it before the MiG even realized he was no longer alone.
“Get back up here,” Bird Dog ordered. He brought the Tomcat around the hard turn, and saw the rest of the MiGs heading back toward him.
But the rest of his flight was now descending through the thicket of missiles, and the lead aircraft fired an AMRAAM into the pack, forcing them into evasive maneuvers and dispersing them. From their superior altitude, the Tomcats wreaked havoc.
“We’re in the line of fire” Bird Dog shouted to Shaughnessy. “Buster, to the north!”
“Roger,” Shaughnessy said, her voice still shaky, and Bird Dog saw that she was turning even before she responded.
They headed north to clear the AMRAAMs and resulting fireballs, then arced around to rejoin the rest of the flight. A few of the remaining MiGs had the same idea and also headed north, but the Tomcat flight quickly dealt with those. Finally, when they’d established complete control of the air, Bird Dog said, “Come on, people. Let’s get those trucks.”
Sergeant Oleg Kaminiski shouted frantically at the conscripts swarming over the missile launchers. The ripple launching had gone well, so very well that there should’ve been no way for the Americans to survive it.
But survive it they had, and he didn’t need a control tower to tell him that. His own rudimentary targeting radar showed the clouds of interference generated by the chaff, then the harder discrete contacts emerging from it. There would be a second round of missiles, and then a third if necessary. They could not keep this up forever.
He was sweating heavily, the salt water trickling down his spine and soaking into the waistband of his pants. He could feel more sweat rolling down his face and his scalp itched where it collected.
Damn this hot weather. It wasn’t right, expecting a man to live in this.
“Hurry, or you’ll kill us all!” Oleg crawled up onto the bed of the truck. He shoved aside the conscript who was holding one end of the firing cable in his hand, staring at it as though it were a snake. “Have you forgotten everything? Connect it then get clear. Move, I’ll do it myself.”
How far away where they? Were they even now firing antiradiation missiles, seeking out the warm scent of his radar?
“There!” He jammed the housing home, and a green light on the panel went on, indicating a solid fire control circuit. “Stand by to—”
But the conscript he’d shoved out of the way had forgotten more than how to connect the cable to the housing. He’d also forgotten every basic safety precaution. Before Oleg could finish his sentence, before he could even get clear of the tail of the missile, the conscript punched the firing button.
Oleg had just a second to stare in horror as a high-pitched sizzle started behind him. He turned just as the rocket engine ignited, toxic fumes spewing out from its tail seconds before fire burst out.
Every inch of his skin was incinerated immediately. It clung to the remainder of his body, masking the slow cooking taking place underneath charred flesh. His hair flashed into fire and then ash, as did his eyes.
By the time Oleg’s body fell from the truck bed to the dark, rich ground, he was already dead.
“Who’s that?” Tombstone said, indicating a lone radar contract to the south. “He’s pretty far away from the fight — is he waiting on us?”
“I don’t think so.” Greene’s voice was puzzled. “He’s heading due south — but he’s off axis of our course.”
“Hawkeye, got any idea?”
“It’s a MiG out of area. There’s nothing to the south of us in the air.”
Tombstone recalled the large-scale briefing plot he’d seen in TFCC. A possibility occurred to him as he remembered the AGI to the south.
“I think I know where he’s headed,” Tombstone said. He put the MiG into a hard turn to the south. “And I think I’ll stop him from getting there.”
TWENTY-ONE
With seventy-five miles of airspace between his aircraft and the island, Korsov was beginning to relax. The rest of the flight had hardly noticed when he departed, and, although there had been one question from the flight leader, no one has followed up. They had their hands full dealing with the waves of American aircraft coming at them. The shore-based missiles were giving them some cover, but he gathered from the radio traffic that most of the ZUS-9 trucks had been eliminated somehow. Something about a MiG firing on them — no, that was impossible. While it wasn’t inconceivable that there could have been a defector, there could have been no motivation to destroy their own antiair missile sites, none whatsoever. Not with the Americans breathing down their necks.
He was holding the AGI on his radar now. It was only a matter of minutes before he was in area for a quick pick up. He had used afterburner the entire way — no use worrying about fuel consumption now, not when he expected to abandon this airframe shortly.
The sudden
Another contact snapped into being on his screen and he stared at it in disbelief. The sheer shock stunned him for a second, and then he began working rapidly.
An incoming missile — and from another MiG! Had they somehow detected his treachery and broke off one covertly to follow him? A MiG, of all things — he could understand a Tomcat chasing him down, although most of their attention was still fixed on the air battle off the coast.
Why another MiG?
Well, no matter. He had been a senior instructor at their advanced fighter tactics school not so long ago, and anything the pilot facing him knew Korsov had taught him. He should’ve known it would come to this. Everything had gone far too smoothly. There would have to be one final test, one final confrontation.
Korsov turned back to face the other MiG, now regretting the long sprint in afterburner. He would have to watch his fuel, and watch it carefully. He began climbing rapidly, pumping chaff and flares as he did so, creating a curtain of metal and heat behind him, hoping it would hide him for even just a few moments. He also activated his IFF transponder on the off chance that a missile IFF seeker head wasn’t malfunctioning. Finally, he gained altitude, knowing that he might be able to outmaneuver the other pilot.
The other MiG was heading straight for him, ascending to meet him, searching for another lock on him. But the avionics resisted targeting a friendly, now with his IFF on, and that would work in his favor as well.
The first missile selected a particularly attractive flair hanging in the air and detonated inside its plume, satisfied that it had found its target. Korsov considered abandoning his dash to the south. He could turn north and try to circle in behind the other MiG.
But whoever was chasing him had already thought of that. The MiG cut around in a curve, trying to position itself behind him for a tail shot. The simple heat seeker wouldn’t care that his IFF was screaming out a warning. It would see only heat — nice, tasty heat — and it would home in on it.
The other pilot was also smart enough to keep the sun behind him, producing not only a glare in Korsov’s eyes but an enticing target for the no-brainer heat seeker that Korsov wanted to fire.
