"Forget it!" If the heat-seeker hadn't hit them by now, it wasn't going to. "Stay on the scope! Tell me what the bandits are doing!"
"Closing! Range seven hundred!"
A close-knit pair of shapes rocketed past, silver against deepest blue, and Tombstone caught a glimpse of the red star painted on each of the Korean fighters' tails. The enemy formation had split, two and two, and suddenly the sky seemed to be filled with aircraft, rolling, twisting, and jockeying for position. His first assessment had been right. These fighter jocks were good… and he and Coyote were in for a rough time.
The enemy was too close now for the Tomcat's radar-guided Sparrows, which suited Tombstone perfectly. To guide them to their targets, the Tomcat had to fly his own aircraft straight and level and pointed at the enemy, which struck Tombstone as a silly way to enjoy a dogfight. Besides, the Sparrow had been dogged by problems since its inception, and he didn't trust the missile to hit anything it was aimed at.
The four AIM-9L all-aspect Sidewinders slung from his wings, though, those were something else again. Given the choice, Tombstone always preferred a Sidewinder kill.
"Rodeo Two! Rodeo Two! Coyote, you've got a pair closing on your six!"
"Rog, Tombstone. I see 'em!"
"Hold on. Ready to break right, on my word. I'll brush him off!"
"Pedal to the metal, man! This guy's all over me!"
"Break! Break!"
Coyote's F-14 sheered off sharply to starboard, the MiG on his tail hauling back in an attempt to hold the turn. Tombstone dropped in behind one MiG, leading him, too close now for missiles. "I'm on him! Going for guns!" His finger closed on the trigger, and tracer rounds drifted like glowing, angry hornets toward the MiG-21.
"Tombstone!" Snowball called. "They're behind us! Behind us!"
MiG cannon fire floated above his canopy, each round an orange-white flare hanging a few yards above his head and drifting closer. His initial surprise swallowed now in icy detachment, his hands and mind guided by training and countless hours of practice, he dropped his Tomcat's nose, plunging forward and down, knowing that if he twisted left or right one wing would snap up into that deadly train of fire.
Ahead and to the left, he could see the MiGs on Coyote's tail breaking left and right as Coyote hauled back and climbed, twisting his aircraft into a three-quarters turn and rolling out in an Immelmann which carried him clear of the immediate threat. Another burst of 23-mm cannon fire probed past his right wingtip.
"Coyote! Where are you? I need a brush-off!"
"Copy, Tombstone. Cavalry to the rescue!"
Since Vietnam, American Naval aviators had trained and refined the "loose deuce" formation for dog-fighting, a system allowing far greater flexibility than the old wingman-on-his-leader concept. There were greater dangers… but advantages as well. A pair of aggressive pilots could confront a traditional wingman pair with two dangerous attackers instead of only one.
But the odds here were still two to one, no matter what tactics the Americans employed. Two MiGs clung to Tombstone's tail, following him down toward the cloud deck. Tombstone kicked the throttle, going to full burner, and the Tomcat lunged forward like a living thing. The MiGs lagged but kept on coming.
"Tombstone! Tombstone! I've got a set! Hit the brakes and get clear!"
"Rog, Coyote! Take your shot! Take it!"
He feinted left, then broke hard right, killing his burner and dragging back his nose until he felt that first mushy sensation that warned him of a stall. Two MiGs dropped past him like stones, one to the left, one to the right. Tombstone pushed his nose over again, working now to win back the speed he'd lost.
"I'm on the left one," Coyote called. "Fox two! Fox two!" The cry was a warning they'd launched the heat-seekers.
For a long moment, Tombstone hung suspended in the sky, his eyes following that twisting, flaming point of light as it raced toward its target. The MiG was turning hard now, aware of the missile and throwing everything he had into a frantic break high and left. The Sidewinder closed the range in a steady march.
Then the burning flare of the heat-seeker merged with the MiG, eating its way up his jet exhaust. The explosion, even though expected, was startling, a blossoming fireball of orange and black which seemed to unfold, layer upon layer as the stricken plane disintegrated in flame and spinning, burning chunks of metal.
"Yow! Splash one MiG!" Coyote called.
"Great shot! Watch your six, now!" Another MiG was closing, dropping onto Coyote's tail.
"I see him!"
"I'm on him!" Tombstone rolled to port and kicked in afterburner, hurtling down across the sky, the Tomcat's wings folding back like the wings of a diving eagle. The MiG drifted across his forward field of vision, left wing high as it angled away from him, intent on Coyote's aircraft. He toggled his fire selector to Sidewinder, listening for the steady tone in his headset which told him the missile had a solid target lock. There! He pulled back on the stick, leading slightly to compensate for the target's hard turn without breaking his lock. "Fox two! Fox two!"
With the warning, Coyote's aircraft broke left and rolled in a split-S maneuver to port. The MiG followed, the maneuver dragging the MiG's tail around to give Tombstone a better shot, straight up the MiG's tailpipe.
His finger closed on the trigger and he felt the shooshing lurch of the Sidewinder arrowing off its rail. He followed the missile's flight as it closed on its target, a bright orange-white flare of light which dwindled, trailing smoke, closing… closing…
An explosion filled the sky as the rear half of the MiG erupted in a cloud of burning debris. Tombstone watched the nose of the aircraft twist into a fiery plummet. There was a tiny flash, and a moment later the pilot's canopy blossomed. "Splash another one!" he announced. "Score tied, Coyote. One and one!" He turned in his seat, searching the sky. Two down, two to go…
The remaining two MiGs were dwindling into the distance, running for home.
"Tally-ho, Tombstone! Two gomers at one-niner-three! I'm on 'em!" Coyote's Tomcat twisted right, angling toward the fleeing MiGs.
Magruder almost ordered Coyote to hold position. Those MiGs had a long head start. This close to the Korean twelve-mile limit, he didn't want to risk breaking the ROEs by crossing that invisible barrier in hot pursuit.
But there was another danger as well. They'd been vectored to this spot in the ocean to locate an American ship, a ship somewhere down there beneath that unbroken floor of snow wisp clouds.
"Copy, Rodeo Two. Hold the fort while I drop to the deck. I want to find our people."
"I hear you, Stoney. Mardi Gras and me are gonna make the score two-one while you're loafing."
"ROEs set to Hotel-Two," Tombstone reminded him. "Don't cross the line."
"Copy, Boss."
"You still with me, Snowball?"
"Y-yeah, Tombstone. But check your fuel!"
He glanced at the gauge. They were down to less than four thousand pounds of fuel. Dog-fighting and full burner on those twin GE engines gulped down JP-5 at a prodigious rate. He checked his clock and felt a dull thump of surprise. The air battle had lasted less than six minutes.
"We've got time." The Tomcat was already pulling negative Gs as it nosed over and dropped toward the clouds. "The Jeff'll be sending us a Texaco."
Once more between sea and clouds, Tombstone pulled up, leveling off at five hundred feet and angling southwest toward the coast. Radar interference had slackened, and Snowball reported two large, strong targets close together in that direction.
"Tango Seven-niner, this is Rodeo Leader. We're tracking two surface bogies, bearing two-zero-three, range about four miles. Do you have them, over?"
"Rodeo Leader, Tango. Affirmative." They triangulated the position of the targets. The two were well inside the twelve-mile limit, on the surface and moving slowly west. One of those blips had to be the Chimera.
Homeplate, Homeplate, this is Rodeo Leader." The people in Jefferson's CIC were following the situation as it was
relayed to them by the high-flying Hawkeye. "Request permission to cross the line, over."
"Rodeo Leader, this is Homeplate. Negative. Break off and return, over."
"Homeplate, Rodeo. Believe Chimera inside twelve-mile limit, repeat, inside twelve-mile limit. Request permission to overfly, over."
"Rodeo, Homeplate. Denied. RTB immediately."
And that, Tombstone reflected, was most distinctly that. RTB… Return to base. He brought his Tomcat into a shallow climb, as Snowball searched for Coyote. He should be off to the northwest, no more than four or five miles away.
"Rodeo, Rodeo, this is Tango Seven-niner. Be advised, we have bogies bearing three-two-one, your position."
"Snow?"
"Got 'em, Mr. Magruder. They're all over the place! I see six… no, eight…"
Heedless of fuel, Tombstone went to full burner and blasted back up through the clouds. Sunlight dazzled from the blue glory of the sky, a panorama of eerily peaceful beauty. He rolled the aircraft, the sun dazzle in the cockpit replaced by shadow as the Tomcat went belly-up.
"Rodeo Two, Rodeo Two! Do you copy, Coyote?"
"I got 'em, Tombstone." Coyote's voice was charged with excitement or fear. "Your ten o'clock, and high. God damn, where'd they come from?"
He saw them then, a ragged line of dots against the western sky. For one hopeful instant, Tombstone wondered if they might be friendlies off the Jefferson. But no… not from that direction.
"Negative on IFF," Snowball said. "Tombstone, let's get out of here!"
He hesitated.
"Skipper," Snowball insisted. "We gotta! Our fuel's going' critical!"
"Not without Coyote and Mardi Gras!" Just where the hell were they, anyway?
1405 hours
Tomcat 207
Coyote heard the eerie, high-pitched warble in his headset which told him his aircraft had been tagged by someone's radar weapons lock. "Tone!" he yelled to his RIO. "I got a tone! Shit, Mardi Gras, where are they?"
"On our ass, Coyote!" said Lieutenant j.g. Vince Cooper, "Mardi Gras" for his New Orleans hometown. "There's a million of 'em!"
"Shitfire! We're going' ballistic!"
The Tomcat kicked him in the small of the back as he went to full burner, then rocketed past twenty thousand feet in a chest-crushing climb that made his eyes blur.
"I see 'em, Coyote! Five o'clock and low!"
Coyote looked aft. He saw a deadly white line drawing itself across the sky, the contrail of a radar-homing missile. He punched the Tomcat's chaff dispenser, then twisted away from the missile to give it a smaller radar profile.
"Bandits! Bandits!"
They were climbing to meet him from the cloud deck far below. He counted three… no, four. He checked the missile again and saw it still arcing toward him, undeterred by the rapid-fire barrage of chaff.
"They're locked on us, man!" Mardi Gras yelled. "They're locked on us!"
"Good night, Mardi!" Coyote killed the afterburner, then snapped the Tomcat into a wingover which sent the heavy aircraft plunging toward the cloud deck in an inverted dive. They fell for a mile through clear cold air before he hauled back the stick and kicked in full burners once more. Fuel was becoming a problem, but bingo fuel was a worry he would gladly live with later if they survived the next sixty seconds.
The Gs built up as he continued to pull out of the inverted dive. He felt his mask, his skin dragging at his face as they pulled eight… nine… nine point five Gs. He felt the odd mixture of light-headedness and crushing weight. The Tomcat was easily capable of pulling Gs enough to put both Coyote and Mardi Gras to sleep. The trick was to pull just enough to stay awake, to stay in control.
His vision distorted, bluffed by a nebulous disk of black fog as though he'd stared hard into the sun, then looked away. The blackness spread…
… and he came out of the dive, pulling up at nine thousand and continuing to climb as he rolled upright. "Mardi Gras! Are you with me?"
No answer. His RIO was out for the count. He continued his climb with a half roll to starboard, searching. Where was that damned gomer missile…?
The explosion came like a hard punch to his stomach, slamming him in his seat, then forward against his harness in a vicious one-two jolt.
He glimpsed silver fragments of high-tech aircraft hurtling past his canopy, felt the off-center surge as fuel ignited in a fireball a few feet behind him. What was left of the Tomcat rolled to the right as white flame swallowed the sky.
Coyote was functioning on pure, raw instinct as he reached down between his legs, grabbed the black and yellow ejection loop, and yanked it toward him. There was no time to think as ejection charges blew the F-14's canopy up and back. A second blast rocketed his seat up the rails and into cold blue sky, followed an instant later by a third explosion which sent Mardi Gras hurtling from the cockpit as soon as Coyote's seat was clear.
The ejection slammed Coyote's tail like a hard-swung baseball bat. Wind smashed against his face and chest. His head whipped to one side and he felt himself flung against his harness. He was tumbling. For a moment, he glimpsed his F-14 suspended above him, sleek nose protruding from a devouring monster of flame, the empty cockpit staring down at him like a huge, blind eye.
Then he was clear of his seat, falling through space with the clouds rising like a glaring snowfield to strike him in the face.
His parachute opened with a yank that whipsawed his body around, feet down, a sensation at once terrifying and wonderful, as though God himself had plucked Coyote from above. It felt as though he were whooshing skyward again, but that was illusion. He looked up to check his chute and was rewarded by what was at that moment the most welcome sight in the universe ― the full, undamaged expanse of his white canopy blocking his view of the sky.
Dropping through the clouds was like entering a heavy fog. Then he was in the clear again, the water rushing up to meet him.
Grasping the beaded loops at the waist of his life jacket, Coyote jerked them out, then down, and was rewarded by the hiss of gas inflating the vest. His feet hit the water with a jolt, and an icy shock engulfed him. Working on automatic, his hands fumbled at the Koch fittings which secured the parachute to his harness as he broke the surface. He took a breath and choked on salt water. His mask was filled with water and he tore at it, yanking the straps free and gulping cold, wet air.
He could still die very, very easily, if the parachute dragged him down, if the shrouds tangled his arms and legs before he could get free… if no one could find something as small as a man adrift in a wide and empty sea.
A stiff wind was blowing the chute clear as he finally freed the harness fittings. Gently, he reached down and pulled some shrouds clear of his legs, letting the canopy collapse downwind as he worked his way free. He felt the stiff collar of his life jacket pressing against his neck, holding his head above water as he bobbed in the icy gray sea.
There was no sign of Mardi Gras. Only then did Coyote realize how very much alone he was.
CHAPTER 3
1406 hours
Tomcat 205
"Tango! Tango! Rodeo Two is down!" Tombstone had seen the explosion as he clawed for altitude above the cloud deck, but he was so far away that he'd lost sight of Coyote as he hauled the Tomcat around to close with his wingman's aircraft. With mounting desperation, he searched the sky, praying for even a glimpse of parachutes.
"Tango, this is Rodeo Leader! Rodeo Two is down. I've lost him, over."
"Copy, Rodeo Leader. What's the situation with your bandits, over?"
Tombstone put his F-14 into a shallow port turn. "Situation clear, Tango. I think the bandits have decided to get out of Dodge, over."
"Copy, Rodeo Leader. Be advised, help is on the way. Call sign Backstop, four aircraft, ETA mikes one-three."
"I've got them on my scope," Snowball reported. "Bearing zero-eight-four, range one-seven-oh miles. The bad guys are breaking off and heading west."
More than likely, the North Koreans had picked up the
incoming flight of Tomcats from the Jefferson and decided a one-for-two kill ratio for the day was just fine. Rodeo had been jumped at close range, but in a situation such as this, the incoming F-14s could mark targets and launch long-range Phoenix missiles from well over one hundred miles out. The MiG pilots knew that and would not care to linger.
"We've got them, Tango," Tombstone reported. "And the bandits are definitely running for home. Over."
"Copy, Rodeo. Can you orbit your station to cover Rodeo Two, over?"
Tombstone checked his fuel again, the scowl behind his mask deepening. There was no escaping the grim reality of those numbers. "Negative, negative, Tango. I'm going to be burning fumes in a minute."
"Understood, Rodeo Leader. Homeplate advises that a Texaco is on the way."
"Texaco" meant one of Jefferson's four KA-6D tankers, an aircraft designed for air — to-air refueling operations. But he wouldn't be able to wait for the tanker to come to him. He would have to leave now if he wanted to rendezvous before his tanks went dry.
"Tango Seven-niner, this is Rodeo Leader. I'm going to have to boogie now to make it to the Texaco."
"Copy, Rodeo Leader. The word from Homeplate is: break off and RTB."
"Affirmative, Tango. Rodeo Leader, RTB."
But there was time for a quick check first.
The Tomcat stood on its portside wing and dropped, arrowing down into the clear, cold space between clouds and sea. The swells and whitecaps of the ocean surface whipped past as he brought the aircraft level at five hundred feet and throttled back. His Tomcat's wings extended, reaching forward as his airspeed fell.
"This is Rodeo Leader, switching to SAR frequency," he reported. In the backseat, Snowball clicked the F-14's radio over to the search-and-rescue channel and began sending out a call.
"Rodeo Two, Rodeo Two, this is Rodeo Leader. Do you copy, over?"
Tombstone, listening in over his own headset, heard the empty hiss of static, felt tightness in his chest.
"Rodeo Two, Rodeo Two, this is Rodeo Leader. Do you copy, over?"
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