by Dale Brown
"I get the message," said Dog.
* * *
Cantor watched the Su-33 grow in his view screen, waiting until the aircraft was exactly three miles away to start his turn. By watching Mack's mission tapes as well as those from his own encounters, he'd determined that was the sweet spot — far enough away so the Sukhoi pilot couldn't detect him, but close enough so that no last second maneuver could get him free. The Flighthawk swung through a tight arc, crossing behind the Sukhoi. The separation at the end of the turn was about a mile — close enough for a sustained burst from the Flighthawk cannon.
And it had to be sustained. Mack had gotten bullets into all of the fighters he'd faced, but taken none of them down. The Russian-made craft were even tougher than advertised.
But the Sukhoi pilot had no idea the Flighthawk was tagging along right behind it. It had a dead spot behind its tail, and unless his wingman flew very close, the Flighthawk was almost impossible to detect. Mack figured he could stay there all night.
"American aircraft, you are ordered to remove yourself from our vicinity," said the Indian carrier, broadcasting over all frequencies. The transmission was directed at the Wisconsin, not Hawk One, which couldn't be seen by the carrier from this distance, a little over fifty miles away. Cantor heard Jazz tell the carrier blandly that they were in international waters and were on a routine patrol. He drew out his words matter-of-factly; Cantor thought he could be telling his wife that he'd bring home a bottle of milk.
Cantor nudged his throttle, easing toward the Su-33 as he continued to probe its weaknesses. By relying solely on the Megafortress's radar, he was depriving the Indians of any indication that he was there.
The problem wasn't shooting one of the Flankers down — he could do that easily. The difficulty was taking two. The Su-33 could easily outaccelerate the Flighthawk because of its larger engines. So the trick would be to get ridiculously close before starting the first attack.
And to fire without using the radar. Because once he turned the weapons radar on, they would know something was there.
The Flighthawk cannon could fire in a pure bore-sight mode — basically, point the nose and shoot — though in a three-dimensional knife fight it made little sense to give up the advantage of having the computer help aim the shots. But get this close — under a hundred yards — he couldn't miss, especially if he took the aircraft from below. Counterintuitive — it meant he had to climb against an aircraft that could easily outclimb him. But doable maybe, if he got off at least two long bursts before jabbing his radar on and gunning for the other plane, which would be over to his right. By the time the second plane caught on, it would be flying right into his aiming cue.
Cantor glanced at the sitrep and saw that the Mega-fortress was nearing the end of its patrol orbit. He tilted his wing down and slid away, still undetected by Indian radar or eyeballs.
"Until we meet again," he told the Flankers as they rumbled on.
Las Vegas University of Medicine,
Las Vegas, Nevada
1200
The blood sample was the last straw.
They'd spent all morning taking scans whose results Zen could tell from the faces of the technicians were disappointing. Vasin appeared briefly, asked for some blood samples, then went off to a meeting.
The nurse tasked to get the sample kept muttering that she couldn't find the vein, then jabbing him and apologizing as she came up empty.
"It's right there," Zen told her.
"I'm trying," she said, jabbing him again. "I'm sorry."
What the hell was he doing here when Breanna needed him on the other side of the world?
The nurse finally managed to get the needle in correctly and filled up three test tubes. Zen made up his mind as he watched the third tube fill up. The nurse pulled out the needle, taped a gauze in place, then apologized for having had so many problems.
"It's OK." Zen waited for her to leave, then began changing from the gown to his civilian clothes.
"Jeff, what are doing?" asked Dr. Vasin.
"Getting dressed. I thought you were at a meeting."
"It was just postponed. Why are you getting dressed?"
"I'm not sure this is working—"
"You're doing fine."
"Yeah, but—" Zen stopped himself. He couldn't tell Vasin why he was worried about his wife; the mission was classified. "I'm just getting bored."
"At this stage in the process — a very difficult time," said Vasin. "But you don't want to stop now."
"Why?"
"As I explained, once the process begins—" "Nothing's happened." "Of course not."
"The tests aren't going well. I could tell from everyone's reactions."
"We must give it time. Once the process begins, stopping in the middle — it is worse than rolling the clock back. Come — let's go have a little lunch, you and I. A little change of pace. They're having chicken pilaf in the cafeteria. A very good dish."
"All right," agreed Zen finally. "All right."
Off the coast of Pakistan,
near Karachi
0135
Captain Sattari unfolded himself from his seat and made his way to the rear of the midget submarine, trying to stretch out the cramps in his leg.
His men had been remarkably quiet for the past twenty-four hours. It seemed to him that traveling in the midget submarine was by far the hardest task they had. The rest would be simplicity itself compared to this.
He tapped each man's shoulder as he walked, nodding. They were professionals, these men; he couldn't see their anticipation in the dim light, much less their fears or apprehensions. The faces they showed to their commander — to the world, if it looked — were of hard stone. Warriors' faces.
As was his.
"We have to surface to check our position," said the submarine commander when he returned to his seat at the front of the small sub. "There are no ships nearby. I suggest we do so now."
"Yes," said Sattari. He sat in his seat as the midget submarine's bow began nosing gently upward. Originally designed as a pleasure boat for sightseeing trips, the Parvaneh could make no abrupt moves. But this helped her in her mission. Rapid movement in the sea translated into sound, and the louder a vessel, the more vulnerable it was to detection.
The helmsman leveled the boat off three meters below the surface. The periscope went up slowly. The screen at the control station showed an image so dark that at first the captain thought there was something wrong with the tiny video camera mounted on the telescoping rod.
"Nothing," said the captain to Sattari. "Just blackness."
Sattari nodded. Next the submarine captain raised a radio mast. Three triangular antennas were mounted on the wand. Two were used to pick up GPS, global positioning signals, from satellites. The third scanned for nearby radio signals, a warning device that would let them know if a ship or aircraft was nearby.
"We are three miles from Karachi," announced the submarine commander. "We're ahead of schedule."
"Very good," said Sattari.
"There are no ships near us. Would you like to surface?"
A short respite on the surface would be welcome. To breathe fresh air, if only for a moment — Sattari was tempted to say yes, and felt the eyes of the others staring at him, hoping.
But it would increase the risk of being spotted. They were too close now, too close.
"No. We will have fresh air soon enough. Push on," Sat-tari said.
Aboard the Levitow,
over the northern Arabian Sea
0243
Breanna ignored the challenge from the Chinese aircraft, staying on course in Pakistani coastal waters. She had to drop a buoy soon or risk losing the inputs from the Piranha, which was trailing the submarine following the Chinese aircraft carrier. But she didn't want to drop the buoy while the J-13s were nearby; it might tip off the Chinese to the fact that the submarine was being followed.
"Levitow, this is Piranha," said Ensign English. "Bree, I can't stay
with the submarine much longer. I'm slowing the Piranha down, but the submarine will sail out of range within a half hour."
"All right, I have an idea," Breanna told her. "Flighthawk leader, can you run Hawk Three south about eighteen miles and pickle a flare?"
"Repeat?" said Mack.
"I want to get the J-13s off my back. They'll shoot over to check out the flares, don't you think?" "Yeah, I guess."
"Throw some chaff, too, so their radars know something's there. Let's do it quick — we don't have much time."
"I'm going, Captain. Keep your blouse on."
Breanna shook her head, then glanced at her copilot. Stewart was doing a little better than she had the other day, keeping track of the Chinese patrols as well as a flight of Pakistani F-16s that were roughly twenty minutes flying time to their north. But Stewart still had a ways to go. The copilot in the EB-52 had a great deal to do; in some respects her job was actually harder than the pilot's. In a B-52 four crewmen worked the navigational and weapons systems. Computers aboard the EB-52 might have taken over a great deal of their work, but someone still had to supervise the computers.
"How you doing, Jan?"
"I'm with you."
"I'm going to have Mack toss some flares south of us. Hopefully the J-13s will go in that direction and we can drop a buoy."
"Uh-huh."
"I'm going to take us down through three thousand feet so we're ready to drop the buoy. When I give you the signal, I want you to hit the ECMs — I'm going to make it look like we're reacting to the flares that Mack lights, as if we're worried about being under attack. Then you launch. All right?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Are you all right, Captain?" "I'm all right!"
Breanna turned her attention back to the sky in front of her, lining up for the buoy drop.
* * *
Mack pointed his nose toward the sky and rode the Flighthawk south. Neither of the Chinese J-13s dogging the Megafortress followed. The Chinese navy had encountered Flighthawks before, and referred to them as "Lei Gong"—
the name of an ancient Chinese thunder god, which Mack supposed was a compliment. But it wasn't clear from the J-13s' actions whether they knew he was there.
Mack continued to climb, meanwhile plotting out what he would do. The Chinese aircraft carrier was thirty-two miles away, off his right wing as he flew south. Karachi was ten miles almost directly opposite his left wing. The Indian aircraft carrier was about fifty miles south from the Chinese carrier. An assortment of small escorts were scattered between them, including the Chinese submarine, which was submerged south of Karachi in Pakistani waters.
"All right, Bree, light show begins in ten seconds," he said, reaching his mark. "Get ready."
"Make it a good one."
* * *
"Sukhois — I mean, J-13s, the Chinese planes — they're biting for it. They're going south," said Stewart, eyes pasted to the radar plot.
"Buoys!" said Breanna.
Stewart tapped the panel to ready a control buoy for the Piranha. She missed the box and had to tap it again.
Why was everything so hard on this deployment? Back at Dreamland she'd done this sort of thing with her eyes closed. She'd driven B-1s through sandstorms and everything else without a single problem. But she was all thumbs now.
Maybe it was Captain Stockard, breathing down her neck. Breanna just didn't like her for some reason. Maybe she resented working for another woman.
"Buoy!"
Stewart put her forefinger on the release button and pushed. A control buoy spun out of the rear fuselage, deploying from a special compartment behind the bomb bay, added to the planes after the Piranha had become part of the Dreamland tool set.
"ECMs," said Breanna. "I'll take the chaff."
Stewart realized she'd forgotten the stinking ECMs. They should have already been fuzzing the airwaves.
"I'm trying, I'm trying," she said, hands fumbling against the controls.
* * *
Mack jerked the little Flighthawk to the west, leaving a trail of fire and tinsel behind him. He tucked the plane into a roll and then put its nose down, flying it so hard that the tail threatened to pull over on him in a cartwheel. The Flighthawk didn't peep about it, merely trying to keep up with the dictates of the control stick.
The J-13s were racing toward him, wondering what was going on.
If he pushed the nose of the fighter down right now, and slammed the aircraft exactly ninety degrees due east, slammed max power and went for broke, he could take a shot at one of the Chinese planes. If he timed it properly— and if C3 worked out the angle right — he would slash the fighter across its wings.
This was not the sort of attack you'd make in an F-15. For one thing, you'd never get close enough to use your guns. For another, the g forces as you changed direction to bring the attack would slam you so hard you'd have to struggle to keep your head clear. And…
Mack remembered something Cantor had told him during their sortie over the Gulf of Aden: You're not flying an F-15. He felt a twinge of anger, and then, far worse, embarrassment.
The punk kid was right. If he really wanted to fly the stinking Flighthawk, he would have to forget everything he knew about flying F-15s or anything other than the Flighthawk. He was going to have to live with its limits— and take advantage of its assets.
And, umpteen kills to his credit or not, he was going to have to face the fact that he had a lot to learn. He was a new-bie when it came to the Flighthawk.
"No more F-15s," he told the plane. "Just U/MF-3s."
"Repeat command," answered the flight computer.
"It's you and me, babe. Just you and me."
* * *
Breanna jerked the Megafortress back and forth across the water, shimmying and shaking as if she thought she was being followed by an SA-6 antiair missile. Finally she eased up, putting the plane into a banking climb and heading back to the west.
"English, how are we looking?" she said to the ensign.
"Buoy is good. I have control."
"Great."
"But… " "But?"
"I have a contact at long range, submerged, unknown source. There's another sub out there," explained English. "Except that the sound profile doesn't match anything I know. Which is almost impossible."
"Did the Chinese sub launch a decoy?"
"We would have caught that. It's not a known Pakistani sub either. I'd like to follow it, but I can't watch the Chinese submarine and this at the same time."
"Stand by," Breanna told her. "I'll talk to Captain Gale."
Aboard the Abner Read,
in the northern Arabian Sea
0301
Storm studied the hologram. The Chinese aircraft carrier Deng Xiaoping and the Indian carrier Shiva were pointing their bows at each other, boxers jutting out their chins and daring their opponent to start something. The Indian carrier had eight planes in the air, along with two ASW; antisubmarine helicopters. The Chinese had twelve planes up, plus two helicopters supplying long-range radar and three on ASW duty.
Two destroyers and one frigate accompanied the Chinese vessel, along with a submarine being tracked by Dreamland's Piranha. The Indians had one destroyer, an old frigate, and two coastal corvettes, which were a little smaller than frigates but were packed with ship-to-ship missiles. The edge went to the Chinese, whose gear was newer and, though largely untested, probably more potent. But at a range of fifty miles, where both task forces could rely on antiship missiles as well as their aircraft, the battle would be ferocious.
And if both navies were to turn on him, rather than each other?
The problem would not be hitting them — he was thirty-five miles to the west of the two carriers, well within range of his Harpoon ship-to-ship missiles; the ship-to-air SM-2 missiles, packed in a Vertical Launching System at the forward deck, could take down an airplane at roughly ninety miles and hit a ship at the same distance. The problem was that there were simply too many targets — the Abner
Read had only sixteen vertical launch tubes on her forward deck, and while they could be loaded with torpedoes, antiair or antiship missiles, the weapons mix had to be preselected before battle. Reloading was a laborious undertaking and could not be done during a fight.
Storm had eight Harpoons and eight antiaircraft missiles loaded.
Precisely how many missiles it would take to sink either of the carriers was a matter of immense debate and countless computer simulations. According to the intel experts back at the Pentagon, precise hits by four Harpoons should be enough to disable the Indian carrier; the Chinese ship could be crippled with three. In neither case would the ships be sunk — the Indian vessel was known to have been up-armored at the waterline — but the hits would disable enough of their systems to take them out of a battle and leave them highly vulnerable to a second round of attacks to take them to the bottom.
None of the so-called experts had been in battle, however; Storm had, and he suspected their estimates were optimistic. Two months ago it had taken four Harpoons to sink an old Russian amphibious warfare ship that had light defenses and no appreciable armor. Storm and his officers had concluded that it would take at least six very well-placed missile hits to permanently disable either one of the vessels. The real question was how many missiles it would take to get six hits. The answer depended not only on the proficiency of the people firing the missiles and the defenses they faced, but sheer luck. The intel officer threw around some fancy mathematics he called regression analysis and claimed that seven launches would yield six hits, but Storm knew he was just guessing like everyone else.
Missiles were not the Abner Read's only weapon. Storm could use his below-waterline tubes to fire torpedoes at a submarine, and his 155mm gun to hit a surface ship that came within twenty-two miles. His accompanying Shark-boat had four Harpoons and a much more limited 25mm gun. And then there were the Megafortresses…
