Cauldron

by Larry Bond

  Christ, he thought, there were so many sets sweeping the sky through this sector, you could almost get out and walk on the radio waves. Great. The Germans had to know right where he and Zawadzki were.

  He broke radio silence. “Yellow patrol, this is Yellow Five.”

  “Roger, we hold you at fifty kilometers one two five.” Tad recognized Lieutenant Gawlik’s voice. The two Eagles now on patrol were thirty miles off to the northwest.

  It was time to turn on his own radar. Turning to face the other F-15s, he hit the radar mode button, changing it from standby to air. Instantly the screen lit up, showing two small dots, both with symbols showing them to have friendly IFF. As the APG-70 locked onto the nearest friendly, his HUD displayed a small lit box showing its position in the sky in front of him, even though the Polish plane was still too far away to see. A straight line ending in the box gave Tad the correct intercept course, while figures glowing on his radar screen showed him the other F-15’s course, speed, altitude, and closing velocity. Normally used to help close on and kill enemy aircraft, the data also made rendezvous and CAP relief almost child’s play.

  Glancing down at the radar screen also let him check the RWR display again. There were even more radars showing now. So far, though, they were limited to radars tracking him. None were locked onto him, and the ominous launch warning light was still dark.

  Climbing, Tad burst through fragments of low clouds and emerged into a pale blue, sunlit sky. “Yellow Seven, closing on your position.”

  The range dropped to six kilometers before he spotted a gray dot in the center of the cueing box on his HUD. The F-15 was a large plane. A smaller fighter like a Fulcrum might not be seen until it was even closer. Even so, Tad had needed the box to know where to look. At first glance he wasn’t even sure it was real, so he continued his regular scan: instruments, HUD, far left, craning his neck to look behind him, and then carefully working his way around to far right.

  On his next glance the dot was a distinctive twin-tailed shape. “Tally.” Contact in sight.

  Yellow Seven, Lieutenant Gawlik’s plane, was heading north, away from him, loafing along at 250 knots. Yellow Eight, Gawlik’s wingman, flew a little to the right and below him.

  Moving the stick gently, Wojcik eased the Eagle’s nose down just as he came level with the two patrolling F-15s. “Yellow Five is in position.”

  The pair of Eagles in front quickly turned, changing in appearance from rear to side views for half a second before they flashed by to the right, diving and heading east.

  The An-26 following in Tad’s wake still hadn’t made a transmission, but it didn’t need to. It simply took up position at the highest altitude comfortable for its turboprop engines, about eight thousand meters. As they flew parallel to the border, the Curl would stay near the center of the Eagles’ crisscrossing racetrack pattern, at a slightly lower altitude.

  The plane was there to listen to radar, radio, and even microwave relay signals. By analyzing them, the Curl’s intelligence specialists could identify radar types, locations, and capabilities. A good operator could even tell when a radar set had received new parts. And radio and microwave relay intercepts could help pinpoint the new Confederation ground and air units shifting closer to the border.

  At this altitude, the Neisse River seemed to be directly below him, but as long as he checked the nav display frequently, he could stay on his own side of the line.

  The landscape on either side of the river was identical. Through the scattered gray clouds below him, he could see isolated patches of woods dotting smooth, flat terrain. This was farming country. From this high up, only major highways and cities were easily visible in the fuzzy patchwork of browns, yellows, and greens.

  It took about forty-five minutes to make a complete circuit on the racetrack and return to their starting point. After only twenty minutes, Tad knew that the major and his crew were very busy people. His radar warning receiver was still alive with symbols, appearing and disappearing almost at random. If there was a pattern there, he couldn’t see it.

  They turned the corner, heading south. The Curl, slower, was still northbound, about two thousand meters below them and thirty kilometers to the south.

  The major’s voice interrupted Tad’s scan of the horizon. “Yellow flight! We have a fire control radar, strength eight, and getting stronger! Bearing two eight zero.”

  Tad looked down at his radar scope. In his blind spot, damn it!

  “Syl, swing wide, now!” He turned his own plane’s nose to the west. The radar scanner could only train sixty degrees to either side of dead ahead. Luckily he could see the radar on his warning receiver, labeled “UNK” next to it. That meant the signal’s characteristics did not match anything in the receiver’s library of known transmitters.

  This close to the border, Tad had very little maneuvering room to the west. He was really counting on Zawadzki, who was heading east to get some elbowroom, to back him up. Tad’s low speed gave him a fairly tight turning radius, so he planned to make a tight circle, lock up the bogey, and classify it as a threat or benign. By that time his wingman should be in position, far enough back, if they had to shoot.

  His hands moved rapidly, dropping the range scale on the radar. This fellow had popped up suddenly, with enough signal strength to make him real close. His F-15’s nose was turning, swinging right. Why hadn’t they spotted the bogey on their northbound leg?

  There. The signal should be within his radar scanner’s arc. He checked the screen but saw nothing. He waited two more sweeps, and the screen was still blank. All right, Tad thought. He changed the range scale. Still nothing. As if to confirm that whatever the problem was, it wasn’t just his radar, Zawadzki radioed, “Negative lock, Seven.”

  Tad clicked twice in acknowledgment, almost absentmindedly.

  “Yellow flight. Signal strength is nine. Signal has shifted to high PRF.” The major’s voice sounded calmer, but his initial surprise had been replaced by clear concern. The hostile radar had changed to ranging mode, which could be a precursor to launching an air-to-air missile.

  “Turning east.” The major was taking his ELINT plane deeper into Polish territory, probably diving and firewalling his throttles, too. But the Curl was too big and slow for agile maneuvering. It would be some time before they were out of danger.

  Tad still had nothing. Shit. He needed help from the An-26. “Black, Yellow Seven. Interrogative elevation.”

  “Target is slightly down, Seven, steady azimuth, two seven five.”

  Rolling his aircraft inverted, Tad yanked back hard on the stick. Throttling back even more, he popped his speed brakes as well. The energy-wasting maneuvers went against his grain, but he didn’t need speed, he just wanted to dump some altitude.

  Tad watch his altimeter unwind, at the same time keeping an eye on the horizon and the warning receiver and its mysterious signal. He knew exactly where to look. Almost due west. Eight thousand meters, seven, six…

  A small gray dot rose from the landscape, silhouetted as it crossed the horizon line. The bogey was now slightly higher than his F-15, and easier to spot against the lighter sky. In a heartbeat it swelled from a dot to a shape, and then into a jet fighter, suddenly turning from a head-on to a side view as it banked sharply to the south, paralleling his course.

  “Tallyho your signal, Black. Source is a fighter.” Tad fought a near-overwhelming urge to break hard left into the bogey. Instincts ingrained by long, hard air combat training ran deep.

  “Roger, Seven, confirm lock.”

  Tad clicked his microphone switch twice, all the time watching the bogey. He couldn’t type it. The other plane was still at least five or six kilometers away.

  What he could see was a raked vertical fin and what appeared to be a delta wing, without any horizontal tail surfaces. It looked like a French Mirage of some sort, but he just could not make a precise identification.

  Holding the stick with his right hand, he reached down with his left and open
ed a compartment containing a pair of light 7 × 35 binoculars. They were useless in a dogfight, but against aircraft flying straight and level, they gave him a set of long-range eyes.

  Tad checked his course and position one more time before raising the binoculars to scan the narrow sector holding the stranger. He caught a glimpse of its nose, overcompensated back, and then steadied his view on the strange plane.

  Obligingly the other pilot kept his craft straight and level, pacing Tad’s Eagle. The bogey’s nose was sharply pointed, and he could see a set of small fins, called canards, high on the fuselage, just behind and under the canopy. Instead of side-mounted intakes like a French Mirage, its intakes were smaller, and half under the fuselage.

  There was only one fighter with that configuration: the Rafale. Tad whistled softly to himself. None of the intelligence briefings had warned him about this.

  Every fighter pilot knew about the Rafale, although few had seen one. Now here he was flying side by side with one painted in shades of gray and carrying what looked like live missiles under its wings. That was a tricolor roundel on its fuselage, not the Maltese cross, so it was a French aircraft. Tad was a little disappointed. He would rather face a German opponent.

  The Rafale shadowing him was brand-new, which made it sexy, and in foreign hands, which made it dangerous. The plane also had a reduced radar cross section, which explained how it had popped up so unexpectedly and unnervingly. Reports said it could engage several targets simultaneously with launch-and-leave air-to-air missiles. The French-made warplane was also supposed to be very maneuverable, more than a match for either the Eagle or the Fulcrum. Again, Tad fought the urge to yank his stick over, to maneuver and pit his machine against this potential enemy.

  He beat back the urge and then thought again. By roaring right up to the frontier and radar-pinging the hell out of the An-26, this bastard had already shown that he wanted to screw around. Why not indulge him?

  Tad pressed his mike switch. “Yellow Eight, this is Seven. Cover Black flight. I am maneuvering.”

  “Let’s see what this bastard is made of,” Tad muttered to himself. He stowed the binoculars, then settled himself in his seat, tightening his harness.

  As quickly as he could, he chopped the throttles to idle and popped his speed brake. He waited a beat for his plane to slow. As soon as he saw the Rafale start to slide ahead, he yo-yoed the F-15’s nose up and down sharply, killing even more speed. At the same time, he slewed one of the Sidewinder seekers to the right as far as it would go.

  Turning to the west as far as he could dare, he kept one eye on the nav display while waiting for a tone from the Sidewinder’s infrared seeker. Letting the Rafale pull ahead allowed his missile to see its tailpipe, setting up a missile launch. Tad grinned. He wouldn’t fire, of course, but the other pilot would know that he had been set up.

  He watched the Rafale as it came into view through his HUD. The Frenchman was reacting now, pulling his nose up. Too late. The enemy fighter was at his Eagle’s one o’clock, well within its missile arc. So where was the tone? Nothing, just a hissing noise in his headphones.

  Wojcik swung the F-15’s nose a bit more to the right, still waiting for the familiar sound. A bad missile? Quickly he selected another Sidewinder. Still nothing. Son-of-a-bitch. The Rafale’s engines must be shielded, reducing its IR signature.

  His nav display showed him crowding the border a little too closely. Damn. This was getting tricky. He turned back east a bit, opening the distance between the two planes.

  The Rafale’s nose was climbing smoothly. Tad expected a loop, but instead of gaining altitude, the French fighter flew forward straight and level while its nose rose past the vertical and actually tipped backward.

  It was the “cobra” maneuver, invented by the Russians, and it was the first time Tad had ever seen a plane do it in a maneuvering situation. It did look odd, but it was effective. The Rafale was dumping speed in a hurry.

  Tad saw his opponent quickly slide back, first even with his Eagle, then behind him. When the other fighter reached his five o’clock, its nose tipped forward as smoothly as if the Rafale were mounted on a pivot. Now its own nose turned slightly toward him.

  The other pilot was setting up his own heat-seeking missile shot. And the Eagle’s engines weren’t IR-suppressed like the Rafale’s. If he didn’t get out of this, he’d be the grape who got peeled, not the Frenchman. Yanking back hard on the stick, Tad pulled his Eagle into a smooth loop. The horizon disappeared, instantly replaced by an elevation ladder on the HUD showing his attitude and pitch angle.

  Tad concentrated on keeping the F-15’s nose parallel with the imaginary border. With so many hostile eyes and radars watching, crossing over into German airspace, even accidentally, was unthinkable. His superiors would be interested in his report about the Rafale and its capabilities, but only if he didn’t screw up and create an international incident.

  He neared the top of the loop, a thousand meters higher than when he started, pointed north. Now where was that Frenchman?

  He scanned the landscape below and to the west, forcing himself to ignore the upside-down world and the fact that he was hanging in his seat. There was no sign of motion, no wing flashes below him. He widened his search, looking above the horizon.

  There. The bastard was abreast of him now, also inverted and heading north. The other pilot must have waited a second and then followed him into a parallel loop on his side of the border. Good stick, Tad thought.

  At least he’d broken the Rafale’s missile lock. Flying side by side like this meant neither of them would be in position to get a shot off when this maneuver ended.

  Both planes were now on the downward leg of the loop. Tad was planning his next move, all the while monitoring his own plane’s status and his opponent’s position. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the Rafale’s nose moving, not changing in pitch, but swinging sharply over in his direction!

  It turned a full forty-five degrees off its original heading, pointing straight at his F-15. Was this guy crazy? He’d be over the border in seconds at these speeds. Wojcik braced himself, certain that the Frenchman now intended to enter Polish airspace, which meant what? A personal grudge? A test of the border defenses? War?

  He jammed the throttles forward, pulling out of the loop early. G-forces pushed him down in his seat. For an instant the corners of the cockpit grayed out as his HUD’s g-meter showed over five gravities of acceleration.

  He glanced to the right, over at the bogey, ready to break into him with a quick Sidewinder or cannon shot, but the Rafale’s position was all wrong. Instead of coming closer, the French fighter was still distant, still moving south, and still on its own side of the border. Even worse, the enemy jet still had its nose pointed at him! Those canard fins really worked!

  Tad knew when he was licked. Any plane that could fly in one direction while keeping its nose pointed in another was going to take some careful thought and planning to beat.

  Turning south, he ignored the hostile fighter and concentrated on restoring his CAP racetrack position. The Rafale wasn’t out to get him. If the Frenchman had wanted to nail him, he could have done it when he first popped up, or twice since then.

  Unsure of how well he could actually protect the An-26, he called the major and recommended a new position well inside Polish airspace. That would significantly reduce the ferret plane’s effectiveness but it was the only sure way to keep it safe.

  Wojcik knew the Frenchman was laughing his ass off. He could feel a burning lump in his chest. No fighter pilot likes to lose, even in a mock dogfight. That clown would be bragging for a week about the Eagle driver he foxed, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  He tried to concentrate on flying his fighter and watching the radar screen, futile though that might now be. He had a lot to think about, but most of it would have to wait until he landed and debriefed. Two questions wouldn’t leave him alone, though: how did you beat a Rafale, and how
many of the damn things did EurCon have?

  MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR, BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

  Reading the newspaper was like hearing about the death of a friend.

  “Hungary Joins the European Confederation!” it trumpeted in a bold, banner headline. Sick at heart, Colonel Zoltan Hradetsky read the state-controlled paper thoroughly, forcing himself to learn all he could.

  Articles on page after page were filled with glowing praise for the new political, economic, and military union. According to official opinion, the only kind permitted, joining the Confederation would bring abundance, employment, and no loss of Hungarian sovereignty or liberties. It was the best of both worlds, close cooperation between neighbors toward a brighter future…

  Hradetsky threw the paper down in disgust. He’d already seen the results of close cooperation with the French and Germans. It was strictly a one-way street. Those idiots in the National Salvation Government had to know what they were doing. But did they have any real choice? In the carefully structured agreements already in force, Hungary’s debt to France and Germany was growing. Like miners in a company store, his country could never seem to get clear.

  An office messenger came by, scowling as he dropped off a memo on Hradetsky’s desk. The young police corporal sniffed contemptuously at him and left without a word. Evidently, disgraced colonels were considered fair game by the rank and file. One more sign of my own weakness, he thought wearily. In the not-so-distant past, that self-important young pup wouldn’t have left his office with either his stripes or an unbroken nose.

  More out of boredom than interest, he skimmed through the memo.

  As part of the integration of Hungary into the European Confederation, Special Commissioner Werner Rehling, formerly of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), will be arriving tomorrow, to serve as a liaison between our National Police and the EurCon Interior Secretariat. He will be directly responsible for any matters not strictly national. I am sure you will all welcome him to the force.