The Wingman Adventures Volume One

by Mack Maloney

  Hunter was within twenty miles of them in a minute. From there he could clearly study the aircraft on his video-imaging radar and try to ascertain what they were up to. They were acting suspicious—one clue was the fact they were “flying quiet,” that is, under radio silence.

  He radioed in to Heath, who was manning the CIC on the Saratoga. “We’ve got trouble,” he reported. “Four Ilyushin mediums, in preattack formation, but right now flying too high to hit anything.”

  “Any idea what their intentions might be?” Heath asked through the static. He knew, as well as Hunter, that a bomber formation flying around the volatile Med region wasn’t all that unusual. They just couldn’t go around shooting at anything that flew by, without making a lot of unnecessary commotion or enemies. Plus Hunter had his Sidewinder shortage to think about.

  “They’re flying in pairs right now,” Hunter said, arming his three remaining Sidewinders. “Judging from their course, two could be heading for Algiers, the other two could maybe break off, dive, and go for our tugs. But these guys have to get down on the deck for their bombing runs.”

  There was a short silence. Both Hunter and Heath evaluated the situation.

  Then Heath broke in. “We calculate that at their present course, speed, and altitude, they’ll have to break off and dive within the next ninety seconds if they expect to hit us.

  “In other words, if we wait, they could just fly over and keep on going. But—”

  “But, if we wait, they could come in and sucker-punch us,” Hunter finished.

  There was an annoying burst of static, then Heath said, “Can you ID them, Hunter?”

  “Well, I’m sure they’ve seen me on their radar,” Hunter answered. “No point in keeping it a secret.”

  He throttled up and streaked passed the slow-flying bombers. As he flashed by, he was able to get a good look at the markings on the bombers. Even he was surprised. On the side of each airplane was the unmistakable red star of the Soviet Air Force.

  Hunter radioed back, “You’d better get someone else up on deck and ready to take off. These guys look like genuine Soviet Air Force.”

  “I say, Hunter,” Heath called back. “Did I copy? Soviet markings?”

  “Roger,” Hunter confirmed. “I’d know that red star anywhere. I put them only forty miles from the carrier and the tugs right now, and even closer to the port at Algiers.”

  A half-minute went by. It was agonizing. If they were belligerent, the Soviets would have to go into their attack mode within forty-five seconds. If they had decided to mind their own business, they would just keep on flying.

  Hunter had never been in this position before. In the past, any Soviet airplane he spotted was immediately judged an enemy and immediately attacked. Things were done differently in and over the Med.

  His radio crackled to life again. “We have two Harriers warmed up, Hunter,” Heath responded. “And Sir Neil is now aware of the situation.”

  The aircraft were now only thirty seconds from the port of Algiers and the small harbor where the ferrying operation was taking place. Were the planes—although Russian—simply flying through? Or had the Soviets learned about the carrier’s mission and were they attempting to disrupt it? Maybe the airplanes were being flown by mercenaries, although it’s a rare occasion when the Soviet Air Force permits free-lancers to fly its equipment while still carrying the old Red Star. Then there was another way-out possibility: could the bombers actually be on a bounty-hunting mission, with Hunter and the billion-dollar reward as the prize?

  The last thought shook him slightly. But whatever the case, Hunter knew the airplanes would have to act soon.

  “Hunter?” Heath called. “Do you think your friends up there might chat on the radio?”

  “Only one way to find out,” Hunter said, turning on his UHF band radio and closing to within a mile of the bombers.

  “Ilyushin-28 flight commander,” he began. “This is Major Hunter of the … Allied Expeditionary Force.” He had just made up the name. “You are flying in a restricted area. Please identify yourself and your intentions.”

  He flicked the radio switch back to “Receive.”

  Nothing.

  “Flight commander,” he tried again. “I am prepared to attack if you do not ID yourself.”

  Again, nothing …

  He flew right up on the tail of the trailing aircraft.

  “Ilyushin flight commander, please ID … ” The words were barely out of his mouth when he suddenly yanked the F-16 to the right. Just in time he had dodged a burst of gunfire from the tail gunner of the last Ilyushin.

  “Jesus!” he yelled. “They just took a shot at me!” He was more surprised than anything; very few Ilyushin-28s carried tail gunners.

  Just then the airplanes split up. The first pair dove through the clouds and toward the port at Algiers; the other two veered to the west, increased their speed, and went into a similar dive. These two were now pointed right towards the small village where O’Brien’s tugs were just starting to pick up the mercenaries.

  “Launch the Harriers!” Hunter yelled into his radio. “Get them vectored towards Algiers! And someone better warn that Moroccan troopship … ”

  With that, he took off after the pair of bombers that were heading for the tugs.

  Down below, O’Brien’s tugs were churning up the sea between the Algerian village harbor and the Saratoga. The ferrying operation was proceeding very smoothly when Sir Neil had first gotten word about the approaching Soviet aircraft. All of the tug crews were just receiving the word to go to battle stations when they heard a horrifying scream of engines coming from the east.

  First to burst through the 1500-foot cloud cover was a shiny silver Ilyushin-28. It was heading for a group of three tugs that were just a mile away from the Saratoga. All of them filled with mercenaries. Sir Neil, watching from a tug a half-mile from the action, saw the bomber level up and going into a bombing-run course.

  “Bloody Russians!” he screamed, “Those tugs are sitting ducks—”

  But just then, another aircraft broke through the clouds. It was smaller, quicker. It was painted red, white, and blue.

  “It’s Hunter!” he yelled. “He’s right on the bastard’s tail!”

  The three tugs attempted to scatter, but the jets were moving too fast. The crews on the other tugs away from the action could only watch as the F-16 pulled right up on the rear of the Ilyushin while the Soviet airplane prepared to drop its first rack of bombs. All the while the Soviet tail gunner was blazing away at the fighter, and Hunter was blazing away at him with his Vulcan Six Pack.

  Sir Neil knew something had to give. In this case, it was the entire tail section of the Ilyushin. Hunter’s six-knuckle, 20mm-cannon punch was too much for the old Soviet airplane. The 16’s cannon shells found something explodable in the rear of the Soviet airplane and ignited it. The tail was instantly incinerated. The bomber, its rear quarter completely enveloped in flames, did a slow flip and plunged into the Med, with a great fiery crash of steam and smoke.

  A cheer went up from all those on the tugs. “That’s Hawk Hunter in that F-16.” The word was passed. “That’s the guy they call The Wingman!”

  But the danger was far from over.

  Off in the distance, the other Ilyushin had emerged from the clouds and was streaking along the wave tops, going in torpedo-bomber-style on the carrier itself. It passed two of the Norwegian frigates on the way—both ships sent up a wall of antiaircraft fire that lit up the overcast Mediterranean sky. But somehow the Soviet airplane made it through.

  Hunter was there in a flash, streaking around the bow of the Saratoga and facing the Soviet airplane head on. The Six Pack opened up with a burst of orange flame that was clearly visible on the tugs more than a mile away. The two jets barreled on toward each other, neither giving quarter.

  “Stay with him, man!” Sir Neil said under his breath as he watched the drama. “Hang in there, Hunter!”

  Finally, those aboard t
he tugs saw a flash erupt from underneath the 16’s port wing. A streak of light and smoke followed, traveling a path straight and true towards the onrushing Ilyushin.

  “He’s launched a Sidewinder!” Sir Neil called out.

  Before the words were out of his mouth, the missile caught the Ilyushin face on, crashed through the plexiglas nose, and traveled on to the cockpit, where it detonated. A bright orange ball of flame appeared and seemed to hang in the air for one long moment. Then what remained of the bomber slammed into the sea, just 300 yards from the carrier.

  “Blimey, that was close,” Sir Neil whispered. “Too close … ”

  The ferrying operation was still going on when the sun popped up, large and red, the next morning.

  Watching the sunrise from the deck of Olson’s command frigate, Hunter was reminded of the old saying “Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning … ”

  Just 200 feet off the starboard bow of the anchored carrier the frigate’s crew was lifting the wreckage of one of the destroyed Ilyushins out of the water. The ship’s crane snared the airplane under its tail wing and swung it up and over, allowing a deluge of seawater to escape through the many perforations in the plane’s skin. Then the crane operator gingerly lowered the battered fuselage onto the frigate’s empty helicopter pad.

  Hunter was the first one to approach the wreckage. Heath and Sir Neil followed. They watched as the American headed straight for the Ilyushin’s bashed-in cockpit. There wasn’t much left that the Sidewinder hadn’t destroyed, but Hunter was just looking for clues. Clues to prove his suspicions about the origins of the air attack.

  Crawling through the sharp, tangled mess of metal and wires, Hunter finally reached the pilot’s compartment. Sir Neil and Heath were right behind him, though moving a little slower. When they got there, Hunter was examining what was left of the airplane’s controls.

  “Same as the two bombers the Harriers greased?” Heath asked.

  “Exactly,” Hunter said. “And that’s what worries me.”

  Sir Neil shook his head in disbelief. “No bodies,” he said. “No pilot. No crew.”

  “No bombs,” Heath said.

  “They didn’t need any crew,” Hunter said, wrestling with a black box attached on the airplane’s main control board. “These airplanes were flying on some kind of an ultra-sophisticated autopilot. More like a remote-control unit. I’m sure the guts of it are in this black box.”

  “Autopilots, I can understand,” Heath said, trying to reason it out. “But why no bombs?”

  “This might give us the answer,” Hunter said, struggling with yet another piece of smashed, tangled equipment.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Sir Neil asked, looking at the almost unidentifiable chunk of melted metal and wires.

  “If you are thinking TV camera, you’re right,” Hunter told him. “These airplanes weren’t on a bombing mission at all. They were sent here simply as TV spyships, getting closeup pictures of us and the ferrying operation and transmitting them back to whoever was watching at the other end.”

  “And radio sensors triggered the tail guns?” Sir Neil deduced.

  “I’m sure of it,” Hunter said, turning the destroyed TV camera over in his hands. “They were flying so strangely. The Harrier pilots noticed it too. They got to those Ilyushins before they even dived on the Moroccan troopship.”

  “Well, that’s how a lot of Soviet pilots fly,” Heath observed. “Rather robotic bastards, aren’t they?”

  Hunter nodded, then said, “Whoever sent these airplanes really knows our way of thinking. They know we’re not going to shoot down everything that comes close. They know we have to intercept and ID anything before taking action. So they keep us guessing as to who is flying these things. Then, when I got too close, they have the tail gunner open up on me.”

  “Pretty elaborate scheme just to take our picture,” Heath said. “Kind of spooky having someone up there watching us. Especially someone flying Soviet Air Force bombers.”

  “Christ,” Hunter said softly, something clicking in his mind. “Wasn’t Peter going on about something like ‘eyes in the sky’?”

  Both Sir Neil and Heath looked at him. “By God, man,” Sir Neil said. “Peter called this one too?”

  Hunter didn’t even hazard an answer.

  “Peter or not,” he said, “the lid is really off now.”

  Despite the strange Ilyushins episode, the mercenary pickup was completed without further incident shortly before noon that day.

  The 200-man, red-bereted French air-defense contingent was busy installing its Phalanx air-defense guns at various points around the ship. When used properly, the Phalanx was an awesome weapon. Using bullets made from depleted uranium, the Phalanx’s mission was to automatically destroy incoming antiship missiles, such as the Exocets. Each 20mm gun contained a search-and-track radar, a magazine holding tens of thousands of bullets, and a hundred or so pounds of electronics. The Phalanx gun had the ability to identify and attack any high-speed target approaching the ship. It did so by simply throwing up a wall of bullets—at a rate of 100 shells a second—in the path of the oncoming missile.

  No matter how good the attacker’s guidance system was, nothing could get through a Phalanx barrage. Ships such as the Norwegian frigates usually carried just one Phalanx; a carrier the size of the Saratoga might carry two. The French mercenaries would set up a total of six Phalanx guns around the ship—two on the stern, two on the bow, and two on the Saratoga’s center superstructure. When it came to fighting off Exocets, Sir Neil wasn’t taking any chances.

  Nor was he neglecting air defense. The Spanish air-defense team was also busy. The group boasted twenty-five two-man Stinger missile teams. These deadly antiaircraft missiles were launched from a bazooka-like tube held on one’s shoulder. The Spaniards were so good at firing the American-made missile, they actually held highly competitive target-shooting contests among themselves—using authentic, fully armed missiles for ammunition.

  The Spaniards had built mobile launching platforms for the missiles and were shoehorning their weapons anywhere and everywhere possible around the carrier. Meanwhile, the ship’s superstructure was crawling with Italian radar and communications experts. They were installing no less than four antennas: one air-search radar at the highest point on the conning tower, with a bulbous Mk-2 fire-control-system radar right beside it. They wired up a SLQ-32 radar-warning and electronic-countermeasures system to the island’s rear, next to a Separate Target Illumination Radar set that would help the French and Spanish gunners track multiple targets. The Italians were also working on setting up a long-range communications antenna which, when operating, would allow them to listen in on transmissions originating from the east end of the Med all the way deep into Lucifer’s Arabian Empire.

  Once their equipment was installed, the Italians would join the rest of Yaz’s men in refurbishing the most important unit on the Saratoga—the Combat Information Center. It was in this CIC room that all the carrier’s communications, radar, and defensive systems were coordinated.

  At the far end of the ship, most of the Australian Special Forces team were on deck, doing their midday calisthenics. Some of the Gurkha troops sat nearby, cleaning their famous machete-like long knives and watching the Aussies do jumping jacks.

  Off the portside of the carrier, a large sea freighter was docked. This was the El Ka-Bongo, the ship that served as a ferry for the 7500 Moroccan desert fighters. It too would become part of the fleet, just as the oiler anchored beside it.

  Watching it all from the highest point on the Saratoga’s superstructure was Hawk Hunter. The sun was now at its highest point in the sky. The blue-green waters of the Med were shimmering in the noontime radiance. He watched as the dozen tugs in front of the carrier simultaneously started their smoky diesel engines. The waters churning in their wake, the tugs fanned out until their thick towlines attached to the front of the carrier became taut. Hunter felt their pull. Then, from the rear of the car
rier, he heard the familiar bump of the eight trailing tugs nudging against the rear of the ship. This was the push.

  The carrier didn’t move for more than two minutes. But then, slowly, the combined forces working on the enormous ship started to take effect. Hunter could feel a light breeze on his face—a slight wind caused by the movement of the huge carrier. They were moving. The ship—like the small fleet of frigates and tugs around it—was alive. Breathing with adventure, sailing toward the east. Toward the unknown.

  Chapter 19

  HUNTER UNCORKED THE WINE bottle and poured out three glasses. He was sitting in the Saratoga’s CIC room, studying reams of transcripts just given to him by the head of the Italian communications group, Captain Giuseppe d’Salvo.

  “So this is what our friend Lucifer is up to,” said Sir Neil as he reached for his wine glass. “I’m glad the long-range communications antenna is working so well. Giuseppe, your guys have done a great job.”

  The Englishman raised his glass in a toast. “To our Italian compadres!”

  Hunter and the Italian officer raised their glasses and each man downed the small glass of vino.

  “This is invaluable information,” Sir Neil continued. “But it is also quite frightening. Lucifer is definitely on the move.”

  It was fascinating stuff. Giuseppe’s men had been able to identify Lucifer’s main radio frequencies. Although the broadcasts were mostly in Arabic, Giuseppe’s men had had no problem translating them with help from the Moroccans. Within hours of setting up their long-range antenna, the Italians had come up with some extremely valuable intelligence.

  Lucifer’s troops—close to fifty divisions in strength—were going through their last paces of training. The reports indicated that the madman was contracting ships of all types to sail to the port of Ashara, formerly part of South Yemen. From there the armada would sail up the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal, and break out into the Med. At that point they would link up with their local allies and start a sweep across both the northern and southern shores of the sea. It was a campaign that would rival everyone from Alexander to Rommel.