The Intruders

by Stephen Coonts

  An EA-6B Prowler was already there, waiting for them. It was level at 22,000 feet, on the five-mile arc around the ship. Its exterior lights seemed weak, almost lonely as they flickered in the starry night.

  The Prowler was a single-purpose aircraft, designed solely to wage electronic war. Grumman had lengthened the basic A-6 airframe enough to accept two side-by-side cockpits, so in addition to the pilot the plane carried three electronic warfare specialists known as ECMOs, or electronic countermeasures officers. Special antennae high on the tail and at various other places on the plane allowed the specialists to detect enemy radar transmissions, which they then jammed or deceived by the use of countermeasures pods that hung on the wing weapons stations. Tonight, in addition to the pods, this Prowler carried a two-thousand-pound fuel tank on its belly station. Although the EA-6B was capable of carrying a couple missiles to defend itself, Jake had never seen one armed.

  As expensive as Boeing 747s, these state-of-the-art aircraft had not been allowed to cross into North Vietnam after they joined the fleet, which degraded their effectiveness but ensured that if one were lost, the Communists would not get a peek at the technology. Here, again, America traded airplanes and lives in a meaningless war rather than risk compromising the technological edge it had to have to win a war with the Soviets, a war for national survival.

  Jake thought about that now—about trading lives to keep the secrets—as he flew in formation with the Prowler and looked at the telltale outline of helmeted heads in the cockpits looking back at him. Then the Prowler pilot passed Jake the lead, killed his exterior lights, slid aft and crossed under to take up a position on Jake’s right wing.

  The Prowler pilot was Commander Reese, the skipper of the squadron. He was about five and a half feet tall, wore a pencil-thin mustache, and delighted in practical jokes. Inevitably, given his stature, he had acquired the nickname of Pee Wee.

  Jake retarded the throttles and lowered the nose. In seconds the clouds closed in around the descending planes and blotted out the stars.

  “Departure, War Ace Five Oh Two and company headed southeast, descending.”

  “Roger, War Ace. Switch to Strike.”

  “Switching.”

  Flap twirled the radio channelization knob and waited for the Prowler to check in on frequency. Then he called Strike.

  Flying in this goo, at night, wasn’t really flying at all. It was like a simulator. The world ended at the windshield. Oh, if you turned your head you could see the fuzzy glow of the wing-tip lights, and if you looked back right you could see your right wing-tip light reflecting off the skin of the Prowler that hung there, but there was no sense of speed or movement. Occasional little turbulence jolts were the only reminder that this box decorated with dim red lights, gauges and switches wasn’t welded to the earth.

  The big plan was for each bomber and its accompanying Prowler to run a mock attack on the Soviet task group as close to simultaneously as possible. Jake would approach from the southwest, Colonel Haldane from the northwest. The E-2 Hawkeye, the Hummer, would monitor their progress and coordinate the attack. However, each A-6 BN had to find the task group on radar before they sank below the radar horizon. Then the bombers would run in at five hundred feet. In an actual attack they would come in lower, perhaps as low as two hundred, but not at night, not in this weather, for drill. The risks of flying that close to the sea were too great.

  Flap started the video recorder, a device that the A-6A never had. This device would record everything seen on the radar screen, all the computer and inertial data, as well as the conversation on the radio and in the cockpit.

  “Recorder’s on,” he told Jake. “Keep it clean.”

  This electronic record of the attack could be used for poststrike analysis, or, as CAG had hinted in the brief, sent to Washington to show to any bigwigs or congressmen who wanted to know what, exactly, the Navy had done in response to the collision at sea.

  Had the Soviet skipper intended to bump the carrier? Did he tell the truth to his superiors? These imponderables had of course been weighed in Washington, and orders had been sent to the other side of the earth.

  It was midafternoon in Washington. The city would be humming with the usual mix of tourists, government workers anxious to begin their afternoon trek to the suburbs, the latest tunes coming over the radios, soap operas on television…

  Jake wondered about the weather there. Late November. Was it cold, rainy, overcast?

  All those people in America, finishing up another Monday, and he and Flap were here, over the Indian Ocean, passing ten thousand feet with a Prowler on their wing and a Soviet task group somewhere in the night ahead.

  “See it yet?”

  “No. Stop at eight thousand and hold there.”

  As they flew eastward the turbulence increased. Jake had Flap arrange his rearview mirror so he could keep tabs on the Prowler. Pee Wee Reese seemed to be hanging in there pretty well. He had to. If he lost sight of the bomber, he would have to break off. Two planes feeling for each other in this soup would be a fine way to arrange a midair collision.

  “The Commies aren’t where they’re supposed to be,” Flap said finally.

  “You sure?”

  “All I know is that the radar screen is empty. Rocket scientist that I am, I deduce the Reds aren’t where the spies said they would be. Or Columbia’s inertial was all screwed up and this is the wrong ocean. Or all the Reds have sunk. Those are the possibilities.”

  “Better ask Black Eagle.”

  It turned out the E-2 was also looking for the Soviets at the maximum range of its radar. It soon found them, steaming hard to the northeast, directly away from Jake and Flap and directly toward the line of thunderstorms that had just passed over them.

  “They know something’s up,” Jake said.

  “Terrific. They’re at general quarters expecting us and we’ll have to go under thunderstorms to get to them. And to think we almost didn’t get a date for this party.”

  “Man, we’re having fun now.”

  Flap didn’t reply. He was busy.

  After a bit he said, “Okay, I got ’em. Give me a few moments to get a course and speed and then we’ll go down.”

  While he was talking the electronic warfare (EW) panel chirped. A Soviet search radar was painting them. In addition to the flashing light on the panel when the beam swept them, Jake heard a baritone chirp in his headset.

  So much for surprise.

  The turbulence was getting worse. The bouncing was constant now. Rain coursed around the windscreen and across the canopy. “Radar is getting degraded,” Flap muttered. “Rain. I got them though, course Zero Five Zero at fifteen. Lots of sea return. Swells are big down there, my man.”

  “Can we go down?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jake glanced over at the reflection of the Prowler in the mirror. Pee Wee was riding fairly steadily, cycling up and down as the planes bounced, but never slipping too far out of position. Jake carefully eased the throttle back and let the nose go down a half a degree. When he was sure the EA-6B pilot was still with him, he lowered the nose some more.

  A pale green light caught his eye, and he glanced at the windscreen. Dancing tendrils of green fire were playing across it.

  “Look at this,” he told Flap. “Saint Elmo’s fire.”

  “This makes my night,” the BN said. “All we need is for the Russians to squirt a missile at us and this will be a complete entertainment experience.”

  “Will a lightning bolt do?”

  “Don’t say stuff like that. God’s listening. You’re passing five thousand.”

  “Radar altimeter’s set.”

  “Roger. Station one selected, master arm to go.”

  They were up to four hundred knots indicated now. The EA-6B was right there, hanging on. Eighty miles to go.

  Wasn’t Saint Elmo’s fire an indicator that lightning might strike? Wasn’t that what the old sailors said? Even as he wondered the flickering green fire
faded, then disappeared completely.

  Black Eagle gave them a turn. Jake banked gently to the new heading. The steering to the target was forty degrees left, but the controller in the E-2 was trying to coordinate the attack. When he had one of the formations four miles farther from the target than the other, he would have them turn inbound and accelerate to five hundred knots. The pilots would call their distance to go on the radio every ten miles. The plan was for the bombers and their EA-6B escorts to pass over the Soviet task group thirty seconds apart. Neither formation would see the other, so this separation was required for safety reasons.

  Jake eased his descent passing twenty-five hundred feet. He shallowed it still more passing a thousand and drifted slowly down to five hundred, keeping one eye on the radar altimeter. He adjusted the barometric pressure on the pressure altimeter so it matched the radar altimeter’s reading exactly.

  The turbulence had not let up, nor had it increased. The rain was heavier, though. The high airspeed kept the windscreen clear but the water ran across the top and sides of the canopy in sheets.

  “War Aces, turn inbound.”

  Jake came left to center the steering and fed the throttles forward until they were at ninety-eight percent RPM. Pee Wee stayed right with him.

  “Five Oh Two, seventy miles. ”

  Fifteen seconds later he heard Haldane’s voice: “Five Oh Five, sixty miles.”

  Each plane was inbound on a bomb run at eight and a third nautical miles per minute. They were a little over thirty seconds apart, but the extra margin was an added safety cushion.

  “I should get them at about thirty miles, I think,” Flap said.

  And when we can see them, they can see us.

  Jake reached down and flipped the IFF, the transponder, to standby. No use giving the Reds an easy problem.

  He glanced at the EW panel. Still quiet. When they rose above the Russians’ radar horizon it would light up like a Christmas tree.

  “Five Oh Two, sixty miles.”

  The turbulence was getting vicious. The radar altimeter beeped once when Jake inadvertently dropped to four hundred feet. He concentrated on the instruments, on the attitude indicator on the VDI, on the needle of the rate-of-climb indicator, cross-checking the radar and pressure altimeters, all the while working to keep his wings level and steering centered. Every moment or two he glanced in the mirror to check on Pee Wee Reese, who was sticking like glue. No question, the guy was good.

  “Five Oh Two, fifty miles.”

  Rain poured over the plane, so much that a film of water developed on the windscreen even though they were doing five hundred knots.

  “Five Oh Two, forty miles.”

  A lightning flash ahead distracted him for several seconds from the instruments. When he came back to them he had lost fifty feet. He struggled to get it back as he wondered if Haldane had seen the lightning flash. Should they go under a thunderstorm? It was Haldane’s call. Jake wasn’t breaking off the run unless the skipper did.

  “Five Oh Two, thirty miles.”

  Twenty-nine, twenty-eight…

  “They’ve turned,” Flap said. “They’re heading southeast. Follow steering.”

  Even as Jake eased right to center the bug, the EW panel lit up and the tones assailed him. X-band, Y-band—the Russians had every radar they had turned on and probing, looking for a target.

  Now the tones of the radars became a buzz. The bomber was so close to the EA-6B, which was jamming the Russian radar, that the bomber’s EW gear was overwhelmed.

  “Five Oh Two, twenty miles.”

  “Master Arm on, we’re in attack,” Flap reported.

  The attack symbology came alive on the VDI.

  Another lightning flash. Closer. Lots of rain.

  “Five Oh Five, ten miles.” That was Haldane.

  Fifteen miles…fourteen…thirteen…

  “They’re jamming me. Keep on this heading.”

  Now Flap flipped on frequency agility, trying to change his radar’s frequency to an unjammed wavelength long enough to get a look.

  “Five Oh Two, ten miles.”

  Three lightning flashes in a couple seconds. They were flying right under a boomer. The turbulence was so bad Jake had trouble concentrating on the instruments. Pee Wee was still hanging on, though.

  Five miles.

  Four.

  Three.

  Symbols marching down toward weapons release.

  Lights. The Russian ships should be lit up. He should pass

  over them just after weapons’ release. But don’t look! No distractions. Concentrate!

  Two.

  One.

  Release marker coming down. Steering centered. Commit trigger pulled.

  Click. Flag drop on the ordnance panel and the attack light on the VDI went out.

  If there had been a bomb, it would now be falling.

  A searchlight split the night. Three or four, weaving.

  Instantly he had vertigo. He stared at the VDI, forced himself to keep his wings level as he tugged the stick slightly aft to begin a climb.

  And then the lights were behind. That quick.

  More lightning ahead. Jake eased into a left turn, toward the north. The skipper went out to the southeast, so this direction should be clear.

  He would climb away from this ocean, turn west to head for the carrier, get out of this rain and turbulence and lightning, and to hell with the Ivans!

  Message delivered: fuck you very much, stiff letter to follow.

  He had the power back to ninety percent and was up to two thousand feet, in a ten-degree angle-of-bank left turn passing north on the HSI when the lightning bolt struck. There was a stupendous flash of light and a sound like a hammer striking, then nothing.

  He was blind. Everything was white. Flash blindness. He knew it.

  He keyed the ICS and told Flap, “Flashlight—” but there was no feedback in his headset. A total electrical failure. And he was blind as a bat, two thousand feet over the water, in a turn.

  He had to see.

  He blinked furiously, trying by sheer force of will to see the instrument panel.

  But there was no light, no electricity.

  He reached behind him with his left hand, found the handle for the ram-air turbine—the RAT—and pulled hard. Real hard.

  The handle came out.

  Perhaps four seconds had passed, not more.

  The white was fading. He reached for his oxygen mask with both hands and unfastened the right side.

  What the plane was doing he had no way of knowing, although he knew whatever it was, it wasn’t good. But he couldn’t fly blind. His seat-of-the-pants instincts were worthless. Oh, he knew that, had had it drummed into him and had experienced it on so many night carrier landings that he wasn’t even tempted to try to level the wings.

  The white was fading into darkness. He blinked furiously, then remembered his L-shaped flashlight, hanging by a hook on the front of his survival vest. He found it and pushed the switch on.

  In the growing darkness he saw the spot the beam made on the instrument panel. Another few seconds…

  But there was already a spot of light on the needle-ball turn indicator! Flap! He must have had his head in the scope when the lightning hit.

  He could see. The VDI was blank. The standby gyro showed a thirty-degree left turn. Ten degrees nose-down.

  Cross-check with the turn indicator!

  Turn needle pegged left. He rolled right to center it, overdid it and came back left some. The standby gyro responded.

  The altimeter! Going down.

  Back stick. Stop the needle. Gently now. Coming down on eleven hundred feet. Stop it there, center that turn needle. Standby gyro disagrees by five degrees. Ignore it!

  Flap was shouting and he caught the muffled words: “Reese is still with us. He has his lights on. I think he wants to take the lead.”

  Jake could see now. His vision was back to normal. How many seconds had it been?

 
He risked a glance in the rearview mirror. There was Reese, with his exterior lights on, bobbing like a cork on Jake’s right wing. Reese must be the world’s finest formation pilot, to hang on through that gyration.

  Should he chance it? Should he pull the power and try to ease back onto Reese’s wing without a radio call or signal?

  Even as the thought shot through his mind, he was retarding the throttles. Reese’s plane began to move forward.

  Okay! Flap was flipping his flashlight at Reese in the EA-6B’s cockpit.

  Pee Wee knows. He wants me to fly on him. It’s our only chance if the TACAN and radar are screwed up. We’ll never find the ship on our own.

  Now Reese was abeam him, the two planes flying wing tip to wing tip and bouncing out of sync in the turbulence.

  Be smooth, Jake. Don’t lose him. Don’t let him slip away into this black shit or you’ll be swimming for it.

  He stabilized in parade position on Reese’s left side, so that he was looking straight up the leading edge of the swept wing into the cockpit. Reese was just a dark shape limned by red light, the glow from his instrument panel.

  No comforting red glow in this cockpit. This place was dark as a tomb.

  The bouncing was getting worse. He had to cross under, get on Reese’s right side so he wouldn’t be looking across the cockpit at the other plane.

  He tucked the nose down gently and pulled a smidgen of power. Now power back on and a little right bank while he wrestled the stick in the chop.

  Right under the tail, crossing, surfacing on Pee Wee’s right wing. Okay. Now hang here.

  Another flash of lightning. He flinched.

  Flap was shouting something. He concentrated, trying to make sense of the words. “… must’ve zapped us with a zillion volts. Every circuit breaker we got is popped. I’m going to try to reset some, so if you smell smoke, let me know.”

  “Okay,” he shouted, and found reassurance in the sound of his own voice.

  All he had to do was hang on to Reese. Hang on and hang on and hang on, and someday, sometime, Reese would drop him onto the ball. The ball would be out there in the rain and black goo, and the drop lights, and the centerline lights, and the wires, strung across that pitching, heaving deck.