The HUD readout indicated a rise in his speed to 550 kilometers per hour, and he backed the throttles off to keep it from rising higher. The HUD in the MiG-29 was not as sophisticated as those in American aircraft, but it provided him with basic readings.
Rostoken was thirty kilometers ahead of him, almost to the coast of Greenland, when the radar threat alarm sang its shrill syllables.
“Condor, flight of two, bearing one-five-five, four-zero kilometers.”
“Vulture, turn to zero-one-zero and climb to two-two-thousand meters,” Volontov ordered.
“Confirmed.”
The MiG-25 was one of the few aircraft in the world with a ceiling exceeding 24,000 meters. The American SR-71 Blackbird could do it, but it had been retired.
Feeling that the MiG-25 could protect itself with altitude, Volontov made a tight left turn and began to climb. He used the radar momentarily and found the two blips at 6,000 meters. The ground clutter from the sea was difficult to read, but he picked out a few of the wells and several ships before switching the set to passive mode.
Flying in formation like that, they would be the Tornados or Eurofighters that Sheremetevo had warned him about, rather than a commercial flight.
Volontov would have liked to buzz them, purely for the exhilaration of it, but he had been told to steer clear of patrols.
The threat receiver sounded again, and a moment later, the alarming warning appeared in red letters on the HUD — HOSTILE MISSILE LOCK-ON.
Volontov grinned to himself, tasting the rubbery tang of his face mask. The bastards thought to scare him off, locking on with an infrared-seeking missile.
Switching to the international frequency, he heard the end of a sentence in English. “ … aircraft, identify yourself.”
He did not respond.
“Unidentified aircraft, I will fire a warning shot in one minute unless you identify yourself.”
To hell with General Sheremetevo, Volontov thought. He would test the resolve of these Germans.
With right stick and rudder, Volontov banked over into a dive. He activated the radar, then the armaments panel, selecting two AA-11 missiles.
He found the two aircraft quickly on the radar screen, their blips almost merged, and lined up his dive. Pushed the throttles forward.
Speed rose quickly. The airframe shuddered as he passed through the sound barrier.
Mach 1.1.
Distance to objective, twenty kilometers.
His missiles locked on to the lead aircraft. Radar-homing. The low buzz in his earphones and the HUD readout told him so.
The Germans scattered, the lead plane diving away to the left, the trailing aircraft to the right. The hostile LOCK-ON message flickered and died as the German plane lost his angle on the MiG-29.
Volontov shut down his own missiles and chuckled to himself.
The Americans would call them chickenshits.
Easing back on the stick, he pulled out of his dive at 3,000 meters above the sea, turning slightly to the right, toward a homeward course.
On the radar, the German aircraft were regrouping almost ten kilometers behind him.
“Wha-wha-wha-wha!”
The missile threat receiver sounded in his ear.
The HUD blinked at him: HOSTILE MISSILE LOCK-ON.
This one had been launched.
Slapping the stick left, Volontov rolled the plane inverted, looking up through the canopy.
Black dot circled in rosy, fiery white.
Surface-to-air, rising from a ship.
“Bastards!”
Tracking him on infrared.
He retarded his throttles, then pulled the nose on over and aimed for the missile, to get his hot exhaust out of its line of sight.
Closing fast.
Seconds away.
He opened up with his cannon, a futile gesture.
Rolled the left wing up, tugged the stick back to his crotch, shoved the throttles to military thrust.
The MiG strained as it pulled out of the dive. The G-forces drained the blood from his face.
The missile abruptly diverted its course away from him.
As Volontov regained control and began climbing, he wondered about the sincerity of the missile battery commander aboard that ship.
He was not certain that it was only a warning shot.
*
“Yes, General Eisenach, we launched a missile. Purely a warning. It was diverted in the last moments.”
Adm. Gerhard Schmidt was in his flag plot, one deck below the bridge of the Hamburg. The large, thickly padded chair in which he sat was fastened to the deck, but it could swivel between the large port which gave him a view of the sea to the two-meter electronic plotting screen mounted on the interior bulkhead. The screen was now relatively quiet. The wells were indicated as yellow squares. His battle group, comprised of the Hamburg and two destroyers, was shown in green. The two Tornados were just leaving the screen, headed south.
Eisenach mulled that over. “First a Greenpeace ship, now an airplane.”
“There were two airplanes.”
“Visible on radar. American aircraft?”
“No, General. They were Soviets. Most likely a Foxbat and a Fulcrum, according to the radar and infrared signatures.”
“Damn it, Gerhard! The Soviets, now?”
“They were far off their normal reconnaissance runs over the North Sea.” Schmidt sat low in his chair, his elbows placed firmly on the soft armrests. He tapped a forefinger against the earlobe of his jutting left ear. “My assumption was that the Foxbat was taking pictures. This is the first time we have encountered aircraft, and we followed standing policy in challenging them, but the Fulcrum pilot was exceptionally aggressive. He attacked the Tornados.”
“He fired on them?”
“No. But he was not frightened by our airborne tactics. Tactics devised by the air force, I remind you.”
“So you took it upon yourself to order a launch?” Eisenach’s tone carried his agitation.
“They are no longer here.”
“But, Gerhard, rest assured that they will be back.”
Schmidt was left listening to the carrier wave.
He shrugged to himself. He had a large number of missiles available.
*
Developing photographs aboard Themis was not a simple task. Specialized equipment had been devised which allowed the film to be placed in small compartments, a door closed, then the chemicals released into the compartment. After the prescribed amount of time, the chemicals were sucked out of the compartment. It was time-consuming, and Amy Pearson had spent most of her morning developing the hundreds of pictures — each of them marked with time and coordinates in the upper right-hand corner-brought back by the three Makosharks.
After they were developed, she passed them under a video camera, transferring the images to the more manipulative medium of computer-based imaging. Then she followed the corridors and hatchways back to the Radio Shack in the Command Center to pore over them on one of the consoles.
Donna Amber was standing the morning communications shift, succeeding Sgt. Don Curtis. As soon as Pearson appeared in the hatchway, Amber said, “Colonel, Don Curtis left me a message for you. Says you might want to review the radar tapes.”
“For when, Donna?”
“Uh, let’s see. Nine to nine-fifteen our time, concentrating on the Greenland region.”
“Okay, bring it up, please.”
The radar aboard Themis, with its ninety-foot-wide antenna housed in the massive fiberglass pod on Spoke Fifteen, could radiate up to fifteen million watts of energy, drawing on the nuclear reactor. At full output, it had over 400 miles of range, but that energy usage also dimmed all of the lights and slowed all of the electronic devices aboard the station. It also affected the sensitive instruments on aerospace craft within fifty miles of the satellite.
It was normally operated, from the radar operator’s compartment in the hub, at low power settings, with a range of 215
miles, almost the same distance as the altitude of Themis above the earth. Using I-Band for lateral tracking and G-Band for altitude tracking, the radar was chiefly useful for guiding HoneyBee rockets to docking slots. A few high-flying aircraft or a few rocket launches from Vandenburg Air Force Base, Cape Canaveral, or Baikonur Cosmodrome were sometimes recorded when the Department of Defense had a particular interest. The radar’s computer could scan and track simultaneously, tracking up to 120 targets at the same time. The radar was a key ingredient in the Satellite Defense Initiative system, though that program had now taken on a lower priority.
At 220 miles of scan, the ground clutter reflections, unless over relatively uninhabited areas, could be confusing. The computer filtered out much of the clutter, but with so many targets at surface level, a radar operator could get dizzy.
Because of the orbital rate of Themis, there was a continual movement of the tracking area above the earth. The Greenland region would have been under radar surveillance for less than twenty minutes.
Amber touched an intercom button. “Macklin, you awake?”
“Radar, Mizz Amber.” The title was drawn out, reflecting Sgt. Joe Macklin’s attitude toward the spat he and Donna Amber were having. Pearson had been monitoring it, alert to undue personnel problems.
“Colonel Pearson wants to see last night’s tape. Start it at nine o’clock.”
“Right. Coming up on channel twelve, Sergeant.”
Pearson grabbed a floating tether and pulled herself close to the terminal. She tapped “one-two” into the channel selector board.
The image was manic, radar sweep and blips zipping as the tape was backed up in high-speed reverse.
It stopped, jerked forward, then ran at normal speed.
Amber watched a duplicate on her own screen.
The operator last night had extended the range as soon as he saw radar returns that looked suspicious to him. They appeared on the bottom left of the screen, slowly crossing the screen upward and to the left as Themis moved inexorably toward the south and the earth rotated.
An airborne blip just west of well number fifteen abruptly turned and started climbing fast. Well over Mach 2, Pearson thought. The altitude readout next to the blip showed forty, then fifty, then sixty thousand feet.
“That’s got to be a Foxbat,” Amber said.
“I think you’re right, Donna. And he’s running from something.”
A second aircraft, some twenty-five miles behind the first, turned left, making almost a full circle.
Two blips, so close together they were almost melded, appeared at the bottom of the screen.
“That’s what they’re running from,” Amber said.
“A patrol flight.”
The images were now centered on the screen. Pearson could count all of the wells. Perhaps twelve ships in the area, though the background was snowy.
The single blip dove on the German planes.
Attack?
No. Maybe. The Germans planes parted and dove away.
Seconds later, a new target appeared, separating from one of the ships. It climbed quickly, leaning toward the single aircraft.
“Seaborne missile launch,” Pearson said.
“Damn.”
Then there was a flurry of darting blips, which merged, then separated. Finally, the radar return of the missile faded away as it apparently exploded harmlessly. The single aircraft, now at a much lower altitude, accelerated toward the east, climbing.
Pearson touched the intercom button.
“Radar.”
“Sergeant Macklin, get me a speed and heading on each of the aircraft.”
“Right away, Colonel.”
As she waited, the two German planes joined up again, and the whole scenario drifted off the screen.
Macklin came back to her. “Colonel Pearson, the two in formation are at five hundred knots, heading three-five-oh. Five-two per cent probable Tornados. The aircraft in the north is nine-five percent probable MiG-25. Heading zero-nine-nine, speed Mach two point six. The other aircraft is seven-five percent probable Fulcrum, heading zero-nine-four, speed Mach one point nine.”
“Give me an intersecting vector on the MiG’s, Macklin.”
He read off the coordinates. “That’ll be in the Barents Sea, north of Sereya, Norway, Colonel.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. That’s all.”
“Now the Soviets are involved?” Amber asked.
“Looks that way, Donna. You want to raise General Thorpe for me at Cheyenne Mountain?”
Ten minutes passed before Thorpe was located.
“Hello, Amy. Something up?”
She told him about the confrontation. “We think they were Soviet aircraft. It seems likely that they were on a reconnaissance mission.”
“That would be right,” Thorpe said. “Colonel Volontov’s people are probably on the job.”
“You don’t trust our information?”
Thorpe laughed, but it was hollow. “Not that at all, Amy. You like to make decisions based on the most information available, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said reluctantly.
“That’s all that’s taking place here. But you said there was a missile fired?”
“Yes. Surface-to-air, ship-launched.”
“All right, I’ll look into that. One other thing, here. The CIA interviewed the captain of that Greenpeace ship. Boat, really.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Yes and no. The captain, a guy named Nichols, is a pretty ardent fellow, from the reports. And he wants to bring charges against some German major for firing a missile at him.”
“He say why they were that far north?” Pearson asked. “Chasing a rumor. We’ve only got secondhand hearsay on this, Amy, but apparently Nichols talked to some fishing boat captain from Greenland who said the fish were migrating out of the Greenland Sea. Nichols suspects oil spillage, and he was trying to take water samples.”
“Maybe we should get the samples for him?” Pearson said. “Or for us.”
“General Brackman’s going to take it up with the Joint Chiefs. I think that we’ll try to get a submarine in there, Amy.”
“If they’re shooting at airplanes, the Germans may attempt to run a submarine off, too, General. They might get pretty upset.”
“Well, yeah, that’s got us a little worried.”
*
Compartment A-47, the exercise room, did not have a screen, so the squadron members crowded into the Command Center for their briefing.
All of the available tethers were in use, and several people floated free, drifting with the air-conditioning currents. South America, verdantly bright, slithered across the porthole.
McKenna hung onto the curtain outside his office cubicle and watched as Overton raised his hand to silence the babble. Donna Amber had her head stuck through the curtained doorway to the Radio Shack.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and weapons system operators,” Overton said, drawing a laugh. The general had once been a WSO. He had also ejected from a Phantom hit by a SAM-7 over Hanoi and spent a couple of hours bobbing in the South China Sea. “Our interest in the Greenland Sea in the last few days seems to have generated a lot of activity. Colonel Pearson will tell us about it.”
Pearson quickly went through the details of the Greenpeace boat, the State Department’s inability to elicit information from the Germans in regard to the wells, and the Soviet overflight. McKenna had been aware of all but the Red Air Force’s mission.
Tony Munoz asked, “This a cooperative thing, Amy? With the Soviets?”
“All I know, Tony, is that General Sheremetevo has assigned the Fifth Interceptor Wing to gathering information. During their first flight this morning, the Hamburg launched a missile at Colonel Volontov, the wing commander. It was apparently meant as a warning.”
Munoz spun to look at McKenna. “This is gonna get out of hand, Snake Eyes.”
“I talked to General Brackman this morning,” McKenna said. ‘The President
has signed a contingency order for us.”
“Fire if fired upon?”
“Yes, except that it has to be cleared through me. Everybody keep that in mind.”
“We going to have to dodge a bunch of Soviet airplanes?” Conover asked.
Pearson responded to the question. “The 5th Interceptor Wing has been moved to Murmansk, and the unit flies Fulcrums. I understand that there are also a couple of Foxbats assigned to the wing, and there will be tankers in the area of the Barents Sea. Yes, you need to watch out for them.”
Dimatta looked more than a little pained. “We’re buddy-buddy, now?”
“For the time being, Frank, yes,” Pearson said.
Dimatta turned to McKenna, the question still in his raised eyebrow.
“That’s right, Cancha. For the time being.”
The look that Pearson gave him suggested that she didn’t think much of the requirement for McKenna’s squadron to double-check her information with the squadron commander.
They all seemed a little disgruntled, but they settled down as Pearson went through selected pictures from the recon flight of the night before. One by one, she brought them up on the screen, pointing out features. She started with Dimatta and William’s run over the oil fields.
“There’s nothing new to report on the wells themselves, but there has been an interesting change in the makeup of the naval ships. We got photos of fifteen ships, including three seagoing tugs, which we hadn’t seen before. New, also, is the fact that the missile cruiser Stuttgart has joined the fleet. Further, the naval force has been reconfigured into battle groups of three ships. Either a missile cruiser or a missile frigate accompanied by two destroyers. Something has changed the philosophy, but this is the kind of thing I would expect, after reading the bios on Admiral Gerhard Schmidt. The posture is a great deal more defensive.
“On the sonobuoys that Delta Green deployed, we haven’t yet picked up much. A couple ships passing close to number six. Number eight picked up a submarine, the Black Forest, according to the screw signature, which is their newest nuclear sub. We aren’t certain that every sonobuoy is located exactly on the pipeline route, but the Black Forest could well be patrolling the pipeline.”
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