Iron Wolf

by Dale Brown

  “You know, Jack,” he said to his copilot and weapons systems operator. “This daft little scheme of Mr. Martindale’s might actually work.”

  Over on the right side of the crowded cockpit, Jack Hollenbeck grinned back under his oxygen mask. “My mama always thought I’d end up on the wrong side of the law. But I figure she was thinking more about little old-fashioned crimes like bank robbery or car theft. Airplane smuggling seems like a mighty big step up. More high-class, somehow.”

  Darrow laughed. The Texan’s description of what they were doing was apt. Caught without enough time to move the remaining XF-111s legally—or at least discreetly—to Poland, Scion and its partners at Sky Masters had been forced to improvise. First, technicians had hurriedly installed temporary auxiliary fuel tanks in each refurbished aircraft’s bomb bay, significantly increasing the amount of fuel they could carry. Next, Sky Masters reactivated their air refueling systems—technically illegal according to U.S. export laws. Once that was done, contract pilots had flown the planes to different civilian airports along the eastern seaboard, ready for the Iron Wolf crews coming in from Poland take over.

  Roughly four hours ago, every one of those six Iron Wolf Squadron XF-111s had taken off—flying east using commercial air and civilian transponder codes that identified them as chartered cargo flights bound for different destinations in Africa and Europe and filing all the necessary Customs and Border Protection electronic forms for crossing the U.S. border. Nearly three thousand separate flights crossed the Atlantic in both directions every day—six more planes added to that traffic flow should rate less than a blip on anybody’s radar, or so Martindale had hoped. Once they left radar air traffic coverage, the XF-111s had switched off their transponders, increased speed, and converged at this planned midocean air refueling rendezvous.

  So far, so good, Darrow thought. And one thing was already clear. The other Iron Wolf crews were bloody good at their jobs. Every plane had made it to this difficult rendezvous on time and without trouble.

  “Warning, warning, unidentified X-band target search radar detected,” the SPEARS threat-warning system announced. “Four o’clock. Range undetermined.”

  “Ruh-roh,” Hollenbeck muttered, glancing down at his threat-warning display. “Identify.”

  “Negative identification,” the computer. “Agile active frequency signal. Stand by.”

  “Hell.” Hollenbeck stared down at his display. “The frequencies that goddamned radar is using are jumping around like a jackrabbit being chased by a coyote. My best guess is that it’s an AN/APG-79.”

  “Blast,” Darrow said. That was almost as good as the AN/APG-81 active electronically scanned array radar carried by their SuperVarks. Besides the refurbished XB-1 Excalibur bombers produced by Sky Masters, the only other aircraft fitted with the AN/APG-79s were the U.S. Navy’s F/A-18F Super Hornets . . . which meant they were in big trouble. Quickly, he switched their primary radio to GUARD, the international emergency frequency.

  A tense voice crackled through their headsets. “Unknown aircraft heading one-zero-five degrees at angels twenty and angels twenty-three, this is Navy flight Lion Four. Identify yourselves immediately!”

  Darrow glanced down at the information fed to one of his multifunction displays by Hollenbeck. Lion Four was a U.S. Navy F/A-18 all right, part of Strike Fighter Squadron 213, the “Blacklions.” VFA-213 was currently shown as flying off the Nimitz-class carrier George H. W. Bush. The Super Hornet’s crew must have been on a routine training flight when it picked them up, probably using ATFLIR, its Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared system. If the Navy fighter had been on station as part of the carrier group’s CAP, its combat air patrol, the XF-111 group’s warning receivers would have picked up emissions from a wide range of naval radars at long range. And that would have given them plenty of time to hightail it out of this area before being spotted.

  So this was just bad luck.

  Really bad luck.

  If a report of “unidentified F-111s” making a mid-Atlantic refueling maneuver flashed up the Navy chain of command to the Pentagon or, worse yet, President Barbeau’s White House, all hell would undoubtedly break loose. At best, the six Iron Wolf Squadron planes and their crews would be ordered back to the States for further investigation—an investigation that was bound to go on for a very long time and lead to a lot of awkward, unanswerable questions. As unpleasant as that would be for him, Jack Hollenbeck, Karen Tanabe, and the others, Darrow realized, it would be a lot worse for the rest of the squadron back at Powidz. Without these reinforcements, they would be forced to go in against the Russians desperately short of aircraft and trained crews.

  Well, then, Darrow thought, his six XF-111s were going to have to bluff their way past this Super Hornet pilot and his backseater, at least long enough to break contact and zoom out of detection range. “You’d better do the talking, Jack,” the ex-RAF pilot said, frowning. “My accent might prove a bit . . . disconcerting . . . to our friend out there.”

  Hollenbeck nodded. “Time to find out if our ‘get out of jail free’ card really works, I guess.” He keyed his mike. “Lion Four, this is Blackbird One. My code phrase is EIGHTBALL HIGH. Repeat, EIGHTBALL HIGH. Suggest you run that through your computer, pronto.”

  COMBAT DIRECTION CENTER, CVN-77

  USS GEORGE H. W. BUSH,

  IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC

  THAT SAME TIME

  “Say again, Lion Four,” Commander Russ Gerhardt, air operations officer for the Bush, said into his mike. In the dim, blue-tinted light of the CDC, he leaned forward, studying the radar and infrared images sent via data link from the F/A-18F Super Hornet. They showed a formation of seven separate aircraft, one large plane evaluated as a KC-10 refueling tanker and six smaller, sweptwing F-111-type aircraft. Every single F-111 had long since been retired to the Boneyard, so that was weird. None of them were squawking on any transponders, and that was even weirder.

  “These bozos gave us a code phrase to check,” the backseater aboard Lion Four radioed. “EIGHTBALL HIGH, whatever that is.”

  Gerhardt frowned. Code phrases? Crap. Who the hell were these guys? He turned to the specialist manning the nearest computer station. “Run that through the system, Cappellini.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” she said, her fingers already dancing over the keyboard. And then stopped as a warning flashed on her screen. “Commander?” the young Navy technician said, in a worried tone. “I can’t access that information. I’m not cleared for it.”

  Bush’s air operations officer moved over to get a better look. Her display showed lines of text in bright red: TOP SECRET//OS-SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED-EIGHTBALL HIGH. DO NOT REPORT. DO NOT RECORD.

  His frown grew deeper. The OS tag on this EIGHTBALL HIGH crap meant this was a Defense Department–approved military operation of some kind. But the Special Access bit meant it was so highly classified that all information about it was restricted to those few with a “need to know.” And apparently nobody on CVN-77 or in her assigned air wing met that criterion.

  Well, Gerhardt thought, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this was somehow connected to all the shit going down between Russia and Poland. The Pentagon brass and the White House must be running a “black ops” mission to help the Poles. Which explained the DO NOTs attached to the code phrase. After President Barbeau had made such a big deal out of staying neutral, anything the United States did to aid Warsaw would have to be totally deniable.

  “Wipe that entry, Specialist Cappellini,” he ordered. “It never happened. Understand?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Gerhardt keyed his mike again. “Lion Four, this is Avenger. Break away from those unknowns and deactivate your radar. Head back home. That’s an order.”

  “Avenger, this is Lion Four. Falcon one-zero-one?!”

  Gerhardt grinned, hearing the Navy pilot code for “You’ve got to be shitting me.” “No fecal matter is involved, Lion Four. Back off those guys and shut it down.”<
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  OVER THE ATLANTIC

  THAT SAME TIME

  “I’ll be damned,” Hollenbeck said slowly, staring at his MFDs. “It actually worked. That Hornet’s radar just went off-line. He’s turning away.”

  Mark Darrow breathed out in relief. Scion’s computer wizards had claimed they’d done a bit of tweaking inside the U.S. Defense Department’s databases to cover this little jaunt. It looked as though they’d done their hacking job properly. He switched back to the frequency they’d been using earlier. “Masters One-Four, many thanks for your assistance.”

  “Wolf One-One, you’re more than welcome. Fly safe,” the tanker radioed. “We’re heading for home.”

  Darrow watched the big KC-10 bank away, turning back to the west. Its director lights winked out. Within minutes, even the navigation lights on the aerial tanker’s wing tips and tail vanished in the darkness. He keyed his mike again. “All Wolf flights, this is Wolf One-One. Now that we’re finally all alone out here, let’s pick up the pace, shall we? We’ll go to full cruise and take it down to ten thousand feet. Follow my lead, understood?” A succession of clicks and acknowledgments came through his headset as the five other Iron Wolf crews signaled they understood his orders.

  “Right, then, Wolf flights. Here we go,” Darrow said, sweeping the XF-111’s wings back to fifty-six degrees while simultaneously pushing the throttles forward. The big fighter-bomber accelerated smoothly toward its full cruise speed of nearly six hundred knots. He pitched the SuperVark’s nose down, watching the altitude indicator on his HUD slide down toward ten thousand feet. One after another, the five other planes followed him down—staying on the course that would bring them to the Strait of Gibraltar, the entrance to the Mediterranean, in a little over two hours.

  COMBAT INFORMATION CENTER,

  RUSSIAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER

  ADMIRAL KUZNETSOV,

  IN THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN

  THAT SAME TIME

  Rear Admiral Anatoly Varennikov studied the short transcript of the GUARD channel radio transmission picked up by his aircraft carrier’s signals intelligence detachment. He arched an eyebrow, silently translating the English-language phrases into their Russian equivalents. He made it a point to always see the raw data first, but he never pretended to be a first-rate linguist. At last he looked up, meeting the interested gaze of his chief intelligence officer, Captain Yakunin. “EIGHTBALL HIGH? I’ve never seen that before. What does it mean, Leonid?”

  “Based on what they said, it’s an operational code of some kind, sir,” Yakunin said. He shrugged. “But it’s not one we have listed in our files.”

  “And there was nothing more?” Varennikov asked. “Just a request from the American Navy F/A-18 for identification from these unidentified aircraft? And then this strange code in response?”

  “There were no more messages between the mysterious aircraft and the Hornet,” Yakunin said. “But when the pilot passed this code back to his carrier, the Bush, his commanders told him to abort the intercept. In fact, they told him to turn off his radar immediately and return to the ship. Interesting, eh?”

  “Extremely interesting,” Varennikov agreed. “It suggests the movement of American military or intelligence aircraft, but a movement so secret that not even its own naval commanders were briefed about it in advance.”

  He turned to the map plot showing the present position of Admiral Kuznetsov and its escorting destroyers and frigates. They were about one hundred and sixty kilometers east-northeast of Gibraltar, steaming almost due east under Moscow’s most recent orders to return to the Black Sea. If the Ukrainians chose to impede the Russian troops scheduled to advance toward Poland, President Gryzlov wanted the carrier group in position to help punish them. Then he studied the estimated position, course, and speed of the unidentified group of aircraft out over the Atlantic. They might be heading his way.

  Varennikov chewed his lower lip, deep in thought. Was it worth delaying his task force’s transit to the Black Sea to investigate further? Yes, he decided. If the Americans really were up to something sneaky, it was important to try to find out exactly what that was. He moved to the command phone connecting him to the bridge. “Captain Bogdanov, signal the task force to reverse course. And ready two Su-33 fighters for launch. I want them to go hunting.”

  OVER THE ATLANTIC,

  NEAR THE STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR

  A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER

  “Warning, warning, X-band target search radar, Su-33, eleven o’clock high, one hundred miles, seven hundred knots,” the computer said suddenly.

  “Signal strength?” Hollenbeck asked.

  “Weak, but increasing,” the SPEAR system told him. “Detection probability minimal, but increasing.”

  Darrow frowned. “It’s getting awfully crowded in my sky, these days.” He clicked his mike. “Wolf flights, this is One-One. Stand by to go to DTF on my mark. Set for two hundred, hard ride. Let’s get down in the waves and blow past these Russian buggers before they know we’re here.”

  More clicks acknowledged his order.

  “Those Su-33 radars have a decent look-down capability,” Hollenbeck warned. “If they get close enough, they’ll still detect us.”

  Darrow nodded. “We’ll jink to stay out of their way, if we have to, and hope SPEAR can take care of the rest. Engage DTF, clearance plane two hundred hard ride.”

  “Digital terrain following engaged, clearance plane two hundred hard ride,” the computer responded.

  The XF-111 plunged down through night sky, diving toward the ocean at six hundred knots. The digital terrain-following system included occasional bursts of its radar altimeter, which measured the exact distance from its belly to the ocean. The SuperVarks leveled out at two hundred feet above the surface and streaked onward.

  Darrow tweaked his stick slightly right, following the navigation cues on his HUD. Soon some distinctive rock formations began to become visible on the digital artificial terrain display. Minutes later, they zipped past a massive wall of rock on the left side of the canopy, glowing faintly white in the moonlight. Lights twinkled at its base.

  “Cool,” Hollenbeck muttered, craning his head to look aft at the huge headland rising more than a thousand feet above their XF-111. “Was that—?”

  “The Rock of Gibraltar,” the Englishman replied tersely. “We’re over the Med now.”

  Hollenbeck looked back at his displays. “Those Su-33 radars are at our ten o’clock and moving toward our nine o’clock. Signal strength is still weak and now diminishing.” He nodded in satisfaction. “I think we dodged them.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Darrow said, tweaking the stick back to the left. “But there still has to be a Russian carrier task force out there somewhere, so stay sharp.” He breathed out. “Give me a read on the distance to the Scrapheap on our preset course.”

  “Eighteen hundred nautical miles, give or take a few,” Hollenbeck reported.

  Darrow glanced at their fuel state. Between those Su-33s prowling around off to their north and the chance of bumping into the Russian carrier the fighters belonged to, his XF-111s were going to have to stay low all the way to southern Romania. And terrain-following flight burned a lot more fuel than flying higher. His mouth tightened as he ran through the calculations. Thanks to the auxiliary fuel tanks fitted by Sky Masters, it was doable—but just barely. They wouldn’t exactly be arriving at the Scrapheap flying on fumes, but it would be a lot more nip and tuck than he had originally planned. Still, after a refueling stop in Romania, the final leg to Poland should be relatively easy.

  “Caution, new Echo-band search radar at eleven o’clock, one hundred ten miles,” the computer said, breaking into his thoughts.

  “Identify radar,” Hollenbeck ordered.

  “Fregat MAE-5 ship-based system,” the computer replied. “Signal characteristics match radar for Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov.”

  “Can it spot us?” Darrow asked, feeling his pulse speeding up again.

&n
bsp; “Negative,” Hollenbeck said, studying his displays. “Max range for that system against a target our size at altitude is about one hundred forty miles, but we’re so far down in the waves they won’t even see a flicker on their scopes.”

  They flew on in silence for another fifteen minutes or so. The radar emissions from Admiral Kuznetsov faded in the distance. Occasional chirps in their headsets marked civilian air traffic control and maritime surface-scanning radars sweeping all around them. Hollenbeck strained to look at something ahead. “I think we have surface traffic ahead,” he said. “Big sucker.”

  “I’ll go around it to the north,” Darrow said. “Five miles should be enough to avoid them getting an eyeball on us.”

  But as they deviated, it was obvious that the surface traffic was getting busier. “More ship traffic,” Hollenbeck said. “I’m going to have to use the radar to snake around them.”

  “Do it,” Darrow said. “If we need to fly nearer somebody, pick the smallest ones.”

  “Rog.” Hollenbeck activated the AN/APG-81 digital radar and set it for surface-scanning mode . . .

  . . . and the display came alive with targets, easily two dozen ships of varying size within three minutes’ flight time! “Crap,” Hollenbeck exclaimed. “This is one busy pond!”

  “The Med has some of the busiest shipping routes on the planet, old boy,” Darrow said, with a wry grin.

  “Some of those bastards are huge,” Hollenbeck said. “Come twenty degrees right, large surface traffic at twelve o’clock, ten miles. Looks bigger than an aircraft carrier!”

  “Aircraft carriers are some of the smallest large surface vessels on these waters,” Darrow said as he made the heading correction. “Even a typical cruise ship is bigger than a carrier.”

  “Ten more right, and we should be clear,” Hollenbeck said. Darrow made the correction. “There must be some common traffic route along here running from Algeria to Spain or southern France.”