Iron Wolf

by Dale Brown

  “Do I still have a hot trigger?” Ignatyev asked.

  “Stand by!” She had to strain to read the multifunction display. “Yes! R-73s are still armed, single shot. Your trigger is hot! Still locked on infrared, fifteen kilometers.”

  Ignatyev’s thumb slid over to the missile launch button on his control stick. “Do svidaniya, Mother—”

  The second flash of light was just as bright as the first, but instead of a hundred meters off to the right it erupted just centimeters in front of the Su-30’s left wing. Both crewmembers saw the light . . . but saw, heard, or felt nothing else. Their fighter was blown to pieces in a millisecond.

  “I’d like to bring a dozen of those Coyotes with me on every mission,” Brad McLanahan said, bringing the throttles back and pushing the wing sweep handle forward to fifty-four degrees, the high-speed cruise setting. Seated beside him in the cockpit of their XF-111A SuperVark was Nadia Rozek, unrecognizable in her helmet and flight gear except for her voice, which was steady and sure even though they were flying at nine miles a minute just one hundred feet above the Russian countryside at night, with radars all around them and Russian fighters and missiles ready to blow them out of the sky. Brad glanced over at Nadia’s multifunction display and punched up a different screen.

  “I am so sorry I am not more familiar with these controls,” Nadia said. “There was just no time to learn.”

  “That’s okay, Nadia,” Brad said. “Your original job wasn’t to fly this mission. But I can use all the help you can give me. Besides, I’m pretty good at flying solo—I’ve got lots of simulator time pushing weapon buttons from the left seat.” He read the new information on the screen. “Six minutes to the first launch point. We’re prearmed and ready.” Their SuperVark was loaded with two AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapons on external hardpoints on the wings, two AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles also on wing hardpoints, and four CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon munitions in the bomb bay.

  A warning tone sounded. “Here we go,” Brad said. “S-300 site. Swap screens for me please.” Nadia hit a soft key, which transferred the weapon page from the right MFD to the left so Brad could see it. “Hit the top right button on your right screen to bring up the ECM status page . . . that’s it, and it shows SPEAR is active. But I have a HARM selected on the left screen, so SPEAR won’t try to take down that radar. Consent switches up . . . that’s it, you got it. Mine’s up, and I hit the release button. That starts the launch countdown . . . we’re climbing a bit to give the missile more room . . . five, four, three, two, one, watch for the flare . . . there she goes.” A streak of fire and a loud RROAR! erupted from the left wing, and an AGM-88 antiradiation missile shot off into the darkness. “Descending back to one hundred feet.”

  “It is like a video game, is it not, Brad?” Nadia breathed.

  “Except for the results,” Brad said. Moments later they saw a bright flash of light on the horizon, and a cloud of fire rolled into the sky. “Splash one CLAM SHELL. SPEAR is active again.” On the weapons page, he selected a Joint Standoff Weapon. “Now let’s see if we can take out the launchers. Coming up on the first location. On your right screen, hit the button for the radar . . . that’s it. Switch it over to the left.” Nadia did so. “The computer has selected the last known location of an S-300 site, but the things are mobile, so we won’t know if they’re really there unless we spot it on radar. Hit the top left . . .”

  But Nadia had already selected the proper button. The snapshot image showed a finely detailed, almost photograph-quality image of the target area . . . and, almost right in the center of the screen, was a large eight-wheeled vehicle with two large vertical missile tubes on the back. Another unit could be seen just a few hundred feet away. “There they are!” Nadia exclaimed.

  “But notice that the computer didn’t select either of them,” Brad said. “That means the radar is not picking up some characteristic it expects . . . which means it might be a decoy. Let’s search around a bit. Use your trackball on your right console and scroll around a little.” Even though it was not a live radar image, Nadia was able to move the image from side to side to search the area . . .

  . . . and sure enough, they saw another pair of S-300 launchers about a mile farther to the north. “Are those real?”

  “Hit the radar button again and let’s find out.” Nadia hit the button to take another radar snapshot, and this time the computer had put a yellow box around each launcher. “The computer thinks they’re good. Select that button there on your right screen to select a JSW . . . good, consent switches are up, just waiting for the in-range indicator . . . there it is, bye-bye.” Brad pressed the button on his panel, and an AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon dropped free from the right wing. Brad banked slightly left to stay away from the glide weapon.

  “Did it hit it?” Nadia asked a few moments later. “I did not see an explosion.”

  “The JSW carries bomblets, and they detonate close to the ground, so we probably won’t see a—”

  Suddenly off to the left the ground erupted with bright flashes of light, and tracers arced all around them. “Shit! We flew right into triple-A!” Brad shouted. He threw the SuperVark into a hard right turn, but they heard and felt several hard impacts on the left wing and fuselage. They had been in the gun’s cross hairs for just a blink of an eye, but they had not come through unscathed. “Damn, that was close! Are you okay, Nadia?”

  “Yes.” She hadn’t screamed or panicked, but there was definitely fear in her voice now.

  Brad’s fingers flashed over the multifunction display’s soft keys, calling up status and warning pages. “Left engine looks okay . . . no, wait, hydraulic system is losing pressure, and we may have lost wing sweep and partially lost left flight controls. Can you call up the weapons page and check for warning messages?”

  “Yes.” She called up the correct page with a shaky gloved finger.

  Brad scanned the page while testing the flight controls and autopilot. “Looks like we lost an SFW,” he said. “We’d better jettison it.” He selected the damaged weapon and had Nadia hit the “JETT” soft key. They heard and felt the bomb-bay doors open and felt a slight shudder as the bomb left the bay . . . but the noise from the open bomb bay did not vanish as expected. “Crap, the bomb-bay doors won’t close,” Brad said after scanning his status and warning page. “Not enough hydraulic power.”

  “What does that mean, Brad?”

  “We’ll be even bigger on radar and it’ll be noisy,” Brad said. “It probably means we won’t get the landing gear fully down or be able to use flaps or slats, but that’s a problem we’ll deal with when we get home.” Unspoken was the thought: You mean if we get home.

  Minutes later they were over the first Iskander missile launcher location. As before, they took radar snapshots of each launcher, verified that it was real and not a fake. Nadia selected a weapon. Using cues provided by the attack computer, Brad executed a “toss” maneuver, pulling the nose up and banking hard left at weapon release so the bomb was flung through the air in a high, arcing path.

  This time, Nadia could see the results, and they were spectacular. The CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon released ten submunitions over the target area. Each submunition had infrared and radar seekers and four explosive disks. When the sensors detected a vehicle within range, it set off the disks, sending a shower of molten copper slugs down on the targets it found. The slugs could penetrate armor up to two inches thick—the Iskander missile launchers and their missiles were no match for them. Two Iskander launchers, their missiles, support vehicles, and their nearby reloads were hit and destroyed in a blinding red carpet of fiery chaos.

  “Good show, old boy,” came a voice on the secure air-to-air channel.

  “Where are you, Claw Two?” Brad responded.

  “Just took out emplacement six,” Mark Darrow reported. He had come into Kaliningrad from the north through Lithuania. “One more to go. I see you just attacked number five. Are you that far behind?”

 
“I had to drive a little south so a Coyote could take out a fighter for me,” Brad said. “You’re the first Wolf I’ve heard from tonight.”

  “I’m seeing a lot of targets taken out, so I think we’ve made quite a mess of Mr. Gryzlov’s party down there, but I’m afraid I haven’t heard from anyone else in several minutes on the channel,” Mark said. “I’m afraid the butcher’s bill is going to be rather high. Back to work. Good luck to you. See you back at the base.”

  “Luck to you, Claw Two. Fang One out.”

  The most difficult of Brad’s targets lay ahead. Intel had reported that this was a field of three Iskander launchers plus the central command and control trailer, guarded by layers of S-300 missiles, antiaircraft guns, and short-range antiaircraft missiles. Between flying around towns and vehicles and responding to system warning messages, Brad had a few minutes to tell Nadia how he expected the run to go and what she had to do. While he spoke, he noticed she didn’t move, just stared straight ahead, motionless. “Nadia?” he asked finally. “Are you okay?”

  She was silent for a few moments; then she whispered, “I am so scared, Brad. I am afraid that I will do something wrong that will get us both killed. My own death I can face, but I do not want to be the one whose error kills you.”

  “Nadia, you are the bravest woman I know,” Brad said. “We’ll get through this. I’ll talk you through it. You’ll do fine.” He took his right hand off the control stick and put it on her left hand. “You’ll do fine. We’ll—”

  Suddenly the threat-warning system sounded: “Warning, India-band search radar, S-300, twelve o’clock, forty miles . . . warning, Echo-Foxtrot band acquisition radar, one o’cl . . . warning, India-Juliett band target-tracking radar, S-300, SPEAR active . . .”

  “Here we go,” Brad said. He pushed up the throttles until they were at six hundred knots, flying one hundred feet above ground using the digital terrain-following system. He tried to pull the wings back to seventy-two degrees, but they wouldn’t move. No time to worry about that now. “Bring up the HARM first . . . next page . . . one button down . . . there you go, Nadia, don’t worry. Good. It’s selected. You got it. A couple more miles . . .”

  Seconds later, through another series of threat warnings, a HARM antiradiation missile leaped off the right wing, and seconds later they saw another brilliant explosion, along with a marked reduction in the number of threat warnings. Just a few moments later, they launched the last remaining external Joint Standoff Weapon at the surface-to-air missile emplacements in their path to the last of the Iskander missiles they had been assigned.

  Brad made sure the navigation computer had cycled first to the decoy ground track and then the last target area. “Last run and we head home,” he said. “We’ll attack three Iskander emplacements in a row with the SFWs. We have no more antiradar weapons, so we’ll have to rely on SPEAR, speed, and DTF to avoid any shots at us. After that, we make like a bat out of hell for the—”

  “Warning, X-band radar, Su-30, three o’clock, range forty,” SPEAR announced. “Warning, target tracking detected, SPEAR engaged . . .”

  Brad made a hard left turn and headed for the last target complex. “Call up the last bomb run, Nadia,” Brad said. “Next page . . . you got it.” He reached over and called up a page on Nadia’s left multifunction display. “Good, all remaining weapons are automatically selected for each target. All we have to do is—”

  “Warning, missile launch detection!” SPEAR warned. “Maneuver right.” Brad waited a few heartbeats for SPEAR to eject chaff and flares from the left ejectors, then did a hard high-G right turn at ninety degrees of bank. They saw a tremendous explosion behind them through their cockpit canopy mirrors.

  “Countermeasures right!” Brad ordered. SPEAR ejected chaff and flares from the right ejectors, and Brad did another break to the left to line up on the attack run. “Sixty seconds to first release,” he said. “Strap in tight, Nadia. Watch the left screen for any—”

  At that instant a massive fireball exploded off the right wing—Brad didn’t know how close it came, but the SuperVark felt as if it had been shoved sideways and was ready to depart controlled flight and do a flat spin—not that he had any idea what a flat spin was—before he regained control. Warning lights illuminated throughout the cockpit. “Shit! Engine fire!” he shouted. The computers had already initiated engine shutdown, fuel shutoff, and activation of fire extinguishers, but Brad could still see the bright flicker of a fire out the right canopy when he looked past Nadia’s slumped head and . . .

  “Nadia!” Brad shouted. She was unconscious. The canopy was cracked where her head hit. “Nadia! Can you hear me?” No answer.

  Through all the warning lights and tones, SPEAR announced, “Warning, warning, X-band target-tracking radar, Su-30, locked on, six o’clock, ten miles and closing . . . warning, warning, X-band search radar, unidentified . . . warning, warning, X-band missile guidance, warning, warning . . . !”

  Brad saw another huge flash of light in the cockpit mirrors, and he thought, Shit, here it comes. His right hand moved to the ejection handle while his eyes scanned for another fire warning . . . Should I pull it now or wait? If I wait, will the capsule survive . . . ?

  But no other warnings came, and the SuperVark flew on at low altitude, and the attack computers were counting down to the first release.

  “American bomber, this is Vanagas Five-One, Lietuvos karinės oro pajėgos, air force of the Republic of Lithuania,” a voice on the air-to-air channel announced. “May I recommend that you climb to at least ten thousand feet to avoid the electro-optical guided antiaircraft artillery? You and your comrades seem to have all but eliminated all other radar-guided weapons in this area, so it is safe to climb. Your six is clear. I am at your eight o’clock position, moving forward.”

  As he began a shallow climb, Brad looked to his left and saw a dark shape against the background of fires and lights below. Just then a tail recognition light snapped on, showing a blue shield and a white hawk emblazoned with a castle crest . . . on the tail of a Lithuanian Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon! He was never so happy to see another aircraft than right now, and it wasn’t even American! “Thanks for the help, Five-One.”

  “You are most welcome, sir,” the Lithuanian pilot said. “We could not allow you Americans to have all the fun. I can escort you to the Polish border, and then I must return to base.”

  “Roger,” Brad said. “I’ll be releasing on my last series of targets in a few seconds.”

  “Then I will hang back a bit and watch the fireworks,” the pilot said. “Sėkmės, geras medžioklė. Good luck, good hunting.”

  RUSSIAN 72ND TACTICAL MISSILE BRIGADE

  COMMAND TRAILER,

  SOUTH-CENTRAL KALININGRAD OBLAST

  THAT SAME TIME

  “All communications to district command headquarters have been cut, sir,” Lieutenant Kararina Kirov reported. “We have also lost contact with all air defense batteries!”

  Colonel Konrad Saratov could not believe what he was watching . . . or, rather, not watching. One minute he was preparing to wreak havoc on the Polish Army and Air Force, and the next he had . . . nothing. “What do I have contact with, Lieutenant?” he shouted.

  “Iskander Flight Fox,” Kirov reported a few moments later. “Flight Jupiter reports that two of his launchers are out of commission and he has no contact with the others. No reports from any other flights.”

  “None?” Saratov groaned. “Out of two dozen launchers, I have only three remaining?” Kirov wouldn’t dare answer—she had never seen that wild-eyed look in her commander’s face before. He pounded the console so hard that coffee cups overturned and pencils jumped. He was silent, leaning against the console, his head bowed . . .

  . . . but he said in a low, almost inaudible voice, “Order Fox Flight to launch immediately.”

  “Sir?”

  “I said, launch immediately!” Saratov screamed. “Release all batteries and attack immediately! Then put out a call t
o the entire brigade in the clear to launch all active missiles!”

  “But we do not have launch authorization from district headquarters, sir!”

  “If we don’t get our missiles downrange immediately, we won’t have any missiles to get authorizations for!” Saratov exclaimed. “Order all available units to launch immediately!”

  OVER SOUTH-CENTRAL KALININGRAD OBLAST

  THAT SAME TIME

  Brad’s attack from ten thousand feet was almost like being in the simulator again: quiet, no bouncing-around terrain following, smooth, almost relaxing. The first Sensor Fuzed Weapons left the SuperVark’s bomb bay as commanded; Brad could no longer feel the detonations at his altitude.

  “Good impacts, good detonations, good secondaries,” he heard on the air-to-air channel.

  It was not the Lithuanian pilot—he recognized the electronically synthesized voice right away. “Thanks, Dad,” Brad said.

  “I’m picking up telemetry from your aircraft,” Patrick said. “I think you’ll make it back just fine. I see no other fire indications. I also see no other antiair threats. Congratulations. How’s Nadia?”

  “Unconscious,” Brad said. “I can’t see how bad.”

  “Bringing back a loved one from a bombing mission seems to be becoming a habit for you, son.”

  “That’s one habit I’d rather not have,” Brad admitted.

  “I’m thankful for it, son. Nadia will be, too.”

  “How bad were our losses?”

  “Pretty bad, but we did a hell of a job on the Russian rockets and air defenses,” Patrick said. “I’ll brief you back on the ground. You should be coming up on your second target now. I’m about ten miles south of—”

  And at that instant, off on the dark horizon, Brad saw a large rocket streak away in a bright trail of fire. “Missile launch!” he shouted.