Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02

by Day of the Cheetah (v1. 1)

  J.C. hit the voice-command button, forced his voice to be steady: “Set attack mode infrared missile. Arm one missile.” The Sidewinder missile’s aiming reticle appeared on the windscreen centered on the slow-moving helicopter, and almost immediately the missile signaled that its infrared seeker-head had locked onto the helicopter’s huge jet engines. Before the computer could acknowledge his commands Powell had punched the missile-launch button on his control stick.

  “Infrared missile launch. ” Less than three miles away, the Sidewinder could hardly miss . . . the entire rotor and top half of the huge helicopter disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire as the hulking machine rolled hard to the left and dropped into the trees. Powell and McLanahan were so close to the helicopter on impact that they could see the men inside . . .

  But the helicopter crashed clear of the tiny airstrip. The runway was open.

  “Damn it. Set attack mode strafe. Arm cannon.” McLanahan grabbed hold of the handlebars as J.C. rolled Cheetah hard up and right, struggling to get back into firing position. They rolled into a wings-level steep descent on the attack flight- director, which was still locked in strafing mode onto the spot where DreamStar had been parked. It took a few precious seconds for Powell to readjust his eyes. When he did he saw DreamStar rolling down the runway. He tried to push Cheetah’s nose down and get off a few quick bursts, but his rate of descent was too steep and the flight director was ordering him to climb before he got too low. The few rounds he did get off impacted on the spot DreamStar had vacated just seconds earlier.

  “I missed, he’s getting away.”

  * * *

  The instant the hulking transport helicopter lifted off, Maraklov forgot about the fuel truck, the buildings on the runway, everything except the takeofiF. He saw the Sidewinder plow into the chopper, saw the machine explode and crash into the forest. But his attention was on the takeofiF—until he saw Cheetah bearing straight down at him, the F-15 fighter so large it cast a shadow on Maraklov’s cockpit. How could he miss?

  The feeling of imminent death was so strong that the ANTARES interface almost shut down out of sheer panic. But Maraklov’s last commands were executed, and DreamStar’s turbofan engine was at full afterburning thrust and the brakes were off. He expected the rounds from Cheetah’s M61B2 gun to tear through his canopy any second—then, almost as quickly, he realized that Cheetah had overshot. His guns were firing but his nose was coming up too fast and so the shells were hitting behind him. He also caught a glimpse of KGB soldiers firing into the sky, futilely trying to shoot down Cheetah with AK-47 rifles.

  Maraklov considered using the same takeofiF trick he had used back at Dreamland, but the wings would not respond to the wingtip back-twisting that had worked so well before. The pile of broken and burning buildings at the end of the runway rushed forward. Smoke from the destroyed cargo helicopter obscured his vision, so that he could not watch the wall of green heading straight at him . . .

  . . . DreamStar’s landing gear left the runway less than a hundred feet from the hastily cleared end of the runway, and the wheels were just tucking themselves into their wells when DreamStar cleared the trees. Airborne once again, Maraklov made a hard turn to the southeast, stayed in full afterburner, pushed DreamStar’s nose down to build airspeed and hugged the rugged mountain ridges as close as possible. ANTARES had computed several attack scenarios, but Maraklov overrode all of them. For now escape was his best defense.

  * * *

  McLanahan was holding onto the canopy sill, straining against the crushing G-forces to look between Cheetah’s twin vertical stabilizers.

  “I see him,” he called out. “He made it off, he’s staying low . . .”

  Powell continued his hard turn, executing a one-hundred- eighty-degree turn and thrusting his nose toward the rugged mountain foothills. Once they were rolled in McLanahan checked his radar screen. “Radar contact, J.C., twelve o’clock low—I’ve got radar lock. Get him!”

  Powell hit the voice-recognition computer-button. “Set attack mode radar missile. Arm one radar missile.”

  “Radar missile armed. ”

  “Launch radar missile . . . now.”

  * * *

  Once again the radar-threat warning blared in Maraklov’s head but this time he was ready for it. It said that Cheetah was above and behind him approximately six miles—a poor position to launch an attack at low altitude. The threat-warning receiver also did not indicate that the Scorpion missile’s own seeker-head was tracking—which meant that the missile was getting its guidance information only from Cheetah’s radar. A significant disadvantage in the milliseconds game they were now playing.

  Maraklov began a hard four-G inverted climb directly back toward Cheetah, presenting his smallest radar cross-section to the oncoming Scorpion missile, which corrected for the sudden climb but could not complete the turn in time to avoid plowing into the Sierra Madre mountains. ANTARES immediately brought its cannon on-line and activated its attack radar to track Cheetah in as it sped toward it.

  * * *

  J.C. watched in frustration as DreamStar dodged away from the AIM-120 missile, but he was ready for the move. “Set attack-mode air cannon. Arm cannon.”

  “Cannon armed... Warning, radar weapon tracking, twelve o’clock. ”

  Powell touched the voice-command button: “All trackbreak- ers on and transmit.”

  “Trachbreakers on and transmitting,” the computer acknowledged as Cheetah’s powerful internal jammers activated—the jammers would keep DreamStar’s cannon from maintaining a lock-on. “I can’t believe how fast he can get his guns on-line. But he’s gotta be out of smash . . . Hang on.”

  McLanahan needed no encouragement. J.C. pulled up into a tight climb, rolled inverted only five hundred feet above ground and again tried to line up on DreamStar.

  * * *

  DreamStar had easily locked onto Cheetah with the attack radar, and Maraklov could now track it through its sudden climb. But when DreamStar tried to follow Cheetah around to keep the guns on him, ANTARES warned that he was approaching stall-speed. DreamStar, which had not yet reached optimal flying speed so early after takeoff, had used all its energy in its tight evasive turn and its pitch-up to track Cheetah and had no power left to continue to track him with the nose high in the air. DreamStar’s canards pushed the nose down, and with that the guns were pulled off Cheetah.

  * * *

  Powell pushed Cheetah’s nose earthward and on the downside of the loop found himself lined up on DreamStar. He pushed on the right rudder to slew Cheetah’s nose to the right . . . no time to get a radar lock . . . just squeeze the trigger, hoping for a lucky hit.

  “Altitude,” Patrick shouted. “Pull up. ”

  J.C. went to max afterburner and hauled back on the stick with both hands. He was so fixed on the image of DreamStar dead in his sights that he ignored the rocks and trees rushing up at him. Then he had to roll hard left to fly behind DreamStar to avoid hitting him. After that hard turn Powell found himself perilously close to stall speed and had no choice but to roll wings-level at max afterburner and wait until he had regained speed.

  “Dammit,” McLanahan shouted, “you had him, J.C. You could have nailed him—”

  “This isn’t no Cessna 152 we’re fooling with, Patrick. He can turn and attack faster than we can. He could have launched a missile by now but he was only tracking us with guns—he never got off a missile-track signal. Maybe that means he doesn’t have any missiles.”

  “Well, we’re below half-fuel right now. We need to tag him and head back or we’ll be walking to Nevada.”

  J.C. started a right turn back toward DreamStar. “Safe radar missiles,” he spoke into the voice-command computer. “Set attack mode infrared missile.”

  “Infrared missile selected, warning, one missile remaining. ”

  “I got a visual on him,” Powell said. He touched the voice- command button. “Attack radar standby. Infrared scanner operate.”

  “Attack rada
r standby. Infrared scanner on. ” Immediately the heat-seeking scanner locked onto DreamStar.

  “He’s just running,” Powell said. “He’s not jinking and jiving anymore.” To the voice-command computer he ordered, “Slave infrared missile to infrared scanner.”

  The Sidewinder missile’s seeker-head followed the azimuth directions of Cheetah’s scanner, but the missile did not indicate a lock-on. “We need to get in closer . . .”

  “No,” McLanahan said. “His tail IR scanner has a greater range than our Sidewinder. Launch the Sidewinder in bore- sight mode—it should lock onto him after launch.”

  “It’s worth a try,” It was easier than before for Powell to align himself with DreamStar’s tailpipe—Maraklov was indeed driving straight and level, accelerating as fast as possible. When he was aligned with DreamStar’s rectangular exhaust Powell commanded: “Infrared missile boresight.”

  “Infrared missile boresight, caution, no target lock. ” The missile would normally not launch unless it was tracking a target, but in boresight mode the missile could be launched straight ahead and the infrared seeker could attempt to lock onto a target while in flight; it also was a tricky technique used against slow-moving targets to hit them outside the missile’s optimal range. It was not reliable because of the missile- seeker’s narrow field of view, but against hot targets that weren’t maneuvering it was at least a valid attack.

  Powell hit the command button. “Launch.”

  “Warning, radar target lock, seven o’clock. ”

  McLanahan strained again to search behind Cheetah’s twin tails. “Two ... no, four fighters, two flights of two, right behind us. I can’t see what they are but they’re coming on fast—”

  “I gotta break it off, Patrick—”

  “No, stay on him, nail him—”

  But even then it was too late. DreamStar had picked up the same radar indications as Cheetah, and the advanced fighter had made a hard break to the right and an even harder one up and down to shake off the radar-lock by the advancing strangers. A boresight missile-launch was impossible.

  “Infrared missiles to safe. Set attack-mode radar missiles,” Powell ordered.

  “Two jets going high, two coming in,” McLanahan said. “I can’t tell for sure but they look like . . . they’re F-20S, Mexican F-20S . . .”

  “Warning, radar target lock, six o'clock ...”

  J.C. yanked the stick hard right to stay with DreamStar, but it had regained its lost speed and was pulling away, staying at boulder level.

  “They’re still with us,” McLanahan said. “Can you get a shot off anyway?”

  “I think so . . . here we go . . .”

  “Warning, radar missile lock. ” A missile was in flight, heading for them . . .

  J.C. hit the voice-command button on his stick. “Chaff right.” The computer ejected two bundles of radar-decoying chaff from the right ejector rack as J.C. yanked Cheetah into a hard left bank, pulling on the stick until the computer issued a stall-warning message.

  “No missile,” McLanahan called out, straining his head up out of the cockpit against the G-forces pushing him into his seat.

  “Didn’t see a missile . . .”

  “They faked us out,” J. C. said, “they wanted to get our attention—”

  “Damn it, get back on DreamStar.”

  Powell began a hard right turn back toward DreamStar, but as he rolled out of the turn they heard: “American F-15 fighter, this is Mexican Air Force. You are directed to follow me at once.”

  “Goddamn, there he is, left wing.” The F-20 Tigershark, the single-engine, high-tech version of the American F-5F Tiger fighter, was in loose route formation off Cheetah’s left wingtip.

  “Number two is behind us,” McLanahan said. “Stay on DreamStar.” He switched to the VHF guard international emergency frequency. “Mexican Air Force, this is the F-15, Storm One. We are on an authorized search mission for Storm Two, which is at our one o’clock position. We have permission from your government to pursue and destroy this aircraft. Over.” So he lied a little.

  “We have been advised that no foreign aircraft has permission to enter Mexican airspace. We will destroy both if you do not follow us immediately.”

  “The XF-34 Storm Two is an experimental aircraft. It’s also lethal as hell. We will pursue and destroy it. Stay clear.”

  “No. Follow me or you will be shot down.” The F-20 on Cheetah’s left wing dropped back a few yards and began a climbing left turn.

  “Warning, radar target lock, six o'clock. ” The F-20 following behind them had activated its tracking radar again. At his distance he could hardly miss . . .

  “I’m open to suggestions, Colonel,” J.C. deadpanned. “DreamStar’s moved out to ten miles,” McLanahan said, checking his radar. “Those other two Mexican are chasing him but it’s no contest, he’s pulling away—”

  “I’ve got to follow,” J.C. said, gently easing into a left bank. “That guy behind me will hose us if I don’t.”

  “Damn it, we had him ... he was so close . . . can you get away from these guys?”

  “Sure. This guy ahead of us is so sloppy I can fill him full of holes right now, and I think I can get away from the guy on our tail. But then what? We’re into our fuel reserves as it is. After we lose these guys we’ll need afterburner the whole way back just to get within missile range of DreamStar, and then the best we got is a tail-chase until we run out of gas.”

  “So do it . . .”

  “If that’s what you really want ...”

  “What the hell does that mean . . . ?”

  “That I think you better think pretty damn hard about it. If you try to chase down DreamStar from here we won’t make it home. You’ll risk Cheetah for a fifty-fifty chance of downing DreamStar. You’ve already violated Mexican air space and will take heat for that, but if you don’t bring back Cheetah you’re guaranteeing yourself a Big Chicken Dinner—”

  “Cheetah was my responsibility. If I let James get away . . . we all go down the tubes. As long as there’s a chance I’m not going to let this guy go.”

  “You’ve done everything you could. Like they say, there’s a time to chase and a time to get the hell out of Dodge. I suggest we boogie.”

  McLanahan hesitated. J.C. rolled out behind the lead F-20 and reduced power slightly. The leader reduced his power to move beside Cheetah.

  J.C. tried the last gambit he could think of to get Patrick back to reality... “I don’t love chasing DreamStar over Mexico with two chilibeans on my tail and sucking fumes but I can live with it. But you . . . you have something worth more than DreamStar back in a hospital in Vegas. Let’s get back and go after him another day.”

  It worked. Watching the Mexican F-20 off their left wing, with one speedbrake raised to slow himself down, McLanahan realized J.C. was right. He’d taken an incredible chance and violated a few dozen rules by coming this far. He and J.C. had almost got James . . . they’d done everything they could . . . “There’s going to be a next time,” he muttered. “Bet on it.”

  J.C. added: “The Russians don’t have DreamStar yet—a Russian has it and he’s still ten thousand miles from home.”

  “So we’ve still got these Mexican guys.” He strained to search behind Cheetah. “Number two’s back there right between the tails.”

  “No offense to the Mexican Air Force,” J.C. said, “but I’ll bet these bozos never intercepted anything but a soccer ball. The lead’s got his power way back waiting for us, and his wingman’s right in our jet-wash. They’re both out of position. Hang on.”

  J.C. jerked the throttles to idle and popped Cheetah’s big speedbrake. The lead F-20 noticed the sudden power reduction and, not realizing how slow he was already going, pulled back his power even more. On the verge of a stall, he had no choice but to scissor left and fall away to regain his lost airspeed. Meanwhile, the number two F-20, not watching Cheetah and distracted by his leader’s sudden departure, never tried to slow down. He yanked his sti
ck hard-right just in time to avoid slamming into Cheetah’s tail, and had to spin away. At that moment J.C. retracted the speedbrake, went into full power and began to accelerate and climb away from the Mexican interceptors.

  McLanahan was staring out the back of the large bubble canopy. “They’re still below us . . . not climbing yet ...”

  “Warning, radar search, six o'clockfrom the computer.

  “They dropped from radar track to search,” J.C. said. “Are they getting closer?”

  “I can’t see them, they’ve dropped back.”

  “American F-15, this is Mexican Air Force. Follow us to base immediately. Acknowledge.”

  J.C. shut off the VHF guard channel.

  “I don’t think we can make it,” McLanahan said a few minutes later, using the computer to check their fuel status. “We’ll have to divert to a Mexican airport after all.”

  “We’ll start a climb and then use an idle descent into a diversion base,” J.C. said, gently pulling back on the stick and starting a shallow climb. “Oh, well,” he sighed, “I haven’t been in a Mexican jail since high school. It’ll be like old times.” “Sorry I got you into this, J.C. I’m going to waste that sonofa- bitch if I have to walk back to Nicaragua or Columbia or Bolivia or wherever he’s headed—”

  Suddenly the number one radio, still set to the refueling tanker’s operating frequency, crackled to life: “Storm One, this is Cardinal Three-Seven. Over.”

  “I got it,” McLanahan said. On the radio he replied: “Cardinal Three-Seven, this is Storm One. Over.”

  “Storm One, this is Cardinal. We’re Sun Devil KC-135 out of Phoenix-Sky Harbor Airport, one hundred and sixty-first Air Refueling Group, Arizona Air National Guard. Set beacon code seventy-four, we’ve got thirty-one. We’re at flight level two-niner zero, orbiting fifty miles south of Tucson near Nogales. What’s your situation? Over.”

  “Air-to-air TACAN beacon? I haven’t used that since I was a butter-bar.” J.C. checked the distance readout. “He’s still out of range, not picking him up yet.”