Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02

by Day of the Cheetah (v1. 1)

  “Extend, Dunk,” he heard a voice call out. It was Lee Berry in Dragon Five-Nine. “Break right and extend ...”

  Duncan could hear cannon shells buzzing, pinging around him. A warning horn sounded but he didn’t stop to check the malfunction. He halted his wild last-ditch roll, banked hard right, rolled upright and scanned the sky for his attacker as he waited for his airspeed to build.

  The XF-34 was nowhere to be seen.

  Duncan forced his attention back inside the cockpit to check his instruments and the warning panel. The OIL PRESS light was lit—he had taken a hit in the engine. No smoke in the cockpit or fire lights, so he still had time to head back to Georgetown, but in a single engine aircraft an oil pressure problem was a land-as-soon-as-possible inflight emergency. “Barrier, this is Five-Seven. I’ve got an oil pressure light,” Duncan reported on the command channel as he headed north. “I need a vector to Georgetown.”

  “Copy, Five-Seven. Heading zero-three-five, vectors to Georgetown Airport, one-one-five nautical miles. Climb as required. Emergency channel Bravo. Search and rescue has been notified.”

  Duncan angrily clicked his mike in response. They were already preparing to fish him out of the Caribbean. Thanks a bunch.

  He keyed his mike. “Gold Flight, check in.” No answer. “Berry, where are you?” Still no reply.

  “Barrier, where’s Five-Nine?”

  “No contact with him, Five-Seven,” the controller replied. “No IFF, no primary target.”

  Oh, God, Duncan thought. That guy got Berry, too. He closed his eyes, trying to force the image of his two squadron buddies out of his mind. It was no use. Two hours ago they were together making plans for a luau on the beaches near the casinos—now he’d have to make plans for a funeral.

  * * *

  That last guy was good, Maraklov thought as he pulled his power back from full afterburner to military power. Very good. The F-16 pilot had maneuvered so fast that he never got a clean shot off at him, but he had apparently taken some damage because he wasn’t pressing the fight. Maraklov had taken his shot, then immediately turned south at full power and headed back toward Nicaragua to join up with the stricken II-76 transport and Escort Four.

  DreamStar ... his plane ... was still safe, still with one AA-13 missile and two hundred rounds of ammunition. Fuel was the problem now—almost none left for another dogfight with any more F-i6s. He’d have perhaps fifteen minutes of fuel remaining once he returned to Sebaco.

  “Escort Four, this is Maraklov,” he called on their assigned frequency. “Approaching your formation at fifteen thousand feet, twenty miles behind you. Area is clear.” There had been three F-i6s in the attack formation, but his spherical scan showed clear. The third F-16 must have returned with his leader.

  The pilot in Escort Four acknowledged. The Ilyushin transport and the MiG-29 had managed to climb back to a safer altitude, but the transport looked worse every second. “Clear to approach. Flight Kepten Kameneve reports that the Ilyushin is very unstable and landing may be impossible. He is briefing the crew on ditching procedures at this time.”

  “Understood.”

  It seemed the game was up. The Americans weren’t likely to send in another jet with a camera over Sebaco. Next time they’d send in bombers. One aircraft carrier loaded with F/A- 18 fighter-bombers, or one B-52 like the Old Dog he destroyed in Nevada, could devastate Nicaragua’s whole defense network and waste Sebaco. Should he fly his plane back to Sebaco—or to Nicaragua for that matter?

  Maraklov initiated a computer database search for all available runways within DreamStar’s current safe-endurance range. Possibilities—Belize, Costa Rica, offshore islands belonging to Colombia. All had isolated runways along with possible nearby sources of fuel.

  The Americans, it now seemed, were out to destroy DreamStar if that was the only way to keep it from escaping, and the Russians seemed incapable of stopping them. Why shouldn’t he take charge of defending his aircraft? Besides, maybe if no one knew where DreamStar was he’d have a better chance of getting it to Russia . . .

  ... or anywhere else. He tried to be practical, not sentimental. DreamStar was a commodity, wasn’t it? A bargaining chip. If he was so worried about what would happen to him in the Soviet Union, maybe the Soviet Union wasn’t where he should be. The Americans, Elliott and the rest, would pay a stiff price to have DreamStar back, enough for Maraklov to live like a . . . like an American—

  The warnings came in rapid succession. Aware that he hadn’t scanned the skies for a few minutes, Maraklov commanded a two-second spherical sweep of the skies, and instantly an aircraft was detected directly beneath them, climbing right toward them at terrific speed.

  “Warning, target beneath us . . .” But at that same moment the MISSILE LAUNCH warning sounded—a radar-guided missile was in the air. “Escort Four, break away, bogey at your five o’clock low—”

  Escort Four ejected chaff, rolled inverted and began a steep dive toward the ocean, but with the combat damage he had taken in the dogfight he could not maneuver fast enough. The Scorpion missile plowed directly into the center of the canopy, and the last MiG-29 fighter exploded and crashed into the sea.

  DreamStar had no chaff or electronic countermeasures, but it had maneuverability that equaled the Scorpion missile.

  Maraklov turned DreamStar as hard as he could directly for the F-16 that had appeared out of nowhere. He found himself eyeball-to-eyeball with the Scorpion missile itself, seconds before impact . . .

  * * *

  The plan had worked, nearly to perfection, Berry had said to himself. It was obvious why the XF-34 could defeat them so easy—if he had access to the AWACS’s data he could see the attack coming and plan against it. So Berry had decided to disappear from the AWACS scope—shut off the IFF and the data transceivers and drop down low enough to the ocean that his radar blip would be surrounded by clutter from the ocean. It was easy for him to approach the Russian aircraft unseen from sea level, climb directly underneath them, designate both fighters on his attack computer and launch his two AIM- 120 Scorpion missiles at the Russians.

  The first fighter went down with near-textbook precision, but something must had gone wrong with the second AM- RAAM. It was running hot and true right on target, but the missile’s plume passed by the XF-34 without even a proximity explosion. Berry flipped on his IFF and data-link transceiver.

  “Barrier, this is Five-Nine, splash one MiG.”

  “Five-Nine, this is Barrier Control . . . Roger ...” came the confused voice of the surprised AWACS controller. “Do you need a vector?”

  “Berry, where the hell are you?” Duncan called out, interrupting the controller.

  “Head to head with that stolen fighter,” Berry said. “He’s mine.” The data-link image of the last fighter seemed to hover in front of him—his velocity had decreased to less than three hundred knots. Berry selected an AIM-132 missile and centered the line-of-sight infrared aiming-reticle on the target. This was easy. The reticle eased into place, and the missile’s computer reported a lock-on—

  But Berry did not notice the range rapidly decreasing until it was much too late. DreamStar had heeled sharply downward to avoid the Scorpion missile attack; the maneuver had been so fast that it appeared that the fighter had stopped all forward motion. The only warning Berry had was the rapidly growing black spot under the reticle and the sudden SHOOT indication on the heads-up display, but by the time his right thumb had pressed the weapon-release button, DreamStar had cut loose with its cannon in a Mach-one gun-pass. The twenty-millimeter shells missed the cockpit but tore into the fuselage and engine compartment. FIRE and EJECT lights snapped on as the cockpit filled with smoke. Berry clawed for the ejection handle just as the first rolling waves of fire hit the fuel tanks.

  * * *

  “Emergency locator-beacon coming from Five-Nine’s last plotted position,” the controller reported. Elliott could hear the faints clicks of the intercom as the controller relayed position-data to C
ommunications, which would relay them to the tilt-rotor CV-22 Osprey search-and-rescue aircraft out of Guantanamo Naval Base and Puerto Rico.

  “Dragon Five-Seven looks like he’ll make it, sir,” the controller reported. “He’s approaching the initial approach-fix for landing at Georgetown.”

  “Dragon Six-Zero flight of three will be on station in ten minutes,” a third controller reported. “Do you want them on a high CAP?”

  Elliott had kept silent ever since the third F-16 got hit. He could do nothing but watch DreamStar head south with the stricken Ilyushin transport.

  “Soviet aircraft moving out of range,” Marsch, the AWACS commander, reported from his console. “Shall I reposition to maintain contact?” No reply—Elliott closed his eyes as the computer data block that read “XF-34 USSR” froze on the edge of the screen while it cruised out of range. “Sir?”

  “I heard you, Colonel,” Elliott said. “I heard you. We will stay on station over Five-Nine’s locator beacon until the Osprey picks him up. Bring the tanker south and arrange a refueling for us if we need it. Arrange a refueling with Dragon Six-Zero flight and have them stay with us until we withdraw from the area.”

  “Are you going to pursue the XF-34 any further, sir?” Marsch pressed, his own anger rising. “We’ve got three more fighters on the way, plus three more on the ground—maybe you can waste the entire squadron this morning. Like the commercials used to say—‘we do more by nine A.M. than most people do all day . . .’”

  “Knock it off, Colonel,” Elliott said, too tired to react to Marsch’s heavy sarcasm. “If you’re looking to get yourself busted ... oh hell, we’ve got a pilot in the water—I want you to make sure he gets picked up ASAP. Okay?”

  “May I remind the general, we’ve got pilots in little pieces in the water,” Marsch said. “We got three pilots killed, sent up against known superior forces. For what? One lousy fighter already in Soviet hands?”

  “You just worry about getting that pilot out of the water, Colonel.”

  Marsch glared at Elliott, but turned to his interphone to give the orders. Elliott slumped in his high-backed seat overlooking the master consoles. Any other thoughts except the images of five out of six F-i6s damaged or destroyed and three out of six pilots dead was all but impossible. True, they had exposed the true intentions of the Soviets, but at a shocking cost. Now the decision had to be made—what were they going to do about it? DreamStar may have been headed back for Nicaragua, but it was certainly not going to stay there for long. It might just refuel, arrange for another escort and try again—with the U.S. air task-force decimated by fifty percent it now had a much better chance of making it.

  Elliott hit his intercom button. “Communications, this is Elliott. I want a secure satellite link direct with JCS set up soon as possible. Get Air Force on the line, Secretary Curtis direct—he should be standing by for a report on transponder kilo seven. Set up the call with JCS on that channel if possible.”

  “Yes, sir. Kilo seven is active. I should be able to conference JCS and Air Force in a few minutes.”

  The mission had gone sour, but its objective, no matter how terrible the price, had been achieved—to intercept the XF-34 and prevent it from leaving Nicaragua. The question remained—would the price Elliott paid to reveal the Soviet Union’s deceit be too high for the President of the United States to accept? And what would he do about it?

  * * *

  Orbiting at five thousand feet over the marshy northeast coast of Nicaragua, Maraklov watched as, one by one, crewmen bailed out of the stricken Ilyushin-76 AWACS transport. Because the aircraft was no longer structurally sound, ditching was not recommended; instead, they decided to crash the air- craft in the peat bogs of the Mosquito Coast after the crew bailed out. The Ilyushin had been trimmed for a shallow leftturning descent to allow time for the pilot to run back to the cargo door and jump out. Maraklov watched each crewman bail out, electronically measuring and recording the location of each man as he hit the marshy ground, then watched as the huge transport, still streaming smoke from its mangled tail and ruptured fuselage, continued its left turn, pointed itself toward the ocean and pancaked in just a half-mile offshore.

  They had hoped to retrieve the aircraft relatively intact and salvage as much of the expensive electronic gear on board as possible, but their estimates of the aircraft’s poor structural integrity were on-target. Even though the plane made a rather gentle belly-flop into the warm Caribbean, the weakened fuselage cracked and tore apart as if made of balsa wood. The last Maraklov saw was the huge wings of the Ilyushin flying and spinning in the air; then the sea swallowed the plane and it quickly disappeared from sight.

  “Control, this is Zavtra,” Maraklov reported as he electronically recorded the impact point and the point at which the fuselage disappeared from view. “Ilyushin is down and submerged. Stand by for transmission of impact coordinates for possible naval salvage. Requesting immediate clearance to land.”

  “Request approved, Zavtra,” the controller replied in English, then added: “Plenty of parking space available now.”

  The reply, a bitter one, underscored the fast-worsening situation Maraklov faced. Sebaco was virtually defenseless. All four of the MiG-2gs assigned to Sebaco had been destroyed—the only aircraft available were borrowed MiG-23 fighters from the Nicaraguan Air Force at Managua and possibly some of Nicaragua’s Sukhoi-24 swing-wing fighter-bombers to counter any naval forces that might threaten Sebaco. Sebaco did not even have Russian pilots to man these twenty- to thirty-year- old aircraft—they’d have to rely on poorly trained Nicaraguan or Cuban pilots until Russian pilots could be flown in.

  As Maraklov approached Sebaco he noticed the small antiaircraft artillery guns at the end of the runway. They had piled up more sandbags and scrap-armor plates around the gun’s bunker to protect the gunners, but the extra buttresses decreased the gunner’s visibility and reaction time. Those too would be useless in a fight.

  Tretyak and his men, isolated for so long in this damned never-never land, had no conception of what was about to be unleashed on them.

  Whatever, Maraklov was determined not to allow their shortsightedness spell the end of DreamStar.

  CHAPTER 7

  Brooks Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas

  Saturday, 20 June 1996, 1730 CDT (1830 EDT)

  MCLANAHAN WAS awakened from a fitful sleep by a hand shaking his shoulder. “Colonel McLanahan? Colonel?”

  It was Wendy’s doctor. His face looked weary. Patrick’s heart began to race and he leapt to his feet. A nurse was removing the plastic airway in Wendy’s throat, and aides were wheeling in a gurney. “Wendy . . . ?”

  The doctor immediately held up his hands. “She’s all right, Colonel, at least for the time being.” He paused, referring to a chart he had brought with him. “She has some extensive damage in her lung tissues ... pneumonectomy may be necessary. I doubt we can wait any longer.”

  Patrick watched as the orderlies moved his wife onto the gurney and began attaching a portable respirator. “How long will it be?”

  “Several hours. I suggest you go home and get some rest. We won’t know until morning.”

  “Call if there’s any news.”

  “I will.” The doctor followed Wendy’s gurney and the technicians out of the intensive care unit.

  It had been an exhausting two-day vigil over Wendy’s bedside, waiting to see if she would ever regain consciousness. He wandered in a near-daze out of intensive care and down the silent corridor toward the exit.

  Usually victims of an airplane crash were assumed to be dead—the human body was simply not designed to survive the crushing force of a plane crash. The doctors and nurses, although hard-working and very professional, carried out their duties as if they were demonstrating to the victim’s family that the Air Force was doing everything possible, while trying to steel the family into accepting the worst. It was evident in the damned attending physician. He seemed more concerned with making the family comfo
rtable then with saving Wendy’s life—

  McLanahan stopped dead in the hallway. He realized that he had been walking very fast down the middle of the corridor, storming past patients and nurses, his fists tight-clenched. Get a grip, McLanahan, he told himself as he stepped aside and slowed his pace through the corridor. This is no time to go bananas.

  As he passed an open doorway on his way out to the parking lot he heard the words “Air Force” from the room’s television set. He stopped outside the door to listen:

  “. . . today would not comment on reports from a Mexican news service that U.S. Air Force jets were shot down by Russian fighters today in the Caribbean Sea south of Cuba. Pentagon officials will only confirm that American military planes were in the area on routine training missions, and that those aircraft were harrassed by Soviet, Cuban and Nicaraguan military aircraft. Air Force officials say the aircraft were part of a month-long exercise called Tropical Thunder, an annual joint U.S.-Central American military exercise ...”

  McLanahan turned away to look for a telephone. “Tropical Thunder” was the name of a joint U.S.-Latin American military exercise, but it rarely involved more than a few dozen Marines and a few transports, and it was usually conducted in the United States or Panama. This had to have something to do with DreamStar.

  He found a telephone, and got the base operator, who dialed the command post number at Dreamland.

  “Command Post, Captain Valentine.”

  “Kurt, this is Colonel McLanahan—”

  “Yes, sir,” Valentine, the senior controller at HAWC interrupted, “General Elliott is expecting your call. Can you stand by, sir?”

  “Yes, this is not a secure line.”

  “Understand. Stand by.” He heard clicks and digital dial tones in the background; then a voice said, “Barrier, Charlie one, go ahead. Over.”