Finally, Morning Eagle glanced up at the sky again. “We leave now,” he said forcefully. “We have maybe thirty minutes.”
“I expect you’re right. And I don’t wanna take the chance that you aren’t.”
Morning Eagle took point, and carefully began retracing his path to the east, over the harshest surfaces of the icy environment.
Even for the Inuits, accustomed to this terrain, it was tough going. Twenty minutes later, all the men were soaked with sweat inside their protective gear. To stop now would be suicide. Only their body heat kept the sweat from freezing into an icy, killing sheen of ice. They trudged on, their breathing becoming more labored, heavy droplets of moisture fogging the air as they panted.
Finally, they reached the edge of the ice floe and started their way downward. Ten minutes later, they were gathered around the small boats the Inuits had provided.
The SEAL senior chief glanced up at the sky again. “Do we start back to your island now?”
Morning Eagle shook his head. “Too late.” He pointed at one massive billow now ten degrees off their vertical. “Whiteout before we’re halfway there. We might make do with the compass, but I wouldn’t want to take the chance. Not unless we really have to.”
“Well, as long as our playmates don’t know we’re here, we won’t have to take that chance. I haven’t seen them make a patrol on this side of the island once.”
“Then we settle in to wait. An hour, maybe two, when the weather breaks-” He let the sentence trail off. Whiteouts had been known to last for days, holding every man, woman, and child trapped inside the camp. While some of the tribe possessed an uncanny sense of direction, and could find their way back to camp no matter what the weather conditions, Morning Eagle was not one of those. He respected the power of the weather, and chose to live with it rather than against it.
“We wait,” Huerta echoed. The two teams of men, so alike and so different, quickly combined their gear and began building a small camp that would keep them alive.
Until the weather clears, Morning Eagle thought.
“How certain are you that they’ll come to investigate the cliff, anyway?” he asked the SEAL.
The chief shrugged, then grinned. “Not certain. But it’s what I’d do.”
“Why?”
“While the fellows were busy setting up the designators, I took a little stroll over to the edge of the cliff. If you’d been watching, you would have seen me leave a little present there for our friends.”
“A present?” Morning Eagle was momentarily confused. “What kind of present?”
“Nothing complicated. Just an all-frequency static transmitter. Remote controlled, it is.” He fished into his parka jacket and pulled out a small set of controls. “All I have to do is toggle this switch, and that little bitch starts sending a jamming signal on every frequency these guys are likely to be using. The first thing they’ll notice it on is their hand-held radios. And if I were maintaining a garrison here, I’d damned sure want to find out what was jamming my communications. Especially since it was supposed to be an uninhabited island.”
Morning Eagle regarded him appraisingly. “Nice trick.”
“We get some nice toys now and then. This is an old standby, but it still works just fine.”
“I don’t like this one damned bit,” Bird Dog grumbled. He cast an anxious glance back at the wings, trying to see if there was any ice forming. A visual inspection was not necessary — his instruments would have told him immediately if there was a problem, but there was nothing more reassuring than getting a visual on a clean, ice-free wing. “The meteorology boys really screwed this one up.”
“Not that we had a lot of choice about it,” Gator said. “You think we have problems, how do you think those helo pilots feel?”
Bird Dog repressed a shudder. “Not good. I wouldn’t trade places with them for anything. You got solid contact on Batman?”
“Yep. Five-hundred-feet separation, just like we briefed. You’re in solid. Okay, starting the approach,” Gator said briskly. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we’re out of here. Just follow Batman on in.”
“You got any indication of target designation?” Bird Dog asked.
“No, not yet. Still too far away. And look at the time — Batman’s running a few minutes early.”
“Well, we could grab some altitude and orbit for a while,” Bird Dog said, “but I don’t fancy charging through those clouds any more than I have to. And neither does he.”
Both men knew that the moisture-laden clouds seriously increased the danger of icing on the wings. While the deicing gear on the Tomcat was fairly decent, it had never been designed to cope with frigid temperatures like these, or with multiple passes through arctic clouds. As far as they were concerned, it was just another chance for things to go wrong.
“Best not,” Gator said finally. “Let’s settle in a pattern out here, far enough to be out of visual range. That’ll have to do for now. Besides, we haven’t detected any radar sweeps coming off the island. I’m willing to bet as long as we’re out of visual range, we’re safe.”
“You got it, partner,” Bird Dog responded. He ascended to fifteen thousand feet and began a right-hand orbit, carefully keeping an eye on the approaching clouds. “They get much closer, and we’ll have problems,” he remarked.
Gator grunted. “We should be inbound by then.”
They left unspoken the possibility of having to abort the mission. True, the admiral had made it plain that it was Batman’s call. Neither crew was to pointlessly risk the safety of the multimillion-dollar aircraft and its highly trained crew of two if there were no chance of accomplishing their objective. However, it would be a cold day in hell — Bird Dog smiled grimly at the appropriate metaphor — before either of the two would willingly break off.
“How’s she flying?” Gator said, more to break the silence than out of any real curiosity.
“Heavy as a pig,” Bird Dog answered. “I hate playing bomb cat.”
The versatile F-14 Tomcat had been designed as both a fighter and bomber aircraft. During the days when the A-6 and A-7 aircraft were in use in the fleet, practicing the arcane skills of bombing had been largely a matter of form. However, as the older attack aircraft were phased out, and the newer F/A-18 Hornet entered the fleet, the Tomcat community found itself under serious attack. After ironing out some minor avionics glitches, Tomcat squadrons aggressively attacked the problem of becoming as proficient in ground-to-air attacks as they were in aerial combat. Within a couple of years, they were matching every test of accuracy and reliability neck for neck with the Hornet. Indeed, carrier battle group commanders preferred Tomcats over the Hornet, since the latter aircraft’s payload and endurance was seriously limited. The Tomcat, while a much larger spotting problem on the deck, generally proved itself more than worth the extra space, based on its capacity for ordnance.
Of course, Bird Dog reflected, it was tough to tangle with a Hornet. The smaller aircraft had a maneuverability and weight-to-power factor that made it a tough target for any Tomcat. Still, they managed to hold their own as well there. If you could outlast a Hornet, sooner or later he’d have to leave to go gas up.
And when you’ve got an opponent like a MiG, with their higher fuel endurance, the Tomcat was the only choice. Like it had been in the Spratlys. While the Hornets had covered their asses from time to time there, in the end the Tomcat had proven victor of the skies.
“Okay, time,” Gator announced. “Batman’s starting his run in. He says it looks like it’s clearing up around the island. You vector on down and get on his ass just like we briefed, Bird Dog.”