Fifteen hundred feet away from the carrier, the aircraft decided to remain airborne. The afterburners quickly picked the speed up to well over 160 knots, increasing it steadily as the plane approached the aircraft carrier.
Three hundred feet away from the flight deck, Bird Dog toggled the weapon switch to guns. He waited one more second, then depressed the fire switch, applying small amounts of rudder to sweep the pattern of gunfire back and forth across the aft end of the flight deck.
Bright sparks of light flashed against the black tarmac, evidence of both ricochets and the tracer rounds embedded in every fifth round. He quickly got his range, bracketing the Spetsnaz, then, in one final sweep, nailing them dead-on. The three figures crumpled slowly as he screamed across the flight deck.
How could it be? the commando thought, consciousness fading fast as the blood drained out of his body and onto the icy tarmac. He moved his head slightly, and could see one pool already congealing into thin crimson ice. The aircraft had fired on its own flight deck — it wasn’t possible, it wasn’t — he closed his eyes as a fresh wave of pain moved through him. It quickly increased in tempo until his world was no more than a red haze gnawing away at every nerve ending in his body. He tried to scream, found his vocal chords wouldn’t respond, then tried to move a hand up to his face. Nothing seemed to work, not even his fingers. The most he could do was open his eyes and stare in the direction that he was facing. The pain grew to incredible proportions, even worse because of his inability to give voice to it. When he saw the black shape moving along the horizon, he could have cried with relief. Soon the pain would end.
The Tomcat was coming back for another strafing run.
“That finishes that.” Bird Dog tried to feel the same sense of victory he’d felt on the bombing run over the island, but it was slow in coming. It was one thing, he thought, to scream in above the landscape and drop ordnance on anonymous opponents on the deck. You didn’t look at them, didn’t see their faces turn pale and eyes grow wide as you approached. It was sanitary, somehow.
But this had been different. Even at 250 knots, he’d had a few seconds to look at the faces of his opponents. No matter that their Kalishnikovs were turning to bracket him, and that if they’d had their way he’d have been a small greasy spot on the surface of the ocean. No, it was still different, he decided. Watching their faces, seeing them crumple in response to his gunfire, and coming back over for a second pass on the motionless figures made it personal.
“The submarine?” Gator prompted.
Bird Dog cast an uneasy look in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, yeah, the submarine.” He banked the Tomcat to the right, coming back around toward the stern of the boat. From fifteen thousand feet of altitude, the Oscar was still visible, her conning tower just breaking the surface of the ocean. The 540-foot-long submarine looked small next to the carrier, but Bird Dog knew that it was among the largest submarines in the world. Certainly the largest, most potent antiship boat. Looking at her now, even from five hundred feet up, he could well believe that one torpedo from her tubes could crack the keel of the carrier, rendering his airport permanently inoperative. “Let’s go get those Rockeyes.”
Forty-five minutes later, rearmed with Rockeyes, Tomcat 201 was airborne again. Bird Dog pulled out from the cat shot and arrowed straight out toward the submarine.
“You’re too close,” Gator warned. “Move out to at least a mile and a half.”
“I’m going, I’m going. I just wanted to get a look at her first. Those guys on the deck back there …” He let his voice trail off.
“Ugly, wasn’t it? Just as nasty as what we’d look like right now if they’d had their way about it. Same thing with the submarine.”
“I know. But that’s one good thing about flying backseat, Gator — the only thing. You don’t have as good a view of it.”
“Save the soul-searching for later, buster,” the RIO snapped. “We’ve got our range now, now, now. Get that bastard off the wing.”
Bird Dog toggled the weapons selector switch to select the Rockeye stations. Waiting until his targeting gear beeped a solid, reassuring tone at him, he fired. The Tomcat lurched as the heavy missile streaked off the wings. Bird Dog waited two seconds, targeted the second missile, then fired again.
“Jesus, look at those bastards,” he breathed. Although he’d fired several practice Rockeyes before, they hadn’t been the true heavyweights of an actual missile.
The bright burn from their rockets seared his eyes, and he looked away for a moment. When he glanced back, the missiles were still in sight, something that wouldn’t have happened if they’d been antiair missiles. The huge antiship and — submarine Rockeyes moved much more slowly through the air. Almost too slow, it seemed, to stay airborne. Compared to the quick flash of a Sparrow or Sidewinder, they looked like dirigibles.
Ten seconds later, the first missile struck. It impacted the water just forward of the submarine, just missing its intended target.
The explosive force of the warhead lofted the bow of the submarine up, and the forward part of the hull broke the surface of the water. The second missile arced down, spilling bomblets in its wake. Two seconds later, it hit the exposed hull of the submarine dead-on. Water geysered up and out, reaching a height of almost seventy-five feet and spewing water droplets over a two-hundred-yard radius. A buffet of displaced air caught the Tomcat, rocking her gently, and Bird Dog banked hard to the right to avoid the airborne blast of seawater. “Time for some BDA,” Gator suggested. Bird Dog nodded, somehow relieved that this kill was not as up close and personal as the last. He put the Tomcat into a gentle orbit a thousand feet above the surface of the ocean, and waited. The forward portion of the hull was completely gone. The aft part stayed afloat for a few minutes, even bobbing up to the surface for a moment as the men inside it evidently blew all their air tanks. A hatch on the back popped open, and three figures struggled out, turning to haul a large package out with them. A life raft, Bird Dog surmised, although whether or not they would have time to open it and still survive the air temperature clad only in their thin submariner overalls was open for debate. Evidently the impact from the Rockeye had cracked the hull in too many critical spots. Bird Dog saw huge gouts of air bubbles stream out of the hull, and the stern half sank appreciably in the water. Thirty seconds later, it was completely awash. The three men who’d exited the submarine still struggled with the life boat package, their movements now noticeably slower and lethargic. The poor bastards, he thought, still trying to stay focused on what the Oscar had intended to do to Jefferson. At least they’ll go fast — and they’re not trapped inside the hull, waiting for the water to leak into their compartment. I’d rather freeze than drown any day, he concluded.
Four minutes after the first Rockeye had hit near the submarine, it was all over. The men were floating on the surface of the water, their abandoned life raft, only partially inflated, bobbing gently among them. The remaining portions of the submarine’s hull slipped quietly beneath the sea, although air bubbles and occasional gouts of water still rippled up.