“Golden Eagle flight, Ämari Air Base, the two bogeys have entered Estonian airspace. Repeat, they have crossed the border. A challenge is being made.”
Talts swore then hit his mike again. “Golden Eagle Two, let’s go. Keep close.”
The Flankers were coming in fast. Talts watched his HUD as the tiny specs grew larger. He adjusted his course to close, but intentionally lagged behind their line of sight. Soon he could easily make out the twin rudders of the Su-27. Suddenly, the Flankers broke hard to the right and accelerated, hitting their afterburners. “Break left!” he shouted to Lepp as the Russian fighters screamed by a range well inside fifty meters.
“What kind of shit is that?” yelled Lepp. His voice was labored as the two F-16s pulled a hard five-G turn, coming around to follow the interlopers. Talts was angry. The Russian pilots were acting in an unsafe, unprofessional manner… on the Estonian side of the border. Just what the hell did these fools think they were doing?
Talts switched his radio to the emergency channel and issued a challenge. “Russian aircraft, you are in violation of Estonian airspace. You are ordered to withdraw immediately. Respond.” There was nothing but silence. Either they didn’t receive his warning, or they were blatantly ignoring it — more than likely the latter.
“Golden Eagle One, the bogeys have turned around. Closing at high speed,” reported Lepp.
“Roger, Golden Eagle Two. Let’s try this again.”
The four aircraft hurled toward each other. Talts tried to keep his nose pointed behind the Flankers, but the Russians countered by angling toward him. When the range had closed to a few kilometers, the Flankers broke hard left with the intent of making another dangerous close pass. “Erik, pull up and bank left!” ordered the major.
The sudden maneuver caught the Russians off guard and they pulled a hard turn to the right to get back in position. Lepp’s fighter swung out of the tight formation, unintentionally moving closer to the incoming Russians. The lead Flanker reacted quickly and pitched down hard, but the trailing aircraft hesitated and then over-compensated — the Su-27’s left wing smashed into Lepp’s aircraft.
Talts continued his climb and then swung around. The other Flanker had pulled out of the dive and was screaming back toward the border on afterburner. Looking down, he could see both fighters were in flames, trailing dirty brown smoke as they plunged toward the lake. A sudden flash from the Flanker told him the pilot had ejected. A moment later a parachute blossomed, but there was nothing from Lepp’s F-16.
Hitting his mike Talts shouted, “Erik! Eject! Eject!” There was no response and the plane continued to spin wildly downward.
“Eject, Erik!” he yelled again. Nothing happened. Talts could only watch in horror as the battered fighter crashed into the lake and exploded.
4
GRIM NEWS
“You just used the word ‘datum,’ Commander Chang. Is that where you — I mean the Navy, of course — think Toledo is?”
Commander David Chang was from Navy Public Affairs. His summer whites were almost blindingly bright, and he wore both a submariner’s dolphins and a command pin. He’d most recently commanded Annapolis, an attack boat out of Groton, but was currently assigned to “hazardous” duty in the Pentagon.
“It’s a Navy term that means her last known location. It’s the starting point for our search,” Chang explained.
Christine Laird asked, “And when did that search begin?”
“About fourteen days ago, when we became concerned that she wasn’t responding to our messages.”
“And yet the Navy only declared her overdue on July fifth,” Laird pressed. “Why the delay?”
“Mostly, to avoid alarming anyone, hopefully unnecessarily,” Chang answered quickly. “Submarines have been out of extended contact before and returned safely. But when Toledo didn’t return by the scheduled time, the crew’s families deserved to know.”
“And yet, in that two weeks, knowing where to look, you didn’t find a trace of the ship?”
“We call them ‘boats,’ Ms. Laird, and the initial search area involved millions of square miles. We’ve actually only scratched—”
Laird interrupted, “Could you show us on a map where you’re searching, or where this ‘datum’ is?”
“I’m afraid not, ma’am. That location is classified.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s inside her patrol area, and the Navy doesn’t want anyone to know where its subs are when they’re on patrol.”
“What about the families? Do they know?” She sounded hopeful.
Chang could see where Laird was headed. “Definitely not! They were told that Toledo would be operating in the Northern Atlantic Ocean. It was the same when my boat was at sea. Our families were only told the general geographic area where we would be operating. Information on a submarine’s location and its operating area are strictly limited, even within the Navy.”
“Well, can you tell us how much of the search area you’ve covered?”
“I’m afraid not. But even if I could, the search area will expand as we shift further and further away from the datum. Thus, any number would be meaningless.”
“How is the Navy searching for Toledo?”
“All types of platforms are being used, including surface ships, submarines, and aircraft. Even satellites. The search is being coordinated between Submarine Squadron Twelve, in Groton, Connecticut, and Commander, Submarine Forces in Norfolk, Virginia.”
“How are they searching?”
“Visually, for signs of anything on the surface, and with sonar, ma’am. We have side scan sonars accurate enough to give us an image of the seabed, but they only show a very small part of the bottom at one time.”
“Could you search with radiation detectors?” she suggested.
“No, Ms. Laird. A submarine’s nuclear reactor is so well-shielded that its gives off very little radiation, and actually, radiation detectors have a much shorter range than the imaging sonar.”
“But if the — boat’s — been damaged, could the shielding be cracked or breached, somehow? More radiation would be released then.”
Chang disagreed. “The detection range underwater would still be very short; water is actually a very good shielding material. Besides, the pressure vessel that holds the reactor core is built to withstand tremendous force. The Kursk explosion in 2000 was so big that seismic detectors around the world picked it up, but her two reactor vessels remained intact. If something like that had happened to Toledo, we’d know where to look.”
The commander sighed, hoping his impatience wasn’t being televised around the globe. “Water is hard to see through. That’s why submarines are so hard to find. The only sensor that works well in water is sound, and we are searching with that, guided by the best experts in the field.”
“And when will the Navy finish its search? I did some research on the Internet, and the wrecks of lost World War II submarines are still being found. Isn’t there a good chance that the Navy will never find Toledo?”
“As I mentioned earlier, the search area expands as we move outward from the datum. So, when we’ll be finished, I really can’t say. But we are nowhere close to stopping the search.”
“Even though it’s unlikely that any of the crew are still alive?”