The insistent chirp of his radar threat warning sounded in his headset.
“Tombstone! He’s locked! He’s going to take his shot!”
“Hang on, Hitman! Just a little further around …”
“Launch! Stoney! He’s launched!”
“Chaff!”
“Chaff away!”
He’d deliberately gone into a hard, slow-speed turn directly across the Indian Mig’s line of fire, hoping the other man would fire despite the difficult angle. Picturing the radar-homer’s path in his mind, Tombstone waited another three beats … then rammed the stick back to the right, breaking into a hard split-S. His left hand hit the wing control override, folding the wings back to the sixty-eight degree combat sweep, then slammed the throttles forward to Zone Five burner.
The roar of the twin engines kicked him in the spine like a sledgehammer, driving the breath from his lungs.
Tunnel vision closed in. His HUD readout showed seven Gs … eight … nine …!
His whole body hurt, and speech, even breathing, was impossible. He knew he was on the thin, ragged edge of blacking out, but he held the turn as his compass reading spun through the numbers … one-ninety … two hundred … two-ten … The threat warning was off. The enemy missile had been decoyed by the chaff … or simply missed, unable to correct for Tombstone’s wild maneuver.
And then the other plane was ahead, crossing from left to right with his belly facing Tombstone’s F-14. The Indian Mig had held his own left turn a hair too long and was still in the break. Tombstone had snapped around in the unexpected maneuver and slid into position for a launch.
It was a tough shot … as tough as the one the Indian flyer had tried a moment earlier.
Blinking against blurred vision, willing the pain in his throbbing head to subside, Tombstone dropped his targeting pipper across the Mig. No … too close, even for Sidewinders. He would have to go for guns.
The Indian was rolling toward him now … had seen him, less than a thousand yards away. Tombstone turned to keep with him, letting the target reticle lead the Mig.
Tombstone’s sharp eyes picked out the hull number: 401.
He also spotted something else. There were no missiles slung beneath the Mig’s wings. The radar-homer he’d just popped at Tombstone had been his last one. Possibly there’d not been time to rearm when he’d landed earlier. Or possibly he’d loosed five of his six AAMS earlier in the fight.
Mig and Tomcat closed with one another. At two hundred yards, Tombstone could see the other pilot, his helmet visor back. He was making no effort to escape but was watching Tombstone’s approach with what could only be described as professional interest.
The guy knew Tombstone had him and was waiting to die.
Tombstone shook his head. What was it Army had always said. Chivalry gets you dead.
True enough, and the Mig pilot still had his cannon. Still, there came a time when there was simply no point in further slaughter. The Indian Mig pilot was an opponent now, not an enemy … and there was a sharp difference between the two. Tombstone waggled his wings in salute … then broke left, passing behind the other plane close enough to feel the shudder of his jet stream.
“Hey, Hitman? Hitman! Are you still with me?”
There was no response over the ICS. The nine-G turn had knocked his RIO out.
“Viper Leader, Viper Leader, this is Victor Tango One-one.”
Tombstone jumped, wondering if the Hawkeye controller had spotted his rather unprofessional breach.
“Victor Tango, this is Viper Leader. Go ahead.”
“Viper Leader, please give stores listing, over.”
Stores? “Uh, roger, Victor Tango.” He switched the VDI display to his stores listing and read them off, not trusting to memory in his current, somewhat battle-fogged state. “Two AIM-9Js, two AIM-54s. Six hundred seventy-five rounds.”
He’d taken off with two Phoenix, one Sparrow, and four Sidewinder missiles. They’d already launched the Sparrow and two Sidewinders. What was Victor Tango One-one looking for?
“We copy you have two Phoenix missiles, Viper Leader. What about your squadron?”
Three of the other five Tomcats still had AIM-54 Phoenix missiles on board. Shooter and Ramrod had both already fired both of their Phoenix missiles, while Coyote still had his two and Nightmare and Batman each had one left.
“Viper Leader, we copy you have six missiles remaining in your squadron.”
“That’s a roger,” Tombstone replied.
“Hey, Stoney?” Hitman said over the ICS circuit. “What the hell’s goin’ on?”
“Wish I knew, Hitman. Orders.”
“Viper Leader, we have a new target for you. Ah … be advised that this is an extremely hazardous target … but it is also extremely important. Extremely important.”
“Give us the vector.”
“Roger. Come to new heading zero-four-zero at angels base plus thirty-nine. Make your speed five-five-zero knots. Do you copy that?”
“Copy. Zero-four-zero at five-five-zero knots, angels base plus three-niner.”
“Hold that course and speed for fourteen, that’s one-four minutes.”
“Roger. Fourteen minutes.”
“Endpoint is designated Point Lima. Your target will be at extreme Phoenix range at that time, bearing zero-zero-zero to zero-one-zero.”
Tombstone was doing some fast calculations in his head. He reached down to the clipboard on his thigh and shuffled through the papers and checklists, exposing a map of northwest India.
Their current location was north of Highway 101, close to the Indian-Pakistan border and thirty miles from a border town called Gadra.
He used the stub of a pencil to lightly sketch in lines. Point Lima, if he’d followed the instructions of the Hawkeye controller right, was deep within the Thar Desert, just south of the Rajasthan Canal. The closest settlement marked on the map was a village called Bikampur. He measured north one hundred nautical miles — the approximate range of a Phoenix missile. The end point was across the border into Pakistan, somewhere near a nondescript town called Fort Abbas.
“Okay, Victor Tango. I’ve got all that. Uh … we may have a problem, though.” He was staring at his fuel gauge. “Fuel state eight point five.”
They’d used a lot of JP-5 in the dogfighting over the border. Now the Hawkeye controller was telling them to fly another one hundred thirty miles inland. Then, from Point Lima, it would be almost four hundred more long desert miles before they were back over the Arabian Sea.
Well over five hundred miles before they could refuel, or even before they could eject with any hope of being picked up by friendly forces.
They might just make it … but it would be damned tight.
“Copy your fuel state, Viper. I repeat, target is extremely important.”
He sighed. “Roger, Victor Tango. How many missiles will target require, over?”
“Estimate four, Viper.”
But he already knew he would have to take all six aircraft, just to make sure that at least four AIM-54s made it to Point Lima.
And God help their fuel state if they were forced to dogfight along the way. “Okay, Victor Tango One-one. That’s roger. Viper Squadron is in.” He swung the Tomcat onto its new heading, the other five F-14s matching the maneuver.
The dun and barren wastes of the Thar Desert flashed past beneath them as they accelerated, climbing toward fifty thousand feet.
CHAPTER 29
The Sea Harriers had been stalking their prey, traveling slowly and at low altitude in an attempt to lose themselves in the radar clutter at the surface of the ocean. The waves that had been so high and powerful earlier had dwindled, and the sea was relatively calm. But Lieutenant Tahliani knew that death was near.