"Well, get me the hell out of here," I said. "I'm not carrying any HARMS."
HARMs are specialized missiles that weren't part of our normal load out. Instead of being heat-seeking or IR, a HARM would home in on a hostile electronic emission and blow the hell out of the transmitter.
Sometimes it was just a soft kill, but a soft kill was good enough. You'd knock out the radar in a SAM site and the crew, if there were any left alive, would be reduced to manual targeting. It's a hell of a problem against a high-Mach aircraft.
"Hard right ― you see those hills ahead? Cut in between the two middle ones. I think that'll give us shielding, but we won't be in the envelope of the northernmost site."
I complied, following her directions as quickly as she put them into the heads-up display processor. "Will we get there on time?"
"I think so ― goose it a little bit, will you?"
Now that was impressive. I knew that in the backseat Sheila was quickly recalculating our inbound route, redoing the time-distance problem in her head without the assistance of the detailed planning charts she had earlier. But I had some degree of confidence ― if anybody could pull it off, she could.
"Back to two three zero," she ordered.
Sure enough, as soon as I executed the last turn, the red fire-control radar signal subsided into a cautionary yellow. Nothing else lit up either, indicating we were clear of everyone's detection envelope. I breathed a sigh of relief. "How far off are we, timewise?"
"About ten seconds. I think we can make it up."
I eased the throttles forward a little more, exceeding our briefed speed. The terrain was still familiar, although I was seeing it from a different angle than we'd planned. Our computer-aided decisioning tools are really incredible these days. The bombing run simulator allows a pilot, in essence, to prefly a mission, maneuvering the computer screen with his joystick through the terrain surrounding the IP. You can program it to paint in SAM sites and detection envelopes too. Back on the Jefferson when we first briefed this mission, I spent a fair amount of time on the computer flying all around the briefed IP. I knew this alternate route pretty well, at least enough not to be confused by the change in terrain.
"Ten seconds," Sheila warned. "Descend to eight hundred feet."
Now, this was more like it. We were skimming along now, still well clear of the forest and the low surrounding hills, but my sensation of speed increased dramatically.
"Five seconds." I could see it now, just as it had been briefed the concrete bunker surrounded by a number of trucks, obviously old derelicts that they pressed into service for realistic training. I made a course correction, lining up solidly on the bunker.
"Two seconds," she said.
I kept my finger poised over the weapon selections switch.
One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi. I toggled off the bomb.
The Tomcat jolted upward as five hundred pounds of dumb steel left its wing, and I corrected immediately to maintain level flight. As the weapon peeled up, I jerked the Tomcat up hard, rolling away from and out to the side of the missile's lofted flight path. This close to the ground, it's important to put as much distance between you and the impact point as quickly as possible so that you don't get caught up in the shrapnel or blinded by the cloud from the explosion.
"That looked solid," Sheila said from the backseat. I could hear the relief in her voice.
"Good on putting us back on course," I said.
I felt the Tomcat burble as it descended, returning to ground from the realm that was rightfully hers. As I started my lineup, I saw the MiG parked on the flight line, heat still wafting off its wings, a bird of prey on the ground.
We ran through the shutdown checklist quickly but thoroughly. An enlisted man mounted the boarding ladder to help us out of our ejection harnesses, and it wasn't until his face was close to mine that I realized he was one of our own.
Sheila left the aircraft first, but I wasn't far behind. I jumped down off the aircraft, skipping the last step, and started my triumphant approach on the waiting gallery. Brent, Sheila's diplomatic trained dog, and Anna, my very own personal Russian spy, were waiting.
As was the MiG pilot, that asshole that had tripped me just after we'd arrived. He wasn't any better looking on the ground than he had been in the air.
"Nice going, buddy," I said, and offered him my hand. "Too bad you were off course."
These Russians, man. What sore losers. The guy spat out a stream of Russian at me and started to grab me. Sheila and Brent intervened. I started toward the guy, then caught sight of Anna's pale, stricken face.
"What, we got some sort of cultural misunderstanding here, Sheila?" I said.
"You think that new boyfriend of yours can explain just what the hell's going on?"
Brent still had one arm on the Russian puke's upper arm. The guy was struggling ― like I said, real sore losers. "It's you who're going to have to do some explaining, mister. Big-time and now."
I laughed. "I'm supposed to let him win? That wasn't part of the deal, no way. If that's what diplomacy is about, then you can just-"
Sheila turned around and clamped one hand over my mouth. Say what you will about the chicks, this one had a grip that wouldn't quit. She found the same spot in my gut that she'd roughed up before and planted her elbow there again. Harder, this time.
"Shut the fuck up, Skeeter, and let me handle this." When she gets that tone of voice going, she gets dangerous.
I shut up. Sheila turned back to Brent. "Explain." At least there was no lovey-dovey stuff in her voice that time.
"Your young hotshot there needs to learn to read a map," Brent spat out. He jerked back on the Russian one last time, then relinquished his grip to a couple of other Russians. He took a moment to straighten his tie and jacket, and probably unwind the underwear that was in a knot.
"I navigated. I had to make a last-minute course correction to compensate for a SAM site, but we were right back on the proper approach within seconds." I had a feeling Mr. Smoothy wasn't going to be making much more progress with my backseater.
"Then you made a mistake. There wasn't a SAM site in this scenario."
"What's the point of it as a tactical test if every possible checkpoint is briefed? That's no way to train," Sheila shot back. But I could see from the look on her face that our thoughts were running in parallel. Judging from both Brent and Illya Kyrrul's reaction, something hadn't gone right.
More than that. It had gone very, very wrong.
"You were off the briefed approach by more than five miles," Brent said. He shot me another one of those looks that clearly indicated who he thought was at fault, despite Sheila's explanation. "Remember, this is a Russian training exercise, not Top Gun school in the States. Every evolution is briefed. No surprises."
"Then what was with the SAM site?" I asked. Both of them glared at me. Fine. I was flying the damned aircraft and I couldn't ask a simple question?
"You were way out of line," Brent said. "You were in the airspace around a research facility. And when you pulled your little jaunt off course, you got even farther away. What you hit was not a target. It was a small agricultural village."
"No." Sheila's voice was stunned and cold. I could understand why, if what Brent was saying was true.
But it had to be true, didn't it? After all, he was one of ours. We might expect the Russians to lie to us for some reason, but this gouge was coming from our own people.
"You didn't happen to wonder why there were people walking around outside?" Brent snapped.
"I didn't see anyone," I said, already feeling like I ought to be able to come up with some sort of plausible alternative explanation. What he was saying just didn't make sense. There was no way that Sheila was that far off the briefed plan, no way. "And I did a flyby for BDA and I didn't see any indication that that sight was anything other than a good ol' target. Here ― look at the charts." I started pulling out my briefing sheet from my kneeboard, the handy device that snaps around your upper leg and holds all the mission briefing crap. "Look."