The Victor continued to close until she was barely one hundred feet away from the U.S. boat, a deadly close range for ungainly submarines surfaced in open sea. Then I saw the canisters dangling over the Russian sail. Self-inflating rafts, their mechanism activated by salt water.
The Victor's crew lowered one into the water. After a few seconds, it started expanding into a brilliant yellow rescue boat. It wasn't designed as an assault craft ― merely as a lifeboat ― and its rubberized hull couldn't withstand a blast from a shotgun. It would fill quickly and sink within a minute, consigning its crew to the frigid water.
Surely the U.S. sub skipper knew that. But he wouldn't ― he couldn't ― let the Victor's lifeboat approach.
Or would he?
He would. I saw the hesitation in his movements, the arm upraised to hold fire. Did he think that the Russians might simply want to talk to them? Could he possibly believe that after the cat-and-mouse game they'd played for the last week?
Or did he feel what I'd felt with Ilanovich, a kinship of fellow warriors that transcended national boundaries? Could he blast the lifeboat, knowing that that action would condemn men just like him to certain death? Would he hold on to any sliver of hope that there might be an innocent reason for their entirely insane deployment of the life rafts?
The life raft was pitching in the seas, sliding up the side of one swell sideways and coming down bow-first on the other side. Russian sailors were piling into it now, none of them obviously armed. There could have been sidearms, though, and I was certain that there were. Then they cast off from the Victor, and sailors manning paddles steadied the boat in the seas and headed for the U.S. sub.
"We've got company." For a moment, I had the illusion that the sub skipper was talking, then I realized it was Skeeter. "Four MiGs inbound, Tombstone. I think you better grab some altitude before they close on us."
"On my way." I slammed the throttles forward and nosed the Tomcat up into a steep climb. With MiGs inbound I wasn't going to be able to stay at sea level and baby-sit a sub skipper who was about to make a serious mistake.
Gator, Sheila, and the ship all started yelling at the same time.
Launch indications, this time for submarine-based antiship missiles.
Long-range ones, more than capable of reaching the carrier thrashing about in the icy water.
The Akula. Judging from the roiling water I saw ten miles to the north, she was the culprit.
"Tombstone." Batman's voice was deadly. "Get the hell out of there.
You're inside the missile engagement zone, clobbering the Aegis picture.
Get down to sea level, stay out of the way. There's not time for you to clear the area ― now move."
"Tombstone, we can't just-" Skeeter started.
"You heard the admiral," I snapped. "Now head for the deck." Unless we wanted to risk being the unintended recipient of a Standard missile, we needed to be well outside of her targeting area. "Gator, find out where the safe-passage corridor is and get me in it."
"Already on it," Gator said. "Turn right to heading three two zero.
We're two minutes out." "Skeeter know?" I asked even as I was standing the Tomcat on wingtip to comply, all the while descending as well.
"Better. Sheila does."
I pulled us up at barely one hundred feet above the sea, too close under almost any conditions except these. But cold air is thick, easy to fly in. It gave us a margin of safety that we wouldn't have had in warmer climates.
"They're coming after us," Gator warned. "Range, fifteen miles and closing. Descending through ten thousand feet now."
"Tomcat zero zero, maintain present altitude and heading," a new voice said. "It's going to be close, sir, and I need your cooperation. Keep your wingman on your right."
The Aegis then, asserting her rights over this wedge of airspace. I acknowledged the orders and hoped to hell they'd hurry. There's no more helpless feeling than being wings level at sea level with enemy fighters inbound.
The airspace around me felt clobbered with danger. The missiles inbound on the carrier, the MiGs, even my own cruiser launching missiles in my general direction. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be, not for a fighter pilot. It is if the fighter pilot doesn't obey orders.
Yeah, but the submarine ― we were the closest thing to a cavalry around.
You think maybe they know how to manage this war without your help?
No.
I quit second-guessing myself. There was a reason I'd peeled out of the marshal stack, a sound tactical one. If they'd been thinking onboard the carrier, they'd have sent me themselves.
The submarine. What was one fighter compared to that? "Skeeter, stay here," I ordered. "No matter what."
"I don't leave my lead, Admiral."
"Don't argue with me."
"You've got two choices, Tombstone. You talk to me, clue me in on what we're doing and give me a better chance to survive it all. Or you roll out on your own. Either way, you look to the right, you're going to see me. Like I said ― I don't leave my lead." Skeeter's voice made it clear that he had no intention of obeying any orders I gave him that involved leaving him behind.
"We've got to get back to the sub," I said, capitulating to the inevitable. "There's something going on there."
"Roger. The Aegis knows how to break a Mode IV IFF. She does her job, we do ours."
I hoped to hell it would work. I slid the throttles forward, increasing power more gently this time, buying myself time to think, and the Aegis time to react. I thought about explaining it to her, then decided against it. Like Skeeter said, the Aegis could break Mode IV and would be able to distinguish our radar paint from that of the Russians.
"Fire one," the Aegis TAO said. Four more missiles rippled off her rails in short order, the first aimed at the incoming cruise missile and the others at the MiGs.
"You have the missile?" I asked Gator, building the plan in my mind as we ascended.
"Yeah ― still behind us. Come right to zero one zero, altitude two thousand feet. That'll put us at a slight angle to it."
"OK, then." I'd just nosed through angels two thousand, headed upward. Two thousand was fine with me, since the MiGs ― and the Aegis missiles after them ― were still well above that. But for how long?
I edged back down slightly to maintain altitude, and started scanning the airspace around me, twisting around in my ejection seat and trying to get a visual on the missile. Gator was feeding the plan to Sheila at the same time.
"I got it," Skeeter announced. "Tallyho." "Take the shot if you get it," I said, still searching the sky where Gator said the missile was.
"Fox one," Skeeter announced, launching an AMRAAM at the missile.
Then again, "Fox one," as he fired a second AMRAAM.
Then I saw it, the AMRAAM's intended target. It would be massive up close, but from this distance was merely a small gash of white against the sky.
"Where to, lead?" Skeeter asked. "One of those two will get it."
His missiles were streaking across the sky, bright splashes of yellow fire gouting from their tails, much more visible from this angle than their intended target was.
"Stay on the missile," I ordered. "Make sure you've got it ― we can't take a chance. I'm going after the submarine."
Skeeter started to protest, but I ignored him. Too many lives were at stake to simply assume that the AMRAAMs would find their marks. I slid off to the right and turned back around to locate the submarine.
By the time I got there, the skipper had evidently realized how critical his situation was. Skimming the ocean at only three hundred feet above the deadly sea, I could see that he had a megaphone in his hands.