“Whisk one-one, sorted left on the eastern bandit group one-five thousand.”
“Whisk one-two sorted right!”
“Fox Three from Whisk one-one on the lead bandit eastern group.”
“Fox Three from Whisk one-two on the trailer!”
“Whisks crankin’ right!”
“Condor.”
On the horizon, Macho caught two faint tendrils of white smoke, and one of them had a visible light — the rocket motor — as the AMRAAMs rose in altitude to home in on their prey. She couldn’t see the specks of the Whisk aircraft as they moved off to the right and west, or the bandits even farther south. Over the city, she saw glints of light in the hills behind it and soon realized the glints were AAA bursts. Breathing through her mouth, Macho swallowed hard. Ten miles to release, and she still couldn’t make out her target on either the FLIR or the radar.
Shit!
“Whisk one-two. Pop up contact in the eastern group! Untargeted and beaming east — gimbals!”
“Condor from Whisk lead. Watch him.”
“Condor.”
“Whisk one-one. Splash the eastern bandit, eastern group!”
In the distance, Macho saw a black puff in the center of her HUD, with a fiery trail corkscrewing down below it.
“Whisk one-two. Splash the western bandit, eastern group!” the exuberant fighter sweep wingman cried out. Macho saw another fireball erupt on the horizon.
The Whisks were now two sections, with the Number 3 and Number 4 aircraft running down the western group that was luring them over Caracas. The lead section, who had just dispatched two bandits in the eastern group, Macho’s left, were flowing west behind the other Whisks according to plan. Condor was monitoring a leaker and another untargeted group over Bullseye.
With under a minute to release, Macho approached the coast, trying to find the target, trying to make sense of the intercept comms. Armed up! Find the damn target! Don’t get shot! Frantic to find her target, Macho slewed the FLIR diamond left, then right, and found some return. Allowing the picture to build, she identified the launcher obscured by a stand of trees. That’s it!
She bumped the castle switch to lock it and transmitted, “Lumber two-one captured!” She heard Annie’s familiar voice roger her call.
AAA detonated in black puffs ahead of her, and, over the city, she saw SAM plumes and heard the anxious calls of the Whisks who were in the middle of everything. Condor was intoning about bandit contacts nearby, the Jellies were shooting HARMs somewhere behind her, and an emergency beeper was going off in her headset. Where is Killer? Macho was task saturated, and Annie’s calm voice broke through the confusion.
“Lumber two-zero has control. Release it, Macho.”
Annie’s use of Macho’s personal call sign snapped Macho out of her funk, and with one last check of symbology, she mashed her thumb down on the pickle switch. Over 1,500 pounds. of weight fell from her wing, and Macho rolled up left to see the SLAM-ER fall earthward. A second later, its wings deployed, and the turbojet engine lit off.
“Lumber two-one, rifle away!”
“Roger,” Annie answered.
Macho heard Killer release his weapon, but the strike common frequency was clobbered with threat calls and intercept comms to the Whisks. Then, Macho heard Condor talking to her.
“Lumber two-one. Leaker, one-eight-zero at fifteen. Seventeen thousand. Hot!”
A bandit was running on her, and maybe on Killer, who was now trailing her as they egressed northeast. Annie and Blade, with their heads down controlling the weapons, were vulnerable. Macho looked over her right wing to the south, then whipped her head left to find Killer. She saw nothing.
“Killer, you with me?” Macho asked on the tactical freq.
“Negative! Dump some gas!”
Macho reached down and energized the fuel dump switch for a second, seeking section integrity with Killer despite the fact that the bandit would also see a cloud of fuel and get an early tally on her.
“Visual! I’m at your left, seven long! Check north!” Killer directed.
“Lumber, Condor, your bandits are retreating south.”
Deliverance! Macho thought. As she rolled out of her turn, she saw Killer joining on her left wing and saw Annie in her southbound run, controlling the weapon. Condor said the bandits were retreating which implied south, and Annie and Blade were heading south. They would need help.
“Annie, Macho has a visual, six clear,” Macho transmitted, informing her flight lead that she had eyes on her. They were three miles apart.
“Roger. Blade is in spread with me. You guys join up, if you can, and sanitize ahead of us.”
“Roger!”
With this audible, Macho and Killer pulled hard across the horizon, plugging in the burners and pointing to a position in front of their leads to intercept. Macho’s radar cursor bounced back and forth on her right display screen as she pulled her nose through the low afternoon sun, and both pilots listened to the Whisk/Condor commentary to regain situational awareness.
The Whisks were now two flights of two in lead-trail and separated by five miles. Both flowed along the coast, outside of the multiple threat envelopes in Caracas. The FAV seemed to be opposing this strike to a much greater degree than the Americans had seen before. Annie’s Lumber division was pretty much one gaggle as she and Blade concentrated on flying the missiles into their target launchers, while Macho and Killer joined on them to sanitize the airspace ahead. The FAV fighter — they didn’t know which kind — was running south from the Americans and was, for now, no factor. Macho knew, though, she would have to watch it.
“Lumber two-zero, five miles—” Annie transmitted, and Blade followed in sequence. The senior aviators were tracking their targets and, via data link, would fly the missiles into them. About thirty seconds to impact. Macho was now on Annie’s left wing.
Flying the airplane, monitoring the radar, avoiding a midair with her wingmen, and trying to make sense of the fighter comm, Macho froze when a contact popped up on her screen.
Inside twenty miles! And hot!
Her responsibility.
CHAPTER 70
The pop-up contact entered Macho’s radar search volume from below, like a shark attacking prey on the surface. Although surprised, and for a moment speechless, Macho recovered.
“Annie, contact on our nose, twelve miles! Angels ten! Hot! Egress now!”
With no time to ask Condor for a declaration, Macho bumped the castle switch and was rewarded with a lock. The bogey was coming right at them, and Annie, in the closer aircraft, was vulnerable.