Seven minutes later, the doors opened, McKenna fired the thrusters, and the MakoShark drifted backward.
Tang and Pearson waved at them.
All of the MakoSharks reversed ends and the WSOs finished programming the computers.
Delta Blue had a nine-minute wait for a window.
“Not bad,” Munoz said.
McKenna ran radio checks, testing his transmission and reception with Alpha One, Semaphore, Cottonseed, Condor One, and Robin Hood One, the lead craft of the four airplane rescue squadron, all C-130 Hercules planes.
“Delta Yellow,” he called on the Tac-1 frequency. “How’s she holding up?”
“Better than new,” Conover told him. “I haven’t seen this much green since the last time I was in Borneo.”
“One minute, Snake Eyes,” Munoz said.
Automatically, his eyes went to the CRT and the TIME TO RETRO FIRE. Munoz was right, as usual.
“Keep the shiny side up,” Overton said.
“Tell me, which side’s the shiny one, Alpha?” Munoz radioed back.
“The one without missile exhaust burns. Don’t bring any missiles back, huh?”
“Roger that… four, three, two, one,” Munoz said.
McKenna double-checked his straps as the computer took over the rocket throttles. As the levers advanced silently, he was shoved back into the couch. The vibration in the floor felt familiar and good.
Themis disappeared from the rearview screen, and McKenna hated to see her go.
The rocket burn was longer than normal, going for two minutes and forty-two seconds.
The computer turned Delta Blue nose forward at Mach 19.6 and adjusted her for the forty-degree nose up angle.
The sun was hot and bright, trying to defeat the bronze tinting of the canopies. The earth was a wonderful blue under their position. South Pacific. McKenna picked out Tahiti and thought about the mural in Sixteen’s dining compartment. Put Pearson in the front of the mural.
At ninety miles of altitude, McKenna felt the grip of the atmosphere slowing the craft.
“We have coolant flow, Snake Eyes.”
The two blue lights on the HUD confirmed it.
The windscreen went to red-orange, and the stars disappeared.
He notched up the air conditioning by two clicks as the heat picked up.
As they came out of the blackout, the windscreen losing a yellow hue, Munoz called Themis, “Alpha One, Delta Blue at two-three-five thousand, Mach twelve-point-four.”
“Copy that, Blue.”
Conover and Dimatta checked in a few minutes later, and McKenna set up rendezvous coordinates over the northeast coast of France.
Then he radioed Murmansk on Tac-2.
“Condor One, Delta Blue.”
Volontov had been waiting by a microphone. He responded immediately. “Proceed, Delta Blue.”
“You’ve got twenty minutes, Condor.”
“We must wait that long?”
Volontov sent the message for the tankers to take off right away, then called General Sheremetevo. While he waited for the general, he looked around his operations room. It was crowded with pilots checking the weather and talking to each other, simultaneously eager and anxious. When he caught the eyes of his two squadron leaders, he pointed a forefinger upward. They nodded and began moving through the mob, tapping their pilots on the shoulders.
Like Volontov, the general had also been waiting, though perhaps more patiently. He was at Stavka where he could keep an eye on the action relayed through the airborne warning and control aircraft, which had already been aloft for several hours.
“I have just talked to McKenna, General. They are in position, indicating that they have final approval.”
“As do we, Pyotr Mikhailovich. You may take off at any time you wish.”
“It will be a few minutes,” Volontov said.
“You are aware that the Germans have twenty-four aircraft up?”
“Yes, Comrade General. The space station relayed that information as soon as the fighters left Germany. There are also four tanker aircraft. I suspect they intend to stay the night.”
“Do you think that they are forewarned, that there has been an information leak, Pyotr?”
“I don’t know, General. Probably. It looks as if they expect us.”
“Would you do anything differently, suspecting that that is the case?” Sheremetevo asked.
“No, General. My pilots are ready.”
“I wish you luck, then.”
Volontov hung up the telephone and stepped outside the operations building. The MiG-29s were lined up in two rows, the twelve aircraft of his own 2032nd and 2033rd squadrons, plus eight more provided by the 11th Fighter Wing. He had organized them as three squadrons. He would lead the 2033rd as Condor Flight, providing overhead coverage, and Maj. Anatoly Rostoken would take the Vulture Flight, the 2032nd, as the lead elements, the point of the spear. Maj. Arkady Michovoi would command the eight planes of the Tern Flight. Unlike the first two squadrons, which were armed with AA-11 missiles, Michovoi’s was armed with the new AS-X-10 air-to-surface missiles. It had a range of only seven kilometers, but was extremely accurate, guided by a semiactive laser.
For two days, they had been practicing McKenna’s recommended tactics with the AS-X-10. The Tern Flight aircraft would have to be very low, very close, and very precise.
The wind off the Barents Sea was brisk, chilling his face. In the darkness, he could see scraps of paper blowing across the runways. Portable lights moved around the aircraft, as did the ground crews in their yellow parkas. Tractors with empty missile trailers pulled away, and the start carts were spotted between every other plane. Pilots were climbing into their cockpits.
Volontov walked across the tarmac to his own MiG, shrugged out of his parka, and was helped into his parachute harness by his crew chief. He pulled his helmet on, then climbed the ladder and swung his legs into the cockpit.
He powered up the instrument panel and the inertial navigation computer before strapping in. It always took several minutes for the gyros to come up to speed.
His crew chief, on the ladder beside him, checked the connections, then said, “I want my airplane back whole, Colonel.”
“I want you to have it that way.” Volontov smiled.
The tower gave them permission to start engines, and ten aircraft started right away. Minutes later, after the start carts were connected, the last ten were under power. The noise of forty 8,300-kilogram thrust Tumansky turbofans revving up was earsplitting.
Volontov closed his canopy after the crew chief pulled the ladder away. The cockpit was cold and he turned up the heater all the way.
After making certain that his first tactical frequency was set at the proper frequency for contact with his wing and that the second frequency was adjusted to the one agreed with McKenna, Volontov called the tower.
“Murmansk, Condor One requesting taxi and takeoff clearance for a flight of twenty.”
“Condor One, you are cleared for Runway Ten right, takeoff in pairs. Wind is eleven knots, gusting to twenty, direction one-seven-zero. Temperature is two degrees.”
That was Centigrade, just above freezing. The water would be much colder. Volontov was wearing two sweaters and a pair of long underwear under his pressure suit, but they would not do much for him if he was forced down in the sea.
Releasing the brakes and turning on his wing lights and anticollision strobe, he pulled out of line for several meters, then turned right. His wingman followed, taking up a position off Volontov’s right wing.
The rest of the wing fell into line as the commander’s MiG passed the front row. A half kilometer later, he turned left onto the runway and braked to a stop. No other aircraft was scheduled, but he had checked the skies anyway.