The Tiger Flight leader wanted to slam his instrument panel in frustration. Without his onboard radar, and now without Yanji Control, he was almost blind. Somewhere below, the intruder was running. The border was approaching rapidly. The Tiger Flight leader looked down. If he didn't turn now, he'd cross into North Korean airspace. He keyed his radio. "Break off."
The radar operator sighed. "Sir, the Chinese jets have broken off." For the first time, Ehrlich felt that the Blackhawk had a chance.
Lassiter was back in the front seat. Jean Long gratefully relinquished the controls to him. Eighteen to nineteen minutes to the coast. The Chinese jets had broken off at the border.
In the back, Comsky had stopped the flow of blood from Riley's wounds. Comsky leaned over and spoke right in Mitchell's ear to be heard above the turbine engines and blades. "He's not going to make it if we don't get him to a hospital ASAP. One of those rounds, maybe both, went through his right lung. He's lost a lot of blood."
Mitchell looked at Riley. He was lying on his right side; Hoffman was holding bandages over the wounds, and putting pressure on the sucking chest wound to help close it off. Mitchell didn't know what to do. So close. They'd made it too far to lose someone now.
Ehrlich anxiously gripped the edges of his chair as he watched the blip representing 579 crawl toward the coast. Not much farther to go. The radar operator turned and looked at him.
"Sir, we've got two North Korean MiG-21s moving in at Mach 1.5 from the southwest. Direct for 579."
"Goddamn!" Ehrlich cursed. The Blackhawk might still stay low enough to avoid the MiGs, but once it hit the coast there'd be no place to hide. The MiGs would have a turkey shoot — Ehrlich had no doubt that the North Koreans would shoot.
He looked over at the female technician who had jammed the radar of the Chinese jets. "Can you jam the MiGs and North Korean ground radar?"
The woman shook her head doubtfully. "I've got to find the frequencies first. The North Koreans are acting smarter than the Chinese. They're using their radar only in bursts."
The coast was one minute ahead. Lassiter and Long scanned the night sky.
"There, at four o'clock." Lassiter looked where Long indicated. He could see the running lights of two jets flying along the coast at about three thousand feet. "Once we cross the beach and hit the water, they're going to be on us."
Long shrugged. "You got any better ideas?"
"No."
"Then let's do it."
The North Korean flight leader turned on his tracking radar. The blip representing the intruder appeared on the screen. Noting the location he quickly turned off the radar to prevent possible jamming. He didn't know who or what the intruder was, but his orders were to shoot it down. He looked out his left window and spotted it. An American-made helicopter!
"There's the intruder. Follow me." The flight leader banked his aircraft and started a run in toward the helicopter flitting across the wave tops. His eyes narrowed in anticipation as he placed his thumb over the trigger for his twin-barrel 23mm cannon. Another fifteen seconds and the helicopter would be history.
"Here they come." Lassiter started evasive maneuvers, turning and banking erratically.
The North Korean flight leader looked through his gun sight. The helicopter was bobbing in the cross hairs. Still, between the two of them, they ought to be able to get in some rounds. It would take only a few of the 23mm slugs to destroy the fragile helicopter.
He edged his finger over the trigger. Just another second. Suddenly a screeching tone sounded in his headset and a light on his console flashed red.
"Missile lock-on!" the flight leader screamed. He violently threw his MiG into evasive maneuvers. His wingman followed suit. The leader turned on his radar and stared at it. Where had the lock-on come from? There was nothing on his screen except the helicopter. It couldn't have come from there. The warning meant that an enemy fighter had locked its targeting radar on his aircraft.
The tone went off. He turned his aircraft back toward the helicopter. Suddenly the screeching tone sounded again. As he broke away, the flight leader saw the silhouette of an aircraft shadowing him and his wingman. He'd never seen anything like it before — it looked like something from outer space. The aircraft didn't appear to have a fuselage, just a short, squat flying wing.
Realizing he had to deal with this unknown threat first, the flight leader kicked in his afterburners and gained altitude in an attempt to loop back behind his pursuer. He still had nothing but the helicopter on his screen. As he rolled out, the target lock-on sounded again. Trying to break the lock-on, he caught another glimpse of the strange aircraft following tightly behind. There were two of them now.
The tone fell silent. Realization seeped through the North Korean pilot's brain. If the strange aircraft had wanted to shoot him down, it could have done so by now. Three lock-ons were more than enough. They were giving him a message: Stay away from the helicopter.
Even if he managed to get behind the enemy planes, the lack of a radar image would put him at a severe disadvantage. The pilot was caught between his sense of duty and his sense of self-preservation.
Then he had a new thought. Whatever was shadowing him had never been seen before by a North Korean pilot. He would be the first to report it. Perhaps that would help assuage his superiors. Having rationalized himself out of an untenable situation, the flight leader broke and ran for home, calling for his wingman to follow.
"Where the hell did they go?" Jean Long was twisted in her seat, peering to the rear. She couldn't see the MiGs. The sky was clear.
"I don't know. And I don't care." Lassiter wasn't going to argue with their good fortune.
Comsky finished checking Riley again. He'd given him a syringe of morphine. The medic reported back to Mitchell. "He's going into shock and is aspirating blood. I think his left lung may have been nicked too. If we don't get him to a hospital with suction soon to clear his lungs, he's going to drown in his own blood."
Mitchell acknowledged the information and keyed his headset. "Jean, Dave was wounded when we were picking him up. He's got a sucking chest wound. Comsky says if we don't get him to a hospital soon, he'll be dead."
"We're a little more than five hours out of Korea. That's the closest possibility. We refueled off the Rathburne coming in, and it's about three hours to the south. We can try that. I'm not even sure we're home free from the North Koreans yet. They can still catch us with their jets. I don't know why those two MiGs broke off, but there may be more on the way."
Lassiter broke in. "I don't think we have to worry about MiGs anymore. Take a look up at 2 o'clock." Long turned and looked where Lassiter was pointing. The moon shone off the wings of two F-16s passing by in escort.
22
"And therefore the victories won by a master of war
gain him neither reputation for wisdom
nor merit for valour."
General Parker was emotionally exhausted. Listening in to Ehrlich on the AWACS for the past half hour had been nerve-racking. Against all odds, things appeared to have worked out. 579 was clear of the coast. Wildcard had scared off the MiGs. The F-16s were now on station escorting the helicopter back. Parker keyed his mike. "Colonel Ehrlich. What's the status of Wildcard?"