In the meantime, the bank of batteries broke free and ruptured. One smashed into a sailor, crushing him instantly. The others came in contact with water, generating chlorine gas, killing the men before they could drown.
The submarine headed for the bottom quickly now, and reached it three minutes later. Along the way, the remainder of the compartments flooded, forcing the deadly gas out into the sea.
Above the crushed hull that held their shipmates, the three men in the water waited in silent horror as they stared at the circling fins.
“They… they shot them out of the air!” the pilot shouted, his voice stark with horror. “I had two chutes, then the MiG — damn them all, kill them all!”
Coyote stared at the screen, horror on his face. Every aviator in the room could feel his blood turn to ice as well. To punch out, to take that risk, watch the aircraft that had been so much a part of you destroyed, looking frantically for your wingman, and praying he would survive the ejection and eventually be picked up… well, that was hard enough without facing the possibility of being strafed.
In quiet moments, they had all had discussions, had made those quiet decisions about what they would do. Most, when they would speak at all about it, agreed that the preferred course of action would be to strip off one’s oxygen mask and pass out from hypoxia on the way down. But there was always the chance that at lower altitude the oxygen might revive you, and what would that be like, to wake to the sensation of falling?
No, this action was completely indefensible. Coyote would make sure the Chinese paid for it, and paid dearly.
“I want them destroyed,” he said evenly, his voice a deadly threat. “Destroyed completely.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Just as they were approaching their fourth tanker rendezvous, a voice came over tactical. “Triple nickels, this is Big Eyes. Be advised that the tribal council meets tonight on CBS in minutes three. Do not acknowledge this transmission.” The jamming resumed as soon as the AWACS finished transmission.
“Break it,” Tombstone ordered. Every trace of weariness was instantly swept out of his body.
“Tribal council — air activity, on the ground. CBS is the airfield, and it started three minutes ago.”
“No launches then, yet.”
“No. That would be ‘You’re voted off the island.’ ”
“Well, then, no time like the present.” Tombstone boosted the aircraft into afterburner and felt the G-forces push him back against the seat. “The tanker should be waiting for us. We’ll just make the rendezvous a bit earlier. If we need more gas, we’ll just ask for it.” The rendezvous point had been preplanned using a given speed of advance, but there was some leeway in the schedule to allow for headwinds, tailwinds, and other vagaries of flight.
“Tombstone, that right engine — are you watching it?”
“Yes. Still well within normal parameters.” Even as he spoke, Tombstone knew what Jason’s point was. The outlet temperature on the right engine had been increasing steadily over the last two hours. Not alarmingly, and not outside of normal operating range, but still increasing. The left temperature data showed no change.
“Shouldn’t Big Eyes know about that?” Jason asked.
“I thought about that. But there’s not much he can do about it, is there?” Tombstone said gently, counting on Jason’s experience and general levelheadedness to keep him from panic.
“No, I guess not. If we have to, we can always bingo to Japan. They won’t refuse us landing rights.”
At least right now, they won’t. But there’s no telling, not if we’re outbound from a bombing mission. But Tombstone did not voice the thought and instead agreed, “Yeah, and the United States is in the area as well.”
“There’s the tanker.” Greene said. “One o’clock, low.”
I remember when my eyes were that sharp. “Got him,” Tombstone said, when he finally saw the tiny speck in the air. He corrected his course slightly.
Due to the jamming, the final refueling was conducted without radio communications. Tombstone had practiced the procedure many times before, and the tanker was obviously prepared for them.
“Eight minutes,” Tombstone said. He concentrated his attention ahead of them for the island. If their inertia navigation system was operating correctly, it should be dead ahead.
“They’ve got to know something is happening,” Jason said. “I mean, you don’t get your entire electromagnetic spectrum blanked out for nothing.”
“They might know something, but they won’t be able to find us. Not unless they get real lucky and get a visual. And mind you, I’m not ruling that out — they’ve got to be worried about this operation going down.”
“There it is,” Greene announced, peering around Tombstone’s ejection seat to look out of the windscreen. “I got it.”
“Roger, I got the island.” Tombstone’s radar screen was still a massive static. “Commencing final. Let’s hope those ships haven’t moved.”
He tipped the Tomcat over into a steep dive, and felt the acceleration shove him back into his seat. He tensed his muscles and grunted, performing the M1 maneuver designed to keep blood flowing to the brain during high G-force situations. He could hear Jason’s breathing over the ICS, and knew he was performing the same maneuver. His G-suit automatically inflated as it sensed the increase in G-forces, forcing blood of out of his legs and into his torso. The bands around his arms constricted as well, but any discomfort was quickly washed away by the adrenaline.
“There they are,” Tombstone said, and he made a slight course correction. Ahead of him, just to the right, were three tiny specs of flat gray on the ocean. At altitude, they had appeared to be simply wave tops, but as he descended, their outlines became more and more distinct.
“They’re on-loading!” Jason said. “Look, small boats!”
On closer examination, Tombstone could see the small craft cutting wakes perpendicular to the whitecaps as the landing craft ferried men and equipment from shore to the transports.
“They’re not approaching — the coastline must be too rugged here. Maybe rocks, maybe something else. But you can be damned sure that they know where the good beaches are to the south. They’ll have to, so they can move so fast that the Japanese won’t have a clue what hit them.”
“No fire control radar, Tombstone,” Greene said unhappily. “Big Eye’s cutting it close.”
“He knows the schedule — he’s checking on us,” Tombstone said with more confidence than he felt.
The antiship missiles under his wings were virtually useless without his radar to guide them in on their targets. Oh, sure, he could try a manual line of bearing shot, but the probability of kill went way down.
“Three minutes,” Jason called out.
Now Tombstone could see the activity on the rocky shore. There was a mass of movement, both of troop formations and individuals straggling about singly. Nearest to the beach, there was an orderly queue, as men and equipment waited their turn on the landing craft. Further inland, there was still confusion, as the troops tried to find their proper place in line.