None of them said a word as White strode to the CV-22’s cockpit. Inside were two Air Force pilots, Major Hank Fell and Major Martin J. Watanabe. The black-suited soldiers circled in behind White as he stepped inside the tilt-rotor aircraft and squatted between the two pilots’ seats. The crew engineer and loadmaster, Master Sergeant Mike Brown, left his place at the compartment doors and hurried to join them. The assault team leader, Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Jose Lobato, squatted behind the left-hand copilot’s seat to listen in as well.
“Visit from the boss just before a mission,” Fell quipped as White was about to speak. “Looks serious. Decision time, eh?”
“You got it. Listen up. The same fucking spy ship is still out there, but I think we can radar-shadow you enough to get away clean — we’re at ten miles now, and we’ll probably be right on the edge of his radar horizon by launch time. The problem is in the target area. There’s a chopper circling the pickup point, the same one we’ve seen the past two days.”
“Still just one chopper?” Fell asked. White nodded. “No other activity from Liepaja?”
“Plenty of activity, but nothing associated with the lone chopper or with us — at least I don’t think so,” White replied uneasily. “Radar pictures from two hundred miles away are not enough to accurately estimate enemy movements, but I think they’re still looking for RAGANU. They may be close, but I don’t think they got him. In any case, eyes are in the target area, and maybe eyes on us right now. It’s looking very risky. We have to off-load the MISCO trailers tomorrow morning before we enter Swedish waters or we’ll be in deep shit if we’re caught with them on board.
“My question is, do we go or cancel? The book says cancel.” He paused, gave a sly smile that went unappreciated by the black-suited warriors, then continued: “My gut says we go for it! But since it’s your asses on the firing line, I wanted to hear from you.”
“I need to see the radar plots,” Fell said. A technician came up a few moments later and delivered several large sheets of paper, each with different four-color screen dumps of the digitized radar picture from the AWACS radar plane. Fell examined them briefly, then handed them over to Watanabe, who began correlating the radar targets with his mission chart. “Any idea what aircraft they have at Liepaja other than the patrol and supply choppers?” Fell asked. “Any fixed-wing stuff? Any of the attack planes or helicopters from that squadron in Kaliningrad move north into Latvia?”
“Still the same info,” White replied. “Light-patrol, medium-search and rescue, medium-troop, and heavy-cargo helicopters only.” He referred to the screen dump. “Maybe a twin-engine liaison plane shuttling between Riga, Liepaja, and Vilnius, but no armed fixed-wings from Liepaja East. No apparent increase in numbers which might signify a reinforcement of the garrison already there. Except for that one chopper, it’s business as usual out there. Vainode is a large Soviet fighter base, thirty miles east, but we haven’t seen much activity from there except in daylight hours.”
Fell gave a sarcastic snort. “Yeah, right. Business as usual-meaning ten thousand troops, a spy ship, several gunboats, and thirty choppers within ten miles of the target zone.” Fell looked over at Watanabe. “Got all those targets plotted, Marty?”
“Plotted and laid in the mission computer,” Watanabe replied, handing the printouts to Gunny Lobato for him and his men to peruse. The CV-22’5 advanced AN/AMC-641 computer would warn the crew of any known enemy positions and would use the multimode radar to update that information during the flight; during withdrawal it would plot a best-guess evasion route out of the area and offer suggestions for safe escape-and-evasion routes in case they were shot down. Watanabe looked at his watch. “We need to start pulling out on deck if we want to recover before first light.”
“I take it you vote ‘go,’ “ Fell said dryly. Watanabe nodded and began strapping himself in. Fell turned to Lobato. “Gunny?”
“Walk in the park,” the dark Marine said quietly. “We go.”
“We go, then,” Fell said. “Turn us loose, Colonel.”
“One last sweep of the area and you’re on your way,” White said, stepping out of the CV-22 PAVE HAMMER. “Good hunting, gents. See you in a few.” White stood and watched as the Marine assault team loaded aboard the CV-22, the aft pressure-chamber access doors were opened, and the aircraft was winched out of the chamber onto the helicopter pad. White headed back to the bridge as the CV-22’s on-board auxiliary power system was started.
By the time White made his way back onto the bridge, the CV-22 had begun its transformation from a wadded-up puzzle into a flying machine. The rear-engine nacelle swiveled until it was horizontal, allowing it to clear its stowed position between the twin tail rudders; then the entire wing began to swivel from its stowed position parallel to the fuselage into its normal perpendicular position. As the wing moved into position, the aft-engine nacelle swiveled vertically into position and, like the petals of a rose, the rotors began to unstow themselves on each wingtip nacelle. By the time the wing was in flight position, the rotors were extended to their full thirty-eight-foot diameter and the engines were being started.
“Pre-launch sweep,” White called out to Operations Officer Knowlton.
“In progress, Paul,” Knowlton replied. “Radar reports negative. That Gagarin radar ship is over our horizon at one-five miles — Ladybug needs to stay below one hundred feet and no less than fifteen miles to stay outside of his normal radar horizon.” Knowlton said “normal” because the Gagarin-class ship was reported to have shipborne over-the-horizon radars that they very well could employ. “Data being transmitted to Ladybug — he’ll have it on his tactical computer and should have a course to keep him well out of range. His initial heading should be one-six-zero, no farther east than that. Pre-launch report from PATRIOT coming in now.
The pre-launch radar scan was worse than before: the helicopter was still in the target area, and there were more boats than before along the coastline. “Looks like fishing vessels to me,” White said to Knowlton.
His operations officer gave him a questioning expression — how could White know they were only fishing boats?
“It’s about the right time for them to head out,” White added, as if he had heard Knowlton’s unspoken question. Then again, they might not have been fishing boats — they could have been Soviet patrol boats. But no great numbers of patrol boats had ever been deployed like this before, so either they were indeed just fishermen… or the Soviets somehow knew they were coming.
“Pre-launch from PATRIOT shows clear,” Knowlton reported as a teletype machine on the bridge clattered away. He went to the small repeater scope, which had a smaller version of the Intel section’s digital situation screen. “Can’t tell about those boats — they’re not traveling in much of a straight line, as if they’re on a course to a particular spot. But only a few I can see are coming from the military docks — the rest look like they’re coming from the commercial docks. No aircraft up, except for our friend — but it looks like he might be heading back to base.”
“Must be refueling,” White said. “How long does it take to refuel a helicopter?”
“Not long,” Knowlton replied. “He’ll be up again by the time Ladybug is feet-dry.” He paused, looking at White with growing concern. “But we can’t delay the launch or we’ll run out of daylight.”
“I know, I know,” White exclaimed. “We’re committed. If Fell or PATRIOT sees a problem developing, we’ll wave Ladybug off, and RAGANU will have to go deep into hiding-or make a run for Poland. Jesus, what we need right now is a good thunderstorm to hide in.”