He moved his trembling hand back to the throttle and said a small prayer.
Please, Lord, please don’t let me fuck this up.
“Two zero one, Tiger, single group hostile.”
It was yet another not-so-subtle reminder that he had a job to do and to stop hesitating when it mattered most. Without another thought, he squeezed the trigger and held it firmly until the first of his four AIM-120D AMRAAMs dropped away from his weapons rack. Its rocket motor ignited almost immediately and raced forward, leaving a mesmerizing, brilliant trail in its wake.
He tapped the button to switch targets to the second Flanker and repeated the process. He squeezed the trigger until his second missile dropped free and raced off into the night. “Two zero one, Fox Three, two ship, single group.”
The missiles — as bright as they were initially — disappeared quickly as they accelerated to Mach 4 on their way to the Chinese fighters. Colt banked his jet and looked through the NVCD at the computer-generated diamond representing the Flankers’ location. A dim blossom of light flared briefly inside the diamond, then faded to black. At first, Colt thought his first missile had impacted, but a quick glance to his radar display showed that he still had at least thirty seconds until it reached the target.
Then it dawned on him.
“Tiger, two zero one, single group just fired on the friendly.”
The reply was a curt, “Tiger.”
There was nothing left to do but continue tracking the fighters and hope his missiles reached their targets first. If the Chinese had fired a semi-active radar-guided missile, it would go stupid the minute the host aircraft blew up, courtesy of the AMRAAM’s forty-pound high-explosive blast fragmentation warhead.
But an active missile would continue to guide on the friendly helicopter autonomously, no matter what happened to the Chinese Flanker.
Let’s hope it’s not active.
Charlie clutched the helicopter’s controls with a fear-induced, white-knuckled grip. He focused on what he could see of the horizon — which wasn’t much — and aggressively banked the helicopter and climbed to the right, before reversing direction and descending back to the left.
For a helicopter not designed for high-performance maneuvers, his experience shone as they executed a modified weave designed to defeat the air intercept radars that remained stubbornly locked onto them.
“Still locked on,” Roger shouted over the straining turbine engines.
Charlie ignored him and poured all his focus into maneuvering the lumbering helicopter as best as he could to defeat the missile without inadvertently flying them into the water. His focus was broken only momentarily by a blinking light appearing on the horizon.
“Passu Keah’s in sight,” Charlie muttered, before glancing down at his engine instruments to make sure he wasn’t pushing the helicopter beyond its limits.
“Dusty One has FARP Alpha in sight,” Roger said over the SATCOM channel.
“Scar Nine Nine.”
Beads of sweat ran down Charlie’s face and dropped from his eyebrows into his eyes, which he quickly blinked away. He couldn’t take his hands off the controls to wipe at the sweat and hoped that the downward force of the Gs would draw it down his cheeks and keep his vision unobstructed. This was not the time to go blind.
“Fifty feet,” Roger said, providing a quick warning that they were extremely low over the water.
Instead of replying, Charlie abruptly rolled the helicopter to the other side and brought their rotor blades perilously close to the water before beginning a climb.
Suddenly, the radar warning receiver went silent. Charlie continued his frantic maneuvers without acknowledging that the alarm had stopped blaring its tinny warning in the cramped cockpit.
“Charlie,” Roger said calmly, his eyes still fixed on the rapidly changing needles on the vertical speed and altitude indicators.
Charlie ignored him.
“Charlie.” Roger reached across the cockpit and placed a relaxed hand on his tense forearm. “We broke the lock.”
He completed one more iteration of the weave maneuver before his muscles relaxed, and he allowed the helicopter’s nose to track toward the flashing infrared beacon on the horizon. His chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, but as his heart dipped back to normal, his breathing slowed. “Thanks,” he whispered.
If there had been any lighting in the cockpit, Charlie was certain Roger would have seen his pallid color and known how close they had come to flying into the drink. He had been in some harrowing situations before, but this was the first time he could recall when he thought they wouldn’t survive. He glanced over at the screen in Roger’s lap and saw the icon for their pursuer turned and pointed at the Reagan’s Super Hornets.
Thank God those guys came along when they did.
Dave’s shadowy figure appeared once more through the cockpit door. “What the fuck was that?”
Charlie glanced over at Roger, whose expression said everything. The two began laughing almost uncontrollably, earning a disgusted grunt from the bearded SEAL, who retreated once more to the interior of the helicopter. The two pilots continued laughing and released their pent-up tension as they prepared themselves for the rest of the mission.
“Scar Nine Nine, Dusty One is five miles out,” Roger said over the SATCOM channel.
“Status?”
“We were fired on but avoided the missile. Thank the Navy for us.” Roger ended the transmission and focused his attention through the windscreen as they neared the tiny atoll. The dim IR chem lights the Marines had placed to mark the landing zone were just becoming visible.
“LZ in sight,” Roger said over the intercom.
“Copy,” Charlie replied, and wiped the remnants of sweat away from his face to clear his vision for the landing. Even though he felt relief they had evaded the missile, he knew they could just as easily crash on the atoll if he misjudged the approach. There was no room for error when flying over the water in the middle of the night.
“Winds are calm. Recommend we approach from the west,” Roger said.
“Concur.”
As they approached the atoll, Charlie slowed their forward movement west of the landing zone and side-stepped to the small bluff, as if he was making a landing on a ship at night. However, unlike on a ship, he didn’t have the lighted wands of an LSE guiding him, and he did his best to judge their movement through the side window. His thousands of hours were obvious as he expertly slid over the clearing and descended slowly to the earth.
“Ten feet,” Roger said as they continued downward. “Five… four… three…”
Charlie lowered the collective and settled the Russian helicopter softly onto the ground and held it there while hacking an internal clock. Dave and his SEALs jumped from the side doors and scrambled to connect the fueling hose from the bladder to the Hip.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Charlie said to himself.
Colt’s fingers were sweating as he gripped the controls and continued flying straight at the Flankers. Part of him was tempted to fire another missile, but he knew it would be wasted if the first two reached their targets. Instead, he selected the AIM-9X Sidewinder heat-seeking missile and prepared himself to take follow-on shots if the Chinese fighters survived the initial salvo.
“Tiger, two zero four, angels twenty, picture.”
Despite feeling as if he had a handle on the tactical situation, Colt was happy to hear another alert pilot’s voice on the radio. He glanced at his Situational Awareness display and saw his position broadcast over datalink, ten miles in trail and closing rapidly.