Now all they had to do was slip between some Russian-held islands just beyond the point, and motor about twenty-five miles west to get to the target island. He wasn’t sure how close the whole task force would come to the island.
The radio speaker came to life on the tactical frequency.
“Home Base, this is Red Tomboy.” The voice was Lieutenant Harley “Red” Remington in his F14 Tomcat high overhead. “Home Base here. Go, Tomboy.” It was the CAG speaking
“Guess you’re following our pictures.
Our visitors are still coming in at Mach One from the southwest. Same orders?”
“You’re on a meet-up course with them in about four minutes. Same situation. Two of their planes buzzed that little target town a couple of hours ago.”
“This still a meet-and-greet program?”
“Roger that, Red Tomboy. Unless you can talk Russian.”
“No way, Home Base. We’ll monitor. Out.”
High in the daylight sky, Red Remington switched back to the intercom, and talked with his RIO in the backseat of the Tomcat.
“Pokey, we still got that pair of bandits coming in?”
“Sure as little girls have small tits. Steady and on target. They will just miss the tip of Hokkaido’s Shiretoko Point, so they won’t overfly Japanese territory, and then be a nickel’s worth from Kunashir Island.”
“Where do we meet them assholes?” Remington asked.
“In that little strait between the island and Hokkaido, maybe halfway.”
“You ever seen a couple of hot-loaded Migs up close and personal before, Pokey?”
“Shit, no. Neither have you. These guys could blast us out of the sky.”
“Yeah, and we can return the favor, and they both know it. Watch for any lock-on. He locks his radar on us, we quick do the same and fire first. A fucking radar lock-on is a hostile act, and gives us weapons free. That’s right out of the CAG’s mouth.”
The RIO snorted. “Hell, he ain’t about to lock on. He’s way out here away from his buddies. Two on two, but we might have eight or ten more Cats up here somewhere just waiting.”
Remington checked his instruments, then the heads-up display, and looked out where the Migs should be. Nothing.
“I’ve got them on my screen,” the radar intercept officer said from the backseat. “Had them for a few seconds. Still straight and on course.”
They were quiet for a minute. Red Remington grinned as he pushed the Tomcat through the air at slightly over Mach One. He loved this plane, wouldn’t be doing anything else in the world even if he could.
There was a relationship between the pilot and the aircraft that he couldn’t explain. It was damned near spiritual.
“They both are making their turn, so they’re just past that point, and coming around to a southeast heading,” Remington heard in his headset. “You should have them visually before long.”
Remington scanned the sky ahead the way he had done countless times before. Still nothing. “Altitude? We on the right level here?”
“They could be a hundred feet above or below us,” the RIO said.
“Got them visual at one o’clock,” Red said. “I better check with TFCC.” He switched to tactical, and at once received a call from the ship. “Red Tomboy, you have visual?”
“Just obtained, Home Base. Does he turn or do we?”
“You ever played chicken, Red Tomboy?”
“Not at this speed.” There was a pause. “Oh, yeah, he’s drifting to his left, he’ll overfly the island that way.”
“Get on his starboard wing and stay five hundred feet off and keep with him. Be a good host, and show your visitor around. Take no hostile action unless they lock on. Confirmed?”
“That’s a Roger, Home Base. He’s turning more, and we’re with him.
Six hundred feet, and closing to five hundred. Straight and level.”
Back in the TFCC, Murdock followed the exchange closely. If anything went wrong there would be no need for the third platoon of SEAL Team Seven. He could see the radar tracks as the four planes angled southeast toward the target island.
“I’ll be damned, Captain,” Red Tomboy said. “The near Mig is moving in closer to me. The fucker is fifty feet away. I can see the bastard through the canopy.”
“Stay steady, Red Tomboy. We don’t want to play wing-tickle with him at your speed.”
“I’ll Roger that.”
The air went dead for a few seconds.
“Shit, Captain, he’s motioning me. He’s pointing down with his finger, then he’s waving for me to follow.”
“Pull back, Red Tomboy. Pull back, and let him go down, and follow him. Stay with the two of them.”
“Oh yeah. We will, Home Base.”
Captain Irving Olson, the CAG, watched the images on the radar screen. He was the boss of all the planes on board, a pilot himself who now had trouble getting in enough air time to stay qualified.
“Second contact,” he said to the men in the room. “So far, so good. At least we aren’t shooting at each other. So that’s about it, Admiral. Second contact, no gunplay, follow the leader. My guess is the Migs will buzz the military HQ down there the way the first two did to let that Jap general know they’re still around.”
“Let’s hope that’s all that it is.”
“Yes, Sir, I agree. How about sending a message to the Russian admiral asking him to curtail his overflights until we get this worked out a little better? In another two hours, we’ll have ships around the southern tip of the island where that little town is. We don’t want some trigger-happy sky jockey to start shooting up there.”
“I hope the message to Admiral Rostow covered that, Captain.”
“It didn’t specifically mention aircraft, but I guess the same message would apply. We’ll just wait and see what happens.”
They watched the four blips on the screen approach, then pass over the small town on Kunashir Island, then curl around and climb away.
“Home Base, looks like the guest shot is over. The Ruskie guy came up close and waved good-bye. Then they both kicked in their afterburners, and ripped back the way they had come.”
“We copy that, Red Tomboy. You need a drink?”
“Getting under half a tank. Probably should send us some juice or get us back home.”
“We’ll send out a tanker. Resume your station over the south end of the island.”
“That’s a Roger, Sir.”
The CAG was just ready to reach for the phone when it buzzed. He picked it up.
“Yes, sir,” he listened. “Holy shit. Confirmed?”
He pushed the ship’s telephone tight to his ear.
“Yes, right away.” He passed the phone to Admiral Kenner, who listened, then hung up.
“Gentlemen, we’re in a state of alert. We have unconfirmed but substantial reports of a Russian OSCAR, an attack sub, in the vicinity.
He’s been shadowing us for two days as near as the ASW people can figure. They weren’t sure what it was. He’s been playing up and down in the thermal layer and staying just far enough out of range, but today the layer double-crossed him and one of our 3-SBs with a MAD boom that trails fifteen feet in back of the plane got a good fix on him.”
The 3-SB is a Lockheed antisubmarine-warfare plane originally built during the Cold War as a submarine hunter/ killer. It was upgraded to its “B” classification early in the 1980’s. In addition to its acoustic ability, it’s a superb surface surveillance and command control platform.
It’s armed with APS-137 ISAR radar, and Forward Looking Infrared Radar. It can carry Harpoon antiship missiles, MK-46 torpedoes, and sixty sonobuoys. The plane has a sophisticated acoustic sensor suite monitoring any sonobuoys it drops, and uses the Magnetic Anomaly Detector.