Dog immediately began to level off and nudge toward the contact. Delaford, monitoring the feeds on his equipment downstairs, couldn’t find anything. Dog swung Iowa around, holding the Megafortress on her wing, and cruised over the coordinates at about a thousand feet.
“If there was something there, it’s gone now,” said Delaford finally. “I don’t think we should launch Piranha until we have something more definite.”
“I concur,” said Rosen.
“All right. Let’s give Shark Ears this point as a reference,” said Dog. “In the meantime, let’s go tank.”
As they started to climb once again, the two Chinese fighters flying over the nearest aircraft carriers changed their course.
“Looks like we’ve finally aroused some curiosity,” said Rosen. “Their new course will put them in visual range in eight minutes.”
There was no pressing need to refuel, so Dog decided not to lead the fighters out to the tanker. He told Rosen to cancel the rendezvous for now, and resumed what was essentially a holding pattern just over the worst of the storm. Big fists of gray clouds ran north west by south east for as long as the eye could see; a light haze sat to the northeast of the front, a dark blanket to the southwest where the storm was coming from.
The Chinese planes weren’t moving particularly fast, an indication they weren’t intending hostile action, though there were no guarantees. Rosen tried hailing them at twenty miles, but to no one’s surprise, the Chinese pilots did not respond. A second two-ship of Sukhois was also heading out, a few minutes behind the first. Their carriers were just a little ahead of the storm, and it occurred to Dog the Sukhois wouldn’t be able to spend all that much time with them if they didn’t want to land in the teeth of the heavy weather.
The enhanced optical feed from the Megafortress’s chin camera caught the lead Sukhoi at ten miles. The computer ID’d the missiles under its wings as R-73s, known to NATO as Archers. They were heat-seekers with excellent off-boresight capability, at least, in theory, better than all but the latest-model Sidewinders at sniffing out heat sources. They could be launched from any angle, including head-on.
Which was pretty much were they were now.
“Six miles and closing,” said Rosen. “Man, it pees me off they won’t answer our hails. I’ve been practicing my Chinese and everything.”
“Just keep tracking,” Dog told him.
The two lead Chinese fighters broke to Iowa’s right about a mile ahead of them, turning in a wide circle. Not coincidentally, the move put them in an excellent position to close and then fire their heat-seekers, though they made no obvious move to do so.
“Computer thinks the second group of Sukhois is packing Exocets,” said Rosen, referring to the second flight of Sukhois. “Optical IDs are not perfect.”
“Could be they’re hoping we have a line on the Indian sub,” said Dog. He kept Iowa steady as the second group of planes abruptly tipped their wings and shot downward toward the water. The nearest civilian ship was about two miles behind them; the Chinese fighters showed no interest in the tanker.
“What do we do if they sink him?” Rosen asked.
“I guess we take notes,” said Dog. “Delaford, how good are Exocets against submarines?”
“I’d say next to useless, unless something keeps the sub on the surface for an extended period. You saw what happened the other day,” said the Navy commander. “The helicopters are what they’d really want out here, but we’re too far from the carrier group for them to operate comfortably. It’s just not in their normal doctrine.”
“Then why did they blow it the other day?” Dog asked.
“Well, they probably had the planes in the air, just like now, and decided to take their best shot. My guess now is they were planning to land soon anyway, they saw us dip down like we found something, so they decided to come out and see what’s up. We’re close to a hundred miles from the carrier, which is beyond the range of conventional submarine torpedoes. So, this far from the carrier, a submarine ordinarily wouldn’t be a threat, unless it was one of ours or maybe a Russian. See, that’s why Kali is so significant; it changes the equation for them.”
“Hey, I have a question,” said Rosen. “Why didn’t the Chinese submarine take out the Indian sub the other day?”
“Assuming it didn’t,” said Delaford, “since we don’t really know what happened under the water, my bet is that it was returning from the Indian Ocean and had fired all of its torpedoes earlier. Three ships sank out there last week.”
“So why didn’t the Indian sub fire at the Chinese?” asked Dog.
“Again, we’re assuming they didn’t,” said Delaford. “We don’t know what happened under the water later. But given that, my guess is the sub wasn’t a big enough target. They’d want the carrier. Or their orders didn’t call for firing on a combat vessel unless they were specifically attacked. They hadn’t fired on one.”
“Still haven’t,” said Dog.
“Right.”
“Our Orion ASW plane is twenty minutes away,” said Rosen. “Tomcats are reporting they have Sukhois on their scopes at long range.”
“Quite a party,” said Delaford.
“Lay it out for them,” Dog said. before Rosen finished, however, the Sukhois had changed course to return to their carrier.
Iowa directed the Navy sub hunter to the spot were they’d had the tentative contact. Twenty minutes later, Shark Ears reported a contact.
There was only one problem—it was a Russian sub.
“They know this guy,” Delaford reported. “It’s a Victor III. May just be keeping tabs on things, or not.”