Aboard the Bear the warnings came back to back, first surface-to-air missile alarm, then an air-intercept radar-and then the radar operator acquired the convoy.
"Many ships to the northwest." The radar operator passed the information to the navigator, who worked out a position report for the Backfires. The Bear shut down her radar and dove while the communications officer broadcast his sighting report. And then everyone's radars lit up.
USS REUBEN JAMES
"There are the Backfires," the tactical action officer said as the symbols appeared on the scope. "Bearing zero-four-one, range one hundred eighty miles."
On the bridge the executive officer was as nervous as he would ever get. In addition to the inbound bomber raid, he was now conning his ship exactly fifty feet from the side of HMS Battleaxe The ships were so close together that on a radarscope they'd appear as a single target. Five miles away, O'Malley and the helicopter from Battleaxe were also flying close formation over the ocean at twenty knots. Each had its blip-enhance transponder turned on. Ordinarily too small to register on this sort of radar, the helicopters would now appear to be a ship, something worthy of a missile attack.
The air action now had all the elegance of a saloon fight. The Tomcats on combat air patrol near the convoy flew toward the three Bears, the first of which already had a missile streaking toward it. The other two had not yet detected the convoy, and never would, as they ran due east to get away. It was a vain attempt. Propeller-driven patrol bombers cannot run from supersonic fighters.
Gull Two died first. The pilot managed to get his contact report out and acknowledged before a pair of Sparrow missiles exploded close aboard, setting his wing afire. He ordered his men to bail out, kept the aircraft level so they could, and a minute later struggled out of his seat and jumped through the escape hatch in the floor. The Bear exploded five seconds after he opened his parachute. As the pilot watched his aircraft fireball into the sea, he wondered if he'd drown.
Above him a squadron of Tomcats headed toward the Backfires, and the race was to see who got into missile-firing position first. The Soviet bombers climbed steeply on afterburner, activating their own look-down radars to find targets for their missiles. Their orders were to locate and kill escorts, and they found what they were looking for thirty miles from the body of the convoy: two blips. The large blip in the rear drew six shots. The smaller one five miles away drew four.
STORNOWAY, SCOTLAND
"We have a multi-regiment Backfire raid in progress now at forty-five degrees north, forty-nine west." Toland held the Red Rocket telex in his hand.
"What does COMEASTLANT have to say about it?"
"He's probably going over this one now. You ready?" he asked the fighter pilot.
"Damned right I'm ready!"
The teleprinter in the corner of the room started chattering: INDICATE OPERATION DOOLITTLE.
"Vampire, vampire! We have incoming missiles."
Here we go again, Morris thought. The tactical display was more modern than what he'd had on Pharris-each of the incoming missiles was marked with a velocity vector that indicated speed and direction. They were coming in low.
Morris lifted his phone. "Bridge, Combat. Execute separation maneuver."
"Bridge, aye. Separating now," Ernst said. "Crash stop! All back emergency!"
The helmsman pulled the throttle control back, then abruptly reversed the pitch of the propeller blades, throwing the ship from ahead to full astern. Reuben James slowed so rapidly that men had to brace themselves, and Battleaxe forged ahead, accelerating to twenty-five knots. As soon as it was safe, the British frigate turned hard to port, and Reuben James went to ahead full and turned sharply to starboard.
Any Soviet radar operator who had lingered behind would have been impressed by the deception. The oncoming AS-4 missiles had been targeted on a single blip. Now there were two, and they were separating. The missiles divided their attention evenly, with three opting for either target.
Morris watched his display intently. The distance between his ship and his companion was widening rapidly.
"Missiles are tracking us!" the ESM operator said loudly. "We have multiple missile seeker heads tracking us."
"Right full rudder, reverse course. Fire off chaff rockets!"
Everyone in the Combat Information Center jumped as four canisters exploded directly overhead, filling the air with aluminum foil and creating a radar target for the missiles to track while the frigate heeled violently to port as she turned. Her forward missile launcher turned around with her, a SAM already assigned to the first incoming Russian missile. The frigate righted herself on a northerly course, three miles behind Battleaxe.
"Here we go," the weapons officer said. The solution light blinked on the firecontrol console.
The first of the white-painted SMI missiles shot into the sky. It had scarcely cleared the launch rail when the launcher twisted in two dimensions and accepted another missile from the circular magazine, then turned and elevated again, firing seven seconds after the first missile was launched, then repeated the cycle twice more.
"That's it!" O'Malley said when he saw the first smoke trail. He punched his finger on the blip-enhance button. "Hatchet, shut down your emitter and break left!" Both helicopters went to full power and ran away. Four missiles suddenly had no targets. They kept heading west to look for more, but there were none to be found.
"More chaff," Morris ordered, watching the electronic traces of friendly and unfriendly missiles converge. The CIC shook again as another cloud of aluminum blasted into the air, and the wind carried it toward the incoming missiles.
"We still have missiles tracking us!"
"Hit!" the weapons officer exclaimed. The first missile disappeared from the scope, intercepted sixteen miles out, but the second Soviet missile kept coming. The first SAM sent after it missed, exploding harmlessly behind it, and then the second one missed, too. Another SAM was fired. Range was down to six miles. Five. Four. Three.
"Hit! One missile left-veering off. Going after the chaff! Passing aft!"
The missile struck the water two thousand yards from Reuben James Even at that distance the noise was impressive. It was followed by total silence in the CIC. Men kept staring at their instruments, looking for additional missiles, and it took several seconds before they were satisfied that there were no more. One by one the sailors looked at their comrades and began to breathe again.
"What modern combat lacks in humanity," Calloway observed, "it more than makes up for in intensity."
Morris leaned back in his chair. "Or something like that. What's the story on Battleaxe?"
"Still on radar, sir," the tactical action officer replied. Morris lifted the radiotelephone.
"Bravo, this is Romeo. Do you read, over."
"I do believe we're still alive." Perrin was examining his tactical display and shaking his head in amazement.
"Any damage?"
"None. Hatchet is checking in. He's all right, too. Remarkable," Captain Perrin said. "Any further inbound traffic? We show none."