Suddenly, it happened. The feeling. His sixth sense that told him that trouble — usually trouble on wings — was nearby. He hadn't felt it this intensely in a long time. Now, his body was ringing with it.
He checked his instruments. He was over Seward's Peninsula, about 100 miles north of Nome, Alaska. Below him were banks of frozen clouds. He knew an arctic storm was brewing, but the inhospitable conditions made no difference — something was down there. He put the U-2 into a dive to get a closer look.
The airplane bumped and bucked as he passed through the turbulent cloud cover.
Snow started to swirl around him and accumulate on his cockpit windshield as he lowered his air speed. Suddenly a trio of flat panel warning lights buzzed and flashed in succession on his control board. His heat-sensitive infra-red camera sensors were confirming his sixth sense. They had detected telltale signs of heat — a lot of it — somewhere on the ground below.
Another pilot might have just set the cameras rolling and passed over the area at a safe height, waiting until he got back to base to check the "heat" film and see what it revealed. Not Hunter. He instructed the flight computer to take the craft to the source of the heat.
The U-2 was being buffeted by very high winds and the snow made visibility close to zero. Once he got to a reasonably low altitude, Hunter switched on his ground radar and waited for an image to appear on the screen. Slowly, the hazy forms of the ground contours materialized. He was about a half mile above a valley that was surrounded by mountains on three sides. The sensors indicated the heat source was located at the southern end of the valley.
He finally broke through the cloud cover only to find he was still flying blind. A blizzard was raging through the valley, and it was all he could do to keep the aircraft level. He slowed his airspeed down to almost a crawl. His visibility was now absolutely zero. He was flying on instruments and instincts.
He switched on his TV "heat screen," the read-out from his special video camera. At the end of the white fuzzy patterns of the valley walls, he could see a large red form indicating heat. What the hell could possibly be giving it off? There certainly couldn't be any people or settlements surviving in this frigid wilderness.
Unless…
It was now straight ahead of him. He brought the plane down even lower — to 500 feet. The mysterious source of heat would soon be just below him. He dropped to 200 feet — near suicidal for a pilot of lesser caliber in the blizzard winds — but fairly routine for him.
"5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Now!"
He flipped on the infra-red/heat sensitive camera and watched as the image below him materialized on the cockpit TV screen. He knew that whatever it was, the camera would also record it on the airplane's internal videotaping system.
Slowly the image took form…
"Jesus Christ!" he yelled. He couldn't believe it. The images were fuzzy and unfocused, but unmistakable. Up ahead — lined up in two neat rows — were no less than 50 jet fighters! Their engines were on, to keep them from freezing, creating ghostly auras around each one. Even though he was at 200 feet, he sank even lower, dispatching his landing gear to get his speed down to a crawl. All the time the special camera whirred.
As he drew closer, he saw the images of more than just jets. There were also heat outlines of buildings — igloo-type affairs scattered about near the fighters, plus a radar dish and antenna. He could even see a few human forms moving in the blizzard around the jets.
Even though his camera was picking up everything, he had to try and get a visual sighting on one of the airplanes. He had to find out who owned these airplanes. Still being banged around by the blizzard winds, he dropped down even lower, and tipped the jet to its port side. Through a freakish break on the gale-force snowstorm, he was able to catch a split second glimpse of one of the jets. Then, in an instant, the "hole" in the storm was gone and he was flying blind once again.
Suddenly a buzzer sounded in the U-2's cockpit. Two bright red lights started to blink on the flat panel control board. He didn't have to look at the controls to know what all the commotion was about. Someone down below with their finger on the launch button of a SAM had acquired a radar lock on him.
Within seconds the buzzing noise switched to a continuous alarm sound. The light stopped flashing and stayed on, burning even brighter red. The missile had been launched and was zeroing in on him.
No matter. He had enough in the camera anyway; it was time to leave. All in one motion he flicked the landing gear up, pointing the U-2's nose skyward and booted in the airplane's afterburner. The airplane seemed to hang suspended in the air for a moment. Then a great burst of energetic fire shot out of the rear. In a split second, the U-2 was gone. The missile tried to keep up but it was too much. It ran out of fuel and crashed into a snow-covered mountain four miles away.
Hunter headed south, his throttle open on "full military" power the whole way.
The missile fired at him confirmed it; those were not "friendlies" down there.
He had to get back to his base, organize an air strike and return as quickly as possible.
What he had just barely seen was unbelievable but unmistakable. He was soon 20, 30, 40 miles away, but the image was still burned onto his retinas and in his brain. He had only seen the jet for a split-second, not nearly long enough for him to ID its type. But emblazoned on the side of that one jet was an emblem. A red star with a yellow border. The insignia of the Soviet Union. The Pacific American Air Corps had a bunch of Russian jet fighters right in their backyard.
But not for long…
Chapter Two
One hour and 20 minutes later, Hunter was leading a strike force comprised of eight PAAC aircraft back to the site of the Soviet base.
He had had no time to explain; no time to review the infra-red tape in the U-2's cameras. He had kept strict radio silence all the way back to the base, but once he landed, he virtually leaped out of the U-2 and into his F-16. He called to the two "scramble" jets — aircraft that were always armed and warmed up and ready to go at a moment's notice — to get airborne, while at the same time, sounding a red alert at the base.
Within minutes, five more airplanes were gassed, armed and taxiing for take-off. Hunter allowed himself a tinge of pride at the speed and professionalism of it all, though it wasn't all that surprising. The majority of PAAC pilots were, like him, veterans of the old ZAP…
The strike force was made up of a potpourt of aircraft. The two scramble jets were A-7 "Strikefighters" bulging at the wings with napalm cannisters. There were also three T-38s, converted training jets that he knew were carrying four 1000 pound bombs each. Two A-10 "Thunderbolts" were also along for the ride.
They too were carrying napalm, and each plane had two Vulcan cannons in its snout. Hunter's famous souped-up F-16 — the highest performance jet — was carrying its standard "six-pack" of Vulcan cannons, plus a ordnance dispenser attached to its belly. This device would drop up to 800 "bomblets" on the base — small hand-sized explosive charges that were well suited to destroying parked aircraft and landing zones.
Hunter swung his F-16 in and out of the formation, checking with each airplane's pilot that their craft were ready for action. He then checked his own instruments. He was within 10 miles of the location of the base. The snow was still falling but it had let up slightly. He knew that whoever was at the base would probably be expecting some kind of an attack, especially after they had taken a shot at the U-2. He had to be prepared to see a few of the Soviet jets airborne, flying protection over the base, that is, if they were able to take off in this weather. Luckily both his F-16 and the A-7 Strikefighters were carrying Sidewinder air-to-air missiles.