“Wait a minute,” Robert said, his voice rising, “that means my son wouldn’t make it back to the present.”
Prentice waved his arms. “Let’s not go crazy here. Nobody’s going to shoot anything down in 1945. Let’s just wait this out. Somebody go get us some coffee. Strong coffee!”
JAPAN
Les saw that the vapor trails he had seen earlier were gone. He glanced over his shoulder at Tiger in his F-18. They thumbed each other. Les then punched through the radio frequencies one at a time and was not surprised to hear a Japanese-language controller on one of the channels. Was he alerting fighters? Les had to think differently now. The Japanese were the enemy. Remember Pearl Harbor. He, Tiger, and the Mary Jane were all now in 1945. Son of a bitch, it worked.
Les shot a look over his wing and recognized Ise Bay from his 1990 days while stationed in Japan. Unmistakable shape to it. Kyoto was coming up. The target. He pressed the proper buttons on the right DDI to bring up the Track While Scan mode to search for enemy fighters. He selected a twenty-mile range and watched the screen. Then he changed back to the radio fighter frequency.
“ZULU TWO-FOUR-FOUR.”
Tiger answered with a quick, “ROGER.”
“DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE ARE, TIGER?”
“I’M WITH YUH. BUT I DON’T BELIEVE IT.”
“STAY CLOSE. KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR RADAR. TWENTY-MILE RANGE. ANYTHING IS TO BE TREATED AS HOSTILE.”
“ROGER.”
Suddenly, a large, single blip appeared on Les’s screen. More than ten miles. No visual. By its shape and size, he guessed it meant that several Japanese fighters were flying in close formation and showing up as one.
“I THINK WE GOT A BUNCHER, HULK.”
“MY GUESS, TOO. LET’S SEPARATE ’EM.”
“ROGER.”
Les switched to the Raid Assessment mode. It was all laid out for him. His airborne Doppler beam radar separated four individual targets. According to the system, the targets were now splitting up into battle formation pairs at ten miles out and coming head on, twelve o’clock, still unseen by the naked eye.
This was too easy, Les thought. Air chivalry was a myth and he knew it. Air combat always and always will be an I’ll get you before you get me approach, with the spoils going to the one who destroys the enemy before he himself is often even seen. The bravest or the strongest don’t necessarily win. Just the smartest.
“ZULU TWO-FOUR-THREE TO ZULU TWO-FOUR-FOUR. THE TWO ON THE RIGHT ARE YOURS.”
“ROGER. EASY MEAT.”
Les let the Fly-by-Wire computer kick in. He no longer had to control the actual flight of the Hornet using stick and rudders. The FBW allowed Les to be free of any distractions and to concentrate on the targets. With one touch of his thumb on the stick, he adjusted the weapon select switch down. Two AIM-7 Sparrow missiles were ready for launching. The right DDI and HUD now displayed the Sparrow mode. The computer sorted through the targets. Les only had to pick and choose. Two left. With the stick, he lined up the pointer on the left radar dots one at a time. He had lock-on. With his forefinger, he fired the first radar-guided missile.
“FOX ONE,” he announced to Tiger, signifying that a radar-guided Sparrow was launched. Then the second missile. Fox Two. In his headphones, he heard Tiger give the verbal signals for his own launches.
MARY JANE
Paul Lunsford, in his bombardier nose position, saw four fiery trails speeding towards a line of clouds.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” he screamed into the intercom. “COMMANDER, DID YOU SEE THAT?”
“I SAW IT!”
“WHAT ARE THEY?”
“ROCKETS. I DON’T KNOW.”
“WAIT, THERE’S FOUR BOGIES. SPREAD OUT. TWELVE O’CLOCK. LOOKIT THOSE ROCKETS MOVE!”
In seconds, all four targets exploded, one after another, the burning debris plummeting towards the water of Ise Bay.
Inside the cockpit, Clayton and Loran exchanged shocked stares, too stunned to speak. Lunsford did that for them.
“DID YOU SEE THAT! SON-OF-A-BITCH! OUR LITTLE FRIENDS DIDN’T HAVE TO MOVE. THEY FIRED THOSE ROCKETS AND SHOT DOWN FOUR BOGIES. HELL, I’M GLAD THESE GUYS ARE ON MY SIDE.”
Ainsworth saw Les’s F-18 through the navigator’s window. He was confused. Fighters weren’t supposed to escort Mary Jane over Japan. This wasn’t part of the mission. They were getting in the way. Who were these fellahs with the twin-engined fighter planes with no props and weaponry so advanced that they could knock aircraft out of the sky before the pilots could even see them?
“NAVIGATOR TO COMMANDER.”
Ainsworth turned to Dwight Marshall, who had called up Clayton on the intercom.
“I HEAR YOU, NAVIGATOR.”
“ALTER COURSE TO THREE-ONE-ONE ON MY SIGNAL, COMMANDER.”
This was Ainsworth’s cue. The turning point at Ise Bay. Never mind the fighters. He nervously felt for his pistol beneath his Mae West and flight gear and took a few steps towards the cockpit, only a few feet away. He stopped directly behind Clayton just as Marshall gave the signal for the turning point at the very end of Ise Bay.
“IT’S COMING. HOLD ON. HERE WE ARE. ALTER COURSE TO THREE-ONE-ONE, COMMANDER.”
“TURNING THREE-ONE-ONE.”
Before Clayton could bank the Mary Jane to port, Ainsworth yanked the gun from beneath his flight gear and shoved the barrel against the back of Clayton’s neck. The commander tried to pivot his head and look behind him, but Ainsworth pressed the barrel harder.
“Don’t turn around!”
“Ainsworth, what yuh doing?”
“Shut up, and listen to me.” Ainsworth stepped back so that he could see Loran, Clayton, and the others in the next compartment through the bulkhead opening. “Forget that heading, commander.”
“Why?”
“We’re not going to Kyoto. You have a new compass heading. Three-three-six.”
“I hope this is a joke.”
“It’s no joke. Start turning to three-three-six. NOW!” Ainsworth stuck the gun even deeper into Clayton’s skin.
“Take it easy!”
“Turn!”
The commander banked the bomber onto the new heading and leveled off, then asked, “Where we going?”
Ainsworth grinned. “Vladivostok,” he replied, hoarsely. “That’s in the Soviet Union, in case you don’t know.”
“That’s at least six hundred miles away!”
“Three hours and we’ll be there.”
Clayton grunted. “You’re a Russian agent, aren’t you. I suppose your real name isn’t Ainsworth?”
“That’s right. I am Russian,” Ainsworth replied with a Russian accent for the first time. “My real name is of no concern to you. Just fly. My country wants this bomb.”
“Why?”
“Why? Are you crazy? We can rule the world with it.”
Clayton glanced over at Loran. Both seemed calm.
“One bomb can’t rule the world, Ainsworth. We’ve got more.”
“No, you don’t, commander. I know the Manhattan Project inside and out. I infiltrated it, along with a few others. You Americans won’t have another atomic bomb ready for at least six months, maybe a year.”
“What if we refuse to fly this bird to Russia?”
“I can fly it myself. I can easily deal with both of you and take this ship and fly it to the Soviet Union.” Ainsworth glanced over his shoulder. Neither Emerson, Marshall, or Brown had made a move.
“Then why don’t you?” Clayton said. “I don’t think you’ve ever flown in your life.”
“Shut up! Any wrong move and you get it in the back of the head.”