Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (69 page)

 
          
Salazar
glanced down at the far end of the runway. Two of the Cuchillo’s four
Mikoyan-Gurevich-21 “Fishbed” fighters were taxiing out of their
semi-underground concrete shelters and racing down the alert taxiw'ay toward
the runway. Part of any base-wide emergency was the launch of Verrette’s tiny
alert force of late-model Soviet MiG-21 and French Dassault-Breguet Mirage F1C
fighters, as well as turboprop Argentinian FMA Pucara and jet-powered Aero L-39
Albatros bombers to help repel invasion; as necessary, the Cuchillos’ fleet of
transports and civil aircraft would be evacuated as soon as possible.

 
          
Salazar
keyed the microphone button on his walkie-talkie. “All units, hold your
positions. Repeat, hold your positions.”

 
          
Field
Captain Hermosa came running up to Salazar’s Jeep a few moments later. “This
guy appears to be putting on an air show,” Salazar said. “Why? Who is he?” He
turned and looked at Hermosa, who was breathing heavily from his running.
“Where have
you
been, Hermosa?
Hiding?”

 
          
“No,
sir. I have contacted the Cuban Air Force district headquarters at Camaguey,
your old unit ...” Salazar gave him an evil glare when Hermosa mentioned
Camaguey, the location of the unit that in effect sold him out to the
government because of his smuggling activities. Hermosa swallowed, then
continued: “They will not confirm or deny the activities of any Sukhoi-27
fighters operating from there.”

 
          
“The
standard response,” Salazar said. “But you should have gotten that information
out of them. Did you say who you were, that you were calling in my behalf?”

 
          
“I
believe they are as confused about this as are we, sir.”

 
          
Salazar
gave Hermosa a disdainful wave and continued to watch the Russian fighter. It
had obviously spotted the MiG-2 Is at the end of the runway and had probably
seen the other aircraft hidden in bluffs and bunkers all across the field; it
had also stopped its airshow and was flying parallel to the main runway,
maintaining a safe distance. He set the channel-select thumbwheels on his walkie-talkie
at 121.5, the international VHF emergency frequency, and keyed the mike:
“Unknown Sukhoi aircraft over the town of
Verrettes
,” he said in Spanish, “you are ordered to
identify yourself. Over.”

 
          
“Kto tahm?”
came the reply on the radio.
The voice was young, energetic, and spoke Russian.
“Shto ehtah znahchyetP”

 
          
“Unknown
Sukhoi, speak Spanish if you can.” He rubbed his forehead, trying to remember
some of the Russian he had learned ten years earlier during his training in the
Allied Air Training Command Center in
Moscow
.
“Vi
gahvahreye pah espahnske? Ahngleyske?”
“I speak Spanish,” the young voice
replied in hesitant, heavily accented Spanish.

 
          
“This
is Colonel Agusto Salazar, commander of the airfield you are orbiting. Identify
yourself and declare your intentions.”

 
          
There
was a long pause, then in English: “I speak English better than Spanish. Please
repeat.”

 
          
Salazar
shook his head in exasperation. In English he said, “You fool, do you
understand me now?”

 
          
“Yes,
I understand you.” The Sukhoi pilot’s English was excellent, almost without an
accent. “Nice place you have down there. Are those MiGs all yours, or are you
renting them by the hour?”

 
          
“Do
not mock me. This is Colonel of Aviation Agusto Salazar, commander of the base
you are orbiting. You have violated sovereign airspace. We are authorized to
lire on all aircraft without warning. State your home base, intentions and
armament, or depart this area immediately ...”

 
          
The
man in the rear cockpit of the Sukhoi-27 Flanker fighter was typing on a small
ten-by-four-inch keyboard with an eight-line LED readout. His compact, husky
frame seemed almost too big for the tiny aft cockpit, which had originally been
designed as a two-seat trainer; this model, however, had almost all of the
flight and power controls removed from the rear and was used simply as a way to
bring a crew chief on long deployments, along with a little baggage and a few
toolkits.

 
          
Instead
of baggage, however, this aft cockpit was packed with specialized radio gear
and photographic equipment, including a satellite transceiver that could send
video images as well as data from the keyboard. Pictures were taken with a
digital-imaging camera, a unit that saved images on a computer disk instead of
on photographic film. The computer disk was then inserted into the satellite
transmitter, which would send the digital information via UHF radio to a
military geostationary satellite twenty-two thousand miles away in space. The
satellite would then relay the information to earth-station receivers, where
the data was decoded and reassembled on computer monitors to be studied and
analyzed. The crew on the Sukhoi fighter had already sent dozens of pictures
back to their home base.

 
          
“Salazar
... Salazar . .. never heard of him. I don’t remember him mentioned as
commander of any Haitian military units in any of our situation briefings.”
U.S. Air Force Major Patrick McLanahan finished typing in the information on
Salazar, along with a few other observations on the MiG-21s and other aircraft
at Verrettes. “Ring a bell with you, Lieutenant Powell?”

 
          
“Nope,”
First Lieutenant Roland (a.k.a. “J.C.”) Powell muttered. McLanahan almost
missed the terse reply in the steady whine of the Sukhoi’s twin engines.
McLanahan paused, waiting for more, then realized he wasn’t going to get
anything else. The young pilot of the Sukhoi-27 wasn’t much of a talker.

 
          
The
Sukhoi-27 was a recent addition to the U. S. Air Force’s
High
Technology
Aerospace
Weapons
Center
, or Dreamland research complex in the
southern
Nevada
desert, turned over to General Elliott
after a defecting Soviet fighter pilot flew it from
Khabarovsk
in the
Far East
military district of Russia to Japan in
exchange for asylum. It had been used for classified difference, identification
and adversary training for crew members assigned to secret reconnaissance or
espionage missions close to Russian airspace where the advanced fighters might
be encountered.

 
          
Its
newest pilot, and by far the most skilled American ever to touch its controls,
was Air Force First Lieutenant Roland Q. Powell, a flight instructor at
Williams Air Force Base in
Arizona
. The twenty-two- year-old pilot, an engineering major, seemed
unconcerned with the danger of flying such a complex, inherently unstable
aircraft and always seemed to push the edge of the envelope, even in an
aircraft that did not have one English word or marking on it. Still officially
assigned to the Air Training Command, Powell was frequently sent on temporary
duty to Dreamland and asked to fly the Sukhoi-27 on special missions, and his
reaction to any situation always seemed to be one of complete ease, of
sangfroid
, no matter how tight the
numbers were running. Powell was a perfect future selection as a Dreamland test
pilot—if they managed to get out of this one alive.

 
          
“Tell
him that we can’t tell him where we’re from or what we’re doing,
and
assure him we’re not armed,”
McLanahan said. “Keep on orbiting the base. I need a few more pictures and I
want to check out how and where they’ve deployed any air-defense equipment.”

 
          
Powell,
on the radio, said, “I am not authorized to tell you my home base, my
destination or my weapons status, friend. I can assure you, however, that I am
presently in contact with my regional headquarters, and I have proper
authorization—they are not in the habit of letting the best fighter in the
world stray too far from mother’s nest. I am no threat to you. We are up here
for a little ride on a beautiful day ...” “This man sounds crazy,” Salazar said
to no one in particular. Hermosa was just as perplexed. “What does he think
he’s doing so far from
Cuba
, and stunting like that?”

 
          
“He
must be a high-ranking officer of the Russian Air Force in
Cuba
,” Hermosa said. “I’ve heard the Russian
pilots are normally not allowed to even fly overwater on training missions.
Only a very important officer could get authorization to fly all the way to
Haiti
—” “A high-ranking officer? He must be the
commander of all the Russian air forces in
Cuba
,” Salazar said. “But this one sounds so
young, he must be one of their new aces.”

 
          
“But
what is he doing over
Haiti
?”

 
          
“Perhaps
testing air-defense units, or on a reconnaissance mission for
Cuba
...” Salazar said, but not convinced by the
reach of his speculations.

 
          
“Or
the prelude to an attack?” Hermosa added. “This could be an advance scouting
sortie—”

 
          
“Ridiculous.
One plane? A fighter? And all those stunts? It makes no sense ...” Salazar
thought for a few moments, then: “But because of its unusualness it makes the
best sense of all. We must prepare our units as if an attack is imminent.” He
switched frequency on the walkie-talkie. “Alert units one and two, ensure
weapons on safe. Remain within ten miles of the base and stay between one
hundred and two thousand meters altitude. I want that Sukhoi shadowed but do
not engage unless I give the command. Clear for takeofiF. Show him what the
Cuchillos are made of.”

 
          
The
MiG-21 pilots replied enthusiastically, and moments later the two older Soviet
fighters were airborne, with the Sukhci-27 fighter waiting patiently overhead.

 
          
Not
so patient was McLanahan, suddenly feeling trapped like a rat in the back seat
of this same Soviet fighter. “They’re launching those two MiGs from the
shelters on the east side of the field,” he shouted. “Better get out of here.”

 
          
Instead
Powell made a turn directly for the MiGs as they arced over the west end of the
runway and began their climb over the base. “Too late,” he said. “They’ll be
all over us if we run. We’ve got to stick with them,” and as he said it he
angled in on the oncoming fighters.

 
          
“What
the hell do you think you’re doing, Powell?” McLanahan said, ripping off his
face mask. “You’re not going to dogfight with those MiGs—”

 
          
“Don’t
worry, Major,” Powell said in his soft, almost sleepy monotone. “This’ll be
real interesting . .

 
          
“We’re
trying to conduct a reconnaissance mission on these guys down below, not get
interesting
with a couple of MiGs—”

 
          
“He
caught us dead to rights,” Powell said, watching as the MiG- 218 began their
initial turn toward him after takeofiF. “If we tried to bluff our way out he’d
be suspicious. He’d sure try to trace our flight path or tail number and he’d
start running into dead ends. Too many unanswered questions. He and the rest of
them down there would pack up and leave
Haiti
and we’d have to find them all over again.
This way we make him think we really
are
Russians.”

 
          
Powell
shoved the throttles forward, gaining speed to engage the two MiG-2 Is and
activated his radio: “I see your fighters airborne, Colonel Salazar. If you’re
up for a little exercise, I’m ready for you.” The first pass was a simple
identification run, head-to-head, with the second Fishbed fighter in
extended-trail formation directly behind the leader, which allowed both the
leader and the wingman to get a clear look at the Sukhoi fighter and to avoid
telegraphing any moves.