Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (47 page)

           
“Bullet flight, this is Basket. Four
bandits
twelve o’clock
,
Blue plus twenty, flight lev—er, angels fifteen. Possible second flight of two
bandits, angels ten.” The AWACS controller was trying hard to use Navy
terminology for this intercept, such as “angels” for “thousands of feet” or
“port” and “starboard” for “left” and “right,” but the more excited he got the
more he was stumbling over his tongue. “Starboard ten for intercept.”

           
“Bullet flight copies.” Povik’s
backseater could just as easily lock onto the incoming Chinese fighters with
his AWG-9 radar, but the radar emissions could be detected at incredible
distances and the longer he kept his radar off the more they kept the element
of surprise.

           
Just then they heard on the
international Guard radio channel: “Unidentified aircraft at ten thousand
meters altitude—this is fighter unit seven.” The accent was heavily Oriental,
not Spanish or Filipino—but Chinese. “You have violated restricted airspace.
You will reverse course and drop your landing gear immediately.”

           
“Bullet flight, additional bandits
departing Zamboanga area,” the AWACS controller radioed on the air frequency.
“Number unknown at this time.”

           
“Range from the bandits to
Flashlight?” Povik said.

           
“Range Blue plus zero,” the
controller replied.

           
Fifty miles. The fight was going to
happen in a matter of seconds. Obviously the Chinese fighters weren’t going to
be content with chasing the American planes away—they wanted to intercept and
capture them.

           
“Unknown aircraft, you have violated
restricted airspace,” the warning came again, more insistently this time. “You
are not responding as ordered. Decrease velocity, lower your landing gear, and
follow us or you will be attacked. This is your final warning!”

           
Povik considered shutting off the
Guard channel, but he might need it later. This guy was getting on his nerves,
but he would shut up very soon once the furball started. “Where’s Bullet Two
Flight?” Povik radioed to the AWACS controller.

           
“Departing Shamu at this time, range
to you Blue plus ten.” Sixty miles. It would take them too long to get in on
the fight here—they would be in a position to engage just as the Chinese
fighters caught up with the RC-135. That was far, far too late.

           
Povik had a decision to make right
now, but it really wasn’t much of a chore to make it. Their primary mission was
to protect the Air Force recon planes. They had plenty of firepower—all they
needed was time. They needed to get those Chinese fighters turned away from the
Air Force heavies.

           
“Bullet Four’s coming left
forty-five. Bullet Five, stay with me.”

           
“Two.”

           
“Go ahead and lock ’em up, Bear,”
Povik said. They wanted the Chinese fighters to follow them—it was okay to hit
them with the radar now. Povik executed a hard left turn to a westerly heading
and pushed his throttles up to full military power. “C’mon, you peckerheads,”
Povik cursed to himself at the Chinese fighter pilots. “Do it,
do
it!”

           
“Bullet flight, four bandits turning
to intercept, now at your
two o’clock
position, forty miles. Second flight of
bandits confirmed at angels ten, trailing bandits maintaining heading one-four-zero.”
The tactic worked—sort of. Every degree the Chinese fighters turned, and every
five seconds they interrupted their pursuit, meant another two miles of safety
for the RC-135 recon plane. They were obviously going after the more glamorous
prize—downing an RC-135 was too easy. Downing a fighter was more macho. But the
two extra bandits weren’t going to be distracted—they were heading straight for
the RC-135.

           
“Bullet flight, two bandits peeling
off from pursuit, returning to heading one-five-zero to intercept on
Flashlight.” “Dammit!” Povik berated himself. After a few seconds of obvious
confusion, the Chinese fighters decided to break into two groups and go after
the RC-135. Well, at least they got the odds more in their favor—two-vee-two
heading away from their heavies, and two-vee-four still closing. Another
advantage: the farther the Chinese pilots flew away from their radar ship, the
harder their job would be. “Bullet Two flight, can you get the four inbounds?”

           
“Affirmative, Hitman,” the pilot of
Bullet Two replied, using Povik’s call sign. “Bullet Two flight has a contact
on the four southeast-bound bandits.”

           
“Bullet flight, be advised, Bullet
Six flight of two airborne, ETE ten minutes,” the AWACS controller reported.
Two more Tomcats were on the way. Well, Povik thought grimly, everybody was
paired up and the dancing was going to begin.

           
“Check the gas gauges, Hitman,”
Povik’s
RIO
said. “We got about ten minutes before we
gotta start heading back.”

           
“Thanks, Bear,” Povik replied. “Ten
minutes max, then we split.”

           
“Bullet Two flight, push Eagle for
your controller.” Povik switched to the new pre-planned frequency—as a security
precaution, actual frequencies were never read over the air, no matter how
secure the radios were—checked in his wing- man, and checked in with the new
AWACS controller; now the Air Force controller could stop saying “Bullet Two
flight” to differentiate them between the other two Tomcats. “Bullet, bandits
at your
three o’clock
,
thirty miles. Say your bingo.”

           
“Bullet Two bingos in eight mike,”
Povik replied. Povik’s wingman reported the same—Povik knew he would do so
unless his fuel state was worse than his own. The gauges actually said ten
minutes, but always subtract two minutes for the wife and kids, he thought. The
AWACS controller, if he was worth a shit, would subtract another two minutes
and start vectoring the Tomcats toward the carrier after six or seven minutes.

           
If past experience were any
indication, the fight would be over in less than two minutes . . . one way or
another.

STRATFOR Command Post,
Andersen AFB,
Guam

           
“Message from Basket, sir,” an
operator reported. “They report six enemy fighters, probable Chinese origin,
engaging the F-14 escorts, three hundred miles northwest of Mandao. Flashlight is
southeast-bound, withdrawing from the area.”

           
General Stone was on his feet and
beside the radio operator in a heartbeat; Elliott was behind him, listening
intently. “Tell Flashlight to dump their data buffers and get the hell out of
there. Shamu should stay available for emergency refueling, and Basket should
stay to control the intercepts— but I want them as far away from the
Philippines
as possible.”

           
“All units withdrawing from the area
at best speed . . . Basket reports more fighters airborne from Zamboanga. No
visual contact made, but Basket reports the enemy fighters made a
warning-message broadcast ordering the aircraft to reverse course and follow
them. Operators report the pilots spoke English and sounded Oriental.” The
operator flipped a switch and spoke briefly, then reported, “Communications
center confirms a good secure data download via DSCS from Flashlight and
Basket.” Stone nodded with a silent sigh of relief. The lives of his crew
members were vitally important, but it was also important to preserve any data
they might have collected up to this point.

           
“Carrier
Ranger
is launching two more fighters to assist,” the operator
reported. “Reports of more fighters launching from Zamboanga area.
Ranger
is declaring an air-defense
emergency with a two-hundred-mile exclusion zone.”

           
“Verify that all aircraft are in
international airspace,” Elliott told Stone. “If any of the aircraft are
attacked, we’ve got a case for retaliation.”

           
Stone nodded. To the radio operator,
he said, “Order Basket to download a radar map of the entire area and then
verbally read off INS and GPS latitude and longitude, then range and bearing
from radio and radar checkpoints to verify position accuracy. Tell them to
repeat the report every sixty seconds until they are clear of the attackers.”
As the radio operator relayed the orders, Stone said to Elliott, “The Chinese
not only have attacked Zamboanga, it looks like they’ve fortified it and
brought fighters in to seal the area. That was a major defense installation.”

           
Elliott referred to a chart of the
Philippines
that had been set up in the command post.
“From there they can control access to the southern
Philippines
.”

           
A Navy captain, who was acting as
the Navy liaison to the STRATFOR, said, “That EF4-class destroyer is definitely
the key, sir. Flashlight reported a Rice Screen radar system in operation—it’s
the most sophisticated radar system in the Chinese fleet, and it’s almost as
good as an Aegis system but without the weapon systems. He can control almost
the entire
Celebes
Sea
from that one
platform. With shore-based aircraft, he can control antiair and antisurface
forces for hundreds of miles.”

           
“What we need,” Stone said half
aloud, as if daring himself to say the words, “is permission to launch an
attack from
Ranger
on that EF4-class
boat.” Elliott and the others in the command post looked at the Air Force
three-star general wordlessly; surprised at his reaction but silently wishing
the same thing.

           
“Unfortunately, that’s pretty
unlikely,” Elliott said. “We’re lucky Washington authorized this mission—I
would think there’s no way they’d approve a preemptive strike on a Chinese
naval vessel.” He paused, then added grimly, “Unless, of course, one of our
recon planes gets shot down. . . .”

Aboard Bullet Four

           
One of the hardest tasks for a
fighter pilot, and the most important skill that every good pilot possessed,
was situational awareness—the ability to instantaneously paint a picture of the
world around him in his mind without the help of radar planes, fancy electronic
displays, or even backseat- ers. Luckily Povik had that knack—he had been
honing it during his twelve years as a naval aviator, all of them in
carrier-based fighters.

           
Bullet Two and Three, plus the extra
Tomcats launched from
Ranger
a few
minutes ago, would have to take care of the four Chinese fighters chasing the
reconnaissance plane. That left Bullet Four and Five to deal with the two bozos
that broke off to chase them. Bullet Five had closed back with Povik, but he
was not right on his wing. They were in a combat-spread position that allowed
either Tomcat to assist the other if they came under attack. It was a purely
defensive position, but it could be quickly switched to an offensive one if
necessary.

           
Unfortunately, a more advantageous
offensive stance was not authorized. Under the ROE, the Rules of Engagement
which were carefully briefed to each pilot by the Carrier Air Group commander,
the Tomcat pilots could not attack unless they were attacked first or unless a
hostile aircraft was within one hundred miles of
Ranger.
The ROE then allowed them to use their weapons only to
break up an engagement and allow all friendly fighters to disengage—although
few commanders expected their naval aviators to deliberately miss or back away
from a fight.

           
“Five minutes to bingo,” Povik’s
RIO
said. “Time to get out of here.” Povik was
continuing to maneuver on a more or less westerly heading, still trying to put
as much distance between the two Chinese fighters and the RC-135 as he could
until the two extra Bullet fighters arrived.

           
“Few more turns and then we’ll bug
out,” Povik said. “I need to make sure those bozos on us can’t go after that
recon plane.”

           
The Chinese fighters were laying off
for now—they were still about nine miles somewhere behind them, closing only
when Povik tried a large turn but backing off again when he returned to
straight and level. Povik’s ALR-45 threat-wam- ing receiver was showing the
Chinese fighter’s position as an “S” with a diamond around it on his rear
hemisphere—that was the fighter’s search radar, reported to be a Type 225
Skyranger range-only radar. That meant the Chinese probably didn’t have
radar-guided missiles, which in turn meant they wouldn’t attack unless they
were within about five to six miles. According to Intelligence, these were
supposed to be J-7 fighters, copies of the
Soviet Union
’s MiG-21 fighter. The Chinese had another
fighter, called the J-8 “Finback,” with an L-band multi-mode radar, but that
would show on the threat warning receiver as an inverted V “bat-wing” symbol,
not an “S.” The Finback was supposed to be deployed only to protect cities and,
the spooks said, would probably not be encountered way out here.