Iron Wolf (47 page)

“Just took out emplacement six,” Mark Darrow reported. He had come into Kaliningrad from the north through Lithuania. “One more to go. I see you just attacked number five. Are you that far behind?”

“I had to drive a little south so a Coyote could take out a fighter for me,” Brad said. “You're the first Wolf I've heard from tonight.”

“I'm seeing a lot of targets taken out, so I think we've made quite
a mess of Mr. Gryzlov's party down there, but I'm afraid I haven't heard from anyone else in several minutes on the channel,” Mark said. “I'm afraid the butcher's bill is going to be rather high. Back to work. Good luck to you. See you back at the base.”

“Luck to you, Claw Two. Fang One out.”

The most difficult of Brad's targets lay ahead. Intel had reported that this was a field of three Iskander launchers plus the central command and control trailer, guarded by layers of S-300 missiles, antiaircraft guns, and short-range antiaircraft missiles. Between flying around towns and vehicles and responding to system warning messages, Brad had a few minutes to tell Nadia how he expected the run to go and what she had to do. While he spoke, he noticed she didn't move, just stared straight ahead, motionless. “Nadia?” he asked finally. “Are you okay?”

She was silent for a few moments; then she whispered, “I am so scared, Brad. I am afraid that I will do something wrong that will get us both killed. My own death I can face, but I do not want to be the one whose error kills you.”

“Nadia, you are the bravest woman I know,” Brad said. “We'll get through this. I'll talk you through it. You'll do fine.” He took his right hand off the control stick and put it on her left hand. “You'll do fine. We'll—”

Suddenly the threat-warning system sounded:
“Warning, India-band search radar, S-300, twelve o'clock, forty miles . . . warning, Echo-Foxtrot band acquisition radar, one o'cl . . . warning, India-Juliett band target-tracking radar, S-300, SPEAR active . . .”

“Here we go,” Brad said. He pushed up the throttles until they were at six hundred knots, flying one hundred feet above ground using the digital terrain-following system. He tried to pull the wings back to seventy-two degrees, but they wouldn't move. No time to worry about that now. “Bring up the HARM first . . . next page . . . one button down . . . there you go, Nadia, don't worry. Good. It's selected. You got it. A couple more miles . . .”

Seconds later, through another series of threat warnings, a
HARM antiradiation missile leaped off the right wing, and seconds later they saw another brilliant explosion, along with a marked reduction in the number of threat warnings. Just a few moments later, they launched the last remaining external Joint Standoff Weapon at the surface-to-air missile emplacements in their path to the last of the Iskander missiles they had been assigned.

Brad made sure the navigation computer had cycled first to the decoy ground track and then the last target area. “Last run and we head home,” he said. “We'll attack three Iskander emplacements in a row with the SFWs. We have no more antiradar weapons, so we'll have to rely on SPEAR, speed, and DTF to avoid any shots at us. After that, we make like a bat out of hell for the—”

“Warning, X-band radar, Su-30, three o'clock, range forty,”
SPEAR announced.
“Warning, target tracking detected, SPEAR engaged . . .”

Brad made a hard left turn and headed for the last target complex. “Call up the last bomb run, Nadia,” Brad said. “Next page . . . you got it.” He reached over and called up a page on Nadia's left multifunction display. “Good, all remaining weapons are automatically selected for each target. All we have to do is—”

“Warning, missile launch detection!”
SPEAR warned.
“Maneuver right.”
Brad waited a few heartbeats for SPEAR to eject chaff and flares from the left ejectors, then did a hard high-G right turn at ninety degrees of bank. They saw a tremendous explosion behind them through their cockpit canopy mirrors.

“Countermeasures right!” Brad ordered. SPEAR ejected chaff and flares from the right ejectors, and Brad did another break to the left to line up on the attack run. “Sixty seconds to first release,” he said. “Strap in tight, Nadia. Watch the left screen for any—”

At that instant a massive fireball exploded off the right wing—Brad didn't know how close it came, but the SuperVark felt as if it had been shoved sideways and was ready to depart controlled flight and do a flat spin—not that he had
any
idea what a flat spin was—before he regained control. Warning lights illuminated throughout the cockpit.
“Shit! Engine fire!”
he shouted. The com
puters had already initiated engine shutdown, fuel shutoff, and activation of fire extinguishers, but Brad could still see the bright flicker of a fire out the right canopy when he looked past Nadia's slumped head and . . .

“Nadia!”
Brad shouted. She was unconscious. The canopy was cracked where her head hit. “Nadia! Can you hear me?” No answer.

Through all the warning lights and tones, SPEAR announced,
“Warning, warning, X-band target-tracking radar, Su-30, locked on, six o'clock, ten miles and closing . . . warning, warning, X-band search radar, unidentified . . . warning, warning, X-band missile guidance, warning, warning . . . !”

Brad saw another huge flash of light in the cockpit mirrors, and he thought, Shit, here it comes. His right hand moved to the ejection handle while his eyes scanned for another fire warning . . . Should I pull it now or wait? If I wait, will the capsule survive . . . ?

But no other warnings came, and the SuperVark flew on at low altitude, and the attack computers were counting down to the first release.

“American bomber, this is Vanagas Five-One,
Lietuvos karin
ė
s oro paj
ė
gos,
air force of the Republic of Lithuania,” a voice on the air-to-air channel announced. “May I recommend that you climb to at least ten thousand feet to avoid the electro-optical guided antiaircraft artillery? You and your comrades seem to have all but eliminated all other radar-guided weapons in this area, so it is safe to climb. Your six is clear. I am at your eight o'clock position, moving forward.”

As he began a shallow climb, Brad looked to his left and saw a dark shape against the background of fires and lights below. Just then a tail recognition light snapped on, showing a blue shield and a white hawk emblazoned with a castle crest . . . on the tail of a Lithuanian Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon! He was never so happy to see another aircraft than right now, and it wasn't even American! “Thanks for the help, Five-One.”

“You are most welcome, sir,” the Lithuanian pilot said. “We
could not allow you Americans to have all the fun. I can escort you to the Polish border, and then I must return to base.”

“Roger,” Brad said. “I'll be releasing on my last series of targets in a few seconds.”

“Then I will hang back a bit and watch the fireworks,” the pilot said. “
S
ė
km
ė
s,
geras
med
ž
iokl
ė
. Good luck, good hunting.”

R
USSIAN
72
ND
T
ACTICAL
M
ISSILE
B
RIGADE

C
OMMAND
T
RAILER,

S
OUTH-
C
ENTRAL
K
ALININGRAD
O
BLAST

T
HAT SAME TIME

“All communications to district command headquarters have been cut, sir,” Lieutenant Kararina Kirov reported. “We have also lost contact with all air defense batteries!”

Colonel Konrad Saratov could not believe what he was watching . . . or, rather,
not
watching. One minute he was preparing to wreak havoc on the Polish Army and Air Force, and the next he had . . .
nothing
. “What
do
I have contact with, Lieutenant?” he shouted.

“Iskander Flight Fox,” Kirov reported a few moments later. “Flight Jupiter reports that two of his launchers are out of commission and he has no contact with the others. No reports from any other flights.”

“None?” Saratov groaned. “Out of two dozen launchers, I have only
three remaining
?” Kirov wouldn't dare answer—she had never seen that wild-eyed look in her commander's face before. He pounded the console so hard that coffee cups overturned and pencils jumped. He was silent, leaning against the console, his head bowed . . .

. . . but he said in a low, almost inaudible voice, “Order Fox Flight to launch immediately.”

“Sir?”

“I said,
launch immediately
!” Saratov screamed. “Release all batteries and attack
immediately
! Then put out a call to the entire brigade in the clear to launch all active missiles!”

“But we do not have launch authorization from district headquarters, sir!”

“If we don't get our missiles downrange immediately, we won't
have
any missiles to get authorizations for!” Saratov exclaimed. “Order all available units to launch
immediately
!”

O
VER
S
OUTH-
C
ENTRAL
K
ALININGRAD
O
BLAST

T
HAT SAME TIME

Brad's attack from ten thousand feet was almost like being in the simulator again: quiet, no bouncing-around terrain following, smooth, almost relaxing. The first Sensor Fuzed Weapons left the SuperVark's bomb bay as commanded; Brad could no longer feel the detonations at his altitude.

“Good impacts, good detonations, good secondaries,” he heard on the air-to-air channel.

It was not the Lithuanian pilot—he recognized the electronically synthesized voice right away. “Thanks, Dad,” Brad said.

“I'm picking up telemetry from your aircraft,” Patrick said. “I think you'll make it back just fine. I see no other fire indications. I also see no other antiair threats. Congratulations. How's Nadia?”

“Unconscious,” Brad said. “I can't see how bad.”

“Bringing back a loved one from a bombing mission seems to be becoming a habit for you, son.”

“That's one habit I'd rather not have,” Brad admitted.

“I'm thankful for it, son. Nadia will be, too.”

“How bad were our losses?”

“Pretty bad, but we did a hell of a job on the Russian rockets and air defenses,” Patrick said. “I'll brief you back on the ground. You should be coming up on your second target now. I'm about ten miles south of—”

And at that instant, off on the dark horizon, Brad saw a large rocket streak away in a bright trail of fire.
“Missile launch!”
he shouted.

Patrick's CID sensors detected the missile launch a millisecond before he heard Brad's warning.
“Missile attack!”
he radioed back to the Iron Wolf command post. “Take cover
now
!” He raised his
electromagnetic rail gun, followed the cueing signals, and waited for the gun to charge. The missile disappeared from sight, but not from his sensors. As soon as the gun was ready, he fired. The projectile sped off into the night sky, spltting the air with a loud supersonic
CCRACKK . . . !

. . . but the Iskander had accelerated to well over five times the speed of sound, easily outrunning the electromagnetic projectile. It had taken too long to charge the weapon, and he had been taken completely by—

This time Patrick's sensors detected a second missile launch, and he whirled north, acquired the rapidly accelerating missile immediately, and fired. The projectile penetrated the missile, ignited the solid fuel propellant, and exploded the Iskander missile in a massive orange and red fireball, growing to at least a half mile in diameter before disappearing into the night.

“Good shot, Dad,” Brad radioed. “I got the second launcher. Man, that was one hell of a fireball.”

“Thank you, son,” Patrick said. “I wasn't able to track the first missile, but it's initial flight path indicates it was headed for Powidz, not Warsaw. I hope the guys took shelter in . . .”

. . . and then he stopped, because his sensors had picked up another terrifying reading . . . “Base, Wolf One, I'm picking up low levels of strontinum and zirconium from that Iskander missile explosion. I think that missile had a nuclear warhead on it!”

I
RON
W
OLF
S
QUADRON
S
ECURE
C
OMPOUND,

33
RD
A
IR
B
ASE,

NEAR
P
OWIDZ,
C
ENTRAL
P
OLAND

T
HAT SAME TIME

“Shit!”
Wayne Macomber swore. He was piloting the damaged Cybernetic Infantry Device, limping on patrol around the base until the entire area could be cleared by Polish Special Forces of any remnants of American troops. He instantly raised his already-charged electromagnetic rail gun and scanned the skies for the incoming missile. Behind him on the base, men and women were scrambling into basements and bomb shelters, wanting desperately to be anywhere but aboveground.

They were not going to make it in time.

“Whack . . . ?” Patrick radioed.

“I'm on it, General,” Macomber said. “I've got nothing so far.”

“You'll have less than a second when it appears.”

“I don't need the coaching, General,” Macomber said. “What I need is a fistful of—”

The missile appeared on his sensors almost directly overhead at an altitude of thirty thousand feet, heading straight down at four thousand miles an hour. Macomber centered the missile in his sights and fired. The Russian missile exploded at twenty thousand feet in a spectacular globe of fire.

“Luck,” Macomber said, finishing his prayer.