Dale Brown - End Game

The surface search was handled by a radar set developed from the Nordon APY-3 used in the JSTARS battlefield surveillance and control aircraft. Again, its range depended on conditions. An older destroyer could be spotted at roughly two hundred miles; very small boats and stealthy ships like the Abner Read were nearly invisible even at fifty miles under most circumstances. A radar designed for finding periscopes in rough seas had been added to the mission set; an extended periscope from a Kilo-class submarine could be seen at about twenty miles under the best conditions.

Downstairs from the flight deck, in the compartment where the navigator and bombardier would have sat in a traditional B-52, Cantor was preparing to launch the aircraft’s two Flighthawk U/MF-3 robot aircraft. The unmanned aerial vehicles could stray roughly twenty miles from their mother ship, providing air cover as well as the ability to closely inspect and attack surface targets if necessary.

The Flighthawks were flown with the help of a sophisticated computer system known as C 3. The aircraft contained their own onboard units, which could execute a number of maneuvers on their own. In theory, a Flighthawk pilot could handle two aircraft at a time, though newer pilots generally had to prove themselves in combat with one first.

The Megafortress carried four Harpoon antiship missiles and four antiaircraft AMRAAM-plus Scorpion missiles on a rotating dispenser in the bomb bay. A four-pack of sonar buoys was installed on special racks at each wingtip.

‘How are you doing, Cantor?’ Dog asked.

‘Just fine, Colonel.’

‘How’s your pupil?’

‘Um, Major Smith is, um, learning, sir.’

‘I’ll bet,’ said Dog.

‘I’m good to go here, Colonel,’ said Smith. ‘Everything is rock solid.’

‘That’s good to hear, Mack. Don’t give Cantor any problems.’

‘Problems? Why would I do that?’

Dog was too busy laughing to answer.

The torpedo was not a good fit. At 4.7 meters long – roughly fourteen feet – it just barely fit beneath the smooth round belly of the Sparrow. More importantly, at roughly seven hundred kilograms – a touch over fifteen hundred pounds – it represented nearly twice the aircraft’s rated payload, making the plane too heavy to take off with full fuel tanks.

But the limitations of the small, Russian-made seaplane were almost assets. For the Sparrow could ‘fly’ across the waves at a hundred knots on a calm night like this, approaching its target at two or three times the speed of a conventional torpedo boat or small patrol boat, while being quite a bit harder to detect than a conventional aircraft. When in range, about ten kilometers, it could fire the weapon, and then, considerably lighter, take to the sky and get away.

Which was the plan.

‘Target is now fifty kilometers away,’ said the copilot. Their target, an oil tanker bound for India, was being tracked by the largest aircraft under Sattari’s command, an ancient but serviceable A-40 Beriev seaplane sold as surplus by the Russians some years before. The aircraft had just passed overhead at eighteen thousand feet, flying a course generally taken by a transport to India from Greece.

‘Begin turn to target in ten seconds.’

Captain Sattari grunted. He was still angry over the meeting with the oil minister and his father earlier – so mad, in fact, that he had bumped the pilot from the mission and taken it himself. Not because he felt he needed to prove his courage or ability, but to help him master his rage.

Flying had always helped him in this way. It had nothing to do with the romance of the wind lifting you into the sky. No, what settled Sattari was the need for concentration, the utter surrender of your mind and senses to the job at hand. Planning the mission, checking the plan, then flying it as precisely as possible – the process freed him, chasing the demons of anger and envy and frustration from his back, where they hovered.

‘The A-40 reports that there is a warship south of the tanker,’ reported the copilot. ‘Heading northward – three miles south of him. An Indian destroyer.’

A destroyer?

‘Are they sure it’s Indian?’

‘They’ve overheard transmissions.’

The tanker was a more important target, but if the black robes wanted to provoke a war, striking a destroyer would certainly make them angrier.

And no one could call him a coward then.

‘Compute a new course,’ said Sattari. ‘See if it’s possible to strike the destroyer if we use the tanker as a screen. We can always drop back to our original prey.’

‘MiGs are scrambling off the new field at Al Ghayda,’ T-Bone warned Colonel Bastian. ‘Two aircraft, MiG-29s. Just about one hundred miles from us, Colonel.’

‘Mack, Cantor, you hear that?’

‘Roger that, Colonel. We’ll meet them.’

Dog keyed in the Dreamland communications channel to alert the Abner Read.

‘Abner Read, this is Wisconsin. We have two MiG-29s coming off an airfield in Yemen. We expect them to be heading in our direction.’

‘Bastian, this is Storm. What are you doing?’

‘Minding our p’s and q’s, Captain. As normal.’

The Navy commander snorted. ‘Are you where you’re supposed to be?’

Dog fought the urge to say something sarcastic, and instead answered that they were on the patrol route agreed to earlier. ‘I would expect that you can see that on the radar plot we’re providing,’ he added. ‘Is it working?’

‘It’s working,’ snapped the Navy captain. ‘What’s with those airplanes?’

‘I assume they’re coming to check us out. The Yemenis gave us quite a bit of trouble when we were out here a few months back.’

‘If they get in your way, shoot them down.’

‘I may just do that,’ said Dog. ‘Wisconsin out.’

‘Sounded kind of cranky,’ said Jazz.

‘Most pleasant conversation I’ve ever had with him,’ Dog told his copilot.

Cantor glanced at the sitrep panel in the lower left-hand corner of his screen, making sure the Flighthawks were positioned properly for the intercept.

‘Fifty miles and closing,’ Cantor told Mack. ‘Weapons radar is off.’

‘Yeah, I can see that,’ said Mack. ‘You’re lagging behind me, cowboy.’

‘We’re going to do this like we rehearsed,’ said Cantor. ‘I’m going to swing out. You get in their face.’

‘Flying wing isn’t the most efficient strategy.’

‘We’re not flying F-15s, Major. This is the way Zen teaches it.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it’ll work against these bozos,’ said Mack. ‘I’m just pointing out, it’s not the best strategy to shoot them down.’

‘We’re not supposed to fire at them.’

‘Hey, don’t bitch to me. Complain to Colonel Bastian.’

I will, thought Cantor. I definitely will.

Mack steadied his forearm on the narrow shelf in front of the control stick, listening as the Wisconsin’ s copilot attempted to hail the MiGs. The bogeys were doing about 500 knots; with his Flighthawk clocking about 480, they were now about ninety seconds from an intercept.

If he’d been in an F-15 or even an F-16, the MiGs would be toast by now. An F-22 – fuggetaboutit. They’d be figments of Allah’s imagination already.

Mack jangled his right leg up and down. Unlike a normal aircraft, the Flighthawk control system did not use pedals; all the inputs came from a single control stick and voice commands. This might be all right for someone like Zen, stuck in a wheelchair, or even Cantor, who’d probably been playing video games since he was born, but not for him. He loved to fly. He had it in his belly and his bones. Pushing buttons and wiggling your wrist just didn’t do it.