Five miles in trail behind Furness and Mace was Thunder Two, crewed by Lieutenant Colonel Hembree and Lieutenant Colonel Larry Tobias. They were the “backup shooters.” They were escorted by two MiG-23s, who seemed perfectly content to fly just a few hundred feet above the ground in marginal weather without being able to see a blasted thing out their cockpits.
About a mile behind them was Tychina and his wingman, flying Sukhoi-17 “Fitter-K” bombers, with two MiG-23s escorting them. Unlike the MiG-23s, the Su-17s would be able to go all the way with the RF-111s — the MiG-23s would be turning around any minute now. Flying a few miles behind Tychina were Johnson and Rota in Thunder Three — they had no MiGs escorting them because they had already been shot down by fighter attacks as they crossed from Russia into the Ukraine. Thunder Three had one HARM missile remaining. Fay and Dutton in Thunder Four had already expended their AGM-88 HARM antiradar missiles at radar sites along the route and were making the treacherous trip south through occupied Ukrayina back to Turkey, with one MiG-23 flying alongside for protection.
“Step it down to three hundred,” Furness said. Daren reached down to the center console and clicked the clearance plane knob on the terrain-following radar control from 1000 to 300, and the RF-111G Vampire obeyed, sliding gently down toward the frozen earth below. The RF-111’s terrain-following radar system would automatically fly the bomber three hundred feet above the ground, following the contours of all but very steeply rising terrain.
When they leveled off, the “S” symbol on the threat scope no longer appeared. “Search radar down,” Mace said. “High terrain, ten miles, painting over it. City off to our right, power line running across the track line. My notes say it might be four hundred ninety feet high.”
“Try five hundred feet on the TFRs,” Furness said. Mace stepped the TFR up to five hundred feet, and the S symbol and a slow deedle deedle deedle warning tone on the interphone returned when they climbed above four hundred feet. “Nope, they can see us at four. Back to three hundred.” The signal went away again at the three-hundred-foot clearance plane.
Suddenly, the S symbol changed briefly into a 12 with a diamond around it, then back to an S.
“Oh, shit, they got an SA-12,” Mace said. “They know we’re out here.” The SA-12 was a high-performance mobile antiaircraft-missile system, capable of shooting down low-flying aircraft out to a range of almost fifty miles, part of a new generation of Russian SAM systems that could pop up anywhere along a strike route and kill with speed and precision.
“Give me two hundred,” Furness said. Mace stepped the TFR to two hundred feet, the lowest setting. The S symbol had changed back to a 12 symbol on the RHAWS scope — and then a yellow MISSILE WARNING light on Furness’ eyebrow instrument panel came on, and a set of crosshairs appeared around the 12 symbol on the threat scope. “Missile warning, nine o’clock …” She jammed the throttles forward to military power, swept the wings back to 72 degrees, and the Vampire bomber accelerated from 480 knots to about 600 knots — ten miles a minute.
“Hey, the MiGs are gone,” Mace said. He switched off the exterior formation strip lights — there was no one out there to use them anymore. “Maybe that’s why we got the SA-12 up — those MiGs must’ve—”
Suddenly they heard a fast deedledeedledeedle warning tone, the 12 symbol on the RHAWS began to blink, and a red MISSILE LAUNCH warning light began to blink.
“Missile launch, nine o’clock!” Mace made sure the trackbreaker switchlights were all on and that the jammers were transmitting.
“I see it!” Rebecca shouted. Far off in the distance she could see a streak of light disappear into the night sky, followed by another immediately after the first. “It’s flying behind us.”
“C’mon, guys,” Mace muttered. “Where are you?” Just then on the scrambled VHF frequency they heard, “Magnum. Bye-bye.” Mace quickly deselected the trackbreaker switchlights. “Magnum” meant that Johnson and Rota were launching a HARM missile — the missile’s performance could be spoiled by too much friendly jamming, which was why Mace shut his jammers off. “Nail it, baby, nail it …” Seconds later the SA-12 symbol in the threat scope disappeared. “Way to go, boys.”
“Nice shooting, guys,” Furness said to Johnson and Rota as she pulled the power back to 90 percent and swept the wings forward again to 54 degrees to conserve fuel — there was no way she was going to suggest climbing above two hundred feet again, though. It was now just four of them left — two American bombers, two Ukrainian bombers — and twenty minutes left to go to the SRAM launch point.
The warning tone from the RHAWS system came alive again. “I’ve got triple-A at nine and ten o’clock,” Mace said. “That’s the main highway between Moscow and Char’kov. Must be troops heading down that road. My trackbreakers are still off. Two hundred hard ride — we’re there.”
Triple-A, referring to the radar-guided mobile antiaircraft-artillery unit called the ZSU-23/4, or Zeus-4, had a maximum range of about two miles — they were at least twenty miles away from the road — but the same infantry units that had a Zeus-4 usually had mobile SAM systems as well.
“Search radar at eleven and two o’clock,” reported Mace. “Man, it’s getting hairy around here.”
The closer they got to Moscow, the more they would encounter surveillance radars — Moscow was the most heavily defended city in the world.
“Power’s still at 90 percent,” Furness said. “I’m ready with a prelaunch check if you’re—”
Just then a bat-wing symbol — an inverted V — appeared at the bottom of the threat scope — and it stayed there. “Shit, we picked up a fighter,” Mace cursed. “Fine time for the MiGs to bug out.” Just then two more bat-wings appeared on the RHAWS scope, this time at the top — and then two more appeared, off to the right near the top. “Crap, we got fighters all around us. Jammers coming on. Step on it, Rebecca.”
As Mace selected the trackbreaker buttons again, Furness pushed the power back up to military power and swept the wings back to 72.5 degrees. She was sure she would not move the throttles or wings again until they were out of Russia.
A diamond symbol danced around the bat-wing symbols on the RHAWS, denoting the most serious threat — the fighters behind were gaining fast, while the ones ahead were closing slowly, as if circling above them, getting ready to swoop down for the kill. Mace reported: “The guys on our tail are closing … coming up on the turnpoint, next heading zero-two-three, safe clearance altitude one thousand feet … one minute to turn, I got a watch running … I got high towers left of the turnpoint, two hundred twenty and eight hundred and fifty feet tall … power line after we roll.”
Suddenly they got a red MISSILE LAUNCH and IRT warning lights, and a hard, fast warning tone — the infrared detection system detected the flare of a missile’s rocket motor igniting — and they could see the glare of decoy flares dropping behind them as the aircraft defense system automatically ejected chaff and flares. “Missile launch!” Mace shouted. “Break right!”