Rebecca jammed the control stick to her right knee, rolled into a 90-degree bank turn, pulled on the stick until their chins were forced down onto their chests from the G-forces, then relaxed the pressure on the stick and rolled out, ready at any time to do another break if necessary. The terrain-following radar system faulted and tried to fly them up when Furness exceeded 40 degrees of bank, and the TFR warning lights were still on even after she rolled out. “I got a problem with the TFs, climbing to SCA,” she said. With the little finger of her left hand, she depressed the paddle switch to keep the terrain-following radar from trying to do an emergency fly-up, started a gentle climb to the safe clearance altitude for the segment of the route, and reached down to the TFR control panel to recycle the TFR mode switches.
Meanwhile Mace was frantically searching the skies behind them for any sign of a missile launch. It would be nearly impossible to see, but… “There!” he shouted, pointing above and to the left. “I see two missiles! I—”
Suddenly they saw a ball of fire erupt in the sky ahead, and there was a lot of joyful shouting on both the UHF emergency channel and the scrambled VHF interplane channel.
“What in hell …? Who is that …?” he asked.
“It’s the Ukrainian MiGs,” Furness said. She was still recycling the TFR switches — both yellow TFR FAIL warning lights were on. “They didn’t leave us — damn, they just shot down a Russian fighter. Call up the next point.”
Mace sequenced the navigation computer to the next turnpoint and they headed north. “I got search radars at eleven and one o’clock, and bat-wings all over the damned place,” Mace said. “I don’t know which is which — they’re all bad guys now as far as I’m concerned. Twelve minutes to the initial point. I’m doing a prelaunch check.” He configured his weapon release switches, placing the bomb door mode switch to AUTO — and left it there this time. He wasn’t going to try to withhold anything this time.
Coming up to the next turnpoint, he checked offset aimpoints in his radarscope. “I got a problem — radar pedestal looked like it crashed,” he said. “That last break must’ve jammed something. I’m resetting my radar.” He hit the ANTENNA CAGE button, which should have moved the attack radar dish to its straight-ahead position — it stayed rolled over to one side, producing only a streak of light in his radarscope. He turned his system to STANDBY, waited a few seconds, then back to XMIT — no change. He shut the system completely off, waited ten seconds, then turned it back to STANDBY — still nothing. “Shit, the attack radar pedestal is jammed.”
“That means the terrain-following radar is out too,” Furness said. “Fuck, we’re stuck at SCA.”
Mace rotated the TFR mode switches to SIT, which would give them a profile-only view of terrain ahead — it was the only radar they had working now. Without the TFRs or the attack radar, they could not safely descend below the safe clearance altitude. “Christ, what a time for the system to crap out.”
The S symbol at the ten o’clock position suddenly changed to a 10, and they heard the fast, high-pitched warning tone of an imminent missile threat: “SA-10, ten o’clock — the Kaluga site came up on us,” Mace said as he depressed the trackbreaker switchlights to turn the jammers on again. “Come left and let’s get that sucker.” Mace made sure his AGM-88C HARM antiradar missiles were powered up and ready. The Vampires did not carry a Tactical Electronic Reconnaissance sensor pallet in the bomb bay — they had a very different load in the bomb bay that night — so the HARM missiles had to find, identify, and process their own attack information, which took much longer than normal.
Furness made the turn, aiming the HARM missile at the SAM site … and the MISSILE LAUNCH warning lights came on.
“Missile launch!” Mace cried out.
“I see it, I see it!” Furness shouted. “Chaff—now!”
Mace pumped out two bundles of chaff and Furness banked hard left. The XMIT lights on the forward trackbreakers were on, trying to jam the uplink signal steering the missile. The SA-10 missile turned right to follow them.
“Chaff!” Furness shouted again, then threw the bomber into a hard right break. Mace pumped out extra chaff, two bundles at a time.
The SA-10 banked left in response — it wasn’t being jammed. It was locked on solid and tracking them all the way. Rebecca had to sweep the wings forward to 54 degrees, then 36 degrees to keep from stalling … she had no more airspeed to do another break to get away from this missile.
Furness and Mace saw a huge fireball pass overhead and then heard on the interplane frequency, “Magnum, Thunder One, magnum. Hang in there, guys.” Hembree and Tobias in Thunder Two had launched a HARM missile at the SA-10 site, right over their heads. They had to keep on jinking for another few seconds.
“Vertical jink, Becky,” Mace shouted. “Go vertical!”
Furness shoved the control stick forward with all her might, descended three hundred precious feet — leaving them no more than one hundred feet between them and the highest terrain in the area, although they could see nothing ahead of them and could hit the ground at any second — then hauled back on the stick with both hands. Mace kept on pumping out bursts of chaff. When Furness looked up, she saw the SA-10’s burning rocket motor, the only light she could see except for the stars caused by her pounding heart and straining muscles.
Simultaneously, the 10 symbol on the RHAWS scope disappeared as the HARM missile hit the SAM site — and the SA-10 missile self-destructed less than one hundred feet behind them.
The shock wave from the SA-10’s 280-pound warhead was like a thunderclap right outside the cockpit canopy. The MASTER CAUTION light came on, big and bright, right in front of Rebecca’s terrified eyes. “What have I got, Daren?” she shouted as she punched the light off with a quick two-fingered stab.
Mace checked the caution light panel on the lower left instrument panel. “Rudder authority light … TFR lights … oil-hot light on the left engine,” he said. “We might have an oil leak.” He shined a small flashlight that he kept clipped to his flight suit pocket on the oil pressure gauges. “A little fluctuation on the left engine, but it’s still in the green. I think we can make it.” He checked the other gauges. “Aft-body fuel quantity is fluctuating — we may have taken a hit in the aft-body tank. Fuel distribution caution light. I’ll switch fuel feed to the forward-body tank or else we’ll be nose-heavy when the aft body drains out. Generator panel’s okay. Let’s get ready for that other SAM site to the right of track. Watch your altitude — one hundred feet low.”
Rebecca pulled back on the stick to correct her altitude and found it took more force than normal to move it. “Stick’s getting heavy already,” she said as she fed in more trim. She rolled out of her turn with the steering bug centered, then reengaged the autopilot — but seconds after clicking it on, it kicked off again, and the bomber nosed lower. “Dammit, autopilot won’t hold it.” She cursed, grabbing the stick and feeding in more nose-up trim. “This thing better hold together — I don’t want to punch out of two Vampires in one deployment. They won’t renew my union card then.”
The search radar at two o’clock suddenly turned to an “8” indication, but they were lined up and ready for it.
“I’m tracking the ‘Land Role’ radar,” Mace said. “Processing … locked on. Ready to launch … now.” Seconds later they fired their first HARM missile at the missile site … and nothing happened. The 8 indication on the RHAWS disappeared, only to reappear a few seconds after the missile should have hit.
“Two, can you get that sucker for us?” Rebecca radioed on the scrambled VHF channel.
“We got it, lead,” Hembree replied. “Magnum …” But just as he said the word, they got a MISSILE LAUNCH warning, and they could see four missiles ripple-fire into the sky and arc out toward them. “Missile launch!” they heard Hembree shout on the radio. “I’ll go right, lead.”