“Com, don’t reply,” Polhill instructed. “Let’s ride it out and see what’s up.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Four-Two-Two heavy to any station.”
The commander knew that several stations would be listening to the transmission. “Everyone is hesitant. That figures.” Contact could be more than its worth to any uninvolved government.
“Four-Two-Two heavy…this is Cairo Tracon…go, uh, go ahead.”
“Not a popular conversation partner, sir,” Com observed.
“Never are.”
“Four-Two-Two heavy to station responding…you are faint…repeat.”
The commander turned to Radar. “Plot.”
The information was instantly available. “Target bearing zero-one-eight, relative; one-zero-eight, true; angels three; speed four-zero-zero knots; course, two-five-zero, true.”
The air traffic controller in Cairo did not respond immediately to the call. Flight 422 was a scant three thousand feet above sea level and having difficulty reading the transmission from the land-based station. It was a simple matter of radio line of sight.
“Coming up, sir,” Radar said excitedly. “Angels three and a half. Bearing and course steady. Distance one-one-zero miles.”
“Keep it coming, Radar.” An uneasy feeling materialized in Commander Polhill’s stomach, like something wasn’t quite right. Why was Cairo answering instead of…? “Com. Move the Tomcats twenty miles south…fast.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Sir, target climbing from angels three and a half.”
“Cairo Tracon…this is Four-Two-Two heavy.”
“Sir, angels four. Everything looks steady.”
“Four-Two-Two heavy,” the controller acknowledged in non-native English, the international air traffic language, “this is Cairo Tracon. You are coming in clear. Go ahead.”
“Cairo, this airplane is under the control of the Avengers of the Islamic Brotherhood. The lives of the hostages are meaningless. They will live or die depending on the actions of the godless American government. We have no hatred of the oppressed peoples who must live in the homeland of the Great Satan, but we can not ignore the deeds of their leaders. Our brothers have been killed by the soldiers of the Great Satan and their Zionist lackeys for too many years. The victims of this unwarranted barbarism have been unable to defend themselves. They have no weapons. But now they do in us. The Americans will be made to pay. If they do not cooperate, the hostages will die. In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful, tell the Americans we are coming.” The air went dead.
Cairo tried to raise the aircraft several times, unsuccessfully.
Polhill’s face was contorted in thought. “Com, what’d you hear?”
The redheaded lieutenant brought the boom mike closer to his lips. “He sounded pissed — just like a pilot would.”
“Pilots don’t call their rides ‘airplanes’; it’s ‘aircraft.’ But you’re right, he was not a happy camper having to read that.” The commander noted the time and other observations of the message. “Hijacked out of Athens, a crackpot message…another A-rab terrorist.”
“Aye on that, sir.” The lieutenant leaned way back in his seat. There was another damn animal playing a game with the lives of hundreds of people, and not a thing they could do about it.
“Go ahead and get that off,” Polhill ordered. Within a minute the message was encrypted and sent by burst transmission up twenty-three thousand miles to a Navy communication satellite which would relay the message, condensed to less than half a second’s duration, back down to a Pentagon receiving station. Polhill wasn’t brass, nor did he have much intelligence experience behind him. He could tell, however, that this situation was probably going to develop into a first-class pain in the ass.
“Aircraft sets!” Radar shouted. At petty officer’s rank he was the junior member of the five-man crew. “I’ve got two…yeah, two sets at one-seven-nine. Search stuff. Wait…two more!”
The commander turned to his own screen, which duplicated the radar officer’s readout. The emissions gave only a bearing to their platforms — aircraft in this case — but little else. “Radar, do you have them on active?”
“Negative, sir,” Radar answered, adjusting his controls for sensitivity. “They’ve got to be on the deck. Checking bands now. Jesus! Their strength just came way up. They must be burning like there ain’t no…Got ‘em!”
“Plot!”
“Two…three…four. All of ‘em!”
“True bearings only, Radar.” Polhill switched his radio selector to the Vinson’s CAG frequency. “Rowboat, this is Hammer Two-Seven. I have four bandits. Stand by.” Four obviously military aircraft popping out of nowhere weren’t considered even remotely friendly.
The radar officer scribbled furiously on his console’s notebook. “Sir, I have Bandit One, two MiG-31s it looks like, bearing one-five-zero; speed nine-zero-zero; course zero-zero-zero. Bandit Two, looks like Foxhound emissions, too, bearing one-four-nine; speed nine-zero-zero; course — shit! — three-five-zero; distance one-three-zero miles.”
“Rowboat, I have four Libyan MiG-31s inbound. Two on me, two on the big bird.” He switched all his channel selectors to open. “Com, get the Tomcats on Bandit One. They’re heading for the 747.” The com officer acknowledged the order and sent the F-14s flying.
“Hammer Two-Seven, this is Rowboat. Two ‘Cats are on the way, and the ready-fives will be up in two.”
“Roger, Rowboat.” The commander saw that the two Tomcats nearest him were now racing at full afterburning speed directly at the two MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors directed against Flight 422. The other two just shot from the carrier were gaining altitude and speed as they moved to intercept the other pair of MiGs. It was not a comfortable feeling knowing that the F-14s assigned to protect him were going to cover another aircraft — a civilian one — while Libyan Foxhounds with their Amos air-to-air missiles were coming right at him. But he had no choice. He had to keep them off that airliner. Lord knew what they’d do.
“Sir, CIC designates our ‘Cats as Viper One, the new ‘Cats as Viper Two,” Com reported.
“Radar, distance to Bandit Two.”
“Sir, one-one-five miles to us; eight-two miles to Viper One.”
It was too damn close. The Amos missiles had a range of sixty miles, roughly forty miles less than the Phoenix missiles on the F-14s, and weren’t as accurate. Russian- trained pilots didn’t have a habit of popping missiles off at extreme ranges, or so the intel boys said. The Tomcats weren’t likely to fire their Phoenixes at similar ranges either. It wouldn’t matter much, though, with the MiGs moving at a mile every four seconds. Practical range would come in under two minutes. And Viper One. Polhill knew he’d have to order them to literally fly by the MiGs to get to Bandit One. The passing distance would be under ten miles. With a closing speed of over twenty-one hundred knots, the seconds of indecision were a precious commodity, one he couldn’t afford to waste.
“Com, order Viper One to paint Bandit Two.”
“Aye, sir.”
The commander gave his neck a quick roll to shake some of the tension. He was hoping that the Libyans racing toward him would find it unsettling to hear their radar-warning receivers go off as the F- 14s “painted” them with their powerful AWG-9 fire control radars. The same tactic had worked in most other confrontations with Qaddafi’s fighters.
“Com, does Viper One have Bandit Two?”
“That’s an affirm, sir. They have lock-ons. Viper One leader reports a red light on one of his Phoenixes.”
That meant they had only three of the long-range Phoenixes and eight of the shorter-range Sparrows between them.