Denton immediately deselected the AUTO LOCK touch-screen button on the supercockpit monitor, which gave him manual control of the missiles. McLanahan immediately reached over and rolled the trackball left…
… but it was too late. McLanahan and Denton watched in horror as both Striker missiles plowed into the port side amidships of the passenger ferry; they even clearly saw passengers standing on the port rail near the bow just before the missiles hit. Five seconds later, the second Striker missile registered a direct hit as well.
“Oh, my God,” Denton muttered. “What did I do? What in hell did I do?”
“Forget it, Jeff — Jeff, dammit, snap out of it! ” McLanahan shouted. “Your responsibility now is with your crew and your aircraft. Get on the radar and find out who we’re up against.” But it was no use — Denton was frozen, stunned by confusion, fear, and a dozen other emotions. McLanahan had no other choice. He reached across Denton’s shoulder, unfastened his shoulder straps and seat belt, and one-handedly hauled Denton out of the OSO’s seat. Denton did not resist this time. “Jeff, go downstairs, strap into a seat and parachute, and monitor the flight instruments. Make sure your seat is unpinned and ready. Go! ” Denton was lucid enough to offer a silent apology to McLanahan before climbing down the ladder to the lower-deck spare ejection seats. McLanahan activated the Megafortress’s attack radar, which scanned the skies in all directions; he shut it down as soon as the system had recorded all air, sea, and land targets.
In the meantime, Bob Atkins had swapped seats with Bruno and was now in command of the defensive weaponry. “Okay, crew, nearest fighter formation is now ten o’clock, thirty-three miles and closing,” Atkins began. “I don’t think they have a radar lock on us, but they got a good solid vector from the Foxbats, and they’re headed this way. I’ve got a second formation low, twelve o’clock, fifty-three miles and closing.”
“A low CAP, Bob?”
He studied his threat display for a moment; then: “Don’t think they’re fighters, Colonel. I’m showing surface search radars only — no air search or target-tracking radars. They’re looking for the frigates. I think we’ve got anti-ship attack planes inbound. Colonel, call the James Daniel, see if they got the inbounds and find out if they can coordinate with us.” “Rog,” McLanahan said. He switched his radio to the fleet common frequency: 'James Daniel, this is Headbanger, how copy?”
“Headbanger, this is James Daniel on fleet common tactical one. Suggest you clear the area and head east. Stay out of this area. We are responding to inbound bandits at this time. Clear this frequency.”
“Second flight of bandits, low altitude, eleven o’clock, forty-eight miles,” Atkins reported. “I’ve counted eight inbounds so far in two formations. There’s probably more. I need another radar sweep.”
“JD, this is Headbanger. You have at least eight inbounds on an antiship missile attack profile, and we’ve got more than twice that number after us,” McLanahan said. “Let’s make a deal — you get the fighters, we’ll take the attack planes. Deal?”
There was an excruciatingly long pause; then a different voice responded: “Okay, Headbanger, it’s a deal. This is the TAO on the JD. Stay north of us, and we’ll keep your tail clear.”
“Copy that, JD,” McLanahan said with relief. “Give us your search and track bands to avoid.”
“Stop buzzer on India-three through Juliet-ten to keep our scopes clear,” the tactical action officer on the James Daniel replied. “You’re clear to jam all other freqs — and I hope you’re not a bad guy, or else we’ve just screwed ourselves. You got a wingman?”
“Affirm,” McLanahan said. “He’ll be coming in from the north.” “Keep him north. Good hunting.”
“Center up on the heading bug, heading three-zero-five to intercept,” Atkins called out.
In the meantime, Nancy Cheshire was on the secure satellite frequency to Headbanger Two: “Two, this is lead, how copy?”
“Loud and clear, Nance,” Colonel Kelvin Carter responded from the second EB-52 Megafortress.
“Authenticate echo-echo.”
“Poppa.”
“Loud and clear,” Cheshire said. “Stand by.”
“I got ’em,” McLanahan said. He centered his cursor on the trailing formation of Chinese fighters, the ones closest to Carter. As he did so, the information from his attack computers was being shared with the second Megafortress, which meant Carter’s crew did not even have to activate its attack radar. “Two, this lead, there’s your bandits.”
“Tied on radar,” Major Alicia Kellerman, the OSO on Headbanger Two, replied. “I show you’ve only got two Scorpions remaining, lead. Maybe you better bug out.”
“Let’s see what kind of havoc we can cause first,” McLanahan replied.
“Have fun. Two’s in hot.”
It took only the last two of Atkins’s Scorpion missiles to break up the first formation. The formation consisted of eight Q-5 Nanchang fighter- bombers, copies of the Soviet Sukhoi-17 fighter-bomber, armed with four AS-10 electro-optical attack missiles each. The fighters broke up into four groups of two, spread apart and in trail by several miles — Atkins merely locked up the two lead formations. The Q-5 fighter, with variable- geometry wings, was fast and agile, but the AS-10 missile had a maximum range of only six miles and required the pilot to acquire the target using the TV sensor on the missile itself. Atkins jammed the Q-5’s mapping radar, which meant the Chinese pilots had to climb so they could visually acquire the two Navy frigates — and that made them sitting ducks for Atkins and his Scorpion missiles. Both missiles hit dead on target, destroying two Q-5s, and their wingmen promptly did a one-eighty and headed for home.
“Pilot, mil power, heading two-zero-zero,” Atkins ordered. “I’ve got two formations of two still inbound. They split up, but we know who they’re going after — they gotta converge soon. We gotta be there ahead of them.” The Megafortress banked hard in response, speeding southward toward the two Navy frigates. “Okay, I’ve got the closest bandits at our seven o’clock, ten miles — they’re only a few miles from their launch points. Stand by for Stinger launch. Give me a hard turn to one-five- zero.”
As Elliott threw the Megafortress into a hard left turn, Atkins activated the tail-mounted Stinger self-defense rockets, locked up the formation of Q-5 bombers to the west, and began laying down a string of Stinger airmines in the path of the Q-5 fighters. The airmines exploded far ahead of the fighter-bombers, probably too far to be seen, but Atkins was hoping that he might catch one or both of the fighters with the large cloud of flak pellets generated by the exploding rockets. When the Megafortress was just a few miles from the northernmost formation, Atkins shouted, “Hard right, heading two-five-oh!” and as the bomber turned, Atkins started pumping out rockets in front of the second formation.
This time, they were closer to the Chinese fighters — one direct hit. The pilot of the single-engine Q-5 fighter, his engine shelled out by hundreds of steel pellets from the Stinger rockets, bailed out seconds before his Q-5 fighter exploded when the engine tore itself apart. His wingman stayed on the attack run and launched all four of his AS-10 missiles, copies of the American-made Maverick attack missiles, at the James Daniel. The Chinese pilot locked all four missiles on target, then started a hard right turn away from the frigate — directly into the lethal attack cone of the Megafortress’s Stinger tail cannon. At least six of the Megafortress’s Stinger rockets hit home, shredding the Q-5’s canopy, engine, forward fuselage — and pilot.