Happened to hear. Well, that was one way of putting it, the President thought. "So it looks like a lot depends on Sonora," he said aloud.
"Everything, Mr. President. Believe me, literally everything in the world."
The men round the table looked surprised, and then shocked. Because it was Zorubin who had spoken, or rather cried out, those words. And all of them realised at once that Zorubin was mortally afraid.
Chapter 14
Clint Brown asked calmly, "Any hope of the hornets coming unstuck, Herman?"
"I just don’t know, Captain." Goldsmith spoke fast and nervously. "Guess I’d better go take a look in back."
"O.K. What range is the hostile now?"
"Thirty," Lieutenant Owens said. "Closing about a mile every two seconds."
Brown figured quickly. A minute to come level. Half a minute extra as the fighter turned away, another minute as it turned and caught up. Add a half minute for pilot reaction being slowed after turning hard at those speeds. About three minutes to attack. He had to go down soon. "O.K., Herman," he said, "go on back. I’ll give you thirty seconds, then I’m starting down. Plug in back there and let me know."
"Roger." Goldsmith moved quickly to the armoured bulkhead separating the pressure cabin from the main fuselage. He took with him a mobile oxygen kit and a spare intercom set.
Brown heard Owens call the fighter at twenty-five miles. He said, "Stand by for maximum rate descent. All set, Federov?"
"All set, Captain. I’ll give you six thousand revs on the descent. You can pull them back another thousand if you need to."
"All right." Brown sat watching the seconds tick away on his watch. Maximum descent was fourteen thousand feet per minute. If Goldsmith couldn’t untangle the hornets, it was the only answer. At thirty-five thousand Alabama Angel was a sitting duck. At ground level the fighter’s radar would be confused by ground returns which would blot out the aircraft blip. To fly really low was full of hazards. Bad visibility, uncertain navigation, high ground on the route. But it was the only chance.
As if reading his thoughts, Andersen piped up. "We’ll cross in just after getting down on the deck. There’s a thin layer of cloud at eighteen thousand, but there shouldn’t be much under that. Visibility should be good this time of year. There won’t be a lot of light, but there’s no high ground to worry about for the first ten minutes."
"Thanks, Stan." Brown waited for Owens to call the ten miles. He decided five seconds after that he’d begin to go down. He’d have to watch his Mach number very carefully. Normally, the 52 was well behaved right up to point nine six of the speed of sound. But the blast damage might have roughened up the airflow. He’d have to be alert for the first hint of vibration which would indicate compressibility troubles.
"Ten miles," Owens said. "Moving away to starboard."
"Roger." Brown’s hand went to the trim control. He counted off the seconds. With two left he said, "Going down," and thumbed the trim control forward. "Remember we aren’t pressurised. Keep swallowing. I can’t go back up for anyone with ear trouble."
The descent indicator moved round until it showed a rate of fourteen thousand feet per minute. Brown trimmed the bomber into the right position to maintain that rate of descent. He watched the Machmeter carefully as it moved up from point nine. Almost immediately he felt the judder. The Machmeter was indicating only point nine three. He said, "Cut back on revs, Federov."
"Cutting."
Lieutenant Goldsmith reported in from the rear fuselage. "Captain, the hornets are snarled but good. A piece of metal from that missile got the main feed servo. Nothing I can do about it, so I’m coming back up."
Brown acknowledged the message, and concentrated on his speed and rate of descent. He thought maybe the air brakes had been hit too. Something was definitely wrong. Working closely with Federov he cut back the revs to the danger point. They could not bring them down any lower without risking a flame-out. But the speed still built up too fast. Gradually, Brown trimmed back until at a descent rate of ten thousand per minute the plane was holding a steady point nine one. There was little vibration. It was a comparatively slow rate of descent, but it would have to do. Anything faster meant shaking the bomber to pieces.
"Hostile at twelve miles, four o’clock," Owens said. "Turning in."
Brown frowned, glanced at the altimeter. Still at twenty-seven thousand. He hoped the Russian pilot wouldn’t turn too tight, and wasn’t too expert at recovering and straightening out on the attack run.
"Thirteen miles, five o’clock," Owens said. "Straightening out." He paused for a few seconds, watching the scope with a concentration so intense he was oblivious to anything except the menacing brightness of the hostile echo. He saw it move ever more slowly over to six o’clock, with the range going out only slightly. "Six o’clock, now, fourteen miles. Captain, this boy’s turning real fast."
"Yeah," Brown said. "He straight now?"
"Sure, coming in straight. I’ll call him at ten and every mile after."
Brown noted the height. Twenty-three thousand. He quickly calculated the time needed to get the bomber down to ground level against the time the fighter needed to reach firing position. It was a simple problem. The fighter would be closing them at about ten miles a minute. Say he let fly at two miles range. That meant only a little more than seventy seconds before firing point. In seventy seconds the bomber would be down to an altitude of ten thousand feet. It was too high.
Suddenly, Brown was afraid. For the first time in his life he felt the physical impact of naked fear. For the first time he experienced the special refinement of agony which fear can produce in a normally brave man. He recognised it for what it was, rationalised it, and concentrated with all his determination on the job he had in hand. He did not conquer the fear, but he pushed it far enough in the background so he could continue to function efficiently.
"Ten miles," Owen called.
Ten miles. And Alabama Angel still at nineteen thousand. There wasn’t a chance of getting low enough. Desperately he sought for something he had overlooked, something which would enable him to outguess the electronic devices in the fighter behind him. But he knew there was nothing. The anti-missiles brain could swamp the low powered signals from missiles, impose its own will upon them by sheer force. But the Russians had fighters — a new supersonic series, one of which was probably boring in on them now — equipped with radar too powerful for the brain to deceive.
"Eight miles." Owens’ voice was brittle; positive but troubled.
Brown admitted to himself there was nothing he could do to counter the threat except to try and judge the moment when the figher would loose its rockets. With the admission came an immediate release of tension, and a slackening of the tight embrace which fear had locked around him. He heard Owens count the fighter in to seven miles, five, three. He braced himself for quick action.
"Goldsmith," he said urgently. "Shout ‘now’ at any sign of rocket release."
"Roger."
Brown trimmed the bomber neutral, maintained the downward path by pressure on the controls. There was just one chance. The Russian pilot’s automatic predictor sight would have computed the downward progress of the airplane. It would aim his rockets at a point where the bomber should be if it continued downwards. "Give me full power when I start nosing up, Federov," he said.
"Now," Goldsmith screamed down the intercom.
Brown heaved back on the stick, felt the fast build up of centrifugal force press him heavily down in his seat. The plane flattened out of the descent, lifted its nose reluctantly towards the sky, and began to climb. He counted the seconds as the salvo of rockets accelerated towards them, found his brain was working so fast he had time to assess the chances of the rockets carrying nuclear warhead. He put them pretty low.