Cangemi keyed his mike. "Care to come on down here?"
"We're comin' starboard," the deep voice responded. "Be there in a minute."
"Ah… negative, Bullets," Phoenix ordered. "You have three bogies thirty right for forty-seven. CAP aircraft Warning Yellow, Weapons Hold."
"Animals copy," Cangemi radioed at the same instant his Hughes radar locked onto the four aircraft approaching his flight. "I have four on the scope," Cangemi said. "Animals, go combat spread."
"Roger," Bellvue replied as he moved out to the right and up 1,000 feet.
"Bullet Two Oh Two has a lock," the navy flight leader reported. "Copy Yellow, Weapons Hold."
Both CAP flights attempted to maneuver to place themselves in advantageous positions. Each move was countered by the approaching Cuban MiGs. The Hawkeye controller, watching the four flights close on each other, ordered the Ready Two CAP pilots to launch from America. After the acknowledgment, Phoenix called the BARCAP fighter crews.
"They have good GCI [ground control intercept]. Countering every move you make. Bullets, come starboard sixty — we need more separation."
"Comin' right sixty," the VF-2 squadron executive officer replied, then called his wingman. "Barry, step up another three grand and cover me."
"Movin' up, boss."
Cangemi watched on the heads up display (HUD) the four radar targets rapidly approaching. The MiGs were straight off the Hornet's nose, closing at 700 knots. "Animals go burner, now," Cangemi ordered, shoving his twin throttles into afterburner.
"Two," Bellvue replied as he checked his radar. "I've got 'em locked."
Seven seconds later, Cangemi and his wingman saw the MiG-25 Foxbats silhouetted against a puffy cumulonimbus cloud. "Tally," Cangemi radioed. "They're Foxbats — State Iron Works twenty-fives."
"Bullet has a tally," the navy pilot radioed. "We've got three Foxbats, one o'clock low, comin' up."
Cangemi started to raise his F/A-18's nose when two of the MiGs launched missiles. "Hard port!" Cangemi shouted as he slammed the stick to the left. "They fired — MiGs launched missiles!" he gasped in the 8 1/2-g turn. He felt his tight g suit inflate, squeezing his legs and stomach in a vise grip.
"Weapons Hot!" the Hawkeye controller ordered. "CAP flights engage! Repeat, CAP flights engage!"
Bellvue reacted immediately, breaking hard left to get on the tail of the lead Foxbat. He snapped down his tinted helmet visor, selected heat, and waited a second for the lock-on tone. Cangemi saw a missile flash past his canopy, then snapped hard over to track the last MiG.
The Foxbats split into two sections, providing excellent coverage for each flight. It was obvious that the Cuban MiG-25s were being flown by well-trained fighter pilots.
Cangemi got into a turning fight with the leader of the second section, then noticed a MiG slipping behind him for the kill. The marine aviator unloaded his Hornet, throwing the number two bandit off a split second, then snatched the stick back. The F/A-18 slashed between the Foxbats as Cangemi searched frantically for his wing-man.
"Chuck," Cangemi groaned, feeling the effects of grayout as he saw Belivue twisting through the sky, "break hard starboard, now!"
Cangemi watched as his wingman wrapped the Hornet into a gut-wrenching, vapor-producing right turn. A second later, Cangemi heard a rasping sound in his headset, indicating that the selected AIM-9 Sidewinder missile was tracking the infrared signature of the lead MiG.
"Fox Two!" Cangemi said as he pulled the trigger.
The heat-seeking missile rocketed straight at the Foxbat, colliding with the right tailpipe of the twin-engine fighter. The impact blew off the entire aft section of the aircraft in a black pulsing explosion.
The MiG's nose yawed to the right, then tucked under, sending the fighter tumbling out of control through the sky. Cangemi glimpsed the canopy separate from the crippled aircraft, but he never saw the pilot eject. Cangemi whipped the stick to the right to avoid debris, then pulled into the vertical. He rolled the Hornet slowly, scanning the hazy sky.
"Chuck," Cangemi radioed, hanging in his straps as he pulled the F/A-18 through the horizon, "check your six-you've got a gomer settin' up."
"Goin' for knots," Bellvue replied as he forced the Hornet into an 8-g "Bat Turn," followed by a zero-g unload. The fighter accelerated downward, then snapped straight up when Bellvue sighted two of the Foxbats attempting to turn inside his leader.
"Vince!" Bellvue shouted. "Break left now! Fox Two!"
Bellvue waited a second, then fired two of his Sidewinder missiles in a head-on pass at the two MiGs. The advanced air-to-air weapons, three seconds apart, slammed into the first Foxbat. The doomed fighter emerged from the orange fireball trailing debris, smoke, and blazing jet fuel.
The second MiG popped up instantly to miss the colossal explosion and raining debris. The pilot caught the upper edge of the black cloud, disintegrating his right engine with foreign object damage. The MiG, turning tight, unloaded and raced for Cuban airspace.
"Reverse, Chuck!" Cangemi ordered, working the remaining MiG into a vertical scissors. "Set him up — I'm going to disengage. Call it!"
"Stay on him a couple of seconds," Bellvue responded, rechecking heat while he rolled into a firing position. He searched the sky quickly for other bandits, then heard his AIM-9 missiles track the MiG-25. "Turn him loose!"
Cangemi snatched the stick back violently, then rolled the agile Hornet 180 degrees and unloaded the g forces. Going supersonic, Cangemi snapped into the vertical again and watched both of Bellvue's missiles miss the Foxbat. He stared, transfixed, as both heat-seeking missiles tracked straight at the blazing sun low on the horizon.
"Shit!" Bellvue said, selecting his 20mm M-61 cannon. "I'm guns!"
"Wrap him up," Cangemi shouted, watching Bellvue close inside the tight-turning MiG.
Suddenly the Foxbat snapped out of the punishing turn, allowing the Hornet pilot to fall into trail — a perfect firing solution.
Cangemi's mind sounded a warning a split second before the Soviet missile erupted from under the MiG's tail. "Break, break!" Cangemi radioed as he watched the Hornet explode into a million flaming pieces. His eyes witnessed the carnage, but it took his brain a second to record the blazing image.
"Chuck!" Cangemi shouted, flashing by the black puff, "get out! Eject! Eject!"
Three seconds passed as Cangemi looked frantically for the Foxbat. He spotted the MiG turning tight and diving toward the water. "Sonuvabitch!" Cangemi swore to himself, realizing that his wingman was part of the smoking wreckage falling toward the ocean.
The MiG had disengaged and was running for home. Cangemi eased the Hornet's nose slightly in front of the Foxbat, selected another missile, waited for it to lock on, then squeezed the trigger gently.
"Fox Two!" Cangemi radioed as he watched the missile undulate toward the bastard who had killed his friend. "Go… go… be there…"
The heat-seeking weapon missed the MiG's twin exhausts, hitting the left wing root. The wing separated from the fuselage, sending the Foxbat spinning out of control. Cangemi watched the MiG pilot eject as he heard a Mayday call from one of the F-14 pilots. Stunned and absorbed in the drama, Cangemi made an age-old mistake. He allowed his F/A-18 to fly through the debris of his kill.
Seven armed guards surrounded the partially dismantled Stealth bomber. All activity had ceased in the hangar while everyone involved in the secret operation was interrogated by the KGB director.
The technicians, scientists, and KGB personnel were sequestered in two adjoining rooms. Gennadi Levchenko, sitting in his small office, was questioning each man individually.
Natanoly Obukhov, the assistant KGB director, approached Levchenko's door.
"Have you found the infiltrator?" Levchenko barked. "Comrade director," Obukhov bowed slightly in a highly respectful manner, "our men are scouring the base and surrounding area. We have three helicopters and two spotter planes in the air, and we are-"