He hurried as quickly as he could, looking right and left but needing to turn his shoulders, his neck muscles felt as if they had locked solid. As he drew level with the Russian field police vehicles the officer appeared from the rear of the nearer vehicle, he had apparently buttoned up the door as the bombs fell. Both vehicles were on fire and the man had obviously undogged the hatch to escape the flames within, he was on fire and screaming piteously, Johar reached for his pistol but stopped himself and deliberately walked on. In the years to come he would tell himself he had not put him out of his misery for fear of drawing attention, rather than because of the murdered men in the wood, in the years to come he would tell himself that lie often.
To the north, Hawk 01 had turned northwest immediately upon launching its AIM-120B at the A-50 and its escorts. After five minutes Hawk 01 turned west, hunting the deadly SA-10 Favorit sites nearer the front. Corbin kept the hybrid Nighthawk at tree level, or rather the systems slaved to the TFR, terrain following radar did. Hawk 01 was one of a pair of test bed airframes released for operational service. This two seat version did not have the ‘legs’ of its compatriots, but needs must in times such as these. At least it allowed him the luxury of a navigator/weapons officer and permitted to just fly.
Lt Billy Firewalker, his native American navigator was busy trying to pick a route that avoided their encountering SAM sites. Ground threats appeared on his threat screen as figure S icons; air threats were depicted by batwings.
Where a radar was detected, but had not illuminated them, the icon was a faint flickering red. If it had illuminated, or painted, them the icon thickened in size but still flickered. A lock-on was solid, unflickering red.
“Search radar at 1 o-clock… looks like a Tombstone, probably at Polatsk… big town, but they don’t got us yet,” he warned. There was nothing in his voice to indicate his great granddaddy had ridden with Geronimo, it was pure Texan.
“Rog,” Tobias replied.
“Coming left to 262.”
The Nighthawk banked to the left, raising its profile slightly and the Tombstone radar painted it again but not enough to enable detection.
The new heading took them directly across the Western Dvina River where it met the Ula. Tobias told Billy to set the TFR to sixty feet and he took them south above the River Ula’s surface.
“We got a major road bridge coming up, Vitsyebsk to Lyepyel highway, they got to have SAM’s or a Zeus or two protecting it… twelve miles. We got high ground both sides for another eight… small valley to the left then, old river course I guess. HT lines across this here river just after that.”
“Rog.”
No sooner had Tobias acknowledged than flickering batwings, denoting an air threat at their six o-clock, appeared on the threat scope.
“Shit, looks like we got us a Zhuk radar back there… Fulcrum or Foxhound, he ain’t got us yet, but if we turn he might!”
Billy called the Mig-29s radar by its Russian codename, the Zhuk was a very capable piece of equipment that had locked up a Nighthawk during the Gulf War, on that occasion the cavalry, in the form of a F-16, had splashed it before it could launch on the F-117A.
“Where is he, how far?”
“Ten klicks… but closing!”
“If we don’t turn, we run the gauntlet at the bridge… we have to turn Billy.” Billy had started to get excited but the colonel’s matter of fact way of speaking, almost bored manner settled him down.
“Okay… three miles to the turn, Colonel.”
The Fulcrum had been directed by the A-50, before it was destroyed, to investigate the brief trace. The pilot knew that they were in the vicinity, nothing else could have got close enough to the giant AWAC and its powerful radar without being detected.
Its pilot used his IRST, Geophysica 36-Sh electro-optical sensor suite combined infrared search and tracking sensors in conjunction with his lookdown radar. At 7,000 feet the Mig-29 had picked up a heat trace and descended towards it. Against the cold surface of the river, the Nighthawk was leaving an IR track, despite its sophisticated heat masking and dispersal design. As the Fulcrum grew closer to the stealth aircraft, the heat trace grew stronger.
“Turn coming up, TFR set.” Billy informed Tobias.
Tobias let his hand hover near the side stick control; his kids used side sticks when they played Super Maria or Super Marlow or whatever the stupid plumber was called. The aircraft was flying itself; the computers and sensors in the aircraft could fly the machine, as he never could. Without the computers adjusting the control surfaces constantly he could not keep it flying by himself. The whole machine was reliant on its systems to stay in the air, not the humans sat at the front, and it took a leap of faith to put your trust in it. Despite the makers assurances about the EMP shielding he was always sceptical, how could they know without letting off a nuclear airburst somewhere to test it. EMP, the electromagnetic pulse generated by a nuclear weapon detonating in the atmosphere, screwed up all manner of electronic systems, from computers to car batteries.
The Nighthawk banked hard left as it entered the valley. In mid-turn the flickering batwings solidified, accompanied by the deedle deedle audible warning that they had been illuminated by the Mig-29 and its fire control system had them locked up.
For the Fulcrum pilot, a solid radar lock, as the Nighthawks radar profile increased in its banking turn, instantly replaced the disappearance of the IR trace, with the F-117A leaving the river to fly overland once more.
The pilot called it in, but the NATO air superiority operation was in full swing and everyone had their hands full staying alive.
The radar track faded as the Nighthawk levelled out but the Fulcrums radar now knew where to look and focused its search, locking it up once more. The pilot selected his AA-8 Aphids but the American activated his track-breakers and the missile lock-on tone died. Frustrated, he decided to shake the other pilot up a bit and dropped lower.
“He’s still back there, Tobe!”
“Yes, but his missiles can’t see us to lock-on, we’re okay!”
Tracer slashed past, blindly groping for them and Tobias kicked the rudder, slewing them away. The high terrain warning screeched, reminding him how close they were to the valley walls.
An S icon appeared on the threat screen at their twelve o-clock, directly ahead where the valley widened. Unbeknownst to the crew, they had been flying towards a divisional headquarters, unplotted by JSTARS.
“Shit… ground search radar ahead, we got Zeus and Grumbles, we got to turn man!”
“Like hell we do, lock ‘em up with the HARMs!”
Billy selected the AGM-88 high speed anti-radiation missiles and launched two away.
As the Nighthawks rotary launcher in the F-117As belly cycled to release the weapons against the ground threats, the Fulcrum pilot got a lock-on tone again from his AA-8 Aphids and pickled two off at the unseen target ahead.
With the missiles gone, the low radar profile was restored and the track-breakers did their job.
The super-cooled IR sensor in the Nighthawks tail detected the heat signatures of the missiles and activated an alarm.
“Missile launch!” The automated counter-measures system ejected chaff bundles sideways out the left and right dispensers.
One Aphid locked onto the chaff, it had not been in flight long enough for the proximity fuse to engage and curved right, flying through the chaff without exploding, and turning in an attempt to reacquire, it impacted against the valleys side.
The second missile failed to lock on to anything and streaked past the F-117A, still seeking a target. Both American’s let out the breath they had been holding.