The Blackbird's radar signature was lost in the flurry of images caused by the Foxhounds' exploding missiles. But finally, the spy plane's white blip was reacquired on the radar scope, and the operator noticed its altitude and speed were falling. Slowly at first, then faster.
"Colonel, I think we hit it!… It is falling!"
A collective cheer went up through the cavernous room, and the loudest voice among the chorus was the colonel's. He had shot down an American Blackbird. How glorious! Could a general's epaulets be far behind? "Where will it impact?" Leonov asked.
The operator studied his screen. "He is continuing to fall. It looks like he will come down somewhere north of Pechora on the Bolshezemelskaya Tundra."
"Obtain the closest fix that you can. The wreckage may yield us some secrets, as that American U-2 did many years ago… probably before you were born, my friend."
The young lieutenant turned around and smiled at his colonel in the Crow's Nest. It was such a triumph — one to be savored.
A staunch Roman Catholic, Griggs whispered a prayer, while Floyd kept up a low chant of "Ohshitohshitohshitohshit."
Their aircraft was arcing over into a steep dive and descending through 90,000 feet.
Grigg's plan was to keep the Blackbird in proper trim as they descended into thicker air below 50,000 feet. Then he would open the engine cones and let the airflow hit the spinning tur-bofan blades. If the turbofans maintained enough RPM, he could restart the engines. A nice strategy, but plenty could go wrong. If sufficient airspeed wasn't maintained when he opened the air intake cones, the turbine RPMs could drop below the minimum level required to execute an airstart. Or maybe the port engine had been damaged in the attack, so even if they got one engine started the spy plane would have to limp along at an altitude well within range of SAM missiles and fighters. Lovely.
"Okay, Pretty Boy, here we go," whispered Griggs in a tight voice. At 45,000 feet he slammed open the air intake cones and hit the two ignition switches simultaneously. A wave of relief swept over both men as the two turbofans came to life. Griggs pushed the throttles halfway in to give the Blackbird enough power to slowly pull out of its dive.
They had just plummeted through 39,000 feet.
The white blip halted its descent. It was moving again.
"Colonel! The American spy plane has stopped falling… He is moving again… slighdy in excess of Mach One."
Leonov felt a pang in his chest. "What sector?" he cried.
"Fourteen-G."
The Foxhounds had already turned for home on their thirsty fuel tanks. To scramble another flight might take too long, so the colonel pressed a button that connected him with the 128th Air Defense Battery at Pechora.
"Captain Vydinsky," came the immediate reply.
"Captain, this is Aerospace Warning Centre! Do you have a bogie on your screen in sector fourteen-G?"
"Of course," replied Vydinsky. "We have been tracking this activity carefully. It appears some Foxhounds have been taking shots at it."
"Is it in range?"
"Da."
"Engage it now!"
Seven seconds later four long-range SA-5 Gammon missiles roared out of their bunker pads, which ringed the phased-array radar complex at Pechora.
Griggs leveled off the Blackbird at 37,000 feet to check out the systems before returning to a higher altitude.
"Aw, shit."
"What is it, Pretty Boy?"
"We got another lock-on… and, yep, missile fired. This one's coming from the ground, though."
"Hit the missile sucker," ordered Griggs.
Floyd toggled some switches, but his indicator needles didn't move. "Looks like the sucker's gone dead. Can we outrun this one?"
"We're certainly going to try," replied Griggs in a squeaky voice.
Luckily, they were already at supersonic speed and could forgo the "dipsy-doodle" maneuver. Griggs shoved his throttles all the way in and pulled back on the stick. He was at 37,000 feet, which gave the SR-71 about a six-mile lead on the ascending SA-5 Gammons. All he had to do was make it to the Gammons' 90,000-foot service ceiling before the missiles did.
The radar operator stared at his screen intently as the blip of the blackbird raced upward, trying to shake the pursuing Gammons.
"He's climbing, Colonel, but the missiles are gaining!"
Leonov's heart was pounding. "Good, good."
The young lieutenant continued watching his scope closely, mesmerized by the scene. He'd never seen a race such as this. The missiles were closing… closing…
The SR-71 climbed through 80,000 feet.
"They're closing fast, Catman," said Floyd in a tight voice.
"I hear you." The aircraft was now at an altitude where the turbo-to-ramjet conversion could take place, and Griggs held the throttles hard against their stops.
"Still closing," said Floyd.
Griggs watched his altimeter spin past 84,000 feet. "Come on, baby, come on!"
The two blips almost converged.
Almost.
At 31,000 meters the Blackbird's blip continued climbing, while those of the Gammon missiles seemed to hang in place for a few moments before starting on a downward arc.
"Colonel… the American spy plane has… pulled away."
Leonov did not reply. He sat there dumbfounded, contemplating the stacks of paperwork he would be filling out, for weeks on end.
He could kiss his general's epaulets goodbye.
The boom operator deftly inserted the aluminum pipe into the Blackbird's fueling vent.
"Contact, Catman. Starting flow now." The operator opened a valve and the JP-7 liquid began gushing from the KC-10 into the spy plane's near-empty fuel tanks. "So how'd it go?"
Griggs was too tired to respond intelligently. "Just a regular milk run," he mumbled.
Lt. Col. Vasili Lubinin attempted to guide the aluminum strut into the nearby receptacle hub, but his initial momentum from the backpack thruster had diminished. He was sorely tempted to close the remaining distance with a little swimmer's kick, but he knew such an attempt would bring an admonition from the tank controller — because swimming kicks didn't work very well in outer space. Luckily, his teammate, Maj. Sergei Yemitov, reached out and pulled the strut a final meter into the hub's waiting receptacle. Yemitov then closed a clamp over the strut with a definitive click.
"Many thanks, Sergeivich," said Lubinin.
"We are a team, Vasilivich," responded Yemitov, as indeed they were. So much so that the major addressed the colonel by his first name without reservation.
"All right, you two," instructed the controller, "back up and let us see the handiwork of this marvelous team."
The two cosmonauts readily complied, propelling themselves away from the structure with squirts from their maneuvering backpacks. They were traveling through a water tank roughly half the size of Madison Square Garden, where for the last hour they'd been constructing a large geodesic dome with prefabricated aluminum struts and hubs. When the Soviet Star Wars platform was eventually constructed it would have to be assembled in orbit piece by piece, and the dome assembly was good exercise.