The big plan was for each bomber and its accompanying Prowler to run a mock attack on the Soviet task group as close to simultaneously as possible. Jake would approach from the southwest, Colonel Haldane from the northwest. The E-2 Hawkeye, the Hummer, would monitor their progress and coordinate the attack. However, each A-6 BN had to find the task group on radar before they sank below the radar horizon. Then the bombers would run in at five hundred feet. In an actual attack they would come in lower, perhaps as low as two hundred, but not at night, not in this weather, for drill. The risks of flying that close to the sea were too great.
Flap started the video recorder, a device that the A-6A never had. This device would record everything seen on the radar screen, all the computer and inertial data, as well as the conversation on the radio and in the cockpit.
“Recorder’s on,” he told Jake. “Keep it clean.”
This electronic record of the attack could be used for poststrike analysis, or, as CAG had hinted in the brief, sent to Washington to show to any bigwigs or congressmen who wanted to know what, exactly, the Navy had done in response to the collision at sea.
Had the Soviet skipper intended to bump the carrier? Did he tell the truth to his superiors? These imponderables had of course been weighed in Washington, and orders had been sent to the other side of the earth.
It was midafternoon in Washington. The city would be humming with the usual mix of tourists, government workers anxious to begin their afternoon trek to the suburbs, the latest tunes coming over the radios, soap operas on television…
Jake wondered about the weather there. Late November. Was it cold, rainy, overcast?
All those people in America, finishing up another Monday, and he and Flap were here, over the Indian Ocean, passing ten thousand feet with a Prowler on their wing and a Soviet task group somewhere in the night ahead.
“See it yet?”
“No. Stop at eight thousand and hold there.”
As they flew eastward the turbulence increased. Jake had Flap arrange his rearview mirror so he could keep tabs on the Prowler. Pee Wee Reese seemed to be hanging in there pretty well. He had to. If he lost sight of the bomber, he would have to break off. Two planes feeling for each other in this soup would be a fine way to arrange a midair collision.
“The Commies aren’t where they’re supposed to be,” Flap said finally.
“You sure?”
“All I know is that the radar screen is empty. Rocket scientist that I am, I deduce the Reds aren’t where the spies said they would be. Or Columbia’s inertial was all screwed up and this is the wrong ocean. Or all the Reds have sunk. Those are the possibilities.”
“Better ask Black Eagle.”
It turned out the E-2 was also looking for the Soviets at the maximum range of its radar. It soon found them, steaming hard to the northeast, directly away from Jake and Flap and directly toward the line of thunderstorms that had just passed over them.
“They know something’s up,” Jake said.
“Terrific. They’re at general quarters expecting us and we’ll have to go under thunderstorms to get to them. And to think we almost didn’t get a date for this party.”
“Man, we’re having fun now.”
Flap didn’t reply. He was busy.
After a bit he said, “Okay, I got ’em. Give me a few moments to get a course and speed and then we’ll go down.”
While he was talking the electronic warfare (EW) panel chirped. A Soviet search radar was painting them. In addition to the flashing light on the panel when the beam swept them, Jake heard a baritone chirp in his headset.
So much for surprise.
The turbulence was getting worse. The bouncing was constant now. Rain coursed around the windscreen and across the canopy. “Radar is getting degraded,” Flap muttered. “Rain. I got them though, course Zero Five Zero at fifteen. Lots of sea return. Swells are big down there, my man.”
“Can we go down?”
“Yeah.”
Jake glanced over at the reflection of the Prowler in the mirror. Pee Wee was riding fairly steadily, cycling up and down as the planes bounced, but never slipping too far out of position. Jake carefully eased the throttle back and let the nose go down a half a degree. When he was sure the EA-6B pilot was still with him, he lowered the nose some more.
A pale green light caught his eye, and he glanced at the windscreen. Dancing tendrils of green fire were playing across it.
“Look at this,” he told Flap. “Saint Elmo’s fire.”
“This makes my night,” the BN said. “All we need is for the Russians to squirt a missile at us and this will be a complete entertainment experience.”
“Will a lightning bolt do?”
“Don’t say stuff like that. God’s listening. You’re passing five thousand.”
“Radar altimeter’s set.”
“Roger. Station one selected, master arm to go.”
They were up to four hundred knots indicated now. The EA-6B was right there, hanging on. Eighty miles to go.
Wasn’t Saint Elmo’s fire an indicator that lightning might strike? Wasn’t that what the old sailors said? Even as he wondered the flickering green fire faded, then disappeared completely.
Black Eagle gave them a turn. Jake banked gently to the new heading. The steering to the target was forty degrees left, but the controller in the E-2 was trying to coordinate the attack. When he had one of the formations four miles farther from the target than the other, he would have them turn inbound and accelerate to five hundred knots. The pilots would call their distance to go on the radio every ten miles. The plan was for the bombers and their EA-6B escorts to pass over the Soviet task group thirty seconds apart. Neither formation would see the other, so this separation was required for safety reasons.
Jake eased his descent passing twenty-five hundred feet. He shallowed it still more passing a thousand and drifted slowly down to five hundred, keeping one eye on the radar altimeter. He adjusted the barometric pressure on the pressure altimeter so it matched the radar altimeter’s reading exactly.
The turbulence had not let up, nor had it increased. The rain was heavier, though. The high airspeed kept the windscreen clear but the water ran across the top and sides of the canopy in sheets.
“War Aces, turn inbound.”
Jake came left to center the steering and fed the throttles forward until they were at ninety-eight percent RPM. Pee Wee stayed right with him.
“Five Oh Two, seventy miles. ”
Fifteen seconds later he heard Haldane’s voice: “Five Oh Five, sixty miles.”
Each plane was inbound on a bomb run at eight and a third nautical miles per minute. They were a little over thirty seconds apart, but the extra margin was an added safety cushion.
“I should get them at about thirty miles, I think,” Flap said.
And when we can see them, they can see us.
Jake reached down and flipped the IFF, the transponder, to standby. No use giving the Reds an easy problem.
He glanced at the EW panel. Still quiet. When they rose above the Russians’ radar horizon it would light up like a Christmas tree.
“Five Oh Two, sixty miles.”
The turbulence was getting vicious. The radar altimeter beeped once when Jake inadvertently dropped to four hundred feet. He concentrated on the instruments, on the attitude indicator on the VDI, on the needle of the rate-of-climb indicator, cross-checking the radar and pressure altimeters, all the while working to keep his wings level and steering centered. Every moment or two he glanced in the mirror to check on Pee Wee Reese, who was sticking like glue. No question, the guy was good.