“Tell them that.”
Looking up through the canopy, Lobo spotted six double-wide vapor trails etching across the blue. Her skin tightened. For any fighter pilot, altitude almost always equaled power. But today she didn’t have the option of seeking the high slot, not if she was going to perform her assigned duty of protecting the area where the jet had gone down. If what had happened to Lady of Leisure was any indication, the biggest danger to potential survivors would come not from a highflying jet, but from a boat or helicopter. Still…
“I hate this,” she said over ICS.
“Lobo,” Handyman said, “high or low, you can out-fly anyone in the sky. You got that?”
She blinked. “Thanks, Handyman.” Switching to tactical, she said, “Okay, Hot Rock, get ready to start searching.”
“What a grand idea.”
“Relax. Reinforcements are ten minutes out. Keep tight this time, Hot Rock. Welded wing unless somebody starts something.”
“Welded wing, roger.”
Lobo clicked off. Easy to tell her wingman to relax, but she was facing a bit of an inner chill herself; couldn’t deny it. The last major air battle she’d been in… well, she’d ended up punching out of her plane. And then, of course, spending some quality time with a Russian militia.
And later still, spending a lot more time getting her head shrunk.
She hoped it was the right size for whatever came up now.
“I always thought Hornets were speedy,” Major “Thor” Hammersmith growled, thumping the throttles of his F/A-18 with the heel of his hand. “Come on, you bitch.”
“We’re getting there,” his wingman, Reedy, said in the voice that had earned him his call sign. “Besides, we were told to grab for altitude at the same time.”
“Yeah, yeah.” All Thor wanted to do was shoot down a bad guy. The last major military action he’d been involved in, down in Cuba, he’d gotten his ass blown out of the sky while he was refueling. Refueling! Spent the rest of that little affair tied to a chair while different Cubans pounded on him and used him to taunt the U.S. Navy. Not any Marine’s idea of “participation.”
Not that he was planning on starting a fight here. No way. But these assholes had blasted an innocent American yacht to pieces the other night, then actually ripped a chunk out of Jefferson — accidentally or otherwise, it didn’t matter — and now they’d shot down a commair with a missile. How brave. How warrior-like. Well, Thor’s Hornet was loaded down with air-to-air missiles, so if the Chinese were ready to try their luck against the big boys, Thor was ready for them.
He knew that more than half the planes awaiting them were the latest model Flanker. Rumor had it that although these Flankers were as big as F-14s — or “Turkeys,” in Hornet driver parlance — the Russian fighters handled more like F/A-18s. In the case of the SU-35, they supposedly handled better than Hornets.
That’s what he’d heard. But what you heard and what you knew, well, they were often two different things. And Thor Hammersmith knew that nothing could beat an F/A-18 in a close-in knife fight. Nothing.
He thumped the throttles again. Tried not to think about the rate at which his two F404-GE-402 turbofans were gulping down precious fuel. That was the Hornet’s biggest disadvantage compared to the Turkey: Hornets had short legs. It would be just his luck to get in a punch or two in an air battle, only to have to run away again to gas up.
Not that there was going to be any fight, mind you….
An axiom of dogfighting stated that all else being equal, a lone fighter plane was a victim, while a pair acting in concert was like a two-headed snake: It saw everything, and could bite in any direction.
As wingman in the so-called “welded wing” formation, Hot Rock’s primary job was to be the rear head of the snake, keeping his lead safe. In the event of an actual battle, he would fly in tandem with Lobo, protecting her vulnerable back from attack so she could concentrate on her primary job: shooting down enemy aircraft. His own weapons load would serve mostly as a backup to hers.
That was why most fighter jocks preferred the “loose deuce” formation, developed by American pilots during the Vietnam war. In loose deuce configuration, the two fighters kept a great deal more space between them, and depending on circumstances, one or the other might become the primary attack plane, with the second flying in the support and backup role.
Although he’d never admit it, Hot Rock not only liked flying welded wing, he preferred the wingman slot. It was challenging from a piloting standpoint, because a wingman had to not only anticipate his lead’s movements so as to maintain proper relative position on her, but do so while constantly scanning the surrounding sky for enemies.
This meant the wingman had to leave the most crucial battle decisions up to the lead.
And that was fine with Hot Rock, because such an arrangement almost eliminated the possibility that he might make a bad tactical error.
He followed Lobo as she flew a grid search pattern, drawing an invisible tic-tac-toe board over the approximate area where the business jet had gone down. Looking down at the water, Hot Rock glimpsed the occasional fleck that was a drifting cushion or other piece of flotsam. He was hoping to see a flare or spreading dye marker, or even a life raft. Nothing.
Of course, it was difficult to concentrate on searching the water, because he and Lobo were not alone in the air. Apart from the eight bogeys far overhead, two more were hurtling around at virtually this same altitude, probably conducting their own search. Twice already, Hot Rock had gotten a much closer look at them than he would have preferred as the Flankers cut across the Tomcats’ path.
He toggled the radio to tactical. “Viper Leader, they’re going to be just above us on the next pass,” he said.
“I know that.” Lobo’s voice was curt. “Be ready, but ignore them.”
Hot Rock started to reply, then toggled to ICS. “ ‘Be ready, but ignore them’? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means to keep your finger over the weapons selector,” Two Tone said. “I’ll let you know when you need it.”
“You mean ‘if.’ ”
“Right.”
“Here they come,” Lobo said, eyes locked on the two Chinese aircraft crossing from her right. She felt sweat prickling her scalp as they closed in, everything moving too fast —
— and then the Flankers thundered overhead, so close the shock of their passing gave Lobo’s Tomcat a savage yank. For once, she was glad for the tight fit of the cockpit.
“Assholes,” Handyman said dryly.
“Looked like SU-27s,” Lobo said, as if she’d had all day to study the Chinese plane going by. “Guess they left the top-of-the-line fighters in the high-altitude hairball.”
“Yeah. Probably all the missiles these two are carrying are low-budget models, too,” Handyman said. “Now I feel a lot better about having them playing chicken with us. It’s — Lobo! Flare at two o’clock!”
She looked to her right and saw it, a red spark burning bright and hot even against the sunny sky. She immediately put in a call to the carrier. “Homeplate, Viper Leader. We’ve spotted an emergency flare. Repeat, an emergency flare; looks like it came from the area where the plane went down.”
“Viper Leader, this is Admiral Wayne. Maintain overhead orbit until SAR arrives. Don’t start anything, but make it clear we’re involved, understood?”