“Lobo,” Handyman said, “I’ve got a visual on that Chinese helo. I hate to ask awkward questions, but what are we supposed to do if it ignores us? Shoot it down?”
“I wish,” Lobo said.
“Let’s get horizontal,” Thor said into his oxygen mask. Toggling the radio, he reported to Homeplate that he and Reedy had arrived on site, at an altitude of fifty-two thousand feet — all they could manage, but still below the ceiling of the Russian planes. He and Reedy started circling well outside the orbit of the six bogeys, trying to look innocent.
But Thor could see the enemy, the dying light of day flaring silver-gold off the lower surfaces of wings and canards as the Flankers circled. Six of them, not to mention the two older models far down below, dancing with Lobo and Hot Rock just above the water.
Bad position. And a bad fuel situation for him and Reedy.
Who cares?
Thor ran his thumb over the weapons selector switch and waited for something to happen.
“Viper 304, Viper 302,” Lobo said. “Hot Rock, we’d better make things a little rough for that helo before it gets any closer. We’re going to need to spread out some.”
“What?”
“If we’re going to keep that chopper off the survivor, we’ve got to put up a wall. I go past it, then you go past it, then I go, like that. Constant circles. Rip up the air. No gap big enough for him to slip through. You’re such a hot stick, you think you can handle that?”
A pause, then, “You’re the boss.”
“Then let’s do it.”
“How much farther?” Bird Dog snapped over ICS. “How much farther?”
“You sound like a little kid in the back of a station wagon,” Catwoman said. “Five mikes. Keep your shirt on — sir. What can happen in the next five minutes?”
“They didn’t teach this in flight school,” Hot Rock muttered as he eased back on the throttles, letting the distance between his Tomcat and Lobo’s lengthen. At the same time, both planes were descending. Hot Rock rarely saw the ocean this close except during launches and landings — the two most dangerous times to be a Naval aviator.
But he wasn’t worried about the water; he was too busy keeping an eye on the two escorting Flankers. For a few moments they seemed uncertain what to do; then they both rose up and took up new position, one behind each of the Tomcats. Overall, the formation was odd. Hot Rock had a clear belly-shot at the Flanker following Lobo, but at the same time he was dead in the sights of the Flanker on his own six o’clock. A Mexican standoff.
“No need to hit the deck.” Lobo’s voice was flat but intense in his hears. “Use your wingtip vortices. Got that?”
Hot Rock clicked his mike twice. Lobo was talking about taking advantage of what was usually an annoying feature of fixed-wing aerodynamics — the tilted hurricanes of air that formed at the outer ends of a wing, where compressed air from the underside met low-pressure air from above. The resulting braids of turbulence were a major source of drag, as well as a potential hazard to other air traffic because they could linger for minutes in the air, invisible and tenacious, like horizontal tornadoes.
In this case, though, Lobo was advocating using the vortices as blunt instruments to make the Chinese helo think twice about approaching the survivor in the water. Painting the air with turbulence that way would require some fine flying, and Hot Rock felt himself relaxing just thinking about it.
Ahead of him, Lobo was making her first turn toward the helo, which was a slick-looking Z-9 with retractable landing gear and a shark-fin fairing around its tail rotor. The helo was flying low enough to create a gray shimmer on the water.
Lobo increased her angle of bank, slipping down as she crossed the path of the helo. Her Chinese escort, Hot Rock noted, remained at his own higher altitude. Lobo roared past the helo, well above and in front of it, but plainly within the pilot’s sight. This was obvious because the helo immediately raised its nose in a hard braking action and swiveled partly to its left as it halted.
Hot Rock felt an electrical prickle on the back of his neck. What Lobo had just done could, arguably, be interpreted as a highly aggressive act. He waited to hear the sharp warbling tone in his helmet that would indicate a fire-control radar lock on his aircraft… but it didn’t happen. So far, everything was still cool.
Hot Rock increased his own angle of bank and let the Tomcat slip down along the same path Lobo had taken. He felt the slight bumping of disrupted air where her plane had been, although the harsher turbulence of its wingtip vortices were well below him, hammering down on the water.
He was beginning to level out for his close pass on the helo when he heard Two Tone shout: “Hot Rock! He’s going guns! Going guns! Gunfire in the water!”
Later, Hot Rock would review that moment over and over again in his mind. The helo was dead ahead, its tail pivoted somewhat toward him, but not at such an oblique angle that Hot Rock couldn’t see the open side hatch and the machine gun mounted there. He was sure, later, that he’d seen those things. He also plainly saw gouts of orange flame ripping into the air. That wasn’t just his imagination, or an illusion caused by sunlight flaring off passing swells. No way.
In fact, the sight of the flames was so startling he hesitated a moment, as if he wanted to convince himself it wasn’t real.
“Hot Rock!” Two Tone’s voice, sharp, so much like an older man’s voice. Disappointed, commanding. “Get on it!”
Hot Rock flicked his weapons selector switch to the Sidewinder position. “Fox Three,” he said.
From water level, everything that had been happening so dreadfully slowly suddenly accelerated to unbelievable speed. For what seemed like hours, Dr. George had been switching his attention between the circling jets, the approaching Chinese helicopter — and the water beneath his feet. The tiger shark kept disappearing and then coming back again, moving with increasing speed on each pass, as if making up its mind about something. Once it came so close George actually kicked it, after which it became more wary. But it was still around, or maybe there were more than one of them. It was hard to tell. The setting sun no longer cut its light into the water, showing him what lurked below. Soon he wouldn’t be able to see his legs at all.
The sharks would be under no such restrictions.
So, let the Chinese pick him up. He didn’t care anymore. He just wanted to be warm and dry and safe.
The helicopter was perhaps a hundred yards away when it halted. The jets continued to circle overhead, so low now that George could see the shapes of the pilots’ heads through the canopies. Two American jets, and two Chinese, cruising around together in a big, roaring circle. What the hell was going on?
Just then there was a brilliant flash from one of the American jets, and a sound like high-pressure water shooting from a hose. A rope of white smoke abruptly connected the American jet to the helicopter. The helicopter exploded. It broke in half like an egg, but the bright-yellow yolk rose up and up instead of falling. The shells of the fuselage dropped. Spinning rotor blades hit the water and broke free, skipping across the surface for some distance before vanishing in sheets of spray.
Where the fuselage vanished into the water, a roiling dome of bubbles and smoke boiled up, hissing and crackling.