The sudden yaw created by the loss of both engines momentarily sent the EB-1C bomber into a wild left skid. This sent the second Anaconda missile back bumping across the belly until it reached the hot exhaust of the number-two engine — where it exploded. Luckily, the computer had already shut the engines down, or else the explosion of the Anaconda missile’s sixty-pound fragmentation warhead, added to the white — hot jet fuel from the engines, would have destroyed the aircraft instantly.
Even with full right stick and full right rudder, Annie Dewey could not keep the plane flying straight — it was in a severe left yaw no matter how hard she struggled and trimmed. Duane grabbed his control stick to help, and he couldn’t believe what he felt — a deep, heavy, relentless vibration. “Annie …?”
“I’ve got it, Dev, I’ve got it,” she responded. The strain and the vibration rattling in her throat disguised her voice so much that she seemed like a completely different person sitting across from him. “Check the warnings and cautions and let me know what we got left.”
“Computer has shut down number one and two,” Deverill said. “Fire extinguishers popped on both of them, so they’re done for the day. Hydraulic system is in isolate. Three generators are off-line — wait, we got two, so we got the emergency and primary bus energized. Forward bomb bay doors are still partially open — it feels like they’re dragging in the slipstream and might be leaking hydraulic fluid. The navigation, weapons, and ECM systems are in reset. Heading system is spinning up again. Navigation is by satellite only until our ring-laser gyros come back up. We’re a mess, Heels, but we still got two good blowers.”
“Except we’re going nowhere fast,” Annie said. “I’m going to pull a little power off number four and see if we can straighten out.” She pulled a notch of power off on number four, then made a tiny forward adjustment when the Vampire felt sloppy and uneasy. But she was able to regain some directional control. Their airspeed was down to one-fifty — just thirty knots above landing speed, right at the edge of a stall in straight-and-level flight — but they were still flying. “All right, all I need now is a heading out of no-man’s-land and a runway big enough to set this mother down.”
“Annie, the Ukrainian fighters are five minutes out, crossing the border and heading right for you,” Nancy Cheshire radioed. “Hold present heading, squawk modes one, two, and four. The cavalry’s coming. Hold on.”
“Your heading is one-seven-zero, Annie, direct Char’kov,” Duane said. “We lost about a thousand feet — let’s try to gain a little altitude.”
Annie started a very slow climb. Normally the EB-1C Vampire could climb at over ten thousand feet per minute at gross weight — now she was lucky to get five hundred feet per minute without feeling the sloshing, muddy, unsteady wobbliness of an impending stall. A stall with two engines on one side out meant a spin, and the B-1 bomber did not tolerate spins well. Annie had done them only in the simulator, and she liked at least twenty thousand feet above ground level before attempting spin recovery.
“Looks like I really screwed up, didn’t I?’ she asked.
“Don’t see how,” Duane said. “Our mission was to make sure ISA got the spy out of Russia safely. You saved their asses three times today. That’s a pretty good night’s work.”
“I think I’m going to be screwed, blued, and tattooed when I get home.”
“You’re a hero, Annie,” Deverill said. “You should be proud of what you’ve done. You should … Oh, shit.”
Duane stopped, and Annie glanced over to him to see what was the matter. She saw him staring out his right cockpit window. She looked — and saw why. The second Sukhoi-27 Flanker fighter was perched right beside them, less than a hundred feet away. Without the threat detection gear, the Flanker had been able to sneak right in and get a good look at them.
“Oh, hell,” Annie murmured. “Busted.”
“You gotta admit, that’s some pretty good flying,” Deverill said.
“Pretty good for a bastard who tried to blow two unarmed cargo planes out of the sky,” Annie added. Now that the fighter pilot saw that the crew members of the bomber had him in sight, he turned on all of his exterior lights. The brightest light lit up his twin vertical stabilizers, which featured the red star of the Russian Air Force. “A Russian air defense interceptor,” she breathed. “Perfect.”
“I’ll bet he’s not too pleased we blew away his leader.”
“How far are we from the Ukrainian border?”
“Thirty-nine, miles.”
“My God,” Annie said. “Where the hell are those Ukrainian fighters? They should’ve rendezvoused by now.”
“Sixty seconds out,” Cheshire replied. “They’ve got you and the Flanker in radar contact.”
“This bastard’s right next to us, on our right side,” Annie said excitedly. “If anyone farts, we’re going to trade paint. Get em down here and help us!”
At that moment, the Su-27 moved in closer, less than fifty feet away, and a burst of cannon fire erupted from the rightwing leading-edge muzzle. Annie screamed into her oxygen mask. The Russian fighter pilot seemed to be sitting right next to her mission commander. They could both clearly see him making an up-and-down motion with a flashlight-the international signal for “turn and follow me, you have been intercepted.”
“Kiss my ass, Boris,” Annie said. “I’m not turning.”
As if the Russian heard her, he maneuvered in front of them, then stroked his engines into zone one afterburner. The white-hot afterburner flame threatened to blow out their windscreen. The Russian fighter then smoothly, expertly slid back into impossibly tight formation, crowding them even more, and the Russian again made a “follow me” light signal.
“Genesis, this is Terminator,” Annie radioed, the fear plainly obvious in her voice. “Where the hell are those Ukrainian fighters?”
“We see him,” General Samson responded immediately.
“You’ve got three more inbound from Kiev, about one hundred miles southeast. ETA, five minutes.”
“How about some help up here?”
“Stand by,” Samson replied.
“‘Stand by’?” Deverill shouted. “Boss, we need some help right now or we’re going to get hosed.”
“We’re having some … diplomatic problems,” Samson said.
“Say again, Genesis?”
“Just hold your heading and keep coming for the border,” Samson said. There was an unusual sense of urgency in his voice. Terrill Samson never got grim-sounding about anything.
“Talk to us, General,” Annie said, almost pleading.
“The … the Ukrainian government is inquiring about the nature of your mission and the events leading up to this intercept,” Samson said. “The Ukrainians won’t engage Russian fighters unless they cross the border. I doubt if they’d try to take on a Russian Flanker even if they did cross the border. Ukrainian pilots are good, but they’re not stupid.”
“You mean, they won’t help us?”
“You just hold tight. I’m going to brief the Pentagon and the White House by teleconference any minute now.”
“Any suggestions?”
“Sure. But you don’t want to hear them.”
“Oh, shit,” Annie breathed. “I’m not letting them have this plane.”
“Try to make it to the border,” Samson said. “Do whatever you need to do to keep those fighters off your back. Make up a plausible story. Use your feminine wiles on them, sweet-talk them, promise them a night they’ll never forget, anything you can think of. They might be surprised enough to hear a woman on the radio that they’ll leave you alone. They might be waiting for orders, too.”
“And what if that doesn’t work?”
“Just hope it does work. Stay calm. We’re right here with you.”
Annie ordered the computer to set the number-two radio to 243.0, the universal UHF emergency channel, and keyed the mike button: “Russian fighter off my right wingtip, this is Annie. How are you tonight?”
“Unidentified American bomber aircraft, this is Unit Two-Zero, Fifty-fourth Air Defense Fighter Regiment, Voyska Protivovozdushnoy Oborony, Zhukovsky,” the Flanker pilot responded. “You are in violation of the sovereign airspace of the Russian Federation. You are ordered to follow me for landing at Zhukovsky. Do you copy? Over.”
“Am I over Russia right now?” Annie asked, with all the feminine innocence she could muster. “My navigation system must be all screwed up. I thought I was over the Black Sea. Oh dear, this is pretty embarrassing. Why don’t you just point me toward the Black Sea and I’ll get out of your hair. Pretty please, commander?”
“I have observed your aircraft launch weapons at V-PVO aircraft, and I observe one of your weapons bays is partially open,” the Flanker pilot replied angrily. “I suspect you of attacking and destroying a Russian air defense aircraft, and attacking Russian military forces. That is an act of war, and I am authorized to divert you to a suitable airfield for detention and interrogation of you, your aircraft, and your crew. You will be given all rights under the Warsaw Convention regarding treatment of airspace violators. I am authorized to take any actions I feel I must take to ensure your compliance. I order you to turn to a heading of one-five-zero immediately or you will be shot down.”
“Hey, honey, you’ve got it all wrong,” Annie said sweetly. “I didn’t attack anyone. I’ve got two engines shut down and major damage to my aircraft. I don’t have any weapons on board — this is an unarmed training flight. Do I look like a fighter plane? I was on my way to land and have apparently gone off course. If you can offer any assistance, I’m sure my company will reward you handsomely. I’ll personally see to that. Just let me turn back toward the northwest, and I’ll see to it that you’re compensated in full. You have my promise, commander.”
There was no response. The Sukhoi-27 Flanker merely pulled up and out of sight.
“Hey, Nancy,” Annie said, “you see where this guy went?”
“He’s at your four o’clock, slightly high,” Nancy Cheshire replied. “Moving to six o’clock, one mile.”
“We got any weapons yet, Dev?”
“Weapons just came on-line,” Deverill replied. To the weapons computer, he spoke, “Ready Anacondas. Target aircraft at six o’clock, one mile. Attack.”
“Warning, configuration error, “ the computer responded. “Warning, bay doors not ready. Warning, airspeed too low for safe weapon release. Stop attack.”
“Override configuration error,” Deverill ordered. “Override airspeed inhibits. Emergency open forward bay doors. Launch two.”
“Warning, configuration error override … warning, weapon airspeed limit override, no safe separation … warning, bomb bay doors not latched.” They received bomb door open indications as the computer merely unlatched the forward bomb bay doors and allowed them to gravity-fall fully open. Warning, launch command received, stop launch…”
“Annie! Dev!” Cheshire shouted over the satellite transceiver. “Get out! Get …!”
It felt as if they had crashed headlong into a brick wall. The Flanker pilot had fired two R-60 heat-seeking missiles at the EB-1C Vampire, and both missiles had hit the only operable engines on the right wing. The engines exploded, igniting jet fuel in the right-wing and aft body tanks.
Both Annie Dewey and Duane Deverill knew the time had come. When Nancy Cheshire issued her warning, their hands were already reaching for the ejection handles, and by the time the fireball engulfed the Vampire bomber, the ejection seats had already cleared the plane and they were blasted free.