Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (58 page)

 
          
His
fingers didn’t move from the missile launch button, but neither did it squeeze.
A general forces recall . . .

 
          
“All
Ossora units, code yellow. Acknowledge and comply.”

 
          
He
tried to force himself to make a decision. He had the B-52 in his sights, but
if he transmitted on his radio, so close to the B-52, they might hear or detect
his transmission and evade or reattack. The Korf interceptor units had all
responded immediately to the recall instructions. All of the Ossora units had
probably responded as well—all but him. His career was probably already in
jeopardy. A young pilot commanding a long-range fighter, capable of reaching
Japan or Alaska, who didn’t respond immediately to recall instructions could
easily end up attacking vegetables in a warehouse in some isolated Siberian
base. Or worse.

 
          
“Vawl.
” Papendreyov swore aloud,
maintained track on the target, activated his command radio and said, “Element
seven acknowledges. Triangulate position immediately. Stand by. Closing on
intruder.”

 
          
“Element
seven, comply immediately with instructions,” came the voice once again. His
number had been called this time—he was indeed the last one to rejoin at the
navigation beacon over Ossora. His ticket to Ust-Melechenskiy three hundred
miles north of the
Arctic
Circle
was
probably already being processed . . .

 
          
Fat
hare-brained dogs, Yuri let loose, this time to himself. Enraged, he pressed
the missile-launch button and began a climbing left turn toward Ossora . . .
before realizing that the green IR TRACK light had long extinguished. The two
hundred thousand ruble missiles vanished into the darkness.

 
          
Yuri
proceeded to curse all his superiors, the flight commander, the ground
controllers, the command post officers and everyone else he could think of on
his way back to the rendezvous point. He wasn’t worried about that icy base in
Siberia
—he was worried about exactly how he’d wring
the neck of the first person unlucky enough to get in his way.

 
          
General
Elliott and Lt. Col. Ormack, acting in unison, forced the Old Dog lower and
lower into the mountains. The terrain-following computer was already set to
COLA, the lowest setting possible in the automatic mode, but with the threat of
a Soviet fighter on their tail, even a hundred feet above the ground was like
ten thousand. There were constant warning beeps as the automatic-climb commands
were overridden by the two pilots, and the bomber’s radar altimeter, measuring
the exact distance between the bomber’s belly and the ground, occasionally
entered the double-digit area.

 
          
Dave
Luger’s one good eye, and both of Patrick McLanahan’s, were on the
ground-mapping display of McLanahan’s ten-inch scope. The two navigators
carefully called out even the smallest peaks and ridges that could pose a
threat. Elliott and Ormack reacted in sync—one man forcing the bomber lower,
the other scanning the instruments and nudging it higher in response to the
warnings from the terrain-following computer and what he heard over the
interphone.

 
          
“He
was so close,” Wendy said, “his radio signal was so strong I swear I heard him
over interphone.” She swallowed, studying her video displays. “His signal is
decreasing ... I think he’s leaving ...”

           
“My scope’s clear,’’ Angelina
reported, shivering for a moment. “I saw him for a second, but he’s gone.”

 
          
Elliott
relaxed his grip on the yoke and let the terrain-following computer control the
Old Dog again. “Well, that was close. I saw the missiles hit out there . . .
they were so damned close, and we didn’t even know he was out there. We didn’t
even know . . .”

 
          
Y
uri Papendreyov stood at attention
before his squadron leader’s desk in the PVO-Strany Interceptor Squadron
ready-room at Ossora Airfield. The squadron leader, a thin, aged naval
commander named Vasholtov, still on active duty from the Great Patriotic War,
paced behind his desk. Not a word had been spoken yet, even though Papendreyov
had been standing at attention for two minutes.

 
          
He
had to chew this young Papendreyov cub out a few minutes longer, the squadron
leader thought to himself—although that didn’t always mean a verbal tirade. The
squadron—and his superiors—expected a good five to ten minutes of closed-door
time, perhaps a slammed door, a curse or two, then an administrative reprimand.
It would go no farther than the squadron records—good pilots who didn’t drink
on the job were hard to find in the cold, barren
Kamchatka
—and the reprimand would disappear after a
month or two. How he hated these chewing-out sessions. But it had to be done to
maintain the discipline and integrity of his unit.

 
          
“You
have disappointed your entire squadron, Papendreyov,” the old squadron leader
finally said, glancing at the young
Fulcrum
pilot. “Failure immediately to acknowledge a recall instruction is almost as
serious as treason. Or desertion.” The youngster didn’t blink. Didn’t move a
muscle—most young pilots would be melting at the mention of the word “treason.”

 
          
Vashaltov
studied the youngster for a moment. Papendreyov could have been from
Berlin
or even further west—
Copenhagen
or
Britain
. He was of average height but
broad-shouldered with close-shaved blond curls and narrow blue eyes caged
straight ahead. His boots were polished to a high gloss, every zipper was
closed and every patch on his flight suit was perfectly aligned. Five years
from now this young pilot would probably be a flight commander . . . The new
breed, Valshaltov thought, but just now this “new breed” needed a
tongue-lashing. Valsholtov knew how fast unrest, boredom, lack of discipline
and insubordination grew in a unit where the men, especially the young ones,
thought the commander didn’t care. Might as well get it over with . . .

 
          
“I
suppose you will now tell me that your radio was malfunctioning.” “There was
nothing wrong with my radio, sir.”

 
          
“Silence,
Papendreyov. Silence or I will have your wings here and now.” The squadron
leader circled the young pilot a few times like a shark circling in for the
kill. Papendreyov remained at rigid attention.

 
          
“Ice-and-snow-removal
detail for forty-eight hours for that outburst, Flight Captain. Perhaps a few
nights in the Siberian winds will cool down your hot-headedness. Pray I don’t
put you on that detail permanently.”

           
Papendreyov blurted out, “I had the
intruder, Squadron Leader. I saw the American B-52. I took a missile shot at
it.”

           
“You what . . . ?”

 
          
Papendreyov
still stood firmly at attention. “I found the B-52 at three hundred meters above
the ground, squadron leader. I pursued him down to seventy meters—”

 
          
“Seventy
meters? You took your
interceptor to seventy meters? Without authorization? Without—”

 
          
“I
found him. I found him on radar but his jamming was too strong. So I locked
onto him on the infrared search-and-track system. I closed to within three
kilometers of him.”

 
          
Vasholtov
stifled his annoyance at the interruption. “Go on.”

 
          
“I
was then ordered back to base. I waited as long as I could. I fired just before
obeying the order to return but I had lost track by then. They must have
detected my radio trans—”

 
          
“You
fired
on the B-52?” In forty years he
had never heard of any man under his command actually firing on anything or
anyone except target drones. “Did you ... hit it?”

 
          
“My
first radar shot . . . yes, I believe I hit him,” Papendreyov said, wishing he
hadn’t sounded so unsure, so hesitant—now it sounded like he was lying.

 
          
“You
could have been killed,” Vasholtov said. “You could have crashed at any time.
Flying at seventy meters at night in the mountains with the flight director
radar down . . . you risked too much. This will have to be reported—”

 
          
“Let
me go after him,” Papendreyov interrupted once again. “I can find him again. He
is using a tail-mounted radar that can be detected for forty kilometers. He is
only traveling five hundred, perhaps six hundred kilometers an hour ... I can
catch him. I can stay low enough for the infrared system to lock onto him. He
cannot detect a fighter closing on him if radar is not used.”

 
          
“Not
use radar ... ?” Valsholtov was almost too flabbergasted to reply. Papendreyov
had been down in the
Kamchatka
mountain range at night—he had only
recently been certified for night duty—at seventy meters, about a thousand
meters lower than he should have been, without using his radar. He had broken
more rules in one hour than the entire squadron had done in months. The Defense
Force Commander would retire him for sure when they saw this report.

 
          
“You
are lucky, very lucky,” Vasholtov said, “to be alive. Very, very lucky. The
rules of engagement exist to protect stupid young hotheads like you. You broke
at least four of them—not including the crime of ignoring a unit recall-order.
You are very close to a flight tribunal, flight captain. Very close.”

 
          
“Punish
me, then,” Papendreyov said defiantly. “Send me to Ust- Meryna or Gorky. Take
my wings. Just let me take one more crack at the Americans—”

 
          
“Enough.”
Vasholtov’s tobacco-singed
throat throbbed from all his yelling. “You will report to the intelligence
branch and give them a complete debriefing on your supposed contact with the
American B-52. Then you will immediately report to your barracks. I’ll have to
decide what to do with you—give you to a flight tribunal or a criminal board.”

 
          
“Please,
tovarisch
, ” Papendreyov said, his
sharp blue eyes now round and soft. “I deserve punishment, squadron leader,
severe punishment, but I also deserve to shoot down this intruder. I know where
to find him and how to take him. Please ...”

 
          
“Get
out,” Vasholtov ordered, dropping into his rough wooden chair before he
collapsed into it. “Get out before I have your insubordinate hide arrested.”

 
          
Papendreyov’s
round eyes hardened and narrowed. He snapped to unbending attention, saluted,
spun on a heel and left the office.

 
          
Papendreyov
quickly returned to his barracks room as ordered—without stopping at the flight
intelligence branch. He turned on the light to his desk and fished out a pen
and paper. As he wrote he picked up the telephone and dialed.

 
          
“Alert
maintenance, crew sergeant speaking.”

 
          
“Starshiy
Serzhant Bloiaki, this is Flight Captain Papendreyov. I am calling from the
ready room. Is one-seven-one combat ready?”

 
          
“One-seven-one,
sir? Your plane? The one you just returned—”

 
          
“Of
course, my plane, sergeant. Is it ready?”

 
          
“Sir...
we... it has been towed to recovery area B, sir, but it hasn’t—”

           
“Starshiy Serzhant Bloiaki, this is
not like you,” Papendreyov said. “This is the worst time not to get the orders.
My plane was to be immediately reconfigured with one four hundred decaliter
centerline drop tank and four infrared missiles. It was to be ready on the
hour.” He paused, then said quietly, ‘Til have to tell squadron leader
Vasholtov that my sortie will be delayed—”

 
          
“That
won’t be necessary,” Bloiaki said quickly. “One drop tank and four infrared
missiles . . . they will be ready in fifteen minutes, sir.”

 
          
Papendreyov
checked his watch. “It will be ready in ten minutes or we will both have a chat
with Squadron Commander Vasholtov. I must refile my flight plan once more,” he
said, finishing his hurried scribbling. “I’ll be out there right away.”

 
          
He
hung up the phone and went to his bureau, took one last long loving gaze at the
photo of his wife and infant daughter, then opened the top drawer. As he studied
his wife’s dark chestnut hair and his daughter’s blonde curly locks he began
stuffing his pockets with packets of freeze- dried survival food and dried
beef. He quickly unzipped his flight suit and put on a second thermal shirt
over his flame-proof underwear, and replaced his lightweight flight boots with
insulated flying boots. He touched the picture of his wife, then put on his
flight jacket, gloves and fur hat and hurried toward the flightline.

 
          
He
had left the hastily written note and last will and testament unsigned; there
was no longer time even for that. No matter. His career was over the minute he
stepped foot on the flightline. His life—period—would have been over as he
taxied onto the main runway except that on account of the air emergency declared
over the entire eastern air-defense region the air traffic controllers allowed
him to take off without a fully verified flight plan. In an emergency, better
to have the fighters airborne first, question their procedures later.
Papendreyov had known this, of course, and was airborne again within thirty
minutes of landing from his first sortie.

 
          
It
had only been an hour and a half since he had broken off the attack with the
American B-52. The B-52, obviously wounded, was flying slow —at the most, he figured,
it had only gone some seven hundred fifty kilometers from Ossora Airfield since
he had fired his last missiles. His MiG-29
Fulcrum
fighter could chase after it easily at three times the B-52’s speed with fuel
from the drop tank only, then spend two, three hours searching for the
intruder.

 
          
Papendreyov
gave his call sign to Ossora Intercept Control, which questioned him briefly
about his absent flight-tasking code but quickly gave him vectors to the
bomber’s last known position, nearly five hundred kilometers ahead. The young
Fulcrum
pilot kept the throttles at max
afterburner and began a ten-degree climb at seven hundred kilometers per hour.
Within minutes he was at twenty thousand meters, screaming northeast at
seventeen hundred kilometers per hour, almost twice the speed of sound.

 
          
Quickly
he was handed off to Korf Intercept Control, which had few updates on the
bomber’s position, but Papendreyov made his own estimate where the American
B-52 would be. The fuel in his centerline drop tank having exhausted itself
less than ten minutes after his takeoff, he made another calculation, then
jettisoned the tank, not having the luxury of considering who or what might be
underneath ... he was high over the mountains, but they were still sparsely
populated. He continued at maximum afterburner for five more minutes, then
pulled his throttles to cruise power and set his autopilot.

 
          
He
had fifty thousand liters of fuel remaining to find the American, and he was
wasting two thousand liters per hour just hoping to catch up. But Papendreyov
wasn’t worried. He knew, thanks to his subtle course corrections, that the nose
of his
Fulcrum
was pointed right at
the American’s heart.

 
          
“We
aren’t going to make it,’’ Ormack felt obliged to report. “We’ve got thirty
minutes of fuel tops.”

 
          
General
Bradley Elliott double-checked the autopilot and flight control annunciators
while Ormack went over his fuel calculations. They had been flying for well
over an hour at ten thousand feet, forced to that altitude by the damage to the
pressurized crew compartment.