Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (26 page)

           
As Tamalko got closer, he could see
more and more details—there were indeed two ships burning in the Palawan
Passage just outside
Ulugan
Bay
. Sheets of gunfire continued to erupt from
the southernmost ship, which was darting back and forth, firing in all
directions. “Cowboy, can you give us the position of the aircraft?”

           
“Negative, negative, Bear flight,”
Sapao’s tortured voice responded. The transmission began to break up. “Portable
radio running out of power... negative, our combat systems are out and we are
beginning evacuation procedures. If
Rajah
Lakandula
comes up on frequency, he can assist—” The transmission went dead.

           
Tamalko started to feel uneasy. The
possibility that this wasn’t an exercise hadn’t been fully realized until now.
Naturally, he assumed . . .

           
Of course, it could still be an
exercise, he reasoned, although a very elaborate one. He knew he shouldn’t
commit any aircraft unless he received some sort of authentication, and yet . .
.

           
.. . what he was seeing, hearing,
looked very real indeed.

           
Horrific, in fact.

           
“Bear flight, coming left,” Tamalko
radioed on interplane frequency. “Take spacing, line abreast. Wide area search.
Find the damned aircraft.”

           
Moments later, Borillo had moved
alongside Tamalko, spaced far enough apart to search a greater section of the
sky but not far enough to lose visual contact. Tamalko’s weapons system officer
began a procedural radar sweep of the skies. “Search plus one to plus ten
degrees,” he told his inexperienced WSO just in case, like Borillo, he was
getting too caught up in the action to think straight. “Fuentes will search
zero to minus ten degrees.”

           
The search took only a few moments:
“Lead, radar contact, one o’clock, twenty miles, altitude one thousand feet,
airspeed three hundred knots,” Fuentes reported. “Looks like it’s heading south
toward the frigate.”

           
“Can you find it?” Tamalko called
out to his backseater.

           
“Not yet, sir . . .”

           
“Two, take the lead,” Tamalko
radioed to Borillo. “Center up and let’s go see who it is. I’m in fighting wing
position. Go!” Cautiously, Borillo moved forward until he was ahead of
Tamalko’s plane. Tamalko swung out a few more yards to let Borillo pull ahead,
then eased behind and above him so he could see all around his new leader.
“You’ve got the lead, Two,” he radioed to Borillo.

           
“I’ve got the lead,” Borillo replied
hesitantly. “Bear flight coming right.”

           
“Don’t
tell
me, Two, just
do it.
I’m on your wing,” Tamalko said. He followed Borillo easily as the young pilot
made a ridiculously slow 15-degree bank turn to the right— apparently he was
overly concerned with how his squadron commander was doing. They began a slow
descent to six hundred feet, which allowed the radar beam to angle up at the
target and away from the radar clutter caused by shallow waters of the Palawan
Passage.

           
Meanwhile Fuentes had locked the
radar target on his attack radar, which gave Borillo steering commands to an
intercept position. Borillo eased his F-4E farther right, keeping the radar
image on the left part of his radar screen—this kept his fighter’s nose aimed
ahead of the target, along the target’s flight path and not directly on the
target itself. “Bear lead judy,” Fuentes radioed, advising the formation that
he had radar contact on the air target.

           
Just then they heard on the naval
fleet common channel: “This is PF4
Rajah
Lakandula
to all units, we are under attack by Chinese aircraft! Bear
flight, Bear flight, this is Cowboy! Can you help us? Can you find the
aircraft!” All attempts at radio discipline were gone now—whoever was on that
radio now was crying out for the life of himself, his crew, and his ship.

           
This, Tamalko knew, was no fucking
drill. “Cowboy, this is Bear flight. We do not have visual contact. We are at
five miles and closing. Stand by.”

           
“Bear flight, don’t wait for visual
contact! That plane is on a torpedo-attack profile! You’ve got to destroy that
plane!”

           
“I don’t have proper identification,
Goddammit!” Tamalko screamed. “I can’t open fire on an aircraft without
identification and authorization!”

           
“This is an emergency, Bear flight!”
the radio operator—it was a different person again, which only intensified
Tamalko’s doubts—yelled on the radio. “If you are locked on to him, attack! If
he gets within five miles of the ship, he’ll drop torpedoes! Attack!”

           
“I
need authorization!
"Tamalko screamed back. This was a setup, Tamalko
told himself over and over, it was a tremendous setup. Someone wanted his job
at Puerto Princesa, he decided. Someone wanted him to screw up so he could be
replaced and sent to some other Godforsaken base. Well, he was going to play
this one by the book, dammit.

           
By the book all the way . . .

           
And that’s when Borillo opened fire
on the airplane.

           
In a blinding streak of light,
Borillo pumped out all eight of his five-inch unguided Zuni rockets at the
Chinese patrol plane, at a range of about three miles. It was doubtful that
Borillo had ever fired a Zuni before; the F-4E’s attack radar had no ballistics
or mil settings for a Zuni; there was no way the rocket could guide on its
intended target or glide into a kill like most air-to-air missiles. Trying to
hit the plane with a Zuni rocket was like trying to shoot down a bullet with
another bullet.

           
“Cease
fire!”
Tamalko shouted. “Cease fire, you fucking idiot ...”

           
But somehow one of the big rockets
found its target. A huge cloud of fire erupted off into the distance, and a
trail of flames peeled off to the right and spiraled down into the darkness.

           
“What the hell did you do?” Tamalko
screamed on the interplane frequency. “
What
did you do?’’

           
“They were calling for help, sir,”
Borillo replied, trying to force a bit of righteous authority in his voice.
“They were under attack ... we ... I had to do something . . .”

           
“Start a left turn, see if you can
find where the plane went down,” Tamalko ordered. “Jesus Christ, Borillo, that
could have been one of
our
planes,
don’t you understand that? Unless we are under specific, positive direction
from ground controllers or we have positive ID on an intruder, we are not
authorized to open fire on
anyone.
God, I don’t believe it . . .” He gained a few hundred feet to stay away from
the ocean—he knew he was less than a thousand feet above the water—then banked
gently to the left and stared hard out his canopy to try to get a visual check
on the target. He saw nothing but empty darkness. “Pilas, did you see what it
was?” Tamalko cried out to his WSO.

           
“No,” Pilas replied. “I saw a couple
hits and a flash of fire, but no identification.” His backseater’s voice was
high and cracking, and when his interphone mike opened he could almost feel the
tortured breath of his terrified crewman— until Tamalko realized that he was
listening to his
own
breathing.

           
I’m a dead man, he said to himself
as Borillo began a gentle turn. I am a dead man. . . .

Aboard the Chinese destroyer
HONG LUNG

           
“Lost contact with Talon Eight-One,
sir.” Captain Lubu Vin Li reported solemnly. “The pilot reported that he was
ditching. Crew reported under attack by enemy aircraft.”

           
Admiral Yin Po L’un rested a hand
under his chin, resisting the urge to swear aloud on his combat bridge as he
did when he learned the results of the first Fei Lung-7 missile attack. The
downing of the Shuihong-5 patrol plane was a serious loss, almost as serious
for Admiral Yin’s fleet as the loss of the patrol boat would be to the
Philippine Navy. This battle was beginning to unravel right before his eyes,
like a magician’s magic knot—it seemed strong and unbreakable, yet was pulled
apart by the slightest touch. . . .

           
“The Shuihong-5 might survive the
landing,” Yin muttered. “Send
Wenshan
and
Xingyi
to investigate. Be sure
they maintain data link with us at all times.”
Wenshan
had an excellent surface and air search capability, along
with the ability to transmit radar data to
Hong
Lung;
it would act as radar warning vessel until Yin decided what to do.
Xingyi
carried six C801 antiship
missiles that could be targeted by
Wenshan's
fire-control system. He had a decision to make.

           
He had two choices left. His first
option: run and regroup. Yin doubted that the Philippine vessels would follow
him back to the
Spratly
Islands
—they had only one PF-class frigate and a
small LF-class patrol boat nearby, with two other major ships damaged or
destroyed. Even though they were only fifty kilometers from shore and there
were already Philippine aircraft in the area, he believed that the fight was
over. Both sides had taken their tolls, got in a few good hits, and now they
were disengaged.

           
The second option: stay and fight.
Yin could press the attack by moving closer to get within radar range of the
Philippine vessels and launch another missile or gun attack. He had finally
scored a big hit on the Philippine frigate
Rajah
Humabon
with the last of his Fei Lung-7 missiles, so he was out of antiship
missiles except for the Fei Lung-9 missiles. Again, unbidden, the thought of
using those weapons entered his mind, and he immediately quashed the idea. But
he still had a sizable force in position: two Huangfen- class fast attack
missile boats, four Hegu-class patrol boats, two Hainan-class patrol boats, and
a minesweeper. His Huangfen-class ships carried a full complement of Fei Lung-7
and C801 antiship missiles, and all of his ships had dual-purpose guns to use
if he moved into knife-fighting range. His flotilla still had a lot of fight
left in it.

           
But Yin’s battle group had been hit
hard by the upstart

           
Philippine raiders—one minesweeper,
one attack boat, the fast attack missile boat
Chagda,
and the Shuihong-5 patrol plane. In exchange they got one
frigate and a patrol boat. A very poor performance for the world’s largest navy
versus a virtually nonexistent navy. . . .

           
“What are your orders, Admiral?”
Captain Lubu asked him. “Once
Wenshan
and
Xingyi
get into position to
assist the Shuihong-5 crew and reconnoiter the area, what will we do?”

           
Yin looked at Lubu, then at the
other crew members on
Hong Lung's
bridge. He did not see much fight in their faces. What he saw was fear—plain
old fear. Should he take these youngsters into combat again? Should he decimate
the Philippine Navy with guns and missiles, risking the safety of his already
hard-hit fleet for a hollow victory?

           
“Withdraw,” Yin heard himself say in
a low, tired voice. “Twenty knots, then twenty-five as soon as the fleet is
reformed. Maintain contact with
Wenshan
and
Xingyi,
but plot a course out of
this shallow water and prepare—”

           
“Radar contact aircraft!” Lubu
suddenly shouted, relaying reports via headset from
Hong Lung's
Combat
Information
Center
. “Bearing zero-three-zero, turning toward
us, range fifteen kilometers and closing! Radar now reports two aircraft in
formation, altitude one thousand meters, airspeed four-eight-zero. Combat
estimates aircraft on missile-launch profile!”

           
He was quickly running out of
options now. A severely damaged fleet, a dangerous depletion of long-range
antiship weapons, shoal waters all around them, and now armed Philippine
aircraft nearby with the threat of more just over the horizon. They could
withdraw, back to the relative safety of the
Spratly
Islands
, but they would have to fight their way
out.

           
“Signal to all ships: release all
antiair batteries,” Yin ordered. “Protect yourselves at all cost.”