Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (27 page)

Aboard Bear One-Zero

           
“Close it up, Two, close it up,”
Tamalko shouted to Borillo on interplane frequency as he watched the second
F-4E slowly drift in and out off* his right wing. “Don’t get sloppy on me now.”

           
Tamalko was maneuvering back to the
lead position. They had climbed back to a safe altitude of three thousand feet,
executing circles over the area where the unidentified plane appeared to have
gone down. Borillo was so erratic that Tamalko’s backseater frequently lost
sight of him. It was some of the worst formation flying he had ever seen. The
short air battle had really rattled the kid.

           
Tamalko was ready to send the kid
home, or perhaps even put him in the lead and tell him where to go, but he
needed the word from Headquarters first before anything else. In between
yelling at Bonllo to stay in close to avoid going lost wingman, Tamalko was on
the UHF radio to Puerto Princesa, trying to set up a relay from Palawan to the
Philippine Air Force headquarters at Cavite, near Manila. It was not going
well.

           
Meanwhile, aboard Bear Zero-Two,
Lieutenant Borillo’s weapons system officer, Captain Fuentes, was dividing his
time between coaching Borillo on night-formation flight and checking his radar,
searching for other aircraft that might be in the vicinity. By depressing the
antenna angle on his attack radar, the WSO could paint several ships ahead of
them at twelve miles. His RHAWS indicator, the screen that showed the
direction, intensity, and type of enemy radar threats in the vicinity, showed
several search radars all across the horizon to the west. The threat-intensity
diamond shifted between “S” designations on the scope as the system tried to
decide which was the greatest threat. “Lead, looks like several ships at
eleven o’clock
, twelve miles,” Fuentes radioed to Tamalko.
“Search radars only.”

           
“Copy... Two, close it back in, will
you?” Tamalko said irritably. “If you go lost wingman it’ll take a damned hour
to rejoin back up again.”

           
“Suggest a turn back to the east,”
Fuentes said. “I don’t want to get any closer to those ships.”

           
“Stand by, Two,” Tamalko snapped.
“I’m trying to talk with the command post.”

           
Fuentes looked up from his
radarscope just in time to see his plane’s wingtip drift ever so slowly toward
Tamalko’s right wing. “How you doing up there, Lieutenant?” he asked Borillo.

           
“Fine ... fine,” Borillo answered
hesitantly. “I’m moving in closer.” Judging by how the control stick and
throttle quadrant in the backseat were wobbling around, Borillo wasn’t fine.
But he was closing in nicely, so Fuentes took another look in the radar.

           
“Surface ships still at
eleven o’clock
, now ten miles, lead,” he radioed to
Tamalko. “We can’t stay on this heading, sir.”

           
“Just stand by,” Tamalko radioed
back angrily. “Just stay in route formation and—”

           
Just then several of the “S” symbols
on the RHAWS scope changed to blinking “6” and “8” symbols, and a slow wavering
tone could be heard on the interphone; red “Missile Warning” lights were
flashing on the threat-indicator panel. “Acquisition radar, eleven and
one o’clock
positions,” Fuentes radioed to Borillo.
“Naval SA-6 and -8 systems. We need to get out of this area ...”

           
The tone suddenly shifted to a fast
buzzer, and “Missile Launch” fights illuminated in both front and rear
cockpits. “Missile launch!” Fuentes screamed. “Descend and accelerate! Now!”
Fuentes searched the sky ahead of them, and he felt his face flush as he saw
two bright yellow dots streaking toward them—antiair missiles. Thank God it was
so easy .to see them at night. “I see them! Right off the nose, just below the
horizon! Aim right for them and get ready to break!”

           
But Borillo panicked. With a missile
launch off the front quarter, the best defense was to point the fighter’s nose
at the missiles, presenting the smallest possible radar cross-section, then
jink away from them at the last possible moment. Young Borillo did exactly the
wrong thing—he heard the word “Break” and started a hard right turn away from
the oncoming missiles at 90 degrees of bank. With the full outline of the big
F-4E presented belly-out toward the missile and its tracking radar, it was an
easy target. Fuentes tried to wrestle the control Stick back over to the left,
but he was far too late—one of the
Hong
Lung's
HQ-91 missiles, a copy of the Soviet Union’s advanced SA-11
antiaircraft missile, hit Borillo’s fighter and instantly turned it into a huge
fireball.

           
Tamalko never got a verbal warning
from his back- seater—young Pilas was too scared or had the volume turned down
on his threat-warning receiver, Tamalko didn’t know—but when the “Missile Launch”
warning sounded he promptly forgot about trying to contact Cavite and looked up
to see the second HQ-91 missile streak past him, less than a hundred feet
behind. He banked right, toward the threat indications, just in time to see the
first missile destroy his wingman.

           
Pilas was screaming in the backseat
as the shock wave from the explosion crashed over them. Tamalko tried to ignore
the screaming as he pushed his fighter down in a six-thousand-foot-per-minute
descent, yanking it level as he passed three hundred feet. “Shut up, Pilas
—shut up!”
Tamalko roared. The screaming
finally ceased.

           
“Borillo got hit! Christ, they’re
shooting
at us!” Pilas shouted. “I
thought this was an
exercise!”

           
“Well, it’s not a fucking exercise.
Those
are
Chinese ships out there,
and they’re attacking.” And then Tamalko realized that Borillo really
did
shoot down an attacking Chinese
patrol plane—it was he who probably saved hundreds of lives on
Rajah Lakandula.
And since Pilas never
warned him of the threat until after missile launch, Borillo also saved Tamalko
by banking away from the missiles. Even though he screwed up most of the
flight, the young pilot was a damned hero.

           
“Give me a heading to that ship,”
Tamalko told Pilas. “We’re attacking.”

           
“Attacking? With
guns?
All we have are guns, sir . . .”

           
“I know, I know,” Tamalko said. He
readjusted his heads- up display for air-to-ground strafing, resetting the
depression angle on the HUD to 37 mils. “Where are the damned ships?”

           
There was a slight pause, and
Tamalko thought that Pilas was either not going to answer or was suffering a
nervous breakdown. Then: “Radar contact,
one o’clock
, ten miles. Come right ten degrees. Target
heading two-six-zero.” Tamalko made the turn and began pushing up the throttles
in military power, saving afterburner thrust for the final few miles of his
pass. . . .

Aboard the Chinese flagship
HONG LUNG

           
“High-speed aircraft approaching
Wenshan,
sir,” Captain Lubu reported.
“Range sixteen kilometers. No contact on second aircraft.
Wenshan
maneuvering to put his aft 57- millimeter guns on the
target.”

           
“He’d better stop turning and start
shooting,” Admiral

           
Yin said half-aloud. “If those
planes are carrying Harpoon antiship missiles, he’s run out of time already.”

           
“Emergency message from
Wenshan!”
a radio operator called out.
“They’ve run aground!”

           
“What?”
Yin shouted. For the second time, the deep-draft patrol boat
Wenshan
had fallen victim to the shoal
waters of the South China Sea—and the second time it had done so at a critical
moment, while under attack from hostile Philippine forces. The image of the
dragon drowning in the ocean rushed upon the Chinese Admiral once again—the
battle, it seemed, always came to
him.
. . .

           
“Wenshan
is taking water,” the radio operator reported. “They are requesting fire
support and assistance. Casualties reported.”

           
“Range to that fighter?”

           
“Range to
Wenshan,
eight kilometers,” the Combat technician reported.
“Fighter still headed inbound. Passing eleven hundred kilometers per hour.”

           
“Sir, radar reports the second
frigate has appeared over the horizon to the east,” Captain Lubu reported.
“Range thirty-two kilometers, closing slowly.”

           
The Philippine ships were pressing
the attack, Yin thought. So close to utter destruction, and now the mouse is
turning to bite the nose of the tiger. “Order
Fuzhou
to intercept—”

           
“Sir, radar reports another contact
off to the south,” Lubu interrupted. “Range thirty-seven kilometers,
approaching at medium speed. They appear to be helicopters, sir. Three
helicopters approaching.”

           
“Missile-launch detection!” Combat
reported. “Frigate to the east launching missiles, sir!”

           
The battle was on in earnest.

           
The reports were flooding past
Admiral Yin almost faster than he could assimilate them. Faces glanced at him,
some doubtful, others accusingly, most of them fearful. Voices were bombarding
him, rising in intensity and volume—the racket was getting loud, almost
deafening . . .

           
“Fighter closing to within five
kilometers, sir,” another report cut in.
“Wenshan
listing to starboard. Captain Han reports his stern is resting on the bottom
and is unable to move . . .”

           
“Vessel to the south identified as
PS-class corvette,” Lubu reported. “There
was
a fifth ship out here, Admiral. The helicopter landing platform ... it must
have separated from the rest of the Philippine task force and maneuvered to our
right flank . . .”

           
“Missile-launch detection! Corvette
to the south launching missiles ...”

           
“Radar contact, third vessel,
identified as LF-class fire- support craft . . .”

           
“Shoal water dead ahead, three
meters under the keel. Suggest hard starboard twenty degrees . . . !”

           
“Execute turn . . . !”

           
“Missile-launch detection!
Helicopters launching missiles, sir!”

           
“Chukou
reports missile strike on the waterline, sir!” another report came. “No damage
report... lost contact with
Chukou
...”

           
“Lost data link with
Xingyi,
sir. No reports yet . . .”

           
“LF-class fire-support vessel on
suspected torpedo run, sir,” Lubu shouted. “Range down to eighteen kilometers,
speed thirty knots . . .”

           
“Radar contact aircraft, range
fifty-two kilometers, heading west at high speed,” another report came.
“Fighter aircraft from Puerto Princesa. ETA, five minutes.”

           
“Sir,” Captain Lubu said, stopping
and standing as close to Yin as he dared, “we are running out of maneuvering
room, one patrol boat is grounded, and the other ships are scattering and
disoriented—they are unable to defend themselves or defend the flagship.
Recommend we reduce speed and provide fire-support coverage for our escorts.
Once we are reorganized, we can steam out of the passage ...”

           
Yin appeared not to have heard him.
Not four inches from Captain Lubu’s face, Yin was breathing heavily through his
nose. Perspiration was running down the sides of his temples. His face was
flushed, his brow furrowed, his mouth a tight line. It was as if he were not
there, but instead somewhere else far, far away, thinking . . .

           
. . . about how there was no way
out.

           
. . . about his duty to protect his
men, his ship.

           
. . . about saving face at all
costs.

           
Finally, after what seemed like an
eternity, but was really less than fifteen seconds, Yin unbuttoned the top
button of his tunic, reached inside, and withdrew a large silver key.

           
Lubu’s mouth dropped open in
surprise. His eyes grew wide as he realized what it was. “Sir ... Admiral, you
can
not
.. .
!"