Authors: Craig Thomas
His voice was unchanged as he continued. 'It will take clever flying, but I'm certain it can be done. Once he's across the border, then he can be brought down. He's almost out of fuel, I'm sure of that, he will have to land. We can shepherd him straight into an airfield… one of ours.'
He looked up. The First Secretary was, for the moment, dazzled. He nodded eagerly. Vladimirov listened. Over the speaker, the leading pilot of the two Foxbats was reporting the peel-off and the encroaching return. Contact time, four seconds.
'Shepherd -
repeat, shepherd
,' he snapped. A remote mike had been patched in. They could hear him direct. 'You know the procedure-it's… ninety miles and no more to the border-bring him home!' He grinned as the second of hesitation passed and the leading pilot acknowledged with a chuckle in his voice. Then he studied the map before ordering: 'Patch me into
all
forward border squadron commanders - all of them. And to flight leaders of "Wolfpack" squadrons already in the air. Every commander and flight leader who can give me a Foxbat-F.' He looked up at the Russian leader - beyond his shoulder the light glinted from Andropov's glasses but Vladimirov ignored any signal they might be transmitting - and smiled confidently. 'We'll put up everything we have that can reach that altitude,' he announced. The American will feel like the last settler left alive inside the circle of the wagon-train!'
The First Secretary seemed to remember the old cowboy-and-Indian films which, as the child of a prominent Party member, he would have been privileged to see, and laughed.
Vladimirov looked down at the map once more, and breathed deeply. It would take constant dialogue with the two pilots, instantaneous communications, if he was to supervise the recapture of the MiG-31. But, he could do it - yes. It would take perhaps eight or ten minutes' flying for any other MiGs to reach Gant. The two Foxbats would be working alone - but they would be sufficient, he assured himself. No other aircraft could achieve that altitude except another Foxbat-F. And there were only the two of them in the area. The map, with its clearly-marked border and the slowly-moving white dot of the routine Early Warning Tupolev Tu-126 'Moss' aircraft travelling southwards along its snaking line, confirmed his optimism.
For a moment, as the two Foxbats at more than Mach 1.5 had peeled away from the Firefox, the single white dot that represented them had become a double sun. Now, the separate lights had once more become a single white star.
They had come sweeping up towards him, then past and above. He had loosed neither of the remaining advanced Anab missiles, slung one beneath each wing; suppressing the mental command to fire with a certain, decisive violence of reaction. The two Foxbats had broken their unity, peeling away in opposite directions and dropping away from the purple-blue towards the globe below like exhausted shuttlecocks. Then, finally, they had begun to climb again, almost touching wings as if joining hands. Aiming at him like darts. Contact time - four seconds. Their speed was slower now, as if they had been advised to the utmost caution. Gant was fiercely aware once more of the two remaining air-to-air missiles. Two MiGs, advanced Foxbat-Fs, two missiles. Fuel - critical.
Unlike the Foxbats, he had the fuel neither to fight nor to run. He had to wait, just as he suspected the two Russian pilots were themselves waiting for orders.
They bobbed up to port and starboard of him like corks on the surface of invisible water, slightly above him at one hundred and twenty-five thousand feet and hanging, like him, apparently suspended from the purple blackness above. On his screen they had converged to a single glow and at the extreme edge the dot of the slow moving AWACS plane patrolling the Soviet-Finnish border continued its flight. He had been aware of it when he began his climb, and had smiled in the secure knowledge that he was invisible to it. Now, however, it could see the two Foxbats. His position was known - to everyone.
The fear passed quickly, surprising him by its feeble hold; delighting him, too. He accepted his role. He had to wait until they attacked… One twenty-two thousand feet. His slow flight north-west had begun, but now he would not be allowed to continue. His hand gripped the throttle-levers, but he did not move them either backward or forward. Slowly, as if tired, the Firefox continued to descend.
He looked to port and starboard. The two Foxbats were sliding gently in towards him. Each of the pilots was engaged in a visual scan. By now they knew he had only two missiles. By now, they knew he had a fuel leak, and they would have guessed at the reason for his altitude. They would be confident… Orders and decisions would be crackling and bleeping in their headsets. Not long now. Gant armed the weapons systems, switched on the firing circuits, calculated his remaining flying time. He knew he would have to use the engines, use
all
remaining fuel, to escape the Foxbats.
The Foxbat to starboard, no more than two hundred yards from him, was now in sharp profile, Gant waited, beginning to sweat, his mind coldly clear.
The
Fbxbat loomed on his right, and yawed slightly towards him. Cannon fire flashed ahead of him as the Russian plane slid across and below the level of the cockpit sill and he lost sight of it. He flung the Firefox to port -
Flickers of flame at the wingtips from the cannon, the Foxbat in profile, the savage lurch of the sky, a glimpse of the port Foxbat maintaining its course, then he was below it and levelling out, watching the radar. Two dots. He watched the mirror, the radar, the sky ahead of him, the mirror, the radar, the sky…
Bobbing corks. They were on either side of him again as he flew level, the distant dot of the AWACS Tupolev now in the corner of his screen, ahead of him.
He glanced to port and starboard. He could see the pilots. He watched them as they watched him. He understood what they had witnessed. He'd dropped away from the cannon fire rather than dived. He had confirmed his fear of empty tanks as clearly as if he had spoken to them.
Port, starboard, port, starboard… Gant's head flicked from side to side. With each movement, his eyes glanced across the instrument panel, registering the dials and screens minutely as if they were small, precise physical sensations on his skin or at his fingertips. He waited for movement. Between them, he knew himself to be safe from the AA-6 missiles. They were too close to one another to be certain of hitting only him. It would be when one of them dropped away suddenly that the other would launch a missile.
Yet they remained level.
Ninety-nine thousand now. They'd followed his slow descent exactly paralleling his course. He could try to stretch them, exceed their ceiling, yet knew he would not… he had calculated that he dare not afford the fuel. Ninety-five thousand feet, still descending… They remained with him, long slim bodies dropping from the darkening arch of the sky. Twenty miles above the earth.
Ninety-four thousand feet… three-fifty… three…
The port Foxbat-F slid towards him like a huge animal turning lazily to crush him, enlarging alongside and over him, its shadow falling across the cockpit, across the instruments, the sunlight gleaming from its closing flank -
He saw the black visor of the pilot's helmet, and understood the man's hand signals. He was being ordered to follow the Soviet fighter and to land inside Russia. Alter course… follow me ... land, the hand signals read. Gant watched the pilot's turned head. He waved acceptance, his body tensing as he did so. Had he delayed sufficiently? Would his acceptance appear genuine?
He waited.
Then the Foxbat banked to its left and began a shallow descent. Gant saw it gradually accelerate. The second Foxbat remained to starboard of him, as if wary of some trick. He dipped the nose of the Firefox, following the Russian aircraft. Then he gave the command. The port wing quivered and he saw the flame at the tail of the Anab missile as it sprang ahead of him. It dropped away with terrible quickness, pursuing the descending Foxbat. Its trail quivered like the tail of an eager dog as it sought and found the heat emissions from the Foxbat and locked onto them. Gant banked fiercely to prevent the second Foxbat manoeuvring behind him. He glimpsed the engines of the descending Foxbat flare and the plane flick up and away, standing on its tail. The speed of the tactic shook loose the trailing missile. The aircraft was already perhaps three miles from the Firefox. The missile continued its now-wavering course downwards. It would run out of fuel thousands of feet from the ground.
Gant pulled back on the control column and eased the throttles forward, beginning to climb again. He had, he realised, committed himself. He could not, with the slightest certainty of success, complete his flight to Norway. But he would not be shepherded back to Russia.
The Foxbat was closing again, its white dot moving back swiftly towards the centre of his screen. The second Foxbat had done no more than remain with him, exactly duplicating his fierce bank and levelling out, popping up again to starboard and beginning to climb with him. It remained apparently passive, as if its companion had, like a child, run to play and was now returning to a complacent parent. Evidently, neither pilot had orders to fire, to destroy, unless, no doubt, he failed to comply with their instructions, or attempted to elude them.
Bobbing cork, and the second Foxbat-F had already turned, closed up and resumed its position on his port wing. One hundred and fifteen thousand feet.
The AWACS plane was on the Soviet side of the border. The border was less than seventeen miles away. He understood what they were doing. He had run between them, cautiously and yet with as little choice as a sheep between two dogs. He was almost back in the Soviet Union. He pulled back on the throttles and levelled out, then pushed the control column gently forward, dipping the nose of the Firefox. Like mirror-images, though silver not black, the two Foxbats dipped their noses in unison, beginning to descend with him.
Fifteen miles…
One hundred and eight thousand feet…
The two Foxbats were like slim, dangerous silver fish swimming downwards with him. Once again, he imagined he could hear the noise of the slipstream against the canopy, much as if he had been hang-gliding. The wingtip of the starboard Foxbat wobbled, reinforcing the impression of fragility, of slow-motion - of powerlessness.
He flung the Firefox into a tight roll, the globe and sky exchanging places with wrenching suddenness, and slowed the aircraft. When the horizon re-established itself, he was behind and only slightly to starboard of one of the Foxbats. He glanced around -
The port Foxbat had imitated his roll and drop in speed. He saw it gleam in his rear mirror. He was boxed again, and fear surfaced for a moment as he realised he had made himself a sitting target. Then the Russian aircraft drew level again to starboard. The pilot waved, as if they had been practising for an air display.
Twelve miles…
Ninety-seven thousand feet. Cloud lay like a carpet far below; the air was perceptibly bluer. Eleven and a half miles to target. The AWACS plane was still maintaining its border patrol, passing slowly across his screen. Nothing else showed, but Gant knew that the border squadrons would be waiting for the order to scramble. Once airborne, they would be only minutes away. When they came they would buzz around him like flies, hemming him in.
The port Foxbat banked slightly, slipping across the intervening space, casting its shadow on the cockpit of the Firefox. He watched it settle into a position directly over him, no more than a hundred feet above. As they dropped lower, the Foxbat increased the rate of its descent, pressing as palpably as a flat-iron towards him. He increased his own rate of descent, cursing but impotent.
Clever. Good pilots. Armed with eight AA-6 missiles.
Nine miles - eighty thousand feet.
The three aircraft slid downwards… seconds passed… seventy thousand feet… seconds passed… seven miles…
Clever, the mind behind it, the orders being issued, Gant thought, and the silence of his cockpit pressed upon him like the form of the Russian fighter above.
UHF -
He switched on the UHF set, his fingers hesitating until he recognised the button for the search facility. A red dot stuttered and flashed, then steadied as the search was completed.
A voice, speaking in Russian, crackled in his ears. Gant pressed the lock-on button. It was one of the two Foxbat pilots replying to an instruction. Gant smiled. It was one of the most secret tactical channels with variable frequencies used by the Soviet Air Force. The red dot stuttered as the frequency altered, perhaps two or three times a second. But the signal was constant.
'Bring him lower,' he heard; the voice of the man in Bilyarsk who controlled the situation. 'Bring him right down.'
The order was acknowledged. Gant watched the form of the Foxbat above him as it inclined its nose more steeply, its speed exactly matched to his own. He dipped the nose of the Firefox obediently, preserving the distance between the two fuselages. Then the Russian aircraft slipped sideways, as if moved by no more than the airflow over it, and dropped suddenly towards him. At the same moment, his headset crackling with the voices of the two Russian pilots, the starboard Foxbat bobbed higher and sideways towards him, banking slightly. Then it, too, settled down towards him, as if the air were too thin to support its weight.
The two Russian fighters lowered gently, inexorably, towards his wingtips, as though applying pressure to snap them off. He waggled the wings, as if warding them off, wiping flies away. The headset gabbled at him, most of the Russian was too quick and distorted for him to understand. They were attempting to break his nerve.
Four miles - sixty-one thousand feet…
Then he heard the order, over the same frequency: 'Scramble designated squadrons.'
From the western margin of the Kola Peninsula, where the latest MiG interceptors were based, was no more than a few minutes' flying time at top speed. They had fuel to squander, literally squander.
He had run out of time, almost run out of distance. Two miles. He must be over the border by now, in Russia.