The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [397]
Richards had only to turn around to see the main tactical display, a radar scope fully three feet across. The four new contacts showed up as inverted V-shapes with course vectors. Closest point of approach was less than twenty miles, easily within range of air-to-surface missiles.
"Have Spade ID those bandits right now!"
" close and identify," was the order from the Hawkeye control aircraft.
"Roger," Jackson acknowledged.
"Bud, go loose."
"Roger." Commander Sanchez eased his stick to the left to open the distance between his fighter and Jackson's. Called the 'Loose Deuce' the formation enabled the aircraft to be mutually supporting and also impossible to attack simultaneously. As he split off, both aircraft tipped down and dove at full dry power. In a few seconds, they were through Mach-One.
"Boresighted," Shredder told his driver. "I'm activating the TV system."
The Tomcat was built with a simple identification device. It was a television camera with a ten-power telescopic lens that worked equally well in daylight and darkness. Lieutenant Walters was able to slave the TV into the radar system, and in a few seconds he had four dots that grew rapidly as the Tomcats overtook them. "Twin rudder configuration."
"Falcon, this is Spade. Inform Stick we have visual but no ID, and we are closing."
Major Pyotr Arabov was no tenser than usual. An instructor pilot, he was teaching three Libyans the intricacies of night over-water navigation. They'd turned over the Italian island of Pantelleria thirty minutes earlier, and were now inbound for Tripoli and home. Formation flying at night was difficult for the three Libyans, though each had over three hundred hours in type, and over-water flying was the most dangerous of all. Fortunately, they had picked a good night for it. The star-filled sky gave them a good horizon reference. Better to learn the easy way first, Arabov thought, and at this altitude. A true tactical profile, at one hundred meters and higher speed on a cloudy night could be exceedingly dangerous. He was not any more impressed with the airmanship of these Libyans than the U.S. Navy had been on several occasions, but they did seem willing to learn, and that was something. Besides, their oil-rich country, having learned its own lessons from the Iraqis, had decided that if it were to have an air force at all, it had better have a properly trained one. That meant the Soviet Union could sell a lot more of its MiG-29s, despite the fact that sales in the Israel area were now severely curtailed. It also meant that Major Arabov was being paid partly in hard currency. The instructor pilot looked left and right to see that the formation was - well, not exactly tight, but close enough. The aircraft were behaving sluggishly with two fuel tanks under each wing. Each fuel tank had stabilizing fins, and looked rather like bombs, actually.
"They're carrying something, skipper. MiG-29s, for sure."
"Right." Jackson checked the display himself, then keyed his radio. "Stick, this is Spade, over."
"Go ahead." The digital radio circuit allowed Jackson to recognize Captain Richards' voice.
"Stick, we have ID on the bogies. Four MiG-two-niners. They appear to have under-wing cargo. Course, speed, and altitude unchanged." There was a brief pause.
"Splash the bandits."
Jackson's head snapped up. "Say again, Stick."
"Spade, this is Stick: splash the bandits. Acknowledge."
He called them 'bandits', Jackson thought. And he knows more than I do.
"Roger, engaging now. Out." Jackson keyed his radio again. "Bud, follow me in."
"Shit!" Shredder observed. "Recommend we target two Phoenix, left pair and right pair."
"Do it," Jackson replied, setting the weapons switch on the top of his stick to the AIM-54 setting. Lieutenant Walters programmed the missiles to keep their radars quiet until they were merely a mile out.
"Ready. Range is sixteen-thousand. Birds are in acquisition."
Jackson's heads-up display showed the correct symbology. A beeping tone in his headset told