The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [398]
"Shit!" Michael 'Lobo' Alexander observed, half a mile away.
"You know better than that!" Sanchez snarled back at him.
"Sky is clear. I don't see anything else around us."
Jackson closed his eyes to save as much of his vision as possible from the yellow-white exhaust flames of the missiles. They rapidly pulled away, accelerating to over three thousand miles per hour, almost a mile per second. Jackson watched them home in as he positioned his aircraft for another shot if the Phoenixes failed to function properly.
Arabov made another instrument check. There was nothing unusual. His threat receivers showed only air-search radars, though one reading had disappeared a few minutes earlier. Other than that, this was an exceedingly routine training mission, proceeding straight and level on a direct course towards a fixed point. His threat receivers had not detected the LPI radar which had been tracking him and his flight of four over the past five minutes. It was able, however, to detect the powerful homing radar in a Phoenix missile.
A bright red warning light flashed on, and a screeching sound abused his hearing. Arabov looked down to check his instruments. They seemed to be functioning, but this wasn't - his next move was to turn his head. He just had time to see a half-moon of yellow light and ghostly, star-lit smoke trail, then a flash.
The Phoenix targeted on the right-hand pair exploded just a few feet from them. The one hundred thirty-five pound warhead filled their air with high-speed fragments which shredded both MiGs. The same happened to the left-hand pair. The air was filled with an incandescent cloud of exploding jet fuel and airplane parts. Three pilots were killed directly by the explosion. Arabov was rocketed out of the disintegrating fighter by his ejection seat, whose parachute opened a scant two hundred feet over the water. Already unconscious from the unexpected shock of ejection, the Russian major was saved by systems that anticipated his injuries. An inflatable collar held his head above water, a UHF radio began screaming for the nearest rescue helicopter, and a powerful blue-white strobe light started flashing in the darkness. Around him were a few thin patches of burning fuel and nothing else.
Jackson watched the entire process. He'd probably set an all-time one-shot record. Four aircraft on one missile salvo. But there had been no skill involved. As with his Iraqi victim, they hadn't known he was there. Any new nugget right out of the RAG could have done this. It was murder, not war - what war? he asked, was there a war? - and he didn't even know why.
"Splash four MiGs," he said over the radio. "Stick, this is Spade, splash four. Returning to CAP station, we need some gas."
"Roger, Spade, tankers are overhead now. We copy you splashed four."
"Uh, Spade, what the fuck is going on?" Lieutenant Walters asked.
"I wish I knew, Shredder." Did I just fire the first shot in a war? What war?
Despite his earlier screaming, the Guards tank regiment was about as sharp a Russian unit as Keitel had ever seen. Their T-80 main battle tanks looked slightly toy-like with their reactive armor panels festooned on turret and hull, but they were also low-slung dangerous-looking vehicles whose enormously long 12.5 mm guns left no doubt as to their identity and purpose. The supposed inspection team was moving about in groups of three. Keitel had the most dangerous mission, as he was with the regimental commander. Keitel - 'Colonel Ivanenko' - checked his watch as he walked behind the real colonel.
Just two hundred meters away, Gunther Bock and two other ex-Stasi officers approached a tank crew. They were boarding their vehicle as the officers approached.
"Stop!" one ordered.
"Yes, Colonel," the junior sergeant who commanded the tank replied.
"Step down. We are going to inspect your vehicle."
The commander, gunner, and driver assembled in front of their vehicle while