reported tracking a single American frigate radar--nothing more. Just like now ... The raid commander then had aborted the Backfire mission for fear of enemy fighter activity, only to be dressed down for supposed cowardice. As was so often the case in combat, the only data available were negative. They knew that four Bears had not returned. He knew that his raid commander had not yet given the expected order. He knew there had not been any positive sign of trouble. He also knew that he was not happy.
"Estimated distance to that American frigate?" he asked over his intercom.
"One hundred thirty kilometers," the navigator answered.
Maintain radio silence, the pilot told himself. Those are the orders ...
"Screw the orders!" he said aloud. The pilot reached down and flipped on his radio. "Gull Two to Gull One, over." Nothing. He repeated the call twice more.
Lots of radio receivers heard that, and in less than a minute the Bear's position was plotted, forty miles southeast of the convoy. A Tomcat dove after the contact.
The raid commander didn't answer ... he would have answered, the pilot told himself. He would have answered. The Backfires should now be less than two hundred kilometers away. What are we leading them into?
"Activate the radar!" he ordered.
Every screen ship detected the distinctive emissions from the Big Bulge radar. The nearest SAM-equipped ship, the frigate Groves, immediately energized her missile radars and fired a surface-to-air missile at the oncoming Bear--but the Tomcat fighter that was also racing toward the Bear was too close. The frigate shut down her tracking radar, and the SM 1 missile lost radar lock and self-destructed automatically.
Aboard the Bear the warnings came back to back, first surface-to-air missile alarm, then an air-intercept radar--and then the radar operator acquired the convoy.
"Many ships to the northwest." The radar operator passed the information to the navigator, who worked out a position report for the Backfires. The Bear shut down her radar and dove while the communications officer broadcast his sighting report. And then everyone's radars lit up.
USS REUBEN JAMES
"There are the Backfires," the tactical action officer said as the symbols appeared on the scope. "Bearing zero-four-one, range one hundred eighty miles."
On the bridge the executive officer was as nervous as he would ever get. In addition to the inbound bomber raid, he was now conning his ship exactly fifty feet from the side of HMS Battleaxe. The ships were so close together that on a radarscope they'd appear as a single target. Five miles away'Malley and the helicopter from Battleaxe were also flying close formation over the ocean at twenty knots. Each had its blip-enhance transponder turned on. Ordinarily too small to register on this sort of radar, the helicopters would now appear to be a ship, something worthy of a missile attack.
NORTH ATLANTIC
The air action now had all the elegance of a saloon fight. The Tomcats on combat air patrol near the convoy flew toward the three Bears, the first of which already had a missile streaking toward it. The other two had not yet detected the convoy, and never would, as they ran due east to get away. It was a vain attempt. Propeller-driven patrol bombers cannot run from supersonic fighters.
Gull Two died first. The pilot managed to get his contact report out and acknowledged before a pair of Sparrow missiles exploded close aboard, setting his wing afire. He ordered his men to bail out, kept the aircraft level so they could, and a minute later struggled out of his seat and jumped through the escape hatch in the floor. The Bear exploded five seconds after he opened his parachute. As the pilot watched his aircraft fireball into the sea, he wondered if he'd drown.
Above him a squadron of Tomcats headed toward the Backfires, and the race was to see who got into missile-firing position first. The Soviet bombers climbed steeply on afterburner, activating their own look-down radars to find targets for their missiles. Their orders were to locate and kill escorts, and they found what they were looking for thirty miles from the body of the convoy: two blips. The large blip in the rear drew six shots. The smaller one five miles away drew four.
STORNOWAY, SCOTLAND
"We have a multiregiment Backfire raid in progress now at forty-five degrees north, forty-nine west." Toland held the Red Rocket telex in his hand.
"What does COMEASTLANT have to say about it?"
"He's probably going over this one now. You ready?" he asked the fighter pilot.
"Damned right I'm ready!"
The teleprinter in