Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (44 page)

           
“Behind the helicopter about a
hundred yards,” McLanahan said. “He’s right at the north end of the airstrip,
almost under the trees.”

 
          
“Had
a fifty-fifty chance and blew it,” J.C. said angrily. “I won’t be able to hit
him from this direction but if I can get another good shot at that helicopter
while it’s on the ground it at least should block the runway enough to keep
DreamStar from lifting off.”

 
          
Powell
shallowed out his bank angle to allow himself more time to extend his distance
from the airstrip. But by the time he had rolled out on the flight director
they saw a dark, massive apparition slowly rise out of the trees, trailing
thick clouds of smoke.

 
          
“It’s
the damn helicopter—”

 
          
J.C.
hit the voice-command button, forced his voice to be steady: “Set attack mode
infrared missile. Arm one missile.” The Sidewinder missile’s aiming reticle appeared
on the windscreen centered on the slow-moving helicopter, and almost
immediately the missile signaled that its infrared seeker-head had locked onto
the helicopter’s huge jet engines. Before the computer could acknowledge his
commands Powell had punched the missile-launch button on his control stick.

 
          
“Infrared missile launch.
” Less than
three miles away, the Sidewinder could hardly miss . . . the entire rotor and
top half of the huge helicopter disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire as the
hulking machine rolled hard to the left and dropped into the trees. Powell and
McLanahan were so close to the helicopter on impact that they could see the men
inside . . .

 
          
But
the helicopter crashed clear of the tiny airstrip. The runway was open.

 
          
“Damn
it. Set attack mode strafe. Arm cannon.” McLanahan grabbed hold of the
handlebars as J.C. rolled Cheetah hard up and right, struggling to get back
into firing position. They rolled into a wings-level steep descent on the
attack flight- director, which was still locked in strafing mode onto the spot
where DreamStar had been parked. It took a few precious seconds for Powell to
readjust his eyes. When he did he saw DreamStar rolling down the runway. He
tried to push Cheetah’s nose down and get off a few quick bursts, but his rate
of descent was too steep and the flight director was ordering him to climb
before he got too low. The few rounds he did get off impacted on the spot
DreamStar had vacated just seconds earlier.

 
          
“I
missed, he’s getting away.”

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
The
instant the hulking transport helicopter lifted off, Maraklov forgot about the
fuel truck, the buildings on the runway, everything except the takeofiF. He saw
the Sidewinder plow into the chopper, saw the machine explode and crash into
the forest. But his attention was on the takeofiF—until he saw Cheetah bearing
straight down at him, the F-15 fighter so large it cast a shadow on Maraklov’s
cockpit. How could he miss?

 
          
The
feeling of imminent death was so strong that the ANTARES interface almost shut
down out of sheer panic. But Maraklov’s last commands were executed, and
DreamStar’s turbofan engine was at full afterburning thrust and the brakes were
off. He expected the rounds from Cheetah’s M61B2 gun to tear through his canopy
any second—then, almost as quickly, he realized that Cheetah had overshot. His
guns were firing but his nose was coming up too fast and so the shells were
hitting behind him. He also caught a glimpse of KGB soldiers firing into the
sky, futilely trying to shoot down Cheetah with AK-47 rifles.

 
          
Maraklov
considered using the same takeofiF trick he had used back at Dreamland, but the
wings would not respond to the wingtip back-twisting that had worked so well
before. The pile of broken and burning buildings at the end of the runway rushed
forward. Smoke from the destroyed cargo helicopter obscured his vision, so that
he could not watch the wall of green heading straight at him . . .

 
          
.
. . DreamStar’s landing gear left the runway less than a hundred feet from the
hastily cleared end of the runway, and the wheels were just tucking themselves
into their wells when DreamStar cleared the trees. Airborne once again,
Maraklov made a hard turn to the southeast, stayed in full afterburner, pushed
DreamStar’s nose down to build airspeed and hugged the rugged mountain ridges
as close as possible. ANTARES had computed several attack scenarios, but
Maraklov overrode all of them. For now escape was his best defense.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
McLanahan
was holding onto the canopy sill, straining against the crushing G-forces to
look between Cheetah’s twin vertical stabilizers.

 
          
“I
see him,” he called out. “He made it off, he’s staying low . . .”

 
          
Powell
continued his hard turn, executing a one-hundred- eighty-degree turn and
thrusting his nose toward the rugged mountain foothills. Once they were rolled
in McLanahan checked his radar screen. “Radar contact, J.C.,
twelve o’clock
low—I’ve got radar lock.
Get him!”

 
          
Powell
hit the voice-recognition computer-button. “Set attack mode radar missile. Arm
one radar missile.”

 
          
“Radar missile armed. ”

           
“Launch radar missile . . . now.”

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
Once
again the radar-threat warning blared in Maraklov’s head but this time he was
ready for it. It said that Cheetah was above and behind him approximately six
miles—a poor position to launch an attack at low altitude. The threat-warning
receiver also did not indicate that the Scorpion missile’s own seeker-head was
tracking—which meant that the missile was getting its guidance information only
from Cheetah’s radar. A significant disadvantage in the milliseconds game they
were now playing.

 
          
Maraklov
began a hard four-G inverted climb directly back toward Cheetah, presenting his
smallest radar cross-section to the oncoming Scorpion missile, which corrected
for the sudden climb but could not complete the turn in time to avoid plowing
into the Sierra Madre mountains. ANTARES immediately brought its cannon on-line
and activated its attack radar to track Cheetah in as it sped toward it.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
J.C.
watched in frustration as DreamStar dodged away from the AIM-120 missile, but
he was ready for the move. “Set attack-mode air cannon. Arm cannon.”

 
          
“Cannon armed... Warning, radar weapon
tracking,
twelve o’clock
. ”

           
Powell touched the voice-command
button: “All trackbreak- ers on and transmit.”

 
          
“Trachbreakers on and transmitting,”
the
computer acknowledged as Cheetah’s powerful internal jammers activated—the
jammers would keep DreamStar’s cannon from maintaining a lock-on. “I can’t
believe how fast he can get his guns on-line. But he’s gotta be out of smash .
. . Hang on.”

 
          
McLanahan
needed no encouragement. J.C. pulled up into a tight climb, rolled inverted
only five hundred feet above ground and again tried to line up on DreamStar.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
DreamStar
had easily locked onto Cheetah with the attack radar, and Maraklov could now
track it through its sudden climb. But when DreamStar tried to follow Cheetah
around to keep the guns on him, ANTARES warned that he was approaching
stall-speed. DreamStar, which had not yet reached optimal flying speed so early
after takeoff, had used all its energy in its tight evasive turn and its
pitch-up to track Cheetah and had no power left to continue to track him with
the nose high in the air. DreamStar’s canards pushed the nose down, and with
that the guns were pulled off Cheetah.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
Powell
pushed Cheetah’s nose earthward and on the downside of the loop found himself
lined up on DreamStar. He pushed on the right rudder to slew Cheetah’s nose to
the right . . . no time to get a radar lock . . . just squeeze the trigger,
hoping for a lucky hit.

 
          
“Altitude,”
Patrick shouted. “Pull
up. ”

 
          
J.C.
went to max afterburner and hauled back on the stick with both hands. He was so
fixed on the image of DreamStar dead in his sights that he ignored the rocks
and trees rushing up at him. Then he had to roll hard left to fly behind
DreamStar to avoid hitting
him.
After
that hard turn Powell found himself perilously close to stall speed and had no
choice but to roll wings-level at max afterburner and wait until he had
regained speed.

 
          
“Dammit,”
McLanahan shouted, “you had him, J.C. You could have nailed him—”

 
          
“This
isn’t no Cessna 152 we’re fooling with, Patrick. He can turn and attack faster
than we can. He could have launched a missile by now but he was only tracking
us with guns—he never got off a missile-track signal. Maybe that means he
doesn’t have any missiles.”

           
“Well, we’re below half-fuel right
now. We need to tag him and head back or we’ll be walking to
Nevada
.”

 
          
J.C.
started a right turn back toward DreamStar. “Safe radar missiles,” he spoke
into the voice-command computer. “Set attack mode infrared missile.”

 
          
“Infrared missile selected, warning, one
missile remaining.
”

           
“I got a visual on him,” Powell
said. He touched the voice- command button. “Attack radar standby. Infrared
scanner operate.”

           
“Attack
radar standby. Infrared scanner on.
” Immediately the heat-seeking scanner
locked onto DreamStar.

 
          
“He’s
just running,” Powell said. “He’s not jinking and jiving anymore.” To the
voice-command computer he ordered, “Slave infrared missile to infrared
scanner.”

 
          
The
Sidewinder missile’s seeker-head followed the azimuth directions of Cheetah’s
scanner, but the missile did not indicate a lock-on. “We need to get in closer
. . .”

 
          
“No,”
McLanahan said. “His tail IR scanner has a greater range than our Sidewinder.
Launch the Sidewinder in bore- sight mode—it should lock onto him after
launch.”

 
          
“It’s
worth a try,” It was easier than before for Powell to align himself with
DreamStar’s tailpipe—Maraklov was indeed driving straight and level,
accelerating as fast as possible. When he was aligned with DreamStar’s
rectangular exhaust Powell commanded: “Infrared missile boresight.”

 
          
“Infrared missile boresight, caution, no
target lock.
” The missile would normally not launch unless it was tracking
a target, but in boresight mode the missile could be launched straight ahead
and the infrared seeker could attempt to lock onto a target while in flight; it
also was a tricky technique used against slow-moving targets to hit them
outside the missile’s optimal range. It was not reliable because of the
missile- seeker’s narrow field of view, but against hot targets that weren’t
maneuvering it was at least a valid attack.

 
          
Powell
hit the command button. “Launch.”

 
          
“Warning, radar target lock,
seven o’clock
. ”