End Game

The surface search was handled by a radar set developed from the Nordon APY-3 used in the JSTARS battlefield surveillance and control aircraft. Again, its range depended on conditions. An older destroyer could be spotted at roughly two hundred miles; very small boats and stealthy ships like the Abner Read were nearly invisible even at fifty miles under most circumstances. A radar designed for finding periscopes in rough seas had been added to the mission set; an extended periscope from a Kilo-class submarine could be seen at about twenty miles under the best conditions.

Downstairs from the flight deck, in the compartment where the navigator and bombardier would have sat in a traditional B-52, Cantor was preparing to launch the aircraft’s two Flighthawk U/MF-3 robot aircraft. The unmanned aerial vehicles could stray roughly twenty miles from their mother ship, providing air cover as well as the ability to closely inspect and attack surface targets if necessary.

The Flighthawks were flown with the help of a sophisticated computer system known as C3. The aircraft contained their own onboard units, which could execute a number of maneuvers on their own. In theory, a Flighthawk pilot could handle two aircraft at a time, though newer pilots generally had to prove themselves in combat with one first.

The Megafortress carried four Harpoon antiship missiles and four antiaircraft AMRAAM-plus Scorpion missiles on a rotating dispenser in the bomb bay. A four-pack of sonar buoys was installed on special racks at each wingtip.

‘How are you doing, Cantor?’ Dog asked.

‘Just fine, Colonel.’

‘How’s your pupil?’

‘Um, Major Smith is, um, learning, sir.’

‘I’ll bet,’ said Dog.

‘I’m good to go here, Colonel,’ said Smith. ‘Everything is rock solid.’

‘That’s good to hear, Mack. Don’t give Cantor any problems.’

‘Problems? Why would I do that?’

Dog was too busy laughing to answer.

Indian Ocean 2000

The torpedo was not a good fit. At 4.7 meters long – roughly fourteen feet – it just barely fit beneath the smooth round belly of the Sparrow. More importantly, at roughly seven hundred kilograms – a touch over fifteen hundred pounds – it represented nearly twice the aircraft’s rated payload, making the plane too heavy to take off with full fuel tanks.

But the limitations of the small, Russian-made seaplane were almost assets. For the Sparrow could ‘fly’ across the waves at a hundred knots on a calm night like this, approaching its target at two or three times the speed of a conventional torpedo boat or small patrol boat, while being quite a bit harder to detect than a conventional aircraft. When in range, about ten kilometers, it could fire the weapon, and then, considerably lighter, take to the sky and get away.

Which was the plan.

‘Target is now fifty kilometers away,’ said the copilot. Their target, an oil tanker bound for India, was being tracked by the largest aircraft under Sattari’s command, an ancient but serviceable A-40 Beriev seaplane sold as surplus by the Russians some years before. The aircraft had just passed overhead at eighteen thousand feet, flying a course generally taken by a transport to India from Greece.

‘Begin turn to target in ten seconds.’

Captain Sattari grunted. He was still angry over the meeting with the oil minister and his father earlier – so mad, in fact, that he had bumped the pilot from the mission and taken it himself. Not because he felt he needed to prove his courage or ability, but to help him master his rage.

Flying had always helped him in this way. It had nothing to do with the romance of the wind lifting you into the sky. No, what settled Sattari was the need for concentration, the utter surrender of your mind and senses to the job at hand. Planning the mission, checking the plan, then flying it as precisely as possible – the process freed him, chasing the demons of anger and envy and frustration from his back, where they hovered.

‘The A-40 reports that there is a warship south of the tanker,’ reported the copilot. ‘Heading northward – three miles south of him. An Indian destroyer.’

A destroyer?

‘Are they sure it’s Indian?’

‘They’ve overheard transmissions.’

The tanker was a more important target, but if the black robes wanted to provoke a war, striking a destroyer would certainly make them angrier.

And no one could call him a coward then.

‘Compute a new course,’ said Sattari. ‘See if it’s possible to strike the destroyer if we use the tanker as a screen. We can always drop back to our original prey.’

Aboard the Wisconsin, over the Gulf of Aden 2010

‘MiGs are scrambling off the new field at Al Ghayda,’ T-Bone warned Colonel Bastian. ‘Two aircraft, MiG-29s. Just about one hundred miles from us, Colonel.’

‘Mack, Cantor, you hear that?’

‘Roger that, Colonel. We’ll meet them.’

Dog keyed in the Dreamland communications channel to alert the Abner Read.

‘Abner Read, this is Wisconsin. We have two MiG-29s coming off an airfield in Yemen. We expect them to be heading in our direction.’

‘Bastian, this is Storm. What are you doing?’

‘Minding our p’s and q’s, Captain. As normal.’

The Navy commander snorted. ‘Are you where you’re supposed to be?’

Dog fought the urge to say something sarcastic, and instead answered that they were on the patrol route agreed to earlier. ‘I would expect that you can see that on the radar plot we’re providing,’ he added. ‘Is it working?’

‘It’s working,’ snapped the Navy captain. ‘What’s with those airplanes?’

‘I assume they’re coming to check us out. The Yemenis gave us quite a bit of trouble when we were out here a few months back.’

‘If they get in your way, shoot them down.’

‘I may just do that,’ said Dog. ‘Wisconsin out.’

‘Sounded kind of cranky,’ said Jazz.

‘Most pleasant conversation I’ve ever had with him,’ Dog told his copilot.

Cantor glanced at the sitrep panel in the lower left-hand corner of his screen, making sure the Flighthawks were positioned properly for the intercept.

‘Fifty miles and closing,’ Cantor told Mack. ‘Weapons radar is off.’

‘Yeah, I can see that,’ said Mack. ‘You’re lagging behind me, cowboy.’

‘We’re going to do this like we rehearsed,’ said Cantor. ‘I’m going to swing out. You get in their face.’

‘Flying wing isn’t the most efficient strategy.’

‘We’re not flying F-15s, Major. This is the way Zen teaches it.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it’ll work against these bozos,’ said Mack. ‘I’m just pointing out, it’s not the best strategy to shoot them down.’

‘We’re not supposed to fire at them.’

‘Hey, don’t bitch to me. Complain to Colonel Bastian.’

I will, thought Cantor. I definitely will.

Mack steadied his forearm on the narrow shelf in front of the control stick, listening as the Wisconsin’s copilot attempted to hail the MiGs. The bogeys were doing about 500 knots; with his Flighthawk clocking about 480, they were now about ninety seconds from an intercept.

If he’d been in an F-15 or even an F-16, the MiGs would be toast by now. An F-22 – fuggetaboutit. They’d be figments of Allah’s imagination already.

Mack jangled his right leg up and down. Unlike a normal aircraft, the Flighthawk control system did not use pedals; all the inputs came from a single control stick and voice commands. This might be all right for someone like Zen, stuck in a wheelchair, or even Cantor, who’d probably been playing video games since he was born, but not for him. He loved to fly. He had it in his belly and his bones. Pushing buttons and wiggling your wrist just didn’t do it.

‘They’re breaking,’ said Cantor.

‘Hawk One.’

The MiGs, which had been in a close trail, were getting into position to confront the Megafortress. Mack started to follow as Bogey One cut to the east, then realized the plane was closer to Hawk Two.

‘I got him, Major,’ said Cantor.

‘Yeah, yeah, no sweat,’ said Mack, swinging back to get his nose on the other airplane.

‘If they go for their afterburners, they’ll blow right by you,’ warned Cantor.

‘Hey, no shit, kid.’

The computer’s tactics’ screen suggested that he start his turn now, recommending that he swing the Flighthawk in front of the MiG to confront it.

‘Wrong,’ Mack told it. Doing that would take him across the MiG’s path too soon, and he might even lose the chance to circle behind him. Instead, he waited until his MiG began to edge downward. Then it was too late – the Yemen pilot opened up the afterburners and spurted forward, past the Flighthawk, even as Mack started his turn.

‘He’s going to use all his fuel, the idiot,’ muttered Mack, putting his finger to the throttle slide at the back of the Flighthawk stick. Even so, there was no way he could catch up with the MiG; it was already flying well over 600 knots.

‘They know where we’ll be, Major,’ said Cantor. ‘They can’t see us yet but they learned from the encounters back in November.’

‘Big deal,’ said Mack under his breath.

Cantor pulled his Flighthawk back toward the Megafortress, aiming to stay roughly parallel to the other fighter’s path. The MiG-29 Fulcrum was an excellent single-seat fighter, highly maneuverable and very dangerous when equipped with modern avionics and weapons. But it did have some shortcomings. As a small aircraft, it could not carry that much fuel, and teasing the afterburners for speed now would limit what it could do later. And their limited avionics meant the Flighthawk was invisible to them except at very close range. Guessing where it was wasn’t the same as knowing.

As soon as the Yemen jet turned to try and get behind the Megafortress at close range, Cantor made his move, trading his superior altitude for speed and surprise. He reminded himself not to get too cocky as it came on, staying precisely on course and resisting the temptation to increase his speed by pushing his nose down faster.

‘Bogey at one mile; close intercept – proximity warning,’ said C3, the Flighthawk’s computer guidance system.

‘Acknowledged, Computer,’ said Cantor. He gave the stick a bit of English as his target came on. The Flighthawk crossed in front of the MiG in a flash, its left wing twenty yards from the aircraft’s nose. As he crossed, Cantor pushed his stick hard to the right, skidding through the air and lining up for a shot on the MiG’s hindquarters.

He didn’t quite get into position to take the shot, but that didn’t matter. The MiG veered sharply to the west, tossing flares and chaff as decoys in an effort to get away.

‘Hawk Two has completed intercept,’ Cantor reported. ‘Bogey One is running for cover.’

Off the coast of Somalia 2010

Starship acknowledged the radio call from the approaching Indian destroyer, identifying himself as an aircraft from the Abner Read. He was ten miles northeast of the ship, the Calcutta, too far off for them to realize that the aircraft was too small to hold a pilot.

‘Werewolf One, our commander wishes you to pass along a message to your commander,’ said the radioman aboard the Calcutta.

‘Sure,’ said Starship.

‘He salutes Captain Gale on his many victories. He hopes that he will have an opportunity to visit the Abner Read in the future.’

‘I’ll relay the message,’ said Starship.

Starship circled over the Indian warship twice, then began heading back toward the Abner Read, close to 250 miles away. He double-checked the auxiliary screen showing the status of Werewolf Two – the computer was flying the aircraft in a routine patrol pattern around and ahead of the ship – then turned his full attention to the sea in front of him. An oil tanker was about a mile and a half northwest of him, low in the water with its full load.

Something else was there, too – a plane almost in the waves, moving at 100 knots, about five miles north of him.

‘Werewolf to Tac,’ said Starship. ‘Hey, check this contact out!’

Indian Ocean 2012

Captain Sattari grinned as the torpedo fell off its rail. Freed of the weight, the Beriev rose abruptly. Sattari caught a glimpse of his well-lit target five miles off, just beyond the oil tanker. He banked and tucked back closer to the waves, trying to keep the plane no higher than fifty feet, where it should not be seen by the destroyer’s Russian-made radar system.

It would take the torpedo less than three minutes to run to its target. The destroyer would undoubtedly detect the fish once it cleared the tanker, and take evasive maneuvers when the torpedo was detected. But he’d gotten close enough to narrow the odds of escape; the torpedo was designed to home in on its target, and if the crew aboard the destroyer was not swift, he would score a great victory.

Pointless to even think about it now, he told himself, finding his new course.

‘Aircraft!’ said his copilot, manning the passive infrared sensors. ‘Helicopter!’

‘Where?’

‘Three miles to our southeast.’

‘Pursuing us?’

‘Uncertain. His radar is operating. He may see us.’

Sattari squeezed the throttle for more power.

Aboard the Wisconsin, over the Gulf of Aden 2014

‘MiG Two continuing toward us at a high rate of speed,’ Jazz told Dog.

‘Open the bay doors.’

‘He’s not targeting us, Colonel.’

‘Bay doors.’

‘Bay.’

The rumble of the missile bay opening shook the aircraft. Dog double-checked his position, then reached to the communications panel.

‘Yemen MiG-29, this is EB-52 Wisconsin. You can get as close as you like, but if you get in my way you’re going to swim home.’

‘Big words, yankee-man.’

Dog laughed. ‘I guess he told me.’

‘Ten miles, sir.’

‘Relax, Jazz. He just wants to prove his manhood so the rest of squadron will buy him beers.’

‘They’re Muslim, Colonel. They don’t drink alcohol.’

‘That was a joke. Ease up.’

‘I’m trying.’

Having blown the intercept, Mack tried desperately to think of some way to save face as he swung back toward the Wisconsin. He was pretty far out of the picture now, five miles behind the MiG, which was still picking up speed as it came at the Megafortress. If this had been more serious, the bogey would have launched its missiles by now.

Of course, if it had been more serious, the Megafortress would have launched its own antiaircraft missiles.

Game or not, he knew he’d had his fanny waxed, and he needed to get revenge. He watched as the MiG changed course, turning to the west away from the EB-52. The computer, drawing its probable course in the sitrep screen, momentarily showed it breaking off, but it quickly caught on – like its companion, the plane was angling for a highspeed run from behind, a good position to launch heat-seekers.

Mack was too far behind the MiG to follow and too far ahead of the Megafortress to follow Cantor’s strategy and cut the MiG off behind the plane. So instead he began his own turn to the west – he’d make his intercept after the MiG passed the EB-52.

And, just to make the experience special, he’d toss a few flares in the MiG’s face as he went by.

The Yemen aircraft came at the Megafortress at 550 knots, clearly not interested in riding alongside the American plane. This suited Mack perfectly, and he began climbing out ahead of the EB-52, ready to trade the height for speed when he wanted.

‘Hawk Two, what the hell are you doing?’ demanded Colonel Bastian.

‘Just getting ready to say hello.’

‘Stay out of my flight path. I have a job to do here.’

Grouch, thought Mack.

Aboard the Abner Read, off the coast of Somalia 2015

‘This looks a lot like those contacts we had the other night,’ Starship told Eyes as he scrambled to follow the aircraft he’d just spotted. The slow-moving plane, about five miles north of Starship’s Werewolf, was so low the sensors showed it on the surface of the water.

‘Good, copy, we concur here. Track him.’

‘Yeah, I’m on that.’ Starship swung the Werewolf westward as the bandit continued to pick up speed. The image in the forward-looking infrared showed that the airplane had two engines set high behind the wing; it was small, almost surely a civilian aircraft. The threat file in the Werewolf’s combat computer couldn’t identify it.

Starship followed at about two miles, ratcheting his speed up as the strange aircraft continued to accelerate. Starship tucked his Werewolf downward, trying to get a better look at the underside of the craft. But the other plane was so low to the waves that he had a hard time; he kept jerking his hand involuntarily as the shadows changed on the screen. Finally he backed off his speed, dipping so close to the water that he nearly ditched.

‘Definitely no weapons,’ he told Tac. ‘Looks like a civilian craft. Are you going to contact them?’

‘Stand by,’ said Eyes, his voice tense.

The distance between the two aircraft had widened to four miles. Starship began to climb and accelerate. As he did, the bandit veered to the east.

‘He’s climbing,’ Starship told Tac.

‘Werewolf, Indian destroyer Calcutta is reporting it’s under fire. They’ve been torpedoed. Stand by to render assistance.’

‘What do you want me to do with this aircraft?’

‘He has no weapons?’

‘Negative. Look, maybe he launched the torpedo.’

‘Way too small for that. We’ll hand him off to Dreamland Wisconsin. Get back over to the Calcutta. They need assistance.’

‘Roger that,’ said Starship, changing course.

Aboard the Wisconsin, over the Gulf of Aden 2015

Dog stayed on his course as the MiG-29 closed in behind him. If the plane showed any hostility – if it simply turned on the radar used to guide its missiles – he would shoot it down with the Stinger antiair mines in the Wisconsin’s tail. He’d do the same if the aircraft flew as if it would crash into him. But the pilot gave him a half-mile buffer, flying below and off his right wing, close enough to win some sort of bragging rights back home but not quite enough to justify an aggressive reaction.

Dog saw Mack adjusting course to make a pass at the MiG just as it cleared from the Megafortress. Mack cut things considerably closer than the MiG driver did, not only twisting the Flighthawk to within a hundred feet of the Yemen plane, but shooting flares as he did. His timing was a little off, but the other pilot, either confused or panicked, jerked hard to the north and dove a few seconds after the encounter.

Part of Dog thought the Yemen idiot had gotten what he deserved: most likely, a pair of speed pants that needed some serious laundering.

Another part of him was angry as hell at Mack for acting like a two-year-old.

‘Hawk Two, get your nose back into formation.’

‘Oh, roger that, Colonel,’ said Mack, just about chortling. ‘Did you see him?’

Luckily for Mack, the commo panel buzzed with an incoming transmission from the Abner Read on the encrypted Dreamland communications channel. As soon as Dog keyed in the communication, the face of Lt Commander Jack ‘Eyes’ Eisenberg appeared on the screen.

‘Bastian, we have a possible submarine approximately two hundred miles south of us. It just launched an attack on an Indian destroyer. We’d like you to help locate it with your Piranha unit.’

‘We’re not carrying Piranha,’ Dog told him. The undersea robot had not been ready when they took off, and it hadn’t made sense to delay the patrol – facts that Dog had already explained. ‘Piranha will be aboard the next plane out. We have sonar buoys – we can drop those.’

‘Affirmative, good. Also, Werewolf has been following an aircraft just north of there. Airplane appears to be civilian but hasn’t answered any hails. May be a smuggler. We’d like to find out what it’s up to. Send one of your Flighthawks to pursue the aircraft.’

‘Bit of a problem there, Abner Read’ responded Dog, doing his best to ignore the sailor’s haughty tone. ‘The Flighthawk has to stay within twenty miles of us. We can’t be in both places at the same time.’

‘I don’t understand. How come the Werewolf can be so far from us?’

‘The control and communications systems are different,’ said Dog. ‘Basically, the Flighthawks are considerably more difficult to fly and require a greater bandwidth than the Werewolf.’

They also represented an older generation of technology – much had changed in the three years since they began flying.

‘All right. Stand by.’ The line snapped clear.

‘Dish, how close do we have to get to detect a periscope?’ Dog asked the radar operator.

‘Going to depend on too many factors to give you a guarantee,’ Captain Peter Mallack answered. ‘Specs say we should be able to nail him at fifteen miles, though. Of course, if he’s on the surface –’

‘What if he isn’t using his periscope?’

‘We won’t find him without sonar buoys, or until Piranha’s operating.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Bastian, what’s your problem?’ snarled Storm, appearing in the communications panel.

‘Physics. I can’t be in two places at one time,’ said Dog. ‘I can look for the sub or inspect your unknown aircraft, but not both.’

‘That’s ridiculous – send one of your aircraft after this flight, and then get your butt down south and find this submarine. Drop your buoys. Jee-zus, Bastian. Since when do I have to tell you your job?’

Same old Storm, thought Dog, looking at the captain’s red face.

‘The Flighthawks were designed to stay close to the Megafortress,’ said Dog, keeping his voice neutral. ‘I don’t like those limits myself, but we’re stuck with them at the moment. Do you want me to follow the plane or to look for the submarine?’

Storm, apparently interrupted, glanced at someone else on the bridge.

‘We can continue to track him with our radar,’ added Dog. ‘Out to about three hundred miles or so, maybe more depending on his altitude.’

Storm turned back to the screen and raised his hand. ‘Hold on Bastian, hold on.’

‘Hey, Colonel, I have the aircraft on the viewscreen,’ said T-Bone over Wisconsin’s interphone. ‘Computer can’t ID it, but it’s about the size of a Cessna. Two engines.’

‘You think there’s a possibility that plane launched a torpedo?’

‘Doesn’t look big enough. Hard to tell from here, but guessing from the size of the engines and given his speed, I doubt he could have taken off with it. You might have a better idea.’

‘Doesn’t look likely,’ said Jazz, who’d brought up some of the data on his screen. ‘If it’s a smuggler, he might have been working with that tanker. Might be a seaplane.’

‘I’m not positive it’s a seaplane,’ said T-Bone.

‘Thanks. Stand by.’

He glanced at the video screen at the lower left of his control panel. Storm was still busy, so Dog used the circuit to talk to Starship. ‘Wisconsin to Werewolf One. Starship, this is Colonel Bastian. How are you?’