Pharris heeled hard to the left as she changed course. Forward, the five-inch gun mount rotated clockwise as the ship brought her stem across the target bearing. As soon as the gun mount was unmasked, firecontrol radars gave it a target solution, and the long-barrel gun elevated to thirty degrees and locked on the target. The point-defense missile mount on the fantail did the same.
"Target is at thirty thousand feet, range fifteen miles and closing."
The escort commander still had not authorized a missile launch. Better to have Ivan shoot his missiles first, before he knew what lay in his path. Data from the carrier battle was already out to the fleet. The big Russian air-to-surface missiles were not especially hard targets to hit, since they ran straight for their targets, though you did have to react in a hurry: they were mighty fast. He figured that the Bear was still doing a target evaluation and did not yet know the strength of the escort force. The longer he was kept in the dark, the better, because the Backfires would not have much time to loiter this far from their bases. And if the Bear came in just a little closer...
"Commence firing!" the TAO shouted.
Pharris's gun mount went to full-automatic mode, firing a round every two seconds. The Bear was barely within range of her gun, and there was scant chance of a kill, but it was time to give him something to worry about.
The first five rounds fell short, exploding harmlessly a mile from the Bear, but the next three came closer, one exploding only two hundred yards from his left wing. The Soviet pilot instinctively turned right to evade. That was a mistake. He didn't know that the nearest row of "merchantmen" carried missiles.
Seconds later, two missiles launched and the Bear immediately dove to evade, a shower of chaff in her wake as she headed right for Pharris, which gave the frigate's gun crew another chance to score a kill. They fired off twenty new rounds as the plane approached. Perhaps two were close enough to damage the bomber, but there was no visible result. The missiles came in next, tiny white darts trailing columns of gray smoke. One missed and detonated in the chaff cloud, but the second detonated a hundred yards away from the bomber. The warhead expanded explosively like a watchspring, breaking into thousands of fragments, and several ripped into the Bear's port wing. The massive propJet lost power in one engine and suffered major wing damage before the pilot regained control just outside Pharris's gun range. She headed off north, trailing smoke.
The other Bear remained discreetly out of everyone's range. The raid commander had just learned a lesson that he'd pass on to his regimental intelligence officer.
"More radars coming on. Down Beats!" warned the ESM technician. "I count ten-count is increasing. Fourteen-eighteen!" the air-search radar operator sang out next.
"Radar contacts, bearing zero-three-four, range one-eight-zero miles. I count four targets, now five-six targets. Course two-one-zero, speed six hundred knots."
"Here come the Backfires," TAO said.
"Radar contact!" came the next call. "Vampire! Vampire! We have inbound missiles."
Morris cringed inwardly. The escorts all switched on their radar transmitters. Missiles trained out on the incoming targets. But Pharris was not part of that game. Morris ordered his ship to flank speed, turning north to race away from the missiles' probable target area.
"The Backfires are turning back. The Bear is holding position. We have some radio chatter. Now twenty-three inbound missiles. Bearing changing on all contacts," TAO said. "They're all headed for the convoy. Looks like we're in the clear."
Morris could hear the crew in the Combat Information Center take one deep collective breath. He watched the radar display with marginal relief. The missiles were streaking in from the northeast, and the SAMs were coming up to meet them. The convoy was again ordered to scatter, the merchantmen racing away from the center of the target. What followed had an eerie resemblance to an arcade game. Of the twenty-three Soviet-launched missiles, nine broke through the SAMs and dove into the convoy. They hit seven merchantmen.
All seven were lost. Some disintegrated at once under the hammering impact of the thousand-kilogram warheads. The others lingered long enough for their crews to escape with their lives. The convoy had left the Delaware with thirty ships. Only twenty were left, and there was almost fifteen hundred miles of open ocean between them and Europe.
Two Backfires ran short of fuel and decided to land at Keflavik. Behind them was the damaged Bear. It circled Reykjavik waiting for the Backfires to clear the runway. Edwards reported it in as a propeller aircraft with a damaged engine. The sun was low over the northwestern horizon, and the Bear gleamed yellow against the cobalt-blue sky.
"Stay on the air, Beagle," Doghouse ordered. Three minutes later, Edwards saw why.
