Morris smiled thinly. "Mr. Calloway, I'm always concerned."
The captain reflexively checked the various status boards. All his weapons and sensor systems were fully operational-so nice to have a brand-new ship! The threat board showed no known submarine activity in the immediate area, a datum to be taken with a considerable bit of skepticism. He could call General Quarters now, but much of his crew was at lunch. Better to have everyone fed and alert.
The damned waiting, Morris thought. He watched the displays in silence. The blips indicating friendly aircraft orbited slowly as their pilots waited too.
"More CAP coming up." an officer reported. Another pair of Tomcats, part of the combat air patrol, appeared on the scope. America had gotten the same raid warning. The carrier was two hundred miles away, westbound for Norfolk. The same was true of Independence, returning from the Azores. The carriers had been at sea since the war began, cruising back and forth to avoid the orbiting Soviet ocean-reconnaissance satellites. They had been able to provide antisubmarine protection for a number of convoys, though only at great hazard to the carriers themselves. Up to now, the American flattops had not been able to act as they were supposed to act. They were not yet offensive weapons. The fate of the Nimitz group had come as a bitter lesson. Morris lit another cigarette. Now he remembered why he'd quit in the first place. Too many of them burned his throat, destroyed his sense of taste, and made his eyes water. On the other hand, they did give him something to do while he waited.
The Bears were on a precise north-south line now centered on the position of the frigate's radar signals. The raid commander ordered them to turn west and reduce altitude. Two aircraft failed to acknowledge the order, and he had to repeat it.
Two hundred miles west of them, aboard the circling E-2C Hawkeye surveillance aircraft, a technician's head went up. Held just heard someone speaking Russian; in code, but definitely Russian.
Within minutes, every ship in the escort force had the information, and they all came up with the same answer: the Backfires couldn't be here yet. These were Bears. Everyone wanted to kill the Bears. The carrier America started launching her fighters and additional radar aircraft. After all, the Russians could be looking for her.
"He's gotta be heading right for us," the tactical action officer said.
"That's the general idea," Morris agreed.
"How far?" Calloway asked.
"No way to know that. The Hawkeye copied a voice radio transmission. Probably it's, fairly close, but freak atmospheric conditions can let you hear that sort of thing from half a world away. Mr. Lenner, let's go to battle stations for air action."
Five minutes later the frigate was ready.
"Good morning, Mr. Bear." The Tomcat pilot stared at his TV display tube. The Russian aircraft was about forty miles away, the sun glinting off its massive propellers. Deciding to close without using his radar for the moment, the fighter pilot advanced his throttles to 80-percent power and activated his missile controls. The head-on closure rate was over a thousand miles per hour, seventeen miles per minute.
Then: "Energize!" the pilot ordered, and instantly the radar intercept officer in the rear seat powered up the fighter's AWG-9 radar.
"We've got him," the RIO reported a moment later.
"Shoot!" Two missiles dropped free and accelerated to over three thousand miles per hour.
The Soviet electronics-warfare technician was trying to isolate the signature characteristics of the frigate's search radar when a beep sounded on a separate warning receiver. He turned to see what the noise was and went pale.
"Air-attack warning!" he shouted over the intercom.
Reacting at once, the pilot rolled the Bear left and dove for the surface of the ocean, while aft the EW technician activated his protective jamming systems. However, the turn had masked the jammer pods from the incoming missiles.
"What's happening?" the raid commander demanded over the intercom.
"We have an interceptor radar on us," the technician replied, scared but cool. "Jamming pods are activated."
The raid commander turned to his communications man. "Get a warning out: enemy fighter activity this position."
But there wasn't time. The Phoenixes covered the distance in less than twenty seconds. The first went wild and missed, but the second locked on the diving bomber and blew its tail off. The Bear fell to the sea with as little grace as a dropped sheet of paper.
The radar showed the Tomcat, and they watched as it launched two missiles that immediately disappeared from sight, and then, silently, as the Tomcat continued east for thirty seconds. Then it turned around and headed back west.
"That, gentlemen, is a kill," Morris said. "Splash one Bear."
"How do you know?" Calloway asked.
