Flight of the Old Dog, page 30
“We don’t have any choice, John. If we don’t contact them, our friendly Bolshevik back there comes back and blows Montanya and his friends away.”
Elliott keyed the microphone. “Kommandorskiye Approach, Lantern four-five Fox is with you at flight level four-five-zero.”
“Lantern four-five Fox, roger, at flight level four-five-zero,” the Russian air traffic controller replied in hesitant English. “Say your heading, please.”
“Sto shizfisyat. Heading is one-six-zero, Approach.”
“Roger, four-five Fox. Spasiba.” There was a slight pause, then: “I do not have a flight plan for you, Lantern four-five Fox.”
“No shit,” Ormack said over interphone.
“We are on a military flight plan from Alaska to Japan,” Elliott said.
“I show no flight plan,” the controller repeated. “Please relay type of aircraft, departure base, destination base, time enroute, hours of fuel on board, and persons on board, please.”
“No way,” Ormack said. “I haven’t done an international flight plan in years, but at least I know it’s never relayed to a Soviet controller.”
“Yes,” Elliott said, “you’re right. This guy’s just fishing for information.” On the radio Elliott said, “Kommandorskiye, we will ask Kadena overwater flight following to relay our flight plan to you.”
“I will be happy to take the information, sir,” the controller said … “as a convenience.”
Nice try, Ivan, Elliott said to himself. Over the radio: “Thank you Kommandorskiye. We will notify Kadena. Stand by.”
“Very well,” the controller replied coldly. “Lantern four-five Fox, squawk three-seven-seven-one and ident.”
“Shit,” Ormack said. “Now he wants us to get a squawk.”
“Looks like we’re digging a hole for ourselves,” Elliott said, reached down and set the four-digit IFF identification and tracking code, leaving the altitude encoding and modes one, two, and four switchs off. He then switched the IFF to ON and hit the IDENT button.
“Four-five Fox squawking,” Elliott said.
“Radar identified, Lantern four-five Fox,” the Soviet controller replied. “I am not reading your altitude. Please recycle mode C.”
“Recycling,” Elliott said. He turned the mode C altitude encoder on. “I am reading your altitude—” Elliott switched him off.
“I have lost your altitude again, four-five Fox. Recycle again, please.”
Elliott repeated his “failed” mode C routine.
“Your mode C appears to be intermittent, four-five Fox,” the controller at Beringa finally said.
“Roger, we’ll write it up, sir.”
“I cannot allow you to cross into Petropavlovsk airspace without a fully operable identification encoder, four-five Fox,” the controller said. “Please turn twenty degrees left, vectors clear of Soviet airspace. Maintain heading for one-five minutes, then resume own navigation. Ochin zhal. Sorry.”
“How far does that put us off the airway?” Elliott asked Luger.
“We’re almost on the airway now. We’d end up seventy, eighty miles west.”
Elliott turned the Old Dog to the new heading.
“How long are we going to be in Beringa’s radar coverage?”
“We’re only on the edge of it now,” Luger said.
“Their radar signal is very weak,” Wendy said. “No guarantee—but I don’t think they’ve got a primary target on us.”
“Meaning …” Ormack began.
“If we shut the IFF off, we disappear,” Elliott said. “Just like Seattle. Patrick, how far are we from your next planned turn-point inland?”
“We’ll never hit it on this heading.”
“Call it up,” Elliott said, taking manual control of the Old Dog. The computer heading bug swung almost fifty degrees to the right.
“About twenty minutes,” Elliott estimated. “That puts us between both Beringa and Petropavlovsk radars.”
“And as close to the coast as we can get between the two radars,” McLanahan added.
“I don’t think it’ll take Beringa that long to discover we don’t have a flight plan,” Elliott said. “Things are going to get hairy pretty soon. Wendy, you’re sure he can’t see us?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“Can you jam their radar in case he spots us?”
“Yes, I’m positive of that.”
Elliott adjusted his parachute harness. “This means we’re close to the penetration descent, crew. Wendy, prepare to take the Center radar down. We’ll be making a power-off descent in a few seconds. When everyone’s ready to go, we’ll start a gradual turn toward the gap in the radar coverage. When Beringa notices us off-course we’ll engage the terrain-avoidance computers, make a rapid descent to five thousand feet and a quick turn toward the gap. Once we go coast-in we’ll stay at five thousand unless the navigators tell us differently. We’ll rely on the shorter-range mapping radar to stay down just low enough to clear the terrain until the computer enters the altitude-plotted region, then put it on the deck when we get within range of Kavaznya’s radars—or if we get chased down beforehand. Questions? Okay, how much time to the gap?”
“About fifteen minutes, General,” Luger said.
“Anyone looking at us, Wendy?”
Wendy was studying her scope, cross-checking some of the signals present with a frequency comparison chart in her checklist. “I can see Beringa looking for us, but I’m sure they can’t get a primary target on us—their signal is very weak. No airborne radars up. There’s … “
“What?”
“Another search radar comes up only every few minutes or so,” she said, puzzled. “It’s not a Soviet radar, at least not one I’ve seen before. It’s extremely weak and intermittent—like it’s being turned on and off at random.”
“Can it see us?” Elliott asked her. “Could it spot us if we were at low altitude?”
“I don’t think so. It doesn’t come up long enough for me to analyze, but the signal is so intermittent that I don’t think they could spot us even if they could see us. It could be nothing more than a trawler or cargo ship with a weather radar.”
“Well,” Elliott said, unclenching his hands from the yoke, trying to relax, “it seems we’ve got more than enough to think about. “
Gently he eased the wheel to the right and pointed the sleek nose of the Old Dog toward the Soviet Union.
“Here we go …”
The Chief of Intelligence aboard the U.S.S. Lawrence ran down the metal hallway to the radio room, where a small knot of officers, enlisted personnel and civilian technicians clustered around one bank of radio scanners.
“What the hell is going on?” Markham asked as he pulled off his orange fur-lined jacket.
“An American aircraft, Commander Markham,” Lieutenant J.G. Beech, the senior controller, reported hastily, cocking one earpiece of his headset to the side—but not enough to keep him from listening to the channels he was monitoring. A seaman came up to him with a short message. The senior controller read it quickly, swearing softly to himself.
“Well, what the hell is it, Beech?”
“An American aircraft, Commander,” Beech said. “Came over UHF GUARD emergency channel a few minutes ago.” He shook his head. “The aircraft is in Soviet airspace, being controlled by a Soviet controller—”
“An American aircraft?” Markham grabbed the note out of Beech’s hand.
“Lantern four-five Fox,” Markham read. “Lantern. That sounds familiar.”
“It should,” Beech said. “We monitored four Lanterns from Elmendorf dragging a bunch of F-4s to Japan yesterday. Those were KC-10s with an international flight plan—coordinated days in advance. Lantern two-one through two-four.”
“Did you get this guy’s flight plan?”
“There’s no Lantern four-five Fox,” Beech said. “Never was. It didn’t come out of Elmendorf.”
“Where, then?”
“We’re double-checking,” Beech said. “But this guy has no flight plan. We’re trying to get confirmation from Elmendorf but so far we have nothing.”
“Did you get anything?” Markham asked. “Type aircraft? Anything?”
“Nothing. I’ll get the tape for the staff meeting, but there was nothing. A Soviet controller in Beringa Island in the Kommandorskiyes asked him all that when he looked up his flight plan, but he didn’t tell him anything … Here’s how it went, sir … a PVO Strany jet out of Petropavlovsk picks up a Lantern four-five Fox on airborne radar and calls for him in the blind on GUARD. When he started to call we got on the radar and looked for him, too. We had the PVO jet all the way but we couldn’t find the other guy until the PVO jet called out his range and bearing. We plotted him forty miles east of the airway—and then we got a track on him. This four-five Fox plane looked like he was heading toward Russia—”
“Toward Russia?” Markham swiveled in the navy-gray seat. “From where? Didn’t we see him before?”
“He just sort of appeared out of nowhere. We weren’t really scanning for aircraft but we should have spotted him before the PVO Strany surveillance plane did. I don’t know how we—”
“Where is he now?”
“We lost contact with four-five Fox right after he crossed back onto the airway,” Beech said. “Apparently he was crossing south of the Kommandorskiyes, and that’s just about the limit of our coverage.
“But get this—when we picked him up on radar he wasn’t squawking anything. When he contacted Beringa they assigned him a mode three squawk, but his mode C altitude readout was out. Then Beringa kicks him out of their airspace and gives him a vector out around Petropavlovsk airspace.”
“Jesus,” Markham said, wiping his forehead. “Someone’s screwing up but bad here.” He thought for a moment. “No mode one? Mode two? Four?” Those were U.S. military-only identification codes.
“Nothing—not even after Beringa talked to him.”
“An aircraft with a military call sign,” Markham said, “but with nothing but mode three—and that assigned by a Soviet controller.”
“He was speaking Russian to him, too, sir,” a technician said from a nearby radio console.
“Russian?” Markham said. “What the hell was he saying?”
“Conversational. Please, thank you, that sort of thing. Asked the PVO Strany recon jet pilot where he was from.”
“Did the Lantern pilot sound Russian?”
“No, sounded like maybe he used to speak it in the past, but he was definitely American. Even said he was from Butte, Montana.”
“We have no further contact with this guy?”
“Radio contact only,” Beech said, “but he hasn’t talked to Beringa for some time so we couldn’t get an updated DF steer on him.” He motioned over to a large glass plotting board near the communications center, which he and Markham walked over to.
“Here’s our position,” Beech told the intelligence chief, pointing to a tiny ship sticker, “a hundred and fifty miles west northeast of the Kommandorskiyes. Here’s the airway—we’re sitting almost directly under it. We first plotted the unknown aircraft here, northwest of us and forty miles east of the airway, heading southeast. He intersected the airway here and flew along it for a few minutes until Beringa chased him further away from Petropavlovsk airspace, which he’d run into in about twenty to thirty minutes. Our last DF steer put him south of the Kommandorskiyes, a little bit west of the airway. But Beringa control had confirmed him on a mag heading of one-four-zero, which would put him well outside Petropavlovsk airspace. Even if he went direct to Sapporo or Tokyo he’d never get close enough to worry anyone.”
“Is there any chance this could be a Soviet aircraft?” Markham asked. “How do we know it’s American?”
Beech looked puzzled. “Well … except for his call sign, we don’t, sir.”
“But you’ve said there’s no Lantern four-five Fox from anywhere.”
“We haven’t received confirmation from Elmendorf,” Beech said. “They won’t talk about their aircraft on unsecure radios. All we know is that no flight plan has been filed on a Lantern four-five Fox. It could’ve been dropped, or filed late … It’s unusual but it can happen. And … well, he sounded American, sounded military.”
“Enlightened speculation goes down okay here, Beech,” Markham said, trying to smile but not managing it. “But how do we account for this?” Markham pointed to the projected trackline of the unknown aircraft. “What’s he doing way the hell over here?”
Beech shrugged. “Maybe he got lost. Really lost. Maybe he’s sightseeing. Joyriding. Some jet jockey with a fake call sign playing fucking Red Rover with the Russians?”
“Well, we’ll leave that one to the CIA or the Air Force,” Markham said. He stood and stretched. “Send a report to headquarters about this guy. Advise to obtain positive identification before allowing him into Japanese airspace. Suggest a navy or DIA investigation on him when he lands.” He ran his hands over his expanding belly. “I’m going to see if they’ve dreamed up anything new to do with hamburger in the mess. I’ll be upstairs.”
“Lieutenant Beech,” one of the radio operators suddenly called out, “Channel seventeen, sir.”
Beech replaced his headset. After a moment he said urgently. “Jonesy, put it on speakers. Sir, listen to this.”
The operator flipped a few switches, and soon the room was filled with static. A few moments later a Russian accent boomed, “Lantern four-five Fox, acknowledge.”
“It’s Beringa,” Beech said to Markham.
“Lantern four-five Fox, this is Kommandorskiye Approach Control on GUARD frequency. Urgent. You are violating Soviet airspace. Lantern four-five Fox, turn thirty degrees left immediately and ident. Repeat. You are one-zero-zero kilometers off course and in violation of Soviet airspace. Turn left thirty degrees immediately and ident.” The warning was then repeated in Russian and in clumsy Chinese.
“One hundred kilometers,” Beech said. “What the hell is that guy up to?”
“Whatever,” Markham said, “he’s in deep shit now.”
“Lantern four-five Fox, this is Kommandorskiye Approach on GUARD. I have lost your beacon. Repeat, I have lost your beacon. Check your IFF is in NORMAL and squawk ident immediately. You are in violation of Soviet airspace. Identify yourself immediately.”
“That’s it,” Markham said. “Cancel that last report. Prepare a priority One message for Pacific Fleet headquarters. Say that an unidentified aircraft, presumed American military, has violated Soviet airspace. Give our position and the last reported and estimated position of the aircraft. Soviet intentions are unknown but we expect them to search, intercept and destroy. We do not have any reason to believe that the unknown aircraft has an emergency, but tell them that he may be having navigational difficulties. More details to follow. I’ll have the Captain sign it immediately. And get a report ready for the Old Man,” Markham told Beech. “He’s gonna want one fast. I’m going to get permission to send up a radar balloon.”
We may be able to move closer to his last reported position,” Beech suggested. “Get on the other side of the Kommandorskiyes. If this guy’s in trouble we can—”
“We haven’t even established if the son of a bitch is American,” Markham cut in. “He could be part of some elaborate Russian scheme to pull us away from monitoring Kavaznya. I’ll suggest it, Beech, but I won’t recommend it. Besides, he’d be too far inside Soviet territory for us to do anything.”
As his intelligence people hurried to execute his orders, Markham studied the plotting board. In front of him a technician made a series of computations and drew another line, plotting the unknown aircraft’s possible location.
“I don’t know who you are,” Markham said under his breath, “but, buddy, you just stirred up one hell of a hornet’s nest.”
“Call up the next point,” Elliott said. His arms were extended almost straight out from his body, straining to hold the control yoke forward, forcing the Old Dog down toward the dark waters of the north Pacific. The heading bug swung twenty degrees to the right. As the Old Dog started a right turn to the new computerized heading, Elliott spun the large trim wheel by his right knee forward to help him hold the bomber’s nose down—at the current rate of descent and high airspeed, the Megafortress wanted nothing except to zoom skyward.
As he reached for the trim wheel Elliott touched his right knee. The feeling—a tingling sensation, like it was asleep—had still been there a few hours ago, but it was gone now. A ring of pain encircled his thigh midway between his knee and hip like a clamp. A muscle twitched involuntarily on his right buttock. He looked over and saw Ormack carefully watching him.
“Bad?”
“Just watch your damn instruments, John.”
Ormack nodded, not reassured.
Nearly forty years earlier, Elliott recalled, he had hurt that knee falling out of a hayloft on his father’s farm. While sitting in the school library, sidelined from the football team, he had read all the books printed on the subject of knee injuries, vitamins to help mending ligaments, special exercises to strengthen muscles. After the cast came off he nursed the weakened knee back to health in only a few weeks, just in time for baseball season. The year his school won the state championship. He remembered the pride he felt at the time. Would he be as proud when this was over?
“Will that heading keep us clear of Beringa’s radar?”
“It should,” Luger said. “It’ll take us around on a one-hundred-twenty-mile arc.” He checked the altimeter on his front instruments panel. It was spinning down faster than he’d ever seen, like a clock gone haywire. He was so light in his seat that he had to snatch his charts and pencil in midair to keep them from floating away in the negative Gs. “Passing twenty-five thousand for five thousand,” he called out. He remembered Major White’s egress trainer back at Ford, the way White made his huge mechanical beast dance on its ten-foot hydraulic legs. Well, this was for real—and it was much more than White could ever dream up … “Passing twenty thousand.” Ford Air Force Base seemed very, very far away.
