The Lucifer Crusade (22 page)

Yaz was at Hunter's side as the pilot tried to raise the frigate again. "How can there be aircraft out there, major?" the American sailor asked. "We would have seen it on the radar before it was a hundred miles near us."

Hunter jumped up from the radio and ran to the radar set. "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "You got a few blips when they first attacked, but now, there's nothing. Unless . . ."

"Unless?" Yaz asked.

"Unless, they are flying too low to be picked up on our screens," Hunter said, quickly.

Heath had by this time appeared on the bridge, quickly assessed the situation, and yelled into a microphone, "Battle stations!" Immediately, the carrier's warning klaxon began blaring. Men were running around the ship in controlled pandemonium. While deck sailors were feverishly working on Hunter's F-16, preparing it for launch, others were using the carrier's massive elevator to bring up the Harriers from below decks. Similar emergency sirens could be heard from the Norwegian escort ships cruising on either side of the carrier.

Even the men on O'Brien's tugs were reacting.

Once again the bridge's radio speaker came to life. "SOS! SOS!" the Norwegian voice said. "May Day! May Day! We have been hit. Ship is on fire. May Day! May Day!"

Hunter was back at the radio in a flash. "This is the Saratoga," he called.

"Please ID attacking aircraft . . ."

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There was no reply.

"That does it," Hunter said, running from the bridge. "I'm going out there . .

."

With that, he disappeared from the bridge and was soon climbing into his F-16.

In less than a minute, the jet fighter's engine was hot and its missiles fully armed. Hunter gave the launch officer the thumbs-up sign, and in a flash of fire and a burst of steam the F-16 was catapulted off the deck. It seemed to hang in the air for a moment. Then Hunter booted it and instantly the jet throttled forward and soon disappeared over the northeastern horizon.

He was approaching the battle a minute later. It was a wild, confused scene, one that took him a few seconds to sort out. There was smoke and flames everywhere. White, streaky missile contrails crisscrossed the sky. Long streams of returning gunfire were coming from the many smaller boats of the Freedom Navy, but the direction of the fire looked to be almost horizontal.

Gunners on the two Norwegian frigates on the scene-one of which was smoking heavily-appeared to be doing the same curious thing. At first, it looked as if the ships were firing at each other.

Then, as he drew closer, he saw what was happening. He had guessed right; the enemy aircraft were flying too low to be picked up on radar. But it was the kind of aircraft that startled him.

"Christ," he whispered. "They're seaplanes . . ."

Then Peter's words came back to him. The man had said the enemy would have

"boats that fly."

Hunter shook off a chill, then flew directly over the battle. He banked to the right to get a good look. There were two kinds of enemy aircraft that he could see. One type was a large, rather lumbering

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seaplane, the size of a small airliner. It looked like a bizarre variation of the US-made Albatross Air-Sea Rescue plane of the 1960s, yet it was bigger, with a longer snout and a long, thin, tube-like appendage protruding from its tail.

It took only a few moments for him to identify the strange seaplane: it was a Beriev M-12, a Soviet-built amphibian used years before for antisubmarine duty. But whoever was flying them now had made some major modifications. The original two Iv-chenko A1-20D turbo-prop engines mounted on the over-the-top wing had been increased to four. Hunter knew the protrusions on the front and back of the airplane were for radar, but these airplanes were also bristling with literally dozens of gun ports and carrying many wing-launched missiles.

Their tactic was simple and easily recognizable. They would come in just a few feet above the water, passing between the target ships. Their on-board gunners would then blast away from both sides with guns ranging from .50-caliber machine guns to M-61 20mm cannons. Hunter even recognized the distinctive black puff of smoke characteristic of small howitzers.

Against these big flying boats, both the frigate and the Freedom Navy gunners were depressing their gun barrels as low as possible to shoot at the attackers. But many of the antiaircraft guns simply weren't made to shoot at such a low angle. The enemy flyers had found a weakness and they were exploiting it.

"Ingenious," Hunter muttered, grudgingly giving the attackers credit.

The other type of attacking aircraft was a small, swift, jet-powered seaplane-a type Hunter had never seen. These airplanes looked almost as if they

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were assembled from a kit of some sort. They were smaller than the smallest service-type jet, just barely fifteen feet in overall length. Their jet engine was fitted above the boat-like fusilage, sitting centered on the short, slightly sweptback wing. These fighters were also carrying missiles and cannons.

Working in tandem with the larger boats flying, the fighters too were operating at wavetop level, zipping in and out of the passages between their targets, pumping missiles and cannon shells into the Freedom Navy boats. All of the seaplanes, big and small, were painted in the same off-green ocean-camouflage color scheme, indicating an organized unit was in action. And they were performing a highly specialized, coordinated attack. Custom-made, it would seem, to stopping a large flotilla in its tracks.

Hunter was in amongst them in seconds, streaking down low between a frigate and an armed Freedom Navy trawler. A large, rather sluggish flying boat was making its way in the opposite direction when its pilot, obviously very surprised to see an F-16 coming right towards him, pulled up sharply. Hunter could hear the big plane's engines scream as it sought altitude. In doing so, the pilot had exposed his undefended belly to Hunter. He promptly deposited a Sidewinder into its hind quarters-the missile's heat-seeking system apparently finding something to its liking there.

The enemy airplane continued to climb for a few seconds after the missile exploded inside it, its gunners still diligently firing away at the frigate below them. Then-most likely-a fuel line ruptured, caught fire, and sparked some ammunition. The airplane was just 500 feet above the water when it disappeared in an enormous explosion, showering

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the ships below with a rain of fiery debris.

Hunter was already picking out his next target - one of the smaller sea fighters. A lone jet was zooming in on an armed Freedom Navy trawler that was desperately zigzagging to deny the attacker a clear shot. Hunter was on the fighter's tail in seconds. A short squeeze of his nose-mounted 20mm cannon Six Pack proved more than enough. The sea fighter exploded instantly, pieces of flaming wood and metal bouncing off the F-16's nose as it swept up and over the rescued trawler.

Hunter put the 16 on its ass and did a 360-degree loop. At once, he was on the tail of a large seaplane just as it was beginning its attack on a Freedom Navy converted workboat. All of the ship's hands were on deck firing at the slow-moving airplane with everything from a shotgun and rifles to pistols. Yet the ship's fairly sophisticated deck gun just couldn't get a clear shot at the flying boat. The airplane's gunners, meanwhile, were delivering a punishing barrage upon the workboat. 'The stream of fire coming from the starboard side of the airplane was incredible.

Hunter opened up the Six Pack once again, chopping off the big plane's tail as well as its radar tube. The airplane immediately hit the water, bounced up once, then twice. Hunter stayed on its tail, lowering his flaps to slow the F-16 down. He pressed his cannon trigger again, catching the airplane coming up off its third bounce and ripping away one of its port engines. The Beriev bounced once more, then plunged nose first into the sea, sending up a fiery stream of water and steam.

Still, the attackers pressed the battle. While they were no match for his interceptor, their sheet numbers proved devastating to the Freedom Navy boats.

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There were at least twenty of the big flying boats passing in and out of the Liberte Marina flotilla, with just as many of the smaller jets. The Freedom Navy had already lost at least eight boats and several more were burning uncontrollably.

Hunter was glad to see two Harriers arrive on the scene. He briefly discussed the situation with the jump-jet pilots, then the three fighters went to work.

The Harriers proved especially nimble in fighting the big flying boats. They would hover at 150 feet above the water, waiting for one of the lumbering seaplanes to commit to making a pass. Then the Harrier would pounce, ripping apart the slow, large craft with withering bursts of cannon fire. The big Berievs thus occupied, Hunter chased down the smaller, swifter seajets.

The battle raged for several more minutes before the attackers finally broke off and retreated toward the north. Hunter had half a mind to chase them, but a more important job would be to get back to the carrier and report the attack. The Harriers remained on the scene of the battle, directing rescue efforts for those Freedom Navy men still alive and in the water. Before leaving the scene, Hunter counted four large seaplanes downed, as well as eight smaller jets. Still, as many as a dozen of the Commodore's boats were either sunk or sinking. Hunter estimated as many as 100 Liberte Marina crewmen were killed.

"Who the hell were they, major?" Heath asked, nervously pulling on a cigarette.

"Who knows?" Hunter replied, downing a cup of whiskey-laced coffee. "Whoever they were, they sure knew how the hell to fly those goddamn mothers low-ass-end on the water."

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They were sitting in a small dining room that doubled as the Saratoga's pilot-debriefing room. Besides Hunter and Heath, Olson, Yaz, and the Commodore were present. Even the industrious O'Brien was there.

"We lose so many men," the Commodore said. "Those bastards. We must find them.

Destroy them!"

"Do you think they were in Lucifer's employ, major?" Olson asked.

"I'm sure of it," Hunter replied. "And the fact they were using Soviet-designed, if not Soviet-built and -piloted, aircraft, is really bugging me. God knows what they have out there waiting for us." "Couldn't we send out a search plane and locate their base?" O'Brien asked.

"Sure, we could," Hunter said. "But the thing is, I'll bet they don't have a base. Not a fixed, permanent one anyway."

Heath refilled a cup with coffee and spiked it with the bottle of no-name whiskey on the table. "How do you mean, major?"

"Well, they wouldn't really need a fixed land base," Hunter began. "All they need is a source of fuel. They could have a few supertankers filled with JP-8

aviation fuel floating around out there somewhere. They land on the water nearby and fuel up. They could even have some kind of docking works extended from the ship. Some supply ships nearby, where they keep the food, and extra crews. Hell, the crew members could live right on the aircraft without much trouble. They wouldn't have to put into dry land for weeks."

Yaz let out a groan. "God, that's all we need," he said, his Southern accent betraying him. "We got a floating airbase out there, keeping one step ahead of 215

us."

"That's not the only problem," Hunter said. "Those big seaplanes are carrying some very sophisticated radar domes on them. They might be slow and clumsy, but I'll tell you, there's a lot of them and they can probably fight in all situations."

"Like night fighting?" Olson asked.

"Yes," Hunter replied, deadly serious. "Night fighting and even in bad flying weather. If that happens, there's not a fighter on this ship that would be safe going up after them. And I doubt if even the Spanish rocket teams could stop them."

Heath thought for a second, bit his lip, then asked, "So, what if they ever got into us here-on the carrier, I mean-what would happen?"

Hunter looked them all straight in the eye, then said, "They could sink this ship ..."

Hunter couldn't sleep. His normally fourth-gear-and-racing mind was working overtime now, to the point where he couldn't lay still. He carefully moved Anna's sweet, naked body from his, kissed her, then rose and left his cabin.

It was a calm, cool, moonless night. The Med was like a sheet of glass; hardly a wave rose and fell. Peaceful, yet uneasy. The calm before the storm. He knew the attack that day had been simply a probing action. The flying boats knew they could go after bigger game than the potluck vessels of the Freedom Navy.

And Peter had predicted it, the spooky son of a bitch . . .

Hunter walked through the CIC, speaking briefly with the night-shift crew.

They reported everything as normal. Nothing out of the ordinary had been 216

picked up in Lucifer's radio transmissions since the seaplane attack -but then again, Hunter didn't expect anything unusual.

He left and walked about the Saratoga's superstructure. The French antiship group had doubled their watch, as had the Spanish rocketeers. Two Harriers and a Viggen were on the deck, ready to launch at a moment's notice. On the frigates surrounding the carrier, he could see more than the normal running lights were burning. Cabin lights were on; figures moved silently on the walkways. He knew all of the ships were on general, first-degree/ alert.

A quarter-mile off the carrier's stern was the Moroccan troop ship. His extra-sensitive ears could hear the unmistakable drone of chanting. The desert fighters were praying in the middle of the night. Most of the boats of the Liberte Marina were now mixed in amongst the frigates and the tugs, although the Commodore insisted that twenty-five of his boats still be allowed to "sail the point." The whole fleet was on edge. Expecting the unexpected. Even O'Brien's tugs had their deck guns fully manned.

He walked into the bridge, where Yaz sat, going over sea and weather charts with O'Brien's second-in-command.

"We could be in Malta in forty-eight hours, Major," Yaz told him. "Currents here are still running against us, but O'Brien says he can put on an auxiliary tug or two."