Arctic Storm Rising
- Автор: Браун Дейл
- Серия: Nick Flynn #1
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 9780063015050
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «Arctic Storm Rising». Краткое содержание книги:
“Oh, back in the first weeks of flight school, it was worse,” she told him with a twisted grin.
“Worse, how?”
“My last name is Van Horn,” she pointed out. “Think about it.”
Flynn winced. “Ouch.” He looked at her. “So what happened?”
“A certain fellow pilot ‘tripped’ in the ladies’ room and managed to bust her lip and get a black eye,” Laura Van Horn said with a certain, deep-seated satisfaction.
“On a wet floor?”
If anything, her smile grew bigger. “Nope. That floor was bone-dry.”
Twenty-Six
One after another, two twin-tailed Su-35S fighters belonging to Russia’s Twenty-Third Aviation Regiment sped down a snow-covered runway and lifted off into the hazy morning sky. Each aircraft was configured for long-range flight, equipped only with two external fuel tanks, a single pair of K-74M short-range heat-seeking missiles, and two KAB-500L laser-guided bombs. Streaking low over a stark white coastal plain, they flew northeast past a white radar dome sited on the lower slopes of Gora Sovetskaya, Wrangel Island’s tallest mountain. The sleek jet fighters were camouflaged in jagged bands of white, light gray, and dark gray that blended with the bleak, ice-covered ocean ahead.
Aboard the lead Su-35S, Major Vadim Kuryokhin keyed his mike. “Moscow Operations Control, this is Polet Telokhranitelya, Bodyguard Flight. We’re airborne and proceeding immediately to Rendezvous Point Alpha.”
There was a short delay while his signal was relayed to Lieutenant General Rogozin, still deep underground in the Sharapovo command bunker. Then the general’s voice came back through Kuryokhin’s headset. He sounded strained. “Bodyguard, this is Moscow Ops Control. Prospector and Mother Hen are in position at the rendezvous point. Good luck. Remember your mission. And remember your rules of engagement. Under no circumstances, repeat, under no circumstances are you to fire first at any American aircraft. Is that understood?”
“Message clearly understood, Ops Control,” the Russian fighter commander said distinctly. “Bodyguard out.” He glanced out of his cockpit at the other Su-35, flying about a kilometer off his right wing. “Lead to Bodyguard Two,” he radioed, making sure he was using a lower-powered tactical channel. “You heard the man, right?” he said wryly. “So keep your itchy finger off that trigger, Ilya. Or else Daddy Rogozin might give us both a spanking.”
“Two,” his wingman, Captain Ilya Troitsky, acknowledged. “What the hell does the general think we’re going to do? Take on the whole damned American Air Force with a total of four missiles between the two of us?”
“Apparently your aggressive reputation precedes you,” Kuryokhin said with a grin.
Even over the static-laden tactical circuit, he could hear Troitsky’s loud, exasperated sigh. “For God’s sake, Lead, it was one lousy bar fight. Just one. And no one even got killed.”
Kuryokhin shrugged. “I think it was the fact that you were willing to take on four biker gang members by yourself that got some attention.”
“I thought there were only two of them,” his wingman said sulkily. “Okay, Lead, I’ll be on my best behavior. But are we still supposed to keep those F-22s off our guys? Or just wave politely at them as they zoom on by?”
“We keep the Americos away,” Kuryokhin confirmed. “We just can’t shoot them in the process.”
Over the circuit, Troitsky sighed again. “Look, Major, you know these rules of engagement are stupid, right? Whoever came up with them must think you can screw a woman through your clothes and still get her pregnant.”
“Stupid they may be, but they’re still the orders we’ve been given,” Kuryokhin said firmly. “Orders that we will both obey to the letter. Copy that?”
“Two copies,” his wingman replied.
The two Su-35s accelerated and raced on to the northeast across the frozen sea — staying at very low altitude to avoid any possibility of detection by American radar. Flying so low burned fuel fast, cutting their maximum range by more than half. Which was why the rendezvous they were headed toward was so critical to the success of this mission. Ahead of the two Russian fighters, a band of dark clouds stretched across the sky. They were at the western edge of what seemed to be a never-ending sequence of snow and ice storms surging down out of the polar region to pummel Alaska and northern Canada.
One thousand kilometers northeast of Wrangel Island and five hundred kilometers due north of the Alaska coast, two other Russian aircraft flew a fuel-conserving racetrack pattern. One was a very large, swept-wing aircraft with four eight-bladed propellers, a Russian Tu-142 maritime reconnaissance plane. The other, almost as big, was an IL-78M-90A refueling tanker. They were several thousand meters above the solid cloud layer, orbiting high enough to make out a pale orange glow off to the southeast. In these polar latitudes, so close to the beginning of true winter, the sun never actually appeared above the horizon.
Colonel Iosif Zinchuk looked out the left side of the Tu-142’s cockpit as he banked gently into yet another turn. Far below, he saw the two Su-35s break out of the clouds and streak toward them, climbing almost vertically. He keyed his mike. “Bodyguard, this is Prospector,” he said. “I have you in sight.”
“Copy that, Prospector,” the lead fighter pilot, Major Vadim Kuryokhin, acknowledged. “Permission to tank from Mother Hen. We’re not exactly flying on fumes, but we could be a lot more comfortable.”
Zinchuk knew the other man wasn’t exaggerating. Reaching this distant midair rendezvous without being spotted by American radar had required both Su-35s to fly well beyond their normal combat radius. Without additional fuel from the IL-78, they would be doomed to ditch somewhere in the icy wastes below, or, worse yet, make a humiliating emergency landing at the nearest American airport. “Permission granted,” he radioed immediately. He throttled back all four of the Tu-142’s big engines, slowing down to make room for them behind the humpbacked tanker aircraft.
For a time, the four Russian aircraft flew together in formation. Zinchuk watched closely as the two Su-35s carefully edged in behind the much-larger IL-78, each aiming for one of the drogue baskets streaming behind its left and right wing. Through his headset, he could hear a calm, running radio commentary between the three aircraft as they helped guide each other into position. Despite air currents that set the baskets bouncing and swaying in the tanker’s wake, both fighter pilots succeeded in making contact after only a couple of failed attempts. And once they were solidly connected, the task of refueling itself took comparatively little time. The IL-78’s pumps could transfer more than thirty liters of fuel per second, enough to fully replenish both fighters in less than eight minutes.
One after the other, the Su-35s broke contact and peeled away from the tanker. “Prospector, Bodyguard,” Zinchuk heard Kuryokhin say. “We’re ready to proceed when you are.”
“Copy that, Bodyguard,” he replied. “I’m starting our run now. Give me plenty of room until we break out of the clouds.” Slowly, he turned the Tu-142’s steering yoke back to the right and pushed forward. In response, the huge aircraft banked toward the south-southeast and descended. Moments later, they crossed into the cloud layer and the world outside the cockpit vanished — swallowed up in a sea of unrelieved gray. The buffeting increased, accompanied by a staccato fusillade of ice droplets spattering across the wings, canopy, and fuselage.