veillance and GCI radar at Puerto Cabezas, the large combined
Soviet-Nicaraguan airbase on the Nicaraguan northeast coast.
They were aiming right for the northern edge of the dome, but
because of the interference from the sand dunes and marshes of
Punta Gorda they were able to fly just under the radar coverage.
But in less than sixty seconds they would lose the protection of
even that low spit of land.
Carter hit the voice-command button on his control stick. "Set
countermeasures release switches to consent," he said in a slight
Louisiana bayou accent, reaccented and measured to make it
easier for the voice-command computer to understand his voice.
It was a humorous problem back in the early years of the project,
he recalled-he refused to believe he was the problem when the
computer continually rejected his commands during testing.
"Pilot's countermeasures release consent," the computer
394 DALE BROWN
confirmed. Then to warn the rest of the crew about the move,
the computer came on shipwide interphone and announced,
"Caution, pilot release consent."
"Co' ming up on SCM point, crew," Kellerman said.
"Caution, radar navigator release consent, " the computer
said.
"You're all a bit early," the electronic-warfare officer, Cap-
tain Robert Atkins, said.
"If it hits the fan up here," Carter said, watching the green
radar sky slowly inching down on top of him, "I don't want to
be fumbling with switches."
"Amen," radar navigator Captain Paul Scott chimed in.
Just then Carter heard, "Caution, electronic warfare release
consent. Warning, weapon release consent complete." The last
safety interlock belonging to Robert Atkins had been removed.
They were sixty miles from the coastline, about seventy-five
miles northeast of Puerto Cabezas. This part of the mission was
almost as crucial as the attack phase. For the next one hundred
twenty miles until they reached the Cordillera Isabella moun-
tains in north-central Nicaragua, they were vulnerable to at-
tack-no mountains to hide in, only marshes and featureless
lowlands-and they would be in range of the powerful search
radar at Puerto Cabezas. Although the exact strength of the de-
fenses was unknown they had been briefed to expect SA-10 air-
defense missiles, MiG-29 and MiG-23 fighters to be operating
in the no-man's land before them.
But at least this sortie had been planned to challenge those
defenses. They were not relying on air cover, nor were they
taking advantage of overlying friendly territory. This mission
was designed as much for effect as well as results-the idea that
a large American strike aircraft could make it across Nicaragua
and strike a heavily defended target was planned to demoralize
and confuse as much as it was to destroy.
The green radar dome had almost touched them. "I show
contact with that search radar any second," Carter called out.
"Clear all weapons for release. Station check and report by
compartment when ready."
Nancy Cheshire performed the pilot's station check, choosing
not to rely on the computer to check switch positions but doing
the checks visually. She was the first female test pilot at HAWC
and one of the first ever anywhere, and the public attention she
had attracted three years earlier at the beginning of the Mega-
fortress Plus program had threatened to undermine her goal to
be the best pilot in the organization.
"Offense ready," Scott reported.
"Defense ready," Atkins responded.
"Station check complete, Kel, warning light coming on
Nancy reported as she hit the EJECT press-to-test button. The
last item on the list.
Carter looked at the small, red-haired woman for a moment,
studying her face underneath her lightweight flyer's helmet.
"How you doing over there?" he asked cross-cockpit.
She looked back at him. "I'm scared to death, Kel." But she
sounded more angry than scared. "And why don't you ask any-
one else if they're scared?"
"Because you're my copilot," Carter shot back. "That's all.
Hell, I never know what you're thinking and you're wrong . . . "
His attention was pulled away from his copilot as he watched
the green dome descend over his aircraft like some unearthly fog.
"Caution, search radar, ten o'clock," the computer reported.
"I've got a second search radar, ten o'clock, estimated range
sixty miles," Atkins reported. "Search and height-finder
looks like our shoreline SA-10. Hasn't found us yet, though.
"Take it out, EW," Carter said. "Jam the search radar-I
don't want to be tracked by anyone out here over water. Kory,
send a warning message on the HAWC satellite net. Tell 'em
we're coming."
"Roger," Master Sergeant Kory Karbayjal, the crew gunner
and defense systems officer, replied, flipping down the SAT-
COM keyboard and punching commands to send the preformat-
ted message out on the satellite channel.
"Kel?"
Carter turned to Cheshire.
"Thanks for asking," she said, giving the control stick a slight
shake.
Carter nodded, lowered his oxygen visor and checked his sys-
tem. "Get on oxygen." She raised her mask.
"Stand by for missile launch, crew," Atkins said. "Radar
programming complete. I need a hundred feet, pilot."
"Rog." Carter pulled back on the control stick, manually
flying the Megafortress Plus a hundred feet higher. "Set."
"Rainbow away," Atkins called out.
396 DALE BROWN
The Rainbow was the AGM-136 Tacit Rainbow air-to-ground
missile, a subsonic winged drone aircraft with a small jet engine
that could seek out and destroy enemy radars. If the enemy radar
was operating, it would home in and destroy it with a one-
hundred-pound high-explosive warhead; if it did not detect a
radar it would orbit within ten miles of the target area until a
signal was detected, then fly toward it and destroy it. So even if
the enemy radar was shut off or moved, the missile could still
seek out and destroy.
Carter shielded his eyes from the sudden glare of the AGM-
136's engine exhaust as the missile appeared briefly past the long
pointed nose of the Megafortress Plus, banked left, then disap-
peared into the darkness. Just then the green-radar warning
sky" projected onto the windscreen changed to yellow.
"Tracking radar," Atkins called out over the computerized
warning voice. ".SA-10, ten o'clock. I'm getting warning mes-
sages on UHF and VHF GUARD channels." The yellow sky
seemed to undulate, then disappear and reappear at long inter-
vals, showing the effectiveness of Atkins's jamming.
Kellerman activated her navigation radar. "Land fall in two
minutes. First terrain, fifteen miles, not a factor at this altitude.
First high terrain twenty-five miles, starting to paint over it.
She plotted her position on a chart, cross-checked it with the
GPS satellite navig
ation readout, then turned the radar to standby.
Carter released his back pressure on his control stick, allow-
ing the terrain-following autopilot to bring the B-52 back to one
hundred feet above the Caribbean. The radar warning had
changed to solid yellow, then changed briefly to red before being
blotted out.
"Did they get a missile off, EW?" Cheshire called out.
"No uplink signal," Atkins replied. "We're at the extreme
outer range of the SA- 10. I don't think they can . . . "
"There, I see it," Cheshire said. She pointed out the left
windscreen. Just over the horizon was a short glowing line of
fire spinning in a tight circle, growing larger and larger by the
second.
Carter jerked the control stick hard left toward the missile.
"Chaff, flare." Atkins hit the ejector buttons, sending bundles
of radar-decoying chaff and heat-decoy flares overboard.
Carter hit the voice-command stud. "Set clearance plane fifty
feet.
"Clearance plane fifty feet, warning low altitude, clearance
plane one hundred feet." Carter's turn was so tight that, had the
computer set the lower clearance plane, the B-52s left wingtip
would have dragged the water.
"It's still coming," Cheshire called out as Carter rolled out.
The B-52 dipped as the lower clearance plane setting kicked in.
"I can't find the uplink, something must be guiding it but I
can't find it .
The glow was getting brighter-Carter would swear he heard
the roar of the missile's rocket-motor as it sped closer and closer,
jamming wasn't working ... what ... ?
"Stop jamming, EW," Carter suddenly called out. "It must
be homing in on the jamming source. Go to standby. Fast."
The result was near-instantaneous. The fast-circling flight-path
of the missile began to wobble, and the tail flame of the missile's
engine began to elongate just as it burned out. Carter nudged
his B-52 as low as he could safely go. It was too late to try to
make a turn, too late even for more decoys . . .
They heard a thud against the fuselage, then silence. The
B-52 shook as if a iant hammer had hit it.
"It missed," Cheshire shouted, "that was the supersonic
shock wave, it missed .
"It must have been a SA-15 SAM," Atkins said. "SA-15s ...
they just started deploying SA-15s in the Soviet Union. Now they
got them in Nicaragua?"
Carter forced calm into his own dry throat. "Be ready-our
intelligence briefing was obviously missing a few details."
But Atkins was still rattled. "SA-15 . . . I'm sorry, I didn't
recognize it . . . they're not supposed to have SA-15s in Nica-
ragua . . . I could've gotten us all killed . . . "
"Snap out of it, Bob." But Carter understood what Atkins
was going through. No one on this crew, including himself, had
ever flown a combat mission-as a matter of fact, until Dog Zero
TWo was ready to fly two months ago, none of his crew members
had been aboard a military aircraft for several months. After
months or years with their mostly deskbound duties at Dream-
land they had become more like engineers than combat crew
members. Now they were being -shot at by the Soviet Union's
most advanced surface-to-air missile. He was sure the rest of the
crew was steeling a panic-Atkins was just the first one to let
loose.
398 DALE BROWN
"All of you, settle down and pay attention," Carter called
over interphone. "They took a shot and missed. Fly this mission
as briefed. But we've gotta pull together and back each other up -
All of you know your stuff-now it's time to put it into action.
All right. Check your stations and minimize electronic emis-
sions. Nancy, get another power-plant check."
The radar sky had turned back to yellow. Carter maintained
his new heading for a few moments, then turned back to the
right and let the autopilot take control.
" Do you think we should go back on the same course?" Scott
asked. "It'll be easier to find us that way."
No use in doing that until we get over the mountains," Carter
said. "The faster we get inland the better. Besides, I'll bet there's
no big secret where we're heading. The entire Nicaraguan air
force is probably waiting up there for us."
"Crossing the coast now," Kellerman announced. Carter
checked out the cockpit window-when only fifty feet above the
surface, the transition from water to land occurred very fast. He
double-checked that the terrain-following system was working
properly and set a two-hundred-foot clearance plane.
"Tracking radar up again," Atkins said shakily. The yellow
sky was back for only a few moments when it completely blanked
out again.
"They get another missile off?"
"I don't think so," Atkins said. "The Rainbow indicates im-
pact-we got it."
Cheshire slapped her armrest. "All right."
"Celebration over, copilot," Carter said. "We've got a long
long way to go."
base of Puerto Cabezas was in chaos. One moment it was quiet
and peaceftil, a warm, lazy summer evening with a hint of an
evening storm brewing. The next, air raid sirens were screaming
into the night, Russian missiles raised from concrete canisters
like demons rising from their crypts, and the roar of jet fighters
began to fill the air with the pungent odor of kerosene.
The first SA-15 missile, installed on the coastal Nicaraguan
base only a month earlier in the ongoing Russian fortification of
Nicaragua, screamed off its launch rails less than twenty seconds
later, filling the air with burning acidic exhaust gas. The missile
crews, Nicaraguan with Russian commanding officers, stood and
watched the missile disappear into the night sky until a Soviet
officer yelled an order to prepare the launcher for reload. An-
other SA-15 missile was completing its gyro-alignment-the
Nicaraguan soldiers were skilled at aligning one missile at a time
forlaunch . . .
It was this deficiency that had probably saved the crew of the
Megafortress Plus. Just before the second missile was ready for
launch a huge explosion lit up the small sandy hill where the
SA-15 tracking and guidance radome was positioned. The golf-
ball-like radome exploded like a burst balloon, scattering pieces
of the antenna within for hundreds of meters.
From his vantage point in a low-covered concrete revetment
near the flight line, Maraklov saw the golf-ball radome split
apart and explode; now it looked like a cracked egg in a boiled
egg holder. Men were running toward the flight line, but he
knew the attack on the SA-15 guidance radome was a prelude to
the real assault. If it was a Tacit Rainbow cruise missile the
attack would not be for a few minutes because the AGM-136
had a range of almost a hundred miles; if it was an AGM-88
HARM missile the follow-on attack could be any second. Either
way it was going to be an air rai
d-the attackers had obviously
been waiting for the SA-15 to come up before blowing it up,
and with the radar gone the whole north coast of Nicaragua was
open to air attack.
Maraklov took a deep pull from a plastic jug of distilled water
as he watched the radar control center begin to bum. Sebaco,
he was sure, was next-except whoever was staging this attack
wasn't going to stop at a radar site.
But DrearnStar-it was safe. He was sitting in DreamStar's
cockpit, still wearing his flight suit, his helmet resting on his lap
in front of him. Less than one hour earlier he had landed at
Puerto Cabezas after a low-altitude run from Sebaco. Becau e
he knew that the American AWACS radar planes would be look-
ing for a high-speed aircraft leaving Sebaco, he had made the
flight under two hundred miles an hour and at the lowest altitude
he could muster, flying deep within mountain valleys and jungle
river beds to avoid detection. His gamble that his flight-profile
would resemble anything but a jet fighter had apparently worked.
To avoid detection he had landed on the taxiway at Puerto
Cabezas instead of the broad ten-thousand-foot runway, taxied
400 DALE BROWN
to the semi-underground concrete shelter and waited with en-
gines running for any sign of pursuit. None. He shut down but
maintained the ANTARES interface and remained strapped in
place, configured and ready to fire up DreimStar. But still no
sign of pursuit. Exhaustion overtook him, so he shut down the
interface and directed the ground crewmen to begin refueling
his fighter. He had been off the ANTARES interface only fifteen
minutes when the attack began.
DreamStar was ready for a fight. She carried two more Lluyka
in-flight refueling tanks on the wing pylons plus two radar-guided
missiles on wing pylons and, this time, two infrared-guided mis-
siles on hardpoints on the underside of the fuselage. The two IR
missiles were more of a hazard than a help-if DrearnStar's ca-
nards were down in their high-maneuverability position, the mis-
siles could possibly hit the canards after launch-but for the long