ferry mission, the extra weapons were considered necessary. The
twenty-millimeter cannon was also fully reloaded-DreamStar
was at its heaviest gross weight ever, well over one hundred-
thousand pounds.
But Maraklov himself wasn't as prepared for either a long
flight or a fight with American fighters. This had been the first
time he had made two flights in DreamStar within twenty-four
hours and the physical and mental strain was immense-like run-
ning the Boston Marathon, getting twelve short hours of rest,
then going out and running a few more Heartbreak Hills. His
body had not recovered from the first mission, but the necessity
was clear-DrearnStar was in danger if it was left there at Se-
baco. That had just been confirmed.
The whine of high-speed jet engines made Maraklov painfully
turn to scan down the runway. Four MiG-23 fighters were taxiing
to the end of the runway preparing for takeoff. The Soviet gov-
ernment had not been able to send any more MiG-29s or Russian
pilots to Nicaragua on such short notice, so those four MiG-23s
were manned by Nicaraguan pilots. The Mig-23s were twenty
years old, the pilots young or ill trained in night intercepts. If
whoever was attacking Nicaragua destroyed the search and
ground-controlled intercept radars as well as the surface-to-air
missile radars, the MiG pilots would be forced to hunt for the
attackers blind, using their own look-down, shoot-down pulse-
Doppler radars to scan thousands of square miles of territory for
their quarry.
Maraklov took another drink. It didn't matter, he thought-
he'd be out of this backwater country in a few hours. And
who knew ... maybe one of the MiGs would get lucky. It hap-
pened ...
A soldier came up to Maraklov's revetment, showed an I.
card to the guard, and ran to the platform set up beside
DreamStar. He was hesitant to climb up the ladder, but Mar-
aklov saw that he had a message in his hand, motioned him up,
and asked for the paper.
He got an instant headache after reading the first word. As-
suming he could read Russian, the Spanish-speaking radio op-
erators had scrawled the message out in childlike Cyrillic
characters. Maraklov had enough trouble reading Russian, but
reading this gobbledygook would be next to impossible. He had
to get the soldier's attention away from the interior of Drearn-
Star's cockpit by hammering his shoulder.
"Read this for me," he said in English.
The soldier looked at him in surprise. "You speak English,
mister?
"Yes.
The soldier looked at the message for a moment, then looked
at Maraklov as if he was going to hit him. "I am sorry, I cannot
read this. This is Russian, no?"
"This is garbage Russian, yes. Go back to the radio operator
and tell him to write the message out in English Maraklov
grabbed a pencil from the soldier's shirt pocket just before he
scrambled off the platform-at least while he was getting the
message translated he could work on deciphering this junk.
The MiG-23s were still idling at the end of the runway-that
probably meant that the GCI radar was being jammed or had
been destroyed, and the pilots were being held until a heading
to the intruder's position could be established. Don't bother
launching, Maraklov thought. Let the MiGs at Sebaco handle
the American attackers-Sebaco was obviously the American's
target-and leave the Puerto Cabezas MiGs in reserve for when
the attackers try to withdraw. If they chase the attackers they
could wind up getting shot down themselves or run out of fuel
before engaging the stragglers . . . But a moment later the
MiG-23s began their runup and minimum-interval takeoffs. So
much for reserve interceptors. Maraklov guessed that none of
these MiGs would return.
402 DALE BROWN
Maraklov had the scribbled Cyrillic characters deciphered
now, but remembering the phonetic pronunciations for each
character was tougher, and it took a few minutes to make the
message intelligible-luckily, most of it was numbers. It was a
satellite message from Moscow informing him that Soviet air
forces would be in place in five hours, ready to escort him out
of the Caribbean basin into the open Atlantic. The message gave
last-minute backup or anti-jam frequency changes and other use-
less infon-nation. If the Americans were broad-band jamming
their primary communications frequencies, they were listening
in as well and were probably vectoring fighters into the source
of their transmissions. With such a large force of combat aircraft
involved, everything relied on secrecy and radio silence, not
secondary and tertiary frequencies.
The fighters were on the downwind side of the runway, the
long, bright flames of their afterburners still visible. They had
no tankers in Nicaragua (except the one that was lying on the
bottom of the Caribbean), so if those guys in the MiG-23s didn't
come out of afterburner they'd flame out before getting a shot
off at the intruders.
Maraklov asked himself, "Why am I ragging on those pilots?
DreamStar is safe-if the Americans had pinpointed DreamStar
here in Puerto Cabezas this whole base would be a smoking
hole.
Was it because he itched to get into battle? No, even if he had
enough energy to take DreamStar aloft, which he didn't, he
wouldn't risk it. With the MiG-29s gone Nicaragua was wide
open to attack-for all he knew there was an aircraft carrier
sitting off the coast with fifty F-18 fighter-bombers ready to take
him on. It would be suicide to try.
He took another drink of water, emptying the bottle. The real
problem here was that he just wanted a future, and every step
being taken just seemed to drive him farther and farther from it.
DreamStar, he felt, was his life. His whole being was inter-
meshed with it, and the thought of its eventual dismantling or,
worse, destruction was as obscene to him as the idea of a mother
killing her newborn baby. But he was also a soldier, obliged to
obey orders-and he had been ordered to deliver DreamStar to
Russia. But could he obey those orders, knowing what they would
do to his aircraft-and what they would probably do to him as
well? He was already suspect . . . too American . . .
All the dead-end thoughts he was having were. giving him a
headache even worse than before. He tossed the plastic water
bottle at one of the Nicaraguan military guards at the mouth of
the revetment. "Agua, por favor"-probably the only three
words of Spanish he knew. The soldier began filling the bottle
from one of his canteens-no doubt more of the brackish,
parasite-ridden water of this country. The thought of getting di-
arrhea while in the metallic flight suit made him laugh and cry,
but dying of thirst and trying to withstand these migraine head-
aches were even worse prospects.
Soon, it would be over, he thought. He'd be on his way
out
of this godforsaken country and back to . . . Russia. Back to
. . . what?
He was too tired to think any more about that. As the flick-
ering lights of the fires in the SA-15 radome subsided, exhaus-
tion overtook him, and he drifted off into a fitful sleep.
"Rainbow two showing impact," Atkins reported. The green
search radar indication on Carter's laser-projection cockpit dis-
play had disappeared-the Tacit Rainbow missile had destroyed
the Cuyali radar site, the last large-scale search radar system
before Sebaco.
"Coming up on the initial point, crew," Alicia Kellerman
announced. They were deep within the Rio Tbma river valley,
which snaked out of the Cordillera Dariense mountains north of
Managua and fed Managua Lake. Their initial point was, of all
places, the town of Los Angeles thirty miles upriver from Se-
baco.
"Bomb run briefing, crew," Paul Scott, the radar navigator,
began, "we'll be approaching Sebaco from the northeast on the
military crest of the river valley. There's one SA-10 site on the
top of linotega Mountain at our one o'clock position, but ac-
cording to Powell and McLanahan in Cheetah it's a mobile site. "
"The system can use infrared to acquire its targets," Atkins
launch on IR azimuth commands and then go to guidance uplink
once the missile is in flight. We could see a snap-launch profile,
where all we get on the threat-warning receivers is a missiLE
LAUNCH warning-we won't get a symbol or missi LE WARNING."
Carter was relieved to hear Atkins back on top of his game-he
was pretty shook after their first encounter with the SA-15.
404 DALE BROWN
"Our last hazard on the run is the town of Matagalpa, where
some Soviet troops could be garrisoned. Watch out for triple-A
radars. SA- 14 or SA-7 shoulder-fired missiles may also be a
factor but if we stay low and fast we should be able to beat an
SA- 14.
"We'll approach Sebaco from the southeast side of the base.
Powell and McLanahan saw one antiaircraft artillery battery on
each end of the runway-it'll be worth lobbing a HARM or even
a Striker in there if it engages us. They also saw helicopter gun-
ships on the base. These can carry air-to-air heat-seeking mis-
siles too. Our targets are the three hangars on the southwest side
of the base and the underground headquarters building three
hundred yards southeast from the hangars. The hangars are pri-
mary. We'll also drop the CBU cluster-bomb units on the run-
way and the taxiway-parking ramp area, with emphasis on
destroying any aircraft. If the defenses are minimal we can make
a circle to the north or northeast and come around for another
pass. After the attack, we beat feet to the northeast, terrain-
follow in the Cordillera Isabella mountains, and exit along the
Honduran border. If we're drowned and each module crew gets
separated, evade north or northwest toward Honduras and get a
ride to Tegucigalpa. We've all been briefed on the pick-up points
in Nicaragua where we can maybe get assistance from Contadora
sympathizers. We're using channel Charlie on the survival ra-
dios. "
They had time to prebrief the details of the mission and talk
about their recommended actions in case they were shot down
or somehow separated, but it was much different this time-they
were actually over hostile territory, surrounded by the military
forces of two nations. It had suddenly all become very real.
" -band search radar at six o'clock," Atkins called out.
Batwing symbol-there's a fighter up there looking for us."
"I. inbound, crew," Kellerman said. The Megafortress
made a slight left turn, hugging the side of the rugged, tree-
covered mountains.
Suddenly a green mushroom-shaped dome appeared briefly
on Carter's windscreen. "Warning, search radar, twelve
o'clock. " "We've got something out ahead of us," Carter called
out.
"Looks like triple-A," Atkins Uid, studying his threat re-
ceiver. The computer confirmed it seconds later by drawing a
tiny gun-icon underneath the green mushroom. "I've got a
HARM aligning against it. " Just then, the mushroom turned
yellow.
"Warning, threat radar tracking, twelve o'clock.
"Should we go around it?" Carter asked.
"No room," Cheshire said. "We'd have to climb five thou-
sand feet to clear these mountains."
"Descend and accelerate," Atkins said. "Stand by for missile
launch . . . now. "
The yellow BAY DOORS OPEN light came on. "Caution, bomb
doors open..... warning, HARM missile launch command . . .
missile launch..... bomb doors closed."
"Missile away." The one-thousand-pound HARM missile was
a yellow streak as it roared away into the darkness. Seconds later
there was a splash of fire on the horizon and the glow of flames.
The yellow mushroom was gone.
"Warning, airborne threat radar, sU o'clock.
Karbayjal activated his fire-control radar and slaved it to the
threat receiver so the beam from the tail-mounted tracking radar
would look in the exact direction of the threat. The readout he
got made him yell into his oxygen visor. "Fighter at six o'clock,
five miles, descending rapidly." He hit the voice-command but-
two. Launch three."
A warning tone sounded on interphone, followed by the hard,
short thuds of the Stinger airmine rockets being shot away. "Ra-
dar lock automatic . . . warning, launch command issued . . .
airmine launch . . . launch two . . . launch three."
But moments later the fighter was still coming-all three air-
mine rockets had missed. "He's still coming. Prepare for infra-
red missile attack," Karbayjal called out. "TWo miles . . . one
mile . . . -break le now."
Carter yanked the Megafortress into a hard left turn. The
terrain-following computer immediately commanded a climb to
allow for terrain clearance. At the same time Karbayjal punched
two flares and chaff out the right side ejectors.
"One mile . . . half mile . . . he's still coming." Nothing
was decoying this guy-chaff, flares, jammers, even airmine
rockets . . .
The fire-control radar tracked the fighter as it flew closer and
closer, but a few seconds later the reason for its daringly close
DALE BROWN
406
pass became obvious as Karbayjal watched the fighter's altitude
wind down lower and lower until it finally read zero.
"He crashed," Karbayjal called out. "He-"
Suddenly they heard on the scrambled discrete strike fre-
quency, "Dog Two, this is Storm Two. Your tail's clear."
"Powell. McLanahan." Cheshire shouted the names. "Way
to go."
Carter let out his breath. He tasted blood and found he had
bit his lower lip almost all the way through. As he steered the
Megafortress back on course he o
pened the radio channel.-
"Thanks, guys. "
raised Cheetah's nose until he was level with the tops of
the tree-covered mountains, making several tight turns left and
right to clear behind them, searching for a second fighter.
McLanahan, his night-vision visor lowered, searched the sky
behind the F-15. "Clear visually, clear on the threat receiver,"
he said.
"That MiG pilot had balls," said. "Diving down from
twenty-thousand feet like that, it could have paid off for him."
"But where's his buddies?" McLanahan asked.
climbed another five-thousand feet, well above the
mountains, and continued his clearing turns. He used the radar
sparingly, relying more on the infrared-laser scanner to avoid
telltale electronic emissions that could give away their location.
"Nothing. One MiG working alone? Unusual."
"They're not up here," McLanahan said. "That means they've
got to be on the deck, flying down that same river valley as the
Old Dog. We either use the radar to look for them . . . "
"Or we go down into the valley ourselves and dig 'em out,"
said. "I was afraid you'd say that." Powell lowered the
nose once more, plunging Cheetah back into the jungle abyss
below.
They had to dodge far south of course, around sprinkles of ore
mines and tiny villages to avoid the spot where the antiaircraft
artillery gun had been destroyed by one of the Old Dog's HARM
missiles. Carter set five hundred feet in the clearance plane to
allow more leeway in terrain clearance as they roared through a
high valley and across a ridge-line south of the town of Mata-
galpa.
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 407
"We should have met up with that SA- 10 site by now, " Atkins
said nervously. The calm that he had restored in himself after
the strike against the SA-15 site had come back full force after
the MiG encounter. He was reproaching himself loud enough to
trigger the voice-activated interphone, and KarbayJal had to reach
across the aisle beside him and touch his shoulder, trying to
calm him down. The navigators were quiet. Kellerman had to
be prompted to activate the ground-mapping radar to check ter-