Final Flight by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online

level at six thousand feet in
a steady left turn as his wingman came sliding in
on a forty-five-degree line to rendezvous. The
other plane crossed behind and under Jake and settled
on his right wing. Jake leveled his wings and added power
as he tweaked the nose up.
    He keyed his radio mike and waited for the
scrambler to synchronize.
    “Strike, Red Aces are joined and proceeding
on course.
    “Roger, Red Ace Two Oh Five.
Report entering patrol area Bravo.”
    “Wilco.”
    It was a cloudless night with a half moon, now just
above the eastern horizon. To the west a layer of low
haze over the sea limited visibility, but Jake
knew that there was nothing to see in that direction
anyway. The Lebanese coast was a mere thirty
miles to the east, and as the two fighters climbed on
a northerly heading toward their assigned altitude
of 30,000 feet, Jake searched the blackness in
that direction. Nothing. No lights. Jake
scanned the night sky slowly in all
quadrants for the lights of other aircraft. They
seemed to be alone.
    “Keep your eye peeled for other planes,
Toad,” he told the RIO in the rear cockpit.
    “Uh, yes sir,” came the answer, sounding
slightly puzzled. Normally the pilot performed
routine lookout duties while the RIO worked the
radar and computer. Well, thought Jake Grafton,
let him wonder.
    “What’s on the scope, anyway?”
    “Not a daggone thing, CAG. Looks like one big
empty sky to me.
    “When’s that El Also flight from Athens to Haifa
scheduled to be along?”
    In the back seat of the Tomcat, Lieutenant
Tarkington consulted the notes on his knee board.
“Not till twenty-five after the hour.” He slid
back the sleeve of his flight suit and glanced at
his luminous watch.
    He matched it with the clock on the panel in
front of him. “About fifteen minutes from now.”
    “When will we reach area Bravo?”
    Tarkington checked the TACAN against the chart on
his knee board. “About two minutes.”
    “We’ll make a turn west then, and you
see if you can pick up that airliner. Let me know
when you see him.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “In the meantime, let’s get some data link from
the Hummer. The Hummer was the slang nickname for the
E-2 Hawkeye radar reconnaissance plane
that Jake knew was somewhere about.
    Toad made the call as Jake checked the
Tomcat on his right wing and noticed with satisfaction
that Jelly Dolan was right where he should be, about a
hundred feet away from Jake. Jelly was a
lieutenant (junior grade) on his first cruise
and flew with Lieutenant Commander Boomer
Bronsky, the maintenance officer for the fighter
squadron that owned these airplanes. Jake knew
that Boomer liked to complain about the youth of the pilots
he flew with-“Goddamn wet-nosed kids”-but that he
had a very high opinion of their skills. He bragged
on Jelly Dolan at every opportunity.
    “Battlestar Strike,” Toad said over the
radio, “Red Ace flight entering Bravo at
assigned altitude.”
    “Roger.”
    Jake keyed the mike. “Left turn,
Jelly.” Two mike clicks was the
reply.
    One minute passed, then two. Jake
stabilized the airspeed at 250 knots, max
conserve. He scanned the instruments and resumed his
visual search of the heavens.
    “I’ve got him, CAG,” Toad said.
“Looks like a hundred and twenty miles out.
He’s headed southwest. Got the right squawk.” The
squawk was the radar identification code. “He’s
running about a mile or so above us.
    Jake flipped the secondary radio to the
channel the E-2 Hawkeye used and listened to the
crew report the airliner to the Combat Decision
Center (Cdc) aboard the carrier. He knew the
radio transmissions merely backed up the data
link that transmitted the Hawkeye’s radar
picture for presentation on a scope in CDC.
The watch standers aboard ship would watch the airliner.
If the course changed to come within fifty miles of the
carrier, Jake’s flight or the flight in area
Alpha would be vectored to intercept. They would
close the airliner and check visually to