Lex was wearing his SAV, and a window opened to show Mitchell back at his station in Tampa. “Actual, Guardian here. With your refueling completed, we now have your ETA to the island at about twenty-five minutes. Good news now. The Reaper just picked up the sub. She’s surfaced. Just as we thought: resupply.”
“Roger that.”
“Well, that’s the good news.”
“Maybe I should stop you there, sir.”
“I wish you would. We count four Mi-8s carrying Spetsnaz, along with another four Howler gunships heading to intercept. They launched from Kilpyavr Air Base in Murmansk. We’re seeing some MiGs take off as well.”
“If they picked us up, they would’ve just scrambled MiGs, right?”
“Exactly. Which means something’s up. Possible transfer of our package to the island if they’re towing a ground force.”
Although he wanted to curse, Lex kept his cool and said, “That’s interesting. ETA?”
“They’re about fifty minutes out.”
“That doesn’t give us much time,” Lex said.
His own strike force was composed of five Seahawks carrying four Raider teams and a ten-man unit from the Forsvarets Spesialkommando (FSK), a special-forces group from the Norwegian Ministry of Defense, since they owned the island and wanted to oversee the raid.
Also on board was a full medical team who would immediately evaluate and treat their rescued engineer. In truth, they hadn’t planned on strong resistance from the sub crew, let alone a Russian assault force, so the general’s update sent a tremor up Lex’s spine.
“I’ll get you some drone support,” said Mitchell.
“What about Siren? What’s her ETA?”
FORTY-FIVE
X-2A Wraith Prototype
Speed: Mach 6
Height: 70,000 Feet
En Route to Jan Mayen Island
The distance from Edwards Air Force Base to Jan Mayen Island was 4,506 miles.
At Mach 6 (4,567 miles per hour at sea level on a standard day), Halverson could be over the top of the island and on target in a hair under an hour.
Assuming the sub needed to take on fresh provisions, the entire replenishing operation could run sixty to ninety minutes, possibly a bit more, she estimated. It’d be close. Without a chopper, the food stuffs and personnel would be transferred over by small boat in choppy seas—doable but time-consuming, which worked in her favor.
With the pressure suit adjusting slightly around her hips, and her instrumentation brilliantly displayed in her three-dimensional HUD, she once more studied the map. The exact positions of the submarine and supply ship were marked by glowing red triangles over a wireframe representation of the Norwegian Sea, the blips slowly materializing into 3-D outlines of the actual craft themselves.
ETA to target: nineteen minutes, thirty seconds.
Chills of awe fanned across her shoulders. This was the most incredible aircraft she’d ever flown, its manta-like “all-body” design an engineering necessity in order to spread air over the entire length of the body. In a hypersonic scramjet craft like the Wraith, the underside of the forward body acted as a ramp that compressed the air, while the underside of the tail served as an exhaust nozzle. The engines required an enormous inlet area to kick out high thrust and consequently occupied most of the space beneath the vehicle. They also required huge amounts of fuel; thus an all-body design was most feasible.
While this was just a prototype, Halverson had talked Ragland into arming the bird with twenty-five-millimeter cannons and a modified advanced tactical laser that took Boeing’s old design housed in an AC-130 and reduced its size and weight by seventy percent. The laser was so accurate that Halverson could hit a moving target just a few inches wide and limit the strike zone to that space, reducing collateral damage to zero in most cases, which was why the president had called and had asked her to disable that submarine. She would be on time, on target.
Moreover, he wanted the Russians to get a glimpse—just a glimpse—of the Wraith in order to give them pause in this month of crisis.
He didn’t have to ask twice.
While the Wraith was fitted with sensor and communications packages similar to the F-35B’s, speed was king, and it didn’t matter if an enemy picked up her tiny signature. She could outrun pretty much anything they threw at her. Even the Federation’s most lethal Archer missiles had a max speed of just Mach 2.5.
The trick was getting her own ride up to speed in time—
And having enough fuel.
In fact, she’d have just enough JP-10 to get in there, get the job done, then rendezvous with the tanker so she could get back home. Any deviation would turn her 691-million-dollar aircraft into a balsa wood glider you could buy off the impulse rack at 7-Eleven. That the scramjet relied on conventional fuel was thanks to a modified design first introduced by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab, where Ragland herself had done some research.
For a little reassurance, Halverson checked in once more with the KC-135 Stratotanker’s captain, who assured her he’d be on time and meet her over Greenland. According to the radar, he was right on course.
After another time check, she began her slow descent, praying that her boss and friend was there and that those Marines would bring her to safety.
FORTY-SIX
SAS Kapstaad
Jan Mayen Island
Near LORAN-C Station
Dr. Helena Ragland had spent nearly three weeks on board the submarine, confined to her quarters. Her only contact with the outside world was through Werner. He arrived three times daily to bring her meals and continually refused to answer her questions. Some days he’d come inside, sit with her, and read questions from his tablet, stumbling through them as though he had not written them himself, questions about the Wraith project. He wanted to know details regarding the scramjet engines and fuel, the body design, anything she’d be willing to share. He asked her evenly, without emotion, without threat.
She told him time and again that the project was classified and that she would not betray her country.
He’d said okay.
Werner’s interrogation techniques were chillingly odd, as though the questions weren’t meant to be answered but remembered by her. When she’d confronted him with that theory, he’d just smiled and told her yes, she should remember them.
When asked why they weren’t drugging and torturing her, he’d smile and say, “We’re not here to hurt you. There’s no need for anything so barbaric. This is just a process, and when we’re finished, you’ll be fine.”
About ten days into it, she broke down, drummed fists on her hatch, told them she’d talk, tell them anything they wanted to know.
Werner had looked at her sadly and said, “You’ll make it. We’re almost there.”
“But don’t you want to know? I’ll answer all your questions now. Can you tell me about my daughter? Can you tell me anything?”
“Yes. Everything will be all right.”
“Do you have any children?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t understand.”
“Really? You don’t think I know about love? About losing someone close to me?” With that, he’d slammed the hatch in her face.
That was eight days ago. Another man she didn’t recognize brought her the rest of her meals. He never said a word.
Now they had her blindfolded and cuffed, dressed in a heavy winter parka, and they guided her out of the submarine, through the hatch, and outside. The waves crashed against the hull, the salty, ice-cold spray cutting across her cheek. The sub bobbed like a piece of flotsam, and the sea now washed across the deck, threatening to sweep them off.
They were shouting, speaking in English and another language that sounded like Dutch or Norwegian, she wasn’t sure.
“Werner?” she cried. “Werner, are you the
re?”
“Right behind you. We’re going to a small boat now. I’ll guide you with the other men.”
“Where are we? It’s so cold here.”
“We’re up north, a place where you’ll be safe.”
Hands clutched her forearms and shoulders, more hands seized her ankles, and suddenly she was lowered into the boat and onto a firm but wet seat. An outboard motor buzzed behind her, and the waves rose so sharply she shuddered as she imagined them capsizing.
A shout in English for them to leave came from the submarine, and her head jerked back as the outboard wailed and they pulled away, riding up and over the waves on a nauseating course. She shivered again and again, found herself shaking steadily as an arm draped around her shoulder and pulled her in close.
“Almost there,” Werner said.
She imagined driving her elbow into his face then leaping off and into the icy waves.
But then she was at her own funeral and watching Lacey cry as her daughter leaned over the casket and said, “Mom, I’m only sixteen. It was too soon to leave me.”
So Ragland sat there, clutching her captor, hating every moment of it, fear rising like bile at the back of her throat, threatening to burst. Where were they taking her? What would they do?
And then she heard it, a sound so achingly familiar that she thought she was hallucinating.
But she wasn’t. She heard them. The unmistakable roar of scramjet engines.
The Wraith.
FORTY-SEVEN
X-2A Wraith Prototype
Norwegian Sea
Approaching Jan Mayen Island
The submarine and the supply ship appeared in multiple displays in Halverson’s HUD. She saw them as radar contacts and as glowing white heat sources via her forward-looking infrared radar (FLIR), which also picked up three smaller craft—Zodiacs, she assumed. With her helmet’s integrated day/night-vision camera, she zoomed in on one Zodiac leaving the sub. The camera’s resolution was powerful enough to reveal a blindfolded person tucked into a seat ahead of the coxswain.
She gasped. That had to be Ragland.
And now they’d rescue her with help from the very plane she’d designed.
The Wraith’s sensor fusion kept Halverson on target no matter how she maneuvered, combining both radio frequencies and IR tracking. The synergy between systems linked to the main processors allowed everything she did to support the main mission of incapacitating that submarine, with her multimode radar communicating directly with the tactical laser’s targeting control system.
“Guardian, this is Siren, I have the target in site, TCS locked on. I believe the package is being moved via Zodiac, over.”
“Roger that, Siren, we’re looking at your video now and we concur,” said Mitchell.
“Roger, package is clear of the target. Permission to fire?”
“Keep that weapon tight, submarine only, over.”
“Roger that, I have the target in sight. Locked. Ready to fire. And firing . . .”
Halverson flicked her thumb across the button on her joystick and the entire Wraith seemed to hum for a moment.
The laser’s targeting display popped up in her HUD, showing a preprogrammed wireframe model of SAS Kapstaad and all of her internal targets glowing a phosphorescent green.
Halverson’s laser beam, represented by a shimmering crimson line, cut across the display as she fired, the reticle moving in precise increments along her HUD.
Her first shot penetrated the hull near the aft section, cutting on through the propeller shaft thrust block and bearing . . .
The next beam burrowed through the hull once again, bound for the rudder and hydroplane hydraulic actuators.
Two more laser rounds tore through the turbo generators, port and starboard.
She wheeled around for the next pass, descended, and fired six more shots across the waterline, targeting the sub indiscriminately now, simply burning holes in the hull as a few crew members sent small-arms fire into the air, their muzzles flashing, their shots far afield in the rolling sea and high wind.
While it was true that just a single hole anywhere on the sub’s pressure hull would prevent her from submerging and thus render her vulnerable, Halverson wasn’t taking any chances, and the word overkill was not in her vocabulary. She’d exploit this opportunity to field-test the laser/Wraith combination in a true combat environment, making sure that the boat could neither submerge nor navigate.
In a matter of minutes the sub would lose buoyancy and go down by the stern, her crew abandoning her before she took on enough water to vanish beneath the waves.
Halverson was about to call in her report when missile lock tones resounded in her ears, the current HUD configuration vanishing, replaced by radar images of incoming missiles being IDed even as they streaked toward her.
“Missile lock warning,” came the computer’s voice. “Missile lock warning.”
The Wraith’s electro-optical distributed aperture system created a protective sphere around the aircraft, its sensors alerting her of threats from any angle. The system had done its job. Now she needed to do hers with only seconds to go through the OODA loop: observe, orient, decide, and act.
She saw the threat via the aircraft’s sensors. Automated target tracking kept those missiles in sight so she could orient herself to them. The fusion of all those sensors made the decision of how and when to evade far easier.
Vympels inbound, R-27Rs to be precise, with semiactive radar homing. Speed and range data scrolled beside the red triangles, now outlined by white boxes. Even as she studied them on her HUD, the computer spoke to her, ticking off the data in its cool, feminine voice.
She knew that the Russian strike team was out there, but they had come within range much faster than she’d anticipated. The Archers were in the lead, and she juked right, releasing flares and chaff, then throttling back up to Mach 2, 3, 4, sweeping over Iceland, twin fireballs erupting like tiny supernovae behind her, shimmering across the blue-black sky. She immediately throttled down to conserve fuel.
The third Vympel targeted the explosions, homing in to detonate, while the fourth one continued to dog her, its seeker capable of “seeing” the Wraith up to sixty degrees off the missile’s centerline. Additionally, the Vympel’s simple but effective system for thrust-vectoring forced Halverson to hold speed at Mach 3.1 as she released another cloud of chaff and flares.
She checked her map and tensed. She’d pulled far off course from the rendezvous point with the Stratotanker and now wheeled back toward those coordinates over Greenland.
Just as she came out of her turn, the last Vympel took the bait and tore apart nearly a thousand feet below.
She rapped a fist on the canopy, as if to thank the Wraith.
Hell of an aircraft. Hell of an escape.
But her relief was short-lived as an urgent voice broke over the radio: “Siren, this is Big Ben. I’m taking fire. My escort has pulled off to engage. Might have to bug out if you can’t get here in the next few minutes.”
Before the Stratotanker’s pilot finished with his SITREP, Halverson’s fuel warning lights were flashing, the computer telling her she was down to fumes.
She looked at the tanker’s current position and began to shake her head. Unless he could turn and scream toward her at 800 miles per hour, she wouldn’t reach him in time. The tanker’s max speed was, of course, only 580 miles per hour.
Decision time: Either gain more elevation, which would buy her time to better select a landing zone, or simply head to one of Greenland’s dozen or more airports and airfields.
Without warning, the Stratotanker disappeared from her radar, and a breath later, General Mitchell’s voice crackled over the radio: “Siren, they’ve taken out your tanker. You have MiGs closing on you now. Get out of there. Save that aircraft.”
“Roger that. Searching for a pl
ace to put down.”
“We’ll launch another tanker to rendezvous with you on the ground. Can you reach Nuuk Airport?”
She checked her map. Nuuk was the capital of Greenland, with the airport located on the country’s southwest coast. “Don’t think I can do it, sir. Runway’s not big enough anyway. I may have to land on the glacier.”
“It’s your call. We’ll get the QRF to your location with fuel.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Halverson flicked her glance to the radar display in her HUD. Two MiGs were narrowing the gap, about ten kilometers out now. They’d probably fired all of their air-to-air missiles and were hoping to put thirty-millimeter cannons mounted in their port-wing roots on her.
“Warning: low fuel level. At current speed, estimate zero fuel level in two minutes, thirty-one seconds,” said the computer. “Low fuel level clock displayed.”
If she was going to put down on the glacier, she had to lose these bastards first.
“Oh, what the hell,” she grunted, shivering through her words. She cut the stick, banking high and away then rolling over and heading straight back for the MiGs.
FORTY-EIGHT
Marine Raider Team
Jan Mayen Island
Near LORAN-C Station
Lex was already watching the situation on the ground unfold via the SAV attached to his helmet. The images came in from both a Joint Strike Force keyhole satellite and Halverson’s cameras aboard the Wraith and were automatically forwarded to both his Raider team, the other teams, and Strommen, the captain with the chin curtain beard who was in charge of the Norwegian FSK group.
“Everyone, listen up,” Lex began. “This is Alpha Team Leader. Go through checklists. It’ll get hot very soon. Gray Wolf, are your boys ready?”
“No problems with Gray Wolf Team, Captain,” Strommen answered, his accent thick but not an issue. “And like I said, I hope you didn’t shave for this mission.”