TALON aircraft. The huge dark cargo plane had unreeled one of its "hose-and-drogue"

aerial-refueling systems-a three-foot lighted basket at the end of a fuel line-from a pod on the right wingtip, and Fell

was taking on fuel at two hundred gallons per minute. The lighted ring around the edge of the basket was the only light on these two aircraft-at night, about three wingspans above the sea, traveling at four miles a minute. The two airplanes sped through the night with only a thin hose between them and disaster.

Hank Fell's hands were grasping the controls with a hard death's grip as he fought to maintain control. He knew the MC-130H was in front of him, somewhere, but he would see it only at less than twenty-feet range- just before a collision-so the probe kept on disconnecting from the drogue and he had to struggle to reconnect. Fell had swiveled the engine nacelles on the CV-22 to 30 degrees, an intermediate position between airplane and helicopter modes, to give him as much altitude control as possible while maintaining maximum forward airspeed-the COMBAT TALON aircraft was designed to refuel helicopters at low speeds, but in this turbulence and at this low altitude, a sudden wind shear could send the one-hundred-and-forty-thousand-pound special-operations plane into the sea without warning.

As if to underscore his fear, the MC- 1 30H suddenly dipped precariously down by the tail as if wallowing in heavy seas. Fell could feel the buffeting of the plane's four huge turboprops as the prop wash rolled over the CV-22, and he could hear power being applied. The hose dipped suddenly, then shot up and swayed from side to side as the COMBAT TALON pilot fought for control. The drogue popped off the CV-22's probe, whipped violently in the swirling winds, and the padded canvas-covered basket hit the tilt-rotor aircraft's windscreen with a loud thump! The MC-130H pilot pulled power back to try to get back into position.

Fell turned the nacelle angle-control upwards, moving the CV-22 more into HELICOPTER

mode so he could safely decelerate. "Dammit! Signal breakaway!" Fell shouted. Watanabe flicked the exterior lights four times in rapid succession, and the drogue disappeared as the MC- 1 30H pilot applied power again and climbed an extra one hundred feet. "How much fuel now, Marty?"

"We took on five thousand pounds," Watanabe replied. "We have ten thousand total."

"Is it enough?"

"Barely," Watanabe replied. "Just barely. In, out, land back on the Mistress with one thousand pounds. Oslo is out unless we can get the MC-130 back after exfiltration-and that's unlikely since he must be low on fuel."

"Signal 'terminate refueling,' then," Fell said. "We're going in with What we got." Watanabe gave the MC-130H crew six flashes of the ~ pause, flash-flash, pause, flash-flash-and the ghostly Outline of the COMBAT TALON disappeared.

Tk~

a

a - . -

of Liepaja-in fact, after air refueling they were only six miles from the coast. Things had changed very quickly. PATRIOT was no longer using Russian code words to warn the CV-22 crew of airborne threats-instead, he was on the secure HAVE QUICK scrambled channel, issuing threat information directly to Ladybug. Brown had set the CV-22's entire INEWS (Integrated Electronic-Warfare System) jamming suite to full automatic, which would jam all surface-to-air and air-to-air radars, radio communications, and laser illuminators detected by the threat receiver. INEWS also automatically modulated the heat emissions from the CV-22 itself, effectively "jamming" its own infrared signature to provide limited protection against heat-seeking missiles.