He smiled to himself.  This sure beat flying his DC-9 from Washington to Providence and Hartford and back every day for U.S. Air!  Richardson, who had been an air force fighter pilot, had left the service eight years earlier because he craved the higher pay and flashy lifestyle of a commercial airline pilot.  He'd missed Vietnam, and commercial flying did not require anything like this degree of skill; it lacked the rush of skimming at treetop level.

So far as he knew, the Hog had never been used for maritime strike missions—another part of the message.  It was no surprise that she'd be good at it.  Her antitank munitions would be effective against ships.  Her cannon slugs and Rockeye clusters were designed to shred armored battle tanks, and he had no doubts what they would do to thin-hulled warships.  Too bad this wasn't for real.  It was about time somebody taught Ivan a lesson.

A radar sensor light blinked on his threat receiver; S-band radar, it was probably meant for surface search, and was not powerful enough for a return yet.  The Soviets did not have any aerial radar platforms, and their ship-carried sets were limited by the earth's curvature.  The beam was just over his head; he was getting the fuzzy edge of it.  They would have avoided detection better still by flying at fifty feet instead of a hundred, but orders were not to.

"Linebacker flight, this is Sentry-Delta.  Scatter and head in," the AWACS commanded.

The A-10s separated from their interval of only a few feet to an extended attack formation that left miles between aircraft.  The orders were for them to scatter at thirty miles' distance.  About four minutes.  Richardson checked his digital clock; the Linebacker flight was right on time.  Behind them, the Phantoms and Corsairs in the alpha strike would be turning toward the Soviets, just to get their attention.  He ought to be seeing them soon . . .

The HUD showed small bumps on the projected horizon—the outer screen of destroyers, the Udaloys and Sovremennys.  The briefing officer had shown them silhouettes and photos of the warships.

Beep! his threat receiver chirped.  An X-band missile guidance radar had just swept over his aircraft and lost it, and was now trying to regain contact.  Richardson flipped on his ECM (electronic countermeasures) jamming systems.  The destroyers were only five miles away now.  Forty seconds.  Stay dumb, comrades, he thought.