Firebreak

by Richard Herman

  “The Syrian First Army has forced the Litani River and is reinforcing its position here.” She was speaking English, acknowledging Matt and Furry’s presence as she drew a semicircle on the south side of the Litani River, a bump directly opposite a main Israeli force. “The Syrian First Army is made up of three armored division”—she glanced at Matt and Furry—“what you Americans call a corps. They are now in contact with our Northern Command here.” She drew a jagged line below the bump. “Fortunately, the Syrians are strung out in a long tail on the north side of the Litani as they move down the Bekáa Valley. But they are building up their mass and could break out of their enclave within twelve hours.”

  A sergeant entered the room and handed her a slip of paper. She paused and read it, deep in thought. Then she stepped to the map and drew an arrow out of the bump pointing toward the coast. “The Syrians have broken out and have now reached the coast and are turning south. Their next objective is Haifa.”

  The distance from the head of the arrow to Haifa was less than thirty miles. Matt’s face turned to granite.

  “Which makes it imperative that we stop them now,” the intelligence officer continued. “We have monitored heavy communications coming from this area”—she pinpointed a spot north of the river crossing, well inside Lebanon—“and the recce photo is less than two hours old.” The room darkened and a slide flashed on the screen. A hodgepodge of trucks and vehicles were clustered around what looked like a small hill—a large camouflaged net. The captain pointed out three communications vans barely visible under the edge of the net. “This is your target,” she said, “the headquarters of the Syrian First Army that is threatening Haifa.” Then she pointed out six ZSU-23-4s and seven SA-11 Gadfly batteries. The room was absolutely silent.

  “We’ll take it,” Matt said.

  The phone call from B. J. Allison came much earlier than Fraser had expected. He checked his watch, surprised that it was only eight o’clock in the evening. Allison came directly to the point. “Tom, we’re worried that the President will overreact—”

  “B.J.,” Fraser interrupted, feeling confident if she was so worried to call him this early, “I’ve got it all under control.”

  “Oh, I do hope so,” she answered and while the words were charming, the tone in her voice carried steel. “We have heard that the President’s grandson is in Israel. We do hope that is not an indication of his unqualified support.”

  “Now don’t go worrying about that,” Fraser soothed. “Captain Pontowski was there on a routine exchange visit and the Air Force is trying to get him out as soon as possible.” He paused, waiting for a reply. Silence. “B.J., we could use a break right now and handle this crisis better if the press would get off our case about illegal campaign funds-”

  “Why, I have nothing to do with that,” she interrupted, laying on her southern accent. “Forgive a poor old woman, Tom, but I do worry about what is going on and would be able to rest much better if I could be sure that we will not desert our other friends in the Middle East.”

  Fraser knew they were bargaining—she for influence, he for less pressure from the press. “Trust me,” Fraser said, “the President will do the right thing if he can. You know how the media can influence political and economic decisions”—stressing the word “economic” was his way of turning up the heat—“especially during a crisis.” Now get off my goddamn back, he added mentally.

  “Tom, if I could only be sure.” She went on for a few more moments and then hung up.

  So that’s the trade-off, Fraser thought, we secure her interests in the Middle East and she dries up the press’s sources of information about illegal campaign funds. And how in the hell did she know about Matt?

  “He’s being difficult,” Allison said after she had hung up. “He must have buried all that money I gave to their campaign very deep. I do wish I knew how he did that and what’s going on.”

  “Do you want me to find out?” Tara Tyndle asked.

  “That would be sweet of you,” Allison said, smiling at her favorite grand-niece.

  Bill Carroll worked his way through the food line of the restaurant in the basement of the Union train station. Teenagers and their chaperons on school field trips filled the place and offered him the cover he wanted to meet Melissa CourtneySmith. His wife Mary was right behind him, wrestling with their son Brett. For all outward appearances, they were part of the spring tourist rush in Washington, D.C. They found two empty chairs at a table occupied by Melissa and two teenagers. Brett’s activity soon drove the teenagers away and Melissa and Carroll felt it was safe to talk.

  “I’ve been listening to Radio Cairo and Radio Damascus on the shortwave,” he said. “It’s much worse than it appears in the papers and on TV. This is not localized fighting between Syria and Israel.”

  “The CIA and State,” Melissa told him, “are concerned but don’t think the fighting will go on much longer.”

  “Don’t bet on it. The Arabs are whipping their people up for a jihad. You should hear the radio broadcasts. I wish more of those turkeys at the CIA and the State Department could understand Arabic.”

  “The President’s trying to get the UN involved and negotiate a cease-fire,” she said.

  “It had better be quick because Iraq’s going to come in and join up with Syria. The Egyptians will lie low until the Israelis are fully committed in the north and then attack in the Sinai. The Arabs could win this one.”

  “No one has said anything about Iraq coming in,” Melissa said. “That changes everything.”

  “Iraq has been a prime mover in this from the beginning and has come up with an ‘Arab solution’ to the Israeli problem with them leading the pack. The President has got to be warned,” Carroll urged.

  “Bill, how can you be so sure? After all, you have been cut off from your sources. I can’t pass on hunches or guesses.”

  “The Mossad contacted me. I hope they passed it on to General Cox.”

  “But the Israelis talk to the CIA all the time. Surely, they must have told us by now?”

  “They did,” Carroll answered. “But you know how the CIA works. The Middle East Division chief is in the driver’s seat on this one and he doesn’t believe the Israelis. There’s a strong anti-Mossad faction in the CIA. Probably professional jealousy. Hell, everyone thinks Iraq is still in the Arab doghouse because of the Kuwait war. But Arab opinion and policies can change in three days. They just don’t think like we do.”

  “And you think the fighting is going to get worse?”

  “Much worse.”

  Melissa gathered up her handbag and umbrella and walked away. At a nearby table a man watched her go, sorry that she had sat with her back to him and that he had only been able to read Carroll’s lips. He doubted that his partner overlooking them on the balcony picked the conversation up with hi? directional mike. A teenager’s boom box was creating interference. They ought to outlaw those things as dangerous to national security, he thought. We’ve got enough here, he decided; time to take a close look at the activities of Carroll’s old boss, one Brigadier General Leo Cox.

  “Whatever happened to rule number one?” Furry mumbled into his oxygen mask as his fingers punched coordinates into the Up Front Controller’s keyboard. It was one way to load the coordinates for the steer points, offsets, and target for their mission into the aircraft’s computers. With the right computer and equipment like they had in the squadron at Stonewood, he could have cut a data transfer tape cartridge with all the information the Strike Eagle’s computer systems needed for the mission. Then Matt could have simply shoved the cartridge into the Data Transfer Module on the instrument panel in front of him and programmed the computers almost instantaneously. Furry resigned himself to the task at hand and kept punching the numbers in until he was finished. “Okay, ready to taxi,” he told Matt.

  “Hold on,” Matt said. He leaned out of the cockpit and checked on the two technicians who were still working on the black box that programmed their Tact
ical Electronic Warfare System. “I can’t believe you let them get into the TEWS,” he said.

  “Why not?” the wizzo answered. “It’s a lot like the one they got on their F-Fifteens and what the hell, we need every break we can get going against those missiles.” The two technicians had been working furiously since the briefing when Matt had volunteered to go after the headquarters. It had been Furry’s idea to use the information the surviving F-4 crew had brought back from Harkabi’s mission to see if they could reprogram the Eagle’s black boxes to counter the Gadfly. Within an hour, the two technicians with their specialized equipment had been flown in and after a lively discussion in which everyone talked at once, they had ripped into the system, scaring the daylights out of Matt.

  Harkabi had reassured him that the Israeli Air Force worked like that and they accomplished wonders simply by getting the right people talking to each other and then getting out of their way. Still, Matt felt like they were serving as guinea pigs.

  One of the technicians stuck his head out from under the equipment bay and gave them a thumbs-up signal. The other man buttoned up the panel and they were ready to taxi. “Can’t believe they did that with engines running,” Matt grumbled. He checked his watch and taxied out of the bunker, gunning the engines and racing for the runway. He had never taxied that fast before with a bomb load. A green light blinked at them from the concrete bunker that served as the control tower. Matt took the runway and stroked the throttles, rolling without coming to a full stop to run the engines up. The Eagle leaped into the early-morning dark.

  The direction officer deep in the command bunker at Ramat David noted Matt’s takeoff time. He scanned the plot board and checked the master clock. The raid against the First Army’s headquarters had been carefully planned and coordinated with one single objective—to get Matt’s F-15 on target. He queried his tactical director on the exact location of the support aircraft that would help Matt and Furry penetrate the air defence ring the Syrians had thrown up around their headquarters. He keyed his radio and transmitted the code word that started the operation.

  Over the Mediterranean, the same Boeing 707 that had jammed the Syrians’ radar and communications on Harkabi’s mission copied the go order and went to work. At the same time, Harkabi and an F-4 started a low-level run toward the coast. But this time, they flew much higher—four hundred feet above the smooth ocean.

  The Syrians responded by triangulating on the source of the jamming and employing their own electronic counter-measures. Two Syrian early warning radars found the two low-flying jets through the jamming and plotted their track. Then the Israeli 707 responded with electronic counter-countermeasures and the Syrians lost the radar paints on Harkabi’s flight. The Syrians decided it was another attack on Homs. They congratulated themselves on the timely move of the headquarters and the way they had deceived the Israelis.

  A ground observer team on the coast of Lebanon reported Harkabi’s flight coasting in, still on track toward Homs. The Syrian air defense was looking exactly where the Israelis wanted them to look. One Syrian early warning radar reported a fast mover coming out of Israel directly for the Litani River beachhead.

  A Syrian radar control officer evaluated the information in front of him and identified the lone fast mover as a reconnaissance flight.

  “Sir,” the radar operator responded, “they use drones for reconnaissance. This is too fast for a drone.”

  “I said it was a reconnaissance flight,” the officer snapped, ending the discussion. Still, he alerted the SAM batteries along the Litani River about the lone intruder before turning his attention to the developing raid against Homs.

  “Lots of activity directly in front of us,” Matt said. He tried to concentrate on the TFR and Tactical Situation Display as they raced along the Jordan River at the base of the steep escarpment that rose a thousand feet above them to the Golan Heights. But the radar threats that kept popping up on the Multi-Purpose Display he had slaved to the TEWS worried him. “Never seen anything this heavy before.” He had to mm down the audio warning so he could concentrate on other tasks and hear Furry talk.

  “Just like last time,” his backseater said. “Glad we’re not going that way.” This part of the route Furry had laid out took them up the Jordan River valley at the base of the Golan and pointed them straight into Lebanon. “Jesus H. Christ!” Furry roared. “Six Flap Lids are active!” The Flap Lid was the guidance and tracking radar for the Gadfly.

  “Ready, ready, NOW!” Furry said as the command steering bar in Matt’s HUD slued to the right, telling him to turn into the steep wall of the escarpment. Matt reefed the Eagle into a hard right turn and stood it on its tail as he stroked the afterburners. It had been a carefully planned maneuver and they crested the ridge leading onto the Golan with fifty feet to spare. The TEWS exploded as the air defense radars of the Syrian Third Army on the Golan Heights picked them up.

  The Syrian officer responsible for the air defense of the First Army in Lebanon noted Matt’s change of direction and passed him over to his counterpart for the Third Army who had already acquired the Eagle on his radars. Now the Eagle’s TEWS came alive, not trying to jam the Syrians, but to send out false signals that would confuse the defense radar. The Syrians now identified Matt as a threat against the Third Army or Damascus.

  On cue, the Israeli forces bunkered on top of Mount Hermon activated their jamming and electronic countermeasures. The Syrians were surprised by the intensity of the jamming coming from Mount Hermon and ordered a heavy artillery barrage against the Israelis. It was one of many vain attempts to neutralize the mountaintop bunkers that gave the Israelis an unrestricted view of the Golan Heights and the plain leading to Damascus.

  Matt flew his F-15 directly into this confusion, flying under artillery shells arcing above him. Then the steering bar in his HUD commanded a hard turn to the northwest and Matt responded, flying his jet around the base of Mount Hermon and into the Anti-Lebanon Mountain Range, now heading back to the Litani River. It had been a well-planned feint at the Syrian capital of Damascus. The Syrian radar operators tried to find the F-15, and failing, hesitated. They should have immediately notified the First Army’s air defense that they had lost the target. Now three reports came in from SAM batteries claiming kills, which were two too many for the number of targets. Again the Third Army delayed notifying the First Army on the Litani River. Matt and Furry had successfully exploited the seam between two commands. They were less than two minutes out from their target.

  Matt was not even aware of the sweat pouring off him as he worked his way through the mountain valley that pointed at their target. The TFR and his Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) sensor made it possible for him to penetrate the mountains and the night. The monochrome gray holographic picture on the HUD in front of him was coming from the Nav FLIR and let him see what was in front of him. He kept checking the TFR, not wanting to fly into the ground. He touched the Master Arm switch, double-checking it to be sure it was in the up position. Without thinking, he punched up the armament display on his MPCD video, glanced at it to be sure he was in bombs ripple, and punched the screen back to TSD for a quick double check of his position.

  “Go Target FLIR,” Furry suggested. Matt changed the HUD and was looking at the world through a greenish soda straw. The Target FLIR had a much narrower field of view and Furry had slued it to the target before Matt brought it up. But there was no target, just terrain in front of them. “Too low,” Furry said. “We’re seeing a hill in front of the target.”

  A wild warbling sound from the TEWS blasted their ears. “A Flap Lid’s got us,” Furry said, his voice high-pitched and loud. Matt checked his TFR—they were a hundred feet off the deck, at the bottom of the envelope where a Gadfly missile might be able to guide on them. But he couldn’t get any lower in the mountainous terrain. They were less than a minute out and were still dry for a target. Tracers from a ZSU-23 reached toward them.

  Dave Harkabi and his wingman broke off their att
ack run nine miles short of the target and turned back toward the coast. Both aircraft dropped flares and chaff behind them as they ran for safety. The Boeing 707 stopped its jamming and let every Syrian radar find the two retreating fighters. The Syrian First Army air defenders relaxes and congratulated themselves.

  Matt was thinking in split seconds, instinctively taking in a wealth of information, evaluating it, and reacting correctly. Scholars, psychologists, and pilots in quiet moments call it situational awareness. Fighter jocks call it having a “clue.” Not only did Matt know exactly where he was, which in itself was quite an accomplishment since they were moving at 900 feet a second through mountains at night, he had a mental map of the enemy threat around him. In combat, situational awareness is what keeps a fighter pilot alive. Matt knew he was too low to acquire the target through his Target FLIR, they were being tracked by a Gadfly’s radar but were probably below the missile’s minimum guidance altitude in mountains, the tracers from the ZSU were still out of range, and the TEWS was screaming at him. So he did the only thing possible if he wanted to get a bomb on target—he pulled on the stick and climbed directly into the engagement envelope of the Gadfly.

  “Designating,” Furry called from the rear. He had found the target within seconds, laid his cross hairs over it and locked it up. The weapons computer could do its job now. Matt eased the stick forward and they porpoised back down on the deck. Immediately, he brought the nose back up for a second porpoise so the weapons computer sensed an upward vector and could reach a release solution for the bombs and automatically pickle. The F-15 jerked as two bombs rippled off.

  Four bright rocket plumes—Gadflies—were lighting the night and converging on them. Again, Matt headed for the deck but the jagged terrain kept him high. Now he turned into the missiles, certain that he could outmaneuver the first two and generate an overshoot. His situational awareness warned him the second pair were another story. Then all four missiles flashed, exploding short of their target.