Firebreak

by Richard Herman

  The determination Matt had felt before turned to granite. Martin had led them in and now it was his job to get them out. “Roger, Aldo,” he replied. “Copy all. Say bandits.” He was asking if any hostile aircraft were in the area.

  Aldo answered with “Two bandits on your nose at one hundred thirty nautical miles. Numerous aircraft launching out of Kirkuk at this time.”

  “Those two are right on the border between us and home plate,” Furry told him. “They’re going to sandwich us between those bastards launching out of Kirkuk.” Then it came to him. “Jesus H. Christ, those are the two bastards that got Martin.” After a long pause, he added, “That’s ‘Joe’ out there.”

  “Fuck ‘em!” Matt barked. “We got lots of fuel and Aldo.” He keyed his mike and told the AWACS to vector the recovering F-15s around all bandits. “We did what we came for,” he told Furry. “Now they got to find us down in the weeds. No way they can do that with Aldo vectoring us away from them.”

  They listened as the F-15s checked in and the AWACS called out headings to keep them well clear of the two orbiting bandits and the MiGs launching out of Kirkuk. Now Matt joined on his wingman. “Shit-oh-dear,” Furry mumbled,"it’s a wonder he’s still flying.” Matt moved in close to Leary and looked him over. The F-15 had taken numerous hits with AAA and at least one SAM. Not only was 50 percent of the right vertical stabilizer gone, but the right wing looked like Swiss cheese and fuel was streaming out of the fuselage.

  “Sean, say fuel.”

  The answer was not good. “I might make it to the border.”

  “Aldo,” Matt transmitted, “Have a tanker on station at the border.”

  “Roger,” Aldo answered.

  Matt checked their altitude and airspeed: eight hundred feet and two-eighty. Not good, but it was the best Leary could do.

  “Viper Zero-Three”—the tactical controller’s voice was rapid and tense—“the two bandits are now on your nose at eighty nautical miles, moving your way.” Matt glanced down at the TEWS. The symbol for a Su-27's radar in search mode was on their nose and moving toward them.

  “That’s gotta be Joe,” came from the backseat.

  Smoke and dust rolled over the top of the low hill and engulfed the eight Israeli tanks and six APCs that were hiding in the rough terrain. What was left of Levy Force was careful to use terrain masking and maintain radio silence as they moved closer to their jumping-off point. A loud explosion echoed over them and Levy could see an F-4 pull off a bombing run. He turned in the open hatch and clasped his hands together, the signal to halt. “Can you get us behind those boulders?” he asked Halaby.

  “I can do better than that,” the driver replied. He inched the tank under a large outcropping, satisfied that the tank’s sand-gray paint scheme would blend perfectly. Levy climbed out of the turret, dropped to the ground and scrambled through the boulders to the top of the hill. Shoshana watched him from the loader’s hatch as he belly-crawled to the top of the hill. Then he was back, his face an expressionless mask.

  “They don’t know we’re here. Tanks are still moving down the valley supported by BMPs. Some are passing right now, in battalion strength. We’re going to cut across their rear. Halaby, take us over to that low area two hundred meters to the right.”

  Halaby moved the tank out while Levy stood in the hatch and extended his left arm to the side. Then he made an arching motion over his head, pointing in the direction he wanted to go. The tanks and APCs relayed the signal and followed him. As they moved out of the protective cover of the rough terrain, Levy extended both his arms in a downward V, die visual signal for a wedge formation. Halaby slowed as the tanks moved into position and the APCs moved inside the protective arms of the wedge. They were almost in the open and now arcing out into the main valley. Still the Iraqis had not seen them. Levy raised his right fist high above his head and brought it down with a hard jerk, the signal to charge.

  Shoshana’s head banged against the turret and she held on as Halaby gunned the engine. She concentrated on Levy’s commands as they fired, loading the gun as fast as she could. Once the breech nicked her hand when it slammed closed, peeling off a layer of skin. She ignored it. The loud boom of a direct hit on the forward plate of their tank echoed through the turret and the concussion stunned her. She was vaguely aware of Levy shouting over the radio, telling one of die APCs to fire a TOW antitank missile at a target. Still they plunged on, her world focused on feeding the main gun.

  Halaby jerked the tank to the right and hit the brakes, throwing her forward just as the main gun swung over the driver. She fell forward and landed on the battery pack right behind him. The tank rocked with a loud explosion and smoke. She heard Halaby shout, “Sagger!” They had taken a direct hit by a wire-guided antitank missile on the side of the turret where the reactive armor had already blown away and exposed an open patch of hull. Then another explosion rocked the tank. This time from an Iraqi tank round. A whitish mist filled the tank. “Fire extinguishers!” Halaby yelled.

  Shoshana became aware that she was drenched in green hydraulic fluid. “I’LL BURN!” she screamed.

  “DON’T PANIC!” Halaby shouted. “You’re okay. It’s got a high flash point.” Slowly the mist cleared and she could see that he was also dripping with it. Now she could see into the turret. Dave Bielski was a pulpy mass of blood and flesh. Behind him, she could see Levy’s legs dangling from the tank commander’s seat. They twitched. He was alive. She grabbed a first aid kit and worked her way around the breech of the main gun to where she could work on him. Halaby followedher and popped the loader’s hatch to look out. “Get ready to get out,” he told her. Then he dropped back inside, closing the hatch. “We’re not on fire. All I can see are T-Seventy-twos and BMPs. They must think we’re dead. Maybe we can lie doggo.”

  The sounds of tracked vehicles moving by caught her attention. The image of the two medics who had been raped and mutilated flashed in front of her. She drove it away and worked on Levy. The lower part of his body had been cut to pieces with small bits of shrapnel, but his flak jacket had protected his upper body. Since he had been sitting in the commander’s cupola, his head and shoulders were not injured and he was conscious.

  “Halaby,” he groaned. “Get us moving.” Then he passed out.

  While Shoshana worked on Levy, Halaby checked the tank. “We’ve lost hydraulics to the turret and can’t traverse but we can still fire. If I can start the engine and the tracks are still on, we can move.”

  “We’ve got to get him to an aid station right away,” Shoshana said. Again, she could hear tanks passing by.

  “We’ll have to fight our way out,” Halaby mumbled. He moved forward to the driver’s position where he could look out. “Two kilometers, maybe three to the hills. We might have a chance there. Can we wait to dark?” Shoshana told him that without immediate attention, Levy would be dead by then. “I need to be in his position to see better,” Halaby told her. “Can we move him?”

  The two worked gently to move Levy out of his seat. Halaby had to climb over them to get past in the cramped confines of the turret. He moved into the commander’s seat and used a rag to wipe off the blood and gore that had splashed over the controls. He used the periscope and optical sight to see around him. “There’s some BMPs moving past us but I don’t see anything behind them. No, hold on, about two kilometers back, more tanks.” He thought for a moment. “Can you aim and fire the gun?”

  “No,” she told him. “But if you can get the engine started, I can drive.” Halaby grunted and squeezed back into the driver’s compartment. The engine coughed and came to life. Halaby scurried out of the seat and Shoshana quickly jumpedinto the driver’s position. She grabbed the T-bar and looked out of the vision blocks.

  “Halaby, there’s two tanks coming at us!” Directly in front of them she could see two T-72s moving out from behind a low hummock and headed straight toward them.

  “GO!” Halaby shouted. “Head right for them!” Shoshana moved the shift
from neutral to low and mashed the accelerator. The tank leaped forward. She saw a muzzle flash from one of the T-72s. She shifted into high.

  In a bruising, headlong rush, she drove at the two tanks in front of her. A shell cracked off the front plate directly below her vision blocks and screamed away. She was momentarily blinded by the flash and was surprised that it had not penetrated into the tank. The reactive armor blocks had done their job, but now more patches of the tank’s hull were fully exposed. “Right, go right,” Halaby yelled at her. She shook her head, trying to clear her vision, and guided the tank to the right. “A little to the left,” he shouted. She realized he was aiming the gun by moving the tank. “ON THE WAY!” he shouted and fired the main gun.

  The Imi hit the lead tank in die frontal armor, the heaviest part of the armor and penetrated with devastating results. Shoshana saw the tank pull sideways and smoke billow out. She knew the carnage that was going on inside.

  “Head for the other tank,” Halaby ordered. He scrambled out of his seat to reload. Again, Shoshana saw the muzzle flash and this time jerked the tank to the left. The round missed them by inches. She saw the tube of the T-72 raise for the autoloader to eject the shell. “Halaby, FIRE!” she shouted. No answer. He was still reloading. Now the tube was lowering to receive a fresh round. “HALABY!” The muzzle was raising. She slued the tank hard to the left, trying to break the gunner’s aim.

  “Come back to the right,” Halaby yelled as the muzzle flashed.

  The range between the two tanks was less than five hundred meters and the Iraqi’s round hit the right side of the M60. The warhead of the 122-millimeter APDS projectile penetrated deep into the engine compartment and exploded. An internal explosion blew the turret off the tank and a tongue of flame licked at Shoshana’s back when a fuel cell erupted. She reached for the lever that locked the driver’s hatch withher left hand and felt a burning pain. She pulled and pushed until the hatch opened. Then she was lifting herself out of the burning tank. But her left hand wouldn’t come free of the hatch handle. She jerked and a searing pain shot up her arm. Now she was out of the tank as her hydraulic-soaked outer clothes caught on fire. She threw herself onto the ground and rolled, snuffing out the flames.

  Shoshana was vaguely aware that Hanni’s helmet was still on fire and she ripped it off, throwing it away from her. She lay on her back and watched as the T-72 that had destroyed them clanked by, ignoring the burning hulk of Levy’s tank.

  Matt’s mind raced as he tried to load the dice in his favor in the developing engagement with the two bandits. “Radar in standby, TEWS passive only,” he told Furry. “Make ‘em think we don’t know they’re out there.” Then he hit his transmit switch. “Aldo, keep the BRA calls coming.” BRA calls gave the bearing, range, and altitude of the bandits. As long as the AWACS could feed him that information, his own radar could remain in standby.

  “Three-two-zero at forty-five, coaltitude,” the AWACS answered. The bandits were still on his nose and closing.

  “Damn,” Furry muttered, “wish we had AMRAAMs.” All they had were four Sidewinders and a full drum of ammunition.

  Then it hit Matt, they did have AMRAAMs—on Leary’s jet. “Sean, can you salvo your AMRAAMs on command?” he asked. The wingman thought he could do that. Matt collapsed into a tight formation with his wingman. “Amb, jam the shit out of them after Sean salvos.”

  Matt hit his weapons select switch and brought the radar to life and it automatically locked on the nearest target. Then he mashed the button forward as if he was going to fire a radar missile. The system did as it was commanded but no shoot cue was generated since there were no radar missiles on board. “Sean, fire four,” he ordered.

  The four AMRAAMs dropped out of their missile wells in quick succession. Their seeker heads picked up the reflected radar energy from Matt’s radar and homed. Matt moved away from Leary, still keeping his nose on the two bandits so his radar could illuminate the targets until the AMRAAMs transitioned to their own terminal guidance. Matt watched in satisfaction as the four missiles reached for the bandits. He hadn’t been sure if it would work. “Radar in standby,” he told Furry and dove for the ground. “Now honor the fuckin’ threat,” he told the Flankers.

  And honor the threat they did. Samir broke hard right when he saw the missiles and Johar pulled down and to the left. Samir wrenched his fighter back to the left so he could keep a visual contact on the missiles. If he could see a missile, he could defeat it. He brought the nose of his Flanker up and turned twenty degrees away. He watched the lead missile turn and climb with him. When the AMRAAM was committed to a collision course, Samir turned hard into the missile and down. The missile followed. He pulled up hard, loading the Flanker with nine g’s, generating an overshoot. The proximity fuse on the AMRAAM detonated the warhead as it flashed by underneath, but Samir was outside its cone. He repeated the maneuver on the second missile but his airspeed was bleeding off and he generated an overshoot below 180 knots. The third and fourth missiles got him.

  “It’s you and me, asshole,” Matt grumbled when he saw the Flanker hit the ground. He called up a Sidewinder and turned into Johar.

  Johar saw the missiles take his friend out and felt a cold fury wash over him. He turned into the F-15 and called up an Archer. The two aircraft came at each other in a head-on pass, both jinking and skidding across the sky, both pilots intent on shooting the other one in the face.

  At nine miles, they both launched missiles, almost simultaneously. Matt climbed into the sun that was just above the eastern horizon and watched the missile, then he broke hard for the ground and back into Johar as Furry sent more flares out the back. The missile lost the heat signature it was homing on and headed into the sun.

  Johar turned away from Matt’s Sidewinder and dropped to a hundred feet above the ground. Then he turned hard back into it and climbed. The Sidewinder tried to follow him, but hit the ground. Now Johar turned back into Matt. He barely had time to snap roll to the right as they passed canopy to canopy. Only the ratdesnake-quick reflexes of both pilots saved them from a head-on collision.

  Both pilots pulled into the vertical, each reversing on his adversary. Now they were climbing almost straight up, stillcanopy to canopy, when Johar pulled hard into Matt. Matt did the same. Now they were in a scissors as they reversed on each other and slowed, each trying to bring his cannon to bear. Twice they passed, neither gaining an advantage, slowing down. It was a repeat of the fatal mission when Matt had collided with Jack Locke in a midair.

  Now they were going down and Matt unloaded and rolled, reversing again onto Johar. He saw he would pass behind him this time. Suddenly, the nose of the Flanker pitched up in a high AOA, like a cobra rearing its head to strike. Matt wrenched the F-15 to the left to avoid a collision. But they were too close and Matt’s right wingtip hit Johar’s belly. It looked like a gentle brush, but the forces generated were shattering.

  Matt found himself in a spin and buried his foot in the rudder and held the stick all the way over against the spin. The spin slowed and he brought the nose up and they were climbing again. “No afterburners,” Furry said. “We’re dumping fuel like mad over the right wing. Okay, it’s slowing. The fuel-shutoff valves must be working.”

  “Check the right wing,” Matt said, looking for Johar. Then he saw a parachute.

  “SHIT-OH-DEAR!” Furry roared. “WE AIN’T GOT NO WING!”

  The reports flooding into the command bunker told a story of success and a victory. Ben David could not contain his elation and had to move about, full of energy and resolve. When the Ganef told him that the Americans had destroyed the nerve gas arsenal at Kirkuk, he only jutted his jaw out and said nothing. His eyes scanned the situation maps in the front of the room and a new sense of justification and righteousness swept over him. The Arabs were surrendering in droves in both Jordan and on the Golan. Yes, he told himself, a major victory.

  Only in Lebanon was the victory clouded and the fighting was still seesawing back and fo
rth. Soon, he knew, he would be able to reinforce the beleaguered Israelis there and secure a total victory. Life was very sweet as he stared at the boards and plotted the future.

  The minister of foreign affairs caught his attention. “Yair, I’ve received a communiqué from the United Nations. Thepressure for a cease-fire is overwhelming. We can’t ignore it any longer.”

  “For twenty-four more hours we will,” he replied, his voice hard and unyielding. Twenty-four more hours and he would have a victory in the Lebanon, the elusive victory his predecessors had never found in 1982.

  “Perhaps, Yair,” his minister of defense, Benjamin Yuriden, ventured, “this would be the best time to negotiate—while the Arabs can still tell their people they were winning someplace and it was not a cease-fire forced on them by a total defeat.”

  “They won’t win anywhere!” Ben David shouted. “I will drive them into the desert and—”

  “Negotiate now!” the Ganef interrupted. He grabbed the prime minister’s jaw and jerked his chin around, making him look at the “Status of Casualties” board on the side wall. “How much more can you ask of your people? How much more can they sacrifice?”

  The numbers told a grim story and Ben David knew he was right—they had fought long enough. With a massive force of will, he drove his hatred back into its cage and became a politician again. “Arrange a cease-fire. Stabilize the Lebanon but do not attack. Halt all actions in Syria and Jordan and withdraw to defensible positions.” Then his eyes ran over the “Status of Casualties” board again. His people had indeed sacrificed more than enough and he did not have the right to ask for more.

  “It seems to be stabilized around three hundred knots,” Matt said, still feeling out the controllability of the F-15. “Below two-fifty or above three-fifty, it wants to roll.”

  “Right,” Furry said. “Some landing at this speed.”