by Dale Brown
He’d managed to get out of his jeans and sport coat and into a borrowed flight suit. The boots were a little small and his shoulders felt cramped across the back, but at least he looked like he actually belonged here. The crewmen had given him a helmet connected to the com system via a long umbilical cord.
“We’re zero five from the crash site,” yelled the copilot.
“We’re holding back as reserve until we’re sure they’ve got the pilot. Then we’ll move in and put you down.
Smoky’ll go out with you. How long do you need?”
“I don’t know,” said Mack. “Half hour? I have to take some pictures. See what I see. Kick the tires, check the lights.”
The copilot didn’t laugh. “Ten minutes, max. The Iraqis are all over the place down there.”
Chapter 13
Over Iraq
0805
Torbin took his eyes off his radar screen momentarily as the Phantom tucked southward. The helicopter that had been tabbed for the pickup was now talking directly to the downed pilot, who had managed to climb about a third of the way up a crag about a mile from a dirt road.
This was serious mountain country, but it wasn’t entirely uninhabited — a hamlet big enough to host a mosque sat about a mile and a half to the south, and Torbin saw, or at least thought he saw, the blurred shadows of some other buildings closer to the east.
Torbin turned his head back toward the radar when something in the sky caught his eye. A red light sparkled in the distance.
McRae’s flare.
Hot damn.
“Lookin’ good,” said the Pave Low pilot over the circuit. “Hang tight. We’ll be on you in thirty seconds.”
“Yeah, I’m doing my nails,” said the pilot.
Torbin studied his scope. There had been a few brief, long distance flickers, nothing long enough to actually grab on to.
How could they even think he’d screw up? Saddam had nothing up here that could catch even an unescorted F-16.
All he had up here was shit. The SA-2’s Fan Song radar?
Crap. The low PRF was surprisingly good at picking up stealth aircraft, though it hadn’t been designed for that.
But it was easily jammed. The SA-3? Arguably better, or at least more variable, supported by Spoon Rest and a Side Net, or Squat Eye with a Flat Face and Thin Skin.
Garbage nonetheless. Tiny little wavy lines straight out of the sixties, competing with I Love Lucy and even Father Knows Best. The systems had been compromised years ago. Junk from the days when tubes ruled the world and transistors came one to a chip. SA-6s, Rolands, SA-8s — better, admittedly, but still outclassed, out-matched by the ECMs the Falcons carried.
Even if he had screwed up big-time — and he had not—
Torbin knew that the Falcon pilot should have had his jamming pod ready. He could have gone to his chaff, juked, jived—
The radar scope flared.
“I have a Three up,” Torbin told his pilot. One of the antennas on the Weasel frame had pulled the tight rap of a radar signal from the air. It held it there for him, waiting for him to catch up. He didn’t bother with the usual back and forth with the pilot, just went for it. The RIO’s fingers flew, cursoring the enemy, pushing the data to the missile, firing, nailing the son of a bitch.
“Away. Have another radar. Hold on, hold on — it’s a Two. Out of range. SA-2. I’m on it. I’ll nail it.”
“Torbin!”
“Dotted. I need you to turn, damn it! Get into him.”
“Fire at the bastard.”
“Two miles — I need two miles. Get us closer!”
The enemy missile site was at the edge of the HARM
missile’s range; they needed to draw closer to guarantee a hit.
No time. He fired.
Glory B jinked a second after the AGM-88 left her wing, taking evasive action.
Traveling at over 3.1 times the speed of sound, it took the antiradiation missiles nearly fifty seconds to reach their targets. Those were not the longest seconds of Torbin’s life, but they did take an eternity to pass. Finally, the warhead of the first missile detonated into several thousand shards of tungsten alloy, perforating the puny walls of the SA-3’s control van as well as a radar dish and all four of the missiles standing in the paired launchers.
Five seconds later a massive fireball erupted in the northern launch area of Iraqi Army Air Defense “Victorious Glory” Battalion Two, a piece of the HARM warhead igniting the liquid fuel stage of a Guideline missile that had been poised for launch.
Chapter 14
In Iraq
0811
Mack hugged the helicopter’s side as he made his way to the rear ramp. A Ma Deuce .50 caliber machine gun sat in the middle of the opening, its long belt draped across the right side of the bay. The helo whipped around as it neared the wreckage, exposing its stinger to the crumpled metal on the side of the hill. The gunner angled the gun around as the helicopter spiraled; Mack nearly fell against the wall as the aircraft whipped practically onto its side before heading toward a small, relatively flat depression just below the slope.
A fat hand grabbed him by the shoulder. It was one of the pararescuers, “Smoky.” He’d traded his flight helmet for a soft campaign hat and had a Special Tactics Squadron 203—an M-16 with a grenade launcher attached — in his right hand.
“You ready, Major?” he shouted.
“Kick ass,” shouted Smith.
Smoky snorted. The helicopter jerked hard and the sergeant fell against Mack, the gun landing in his ribs. As Mack pushed him off, a volcano seemed to erupt just beyond the tail opening. Mack thought the gunner must be firing, then realized it was only the cloud of dust churned up by the rotors. He grabbed hold of something on the helicopter wall and threw himself toward the opening, following Smoky onto the ramp and then down to the ground, ducking instinctively and racing through the hail of dirt and rocks. Air rushed behind him as if a hole had just been blown in the side of the earth. In the next second he threw himself onto the slope, starting up hand over hand toward the wrecked F-16.
The dust had settled somewhat by the time he reached the wreckage. The Viper had slapped into the hillside almost nose first; most of the fuselage in front of the cockpit had disintegrated. The next six or seven feet of the plane had been crunched into about three-quarters of its original size; long ribbons of metal protruded from the twisted mass, as if they were the spines of a porcupine.
The jagged left wing sat down the slope, about twenty or thirty yards away. The rear tail fin was crumpled but more or less intact. The right wing was missing, sheered near the pylon fixing in a shallow diagonal away from the body of the plane. Some of the fuel system piping was visible; it seemed clean.
Mack reached for the tail fin. As his fingers neared the surface he hesitated, as if fearing it would be hot.
“What we lookin’ for?” asked Smoky, catching up behind him. The PJ had a microphone and headset so he could talk with the helicopter. He also humped a pack.
“Shrapnel holes, black streaks from a fire, basically a big hole or tear that can’t be explained by the impact,” said Mack. Actually, the list went on and on — nearly twenty minutes during one of Mack’s lectures, not counting time flirting with any pretty girls in the audience.
He pulled out the small 35mm camera and began taking pictures, walking along the side of the downed aircraft. The missing wing was undoubtedly the key, though the break looked remarkably clean for a missile hit.
Possibly torn off in flight after being weakened by a fire, though the fact that the fuel piping hadn’t burned meant …
Meant what?
“Missile?” Smoky asked.
“Yeah,” said Mack. “Probably took off the wing, exploded the fuel tank in the wing.”
“Wow.”
There had definitely been an explosion — there were shrapnel holes all over the place. But no fire?
Too wide a spread for a missile, actually, unless the explosion had been righ
t under the wing or maybe in it, smashed it to smithereens so that this jag and that one, and that one and all the others, were from the wing sharding off.
“This thing catch fire?”
“No.” Mack shrugged. “Sometimes you get a fire, sometimes you don’t. This looks like a pretty direct hit with a really good-sized warhead.”
He remembered a crash he’d seen where there hadn’t been a fire — the accident that had claimed Jeff Stockard’s legs. Funny that he remembered that and not his own shoot-down a few months ago.
“Wow, look at these holes,” said Smoky, pointing to the belly of the plane. “Flak?”
Mack bent down to take a look. “Too varied. Probably from the explosion. Besides, see how this folded down there? This damage here was from the impact. Metal came away. See the bolt on that panel? Gave way.” He stepped back and took a picture.
Two small warheads maybe? Happened to hit just right and snapped the wing clean off?
He’d want odds on that.
“A missile probably got the wing and exploded it. That big an explosion, though — I don’t know. Pilot got out.”
He went to study the cockpit, which had been munched by the impact into the mountain. Still — no fire.
Mack walked back to the right wing root. The wing had almost certainly been sheered off before impact.
He’d need to see it.
Some parts of the root were white, as if the metal had been on fire and just disintegrated into powder. But there clearly had been no fire. Mack bent over an internal spar; the bolts were loose.
Sympathetic vibrations after the explosion, he thought, shock wave knocks the metal loose.
He took some pictures.
What the hell missile hit them? An SA-2?
That clean, it had to be something smaller. Three little shoulder-fired missiles?
Three heat-seekers all nailing the wing? Very strange.
Crashes were strange by definition. Mack stood back and took pictures, changed his film, took more pictures.
The engineers could tell a lot by looking at the way the metal had been bent; those guys were the real experts. He was just a moonlighting pilot who’d happened to command a crash investigation during the Gulf War. He moved in for close-ups, then bent his head under the fuselage.
The metal was scraped and not exactly smooth. Some panels and spars seemed to have buckled, probably on impact. He saw a few more loose bolts and popped rivets, but nothing here contradicted his theory that the damage emanated from the right side of the plane.
Nice to find that right wing, he thought. Real nice.
He backed off the plane onto the top of the slope, taking more pictures as he walked upward.
Stockard had managed to eject after a collision with a robot plane he was piloting from an F-15E Eagle. He’d been way low when he went out, and his chute never had a chance to fully deploy — though it was never clear to Mack whether he’d been injured going out or landing.
His plane had been a mangled collection of thick silver string strewn over the desert test area where they were flying at the time. Mack could close his eyes and still see Zen’s body lying in a heap against the flat dirt, the lines to his parachute still attached. The canopy had furled awkwardly, as if trying to pull him to his feet.
What if a stream of flak had shot through the metal, exploded the wing tank, sliced the wing right off, he asked himself.
Not to be totally ruled out — except for the shrapnel over the rest of the plane’s body. The wing definitely seemed to have exploded.
Had to be a missile, had to have ignited the wing tank.
Except that it clearly hadn’t.
Mack took some more photos, then stopped to change the roll. As he closed the back of the camera, Smoky came running across the rocks.
“We got problems, Major!” shouted the PJ. “Company coming.”
Before Mack could answer, the ground shook and he fell backward against the hillside, the roar of an exploding tank shell blaring in his ears.
Chapter 15
Over Iraq
0815
As the Pave Low lifted off with the injured pilot, Torbin and Fitzmorris saddled up to go home with the rest of the escorts. The Wild Weasel ducked her wing gently to starboard, steaming gracefully into a turn. Her turbines chewed on the carcasses of a thousand dead dinosaurs; the slipstream melted into a swirl of blue-white vapor. Torbin jerked his bulky frame forward, still minding his gear but more relaxed now, redeemed by the hits on the missile control radars.
Let them try and say he fucked up now, he thought. He had two fresh scalps to prove he hadn’t.
Screw building houses. Honorable profession, oh yes, but just not what he wanted to do right now, even if his brother-in-law’s cousin Shellie was pretty good-looking.
Find some sort of job doing something worthwhile.
Crew on a stinking AWACS if it came to that.
Torbin pushed his legs against the side consoles, stretching some of the cramps out of them. He rolled his shoulders from side to side, still watching the threat scope. They had a long haul home, made all the longer by the fact that the Pave Low they were accompanying would be lucky to top 175 knots.
A jumble of happy voices filled the radio as the escorts checked in with the AWACS. Then the pilot in the second Pave Low called for radio silence.
“Flag Two has vehicles on the roadway,” said the strained voice over the loud cluck of helicopter blades in the background. “I’m looking at two BMPs, a tank maybe.”
“Snake One acknowledges,” answered the leader of the F-16 flight.
Torbin did a quick check of his gear as his pilot rejig-gered their plans — they’d dog south to provide cover for the F-16s wheeling to attack the vehicles.
“How you doing back there?” Fitzmorris asked as they came to the new course bearing.
“Not a problem.” Torbin shrugged. “Scope’s clean.”
Chapter 16
In Iraq
0821
They were naked on the side of the hill, exposed to the tank firing from the dirt road two hundred yards away.
Mack spotted a large group of boulders on his right and began sliding toward it. Smoky had the same idea, but not nearly as much balance — he flopped past Mack, just out of his grasp as another shell hit the hillside, this one so close that Mack smelled the powder in the dirt that flew against his helmet. He tumbled after the sergeant, rolling over three or four times before landing on his belly and sliding another four or five feet. He pulled himself up against the rocks, twisting his head back to get his bearings. Smoky’s leg lay nearby, off at an odd angle.
Severed?
It began to writhe, and Mack felt his stomach falling backward into a vacuum.
The dirt beyond the leg moved. “Jesus, this hurts like hell,” groaned Smoky, unfolding himself from the ground.
Mack stumbled over, took his arm and dragged him behind the rocks. Another volley resounded against the hillside. Mack heard the MH-53 hovering in the distance, then something else.
“Duck!” he yelled.
If the bomb whistled in — and undoubtedly it did — he never heard it. What he did hear was the muffled crack of a pair of five-hundred-pound iron bombs bracketing the turret of a T-62 Iraqi main battle tank. A chain of explosions followed as a second F-16 loosed a pair of cluster bombs on the other vehicles. The bombs hit slightly to the south of their aim point, the pilot’s mark thrown off slightly by the gusting wind and the vagaries of trying to hit a moving object while diving at five or six hundred miles an hour from fifteen thousand feet. Nonetheless, the loud rumble of a secondary explosion followed the rapid-fire popcorn of the bomblets going off.
The earth shuddered and Mack found himself lying flat on his back, eyes cupped with grit. He flailed his elbows, struggling to get upright like a frog tossed on his back.
When he finally got to his feet, he realized he’d pulled Smoky up with him.
“I’m all right, I’m all
right,” said the PJ.
“We got to get ourselves out of here,” said Mack.
“Where’s the helicopter?”
“He cleared back to let the fighters in,” said Smoky, who’d lost his headset somewhere. “He won’t leave us, I guarantee.”
“Where the fuck is he?”
“He’ll be back.” The sergeant put some weight on his right leg, grimaced, then fell against the rock.
“All right, come on,” said Mack, though he wasn’t exactly sure where they were going.
“You don’t have to carry me,” said the sergeant.
“I ain’t fuckin’ carrying you,” snapped Mack. “Just lean on me. We’ll go back to the flat where they dropped us. Shit — what are you doing?”
As Smoky swung his 203 up from his side, Mack ducked back, sure that the sergeant had lost his mind and was about to waste him.
Two quick bursts later something fell from the hillside above the airplane behind them.
A dead Iraqi soldier.
“Come on!” yelled Mack.
“Smoke!”
“What?”
As the sergeant reached below his vest, Mack took hold of his other arm and looped it around his neck. He pulled Smoky down around the rocks as the ground erupted behind them — bullets from two more soldiers coming across the hill.
“Smoke!” The sergeant’s voice had gone hoarse. He had a small canister in his hand.
A smoke grenade. Good idea.
Mack leaned against the sergeant to prop him up as he flicked his arm, tossing rather than throwing the grenade.
Soot began spewing from the canister, which landed only a few yards away.