With Hostile Intent

by Robert Gandt

  Tracey heard the Tornado lead: “Sledgehammer is off target, one-hundred over one-hundred.”

  “Hammer copies,” answered Butch Kissick. “You are green south, green south.”

  Kissick glanced over at Tracey and winked. It was good news. The Tornado leader was reporting that they’d put a hundred percent of their munitions on target — with no losses.

  So far, so good, thought Tracey. It meant that no MiGs would be taking off from Shayka Mazhar today. But something told her this couldn’t last. They still had Al-Asad and, most of all, Al-Taqqadum to worry about. Where were the MiGs?

  <>

  Jabbar had to laugh.

  From the cockpit of his MiG-29, parked under its camouflage netting, he could see the Krait missile. Saddam’s priceless death weapon looked like a section of drainage pipe, resting on its loading cradle out in the middle of the tarmac. It was exposed to attack from the air.

  That was precisely what Jabbar expected to happen.

  When he received the report that Shayka Mazhar air base was under attack, he knew they had only minutes left. Al-Taqqadum would not be spared. Standing beside his fighter, he had summoned the commander of the ordnance crew: “Remove the Krait missile from my aircraft.”

  The commander, a round-faced captain, stared disbelievingly. “Sir, I do not have that authority.”

  “You do now. I just gave it to you.”

  “But Colonel, what will I do with the weapon?”

  “I suggest you shove it up Saddam’s ass.”

  “But Colonel —”

  “Move, you idiot!” For emphasis, Jabbar produced his Makarov automatic pistol. He pointed it in the officer’s face. “Unload the missile.”

  Possessed with a new understanding, the ordnance officer leaped to his task. Within five minutes, he and his loading crew had detached the Krait missile from the fighter.

  Jabbar ordered his seven best pilots to man the remaining MiG-29s. He himself would fly the specially prepared MiG that, until minutes ago, had been designated to conduct the doomsday mission against the American aircraft carrier.

  Fuck doomsday missions, thought Jabbar. And fuck the maniac who dreamed up an attack that would ensure the total destruction of Iraq. In a single act Jabbar had spared his country an unspeakable horror.

  Sitting in his cockpit, Colonel Jabbar felt a sense of calm satisfaction. His old red helmet — the same one he had worn for ten years — rested on his cockpit rail, ready to don. He was prepared do what he did best: fight the enemy in the sky.

  With eight jets. It was futile, of course. This fine February day would surely be the last for him and his gallant young pilots. But if they kept their composure and pounced when the enemy was least ready —

  Jabbar saw a car driving across the ramp. It was a black Fiat.

  The Fiat was followed by a truck with two dozen Republican Guard in the back. In the car Jabbar could see at least four Bazrum agents.

  They stopped to inspect the unloaded Krait missile. Jabbar saw the agents looking around. One of them pointed at his MiG parked under the camouflage net.

  Jabbar knew it was time. He called down to his crew chief. “Hurry, Suliman! Remove the camouflage net! We’re starting engines.”

  <>

  Puffy black mushrooms were erupting two thousand feet below them. Fifty-seven millimeter, Maxwell guessed. Or maybe eighty-eight. The AA was coming from somewhere near the Latifiyah complex. None of the bursts was yet above twenty thousand.

  Maxwell wished for a moment that he could roll in on the gun positions. It would be nice to treat the inhabitants to a shower of high explosive. But not this trip. Today they had more important business.

  No SAMs were in the air, at least not yet, and that suited Maxwell just fine. If the HARMs had done their job, the SAM sites were now a smoldering ruin.

  Both Chevy flights — DeLancey’s division of four Hornets and Maxwell’s flight of four — were approaching the initial points. Strangely, the chatter had subsided on the tactical frequency. Maxwell could see that the lead division was in a shallow dive, and though he couldn’t see the actual weapons he knew that the laser-guided GBU-24 bombs would be dropping from the fighters toward their destinations.

  That was the beauty of smart bombs, he thought. Not just that you could thread them through an opening no larger than a ventilator shaft. You did it while remaining outside the killing range of the anti-aircraft guns. For a strike fighter pilot, it was life insurance.

  On his FLIR display Maxwell picked up his assigned target — a row of low buildings on the inner periphery of the Latifiyah complex. They housed a missile assembly line — for another minute or two, anyway.

  In the adjoining row of structures, he saw a building erupt in a geyser of debris, and he could imagine hearing the explosion — Kaploom.

  A second later — Kaploom — the adjoining building.

  One after the other — Kaploom Kaploom Kaploom — Chevy One flight’s bombs were exploding on their targets. One building after the other was vanishing in a dirty brown puff.

  As Chevy One’s bombs rained down on their targets, Chevy Five flight, Maxwell’s next flight of four Hornets, approached the initial point.

  Maxwell shoved the nose of his Hornet over in a shallow dive. He took a glance to either side. They were out there in combat spread — B.J on the left, Craze and Hozer on the right. Each was busy acquiring his own target with the jet’s laser designator.

  For an instant Maxwell worried about his wingman. If a nugget’s nerve was to fail, this was the moment. He pushed the mike switch for the back radio, the frequency shared only by his flight. “Are we having fun yet, Chevy Six?”

  A sassy voice answered, “No sweat, boss. Just a walk in the park.”

  Maxwell smiled inside his oxygen mask. So much for his wingman’s nerve. B.J. Johnson was cool.

  In his HUD, Maxwell slewed the laser designator over the target. . . fine-tuned it. . . sweetening the designation just a little left. . . up just a smidgen. . . there. . . right over the transom of the front door. . .. Release!

  Now the hard part. Waiting, letting the laser designator illuminate the target while the GBU-24 plunged like a hawk to its quarry.

  Twenty-five seconds to impact.

  Ten seconds.

  Maxwell knew that if he did his job right, the brown, nondescript building in his HUD— he’d been told it was a missile propellant lab — would be converted to a smoking crater.

  Five seconds.

  Zero seconds. The GBU should be —

  Kaploom.

  Maxwell felt like cheering. Not quite a bulls-eye, he calculated. More like three or four feet. Close enough for government work. No more propellant lab. No more building.

  He saw the other Hornets’ bombs arriving. Kaploom. Kaploom. Kaploom. The geysers erupted in rapid succession. More brown puffs, more vanished buildings.

  “Chevy Five off target,” Maxwell called.

  “Chevy Six off.”

  “Chevy Seven off.”

  “Chevy Eight.”

  Maxwell pulled up hard, rolling the Hornet into a right bank. All his jets were off target, weapons delivered. Grunting against the Gs, he peered down at the target area. Smoke was billowing from the ruined complex. The Latifiyah assembly plant had just been transformed to a complex of landfills.

  It was the best possible result, Maxwell thought. They’d nailed the target and, best of all, they came through unscathed. All they had to do was rejoin and egress. It was time to get out of town.

  On the tactical frequency, he heard DeLancey calling AWACS. “Sea Lord, Chevy one. Picture?” He wanted to know if they had intruders.

  “Picture clear,” came the voice of Tracey Barnett. “No, wait! Pop up target —East Boston—five miles.”

  Maxwell instinctively swung his head to peer over each shoulder, scanning the horizon. Pop up target! It had to be the MiGs. The bastards hadn’t bothered trying to deflect the bombing attack. Instead, they stayed low and wa
ited until the Hornets were coming off the target.

  When they were most vulnerable.

  The tactical frequency filled with excited chatter.

  “Chevy One, bandits two o’clock low!”

  “Snap Vector, Chevy One, tactical, one-five-zero, ten miles.”

  “Chevy Three, Hound dog at three o’clock, engaging.”

  “One copies, three, cleared to strip.”

  “Bandits, Bandits! Eight o’clock, three miles!”

  Maxwell peered in each direction, trying to pick up the bandits. Where the hell were they? DeLancey’s flight was engaged. Had to be Fulcrums, Maxwell figured, probably up from the Al-Taqqadum air base, less than fifty miles away.

  It was classic, Maxwell thought. Just when you started thinking your enemy was on the ropes, he surprised you with a shot to the groin.

  The MiGs were all around them.

  B.J.’s voice crackled over the radio. “Brick, Break right! Bandit, your right four o’clock low.”

  Maxwell jammed the stick to the right and pulled. Straining against the sudden G load, he peered over his right shoulder. Where was —

  He saw it. A Fulcrum, low and fast. It looked like a double-finned shark, coming after him.

  But the guy was too eager, Maxwell noted. His convergence angle was too acute. Maxwell pulled hard into the attacker and kept turning. He could see that the MiG was going to overshoot, go wide behind him. He would set up the kill for B.J.

  “Stay in your turn, Brick,” called B.J. “I’ll have a shot in ten seconds.”

  Maxwell pulled harder. You’d better have a shot, he thought. They were both going to be toast in about fifteen seconds. The MiG jockey had buddies out there.

  Maxwell was losing sight of the MiG as the Russian-built fighter overshot the turn and disappeared behind him. This was the hard part. His instincts told him to reverse the turn, pull up in a vertical, execute a pirouette and come back down on the MiG. But this wasn’t a one vee one. He had a wingman.

  It was B.J.’s job to cover his tail. Stay in your turn. I’ll have a shot in ten seconds. Could she do it? He would soon find out.

  Maxwell stayed in the turn.

  <>

  Bandits high at nine o’clock. DeLancey had both MiGs in sight, but he didn’t call them out. If he called a break turn now, Undra would turn into them and then both would get away.

  DeLancey started a turn to the left, keeping his nose down. The lead Fulcrum looked like he was blowing through. The guy was fast, probably trying to get the hell out of town before he got whacked. But the second Fulcrum was out of position, high and wide. He didn’t yet see the Hornets below him.

  The second Fulcrum was a sitting duck.

  DeLancey selected an AIM-120 radar-guided missile and turned his Hornet hard into the second MiG. As he pulled his nose around for a firing solution, he thought for a second about his own useless wingman. Undra was still back there somewhere. It occurred to DeLancey that Undra could be in trouble. What if the lead MiG didn’t just blow through and decided instead to take a shot at Undra?

  DeLancey considered for a second. Perhaps he should delay his turn while he talked Undra back down to the formation. The two Hornets would again have mutual support.

  But that would take precious seconds. Time was critical. If he waited for Undra to rejoin, he would lose the MiG.

  His fifth kill.

  Screw that, thought Killer DeLancey. Undra Cheever was on his own.

  <>

  Speed is life.

  It was the fighter pilot’s mantra, and it was flashing through the mind of Colonel Tariq Jabbar as he led his MiG-29s in a supersonic charge at the enemy Hornets.

  He had almost been too late. He was still starting the second engine when the Bazrum staff car came skidding up to the revetment. Jabbar had shoved the number one throttle all the way to the stop and came blasting out of the revetment in a storm of sand and thunder.

  Too late, the driver of the oncoming black Fiat saw the big fighter coming at him. He swerved, rocking up on two wheels, just as the MiG slammed into the car.

  Jabbar felt a lurch. The left wing rose up, then came back down. Jabbar guessed that the main landing gear had run over the Fiat. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that the automobile was flattened as if it had gone through a crusher.

  It occurred to him that he had probably done some damage to his aircraft. He wondered briefly whether the jet was still flyable. It didn’t matter, he decided. He would take off anyway.

  Russian airplanes were tough. Tougher than Italian cars.

  In pairs his fighters roared down the runway at Al-Taqqadum — just in time to nearly collide with the wave of incoming British Tornado jets. As the MiGs lifted from the runway, the Tornadoes sizzled across the field, spewing their loads of anti-personnel bombs.

  The last pair of MiGs didn’t make it. Caught on their take off roll by the deadly shredder bombs, both MiGs burst into flame and fireballed off the end of the runway.

  Now they were six.

  They stayed low, gathering speed as they hurtled toward Latifiyah. Jabbar’s plan was simple: Keep up the speed and rip through the flight of enemy Hornets, picking off as many as they could. Attack from one side, blow through and exit on the other side. Speed is life.

  Soon he saw them, dead ahead, just coming off their bombing targets at Latifiyah. Two Hornets, one low, the other pulling up. Beyond them, two more. And beyond them, still more. Jabbar had plenty of targets from which to choose.

  Jabbar selected the high one in the lead section. He was obviously a wingman, but with his nose pointed up, he was blind to his leader, who was accelerating out ahead.

  Convenient, thought Jabbar. He banked hard to the right, opening up a lag between him and the Hornet. Then he cranked back hard to the left and pulled up nearly vertical.

  There! — an easy low-deflection shot at the Hornet’s tailpipes.

  Jabbar waited, gaining a positive lock with the Archer missile’s heat-seeking warhead. He had a good tone, well within range, less than a thousand meters.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  Whoom! The Archer leaped off its rail. Behind the missile Jabbar could see the thin gray trail of smoke. He watched the Archer quickly overtake the climbing Hornet.

  <>

  Undra Cheever looked wildly around him. He had to fight hard to suppress the panic that was swelling up in him.

  He couldn’t see anyone. Not the skipper, whom he was supposed to be following, and not the goddamn MiGs that were all over them like a cheap suit. Where were the MiGs everyone was jabbering about?

  His overriding thought after pulling off the target was simple: Get out of Dodge. Get the nose up, get away from those motherless anti-aircraft gunners down there who might get lucky and whack you with an eighty-eight millimeter.

  He had lost sight of his leader. Where was Killer?

  “Chevy One,” Undra called, “Chevy Two is blind on you.”

  “Your twelve o’clock low, engaged,” DeLancey answered. “Get your nose down.”

  Engaged? Shit, that meant Killer was already in a furball with a MiG, trying to score another kill. Killer didn’t give a fat rat’s ass about his own wingman.

  Undra pushed over, rolling up on his side to scan the terrain ahead. He picked up Killer’s Hornet low, in a left turn.

  Then he glimpsed something over his left shoulder. What was that? He saw a glint of sunlight, a trail of gray smoke.

  Suddenly he knew what he was seeing. Oh, shit, here comes a. . .

  In the next instant, he sensed the flash of the missile’s warhead. Then the explosion. It was the last thing Undra Cheever felt.

  <>

  “Fox Two!” called B.J.

  About time, thought Maxwell, still in a hard left turn. The MiG was still behind him somewhere. The radio call from his wingman meant that she had just taken a Sidewinder shot.

  Maxwell kept turning. Any second he ought to be hearing —

  “Splash On
e!” B.J.’s voice had a throaty, triumphant ring.

  Maxwell saw it over his right shoulder. The MiG-29 was falling like a shotgunned dove. B.J.’s Hornet was still locked onto his tail, prepared to launch another Sidewinder.

  Seconds later, the MiG’s canopy separated. Maxwell saw a flash, and the tiny insect-like pilot’s ejection seat popped up and behind the stricken jet. The parachute canopy blossomed and floated toward the desert.

  Maxwell couldn’t help thinking about the Iraqi pilot. He wondered how the guy would feel when he found out he had made history. He was the first jet fighter pilot to be shot down by a woman.

  He and B.J were nearly abeam now, the same altitude. Maxwell realized the fight wasn’t over.

  He saw two specks. MiGs. They were coming at them from three o’clock.

  “Chevy Six, Break right, bandits three o’clock level!”

  The fight was on again.

  Maxwell barely had time to roll into the oncoming MiGs. Too late for a head-on shot. They merged.

  Whoom! They passed nose-to-nose with over a thousand miles per hour closure speed. The lead MiG swept past so close Maxwell could see the pilot’s head in the cockpit.

  He was wearing a red helmet.

  <>

  Coming off the target at Latifiyah, Flash Gordon could see his wingman, Leroi Jones, a quarter mile abeam. Gordon and Jones were the second pair of Hornets in Killer DeLancey’s four-plane division.

  Through all the garble on the tac frequency, he was getting the picture. Pop up targets! But how many?

  He glanced at his situational display, then peered outside at the hazy desert sky. Killer and Undra were out there somewhere, already engaged. It was the job of the second section — Flash and Leroi — to cover them.

  Then he heard Leroi’s voice on the tac radio. “Bandits eight o’clock converging. I don’t think they see us.”

  He looked. He saw only empty sky. “No joy, visual, press!” I don’t see them but I have you in sight. You have the lead.

  “Roger, Leroi has the lead. Hard left, Flash ! Bandits low, nine o’clock. I’m pulling nose on to them.”

  Damn! Flash still couldn’t see them. He followed Leroi’s left turn and pulled hard.