He had expected that when this moment came, he would be feeling something—pride, relief, exultation. He should be hearing trumpets and choirs of avenging angels. Down in his gut he should be feeling a grim satisfaction.
No such emotion was rising up in him. Josh Dunn was gone. So were the sailors and marines and pilots killed by Jamal Al-Fasr and his terrorists. Nothing would change that.
Revenge wasn’t sweet, he thought. It was empty.
A glance at the EFD—engine fuel display—returned him to the present. The totalizer indicated nine-hundred pounds remaining. Less than ten minutes flying time.
He wouldn’t make it out of Yemen.
Gritti listened to the reports on the PRC-90. On either side—east and west—of the complex he had landed two companies of marines. They were applying a pincers on theSherji who were dug in outside the old BP compound. The Cobras were raking them with 2.75 rockets and rotary cannons.
He removed the steel-rimmed spectacles and took a look through his field glasses. A few scattered pockets ofSherji were still resisting. “What the hell are they fighting for?”
Hewlitt, who was given to philosophizing, offered a theory: “It’s a macho thing. These are mountain men, an ancient Islamic warrior clan. They may not feel like dying, but they have to prove that they’re not afraid to. Once that’s established, they’ll pack it in.”
“They’d better start packing,” grumbled Gritti. “They’re wasting my time and ordnance.”
TheSherji ’s western-flank defenders had already gotten a close-up look at the pair of LAV-25 light tanks rumbling toward their line and reached a pragmatic decision. A white flag was flying over their position. Slowly, each of the hundred and fifty fighters rose from cover and began stacking AK-47s and machine guns.
While a squad took charge of the prisoners, the tanks charged into the complex, followed by an infantry company. Under fire from three sides, the defenders on the eastern flank quickly reached the same conclusion as their western comrades. One by one, they laid down their arms, making a show of placing their hands on their heads.
In the command Hummer, Gritti and Hewlitt rolled into the compound on the heels of the advancing marines. After transmitting a situation update on the satellite UHF radio, Gritti climbed out and looked around.
A hard-surfaced gravel road ran between two rows of tin-roofed buildings. At the end of the road, on either side, swelled half a dozen earth-covered mounds, each large enough, Gritti supposed, to store vehicles and supplies.
Inside the complex, between two of the buildings, over two hundredSherji were kneeling in a cluster while marine intelligence specialists and the linguist went through the group. Gritti could see the prisoners nodding agreeably and pointing to various features in the compound.
He turned to Hewlitt. “Anyone report seeing Al-Fasr?”
“They claim he’s flying one of the MiGs.”
Gritti watched the advance fire teams cautiously entering the complex of tin-roofed buildings. “What about mines and booby traps?”
“The clearing squad is working the area. The capturedSherji all swear that it’s clean. Nothing planted.”
Gritti nodded toward the kneeling prisoners. “Do they understand how extremely pissed off I’m going to be if any of my marines step on a mine?”
“I told them you will cut off their balls with a bayonet.”
At this, Gritti had to grin. “Tell ’em that’s just for starters.”
“Runner One-one is fuel critical. I need a tanker now.” Maxwell tried to suppress the urgency in his voice.
“Roger, Runner One-one,” answered the controller in the Hawkeye. “Texaco tanker is on Bravo station. Can you make it to him?”
“Negative. I’ve got six minutes left. Maybe less.” His totalizer was indicating seven hundred pounds. At such a low quantity, the indication could be off by several hundred pounds.
The controller didn’t answer for several seconds. Maxwell knew he was conferring with the tanker pilot and the Air Warfare Commander in theReagan . Finally the controller came back. “We can’t join you with the tanker in time, Runner One-one. He’s too far from you.”
“Okay, then give me vectors to a runway. Any runway.”
Another long silence. After half a minute the controller said, “Sorry, Runner One-one. Closest suitable would be San‘a. That’s more than ten minutes’ flying time.”
Maxwell didn’t argue. Whether or not he could make the San‘a airport was irrelevant. He knew the United States Navy didn’t want one of its Super Hornets dropping into the capital of the country they’d just finished attacking.
“Okay, give me a vector to a safe ejection area.”
“Copy, Runner. Take a heading of 110 and climb to ten thousand. We’re alerting the SAR helo now.”
Maxwell felt his stomach churning. Another damned ejection over Yemen. It had to be some kind of record. Using the ejection seat of a jet fighter was, by definition, a violent and dangerous way to exit an airplane. He’d gotten away with it once, and that was as much luck as he deserved.
He nudged the nose of the jet upward and started the turn to the southeast. He mentally reviewed the ejection procedures: squawk emergency; cabin pressure ram/dump; shoulder harness locked . . .
His thoughts were interrupted by a transmission. “Runner One-one, do you read Boomer?”
It was a new, croaky voice. Maxwell had to think for a second. “Is that you, Gus?”
“Affirmative. I hear that you’re gonna punch out of another government-issue airplane. That’s kind of wasteful, isn’t it?”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“I’ve got one, Runner. How about a ten-thousand-foot runway?”
As runways go, it was neither wide—only about seventy-five feet—nor straight. It had a few gentle twists, undulating across the high desert like the path of a snake. The British had constructed the road half a century ago. Al-Fasr had resurfaced it, added gravel, and turned it into a runway for fighters.
“If those MiG jockeys could fly off this road,” said Gritti on the tac frequency, “it should be a piece of cake for you squid tailhookers.”
Against the drab bleakness of the desert, the road was nearly invisible. Not until he was close—lower than two hundred feet above the ground—did he get a clear view of the surface.
It was rough.
Landing a $40-million fighter on a surface that you wouldn’t drive a new truck on was an unnatural act. He flared the jet—another unnatural act for a pilot accustomed to slamming down on a carrier—and eased the Hornet’s wheels onto the narrow road.
Scrunch. Scrunch.The landing gear bit into gravel. Maxwell held his breath as the full weight of the jet settled onto the road. For several seconds he remained tense, waiting to see if the road surface would support the twenty-ton F/A-18.
It did. He snatched both throttles toOFF .
Unlike the MiG-29, the F/A-18 was intended for the sterile runways and flight decks of the U.S. Navy. The Hornet’s F414 engines self-destructed at the first whiff of a foreign object in their intakes.
While the engine RPMs slowly wound down, Maxwell steered the Hornet along the gently twisting road. In the eerie quiet outside the cockpit, he could hear the tires crunching through the loose gravel.
Ahead, a Hummer was parked at the roadside. As Maxwell brought the fighter to a smooth stop, he opened the canopy.
The cool mountain air swept through the cockpit. His flight suit was soaked with perspiration. He removed his helmet and let the dry wind blow over him.
Before he shut off the switches, he glanced at his engine fuel display. The totalizer indicated two hundred pounds. Less than two minutes’ worth.
An officer with a dirt-streaked face and disheveled BDUs dismounted from the Hummer and strolled over to the side of the cockpit. “Welcome to Al-Fasr International Airport.”
“Hey, Gus, has anyone told you that you look like shit?”
He followed Gritti into the tin bui
lding.
“Look at this,” said Gritti. He was standing in the middle of the large room. An array of electronic devices lined two entire walls. “Radios, scanners, monitors, SatComm—you name it. Enough gear in this room to run a country. The entire complex is networked with computers, all fed by that jumbo server over in the corner.” Gritti shook his head. “Incredible, when you consider that most of the peasants out here have never even seen a television.”
He moved from rack to rack, peering at each device. He stopped in front of a black-paneled console. “This is pure gold. You know what it is?”
Maxwell leaned close. “Looks like some kind of disc player.”
“An optical data storage unit. A damn big one. I’ll bet this thing holds more secrets than the Kremlin.” He turned to Hewlitt. “Make sure that sucker leaves with us.”
Gritti checked his watch again. “We have to be airborne by dusk. Let’s check the rest of this joint out.”
They walked through each of the buildings, finding more communications equipment. In the last of the tin-roofed structures, they discovered a bank of file cabinets. “More goodies,” said Gritti. He called for a squad of marines to load the cabinets into one of the Super Stallions.
At the northern end of the complex, six earth-covered mounds rose twenty feet above the ground. A hard-surfaced ramp sloped downward to the entrance of each mound.
Gritti went down the ramp of the first mound and opened the sliding overhead door. A light came on automatically, illuminating a cavernous space beneath the ground. The space was empty.
They walked inside, peering around at the concrete-reinforced walls and ceiling. The interior of the mound was even larger than it appeared from the outside.
“Guess what they kept in here,” Gritti said.
Maxwell nodded. “So this is it.” He looked at the gray-painted tug vehicle in the back of the space; then he walked over to the wall where a collection of hoses and tools was hanging. “The mystery MiG base.”
“It didn’t show up in the TARPS photos you guys took,” said Gritti. “Even the recon satellite missed it.”
Maxwell was shaking his head. “Another intelligence breakdown. They kept telling us the MiGs came from Eritrea or Chad.”
“All Al-Fasr had to do was come roaring out these bunkers, take off on the road, and he was on you like a dirty shirt.”
Maxwell kept looking at the empty bunker. Something kept nagging at him. The MiG base should have been obvious, but it went undetected.
Why?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SPYCATCHER
USSRonald Reagan
Gulf of Aden
1815, Thursday, 20 June
Maxwell counted six destroyers weaving in a crisscross pattern across the Gulf. A squadron of sub-hunting helicopters was working fore and aft of theReagan as the carrier cruised eastward into the Arabian Sea. Several miles away, two P-3 Orion patrol planes were skimming the ocean ahead of the battle group.
At the far end of the conference table sat Admiral Fletcher. Next to him sat Captain Stickney, and on the opposite side Spook Morse and Guido Vitale. Col. Gus Gritti, haggard and shaking from fatigue, had given his account of the campaign, then gone to bed, promising to rejoin them in the morning.
Fletcher looked directly at Maxwell. “What makes you so sure it was Al-Fasr?”
“I’m a fighter pilot. I saw the way he flew, the fact that he was in the lead, the tactics he used.”
“Was there any chance that he could have survived the crash?” asked Fletcher. “Could he have ejected?”
“Not likely,” said Maxwell. “It would have to have happened in a split second before the MiG exploded.”
“I haven’t seen the HUD tape yet,” said Boyce. The Hornet’s cockpit video recorder taped everything the pilot saw through the heads-up display. “Let’s have a look.”
Maxwell reached into the zippered leg pocket of his flight suit and pulled out a cassette. “It was running the whole time.” He handed the tape to Morse, who inserted it in the VCR mounted behind the conference table.
The flickering, grainy image shot through the windscreen of Maxwell’s Hornet appeared on the wall-mounted screen. Morse fast-forwarded the picture until the shape of a MiG- 29 flitted into the HUD’s field of view. “That was the first engagement,” said Maxwell. “I took an AIM-9 shot, but he beat it.”
They watched the view change to the narrow walls of the canyon. Maxwell was chasing the MiG through the narrow ravine.
“Jesus,” muttered Boyce. “It looks like a video game.”
Suddenly the canyon bridge—the eye of the needle—appeared in the HUD. They saw the MiG roll up on its side and vanish through the hole.
The HUD view abruptly tilted sideways, and the eye of the needle zipped past the camera.
Several audible gasps came from around the table. “You’re either crazy as a bedbug,” said Boyce, “or you’re the world’s hottest fighter pilot.”
For the next several seconds, the MiG was gone from the HUD view. When it appeared again, it was in a high scissors, diving again toward the ground.
A SHOOT message appeared in the HUD. “That’s when I took the second AIM-9 shot,” said Maxwell.
The gray smoke trail of a missile could be seen aiming toward the rolling MiG. The missile exploded into the earth just behind the hard-turning MiG-29.
Again the MiG vanished from the screen. Not until several seconds later, after the Hornet had completed a reversal turn, did the terrain reappear. Scattered pockets of smoke and flame marked the crash site of the Fulcrum.
Morse pushed theSTOP button. “The impact with the ground was out of the HUD’s field of view,” he said.
None of the officers at the table spoke.
Finally Fletcher rose. “Gentlemen, if the man flying that MiG was Al-Fasr, then this unholy war is over. The marine unit has finished culling all the intelligence material from the terrorist base and the complex has been destroyed. I will report to CNO and the Joint Chiefs that our campaign in Yemen is concluded and all our personnel have been extracted. TheReagan has suffered major battle damage and will be heading through the Strait of Hormuz to Bahrain.”
“What about the submarine threat, Admiral?” Boyce asked. “Do you have a fix on him?”
“I wish we did. SUBLANT has tagged the sub—a Project 636 boat namedIlia Mourmetz —the only Kilo class unaccounted for in this part of the world. It was sold to Iran, but it seems that it never arrived.”
“So who’s crewing it?” Boyce asked. “Who put the torpedoes into us?”
“Best guess is the Russian crew that was supposed to be delivering the boat to Iran and who most likely were bought out by Al-Fasr. The Russian government has been very forthcoming with data about the sub and the crew, mainly because they don’t want us to think they did it.”
“Where’s the sub now?”
“We don’t know. The ASW commander in theArkansas is certain that it’s no longer in our periphery.”
“If they don’t know where he is, how do they know he’s not just waiting somewhere to take another shot?”
Vitale pointed to the window. “Look out there. What you’re seeing is the biggest sub hunt in modern history. When that Kilo boat so much as turns a blade—and he’ll have to very soon—they’re going to kill him.”
“How’d he get away after firing his torpedoes?”
The operations officer just shook his head. “One of the dirty little secrets about antisubmarine warfare is that the old diesel/electrics, which we gave up years ago, by the way, are the stealthiest boats in the world. The sub skipper is either brilliant or incredibly lucky. He took an obsolete submarine and a mercenary crew and managed to get inside the most powerful battle group in the world.”
“And then escape,” added Boyce.
“Maybe there’s a lesson in this,” said Fletcher. He walked around from the end of the table and gazed out the window. “Our technology and our tactics evolved during the Cold
War to battle the Soviet Union. Somewhere along the way we forgot how to fight an enemy like Al-Fasr with old-fashioned weapons.”
“Sort of like getting knifed when you thought you were in a gunfight,” Boyce said.
“Something like that. A lot of mistakes were made in this campaign.” Fletcher stood with his hands clasped behind him, his back to the group at the table. “Most of them mine.”
A hush fell over the room. Morse was doodling on a notepad. Vitale’s mouth was half open. Stickney looked mesmerized. They were all watching Fletcher.
“The biggest mistake,” Fletcher went on, “was in letting the military chain of command be subverted by outside influences. That wasmy error. It’s one I will carry responsibility for to my grave.”
The silence hung in the compartment like a shroud. None of them had ever heard a flag officer bare his soul as Fletcher was doing.
“When they convene my court-martial,” said Fletcher, “I will testify that it was my overweening ambition and my acquiescence to . . .” He paused, and everyone waited for him to mention Babcock, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “. . . my inappropriate deference to a non-military official.”
He turned and looked at them. “You all have brilliant careers ahead of you. I want you to remember what happened here so that you don’t have to repeat it. It seems that we go through something like this every generation or so—a short-circuit in our military leadership. It happened in Vietnam, with politicians determining our targets. In Iran with the mismanaged hostage rescue. It happened in Lebanon when officials in Washington presumed to manage an air strike against the Syrians.”
Fletcher went back to his seat. “And history will show that it happened in Yemen.”
Stickney was the first to speak up. “Admiral, may I ask the status of Mr. Babcock? The last I heard, he was—”
“In his quarters.” Fletcher glanced at his watch. “Within the hour, he will be flown off to Dubai, and then be on his way back to Washington, where, no doubt, he will arrange for me to be relieved of this command.”
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