Phantom Strike

by William H. Lovejoy

  Al-Qati turned his head to look at him. “I trust that you do not expect me to operate this thing, Ibrahim.”

  The infantry commander tapped the hood of the radar.

  “Of course not,” Ramad said. “We will concern ourselves less with accuracy than with demonstrating the concept.”

  The airframe shuddered as they came down through the sonic barrier.

  Ramad reached out for the armaments panel and armed the two bombs. They were simulated bombs, of course, each filled with three-hundred kilograms of white powder and three kilograms of high explosive.

  He switched the HUD display to Continuously Computed Impact Line.

  The airspeed dropped to 450 knots.

  Then four hundred knots.

  Ramad checked the wings. The computer was slowly rotating them forward as the speed deteriorated.

  Automation. He loved it, and he had, after many flying hours of doubting it, come to rely on it.

  Al-Qati leaned toward him, to get a better view of the HUD.

  “Do you understand it?” Ramad asked.

  “No.”

  “The circle in the centre is the estimated location of the target, data that I programmed into the computer earlier. The almost vertical dotted line leading toward it is the recommended flight path from our present position. Our current heading, one hundred and forty-two degrees is indicated at the bottom. The number to the right, minus fourteen, is the distance in kilometres to the target.”

  Al-Qati leaned back into his seat and retightened his harness. “We have similar targeting computers for our artillery.”

  “We may give thanks to Allah for his beneficence,” Ramad said.

  “Or to the Soviet Union,” al-Qati said.

  Ramad let his eyes go icy. The oxygen mask hid his scowl.

  He forced himself back to the task at hand.

  As they topped a line of high dunes, he assumed manual control of the aircraft. In the faraway, hazy distance, he saw the tiny white tent that had been erected in a geographical depression as his target. He utilized the electro-optical targeting system to verily its location and found it to be nearly a kilometre away from the position he had estimated for the computer. He punched the correction into the keypad and watched the HUD symbols shift minutely. With a little right rudder, he realigned the bomber on the target.

  Assuming the bombardier’s role, and with the small joystick located between his seat and the bombardier’s seat that controlled the electro-optical targeting symbol — a set of red cross hairs inside a red circle, he shifted the target rose until it covered the target circle on the HUD. Then he depressed the stud that locked the attack computer onto the target.

  He committed the attack by depressing the button on the head of the control stick.

  No matter what he did with the airplane now within predetermined parameters, the computer would determine the optimum release point.

  At six kilometres from the target, Ramad pulled the stick back and shoved the throttles into full afterburner. The immediate thrust from the turbojets pressed him back into his seat. The gravitation readout climbed to five Gs. He felt the skin around his eyes forced backward.

  The Su-24 aimed its nose toward the blue sky. In seconds, the altimeter indicated two thousand meters of altitude.

  He felt the bombs release.

  And eased the stick forward, centring it into the vertical climb.

  Altitude five thousand meters.

  The gravitational forces eased.

  He snap-rolled 180 degrees to the right, jerked the throttles back, then pulled the stick toward his crotch. The aircraft went inverted, and he looked up toward the earth, found the small white square that was his target.

  The bombs had not reached it yet.

  “Do you see, Ahmed?”

  “Yes. I see.”

  By the tone of his voice, al-Qati seemed unimpressed by the precision flying that Ramad was performing for him. He certainly gave no indication that the aerobatics had upset his equilibrium or stomach.

  The simulated bombs impacted in the sandy surface of the earth, their small explosive charges destroying the bomb cases and creating geysers of white powder. He estimated each to be within forty meters of the target, which would have been destroyed had the bombs not been dummies.

  As he came out of the loop at near ground level, Ramad passed to the right of the target so that they had a clear view of the bomb impact.

  “That was very well executed, Colonel,” al-Qati said.

  The man sounded sincere.

  “Thank you, Ahmed. The technology and the training of my pilots — and I say that proudly — will allow us to deliver… whatever it is we wish to deliver with similar ease and precision.”

  “And we are to develop the tactics which will coordinate your bombs with my ground advance?”

  “Exactly! Just think, Ahmed, how we will complement each other. Would it not be better for your tanks and armoured vehicles to arrive at a target site that has already been devastated.”

  “Infinitely better,” al-Qati agreed.

  Again, he advanced the throttles to afterburner and climbed toward the heavens, performing one victory roll during the ascent.

  “Together, Ahmed, we will show the world what we are capable of accomplishing.”

  “I am certain that is true, Ibrahim.”

  “Allah akbar!”

  Ibrahim Ramad was but the tool of Allah, to be used as necessary to achieve the goals of Islam.

  He knew that.

  He also knew what Allah had in mind.

  *

  Wyatt parked the Citation in the transient section at College Park Airport and ordered it refuelled. He rented a Mercury Topaz, drove north to the Capitol Beltway, and jammed himself into the eastbound traffic. His fellow travellers were of the hunt-and-peck variety, searching for spaces in adjacent lanes and jumping into them, only to be disappointed by the lack of progress and jumping back to where they had been.

  At the interchange with Georgia Avenue, he extricated himself from the line-up in the right lane and took Georgia north to the suburb of Wheaton. Wyatt found the Wheaton Plaza easily enough, and he found a place to park the Mercury in a crowded lot with just a little more difficulty. He got out, locked the car, and started looking for a place called the Pizza Joint.

  He was half-an-hour ahead of the dinner hour rush and had a large number of open tables from which to choose. Wyatt picked a red Naugahyde booth in the back comer of the dining room and slid into it.

  It was a family kind of place. There were red-and-white-checked tablecloths, red candles in heavy iron holders designed to keep the pizzas warm, and travel posters lining the empty walls above the booths. Most of the travel posters promoted countries on the northern side of the Mediterranean: Greece, Italy, France, Spain. The owners were promoting safe travel, no doubt. When he thought about it, though, he couldn’t recall ever seeing posters that begged him to “Take the Sun in Syria,” or “Ski Lebanon.”

  A young man with a mop of dark hair atop a band of short-cropped stubble that went clear around his head, wearing a short-sleeved shirt that matched the tablecloth, sidled up to him.

  “What can I get you, sir?”

  He looked at the platters hanging over the serving counter which defined the sizes available, then said, “Let’s have the gigantic with pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, onions, and green pepper. And a very tall, very cold, root beer.”

  The boy didn’t seem impressed by the size of his order. “Twenty minutes.”

  The pizza didn’t come for twenty-five minutes, five minutes after Church and Embry arrived. They poked their heads inside the entrance, spotted him, and walked to the back.

  Church was in his typically preppy uniform of chinos, blue buttoned-down cotton shirt, striped tie, and blue sport coat. The only wrinkles were in his forehead, and they seemed deeper than ever.

  George Embry wore a grey suit that was two or three years past its prime and contained enough wr
inkles to match Church’s forehead. He was half-wearing a paisley tie loosened against the heat. Taking the side of the booth next to Wyatt, Embry slid in, then looked up at the menu posted next to the platters.

  “Hi, Major. What looks good?”

  “I don’t know what you want, George, but you’re getting pepperoni and sausage.”

  “No anchovy?”

  “Nary a one.”

  “Good.”

  Church sat across from them.

  “I didn’t know you were coming along, Marty, or I’d have ordered more.”

  “I’m not much in the mood for pizza, anyway,” Church told him.

  “Used to be, we’d meet where we could get a decent steak or a lobster tail,” Wyatt said.

  “New austerity program,” Embry said. “I’m not happy about it myself.”

  The pizza arrived, along with Wyatt’s root beer. Embry and Church ordered more potent beer.

  While waiting for the waiter to deliver two steins, Wyatt and Embry worked wedges out of the pizza. It tasted fine to Wyatt.

  With apparent reluctance, Church scooped up a slice for himself.

  “You guys asked me here,” Wyatt said. “I suppose there was an important reason?”

  “That’s right,” Church said, “very important.”

  “You’re not calling it off?”

  “We haven’t aborted any mission we’ve ever given you, have we now?” Church asked.

  Four years had passed since Martin Church had first approached then-Major Andrew Wyatt in a meeting at the Sans Souci, where they had eaten lobster.

  *

  “How good are you at predicting the future, Major?”

  “I haven’t been keeping track, Mr Church, but the records probably not impressive.”

  “We’re in the prediction business in my shop!”

  “And how’s your record?” Wyatt asked.

  “So-so. There are a couple things I’m sure of, however!’

  “Such as?”

  “The military is going to be reducing its numbers in the next few years.”

  Wyatt had the same premonition. “And?”

  “And you will probably be one of those numbers.” Wyatt raised an eyebrow. Was this a recruitment pitch? “You’ve talked to Air Force personnel?”

  “Not directly, no. The problem is, you’re not in the right career track. You’ve antagonized a few people who wear stars. You’re divorced. You open your mouth at times when it would best remain closed.”

  Wyatt couldn’t think of any counterarguments.

  “You’re a prime target for reduction in force, just a few years shy of the pension.”

  “I fly well,” he said defensively and somewhat lamely.

  “Which is why we’re talking. You’re certified in a dozen types of aircraft, and you’re also an efficient manager. The latter quality isn’t always recognized in the military.”

  Wyatt didn’t ask how Church knew what he knew. “My agency will also suffer some cutbacks, and I’m preparing for that lean future,” Church said. “I need an organization that I can call on for special projects.”

  “An organization with airplanes?”

  “Right.”

  “A modern-day Air America?”

  “Much smaller in scope” Church said. “We’re cutting back, remember There won’t be anyone on a payroll.” No recruitment.

  “Contract players?” Wyatt asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “Maybe I want to take my chances on reaching for that pension.”

  “You could do that, but I think you’d rather fly.” Again, Wyatt didn’t have an argument.

  “So I’ll give you ten million dollars to keep you flying.”

  “This is great lobster, Mr. Church.”

  “For one thing, I’ve got the ten million today. Next year, or the year after, Major, I probably won’t have it.”

  “That’s the kind of money” Wyatt said, “that buys a lot of risk. A lot of dead people.”

  “DOD’s paying you forty thousand a year to take the same risks now.”

  “It’s legal.”

  “You’d never be asked to do anything that isn’t sanctioned at the highest levels, though I admit that the general public might not always see it in the best possible light.”

  Wyatt scraped the last meat from the shell and dipped it in the butter.

  “The ten mil comes to you in the form of four contracts, fronted through various agencies or companies. Five of it is your start-up cash. Use it any way you want to set up your organization. Buy yourself a pension fund if you’re that security conscious.”

  “Five million up front buys some other things,” Wyatt said, chewing his lobster.

  “That is correct. It buys your absolute loyalty and your willingness to perform on short notice well into the future.”

  “How far into the future?”

  “Not determined. We see how it goes. But you get paid on each project.”

  “And the other five?”

  “At the moment, we’ve got four quickie projects on the table…”

  *

  Wyatt couldn’t complain about many of the projects he had been handed over the last four years. Usually, they were small: transporting sensitive cargo into sensitive geographical areas, assembling teams of aviation experts to conduct workshops, seminars, and training sessions for governments and non-governments which needed the help. A couple of times, he and Barr had been asked to extract endangered agents from hostile territory. The particularly lucrative contracts had involved the use of live ordnance, but those had only come up three times before.

  “The difference might be, Marty, that we’ve never had a mission on this large a scale,” Wyatt said. “With the number of aircraft and people involved, we’ve become way too visible. The risk factor is high. And with the way the politics keep shifting, especially in the Middle East, I expect the go/no-go switch to be thrown on and off.”

  “It’s definitely not off,” Church said. “George can tell you why.”

  Wyatt scooped up another wedge of the pizza as he looked to Embry.

  “We — that’s me and my analysts — think that our fears have been realized. We think the chemical plant is now producing weapons in large quantities.”

  “We suspected that going in,” Wyatt said. “That was the rationale for this operation.”

  “Yeah, Andy, but when we planned it, we were worried about a small stockpile of delicate weapons under the control of a less-than-delicate administration. Now, it gets worse.”

  “How so?”

  “One of my people went back through overhead surveillance tapes and made some estimates of the amount of raw materials that have been shipped in to the plant. He also computed the estimated tonnage of fertilizer coming out.”

  “And it doesn’t come out equal?” Wyatt asked.

  “Not by a long damned shot. Over the last couple of years, we figure we’ve lost track of about four hundred tons of liquid and solid raw material. That’s based on mathematical projections, since we naturally don’t have all of the photographs we might want to have.”

  “So they’re storing it inside the plant.”

  “But in what form, Andy? If it’s one-hundred-pound artillery shells or missile warheads or wide-dispersal bombs, that adds up to eight thousand units.”

  “That’s a bunch,” Wyatt agreed.

  “Plus, with our estimates of storage space inside the plant, we don’t think there’s enough room to store that many shells.”

  “So they may have moved them?”

  “That’s the worry. If we don’t hit them soon, they could spread that ordnance all over the country. As it is, we may miss some of it.”

  “How come you didn’t do all this computing earlier?”

  “Maybe it’s because we’re human,” Embry said.

  Six

  It was nearly midnight when the Citation landed.

  Janice Kramer was in the office with Ace the Wonder Cat, and
she had been ignoring the paperwork stacked on her desk so she could keep an eye on the runway. The Aeroconsultants building was located on Clark Carr Loop, a circle of hangars and offices in the commercial section of the airport south of the east-west runway. From the side window of the single executive office, she had a view down the alley between buildings. It was a clipped view, revealing just a few hundred yards of the west end of the runway and the adobe-styled passenger terminal building on the north side of the runway. The current activity was limited to a few night-scheduled passenger liners. Kirtland Air Force Base, which shared the runway with Albuquerque International, appeared quiet tonight.

  She was also monitoring Albuquerque Approach on the radio in the outer office, and she heard Wyatt call in, so she was ready when the Cessna flashed across her limited view of the runway. It slowed quickly, then turned onto the end taxiway and headed directly for the hangar.

  Sometimes, she daydreamed about the way things could have been, or might be, and she found herself damning Andy Wyatt for what he was. And she damned herself for putting up with it and waiting feverishly for his plane to come in. She had waited too many nights.

  Again and again.

  When she pushed herself up out of her chair, Ace sat up on the desk and yawned.

  “You can’t be hungry again.”

  “Mee-yaw.”

  That was “yes” in feline-mongrel, so she went out to the storeroom off the hangar, found a can of 9-Lives tuna, and popped the top off it. She had scooped it into his dish by the time Ace got there. There was very little in Ace’s world that required haste.

  Ace never said thanks, either. He just went into a semi-squat and started to nibble.

  Kramer went on to the back of the hangar, which abutted the tarmac. There were two business jets in the hangar, both in partial disassembly as they underwent alterations in their technology as well as refurbishing from merely luxurious to ultra-luxurious. One belonged to a Texas real estate developer, and the other was owned by a Hollywood producer. Both men had been referred to Aeroconsultants by a Saudi prince.

  Aeroconsultants enjoyed a credible word-of-mouth advertising program. Currently, Kramer had a seven-month backlog of projects, and they were going to back up even further since Wyatt was draining off all of the manpower for the latest Agency contract.