Countdown: H Hour

by Tom Kratman

  “Get me the gunships,” Stocker ordered.

  “Yessir, right away, sir. Sorry for being late, sir.”

  With impatience tempered by the knowledge that, after all, his men were only human, Stocker said, “Just do it.”

  “Yessir.”

  Stocker put his head up before it was driven down again by a low flying burst. Looking behind he saw that his men, the two platoons of them that were with him, were out of the boat and on the beach. That was the most he could say, though. Even the destruction of that bunker off to the right hadn’t appreciably reduced the amount of incoming fire.

  Crap. Not getting anywhere.

  The RTO handed him the microphone, announcing, “The gunships, sir.”

  Stocker took two deep breaths to force some calm into his voice. This wasn’t, he found, the easiest thing to do with bullets cracking overhead and hitting the sand to his front. He took a couple more, just to be sure.

  Slepnyov and his wingman had pretty specific rules of engagement. It was at least suspected that the cantonment area on the island housed some substantial numbers of women, and quite possibly children, and that a fair number of those were probably slaves, Christian Filipinos and Filipinas, that the local government wouldn’t be overjoyed to see slaughtered. Yes, of course the Ayala family had the pull to kill any official investigations. But, once her objective was met, Welch had had serious doubts that Mrs. Ayala’s power, attitude, and interest would go all that far.

  “We’re just minions to her,” Welch had briefed his subordinates, in a briefing from which Paloma had been tactfully excluded. “And, even if we were more, we’ve still got to live with ourselves. We do what’s necessary, but gratuitous carnage is not in our SOP.”

  As far as it went, Slepnyov was happy with that restriction. After all, he hadn’t taken any fire from the camp. Neither had his wingman. And the RPV hadn’t noticed any antiaircraft weapons.

  Though, of course, thought the Russian, it might not. They’re not necessarily all that big.

  The radio gave off a couple of the odd beeps that indicated a secure transmission. “Slep? Stocker.”

  “Slepnyov, Captain.”

  “I’m held up here, Slep, and falling behind schedule. Let me tell you what I’ve got.”

  “Go, Captain.”

  “My company,” he said, “two platoons of it, plus the armored car section, are pinned down on the beach south of the piers. There’s a line of bunkers to our west. The bunkers are pretty intelligently placed. We can see a few; others we can’t, though, even with the Elands’ thermals. They’ve got to be strongly built; I’ve seen the Elands’ main guns hit a couple that just shrugged the hits off. I need something bigger. And I need it to hit them from either the north or south; the bunkers don’t seem as strong except to the side facing us.”

  “I gots something for that, Captain. Can you say ‘thermobaric’? Wait a minute.”

  Slepnyov, switched languages, sending a message in Russian to his wing man. Stocker picked up the message, without understanding a word of it. He didn’t really need to, in detail. Both helicopters pulled pitch, noses rising as they changed direction. Then they headed out to sea, formed in echelon, and returned to take up a position somewhat shy of the camp area. A flash started at one of them, then streaked across the sky. To Slepnyov’s south, to Stocker’s west and front, where the flaming streak met the ground there was suddenly a massive blast.

  Slepnyov grunted with satisfaction. The satisfaction even grew a bit, as two tiny men staggered out of the bunker he’d targeted, one clutching his throat, the other tearing at his own eyes. The chin gun up front whined, then chattered. Both men, one after the other, began to do the Spandau Ballet as the ground erupted around them. They fell in ruined heaps of mangled flesh.

  The second gunship likewise fired, its guided missile also touching the ground with cosmic thunder and a massive cloud.

  “See?” said Slepnyov’s gunner. “I told you there was a God.”

  “Yeah? Fuck off,” answered the pilot, as he used his helmet’s heads-up display to set another target for the gunner.

  “Good choice,” said the gunner, once the target was clear. He armed another F Model Ataka missile to deal with that bunker. “And hold her steady for a few seconds.”

  “Sure, but after this shot we have to move.”

  “Roger. Missile away.”

  Just off to the northwest edge of the camp, the Harrikats’ heavy machine gun platoon leader, which is to say also the antiaircraft platoon leader, had no illusions about the capabilities and limitations of his guns. He’d been tempted to take a swing at the little buzzing aircraft that had made a couple of passes to the southwest, then really concentrated on lashing the mortars into the next world, but, No . . . they’re at extreme range, in the first place, and I can only see them when they fire, in the second place. Waste of ammunition, and sure to get us smashed flat to no good purpose. Like those helicopters up there. I can hear them. But see them well enough to engage? Not a chance.

  Something flashed above the platoon leader, and about four hundred meters to his east. Another flash and streak formed right after. From the platoon leader’s perspective that second shot—if he had doubted it was a shot the amazingly robust explosion at the end of it would have removed those doubts—came from a bit farther away and somewhat to the north. There was a third shot. Then the sound of the helicopters changed slightly. They were moving.

  Oh, please, merciful Lord, let them come closer. Let them come close enough that the flames from the huts let me and my men see them. Please? I’ll free a couple of slaves if You do.

  Like other fighting men, the Russians had many, many admirable qualities. Also like others, by no means excepting Americans, they had their flaws. Among these was a tendency to follow orders very literally. This had its place, of course. It also had places where it didn’t belong.

  The second of the two gunships also had a place it didn’t belong. Rather, it had an area. This area was anywhere above the now mostly burning encampment where the light from the flames would illuminate the bottom of the helicopter. Unfortunately, Slepnyov had given that pilot his orders—“Echelon left, about three hundred meters”—and the pilot had followed those orders to the letter. This placed the gunship squarely over the brightest of the brightly burning huts, where the Harrikats could see it.

  Three streams of bright green tracers arose from positions around the camp, followed, a second or so later, by a fourth. All four streams converged on the second gunship. The guns were a mix of ex-PLA and American, thus the streams came in two colors, two red, two green. The pilot’s first warning was when some of the tracers passed by his helicopter’s nose. The second warning came in the form of a 14.5mm bullet that went right through the thick almost-but-not-quite-bulletproof-enough canopy, splattering a goodly percentage of his gunner across the inside of the cockpit. The third warning—admittedly far too late—was a flashing red light on his instrument panel that informed him that he’d lost control of his tail rotor. The light didn’t say why, but in fact a .50 caliber bullet had severed the rod. Without its counterbalancing tail rotor, the MI-28, under the torque from the main rotor, began to spin uncontrollably. Within three spins it was spinning vertically, and then vertically, but down.

  Once he’d realized what happened, the pilot had just enough time to say, “God—” before slamming into the ground. That, given both the fuel on board and the mix of ordnance, led to a massive blast, big enough to catch two of the ground-based machine gun crews in its radius, and send the other two—minus the platoon leader who was so much strawberry jam at the time—running for the north, hoping to join with the women and children sheltering there. It also very nearly flattened the encampment, and put out most of the fires, partly by blast, and then by the thermobaric warheads using up all the free oxygen.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  It is a shameful thing for the soul to faint

  while the body still perseveres.
r />   —Marcus Aurelius

  Caban Island, Pilas Group, Basilan Province,

  Republic of the Philippines

  While the one hundred foot wire is there intended to be used, or at least a minimum of half of it is, it’s actually fairly safe to detonate a claymore much closer to oneself than that, safety regulations, doctrine, and the manual notwithstanding. A couple of sandbags—perhaps three for the very safety conscious or paranoid—are enough to absorb all the plastic fragments the thing will kick back, allowing the soldier to set it off, safe from those fragments, at a distance of a meter or two. Sometimes, in certain kinds of units, a soldier attempting to break contact, and knowing in advance that he just might have to, will place an armed claymore right in the back pocket of his rucksack, then use the frame of the ruck as an ad hoc, hand-held, aiming device. Uhuh, right about there . . . Boom! Still . . . fairly safe, though the rucksack’s contents are likely to become scrambled.

  Fragments, however, are only one of the dangers to using a claymore, with its pound and a half of C-4, in close proximity. Trees or sandbags may partially deflect the blast, but it will still flow around them. This can . . . kind of hurt . . . at about a meter and a half’s distance . . . with two of them—three pounds of C-4 . . . and no good way to cover one’s ears.

  Lord, for what I am about to receive, thought Semmerlin, as he flicked off the wire bails, the safeties, that otherwise prevented the clackers from being squeezed. He had his head down, of course, and one ear tucked as much into his shoulder as he could get it and the other at least generally towards the ground.

  Semmerlin squeezed the clackers. For all practical purposes, the resulting explosions—almost but not quite simultaneous—picked him up and bounced him. He couldn’t hear it, shoulder over ear or not, but the blasts, partially, and the fourteen hundred pellets, mostly, scythed down a good nineteen of the thirty-odd men around him. Almost none of them were killed outright. The rest, such as retained consciousness, shrieked.

  Some, of course, were not hit; claymores rarely if ever scattered their pellets quite evenly. Moreover, some were off to the sides, simply out of the pattern of thrown fragments. Of those not hit, though, some stood their ground while others threw themselves to the ground—on the not-indefensible theory that they were under air or mortar attack. Some ran off. A couple of those running off did so screaming in fear or pain or both.

  Thinking, to the very limited extent conscious thought was involved, To Hell with the rifle; to Hell with the machine gun, Semmerlin launched himself past the up slope tree and through the smoke from the claymore. Three more staggering steps and he tripped over the legless body of a Moro, already dead or dying; he couldn’t tell and didn’t much care. There were plenty of screamers around; what was another one, more or less?

  Staggering or not, he was moving fast enough to fall, which fall he turned into a complete roll that left him back on his feet, though with his left hand still touching the ground for balance. He came up without his goggles—broken off and lost somewhere behind—leaving him about as blind as some of the Moros caught in the fragmentation pattern of the claymores; the ones who’d taken pellets in the eyes.

  Gotta get out of here.

  He really wasn’t sure where he was going; he’d aimed at the tree because he’d known it was upslope. After the fall and the roll? Jesus, get out of here, yeah. But for where?

  Automatically, his right hand reached for the suppressed pistol under his left armpit. He shook his head to try to clear his fuzzy mind. Mistake! Big damn mistake! Semmerlin felt a sudden, almost irresistible urge to throw up. Forcing it down, literally, he assumed a low crouch and began slowly creeping back upslope.

  Stocker barely noticed the little explosions off to the left. He was still mesmerized by the really big one in the cantonment area, and the way the surviving helicopter was doing its level best to imitate a giant, crushing ants, its stomping feet the unguided eight centimeter rockets, the chin gun the giant’s thumb.

  Watching the gunship dance over the remains of the camp, relighting the huts and finishing off any wounded that so much as twitched, Stocker thought, Note to self: whoever is piloting that? Don’t piss him off.

  At some point, once the pilot was satisfied that he’d killed everything below, the helicopter started to move north, following the refugees it hadn’t been able to extinguish.

  “No, no,” Stocker muttered, “that’s a bit much and you have a mission.” Taking the radio’s mike from the RTO he called for gunship. The Russian didn’t—apparently wouldn’t—answer, until Stocker reminded him with the question, “Are you a soldier or a petulant spoiled brat?”

  “They killed my people,” Slepnyov’s voice came back, hate-filled and hurt-filled, both. “They must pay.”

  “Yes,” Stocker agreed, genially. He more or less understood where the Russian was coming from. “And we can kill them all . . . once we take the island. IN THE FUCKING INTERIM, THOUGH, I NEED SOME MORE FUCKING FIRE ON THOSE FUCKING BUNKERS! Is that clear enough?”

  Chastened, the Russian’s voice came back, “Yes, Captain. Sorry, Captain.”

  “I understand how you feel, Slep,” Stocker consoled. “But let’s do the job first and have fun later.”

  “Roger.”

  MV Richard Bland, just east of Caban Island

  The Bland was about a hundred percent faster than the LCM, if it wanted to be. With the irregular waters and sea beds in and around the Pilas Group, its captain did not want to be. Still, he managed to pull within two and a half miles of the landing point by the time the LCM had unloaded, turned around, and come back for its second load. Even that was a little iffy; Pearson would never have risked it if there had been any chance that Harrikat mortars could have reached, or Harrikat observers could have spotted, his command.

  The RPV had been looking for just those items, in fact, and among other things, and Pearson had been fully prepared to run like hell when it found them. Fortunately, it had found them early, and the two CH-750’s had put all their effort, and two loads of ordnance, onto the Harrikat mortars before Pearson would venture in.

  Now one of the CH-750’s was rearming on deck, a very brief process, actually, given how little it could carry, while the rump of Stocker’s company surged over the side and down the cargo nets to the LCM. The nearest crane, not being otherwise occupied, lowered a pallet of mortars, mortar ammunition, and sundry other expendables, mostly more ammunition.

  All in all, mused Pearson, things haven’t gone too badly. What did the wise man say? “If you can get seventy percent out of a plan you’re doing pretty good.” We’re probably doing a little better than that, with only one exception. We’ve got a multiplier to our plan, Mr. Ayala. If he doesn’t live, then our seventy or eighty percent success gets multiplied by zero. And Cagle, ashore, has his doubts.

  Wish I hadn’t had to have Ayala’s wife escorted from the bridge, so Cagle could speak freely. But listening to her alternating wails and demands for immediate evacuation was just getting on my nerves. And once Cagle mentioned doubts? Jesus, what a bitch.

  Caban Island, Pilas Group, Basilan Province,

  Republic of the Philippines

  Both Feeney and Hallinan jumped in their skins when a firefight, a pretty heavy firefight, erupted behind them in the direction from which they’d come. Hallinan was fairly new, but Feeney had enough experience to make an informed judgment. “Four platoons, maybe five, of theirs,” he whispered.

  “How can you tell?” Hallinan asked, equally softly. There weren’t any Harrikat around, so far as could be told, but since the twin explosions to the east maybe ten or twelve minutes prior, followed by a cacophony of shrieks and wails, some of which had come rather close, they still weren’t taking any chances.

  Feeney shrugged—useless gesture in the dark—and answered, “Just the volume of fire.”

  “I can only tell there’s a bunch of them.”

  “Less than you might think. The Moros have always been tough and brav
e.”

  “You? A good word for our enemies.”

  “Playmates,” Feeney corrected, “and I’ve got a lot higher opinion of them than I do of the humanitarians in the hold. Moro men are men.”

  “You’re a very strange dude, Feeney.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. Now where the fuck is Semmerlin?”

  It was eerily quiet in Semmerlin’s one-man-world at the moment. His hearing was damaged, he knew, and maybe irreparably. But I’m not totally deaf. I can hear shooting, explosions. It just all sounds a mile away and like I’m down a well. Damn, I hope it recovers. I don’t know anything but this shit. What would I do if I couldn’t do it anymore? Don’t even want to think about that.

  Shit, I’ve got to think about it. I can see where I’m supposed to go. Hard to miss with about ten thousand tracers crossing back and forth every minute. But I wouldn’t hear a Moro if he were walking on my helmet . . . provided he was walking softly, anyway. Ah, crap, I need help.

  He reached down to the belt around his waist and turned the volume or his radio all the way up. I might not even hear that. Then he called, “Feeney, Hallinan, I can’t make it to you. You’re gonna have to find me. My hearing’s almost gone and I’ve lost my goggles. I can’t see you either.”

  There was a moment’s delay. When the answer came, it still sounded like it was coming into or from a deep, deep well. “Got an IR chemlight, brother?” Feeney asked. “Just pop one or two. We’ll come to you.”

  Everything was harder in the dark. And chemlights helped only so much. The tracers flying back and forth overhead didn’t help at all.