The president paused. "Thank you, and God Bless America, the world s beacon of freedom."
After the president addressed the nation, Maria Eden-Macklin joined him for a few moments alone in the family living quarters. Ten years younger than her husband, the intelligent and gracious first lady was a retired foreign correspondent. Well traveled during her childhood, Maria had lived with her father in British East Africa until she returned to the United States to attend Wellesley College.
On a daily basis, Cord Macklin relied on Marias instincts and her ability to bring common sense to bear on any situation. His White House aides were excellent, but Maria never hesitated to tell him the unvarnished truth. She was his sounding board. She offered rock-solid logic and opinions that made sense. There was never any willy-nilly Beltway-speak or elite-speak, parsing of words, or any of the other silliness of Washington politics.
She took a seat across from Macklin and folded her ankles together. "Good speech."
"Thanks." Macklin rubbed his temples.
Maria searched his face, worried because the strain and pressure were taking a toll. "Im curious about one thing."
"What's that?"
"How do you plan to seal the southern border?"
He picked up his glass of fresh iced tea. "Les Chalmers has active-duty army units converging on the border as we speak. Marines from Camp Pendleton and Camp Lejeune are en route. The Border Patrol agents along the Colorado River have been recalled, and we have continuous aerial surveillance along the length of the border."
"Cord," she began slowly, "isn't it true, historically, that relations between the military establishments of the United States and Mexico have been contentious at best?"
"That's true: different cultures and values. Why do you ask?"
"What if something goes wrong? How far are you willing to go to take control of the border?"
"Whatever it takes. It has to be done."
"Are you prepared to engage the Mexican military in combat?"
"Absolutely."
"Over border incursions?" she challenged.
"Border incursions, drug smuggling, and two murdered Border Patrol agents in the past week."
Maria dropped her gaze. "It seems to me that we're setting ourselves up to look like the world's biggest bully. Isn't there going to be an image problem?"
"Perhaps, but here's the bottom line. We can't have a trail of illegal immigrants, some of whom are dedicated terrorists, pouring into our country through Mexico from as far away as South America and the Middle East. Many of these people want to destroy this country. It simply isnt going to happen as long as I'm in office."
The far-reaching implications unfurled in his mind. "It may mean a fence system from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and triple the number of Border Patrol agents, heavily armed with assault weapons. It may mean our military will have a permanent role to play along the border. Makes sense; our military are guarding borders and protecting the sovereignty of other nations around the world. What about here on our own soil where we're wide open to terrorism and other criminal activity?"
She looked at him thoughtfully. "What about the Posse Comitatus Act? Isnt that going to cause some heartburn?"
"Not really. We can use military vehicles, aircraft, technical aid, surveillance, facilities, intelligence, et cetera, as long as there is no direct participation of Department of Defense personnel in law enforcement."
Maria reached for her tea. "How is this going to affect our war on terrorism overseas?"
"I dont expect it to have much of an effect. The latest strike on the terrorists is under way, and were going to keep the heat turned up."
"I just hope we arent taking on too many tasks at the same time."
Macklin gave her a reassuring smile. "Were not overextended. Everything is going to be fine."
Chapter 27.
KASHAN IRAN
A quarter moon highlighted the clear star-studded night. On the ground around Kashan, Iran, the temperature was still 104 degrees Fahrenheit at 2:10 A. M. Everything was quiet, eerily quiet.
Lieutenant Commander Landon "Bulldog" Gaines, the flight leader of two F/A-18Cs from the VFA-147 Argonauts, was 30,000 feet over Iran and twenty-nine miles west of the Kashan command and control center when his SLAM~ER missile put the center and its unsuspecting crew out of business. Within seconds, other explosions began shattering the quiet morning in western Afghanistan and in central and eastern Iran. The coalition reveille was in progress.
Stmms-based navy and marine corps aviators were dropping 2,000-pound GPS-guided JDAMs on radar-guided antiaircraft (AAA) gun sites and surface-to-air (SAM) missle sites. Other aircraft were dropping bombs on selected terrorist camps and storage areas.
Many of the aircraft selected to hit the same target separated and then converged minutes later, dropping their ordnance at forty-five-second intervals. The timing was critical because their external aircraft lights were off. No one on the ground could track them without radar.
If the bad guys turned on their radar to "paint" the strike aircraft, the coalition pilots could use the AGM-88 HARM (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile) to home in on the hostile radar and destroy the enemy complex.
Maintaining radio silence, Gaines and his wingman turned toward their secondary target, a particularly nasty antiaircraft gun site southwest of Tehran. The Iranian gunners had been alerted and were at their posts.
Gaines was caught off guard by the intensity and variety of the ordnance being thrown up. He had seen tracers on many missions but not in the quantity that was flowing skyward in steady streams.
Long chains of red, yellow, and white tracers were spraying back and forth like a loose fire hose. Large red balls like Roman candles were tracking the two Hornets. The web of tracers appeared to be a solid, impenetrable mass.
Gaines was breathing rapidly. We're going to go through a wall of lead. He forced himself to breathe slowly and concentrate on the mission at hand. This is a bag of worms.
Warning equipment lit up, indicating enemy radar was "illuminating" their planes. Bright tracer rounds flashed under the Hornets, followed by tracers ripping past the canopies. Going ballistic, two SAMS broke through the F/A-18 s altitude, peaked, and then fell back to earth. They exploded near the SAM site, causing one death and a lot of collateral damage.
Gaines couldn't resist a smile. The Iranian missile troops must be cursing the Russians.
Seconds before he was going to drop his ordnance, Gaines felt a solid thump that violently shook the airplane. Warning lights and warning sounds immediately filled the cramped cockpit. Bitchin Betty (the F/A-18 Hornet voice-alert system) announced in a calm voice, "Engine right. Engine right."
"Bulldog One, you're on fire!" Lieutenant Warren Smith radioed. "Fire--fire coming from your starboard engine!"
"Yeah--got big problems--let's check out! Comiri hard port, going for the deck! Switch backup."
They switched to a different radio frequency.
"Two's up," Smith said.
Click-click.
Gaines pulled into a left bank, nose low turn and rolled wings level when he was headed toward the North Arabian Sea. He began the steps to shut down the right engine and realized it was not running. Gaines eased the right throtde back and went through the engine fire checklist. I'm on government time now, single-engine night carrier landing with battle damage and extremely high temperatures at the boat--can't beat it
He keyed his radio and inched the left throttle forward. "Dog Two--still hangin with me?"
"Like a frog on a lily pad."
"Any fire?" Gaines asked.
"Uh-huh, small residual fire."
"How about checking me out."
"Okay hold it steady."
Smith eased down and moved under his flight leader. Up close he could see the damage. "It looks like . . . uh, you must have taken a hundred-millimeter through the starboard engine. Its totally destroyed."
"Anything else?"
"Y
our tailhook is skewed to the left, and you have several punctures in the belly. Your hydraulics okay?"
"Holding so far."
"You re not going to have enough fuel to make the carrier."
"Then again," Gaines said, checking his fuel, "Im only using one engine. Might make it if I'm lucky."
"Its a toss-up."
Click-click.
Gaines leveled off at 500 feet above the ground and 330 knots. The exceedingly high temperatures caused a large reduction in available engine thrust. As the Hornet decelerated, he had to use military power on the port engine to maintain level flight. Gaines checked to make sure the speed brakes were retracted. The coast was only four minutes away.
"You have some fluid streaming along the belly, but I cant see the color in the dark. Probably hydraulic fluid."
"Copy--thanks."
Smith clicked his radio twice and moved down and eased to the side of the flight leader.
Gaines was about to relax for a few moments when Betty screamed, "Pull up! Pull up!"
He yanked the stick back and shot skyward, barely clearing the rapidly rising terrain. The bright flash in his canopy mirrors made him flinch. Oh, God ... No.
Gaines s heart was in his throat when he keyed his radio. "Bulldog Two, Dog One, you copy?"
Silence.
"Dog Two--copy?"
Nothing.
Filled with anguish and guilt, Gaines banked into a steep right turn and orbited the crash site. He was praying for a miracle, hoping Smith had ejected in the last split second. It was too dark to see a parachute. At their low altitude, if his friend had ejected, he would already be on the ground. The residual fire was spread over 200 yards along the rising slope.
Continuing to circle the crash, Gaines waited for Smith to use his handheld emergency radio. The veteran aviator knew in his heart that Smith was not going to come up on guard frequency. Emotionally exhausted, Gaines finally radioed the air force AWACS to report his wingman down. He gave the mission specialist the coordinates and requested a search-and-rescue helicopter be sent to the site.
Gaines rolled out on course to the carrier and radioed the AWACS when he was "feet wet." Unable to make it to the ship without tanking, Gaines was given a vector to a nearby KC-135. After taking on 5,000 pounds of fuel, Gaines turned toward Mom. His mind was not on flying. He wasn t ready to tell anyone that he had killed his trusting wingman. That confession would have to be made in private to his commanding officer.
Climbing in minimum afterburner to 23,000 feet, he reduced the power to military and replayed the accident over and over. After a few minutes, he noticed the rapidly dwindling fuel supply. That liquid streaming off the fuselage has to he fuel
Gaines checked in with the carrier and told them about the battle damage and the low fuel state. He was given priority to land. He jettisoned all of his external stores and both drop tanks. In order to conserve fuel, he waited as long as he could and then began an idle descent to 1,500 feet.
Nearing the carrier, he lowered the tailhook, dropped the landing gear, and set the flaps to one half for the single-engine approach. In order to maintain his altitude and airspeed, Gaines had to use minimum burner. He waited until he was abeam the landing signal officer (LSO) platform.
"Four Oh Twos abeam, gear."
Click-click.
"Four Oh Twos single engine."
Click-click
Afraid of flaming out, Gaines flew a tight approach. Rolling out on final, he had the meatball centered and an amber donut on the angle-of-attack (AOA). Good start--keep it going.
"Four Oh Two, Hornet ball, single engine, one-point-oh." Approximately seven, maybe eight minutes of fuel--don't blow the landing.
The LSO was shocked. "Say fuel again." "One-point-zero."
"Roger ball." This could be interesting.
Gaines was drifting below the optimum glide slope, and he could see it on the ball. Come on... ease some power on--save it. He inched the left throttle forward to mid-range burner, but the heat-induced loss of thrust was too much for the damaged aircraft. Slow and dirty with the landing gear hanging in the breeze made it even more difficult.
Glancing at the flames from the afterburner, the LSO was becoming more concerned. "Power, a little more power."
Gaines was still settling as he approached the carrier s round-down. I can't take it around--have to make a play for the deck!
"Power-power-p ower!"
Gaines tapped the blower and shoved in a bootful of left rudder. The application of full afterburner was too late to salvage the approach. It also ignited the streaming jet fuel, leaving a sixty-foot trail of jagged orange-white flames. The onlookers standing on Vultures Row were about to view a spectacular sight.
The LSO pickled the bright red wave-off lights. "Wave off, wave off! Power; power, power!"
With full left rudder, the jet was yawing to the right and still settling with maximum afterburner. Panicked, Gaines pulled the nose up and ejected. The blazing Hornet staggered across the flight deck while dancing on its tail and then plowed into a parked F/A-18 on the aft starboard elevator. Both aircraft exploded and went over the side of the flight deck.
Gaines landed safely in the water and was picked up by the plane-guard helicopter. After a trip to sick bay to have a thorough medical checkup, Lieutenant Commander Gaines took a quick shower and donned a fresh khaki uniform.
He waited until the other strike aircraft landed safely and then met in private with his squadron CO. With the entire story on the line, Gaines calmly removed his coveted wings of gold and placed them on the COs desk. His promising career as a TopGun-trained navy fighter pilot was over. Gaines spent the rest of the night writing a letter to the family of Lieutenant Warren Smith.
SASABE, ARIZONA
U. S. Army and U. S. Marine Corps units had been deploying along the southwestern border for a number of hours. Other army forces-- from Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Benning, Georgia; and Fort Stewart, Georgia--were deploying along the southeastern border. National Guard units were also patrolling the border at selected sites.
While the arriving military units spread out to their assigned grid coordinates, more cargo and troop transports were landing at airports along the border. The military personnel were to stop the illegal immigrants at the border and detain any who managed to cross over.
Marine corps helicopters and Harriers patrolled the western end of the dividing line at El Paso, Texas, while mostly army helicopter gunships and air force close-air-support (CAS) A-10 Warthogs patrolled the eastern section of the border. Working with forward air controllers (FACS) on the ground and in the air, the CAS assets could be over any hot spot in a matter of minutes.
Orbiting thirty-five miles south of Alpine, Texas, an AWACS E-3C Sentry watched as four Mexican F-5E Tiger II fighter aircraft lifted off from the Santa Lucia air base and headed northwest in sections flying a mile apart. Located in the southern central state of Mexico, Santa Lucia is the Mexican Air Forces principal base.
Other Mexican aircraft had been taking off, including armed Pilatus PC-7 turboprop counterinsurgency planes from Zapopan air base, La Paz air base, and the Santa Gertrudis air base. Bell 205, 206, and 212 armed counterinsurgency helicopters had been repositioned to Santa Gertrudis air base to patrol the border.
At the urgent request of the Mexican Army, three of the Mexican Navys armed MD Combat Explorer helicopters were approaching the U. S. border near Sasabe in the late afternoon. Equipped with 70mm rocket pods and GAU .50-caliber Gatling guns, six of the helicopters had been purchased ostensibly to halt the flow of illegal drugs being smuggled on the high seas. The twin-engine gunships were able to outrun the drug traffickers and had the firepower to disable speeding drug boats.
The pilots of a marine corps UH-1N Twin Huey helicopter operating as a FAC spotted the three combat-capable helicopters. They confirmed the MD Combat Explorers had Mexican markings and radioed the fast movers orbiting high above.
T
he two Harriers from the famous Black Sheep of VMA-214 were six minutes away from the Mexican helicopters. The MD Combat Explorers turned eastbound to parallel the border on the Mexican side. Unable to keep pace with the much faster MDs, the Twin Huey was falling farther behind.
Inexplicably, one of the three MDs sharply banked to the left and flew north into the United States. The marine pilots were surprised and radioed the Harrier flight leader.
"Smoke Zero Two, Festus Ten."
"Smoke."
"You arent going to believe this. One of our pigeons just turned north, headed for Tucson at about two hundred feet."
"Duffy," the Harrier flight leader radioed to his wingman, "I'll take the intruder. Stick with the others."
"Copy"
"Smoke--Festus. Another one turned north at two hundred feet."
"Okay, Duffy, you take the second idiot."
"Roger that."
"Festus, can you keep the other one in sight?"
"Maybe for a couple of minutes; they have at least thirty-five to forty knots on us."
"Okay, hang in."
"Copy"
Major Duncan Ventana, the Harrier flight leader, paused. He radioed the air force AWACS and requested to speak with the mission crew commander. He had the AWACS commander confirm that he was cleared to shoot down the intruder if the pilot did not comply with radio or hand signals. The confirmation was immediate and firm.
The Harrier flight leader keyed his radio. "Duffy, let s go jump them."
"This should be a good cocktail story."
Click-click.
They stayed in loose formation while the AWACS gave them vectors toward the first MD Explorer. Ventana detached his wingman and began slowing when he had a visual on the Mexican helicopter. The MD was west of Carmen, Arizona, twelve miles inside the U. S-Mexican border.
Closing on the right side of the MD, Ventana continued to slow the Harrier to make eye contact with the pilot and copilot. The Mexicans made an abrupt, steep turn to the left and continued turning for 270 degrees, rolling level heading for Interstate 19.
Ventana swung around in trail. Very clever, pal--can't risk shooting anything toward the interstate. Well, let's see about this. He made a pass low and directly over the MD with the Harriers nozzle deflected. The 23,000-plus pounds of extremely hot vectored-thrust had an upsetting effect on the small helicopter. The shaken pilots had their hands full for a few seconds before they regained control.
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