by Dale Brown
“Right first,” said Danny. Pretty Boy checked both rooms with the telescoping eye; both were clear, as was a shower and restroom area inside the second room.
The rest of the team, meanwhile, landed. Sergeant Liu had begun inspecting the interior of the building.
“Bad news, Cap — this’ll never hold the helicopters. There’s supposed to be braces here,” said Liu, pointing at the wall area. “This is just Sheetrock through here. We’re lucky this held us.”
Danny went over to it. The plans that he had seen showed a trio of thick girders running across the center of the building area, and the plan notes had indicated that the roof was strong enough to brace an additional deck or helipad.
“Guess they don’t believe in building inspectors in this part of town,” quipped Boston.
“Shit,” said Danny. He glanced at his watch — three more minutes. “I’m going to check that dock area we saw,” he told Liu.
“Want me to watch your back?” asked Boston.
“Secure the two decks and see if you can figure out the electric situation. That generator is supposed to be on the first floor somewhere.”
Chapter 55
Aboard EB-52 “Penn,” over Brunei International Airport
0516
Dog instinctively threw the Megafortress into a hard zag as soon as the missile warning sounded.
“Tracking us,” said McNamara.
“ECMs. Break it.”
“Trying.”
The HAWK MIM-23 was an excellent anti-aircraft missile, but it was an American weapon and in theory it should be easy for the electronic counter measure system to confuse. Theory and practice weren’t quite the same thing, however. McNamara reported that one of the missiles was continuing toward them, its speed closing in on Mach 2.5.
“Hang on,” shouted Dog, and he put the Megafortress onto her wing, just barely ducking thé missile. The computer complained that he had exceeded flight parameters and tried balancing the different forces, working hard because of the second Flighthawk that was still attached to the right wing. The Hawk exploded off the right wing and the Megafortress slipped into a spin, her momentum corkscrewing around, and the aircraft’s wings lost her grip on the sky. A second missile exploded nearly a half-mile away, but now gravity and momentum were much more worrisome enemies.
Dog had learned to recover from spins very early in his training as a pilot, but the sharp smack of gravity multiplied by the harsh twist of surprise made his hand slow to respond. His head felt as if it were being forced to the left; he fought it at first, concentrating on his skull rather than the aircraft. It was only a moment’s hesitation, but had they been much lower, it might have been fatal. Finally Dog’s instincts and training came through; he stopped worrying about his head and was able to move with the plane, willing it under control and pulling up as the altimeter dipped down just below a thousand feet.
“Shit,” managed McNamara as they started to climb. Dog looked right; his copilot was holding his left arm, which he’d smacked up during the plummet. “I think I broke my arm.”
“Target the HAWK control van,” Dog told him.
“There’s a backup”
“Both of them”
“If we do that, we won’t have any bombs left for the plane on this run,” said McNamara.
“Target the HAWK vans”
“Yes, sir.” The copilot groaned.
“You okay, McNamara?” asked Dog, ready to bring up the targeting screen himself.
“No:’ he said. “But I’ll nail those mothers with my toes if I have to.”
* * *
As the Megafortress slapped downward, Zen struggled to keep his Flighthawk straight and level. He had to fight against his instincts to do this; his stomach told his head they were in a spin, and his head wanted to move his hand and legs to get them out of it.
His legs.
The idea taunted him, a devil just out of reach as he held the stick steady. A black cloud began to rise around him; Zen felt himself choke, and waited to hear the Megafortress’s alarm indicate that they were on fire.
He coughed again. The cloud started to recede.
The Flighthawk was nearly head-on for the HAWK missile battery.
“Targeting screen,” Zen told the computer. A pipper appeared in a shaded area before his eyes. “Dish,” he said, telling the computer what he was aiming at. The pipper immediately turned from gray to yellow, indicating that he was close but not quite on target.
Zen moved his hand slowly toward the screen. The pipper began to blink yellow, then changed to red.
He pushed down on the trigger and bullets streamed from the front of the robot plane. He moved the stick very gently left and right, cutting an oval pattern through the metal before pulling off.
“Zen, we’re taking out the HAWK batteries with our bombs:’ said Dog.
“Hawk leader,” he acknowledged, pulling the Flighthawk up and away from the airport.
Chapter 56
Brunei International Airport
0520
Mack crouched on the cement, watching as the black shadow of the Flighthawk darted across the empty field to the south, going after the radar dish that guided the anti-air missiles. The front of the tiny aircraft blossomed red; a moment later he heard the quick stutter of the plane’s cannon. By the time the sound died the wedge-shaped aircraft had flickered upward, from this angle seeming to rise straight up, a puppet pulled by the strings of heaven.
“Out of here,” Mack yelled. “Away from the military side of the airport:’ He got up, saw Sahurah still on the ground near the Megafortress, then reached back and grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him to his feet.
They’d gotten about thirty yards when the first bomb exploded. The target was a good distance away, but the shock of the five-hundred-pound warhead threw Mack abruptly toward the pavement. He got his left arm out, skidding across the concrete. Cursing, he stumbled back to his feet just as another bomb hit. He saw a geyser of smoke rising over the area near the HAWK trailers.
Something grabbed at Mack; he turned and found Sahurah clutching him. Blood ran down his hands. Mack instinctively picked him up, hauling him over his back and starting to run toward the terminal building. After a few steps his pace slowed to a walk.
He heard the whine of an approaching Flighthawk and threw himself down as it passed. Sahurah’s weight pressed against his upper body and made him slam his chin against the concrete. Mack cursed, rolled over to his back, and edged up on his elbows, dazed and unsure now where the hell he was.
Off the coast of Brunei
0526
Danny surveyed the dock area from the ladder, using the range-finder in the smart helmet as a measuring tool. The dock was eight feet wide, which would make it a precarious perch for the helicopters. Nor did the sections look particularly stable or long. There was no way they were getting the helicopters down here.
“Freah to Quick Bird One. Jack, you guys better head back,” he told the pilot. “We’ll do an assessment on that roof. In the meantime, come up with a plan to shore it up. Worst case, you can fly the grid in overnight.”
The grid was a portable landing area that could be set up over either the deck or the housing area.
“I was thinking we could land on derrick two,” replied the pilot. “The backup platform.”
“Negative,” said Danny. It was more than a mile away and they’d have no way of getting back and forth until the MC-17 dropped their zodiacs along with additional supplies. “Let’s just do this the way we drew it up”
“You got it. We’ll be back.”
The helicopters banked low, saying good-bye before heading off. The Whiplash team would be on its own for the next several hours.
Danny came up the ladder and joined Liu on the lower deck, where they had found a generator and a barrel of diesel that the sergeant estimated would last at least forty-eight hours. The motor balked at first, but within a few minutes they had it up and running, and
the interior lights came on in the building area and around the platform. A floodlight came on below, illuminating the dock-area; Danny went back to look for a switch; he found one inside a metal box near the hatchway to the area below. The switch was stuck, and when he tried prodding it with his knife the handle broke off, leaving no easy way to turn the light off. Frustrated, he decided to climb back down and see if he could unscrew the light; if not he’d just shoot the damn thing out.
Danny had to get down to the dock and then climb up a nearby support beam, but once he did he found another switch box with a control inside that was considerably easier to use and the light snapped off. He shimmied back down to the dock and started to go back to his men. As he did, he noticed a thick black shadow about a hundred yards from the southwestern leg. His first thought was that it was an oil slick, but the edges seemed too linear. Then he thought it must be some sort of optical illusion, a shadow cast by the platform in the dim predawn light. He took a step up and then down, trying to puzzle out how it was formed.
And then, as he watched, the shadow began to move.
“Liu,” he said softly, “come down to the dock area real, real quiet. I’m on the ladder. Take one other person with you. Everybody else, hold your positions and be real quiet.”
Chapter 57
Aboard EB-52 “Penn,” over Brunei International Airport
0527
“No way that was anything but an unguided, lucky shot,” said McNamara, talking about the missile that had nearly clocked them. “They may have gone to the K-band range-only-radar when we jammed but I’d bet they had a general direction and just launched.”
Dog, completing the system check with the computer, didn’t respond. Lucky shot or no, the HAWK anti-aircraft system wasn’t something you could operate merely by throwing a switch. These weren’t raw kids they were dealing with. Whoever had been in the guidance trailers knew what they were doing.
They were also now dead. Both GBU-30s — also known as JDAM or Joint Direct Attack Munitions, bombs that steered themselves to specific GPS points — had struck their targets dead-on. The five-hundred-pound warheads had obliterated the guidance trailers and everything nearby.
“What’s the situation down there, Zen?” Dog asked.
“The trailers are fried. More missiles on the launcher at the south side. First launcher fired all three I think. Couple of gun batteries but they haven’t done anything. Hang on,” added the pilot, turning his small craft around for another survey.
“What about the Megafortress on the ground?” Dog asked.
“Same as before. The people who were going toward it ran back for the terminal. One of them was definitely Mack, but I think the person with him was a local, or maybe one of the guerillas. There are a bunch of guys in white clothes near them. I had an idea,” he added.
“What’s that?”
“Why don’t we eliminate the fuel trucks so the Megafortress can’t be refueled,” said Zen. “Keep it grounded for a while without doing any damage. Brunei Air Force only has one tanker. That was one of Mack’s big gripes. There are six over on the civilian side but they’re all parked by an auxiliary building. I can shoot up the pumping apparatus as well, but I’m not sure if there’s a backup.”
“They’ll just bring another truck in,” said Dog.
“At some point, maybe. But if you’re looking to keep them on the ground without taking apart the plane completely, that might work.”
It was a temporary measure to be sure, but it would be adequate for now. If the militants made any move to fuel it, they could still use the Flighthawk to disable it. Dog also could have Indy take a shot at cratering the ramp area from the military side of the airport.
“Let’s do it,” he told Zen.
“I’d like to launch Hawk Two,” added Zen, referring to the second Flighthawk.
“I don’t think we can;” said McNamara. “I have a fault on the program screen.”
“Nothing here,” said Zen.
“Can you do it with just Hawk One?”
“Not a problem.”
“Go„
Off the coast of Brunei
0530
Dazhou Ti turned the optical viewer to the left, making sure that the helicopter had gone. The viewer, similar to the periscope on a submarine, allowed him to survey the area without using his detectable sensors. Its field of vision was limited, however; he could see only a small swatch of the ocean or sky at a time.
The helicopter had left two or three men at the platform, but who they were wasn’t clear. He suspected either Australians or Americans, since he had not recognized the aircraft type as Malaysian — or Bruneian, for that matter.
It was hardly an academic point. A tug was due to meet him within an hour here. Despite considerable work by his crew, they had been unable to restart their main engines. Their emergency backup power was supplied by an electric generator. They had manually rerouted it to provide power to the in-port maneuvering system, but could make no more than two or three knots, and even that required shutting down the rest of the electrical systems. The power arrangements meant they could only use the cannon. It would have to be aimed and operated manually, and even then there were doubts about what effect the power drain would have on the rest of the ships’ systems. It was unlikely they could destroy the platform before the men there called for reinforcements.
Still, it was not in Dazhou’s nature to do nothing. All his life he had seen boldness rewarded.
“We will move to the east side of the platform,” he told his crew. “When we arrive, we will send a boarding party. I will lead the party myself,” he added on the spur of the moment. “There are no more than three men on the platform; they should be easy to overcome.”
Brunei International Airport
0535
“They’re blowing up the fuel trucks,” said Mack as the Flighthawk tucked left and lit its cannon on the other side of the civilian terminal. He crouched down though he was several hundred yards away.
He had to hand it to Zen — he was an efficient SOB. Anyone else would have taken two or three passes. But here the pilot had gone for the trifecta, swooshing three trucks in the space of maybe ten seconds.
“Why are they doing that?” said Sahurah next to him.
Mack shrugged, though he knew the answer — they didn’t want the EB-52 to take off, but had decided for some reason to hold off on blowing it up.
Lucky for him.
“You saved my life,” said Sahurah as the Flighthawk swooped upward. “Why?”
Good question, thought Mack.
“Why did you save me, or not try to escape?” asked Sahurah when he didn’t answer.
“Just stupid, I guess,” said Mack, watching as the Flighthawk made another pass and another fuel truck erupted in flames.
* * *
Why had the infidel saved his life? wondered Sahurah.
Had God moved him to do so?
Or had the devil?
What if neither had? What if he had acted solely on his own?
Sahurah put his hand on his hip over his holster, contemplating what had happened. He had been taught that Westerners, Americans especially, were thoroughly corrupt and without virtue. He’d seen ample examples of this during his life.
And yet the actions of his prisoner, surely meant to save him, were against every expectation. It was one thing for the man to be strong and brave — these were things he expected, considering that Mack Smith had an important position. But his actions were beyond that.
“Commander!” shouted one of his men, running toward him. Four other brothers, all with AK47s, trotted behind him. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” said Sahurah. “Take Mr. Smith back to the building where he was held. Treat him with the greatest respect.” He turned to Mack. “Remember, you are a prisoner.”
“Hard to forget,” replied Mack, following them toward the building.
Chapter 58
Over western Brunei, near Sukut
0540
McKenna banked her Dragonfly low over the river, giving the tops of the nearby trees a good look at her belly. The Brunei army had fortified positions on the northern side of the bridge that led to Sukut, and had only a few scouts on the south. She couldn’t see them because of the thick jungle canopy, nor could she tell if there were rebels there.
“You have a truck moving on the road,” she told the Brunei army unit on the ground. “Pickup type truck. Rear is, uh, looks empty.”
The army sergeant on the other end of the line thanked her. Unlike yesterday, the responses were sharp and very focused.
McKenna flew over the road and then banked north, looking for any concentration of militants. The citizens of Sukut had rallied to the small army and police force there, swelling their ranks with volunteers. Reinforcements were due soon from Medit.
“This is Dreamland EB-52 Pennsylvania to unidentified aircraft operating near Sukut. Identify yourself,” crackled the radio.
“Who the hell are you calling unidentified?” snapped McKenna. “Why are you using Brunei Air Force communications frequencies?”
“Identify yourself,” responded the voice.
“Just like an American,” answered the pilot. “Dreamland EB-full-of-yourself-52, this is Brunei-Air-Force-kick-your-butt-and-spit-in-your-eye A-37B Dragonfly Dragon One. You are in sovereign Brunei territory,” she added. “State your purpose and position.”
There was a brief pause. McKenna began climbing and made sure her radar was in long-range scan. The scope was clear, though she knew the Megafortress’s stealthy characteristics meant it could be as close as ten miles away.
“Dragon One, this is Pennsylvania,” said another, older voice over the radio. “We are here to assess the situation.”