Warriors by Barrett Tillman

by Barrett Tillman

  Bar-El was leading a recon ground patrol that afternoon, searching a gully south of the Jordanian capital. He was aware of the jets almost constantly overhead, but he paid them little attention. Israeli infantry were accustomed to having friendly aircraft around, and Bar-El's unit had only suffered two attacks from enemy aircraft:

  Syrian MiC-21s which strafed the area before being run off by F-16s, and Iraqi Mirages which bombed and rocketed.

  The point man in the patrol knelt at the bend of a ravine, scanning the area ahead. Bar-El had just placed the handset back on his radioman's harness when a movement caught the patrol leader's attention. Hefting his Calil rifle, Bar-El stood up and walked four paces to his left. He intently searched the scrub brush topping a small sand dune, signaling his corporal to spread out to the right.

  Abruptly three Syrian commandos broke cover near the crest of the dune. Two opened an undisciplined fire with their AK-74 automatic rifles, wounding one of the Israelis. Bar-El's men returned fire with better accuracy, toppling the two in a cloud of noise, dust, and blood.

  The third Syrian was visible from the belt up, perhaps twenty-five meters from the captain. Bar-EI saw the man retract his right arm to throw a grenade.

  Despite its boxy appearance, the Calil rifle is an excellent-handling weapon. With his folding-frame stock extended for proper use, Bar-El instantly mounted the rifle to his shoulder, got a quick glimpse of his front sight settling on the man's pinkish camouflage shirt, and took the slack from the trigger. .

  The Syrian's hand already was moving forward, loosening the grip on the grenade which arced toward the Israeli officer.

  The trigger sear disengaged from the hammer and the Calil bucked in a three-round burst.

  The grenade, now well toward its target, was twelve meters from Levi Bar-EI, shoulder high.

  When the first .223-caliber bullet hit the Syrian's chest, a gout of blood erupted from his shirt. The second and third rounds were wasted, going high. It had been a quick-and-dirty shot, not as well centered as a rifleman would have preferred, but it did the job.

  The grenade struck the ground, bouncing once.

  Bar-EI moved his sights, trying to realign on the soldier, who tumbled sideways and collapsed into a bush.

  The grenade exploded knee-high, three meters to Levi Bar-El's left.

  DAY FIVE

  Ha’il, 0530 Hours.

  Operation Fadeaway was based on two elements, a hammer and an anvil. At daybreak Bennett watched his hammer sweep off the runway, Geoff Hampton leading twenty-two fighters from White and Blue Squadrons. They flew northeasterly to an auxiliary strip near the Kuwait border and landed on the single runway. Fuel tanks were topped off and ordnance checked. Then the former RAF flier led a taxiing procession of Tigersharks to the takeoff end of the runway and shut down. Fully fueled and armed, they waited.

  The anvil was led by Ed Lawrence from Black Base. Forty F-20Cs from his own squadron, Rajid's Orange, and Ahnas's Green were dispersed along the taxiways and end of the runway. They also waited, as did one twelve-plane Jordanian squadron at Ha'il with Brad Williamson's Red Squadron in reserve. Tiger Force was glad to have the Jordanians--British-trained, experienced, and angry.

  Bennett was not sanguine about the prospects for fully coordinating his plan. As a lifelong student of military history, he knew that even the simplest plan could turn to hash in the opening minutes of combat. But he knew that if even most of the elements came together, the Israelis would sustain losses they could not replace in time to make a difference. He checked the status board for the eighth time that morning. The Saudi F-15s had their schedules and the F-5s were deploying northward at that moment.

  Everyone on the ground now sat back to wait.

  Jerusalem, 0545 Hours

  Orbiting the most fought-over city on earth, Colonel Aaron Hali reduced power to the twin F100 engines of his F-15A, settling down to a five-mile-circumference turn at an indicated 285 knots. Below and behind him he could see his squadrons joining up with a discipline born of years of experience. Aircraft in two-plane sections joined into four-plane flights which became building blocks for squadrons. Soon the entire force of seventy bomb-laden attack aircraft and sixty-four fighters headed east, stacked between 8,000 and 14,000 feet above ground level. Behind them, E-2Cs took up station to lend electronic support and early warning.

  The large size of the strike force required more fuel for join-up than a normal mission, and the Israeli Air Force had not been able to acquire enough aerial tankers to support such an endeavor. Realistically, it had not been needed very often. The aerial combat arena of the Middle East was small enough to cross in a supersonic aircraft in several minutes; long-range strikes were unusual.

  True, the Heyl Ha'Avir had demonstrated its superb professionalism on special missions-the 1981 Baghdad nuclear reactor strike and the 1985 precision attack against PLO headquarters in Tunis being best known. This, however, was about as close as Tel Aviv's air arm had come to the massive applications of power which the U.S. Air Force and Navy had launched against North Vietnam during Operation Rolling Thunder from 1965 to 1968.

  Today's main target-Ha'il-was 450 miles deep into hostile territory.

  John Bennett knew as well as Aaron Hali how much fuel each Israeli pilot would need to fly from sea level, to reach cruising altitude, to descend upon the Tiger Force airfields, and to return to base with perhaps 1,500 pounds remaining. The mission profile, checked and rechecked by planners and the strike leader, allowed for no more than five minutes to attack and three minutes of hard combat in afterburner. Upon withdrawing, anything which forced them to pause, to turn and fight again, would whittle away their safety margin.

  Arabia, 0605 Hours

  From a hundred hands across the desert came an incessant flashing of sunlight on mirrors. For the Saudi soldiers and nomadic tribesmen recruited into the Tiger Force warning net, this was their sole reason for existence. Many were frightened, a few terrified. The combined noise from so many jet engines bespoke an awesome power bound upon a mission of single-minded violence.

  Some of the Saudi radio channels remained usable for a few minutes before they were obliterated by jamming. But enough early calls, plus confirmation from the mirror system, told the defenders what they needed to know. The single key of a radio transmitter issued a micropulse message from the air defense center at Ha'il. The ultra high frequency message contained two words:

  Fadeaway. Go.

  John Bennett had done everything he could. Now the outcome lay in the lap of the gods and the hands of his fighter pilots.

  Black Base, 0608 Hours

  Ed Lawrence raised his hand from the cockpit and rotated his finger in a circular motion. The other pilots saw his signal and repeated it down the line, starting their engines. The anvil pilots lifted off the runway in two-plane sections, stringing out in trail as the plan took shape. Each flight leader knew his orbit point and altitude--a designated bearing from Black Base spread northwest to southwest.

  Simultaneously Geoff Hampton led twenty-one of his F-20s off the single runway near the Kuwait border, headed west. One plane sustained a last-minute hydraulic leak and ground-aborted, leaving the twenty-four-year-old Saudi pilot nearly in tears. They were starting the war without him.

  At other fields, other squadrons were working on their prearranged schedules, some delaying their launches, others scrambling to medium altitude and heading south, away from their bases.

  This was the impression Tiger Force wished to give the Israelis.

  By apparently fading away from the attack, they might entice some of the escorting Israeli fighters deeper into Saudi airspace. Bennett held out little hope for this option, as the Heyl Ha'Avir was too professional, too disciplined. But it was worth a try. At the very least, the radar picture emerging in the Israeli E-2s would show a logical reaction-enemy aircraft scrambling to get out from under whatever was coming .

  Jordanian-Saudi Border,

  0609 Hours

&nb
sp; Aaron Hali checked his watch and his map. So far, so good. At designated points his flight leaders would break off right or left to approach their briefed targets. Hali would continue to a point equidistant from most of the Saudi fighter strips en route to Ha'il in order to lend a hand in case of unexpectedly strong opposition. He recalled his parting words with his lifelong friend Solomon Yatanahu, barely an hour before.

  "Well, you see the advantage of being a junior colonel. I get to fly the missions while you sit at your desk and run base operations."

  Yatanahu mimicked his friend's breezy attitude. "Yes, it's the burden of rank. A beautiful little sabra brings me iced tea and lemonade at the push of a button. While you're up there sweating in your boots, adding to the lines on your face from peering into the sun, I'm taking a leisurely lunch. A dog shouldn't have to do what I do."

  Hali had looked at the morning sky, craning his neck. "It's a long way from Kibbutz Deganya, isn't it, Sol?"

  "Farther in time than I like to imagine." Yatanahu paused a moment. "Aaron, what do you remember best?"

  "Ah, the bananas. I never tasted better."

  Kibbutz Deganya, near the Sea of Galilee, had been founded in 1911. It was famous in the region for its wheat and bananas and as the boyhood home of Solomon Yatanahu. There were nearly 300 kibbutzes in Israel, and though they represented only 3 percent of the nation's populace, they typically produced 60 percent of the military officers and over half the political leadership. Yatanahu and Hali both were products of that system.

  Finally Yatanahu spoke what was on his mind. "This is a no-win mission, Solomon. Even if it accomplishes its goal, it won't change the course of the war. We're barely holding onto the West Bank now. I cringe to think what will happen if we lose as many planes and pilots as we might." The operational analysts had predicted a twenty percent loss rate, assuming everything worked well. Both fliers knew that was unlikely.

  Aaron Hali said, "At least headquarters talked the politicians out of the Mecca strike. My God, over six hundred miles one way just to make a point of no military value. What were they thinking?"

  "I have no idea, my friend. That's why you and I are fighter pilots, not politicians." Yatanahu wanted to say more, but time was running short. Besides, there were some things one just did not say to a comrade at times like these.

  The two men had shaken hands, then walked away.

  Colonel Hali shook himself from his sentimental musings. He nudged up his twin throttles a percent, forcing himself to concentrate on his flying. With a mild surprise, he realized he was beginning to lose the sharp edge which had characterized his entire professional life. Better get a grip on yourself, Aaron. Start daydreaming up here and you'll wake up dead. He checked his radar screen with the vertical and horizontal-lined grid. Any time now, the blips would appear. He wondered how soon he would gain a visual on the bogeys that must be deploying.

  Hali could not know that Tiger Force and the Royal Saudi Air Force had agreed on the most basic principle of war: concentration. They committed 70 percent of their fighter-interceptors to the campaign in central and northern Arabia, and the combatants now were screeching toward one another at 1.8 times of the speed of sound.

  Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Agadir checked his order of battle one more time, though it was hardly necessary. The thirty-nine-year-old Saudi already knew his battalion's lineup by memory. The thirty tracked missile launchers had been deployed during the night over a ninety-mile front with two other battalions arrayed in depth behind him. His senior NCO had reported that electronic countermeasures were appearing on the mobile radar vehicles' screens, and the operators were switching frequencies on a random basis. As soon as the oncoming Israelis reached optimum range, Agadir would order three-quarters of his launchers to fire. The remaining 25 percent would wait until the attackers were outbound.

  Agadir approved of the plan. Though he had never been in combat, he benefitted from exchange tours with missileers in Egypt, Britain, and France. He had hoped for a tour in the United States but that goal had eluded him. A sober professional, Agadir nonetheless relished the good times his counterparts always seemed to enjoy in America. They came back full of stories about the people and places. Some of them still sang cowboy songs their American friends taught them, though Agadir had trouble following the plot line of "I'm Walkin' the Floor Over You."

  The air defense officer returned his attention to matters at hand.

  This plan would ensure that most of his radar-guided missiles, two per launcher, would be employed against high-flying aircraft. The Israelis were taking diverse routes and altitudes, but after the attacks and dogfights many would egress at low level. They would come within range of his passive heat-seeking and electro-optically guided weapons.

  Agadir tapped his gloved hands in a rhythmic pattern on the hatch of his command vehicle, recalling another song. He could not remember the lyrics, but the story had something to do with a young cowboy who got in a gunfight with another man over a Mexican girl.

  Someplace called El Paso, which apparently was in a vast wasteland. Well, Agadir knew about that sort of place. He remembered many years ago the wisdom of his old grandfather, who had no idea how prophetically he spoke when he repeated the ancient wisdom, "No man meets a friend in the desert."

  Northern Arabia 0610 Hours

  Aaron Hali keyed his mike twice, the signal for his first group to break off toward its targeted airfield. It was unnecessary, as the flight leader already had the time down pat, but Hali never took details for granted. He watched the Eagles and Kfirs break away to port, accelerating toward the southeast.

  At that moment Hali's radar warning system demanded his attention. Visually and aurally he picked up the emissions of Saudi radars. He knew immediately from the frequency and tone that it was SAM tracking, undoubtedly with the track-on-scan feature which allowed short electronic glimpses of aircraft without constant monitoring. The colonel experienced two seconds of confusion.

  "Where did that come from? The intel briefing mentioned nothing about SAM batteries this far north!"

  Then he knew. Whoever was running the Saudi air defense net was a shrewd bastard. Undoubtedly they had moved portable launchers north of the Tiger Force bases on short notice--probably during the night. Hali ruefully admired the professionalism of the setup. Then he concentrated on dealing with it.

  Warning calls came rapidly as pilots saw the missiles lift off, blowing large geysers of dust and sand as the first-stage boosters ignited.

  Without looking, Hali knew his suppressors were in their dives, rolling in on the most threatening sites, but there were too many of them. Goddam it! How many were there? The desert before him seemed saturated with the telltale dust clouds of lift-off and the smoky white trails of missile boosters headed toward his formation at a slant range of ten to thirty miles.

  The next few minutes were aerial bedlam. Even in the clear air it was difficult to spot the missiles in sustainer stage, lancing upward at twice the speed of sound. But there were so many--no Israeli flier had ever had to deal with such an intense concentration of SAMs.

  The orderly, spaced formations became ragged as pilots opened out to loose deuce, flying the "SAM box" which allowed two planes to maneuver independently without drawing a missile toward either one. But with each wrapped-up, mind-blurring turn, with each diving countermove to defeat a missile, the formations began to disperse. Sections became separated from flight leaders, wingmen from section leads. Air discipline--a hallmark of the Heyl Ha'Avir--was sorely tested. Some pilots had to take their planes down below 3,000 feet to escape the missile barrage. Then, climbing back to altitude with heavy bomb loads still on board, they bled off energy and became more vulnerable.

  Aaron Hali spotted a SAM streaking toward him from almost dead ahead. From long experience, he turned twenty degrees port, to better gauge the threat's closure. At the moment his professional instincts told him it was now or never, he wrapped his Eagle into a hard barrel roll, defeating the S
AM's tracking in two planes. He snapped his head to the right, watching the smoke trail flash past him and continue to its inevitable end.

  The mission leader also sensed something else. The Saudi fighters would be approaching at this very moment. He knew because that is how he would time it if he were running their show. With his pilots concentrating on evading the SAMs, their mutual support degraded by violent evasive breaks and altitude loss, this would be the perfect time to commit interceptors.

  Hali glanced at his radar screen. It showed the tentative traces of Arab jamming, but he could discern blips with the fifty-mile grid.

  He hoped most of his other F-15s also acquired long-range targets before both sides' ECM wiped out the radar option. The radio channels were clogged with warning cries; not much chance of alerting his Sparrow shooters. But then he relaxed a bit. They were professionals; they'd take action on their own.

  The Israeli strike groups passed through the ninety-mile SAM belt in less than ten minutes. There were dirty gray tendrils in the clear blue sky, and dissipating SAM trails. There also were parachutes, and smoking wrecks on the ground. With the superb visibility from his F-15 cockpit, Hali took in the situation. It would be a few minutes before his squadrons reformed, but he estimated four to six planes had gone down. It was a small loss rate considering some 135 missiles had been launched, but any loss was irreplaceable. Hali looked again to his screen, hit the auto-acquisition switch, and locked up one of the radar blips. Then he pressed the trigger, sending an AIM-7 off the number one station at ten miles.

  0613 Hours

  Major Abdullah Ben Nir glanced to either side, admiring the excellent view from his F-15. He keyed his microphone, uttered a terse order, and returned his attention to his radar scope. The Israeli jamming was taking effect; his two flights would have to shoot fast. The Saudi squadron commander designated his target and pressed the trigger, firing his first Sparrow at twelve miles. He anticipated the built-in delay but the AIM-7 never appeared. Its rocket motor had failed to ignite.