The Great and Terrible

by Chris Stewart

  Unless Saud acted quickly to take Abdullah down first.

  He balled his fist as he thought, his arms taut, his temples pounding with each beat of his heart. He plotted in the darkness of the cabin and the darkness of his soul.

  The enormous chopper flew west, moving toward the low fog, and the night grew thick and full as the moon fell toward the horizon. The Saudi coast began to shine in the distance, a silver shadow in the starlight where the fog broke and the seas hit the shores.

  * * *

  The American-made F-15 fighter flew in a gentle circle at 23,000 feet. At this altitude, the stars were clear and bright, and the light of the moon glinted off the Eagle’s gray wings. The pilot, a senior colonel in the Royal Saudi Air Force, had been in the air for almost an hour and was running low on fuel. In another fifteen minutes he would have to return to the base, which meant his career, and maybe his life, would be over. Prince Abdullah had been very clear. Complete the mission or die. And the colonel wasn’t stupid. He knew his life was at stake.

  He glanced nervously at his fuel readout, a sick knot in his stomach, then scanned his radar again. He had the APG-63 radar looking down, skimming the ocean below him, searching for his target. Why he had to shoot down the chopper—who it was and why it was flying over the Persian Gulf toward Arabia at three in the morning—he didn’t know. Bandits. Terrorists. A rebellious OPEC minister from Oman, an Iranian businessmen who had crossed the young prince—he hadn’t been told. And it didn’t matter. All he knew was his instructions came from Prince Abdullah himself. And one did not disobey the royal family, especially this prince. He was ruthless and cunning and, many speculated, on his way to the top. So a smart man like the colonel would attach himself to the winner and ride with him for all he was worth, a calculation that made the situation before him very simple. Shoot down the helicopter and get his first star. Fail and be shot. It was easy to be motivated with his life on the line.

  The pilot flew the fighter aggressively, whipping the controls as he desperately searched the night sky. His digital fuel readout clicked again, decreasing to eighteen hundred pounds. The radar found nothing. The sky was empty and dark. The knot in his stomach grew. His readout clicked off another fifty pounds, and he went through the numbers again in his head. Five hundred pounds of fuel to get back to base, a couple of hundred to fly his overhead approach, three hundred for emergency reserve, two hundred to land. He had nine minutes, maybe ten, before he would have to turn back to base.

  His palms had already sweated through his gloves, wetting the controls. “Shoot down the chopper or die trying,” the prince’s brutal instructions sounded again in his head.

  The truth was, he didn’t mind the thought of dying in combat; he’d give his life happily for the Kingdom of Saud. But he bitterly hated the thought of dying because he had run out of gas or, worse, because the prince shot him when he learned of his failure.

  He cursed, slapping his fist on his knee.

  Where was the target? What was he going to do? He glanced at his fuel gauge, then cursed once again.

  Rolling the fighter up on her wing, he scanned the expanse of dark ocean almost five miles below him, staring through the side of his Plexiglas canopy. He counted no less than six oil tankers moving through the Persian Gulf, each of them trailing a long line of sea foam that shimmered in the moonlight. A couple of enormous cargo transports moved parallel to the tankers, heading in the opposite direction toward the ports at Al Kawayt and Abadan. To the west, a bank of thick sea fog had developed, and he watched as it drifted toward the Saudi coastline a little more than fifty miles away. He flew his aircraft slowly north and then east, keeping it constantly banked up on her side, and the enormous oil derricks along the Iranian coast slipped into view, their dark towers rising over the shimmering waters of the Gulf. He rolled the nimble fighter level, then jerked the stick to the right and pointed the nose toward the Saudi coastline.

  His radar swept across the horizon, hitting a couple of targets, civilian airliners moving toward Riyadh and Al Manamah, but it was almost three in the morning and the civilian airline traffic was light. He commanded the look-down, shoot-down radar to search low once again, knowing the chopper would stay near the water—all the chopper pilots he knew had a great fear of heights. His radar reflected a deep green shadow on his face mask as he stared at the screen. Nothing. Empty airspace. No chopper there.

  He shook his head in frustration, as the sweat from his armpits soaked his flight suit.

  Kill the chopper or die. His instructions were clear.

  But he couldn’t kill the chopper until he found it.

  He glanced at his fuel gauge as it clicked through fifteen hundred pounds, then reached up and adjusted his radar out to eighty miles. The Saudi coastline cluttered the display, and the phase-array system sought to cut through the radar energy that bounced back from the rocky coastline. The computer automatically adjusted the beam to cut through the ground clutter, and the radar display was cleaner on the next sweep.

  Then he got it—a quick hit almost sixty miles away. It was low and moving quickly toward the coastline, just above the fog. He commanded his radar to hit the target again. It measured the relationship between the distance and ground speed, then began to click in his ear.

  Target. Helicopter. Fifty-six miles off his nose. He yanked the fighter twenty degrees to the right and hit the afterburners for eight seconds to get a quick burst of speed; the Eagle accelerated very quickly, reaching almost mach point nine. Lowering the nose, he armed up his missiles, and the targeting computer instantly began to growl in his ear.

  He had a lock on the target. In ten miles he would shoot. Ten miles. Fifteen seconds. From here, it was easy. His mission was almost complete.

  * * *

  The crown prince had barely drifted to sleep when the Sikorski suddenly reeled on its side; his stomach lurching as the chopper fell toward the ocean. His eyes flew open, his heart slammed, and the adrenaline surged through his body as the helicopter lurched again and nosed over. The airspeed picked up, and he heard the building noise of the airstream slipping over the cabin. Faster and faster. The chopper rolled left and then right, and his stomach turned again. He caught a glimpse through the window and saw the sea shimmer lightly, barely off the left side. They were right on the water, no more than four or five feet in the air. He cried as the aircraft lurched, then started climbing again. A sudden burst of light, bright as the sun and moving off the left side, cast a freak shadow under its incredible light. The ocean lit up like at noonday as the flare burned across the night sky.

  The helicopter’s defensive countermeasures were kicking out antimissile flares!

  The crown prince knew what was happening.

  And somewhere inside him, though he didn’t acknowledge it yet, a small voice whispered that he was dead.

  * * *

  Grabbing the side of his chair, Prince Saud stumbled toward the cockpit door, but the chopper lurched again, and he was knocked to the floor. The aircraft rolled on its side to almost ninety degrees, and he slid like a rag doll across the carpeted floor, smashing his head against a small conference table. He felt the warm blood in his right eye, but quickly wiped it away and struggled to his feet again as the helicopter groaned around him, vibrating and shaking like an amusement-park ride. They were exceeding their main rotor speed limit; he could tell by the screeching sound. He reached for the cockpit door and jerked it open just as the chopper rolled again. He fell back and smashed his head on the same table. Cursing, he crawled to the cockpit door and pulled himself to his feet.

  Entering the cockpit, he saw the amber caution lights and heard the warning horns. The two pilots were in a panic, the pilot rolling the aircraft wildly. “Coming right!” he screamed as he rolled the chopper again. The prince’s eyes shot to the defensive display, and his heart turned to a cold rock in his chest. He saw the readout of the tracking radar behind him, up at fifteen thousand feet. He heard the warning system growling, warning
him of attack.

  “Who is it?” he screamed to the copilot on his left side. The Saudi colonel turned to him quickly, his eyes wide with fear. “F-15 Eagle,” he cried. “He is lighting us up!”

  The night illuminated again as the copilot spit out another bundle of phosphorous flares. The flares ejected from behind the main rotors and lifted into the night, trailing above and behind the chopper in a white-hot trail of heat designed to pull heat-seeking missiles away. The copilot reached to punch the flare button again, but the prince slapped his hand back. “Stop it!” he screamed. “That is not going to help!” He jammed a finger toward the threat display. “He hasn’t fired a missile yet. And when he shoots, it will be a radar-guided missile, not a heat-seeker anyway. All you’re doing is lighting us up like a flashlight, helping him know where to shoot.”

  The copilot only nodded, ready to panic again. The pilot flew the chopper like a mad man who had been shot in the eyes, rolling it left and then right, rocking her up on her side. The prince saw the ocean rise up to meet them as the pilot rolled the chopper again. The rotor blades slapped the warm ocean, and the chopper lurched to the side. The pilot panicked and climbed and the chopper shuddered toward the night sky.

  The prince braced himself, grabbing the top of the pilot’s seats; then he turned his eyes and studied the countermeasures display.

  He recognized the radar signature. An APG-63 radar. Yes, it was an F-15, forty miles behind them and closing very fast.

  His mind raced as he considered their options. They were over the water. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to land. He knew the spinning rotors and fat body of the chopper would bounce enormous portions of energy back to the F-15’s radar receiver. They had no guns, no weapons, only a few countermeasures. He was a fighter pilot—he had targeted helicopters from an

  F-15 himself, and he knew how really hopeless it was. A helicopter, over the water, against an F-15 with its missiles and guns.

  He swallowed, almost crying. Prince Abdullah had won.

  The pilot continued flying like a crazy man, breaking right and then left, climbing and descending, trying to break the radar lock that was tracking them from behind. But the chopper was enormous and no more stealthy than a Mack truck in the air. The missiles couldn’t miss it. They had seconds to live.

  Saud’s brain raced, then slowed down as a sudden calm filled his mind.

  He was going to die. He knew that already. Abdullah had tracked him to Iran, which meant he would soon find his son. But he might yet save him, if he could just reach his friend.

  He turned to the panicked copilot and jerked his headset from his head. “Tune up the VHF,” he screamed above the cry of the helicopter engines and rotors.

  The copilot stared at him blankly, his eyes glazed with fear.

  “Give me control of the VHF radio!” the prince cried again.

  * * *

  The Saudi fighter pilot checked his airspeed and altitude. Five-eighty knots. Fourteen thousand feet. The target was forty-one miles in front of him, almost straight off the nose. He watched as it rolled left and then right, a lumbering giant warming up for its death dance. As if any of that mattered! It could turn, it could roll, it could climb or descend—his radar couldn’t miss it now that he knew the chopper was there. He lifted his eyes and stared through the darkness, searching the open ocean below, and saw a tiny trail of white light burning across the ocean like a falling star. He squinted, then saw another white trail. What was that, he wondered, then almost laughed to himself. Flares! The idiot pilot was shooting off flares! He smiled under his mask. A real genius, yes. He hadn’t even fired his missiles. It was pure panic down there.

  Then he started, his mind racing. What kind of chopper carried antimissile flares? he wondered suddenly, an uncomfortable knot in his throat. Not a corporate charter. No civilian machine. Was he shooting a military chopper? What other kind of chopper carried flares . . . ?

  He wondered half a second, then pushed the thought from his head. What did it matter? His instructions were clear.

  The firing computer continued to growl in his helmet. He was in firing range. He checked the distance and lock-on, then moved his left hand on the throttles, flipped off the safe switch, and fired two AMRAAM missiles into the night air. The missile engines fired together in a trail of white smoke and flame and accelerated before him, then began to track toward the target below.

  * * *

  The helicopter copilot reached for the radio console and flipped the selector to manual. The crown prince leaned over the center console and changed the frequency to 122.5, the emergency guard frequency. Every U.S. aircraft in the air was required to monitor the frequency. The prince pulled on the headset and jerked the microphone to his lips.

  “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!” he said into the mike. “This is an emergency call for any U.S. aircraft. Mayday, Mayday! Does anyone read?”

  The prince released his broadcast button and listened, but the radio was silent. “Mayday, Mayday!” he repeated. “Any U.S. aircraft, this an emergency!”

  The helicopter pilot cried and pointed toward the threat screen. Two missiles had been fired and were tracking them. Twenty miles and closing. The pilot screamed in panic as he rolled the chopper and climbed, then threw the nose toward the ocean again. The copilot reached up and released another five bundles of burning flares. The missiles continued tracking toward the helicopter, accelerating as they descended through the night air. The pilot racked the chopper into a tight left-hand turn, pulling back toward the missiles, trying to throw them off his tail. The copilot saw the missiles turn toward them, then slowly bowed his head.

  Prince Saud watched the missiles track toward him on the screen, his mind suddenly peaceful and calm. He knew it was over, but he was prepared. He thought of Tala and his children, hoping he would find them there. He believed they were waiting, and he was ready to go to them now. He was an empty hole, the emotion having been drained from his body sometime before. He had lost the battle. This war was left to someone else now.

  Then he thought of his son and the last thing he could do for him, only hoping his message would not be intercepted. He pressed the transmit button and broadcasted again.

  “Mayday, Mayday!” he said over the radio. “This is an emergency call to any U.S. aircraft in the region. This is Saudi Crown Prince Saud bin Faysal with an emergency message for Major General Neil Brighton of the national security staff. Neil, my friend, all of my family is dead. I have one son who is living, and you must rescue him. The Agha Jari Deh Valley . . . you will find him there. He is there with my . . .”

  The missile hit the chopper in the left engine bay. Prince Saud felt the fire and heat and half a second of burning pain.

  * * *

  The F-15 pilot saw the explosion lighting up the night sky, a yellow fireball with a billowing white and black core. He saw the smoke rising, and the scattered pieces of the chopper began to rain from the sky, pelting the ocean in a hailstorm of smoking metal and burning debris, the fireball disappearing quickly as the pieces fell from the sky. He smiled, satisfied, and turned his jet back toward his home.

  His mission was successful. It looked like he would get his first star.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The hallways of the Pentagon are a wide, windowless, and wondrous maze of interconnecting spokes and rings that start at the center courtyard and work their way out from there. They are crowded and dull and brightened only by the colorful assortment of uniforms in the halls: air force, army, navy, and marines; dress whites, fatigues, air force blues, and army greens. The Pentagon has its own Metro station (the largest and most crowded in the city) as well as half a dozen cafeterias, its own shopping mall, bank, and mail delivery operation. The services the Pentagon offers are equal to those of any small city—which, of course, is exactly what it is. More general and flag officers work in the Pentagon than in any other single place on earth, and most of them are housed in the executive hallway along the outermost ring on the north
west side of the Pentagon. The building is always crowded, and there is a sense of urgency, a sense of purpose and mission, that simply isn’t replicated in any other government building other than the White House and the offices of the CIA. Those who walk the Pentagon halls know they are the sword of the nation, the tip of the spear, and they are willing to die for their country and to keep their people free.

  Major General Neil Brighton had a small annex office along the outer ring of the Pentagon, one hallway over from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was an understated and private setup, a single room with no reception area, secretary, or staff, a thinking place where he went to get away from the ringing phones and constant meetings and appointments that plagued his White House office. Inside the wood-paneled room, he had a small desk set against the back wall where he could turn in his chair and stare out a large window onto one of the huge parking lots that surrounded the Pentagon. In the distance, the buildings of D.C. rose, punctuated by the Washington Monument’s pearly-white spire sticking up in the air. Unlike his White House office, which was decorated with pictures of him with various political figures—two presidents, a vice president, the secretary of defense, half a dozen senators and congressmen, and various foreign leaders—the walls of his Pentagon office were decorated with his real love, which certainly wasn’t politics but fighters and fighting men. There were pictures of him as a lieutenant standing in front of his first F-15, pictures of him flying in formation along the DMZ in Korea, pictures of him soaring over the pyramids of Egypt and the Brandenburg Gate of the old Berlin wall. There were pictures of him as a captain and a major, always in olive or desert camouflage flight suits, posing in front of a fighter jet. There were pictures of him with his squadron mates in various locations around the world: deep sea fishing in the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea, riding camels in Iraq, eating sauerkraut at Lela’s, and fighting wars in Kuwait, Bosnia, Serbia, and Iraq. A stranger could trace the general’s career by looking at the pictures on the wall, from his flying days as a lieutenant to his first staff job at the Pentagon, from squadron commander at Langley to another staff job with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was here that the transition to a political animal became complete—where he started having more pictures of him with ambassadors and presidents than military friends.