by Jim DeFelice
“See if you can scatter the group and isolate the people with guns,” said Danny. “Take them down.”
Turk turned the plane northeast so he could swing down and attempt to scatter the group.
From his perspective, the gunners were using women and children to shield themselves, making it difficult for them to be attacked without killing innocent lives. Of course, that was the idea. They figured they couldn’t lose: if he didn’t shoot, they’d get Rubeo. If they were shot at, the odds were the civilians would be hurt as well, undoubtedly giving them some sort of propaganda victory.
Had something like that happened with the kids? Were they actually trained to use MANPADs? Was one hidden somewhere nearby?
But if so, what could he have done?
As Turk approached the group, he lit off IR decoy flares, showering the area. At the same time, he pulled the Tigershark onto her back and hit the throttle full blast, jerking the aircraft upward. The noise was deafening — not quite a sonic boom, but more than a little distracting. One or two of the people began to run, then everyone started to follow, fleeing to the east.
He tilted on his wing, trying to get back into a position to find the people who had fired. But they’d thrown down their weapons in panic, and when he asked the computer to identify them, it responded that none of the people were armed.
“Who threw the guns down?” said Turk.
“Rephrase.”
Turk decided to concentrate on the helicopters instead. They were almost at the trucks.
He fell back toward the earth, spinning the wings level and sending off another shower of flares, this time directly in the helicopters’ path. They diverted east.
Turk zoomed out the map and took a look at the tanks, which were now moving on a road in the direction of the highway and Rubeo.
“People ran. Helicopters going east. Tanks are still moving,” he told Danny. “Can I take them out?”
“Stand by.”
“They’re close enough to fire,” warned Turk.
“I know — hold on. I have allied command.”
Danny’s tone made it clear that he wasn’t happy about what he was hearing on the line.
* * *
“I have people under fire,” Danny repeated for the French colonel who’d contacted him directly from the command staff. “I have to be permitted to protect them. We’re in the middle of a rescue operation.”
“We have been told that there is active negotiation between forces, and all forces require an immediate cease-fire,” said the colonel, whose English was so-so. “I have these orders, which have come from the general himself to me. All allied aircraft and forces are to stand back.”
“Listen, Colonel, with all due respect, I am going to protect my people.”
“You must follow the order.”
“Yup, that’s what I’m doing,” snapped Danny, closing the line. A few seconds later the combat air controller came back on.
“We’re seeing those tanks moving,” said the controller. “You want some help to watch them?”
“I want clearance to blow them up.”
“I can’t give that to you,” said the colonel. He spoke quickly. “I have a flight of A–10Es that I’m going to divert south.”
“Are they cleared hot on the tanks?” Danny asked.
“Negative at this time.”
The controller gave Danny the contact frequency and call sign — it was Ginella’s squadron, which of course made sense, since they were the only Hogs in the theater. Danny quickly made contact with Ginella, who was leading the flight.
“We are en route to you,” she told him, without the slightest hint in her voice that they had ever spoken or met. “We should be there in about zero-six minutes.”
“Appreciate your help.”
“Be advised, I have been ordered to restrain from using weapons at this time,” added Ginella.
“Copy that.”
“Colonel, just so you know: I do not intend on allowing any American to be harmed in this operation.”
“You and I agree one hundred and ten percent,” said Danny.
21
Libya
By the time Rubeo reached the first rock and started up the incline, the bot had caught up. It moved to the right of him and began trudging up the hill, moving at a slow but steady pace. The gunfire had stopped, and the helicopters appeared to have moved off.
Rubeo told the bot to pause as it crested the summit of the second hilltop. He reached it a few moments later, caught his breath, and then had it follow as he climbed over the last hill separating him and Kharon.
The young man blinked at him as he came down the slope. Pain lined his face.
“They’ll be here any minute,” said Rubeo.
“Don’t shoot me.”
“I’m not going to. Don’t worry,” said Rubeo. He glanced self-consciously at the gun, which was pointed at the ground.
“What’s going to happen to me?”
“You’ll go to the hospital.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know.” Rubeo shook his head. “I’ll help you.”
“Why?”
Rubeo couldn’t answer the question, not even for himself. He had only a sense that it was the right thing to do — not because of logic, but because of emotion. And even that was vague.
Something shrieked overhead. Rubeo turned his eyes upward, sure it must be the Tigershark. Then there was a loud clap nearby, and the ground seemed to shatter.
“Something is firing at us,” he told Kharon.
A second shell whistled nearby. This one was even closer; dirt and debris rained across his back.
“We have to get out of here.”
* * *
“Tanks are firing!” Turk told Danny.
“Take them.”
“Yeah. I’m on it.”
He was already on a direct line for one of the tanks, roughly three miles to the west. He zeroed it in his targeting screen, corrected slightly, and fired.
A slug sped from the aircraft, hurtling into the fat turret of the tank. Unsure of the result, Turk fired twice more, then pulled off.
The bullets put three large holes in the top of the tank, disabling its main gun and the engine. The T–72 jerked to an abrupt stop, disabled though not in fact destroyed. The almost surgical gunfire had left the crew hatches undamaged, and within a few seconds the three men who had been manning the tank scrambled away from it, undoubtedly stunned and unsure what would happen next.
“Tigershark, this is Shooter One. Are you engaging the tanks?”
“Affirmative Shooter. They have commenced firing.”
The sitrep map showed Turk all four Hogs, IDing them by their call signs and squadron identifications. Ginella was flying lead.
Her wingman was Li.
“We can engage,” said Ginella. “We’re just coming into range.”
“I have the one to the north, that one leading on the road,” said Turk. “You can have the rest.”
“Roger, Tigershark, we copy. We’re going to take the others.”
“Copy.”
Turk swung north to line up his shot. As he did, the RWR began to sound — the MiGs that were supposed to be intercepted by the French planes had turned in his direction. But it wasn’t him they were targeting; it was the A–10s.
* * *
Danny Freah took a long, slow breath, ignoring the cacophony of protests in his headset. He leaned forward between the two Osprey pilots, trying to spot the trucks in the distance.
“I’m being told to turn back north,” the pilot told him. “The air commander is trying to reach you.”
“You’re under my direct orders,” Danny told him calmly. “You have no responsibility.”
“Sir, I’m going to save our guys, too. Screw everything else.”
“Let’s do it, then.”
“We have more vehicles coming up the road,” he told Danny. “Looks like a scout car, and a couple of pickups. Those
pickups usually have fifty cals on the back. I’d like to engage them.”
Even without the allied order to stand down and avoid combat, engaging the vehicles was highly questionable. They had not fired at either the Osprey or Rubeo, and in fact had done nothing overtly threatening. But the situation now was simply too chaotic, and their mere presence was a threat. The Osprey couldn’t land close to a fifty caliber, let alone three of them.
“Fire some warning shots and see if they stop,” Danny told the pilot.
“If they don’t?”
“Then splash them.”
* * *
Rubeo heard the roar of the Osprey’s engines in the distance, but the shells were still raining down, passing overhead. He guessed they were being aimed at the road, but that was hardly a consolation — any second now he expected one to land short and wipe them out.
“I can’t carry you,” he told Kharon.
“Leave me!”
“That’s not what I meant. Come on.” Rubeo hooked his arms under the other man’s shoulder’s. “I have to get you on the bot.”
Kharon screamed in anguish. Rubeo hesitated, but the whistle of another shell going overhead convinced him to continue. He half lifted, half dragged Kharon to the nearby bot, cringing as the younger man howled in pain.
“We’re getting out of here,” Rubeo told him, putting him down as gently as he could manage on the rear bed of the bot. Kharon twisted, grabbing hold of the spar.
“Diomedes, follow me,” Rubeo told the bot, starting out of the small hollow where he’d taken shelter.
He’d taken exactly three steps when he felt himself pushed from behind, thrown forward by a force he couldn’t fathom.
22
Over Libya
Turk zeroed his gun on the tank and fired six bursts, the bolts leaping from the gun in a sharp, staccato rhythm that seemed to suspend the Tigershark in midair. The line of his bullets was tighter this time, and there was no escape for the men inside — the first slug ignited one of the tank’s shells, and secondary explosions ripped through the tight quarters of the armored vehicle, mincing its occupants. The rest of the bullets simply sliced through the fireballs.
As soon as he let off the trigger, Turk turned his attention to the MiGs. They had separated into two groups, one duo diverting toward the French interceptors and the other coming at the Hogs.
The A–10s were easy targets for the MiGs, but to their credit they remained in their attack patterns, closing in on the tanks.
“Shooter, I’m on those MiGs,” Turk told Ginella. “I have them.”
“We appreciate it.”
There was a launch warning — the MiGs were firing.
“Four missiles,” reported the computer. “AA–10 Alamo. Semiactive radar.”
“Plot an intercept to missiles,” said Turk. He could line up and shoot at the missiles with the rail gun.
“Impossible to intercept all four.”
“Best solution.”
A plot flashed up on the screen.
Three targets. Two were heading for Ginella’s aircraft, Shooter One. The other was going for Beast in Shooter Three.
“Identify target of remaining missile,” Turk said.
“Missile is targeted at Shooter Four.”
Li’s plane, on Ginella’s wing.
“Recalculate to include missile targeting Shooter Four.”
The computer presented a new solution, striking one of the missiles on Ginella as well as Li’s sole missile. But Beast was completely unprotected. Before Turk could decide what to do, four more missiles launched. The computer began running a variety of solutions, but Turk realized that none were going to completely protect the Hogs.
“Choose Solution One,” he said, moving to the course queue as it snapped into his heads-up. “Shooter squadron, you have missiles inbound.”
“We’re aware of that, Tigershark.”
“I can get some, not all.”
“Whatever you can do for us,” said Ginella. Her voice was cold and flat, without effect. “Tanks will be down in a second.”
23
Libya
Danny Freah grabbed for a handhold as the Osprey pirouetted above the road, the chain gun in its nose tearing up the road in front of the approaching vehicles. The two trucks veered off to the side but the armored car kept moving forward.
“Stop the bastard,” said Danny.
The Osprey spun back quickly. The gun under its chin swiveled, and a steady rat-rat-rat followed. Danny leaned forward, watching through the windscreen as the gun’s bullets chewed through the rear quarter of the lightly armored vehicle. Steam shot up from the armored car. The right rear wheel seemed to fall away, sliding from the cloud of smoke and disintegrating metal. The rest of the vehicle morphed into a red oblong, fire consuming it in an unnaturally symmetrical shape. The red flared, then changed to black as the symmetry dissolved in a rage.
“People on the ground, coming up along the road,” said the copilot.
“Where are our guys?” asked Danny.
“Going for them now.”
* * *
Rubeo fell face-first into the side of the hill. His face felt as if it had caught fire and had been ripped downward at the same time; his head pounded with pain. He pushed back with his hand, then fell to the side, exhausted and spent.
What had Bastian’s advice been? What was his old colonel telling him?
Find out why it happened. For yourself.
He’d done that — Kharon had caused it, with the help of the Russians. He’d closed the circle of a crime committed years before. A crime Rubeo knew he had been completely innocent of, yet one he’d always felt guilty about.
How did he benefit from knowing that?
He should feel relief knowing he wasn’t responsible for the accident, and more important, for the civilian deaths. And yet he didn’t. He should feel horror at Kharon’s crime — he’d committed murder. Anger. Rage. But all he felt was pity, pity and sorrow. Useless emotions.
Was that what knowledge brought you? Impotent sadness?
The man who had built his life around the idea that intelligence could solve every problem lay in the dirt and rubble, body battered and exhausted. He knew many things, but what he knew most of all now was pain.
Up, he told himself. Up.
You know what happened. And what of it? Knowledge itself is useless. It’s how it’s put to use, if it can be used at all.
Diomedes idled behind him. He could feel the soft vibration of its engine.
Time to get up. Time to move on.
“Follow me,” he said, starting to move on his hands and knees.
The bot moved behind him, carrying Kharon and nipping at Rubeo’s heels.
His ears pounded. Rubeo realized belatedly that he couldn’t hear properly. The ground vibrated with something, but whether it was far or close, he had no idea.
Gradually his strength returned. He pushed up to his knees, then to his feet, walking unsteadily up the slope. The world had shaded yellow, blurring at the edges. Rubeo pushed himself forward, trudging across the side of a hill, then down to his right, in the direction of the road. The loose dirt and sand moved under the soles of his feet, and he felt himself sliding. He began to glide down the hill, legs bent slightly and arms out for balance; a snowboarder couldn’t have done it better.
The bot followed. Rubeo glanced at it, making sure Kharon was still on the back. Then he began moving parallel to the road. He passed the disabled trucks, continuing toward a flat area he remembered from earlier.
* * *
Kharon’s leg had gone numb, but he actually felt better. The shock had passed; his head was clear. He felt stronger — still injured, of course, but no longer paralyzed.
He clung to the crane arm of the bot as they rumbled across the terrain, the vehicle bobbing and weaving like a canoe shooting rapids. It settled somewhat as it moved off the hill onto the level shoulder alongside the road.
An Osprey, black a
nd loud, approached from the south. Kharon stared as it grew larger. His eyes, irritated by the grit in the wind, seemed to burn with the image. The ground shook. The wings seemed to move upward, the control surfaces sliding down as the rotors at the tips tilted. Dirt flew everywhere.
The world began to close around him, becoming dark. He was a child, trapped in the closet, waiting for something that would never happen.
All these years, and he had never really moved beyond those long, terrible moments. Everything he had done, his achievements, his studies, paled compared to that dreadful time. Life had failed to lift him beyond the sinkhole he’d crawled into that night.
Such a failure. Such a waste. Even the one thing I lived for, revenge, proved unreachable. Rubeo wasn’t even the culprit. Rubeo wasn’t even the villain. The people who helped me were. They probably knew it from the start.
Nothing is left.
* * *
Danny moved to the door as the Osprey started to settle toward the earth. Boston was already there, gun in hand, ready to leap out. They had to move quickly; the Osprey was extremely vulnerable when landing and taking off.
Not to mention on the ground.
Something shrieked. The aircraft jerked upward.
“Incoming shells,” said the pilot over the interphone. “Evading — hang on.”
* * *
Rubeo saw the aircraft as it swept overhead. Dirt swirled from the wash of the propellers spinning. He put his head down, shielding it with his hands.
“Into the aircraft,” he said, speaking into the microphone for the bot. He still couldn’t hear; his voice in his head sounded hollow and strange. “Go to the ramp at the rear.”
The wind increased. Rubeo bent almost double and stopped moving forward. All he had to do now was wait.
They were out of this damn hellhole.
Diomedes poked him in the back. Rubeo turned, then fell as the wind peaked. He rolled onto his back, eyes and face covered by his hands. He spread his fingers hesitantly, then saw something black fleeing above.
The Osprey was scooting away.