by Nick Cook
Shabanov barked orders for every man to scan the skies for the fleeing MH-53J. They all knew that finding and destroying the Sikorsky was their only chance of returning home. General Aushev had left no provision in his scheme for failure.
The pilot turned and shook his head. There was nothing else in the sky.
Shabanov thought fast. Ulm had a choice. Either fly south to Israel and risk negotiating one of the best air-defence systems in the world, or stick to plan, fly east and find the US Sixth Fleet.
‘Make for the coast,’ Shabanov said.
‘He may already be there, Comrade Colonel,’ the pilot said. ‘The coast is less than fifteen minutes away.’
‘Are you telling me you can’t outfly a civilian?’
The pilot responded by locking the helicopter onto the most direct course for the coast. He adjusted the power to full boost and pushed the Sikorsky down, away from the SAMs and triple-A. The scrub terrain whipped past the belly of the helicopter at three hun-dred and twenty kilometres per hour.
A near miss with a rock outcrop prompted the co-pilot to switch the terrain-following radar from ‘stand-by’ to ‘search’. He also turned on the FLIR, flicking it alternately from infra-red to low-light TV in an effort to determine which mode best cut through the early morning mist.
The pilot switched the range scale on the radar picture and saw the hills give way to a short stretch of coastal plain. Beyond that, the sea disappeared off the edge of the screen.
They were less than five minutes’ flight time from the coast when the co-pilot gave a warning shout and pointed to the FLIR screen. Shabanov craned over his shoulder. The co-pilot had the monitor in infra-red mode. In the centre was the unmistakable outline of a helicopter, its engines showing up as shimmering black heatspots. The co-pilot brought up the magnification and the shape grew into the other MH-53J.
‘He’s coming in on an almost perpendicular course,’ the co-pilot said. ‘From the north-east.’
‘Cut him off,’ Shabanov said.
‘Then what, Comrade Colonel?’
‘We pull alongside and shoot him out of the sky.’
The smell of the sea was strong on the warm wind blowing through the open window in the cockpit.
‘Two minutes to intercept,’ the co-pilot called.
Girling could see waves breaking on a beach a few miles beyond the nose of the Sikorsky. He pushed the helicopter lower, preparing to adjust his course onto a parallel heading with the coastline. Suddenly, the cockpit filled with a sharp audible warning and the RWR panel in front of him lit up like Broadway. He held his breath, convinced that, at any moment, the helicopter would be hit by a SAM, or rocked by the blast of radar-guided triple-A. In the midst of his fear, he remembered what Ulm had said about counter-measures. He hit the button beneath his thumb and knew that somewhere behind the helicopter little bundles of radar-spoofing chaff would be billowing into the slipstream.
The audible warning kept on coming, cutting through his concentration. He spotted a switch on the RWR panel labelled ‘audio’ and turned it off. The noise stopped immediately, but he could see the threat still winking at him on the panel - a flashing box with the alpha-numerics ‘E-2C’ beside it. It took him a few seconds to realize that the helicopter was being swept by an airborne early-warning Hawkeye from the Sixth Fleet. Girling knew that Ulm’s mission was so secret that the Sikorsky’s IFF transponders would have been switched off for the duration of the flight. He hoped somebody on the Hawkeye had been briefed to look out for them.
Unaware that the radio was dead, he was preparing to raise the Hawkeye on VHF when he spotted a second box winking on the flat-panel display. He peered at the screen, anxious to identify the threat to his left. Unlike the Hawkeye, there was no recognition code beside the box. All he could tell was that something was painting his RWR with radar signals and it was closing fast.
He adjusted course until the E-2C was dead ahead, though impossible to tell how far. He began to pray that the crew was vectoring a couple of Navy fighters towards him. For Girling knew now why the radar emitter on his nine o’clock bore no identification. It was an MH-53J, just like his. The Russians were right on his tail.
The sound, shrill and piercing, exploded in the cockpit. Wide-eyed, Girling swept the instrument panel, hoping it was only the ground-proximity warner, but he was too high and, in any case, this was a sound he knew already.
He spotted the warning light. It was pulsing ‘missile alert’, over and over. The clock-face of the missile-approach warner indicated it was heading for his left-hand rear quadrant.
Girling banged the stick hard to the right and pushed the helicopter down. He was so close to the waves that salt spray showered the Perspex. A snaking trail of gunfire lashed the water in front. There was no missile. The RWR had picked up the storm of bullets from the Russians’ miniguns.
A last look at the threat warner told him there were no F-14s to rescue him. He was on his own.
The Soviet-crewed helicopter had had only one chance for a snap-shot before the other Sikorsky banked away beyond the deflection of its guns.
Shabanov roared his disgust with his crew, then ordered the pilot to slip into Girling’s wake.
Using the low-light television on super-magnification, Shabanov was able to gain a perfect close-up view of the helicopter.
The ramp was down, but no one was manning the minigun station. He could see right through the hold and into the flight deck. Ulm’s body slumped listlessly, his hanging head silhouetted in the frame of the doorway. The pilot he could not see, but that did not matter. Shabanov already knew that the man was inexperienced. It was a miracle he had kept the Pave Low in the air this long.
The slipstream rushed through the open unmanned windows in the helicopter’s hold; loose straps and canvas seats flapped like streamers in the wind. Clearly discernible on the floor was the trussed form of the Sword, his head supported by parachute packs.
He was either unconscious or dead. Shabanov wanted to remove the element of doubt.
The Sikorsky was utterly defenceless. It remained for them to manoeuvre alongside and blast it out of the sky with a prolonged broadside from the mini-guns.
The co-pilot turned to him and announced that they were being painted by a US E-2C Hawkeye. From the strength of the signal he judged it to be about fifty miles ahead.
Shabanov was unconcerned by the American radar plane. He told the pilot to pull all available power from the engines, haul parallel with the other helicopter, and hold a close course while he and the ramp gunner poured thousands of rounds into the flight deck and hold.
The colonel moved back and briefed the rear gunner before assuming position in the window immediately aft of the flight deck.
He stuck his head into the slipstream and watched as the other Sikorsky drew closer. He checked the minigun, rotating its six barrels slowly just to make sure there was no malfunction.
Everything was in perfect working order.
Girling threw a glance over his shoulder and saw the Soviet-crewed Pave Low creeping up on his tail, as predatory as a deep-water shark. It was so close that its nose filled the frame of the ramp opening, so close he could see not just the flight crew, but the darkened forms of soldiers on the cargo deck beyond. Fifty feet below, the sea boiled under the vortex of the machine’s six-bladed main rotor.
He had pushed the Sikorsky as low as he dared. He had used up all the available sky. Still the second helicopter was outrunning him and there was nothing he could do about it.
He knew that Shabanov was preparing to manoeuvre alongside to bring his guns to bear. He could try twisting and turning, but it would only delay the agony. If he manoeuvred, he would lose his bearing on the E-2C; and the Hawkeye was his one guiding light.
Girling faced front and scanned the horizon for a ship, a US Navy frigate acting as picket for the fleet, but the early morning mist allowed only a few miles’ visibility. There was not so much as a fishing boat in sight.
&
nbsp; Girling turned to Ulm. He shouted once, but the colonel’s head continued to hang on his chest. Girling felt a rush of loneliness. He wanted to hear another voice before he died. He wanted Ulm to talk. Girling felt a mad compulsion to laugh. He wanted Ulm to make him laugh. There was no need now for fighting talk, no time any more for his advice...
Advice, Ulm’s advice.
Dear God.
He looked over his shoulder, but the second Pave Low had gone. He glanced to his left and saw its shadow on the sea. Two shadows almost parallel. His aircraft and Shabanov’s. Together. Side by side.
He lifted his eyes and there it was. The second helicopter level-pegging with his own. He could see the Soviet pilot toggling the throttle levers, squeezing that last bit of power from the engines. He could see the concentration and the sweat on his face. The helicopter inched forward and there was Shabanov in the forward gunner’s window, his minigun levelled right at the cockpit, right at him. There was a moment in which their eyes met.
Girling pushed the throttles to the gates and his helicopter edged forward twenty feet. His thumb found the toggle switch on the cyclic. There was no time to look. Forward or back? Chaff or flares?
Back. That was what Ulm had said. Girling pulled the switch towards him and held it there.
Barely a few feet separated the blades of the two helicopters when fifty flares, each possessing the peak intensity of a mini-sun, ripple-fired out of the flare rack and punched into Shabanov’s Sikorsky. They exploded through the Perspex windshield of the flight deck and into the open windows of the cargo hold. Once inside, they burned holes through flesh and bone, through metal deck plates, through control rods and fuel lines.
Shabanov took the full force of the salvo. The flares that hit him were so hot his clothes ignited instantaneously. His flaming body fell onto the ammunition box.
Girling pulled up into the sky just before the other Sikorsky exploded like a giant Catherine wheel. The force of the blast lifted his helicopter another two hundred feet and for several seconds he thought he had lost it. Behind him, the dawn was momentarily eclipsed by a billowing fireball.
He kept climbing until he reached two thousand feet and throttled back. He felt the onset of the reaction then. His hands began to shake uncontrollably and the instrumentation swam before his eyes. Had it not been for Ulm’s voice, weak but calm beside him, he might have panicked.
‘Are we going to make it, Girling?’
‘We might just, Colonel.’ He paused. ‘As long as you stick around long enough to teach me how to land this thing.’
There was a glint in the sky as something caught the sun up ahead. Before Girling had time to tense, two F-14 Tomcats appeared out of the mist. They roared past so close that the sound of their engines reverberated over the noise and vibration of the Sikorsky’s rotor.
Ulm reached for the Very pistol in the door compartment and fired their recognition signal out of the window. The F-14s reappeared, wings swept fully forward, engines throttled right back, hanging on the edge of the stall to maintain speed with the Sikorsky. The pilot of the one off their right side rocked his wings and pointed a little way south of their present heading. Girling responded by putting the Sikorsky into a gradual turn towards the fleet.
EPILOGUE
Girlling was aware of the constant throb of the deck plates as he made his way from the communications room to the infirmary. The USS Groves was steaming full tilt through the Ionian Sea to the Straits of Messina en route for Naples.
The US Navy had let him make three calls. The first was to his parents, a second to Dispatches. Atmospheric distortion on the lines had not made conversation easy; he just wanted to let them know he was on his way back.
The third call had been to Lazan in Cairo. Girling had made it clear from the way he steered the conversation that there was not a whole lot he could say about the last three days. A Navy Intelligence Officer was standing over him like a hawk.
Lazan promised he’d call Sharifa. ‘A pity, Tom Girling, I thought the two of you...’ And then his voice had become lost in the static.
The USS Groves had been designed to spearhead assault landings from the sea; the infirmary was big enough to pick up the pieces. Girling made his way between the beds. One or two of them were occupied. A marine with a broken arm, another with some indeterminate illness, a third with a scalded leg. It was a far cry from the mayhem of the caravanserai.
From the equipment surrounding Ulm’s bed, it looked like the Air Force colonel had just come through a heart-lung operation. There were wires attached to his chest, bandages lacing his torso, two drips in his arm, and a tube up his nose.
As soon as the nurse saw Girling, she headed him off. Girling looked over her shoulder and noticed Ulm giving her the once-over.
Girling asked for - and was granted - five minutes, but no more. Colonel Ulm, she said, was still a very sick man.
He sat down beside the bed. Ulm’s eyes were on him and alert.
‘They say you’re going to make a complete recovery, Colonel.’
‘Physically, yes.’ Ulm’s voice cracked.
For a moment, Girling’s face registered concern.
‘Some shrink lieutenant said he ought to take a look inside my head after the way you landed that thing.’
Girling smiled. ‘I took you for an arrogant arsehole first time we met, Colonel.’
‘Us “arseholes” have got to stick together, Girling.’ Ulm laughed, then winced as the pain shot through his body. When he had controlled the coughing bout that followed, he brought a hand up from the bed. ‘It’s Elliot.’
Girling smiled as they shook.
‘Was it true - all that shit about only ever having flown simulators?’
‘Yes and no.’ Girling paused. ‘I’ve flown helicopters, but nothing the size of a Pave Low. When it comes to heavy lift, then I’m afraid simulator experience is it. A background in technical journalism has its advantages.’
‘The sooner you’re back flying a desk, the better,’ Ulm said.
‘I’m in no hurry.’
‘Well, here’s one thing you can keep out of the notebook. The hostages, Franklin and the rest of them, were freed at ten hundred hours this morning. They’re all safe. Shaken, but safe.’
‘I’m glad. What happened?’
‘Aushev had had them detained in some top-secret military complex in Georgia. Koltsov too. A GRU listening post, way up in the mountains, close to the Black Sea. He’d got them out of the Med by submarine, our people think.’
‘He must be quite a guy.’
Ulm nodded. ‘More than anyone knew, inside the Kremlin or out. What we don’t know is whether he would have been due for a medal or a bullet in the back of the head.’
‘So what’s the official version?’
Ulm raised an eyebrow. ‘A joint Russian-American initiative brought about the release of the hostages. It’ll all be in the White House press release, sometime soon, I should think. The world needs to believe we’re all moving forward together.’
Ulm was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again there was no irony in his voice. ‘They’re talking about giving me a fucking medal, Tom. The Pathfinders deserve a lot more than that.’
‘I’m sorry, Elliot.’
‘Yeah, me too.’
He hesitated. ‘And the Sword?’
‘The Sword will make public the declaration he was to have made at the Shura. He is for peace, not armed struggle.’
‘But he and the Angels of Judgement take the rap for the whole thing...’
‘He gets what he wants. The Russian President gave his word.’
Girling’s face darkened. ‘His word?’
Ulm said: ‘If anyone fucks about, Tom, then everything I just said goes on the record. Until then, I’m prepared to give them a chance. Are you?’
‘It’s a hell of a story.’ He paused. ‘But what the fuck, we’ve all got to start somewhere...’
The nurse reappeared at the far end of
the ward and began walking towards them.
‘Do you think they’d let me see him?’ Girling asked.
‘You’ll have to hurry. They’re shipping him out.’
‘Whereto?’
‘A hospital in Tunis. His presence aboard the Groves could be a little embarrassing when we dock in Naples.’
‘Then I’d better go.’
Girling held his hand out. ‘If you ever need a pilot...’
‘Fly low, fly slow, Tom.’
Girling smiled.
He made his way back up through the bowels of the ship to the hangar on deck two. From there, it was just a ride on an aircraft hoist to the open air. A sharp sea breeze whipped across the deck of the mini-carrier. It seemed as if every spare inch of deck space was packed with hardware: AV-8B jump-jets, CH-46 medium-lift helos, several MH-53E mine-sweeping choppers, and last but not least, their Pave Low, sitting it out alone, above the fan-tail.
At the other end of the ship, towards the bow, Girling could see an MH-53E warming up, the sun-light catching on its rotors as they started to turn. He quickened his step, heading for the cordon of armed Marines between the helicopter and the island, the conning tower from which the captain commanded his ship.
Twenty feet from the helo, a Marine lieutenant flagged him down. There was a special security restriction around the flight. Definitely no civilians allowed.
Girling turned just as the party of orderlies brought the Sword on deck. He was lying on a stretcher, but his head moved from side to side, his eyes sharp as they took in the details of the walk from the island to the helicopter.
Girling stopped and watched him go. The orderlies lifted the stretcher onto the ramp and it was then that their eyes met. The Sword raised his arm and the procession stopped. He said something to one of the orderlies, who looked briefly in Giriing’s direction before walking over to the cordon and talking to the Marine. The lieutenant listened, shrugged, then waved Girling over.