With bright blue eyes, a round face, ruddy skin, and a balding head that, in patches, was covered by black razor-hewn stubble, Donnan stood as a stocky Scotsman from Inverness, and a hardened veteran of the Gulf War. He was also one of the few to know ‘Captain Smith’s’ true identity. Segregated on base with Albert, Donnan had come to enjoy the private meals, cushy barracks, and ample supplies that came with living with a Prince. He often joked he should get a title, suggesting it as ‘Donnan, Count of Helmand’ with a coat of arms made up of two darts crossed before a bottle of beer. When at work, however, Donnan became deadly serious, a ruthless gunner who never hesitated to kill. In the Apache’s tandem cockpit, these two men played their control panels, and went through the pre-flight checklist.
Albert looked outside for a moment. The sun had set the sky ablaze in reds and oranges. In the purple-tinted blue on-high, white streaks marked where American B-52s had made their way on some nameless bombing run against mountain redoubts. He sighed and made inputs to the three digital displays arrayed before him. He also checked the flight systems and programmed the navigation computer with destination coordinates and flight-path waypoints. He lowered and adjusted a helmet-mounted monocular lens—what American Apache pilots affectionately called the ‘Colonel Klink’—and centered it before his right eye. With an electronic flicker, imagery filled the monocle and flooded Albert’s view.
The Apache’s nose turret sported an unblinking mechanical eye that fed the monocle with an inhuman view of the world: Even in the last of the hot day’s sunlight, body heat and vehicle engines appeared as bright white against a dark-grey background. Albert turned his head and cockpit sensors detected the movement of his helmet, tracking the nose turret in unison. He watched as a ground technician strolled up and signaled readiness. He was to guide the Apache into the sky. Beginning to sweat, Albert started the cockpit fans. Although the blown air was filtered, aviation gas fumes and the dry stink of Afghanistan’s air—what they all called the ‘Big Latrine’ for its sun-stewed aroma—was sucked inside.
“Is that roses I smell, mate?” the helmet speaker crackled with Donnan’s thick accent.
“Smells like Highlander to me,” Albert rebutted.
As usual, Donnan’s laugh was deep and hearty. The quips sent at each other had a calming effect, and counteracted the shakes-inducing adrenalin. Albert often jabbed at his cockpit companion just to hear that laugh; a laugh that sounded like it belonged to a ten-foot giant. Donnan snorted and reported: “All ready.” They got a thumbs-up from the man outside, too. Albert did a final scan.
Electronics, hydraulics, and other parameters for the Apache’s two big Rolls-Royce Turbomeca turbo-shaft engines were all in the green. Albert took the aircraft’s collective and cyclic controls in his gloved hands and engaged the main and tail rotors. The helicopter, anxious to take flight, vibrated excitedly. Shimmering heat blew out of the exhausts mounted either side of the fuselage, and the rotors began to rotate, rhythmically chopping at the air. The ground technician twirled an arm. The gesture signified good spin-up. The technician then indicated the Apache was clear of any ground obstructions and had authorization for departure. Albert lifted the collective.
The neutral rotor blades articulated and bit into the air, pushing air down and creating lift, the phenomena Albert called the ‘power of up.’ The Apache leapt off the tarmac, rose to 50 feet, hovered, turned, and dipped its nose toward the craggy hills that lined the northeastern horizon. The man on the ground saluted, and Albert contacted the tower.
Albert was assigned a departure lane that would get his aircraft safely through other inbound and outbound American, Australian, and British air traffic. Once outside the wire, the brightly-lit base perimeter fell behind. Donnan and Albert found themselves swallowed by the stone-age darkness of Afghanistan.
Scanning ahead with night vision, Albert spotted the heat forms of a camel caravan, fires from a small village, and a man on a hill. This man, dismissed as just another peasant in the mountains, reported the helicopter’s departure and general heading to his Taliban buddies. Albert flew the Apache along the line demarked by the navigation computer. They were on their way to support an assault on the centuries-old Jugroom Fort.
Albert checked the mission computer. He noted that his flight was on-course and on-time. Their Apache was tasked to rendezvous with an American armed scout helicopter—a Kiowa—and be under the control of one of their Forward Air Controllers already dug in on the heights above the ancient fortress.
Dry mud bricks comprised Jugroom’s outer wall. Upon a central earthen motte, there stood a collection of fortified buildings that the Taliban and foreign fighters—mostly Arabs and Chechens—used to store weapons caches, to feed and house fighters, and to protect the season’s opium crop until it could be moved out by donkey. Tonight’s assault was dual purpose: confiscate or destroy the drugs, and capture or kill as many insurgents as possible. Also, intelligence had indicated the presence of an Al-Qaeda leader. This leader was not high on the totem pole, though worthy of interrogation if caught. The American colonel who delivered the mission briefing had remarked, “No one would cry if this Al-Qaeda fucker happened to be killed;” adding, “Guantanamo’s all full up.”
Albert flew his Apache nap-of-the earth, a very low-altitude mode of flight utilized to avoid enemy detection in a high-threat environment. He consulted a tactical diagram strapped to his knee, and noted symbols that represented the small village that sat in the shadow of the old fort.
A mere collection of hovels and shacks, the village relied on the fort’s spring for drinking and irrigation water, and splayed just beyond a rampart built around Jugroom’s brick perimeter wall. The village was danger-close and civilians were at home. As always, and since the village could not be warned beforehand, briefings included a caution against collateral damage. While Albert knew this was for purposes of ‘hearts and minds,’ his avoidance of the village would be for the women and children; the same women and children the Taliban had a tendency to shelter behind when threatened.
“Five miles,” Albert called out.
“Right,” Donnan grunted. That one simple word indicated Donnan was ready with the helicopter’s 30 millimeter Chain Gun, its Hellfire missiles, and its 70 millimeter CRV7 folding-fin rockets. A green indicator light on a cockpit panel told Donnan that, in the dome above the main rotor, the Apache’s Longbow acquisition and targeting radar was warmed up and ready for business.
The Apache hovered behind a rocky hillock, its gear tires barely three feet from the ground.
“Okay, let’s see what we can see.” Albert brought the Apache above the precipice, allowing their night vision sensors and optical systems to do a quick scan of the terrain. Jugroom Fort was visible, and atop its ramparts, they could see Taliban fighters guarding the approaches. On the cockpit screens, heat from lots of US Marines was also visible. They had formed up out of view of the fort, and this mass was ready to begin the assault. Dropping the aircraft down again, Albert checked his watch and announced the attack would commence in three minutes.
“Roger,” said Donnan. They would open the proceedings with a Hellfire missile, the weapon blasting a breach in the old mud wall and making a nice hole for the marines to pour through, before fanning out within the enemy compound. Just before the Hellfire arrived, Donnan would guide his cannon fire along the rampart’s crenellations, hosing the enemy with 30 millimeter bullets.
“Okay, mate, no stray rounds in that village,” Albert reminded Donnan.
“Roger,” Donnan acknowledged. “I’ll use the laser designator for Hellfire,” Donnan announced. This meant Albert would have to keep the Apache’s nose above cover for the duration of the missile’s flight. Although the Longbow radar could guide the Hellfire, the laser—when the air was clear of dust like tonight—directed the missile to within inches of the desired point of impact, making it far more accurate.
“One minute,” Albert counted.
Flashing panel lights
indicated the Chain Gun had awakened, and that a Hellfire was ready for launch.
“Ten seconds…five, four, three, two, one.”
The Apache unmasked. The cockpit screens showed the heat of the sallying Americans. Donnan energized the Apache’s laser designator. The Hellfire’s single menacing eye spotted the laser’s invisible beam dancing on the fort’s rampart. With a whoosh and a bang, the Hellfire ignited and slid from its wing rail, speeding off to its target. Albert kept the Apache steady to maintain beam integrity. With the missile away, Donnan wasted no time opening up with his Chain Gun. The Apache shook, and the cannon rounds impacted along the top of the fort’s wall.
One-by-one, enemy fighters fell from their firing positions. In his night vision screen, Albert saw one Talib stand to fire at the Marines. Hit by the Chain Gun’s large bullets, a light green mist appeared where the fighter had once been. Then the Hellfire slammed into the wall and exploded.
Dry mud blasted airborne. When the smoke cleared, the fort’s perimeter had yawned open. American mortar crews landed rounds in the compound, and the infantry charged in behind the impacts. The radio crackled. The voice of the Yank in charge of the assault ordered the Apache to hold fire as his men came within range of the fort and the helicopter’s deadly armaments.
The missile launch and cannon fire lit up his Apache like a Hollywood premiere. Albert used the respite to bound to a new position. He banked and broke hard, finding and settling in behind an outcropping. Although anti-aircraft missiles were scarce in these parts, everybody and his mother seemed to own the dreaded nemesis of the helicopter: rocket-propelled grenades.
“Bulldog 31, in cover position,” Albert transmitted. This told the marines that he had moved, and was ready to provide suppressive fire by request. The American commander responded a moment later, shouting over the racket of small arms fire. Albert got the Apache back up, and brought its nose sensors from behind the rocks.
The Americans streamed into the fort. Albert could see the white splotches of their body heat. Viewed in the night vision screen, each blob of white light was a man, and each was far from home, and each missed a woman and children who they had left behind to wonder and to worry. A suited politician, sitting comfortably behind a big wooden desk, had sent each of these white shapes on the green screen. Albert felt for these simple men. They loved country and guns, and had flown into Afghanistan to do right by both. The screen went white. Marines had chucked a grenade through a window opening and set off a weapons cache. As the blinding flash cleared, Albert watched a flickering black shape move into the scene.
A medevac Black Hawk helicopter landed in an adjacent field. The white blobs carried several comrades to the machine. The men on stretchers had been hit by a heavy machine gun positioned upon one of the fort’s parapets. The enemy gun had been fired for a just a moment. The gun’s brief moment of glory was quickly silenced by return fire, but it inflicted damage nonetheless. On a dark side of the fort, Donnan and Albert watched a group of enemy fighters scurry from the protection of the fort. The shapes moved along a drainage ditch that led to the adjacent village.
“Caution: enemy on the move; southern quadrant. I see several figures headed toward the village,” Albert transmitted on the open band. The cockpit intercom clicked.
“Should I take them out?” Donnan asked Albert’s permission to engage the new targets.
“Negative, too close to the village. Let the marines get them.” Donnan trained the Chain Gun in their direction, anyway. Using his gunner’s night vision system to keep the targeting reticle centered on the lead figure, Donnan could see the unique outlines of hot Kalashnikovs. Also, at least one fighter had something across his shoulder. The weapon’s silhouette suggested that of a Russian-built rocket-propelled grenade.
“Bulldog 31,” the American commander called out. “Put fire on that group.”
“Negative, too close to village,” Albert responded almost instantaneously.
“That’s an order, Bulldog 31.” The American was in command and knew it. Interpreting his screen, Donnan told Albert that the enemy was getting in a vehicle parked outside a village shack.
“Sir, our Al-Qaeda target is likely among this bunch,” Donnan posited. “Request Hellfire.”
Albert took a moment, and then authorized Donnan to use the air-to-ground missile. Donnan locked the Longbow radar on the vehicle.
“Longbow lock-up. Firing.” Another Hellfire screamed away. The missile skipped down the hillside at the vehicle. Both men watched their night vision screens. The target pulled forward several feet. It stopped in front of a small brick building, and several figures emerged and moved to the SUV’s open rear doors.
The heat signatures of this second group were smaller, and one seemed to clutch a small bear-shaped object. Donnan knew the UN was fond of handing out teddy-bears to the children of Afghanistan.
“Bloody hell,” Donnan exclaimed, “I think there are women…and a child.” Knowing full well that the seeker in the Hellfire’s nose would continue to guide it in anyway, Albert ordered Donnan to shut down the radar.
In what seemed an eternity, both men watched as the family scrambled into the target vehicle. The SUV began to roll again. It moved several feet before the Hellfire knocked on its front passenger-side door. Albert and Donnan watched in horror. The cockpit screens flashed white, blinded by the Hellfire’s high-explosive anti-tank warhead.
“Good shooting, Bulldog,” came over the radio.
Slumped in their cockpit harnesses, both men sat in stunned silence. These two warriors had just become murderers.
The Apache drifted slightly. The tips of its rotor came dangerously close to a rock wall. Albert snapped out of it and corrected the helicopter’s attitude.
◊◊◊◊
A summer shower had cooled London, making the city glisten in the sunshine. Grey clouds cleared, and beams of light shone on the dome of Saint Paul’s cathedral, the spires of Westminster Abbey, the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, and the iron span of Tower Bridge. The Thames River snaked beneath the myriad of bridges that spanned it, and the bright day made its mud-brown waters sparkle. Below the streets of the metropolis stretched the cylindrical tunnels of the ‘Tube,’ London’s underground railroad.
At the Tube’s Embankment Station, a government official got off a silver train, and, minding the gap, stepped onto the platform. As she moved toward the station’s exit, the official came upon someone reading a newspaper. Next to the pudgy fingers that clasped the front page, she saw a picture of the Prince in full military dress and a headline that declared: PRINCE ALBERT IN AFGHANISTAN. She gasped and hurried to her Whitehall office.
Within the soot-covered Ministry of Defence building, she burst into the minister’s office.
“Have you seen today’s paper?” she asked the minister.
“Yes, yes. Damnit, yes,” he grumbled back.
“Al-Qaeda and the Taliban will get word.”
“I know, I know. It’s time to bring Prince Albert home. Make it so,” the minister ordered.
“Yes, sir,” the official sighed. She would have a long day of phone calls ahead, though she would have Prince Albert safely home within a week. She got to work.
The minster leaned over his desk. He would request a cup of tea later, but in the meantime, he thumbed through the day’s dispatches.
On top of the pile of papers, the first report stated that a UK-based petroleum company had made a significant discovery of light oil in the resource-rich seabed that surrounded the Falkland Islands.
◊◊◊◊
“You do not look well,” King Edward said to his oldest son. Even though Albert sat, arrayed in full military dress and seated within the splendor of Buckingham Palace’s blue drawing room, he knew the comment was likely true. Since the incident at Jugroom, Albert had been drinking heavily. He and Donnan started indulging just after the battle, just as soon as they landed at Camp Bastion. Their first victim was a bottle of single malt whiskey Donnan
had kept in his foot locker. After the golden elixir was gone, it was downhill like a wheel of cheese for them both, as they dispensed with Russian vodka, Indian gin, and even a cube of black hash.
Donnan had punched the Special Air Service bloke who tried to slow them down, and got a broken arm for his mistake. When flight orders came in, Albert claimed to be sick, and an American doctor who had come to examine him took one whiff of the fumes that emanated from his pores, he shook his head, and signed the medical release. By then, all of Camp Bastion—as well as all of Afghanistan for that matter—knew about the Prince’s presence. With the news, half the Brits on base had tried to leave gifts of delicacies and liquors at Albert’s private barracks, though the SAS contingent never let anyone get too close to what the whole camp had previously believed to be just an air conditioned supply shed.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Albert finally acknowledged the King’s statement.
At the moment, Albert hated his father only slightly more than he hated himself. Despite the red and gold carpet, and the portraits of ancestors whose heavy judgmental gaze fell upon him, Albert wanted to spit on the floor. He swallowed hard, instead. He closed his eyes to fight off a headache that felt like a creature moving within the folds of his brain. In the pink darkness behind his lids, Albert saw the missile hit the Talibani SUV. He had seen this image—dreamt about it—every night. In the vision, the little girl emerged from the fire, bloodied and charred, and asked Albert what she had done to make him so mad.
Among the room’s fine art was a globe made in 1750. Albert remembered playing with it as a child, spinning it, and when it stopped turning, he would look to see what exotic locale had ended up under his thumb. Regardless of the place, he would always say to his older brother: “Perhaps we will go there someday.” Upon it, he saw the Durrani Empire—present-day Afghanistan. In the late eighteenth century, its borders had stretched into Iran, as well as modern-day India and Pakistan.
Crown Jewel: The Battle for the Falklands Page 2