Raw fuel dumped into the engines’ exhaust, ignited, and kicked the Typhoon past Mach 2. Using its PIRATE—Passive Infra-Red Airborne Tracking Equipment—Greyling 29 recognized the shape of the approaching bandits. Flying triangles with twin streams of hot thrust, the British pilot knew he faced Mirages, a French-built delta-winged supersonic fighter aircraft. The Typhoon pilot looked to his weapon read-out.
Just one Meteor air-to-air missile was on its station, and there were only 300 rounds of 27-millimeter ammunition for the Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon. Looking through the canopy and off to his right, he lamented the fact that no one was on his wing; no friend to protect his six. The sky was awfully dark and the Typhoon was awfully alone. Regardless, Greyling 29’s pilot threw the aircraft at his adversaries and closed fast with them.
Donnan tilted the Apache’s night vision turret skyward as he attempted to locate the Typhoon. Stars streaked across the cockpit screens. Like comets, they trailed white and green. A solid green line appeared. Tail-fire… he thought. An air-to-air missile. Morse code-like tracer fire shot from the Typhoon. He witnessed two high-altitude explosions as the Typhoon bested two Mirages.
A big aircraft broke from among high-altitude clouds and rolled inverted. It was painted in tiger-striped greys, and sported the flag of the Argentine Republic high on both of its twin tails. Marked along the fuselage in black letters was: Fuerza Aérea Argentina. The aircraft was one of two J-11s in Argentina’s inventory, a pirated Chinese copy of the formidable Russian Flanker heavy air superiority fighter, provided to Buenos Aires in kit form as part of an ore-for-hardware counter-trade. At its stick was one of the Argentine Air Force’s best: Captain Lucas Moreno. As Moreno began to shed altitude, he kept the radar off to minimize emissions and instead relied upon a small fish-eye lens mounted in his Flanker’s canopy.
This infrared search and track system detected and displayed the heat emitted by his enemy, and thus found the British Typhoon as it trailed the last aircraft that belonged to a three-ship flight Argentina had assigned to patrol the block of airspace over the British airbase. When the Typhoon took to the air, they had raced in to engage. The Typhoon—a formidable machine with a skilled pilot at the controls—had, despite numerical disadvantage, turned the tables, and the Argentine Mirages let out a desperate call for backup.
Moreno had swept in from his orbit high above East Falkland. He superimposed the Typhoon’s heat signature in the lens’s crosshairs and used it to follow. He rolled the Flanker again, nosed it over, and dropped the throttles, using the pull of the earth to shed altitude. Then, Moreno pushed the throttles to the stops, and the Flanker screamed as it dove on Greyling 29.
A high-pitched warble sounded in Moreno’s ear. The PL-8 Thunderclap short-range infrared-guided missile on his right wingtip begged for release. Another Chinese-built steal of Russian technology, the missile left its rail when Moreno squeezed the stick’s trigger, and, now freed, began to home on the heat generated by the Typhoon’s two turbofans.
The British pilot was focused on the last Mirage he trailed. His plane rocked back and forth as he stayed with the Mirage, sending whips of glowing tracer fire its way. He did not see the Thunderclap as it curled in, and, since the missile tracked passively, his systems offered no warning.
The Thunderclap detonated above the Typhoon. Its blast fragmentation warhead sprayed the Typhoon with shrapnel that tore the rear-half off of the aircraft. The Typhoon’s tank, ripped open and spewed its contents, and the fuel ignited in a bright, tumbling fireball.
Albert and Donnan saw the blast on the Apache’s screens. They followed the fiery wreckage as it plummeted down to icy Choiseul Sound.
“Hope that’s an Argie,” Donnan said, though his gut told him otherwise. Besides the thumping rotors, silence otherwise filled the Apache’s cockpit. A moment later, the loud quiet was broken by a crackle on the radio.
“Greyling two-nine, Mount Pleasant,” the base radioed in vain.
The transmission repeated once again.
Only static replied.
Albert scanned the sky for parachutes, but he spotted none.
“This is British garrison, Port San Carlos, British garrison Port San Carlos, over,” the radio hissed. “We’re under attack by superior enemy forces; in danger of being overrun. We request any and all immediate assistance.”
Donnan turned and looked back at Albert. Albert read the urgency of his co-pilots gaze and, in that moment, decided he would save his countrymen. He would mitigate his guilt with honor and pride.
“Fuel?” Albert queried.
“There’s enough.” Donnan had read Albert’s mind. Albert jerked the Apache into a turn, dipped the nose, and began speeding off toward the west. He looked to his navigational computer.
“GPS signal is weak. Likely being jammed. I’m taking us due west in the direction of the coast. We’ll follow Darwin Road, and then move along the shoreline.”
“Roger, mate, understood,” Donnan seemed eager for redemption as well.
A radio transmission came through. Mount Pleasant begged an answer. The base controllers had seen the Apache’s radar blip move from its assigned position and off their screen. Although there would be hell to pay and questions to answer, both men ignored the radio and instead focused on their cockpit instruments.
Flying at 180 miles-per-hour—the helicopter’s maximum speed—Albert skirted the Apache over the rocky ground. It was a moonlit blur above the tall grass and rock. Following his compass, Albert swerved the machine to avoid a lone wind-stunted tree that he used as a visual reference. The Apache came upon Darwin Road, intersected, and began to follow it.
The Apache flew over Swan Inlet and its adjacent ponds, and then over Laguna Ronde, Laguna Isla, and Laguna Verde. Its disturbance alighted flocks of kelp gulls from the waters. As the machine screamed overhead, its rotor-wash kicked up a fine spray from the still waters. The terrain this side of West Falkland shot by. It was rippled, squeezed, and molded into parallel undulating hills. The road veered south toward the town of Darwin, but the Apache continued west. The sun began to rise.
The dawn’s early light painted Darwin Sound purple. The helicopter reached the coast of the Argentine Sea. Albert banked to follow the cliffs glowing gold in the new light. The cliffs were licked by foam and seaweed-topped breaking waves. The Apache’s thumping blades scrambled sea lions from their rookeries, flopping into the cold sea. The scenery was beautiful and brought a moment of peace to Albert. With the machine’s rhythmic vibration and the penetrating warmth brought by the new day, both men felt tiredness settle in. Feeling his eyes drooping, and longing for a hot cup of tea, Albert made conversation.
“How have you been holding up?” he asked Donnan. With these spoken words, Albert immediately felt his concentration and depth perception sharpen, and the hypnotic effect of speeding over white-capped waves diminished.
“I’m all right, mate.”
Albert should have known he would get nothing from the rock-of-a-man seated before him. While he full well knew Donnan suffered under the burden of their shared memory, the Scotsman had a way of keeping it in, burying it, drowning it in liquid forgetfulness. A beeping interrupted Albert’s thoughts.
“Air search radar off to the left,” Donnan read the computer warning.
“Give me a heading,” Albert ordered.
“Two-seven-nine.”
Albert threw the Apache over onto its side. He pulled away from the shoreline and started out over deeper, darker water.
“Computer has classified the threat radar as a Thales track-while-scan,” Donnan announced. On the horizon, a silhouette appeared. It was small and dark-grey; a military vessel.
“Looks like a patrol or guided-missile boat. Definitely not one of ours,” Donnan said.
“Yes,” Albert grunted. He was focused on piloting. Donnan zoomed in on the target with his imaging system. He scrutinized the contact’s profile.
A high mast jutted from the vessel’s block of supers
tructure, topped by a big onion-shaped dome. Then, as the boat turned toward them, a deck gun became discernible.
“Jammer on,” Donnan said as he activated systems that would confuse the enemy transmitter. Albert increased speed. “I take it we are engaging?”
“Warm up the Hellfires,” was Albert’s answer.
“Roger. Longbow spinning up. Hellfires coming online.”
The target vessel picked up the Apache’s electronic emissions. Realizing it was being tracked, it lofted canisters full of zinc-coated fiberglass chaff. The canisters bloomed over the boat and formed radar-reflecting clouds. Despite the attempted deception, Donnan had already acquired a fix on the target’s hull. They saw a puff of smoke from the boat’s deck gun. The Apache shook as the shell air-burst just behind and to the side of them.
“Weapons free,” Albert declared.
Donnan wasted no time. The Apache bucked with the shift in weight as the missile left its rail and fluttered across the water. Firing and forgetting, Albert broke for the cover of shore.
The Hellfire bounced millimeter-wave radar off the Argentine guided-missile boat. Skittering across the water, the missile zeroed in on the reflections, and flew itself directly at the target’s center of mass. Moments later, the Hellfire slammed into the superstructure of ARA Gómez Roca.
Most of those on Gómez Roca’s bridge died fast as the vessel’s superstructure became an abstract flaming metal sculpture. After a secondary explosion, Gómez Roca started to roll. In the distance, as the small Argentine vessel began to sink, the black Apache hugged the coast and sped north-west. Albert would use the sharp rocks to hide his radar signature from roving fighters and enemy search radars. The helicopter soon crossed a spit of land.
The Apache broke the spit and sped over Bonners Bay. Pokers Point was off to the left. The aircraft zoomed over Blue Beach British War Cemetery where 14 Falklands War casualties were forever interred. Both Albert and Donnan saluted as they passed over the stark isolated place. Turning north, the Apache raced over heaving ground. It flew on toward a collection of small, white structures astride a harbor.
“There,” Donnan said and pointed. He could see Port San Carlos. Immediately apparent were grey vessels tied up at the town’s single jetty. Several landing craft had beached themselves past the settlement’s breakwater, too.
Smoke rose from the harbor’s warehouses. Assault troops swarmed over the area like angry ants. On the hills above, British artillery hammered away. Their tubes flashed and smoked as they rained shells upon the intruders. The enemy fanned out from the harbor and streamed up the hillside. It became obvious that the precarious situation had the British positions in danger of being overrun.
“Sevens,” was all Albert said.
Donnan readied the rockets tucked beneath the Apache’s wing pod. Per standard tactics, the helicopter would loop around from behind the British defenders and, once the friendlies were safely behind the aircraft, fire at the enemy.
The Apache ripped over the beach, the same beach that, long ago, 2 Para had landed upon. Albert climbed the machine with the terrain, banked the helicopter over North Camp Road, and then back around toward the water. The Apache came in low over cheering British forces. It dropped, hugged the downward slope of the hill, and its panel light flashed green. The CRV7s were ready for release.
“Igniter circuit open,” Donnan announced.
Albert used a fixed reticule to align the Apache’s flight path. They sent a salvo of CRV7 rockets on their way. There was a whoosh, bright flashes and trailing blue smoke as the weapons left their launch tubes.
Glowing like fireflies in the dawn, each of the rockets spun for stability and deployed small fins. At a predetermined distance, their outer casing peeled away like banana skins, releasing a cargo of flechettes that formed black clouds of small tungsten darts that dove on and ripped into the Argentine marines.
Donnan added to the chaos on the ground by discharging his Chain Gun. It rattled and Albert felt the Apache yaw. He used the pedals to compensate, nullifying the increased torque with the tail rotor, and kept the Apache straight and level. This gave Donnan a solid platform from which to rake the enemy with fire.
Earth and rock shot up from the ground. Arms splayed and rifles dropped. Men fell face first; their mouths filled with mud. Men choked on the very ground they had wished to conquer.
“Hellfires,” Albert ordered as he jinked the Apache’s nose toward the enemy boats tied up at the jetty.
A small patrol boat was first to be painted by the laser beam emanating from the Apache’s gimbaled nose turret. The three remaining Hellfires ripple fired, and, one after the other, the enemy vessels exploded.
Ammunition on one boat ignited with a torrent of sparks, a pyre of inspiration to the handful of defenders high on the hill. Donnan let out a war-cry and Albert felt a warmth flow through his body. Perhaps the cure for the guilt of killing, he thought, IS MORE KILLING.
Albert giggled. Not the giggle of a happy child, but a twisted, burdened giggle that would frighten anyone who heard it. A radar warning sounded, interrupting his rapture.
Albert squinted and saw a small helicopter that had raced to the scene. It had a diminutive silhouette when viewed head-on.
“Is that a Cobra?” Albert asked Donnan. He believed it to be a US-built attack helicopter.
“Negative. Too small.”
“’Kay…Stinger. Shove it up his ass,” Albert ordered the air-to-air missile made ready.
“Roger,” Donnan acknowledge with a snort-of-a-laugh.
Tracer rounds zinged around them.
Albert cursed the small machine that dared to challenge them.
He loosed the Stinger.
The little missile’s smoke trail zigzagged away as it centered on the Argentine Aguilucho (Harrier) attack helicopter.
The Stinger found its target and swallowed it in a fireball, spitting out little metal bits that splashed into the water with boils of white foam.
This kill represented Albert and Donnan’s first air-to-air encounter; the cockpit restraints kept them from bouncing with excitement in their seats. Albert pulled the Apache into a climb. His half-baked plan was to loop around again and dive on the enemy as they clawed their way up the hill. With nose-up attitude, the Apache reached the apex of its turn. There occurred a deafening blast.
The Apache was slammed sideways. Donnan hit his head against the canopy frame. Albert lost his grip on the cyclic control. The Apache rolled on its side and began to fall. Cockpit lights flashed. A whooping sound told of damage to vital systems. Albert fought to right his spinning aircraft.
They were hit again. This time, sparks cascaded from an overhead panel, and smoke announced a fire that had erupted in one of the engines.
Deep thuds.
This meant the helicopter had absorbed more hits. However, with the crew compartment and electronic bays swaddled in Kevlar blankets, Albert and Donnan were kept alive. The Apache: stayed airborne.
“Aircraft at six o’clock high.” Donnan had spotted their prosecutor: a big twin-engine fighter.
“Flanker?” Albert recognized the silhouette from training, although he had not expected such an aircraft type in-theater.
Seeing smoke pouring from the British helicopter, Captain Moreno peeled off. He was satisfied he had a kill, and he finally heeded his fuel level warning.
Albert watched RPMs in both engines fall off. Oil pressure indicators had pinned at zero.
“Goddamnit,” Albert spat. “Auto-rotating.”
Around them, the Apache died.
Albert dropped the collective and nosed the aircraft over as he disengaged power to the main rotor. Using airspeed to control rate of descent, he pointed the helicopter at Falkland Sound.
“I think we can make the opposite shoreline,” Albert said as he fought to control the power-off glide. The Apache fought back. Albert chose the landmark of Chancho Point as an aim point, and worked hard to keep the rocky peninsula in the windscreen
. The tail rotor bled off energy. The Apache, unable to fight the torque, began a flat spin.
Donnan reached up to brace against the rise in G-forces. With hydraulics failing, it took all of Albert’s strength to manipulate the flight controls.
He grunted against the strain. The world outside spun faster and faster and became a smudge of blue and brown. Donnan closed his eyes to fight off vertigo, and Albert leaned against the cockpit wall to brace against the rotation. Every time the blue of water became the brown of land, Albert nudged his crippled Apache in that direction.
Land is better than water, his mind rationalized as it clung to consciousness. If they hit water and were knocked out, the Apache would sink like a stone and neither would escape. Albert adjusted collective pitch to increase the driving region of his rotor. The descent slowed. Albert judged that they were near sea-level. He spotted the streaked brown of solid ground and raised the collective. The rotor stalled and the machine dropped hard.
A jarring crunch…
And blackness.
6: WHITE DOVE, WHITE HARE
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”―Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Afraid to see the little girl’s burnt blood-covered face, clot-caked hair, and judgmental coal-black eyes, Albert tried to turn away. Despite the attempt, he could not, however, and as usual, he was forced to behold the horror. She was a shadow at first. Then, for a moment, she became aglow with freckled pale skin and long blonde curls. Her eyes flashed bright blue. They were piercing and welled with sadness.
“Wake up,” she whispered. “You have to help me.”
◊◊◊◊
Albert gasped as he awakened. Fumes and ozone burned his nose and throat. He coughed. The wrecked Apache hissed and smoked. Its fluids leaked. An arcing electrical panel sparked and zapped in the cockpit. Albert moved achingly, his vision clearing. Donnan was slumped and did not move.
Crown Jewel: The Battle for the Falklands Page 6