The Last Phoenix

by Richard Herman

  Kamigami mashed the transmit switch on the phone. “Ask Colonel Sun to be airborne as soon as possible. One hour or less.” Although he never raised his voice, the command imperative was loud, clear, and overpowering. There was no doubt that Sun would make the deadline.

  Central Malaysia

  Sunday, October 3

  Below him, the angry voices were growing louder and coming from all sides. Shit-fuck-hate! Maggot thought. The soldiers had bracketed his position and were slowly closing in. It was only a matter of minutes before they shook his tree and he fell out. A lone soldier emerged from the brush swinging a machete. He hacked viciously at the trunk of Maggot’s tree. He looked around, took another hard swing at the tree, and disappeared into the foliage. They’re not taking prisoners today. More angry shouts. It was an easy decision. He reached for his survival radio and toggled it to transmit. “Chief,” he radioed, speaking as quietly as he could. “They’ve got me. Strafe my position. I’m in a large tree about forty feet up.”

  “Can do. Any other options?”

  “Not unless the fuckin’ Marines are around.” This wasn’t the way he wanted to die, but he preferred it to what was waiting for him. His voice grew stronger. “Hose the bastards.”

  “I’m in. Do you have me in sight?”

  “Negative. Press.” Maggot heard the Warthog, and in his mind’s eye he could see it fly a curvilinear approach, 200 to 300 feet off the deck before it popped for the final run in. He pressed his body against the branch, willing himself to become part of the tree. Below, the soldiers heard the approaching jet and shouted warnings as they scrambled for cover. He couldn’t help himself and had to look. He raised his head in time to see Duke in the pop, climbing to 800 feet. The Hog rolled 135 degrees as its nose came to the ground and pointed directly at him! He had never been on the receiving end of a GAU-8 cannon. “A bit to the left,” Maggot radioed. His voice was amazingly calm. At exactly 2,250 feet slant range, Duke mashed the trigger, and smoke rolled back from the nose of the Hog as the Gatling gun sent a train of death toward him, traveling faster than the speed of sound. The ground below him erupted in a man-made hell as the mix of depleted uranium and high-explosive slugs carved a path in the jungle. Then Maggot heard the growl of the cannon as his tree swayed dangerously back and forth. He held on for dear life as the jet passed over him, its sound wave finally reaching him.

  I’ll be damned! he thought. I’m still alive. He raised his head. Below him, the jungle had been shredded, and shouts blended with cries of anguish echoed back and forth. In the distance he heard the Warthog reposition for a second run. He keyed his radio. “Duke, do it again. This time to fifty meters to the right.”

  “Sure about the fifty meters?”

  “Make it sixty.” Again Maggot pressed his body against the thick branch, his arms over his helmet. He didn’t look as his world exploded. Four shells hit the tree next to his, and it came apart, sending a shower of splinters into the underside of the branch Maggot was on. “Oh, shit!” he shouted as his perch collapsed from under him. He started to fall, but his parachute was still snagged in the foliage above his head. He swung out, dangling in his harness, still forty feet above the ground. Slowly he raised his helmet’s visor. “Whoa,” he breathed. The GAU-8 had carved two open alleys in the jungle, leveling everything in its path. But flying splinters had caused the real damage, shredding whatever they hit. A coppery taste flooded his mouth when he saw the body. A long, narrow splinter had pinned the soldier with the machete to a tree. A shower of slivers had turned him into mincemeat.

  No wonder they hate us, he thought. The coppery taste was back and he fought the urge to retch. He swung back and forth, clear for anyone to see. Can’t stay here. He reached for the pocket on the left side of his survival vest and pulled out a lowering device, a long thin strap with a clip and a ratchet. He snapped the ratchet onto the chest strap of his harness and the clip onto one of the parachute risers above his head. He snugged up the strap before pressing the coke clips that released the risers from his harness. He fell about two feet before the strap pulled him up short. He quickly fed the loose end through the ratchet and lowered himself to the ground. He looked around, getting his bearings and listening. But there was only silence.

  Segamat

  Sunday, October 3

  The two team leaders listened as Kamigami explained the drill in his strange mix of English and Chinese. The plan was simple in the extreme. The Warthogs would suppress all ground fire while the lead helicopter, call sign Gold, would ingress to extract the downed pilot. The goal was to spend as little time as possible in the target area and hit with overwhelming force. The second helicopter, call sign Red, would be held in reserve. But the situation was fluid, and they had to be flexible. “I’ll be on the lead helicopter with shooters from Dragon Gold,” Kamigami said. “Tel, I want you on the second helicopter with the Tiger Red team to coordinate on the radios.” He turned to Waldo. “Any changes?”

  “The SAR commander’s call sign is Air Boss,” Waldo replied. “But Duke only has about twenty minutes left on station before he’s bingo fuel and has to RTB. Bag will replace him as Air Boss.”

  “Not good,” Kamigami said. “That’s about when we’ll be arriving.”

  “Bag’s done this before and can hack it,” Waldo promised. “We’ve also got four Hogs holding to the south, play time sixty minutes. Four more will be on station before they RTB for fuel.”

  “I hope so,” Kamigami said. “Okay, any questions?” There were none. “Let’s do it.” He jogged to the waiting helicopters, holding his helmet in one hand, his MP5 in the other.

  Central Malaysia

  Sunday, October 3

  Kamigami braced himself between the pilots’ seats as the big helicopter barely cleared the treetops. The copilot pointed at his watch and held up five fingers, closed his fist, then held up five fingers. They were ten minutes out. Kamigami clutched the mike in his left hand. “Air Boss, how copy Gold on this frequency?”

  “Read you five-by,” Duke replied. “Maggot is up and talking on Guard. He reports no activity in his area and is unhurt. As you ingress, there’s a karst ridgeline running north to south. To the east of the ridgeline you’ll see what looks like two cleared paths in the jungle. Maggot is between the paths near the middle. Hostiles have fallen back on the LOC and are using refugees as human shields. Bag’s on station and is now Air Boss. I’m bingo minus three and got to go.” Duke was three hundred pounds into his recovery fuel and cutting it close.

  Bag’s voice came on the radio. “I’ve got it, Duke. Okay, everyone, listen up. The hostiles are fanning out from the LOC in a sweep toward Maggot.”

  “How far are they from Maggot?” Kamigami asked.

  “Less than a kilometer,” Bag answered.

  Kamigami ran the numbers in his head. They would be arriving in the area about the same time as the hostiles. If they were able to shoot down a Warthog, a helicopter would be twice as easy—unless there was something between them. “Have Maggot move toward that ridgeline to the west. If he can get on the far side, we can use it for terrain masking.”

  “Copy all,” Bag transmitted.

  Maggot listened for a moment and then keyed the transmit button on his survival radio. “They’re coming my way,” he whispered. The radio’s earpiece kept falling out of his ear, and he had to hold it in place to hear.

  “Beat feet west,” Bag told him. “Try to get on the far side of the ridgeline. Help is on the way.”

  Maggot clicked the transmit button twice in acknowledgment and switched the radio to the silent mode. He checked his compass and pushed into the jungle, fully understanding what he had to do. But it was hard going, and the rain was starting to fall. Branches tore at his flight suit, and he stumbled twice. But the shouting wasn’t as loud, and he was pulling away from his pursuers. The foliage thinned out as the terrain started to slope upward. I might do this, he told himself. He pushed through a patch of ferns and stopped. “Ah, shit,” h
e moaned, looking directly at a jagged cliff of limestone rising fifty feet above his head. His spirits crashed around his ankles as the shouts grew louder. Again he checked his compass as he heard someone crash through the jungle. He turned south and moved along the base of the cliff. A woman stumbled out of the brush less than five feet in front of him. For a moment they stared at each other. Then she held a finger to her lips and pointed behind her. Then she pointed to the north, in the direction he had come from, and made a waving motion, trying to make him understand. Maggot stood there, not sure what to do. Frustrated, she pushed him, urging him to retrace his steps. He nodded and headed back to the north as the shouts grew louder. The woman watched him go and then turned to the south.

  “Maggot’s gone silent,” Bag radioed. He glanced at the big multifunctional display screen on the right side of his instrument panel and punched at the buttons on the edge, calling up a map display with an SAR function overlay that displayed the location of Maggot’s homing beacon. “I’m still picking up his beacon. It looks like he’s moving back to the north. I’m going down to take a look.” He dropped his Hog to fifty feet above the trees and firewalled the throttles. He crossed the lanes that Duke’s cannon had carved in the jungle, jinking hard to avoid any ground fire, and turned toward the ridgeline. He rolled back and forth, finally pulling up to clear the ridgeline.

  “Not good,” he transmitted. “It looks like the Gomers have reached the base of the ridgeline. But Maggot is still moving.”

  Another voice came on frequency. “Air Boss, Basher’s fifteen minutes before RTB for bingo.” Basher was the call sign for the flight of four fully armed Hogs holding in a nearby orbit. “Use it or lose it,” the flight lead added.

  “Copy all,” Bag answered. He knew that another flight of four should be inbound to replace Basher, but he hadn’t heard from them. It was time to make things happen. But what?

  “Is the crest of the ridgeline clear?” Kamigami asked.

  “Affirmative,” Bag answered.

  “We’re in,” Kamigami radioed. “Gold’s approaching the ridgeline from the west and landing on the backside. Red will stand ready to extract Maggot if he can reach a safe area.”

  Bag circled to the north and turned south to fly down the western side of the karst formation, keeping the ridgeline between him and the bad guys. Kamigami’s helicopter crossed under him and hovered over the edge of the ridgeline, as far back from the eastern side as it could get. Kamigami was the first man out, closely followed by twenty men. The helicopter seemed to fall away and was never exposed to ground fire. Again Bag flew along the ridge. But this time he climbed high enough to see over to the east. He caught a glimpse of the main road, which was still crowded with refugees, but he couldn’t see any movement in the jungle or along the base of the ridgeline. A puff of smoke erupted from the edge of the tree line, and Bag slammed his Hog down, putting the ridge between him and the threat. He never saw the Strela missile that passed harmlessly behind him. But he knew it was there.

  “Fucking lovely,” he muttered under his breath. He checked the display screen. Maggot was still moving to the north. He may have been preoccupied, but the black boxes were still doing their magic.

  “We’re taking incoming,” Kamigami radioed. “Mortars.”

  Another voice came on the radio. “Air Boss, Loco flight with four, five minutes out, sixty minutes play time.”

  Now Bag had eight Hogs. He made a decision. “We’re running out of time and need to get their heads down. Gold, if you have me in sight, flash your position.” He rolled right and watched the ridgeline anxiously. Two flashes blinked at him, followed by two more flashes. “Got you,” he radioed. Now he knew Maggot and Kamigami’s location. “Gold, can you lay down smoke below you on a bearing of zero-nine-zero?”

  For what seemed an eternity, there was no answer. Then a puff of smoke drifted up from the jungle canopy. “Shit hot!” Bag roared over the radio. As best he could tell, Maggot was on one side of the smoke marker and moving north while the hostiles he had seen were on the other side, to the south. It was all he needed. “Gold, keep the smoke coming. Basher Flight, you’re cleared in hot. Stay south of the smoke and one kilometer away from the LOC.”

  “Smoke in sight,” Basher lead radioed.

  The mortar rounds worked their way along the ridgeline, driving Kamigami and his team to cover. But his mortar team kept at it, lobbing a fresh smoke round into the jungle below and then scooting to a new location. But without a good target, Kamigami wouldn’t waste any of their limited ammunition in a vain attempt to discourage the hostile fire. Fortunately, the karst’s jagged terrain offered them good cover. But he knew that sooner or later an enemy round would find them. It was just a matter of time. He found the rhythm of the mortars and moved quickly between incoming rounds, using crevices and low points for cover, his radioman right behind him.

  Kamigami finally discovered what he was looking for: a long, narrow fissure that cut across the ridge. He dropped into the gap and wiggled to the edge. He scanned the jungle with his binoculars and then reached for the headset his radioman was holding at the ready.

  Bag’s voice came over the radio. “Maggot, how copy?”

  “Read you five-by.”

  “Rog,” Bag replied. “There’s a clearing five hundred meters in front of you. Head for it. Break, break. Red, how copy?”

  Tel answered. “Read you loud and clear. We’re in position and holding.” Kamigami allowed a grunt of satisfaction. The boy was doing good.

  “Stand by to move in when cleared,” Bag ordered.

  Kamigami decided it was time to get involved. “Air Boss, this is Dragon Gold. Recommend Red drop his team of shooters here before the pickup.”

  It all made sense to Bag. Why risk more lives than necessary during the extraction? “Red,” he transmitted, “can you do it?”

  “Can do,” Tel replied.

  Kamigami again swept the area with his binoculars. An unusual movement in a tree caught his attention, and he hit the zoom lever on his binoculars. A man was perched high in the branches holding a radio to his mouth—an artillery spotter. Without turning, he said, “I need the L42.” The L42 was a sniper rifle carried by one of his shooters, a very proficient marksman. But in this particular case it was something he wanted to do himself. To the south he saw two A-10s in a steep descent as they dropped down to the deck and turned toward him.

  “Behind you,” his radioman said. He reached back and felt the barrel of the sniper rifle. He pulled the weapon forward and chambered a round. He worked himself into a shooting position and laid the crosshairs in the scope on the spotter’s head. He squeezed off a round and watched as the man’s head exploded. He didn’t fall but slumped forward, still tied to the tree, his radio dangling from a lanyard strapped to his lifeless wrist. A series of mortar rounds walked across the ridge in retaliation, falling wide. “That stirred them up,” his radioman said. Kamigami searched for another target but found nothing. Now the lead A-10 was in the pop, climbing to fifteen hundred feet while his wingman stayed low and a mile in trail. Kamigami swung the rifle back to the dead spotter still hanging in the tree. A man had climbed up the tree and was reaching for the spotter’s radio. It was a poor shot, but Kamigami took it anyway. The slug hit the man in the right shoulder, knocking him out of the tree just as the A-10 rolled in and released two canisters of CBUs.

  Kamigami passed the sniper rifle back, and the radioman handed him a headset so he could monitor the action. Below him, the jungle twinkled with flashes as the CBU bomblets exploded. The second A-10 crossed the flight path of the escaping Hog at thirty degrees, smoke rolling back from its nose. The loud, burring growl of the Hog’s cannon echoed over the jungle, punctuated by the bomblets going off.

  More mortars walked across the ridge, driving Kamigami’s men down. He keyed his radio. “Keep the smoke coming,” he ordered. Without the smoke rounds from his team’s fifty-one-millimeter mortar marking the jungle, an A-10 might drop a friendl
y round on Maggot. Over the din he heard Bag radio Red, the second helicopter, and tell it to move farther to the west, using the ridgeline as protective cover.

  For the next twelve minutes Kamigami watched the four Hogs of Basher flight work the area over. The aircraft stayed low, circling to the west, using the karst formation for masking. On each run two aircraft would pop out from behind the ridge using shooter-cover tactics. The lead jet would drop ordnance while his wingman flew cover, discouraging anyone who might want to shoot back. It was an effective tactic and suppressed the enemy mortars that were pounding the ridge. Finally the last A-10 was off and heading for home. An eerie silence descended over the carnage below him. It looked as if a giant had stomped across the jungle, crushing the foliage flat with huge boots. Here and there he saw smoke billowing up.

  Kamigami crawled out of the crevice and stood up as the big Aerospatiale helicopter carrying Tel and his team of shooters popped up over the western side of the ridge and hovered over a flat, open area. Sixteen men jumped out. The four shooters left on board pushed out equipment bags before the pilot spun the aircraft around and moved away. Kamigami saw Tel giving him a thumbs-up from the doorway just as the helicopter dropped out of sight.

  Maggot lay on the ground, his arms wrapped over his head. It took a moment for the silence to register—the bombing had stopped. He rose up on his elbows and shook his head as a raging thirst coursed through his body. But his water bottle was dry. He came to his feet, still unsteady from the pounding his body had taken from the repeated concussions of exploding ordnance. He keyed his survival radio. “Bag, I’m up and moving.”

  The relief in Bag’s voice was obvious. “I’m sending a Jolly Green in now.” Jolly Green was a holdover from the past, when SAR helicopters were called Jolly Green Giants.

  Maggot was feeling better. “Tell the Hogs they missed. I still got my balls.”