Ride of the Valkyries

by Stuart Slade

  "SEALs?" LBJ's voice was amused, he could guess what was coming and wasn't disappointed.

  The Seer threw his hands up in shock and rolled his eyes theatrically. "Us? Heaven forfend. We believe that they simply had a crisis of conscience and turned themselves in." There was a brief chuckle around the room.

  "You know, Seer, looking back over the last eight years, we show remarkably little regard for other nations sovereignty."

  "Sir, if other nations don't bother us, we don't bother them. If they respect our citizens and interests, we respect theirs. If they don't involve us in something, we don't get involved. We respect other nations sovereignty exactly as much as they respect ours." LBJ nodded, he knew that The Seer was speaking to Nixon, not him - and that he'd made the comment to get exactly that response.

  "So what are the other reasons we get illegal immigrants over the border?"

  "Mostly, it's a racket run by people called coyotes. They offer transit over the border and tell their victims there are jobs waiting over the other side for them. They charge about half of what the regular employment agencies do. Mostly they just dump the illegals over our side of the border; then we pick them up and deport them.

  Sometimes they just take the would-be illegals out into the desert and kill them. We find such massacres now and then but this one is unusual in its brutality."

  The Seer stopped and stared into space for a few seconds. There were other reasons why people tried illegal crossings of course but none were very significant. He had the uneasy feeling he'd mentioned the significant one but couldn't put his finger on exactly which one it was.

  "Seer, I know I'm not President until January 19th, but this whole situation makes me uneasy. There's somebody planning something down there and I don't like it. I suggest we step up border surveillance and put a stop to these coyotes." Sitting behind him, quietly taking notes for her principal, Naamah found herself agreeing with him. The old saying ran through her mind, ‘just because somebody is paranoid doesn‘t mean other people are not out to get them.' She could see why Nixon was worried. So could the Seer.

  "I think that is a very timely precaution. Mister President?"

  LBJ nodded. "First that gun attack, now this. Richard, nothing personal, no offense meant but this is the time when the whole government is weakest. I'm a lame duck and you're not sworn in yet. I don't like this happening now. Increasing border security is a good step. We'll do two steps, I'll order one, you order the second after the 19th. That way we both end up looking good."

  The Elysium Fields Restaurant, Imperial Hotel, Havana, Cuba.

  Sometimes, not often but sometimes, tropical nights live up to their reputation. This was one such night. Overhead, the stars shone with a brilliance only dimmed by the light pollution of Havana's Golden Boulevard. The scent of tropical flowers filled the night, mingling with the smell of fine cooking and accented by the chirping of the night lizards and crickets. A gentle rippling noise underlay that serenade, the signature of water flowing through the grounds of the restaurant. The place was laid out in a series of small islands, each with its own table, screened by bushes and flowers, joined by delicate wooden bridges. The islands had a dim, discrete light but not all were lit. A light that had been turned off didn't mean the table was unoccupied; it was a signal that the occupants did not want to be disturbed.

  Judith and David Peterson picked their way through the maze of bridges towards an empty island, carefully avoiding the ones shrouded in tactful darkness. They'd already picked their table out. Their Floor Captain had done them proud, reserving one that was quietly tucked away yet easy to serve. They were about halfway there when another figure stepped out from a side island, a furtive figure, something that seemed incongruous in a society where everybody was either a wiseguy, employed by them or one of their clients. Where behavior that almost anywhere else would constitute brazen criminality was the norm, it was furtiveness that was abnormal.

  "Hey, you want some party favors?" The man's voice was accented, not Cuban but from somewhere further south.

  "No thank you." David Peterson's voice was polite but final.

  "You try these. It's the best quality stuff. Better than anything else you can get here."

  That really was suspicious. The Peterson's hadn't been on Cuba long but they'd already got a firm grasp on the fundamental rule of the society. DON'T annoy the tourists. Hard and soft drugs were openly on sale, the travel shop in the hotel stocked them alongside the magazines, on the same shelf as the aspirin, Tylenol and Alka-Seltzer. They were there, but if a guest wasn't interested, nobody pushed them. This man was pushing. The Petersons tried to step around him but he moved to block their path. That was another mistake; it attracted the attention of a waitress who apologized to the guests she was serving, picked up their table telephone and called Hotel Security.

  "I give you coke best quality. Half the price the people here charge." Judith Peterson stopped suddenly. She'd grown up in Gangland New York, had lived there and knew the rules. Nobody, but nobody, undercut a crew on their own turf. What was going on here wasn't part of the local scene.

  "Hey David, perhaps we ought to listen to him." Her husband started. Using his full name was a pre-arranged danger signal between them. If he was ‘David' or she was ‘Judith', it meant the speaker had spotted something wrong.

  "You really think so, Judith?" She relaxed slightly. Message received and understood.

  "Perhaps some party favors might be good. Got anything zippy?"

  "Whatever you want lady. Just name it."

  "Ma'am, this man troubling you?" Judith relaxed the rest of the way. Two men in the traditional light gray suits and fedora hats had arrived from behind. The bigger one grabbed the dealer from behind, pinning his arms to his sides. His partner looked inquisitively at the Petersons; hard, brown eyes glittering in the lights.

  "He's trying to push favors on us. We stalled him until you got here. Says he charges half the price of the hotel concessions."

  "He did, did he? Not a good thing. Mister Genovese thanks you for your help and apologizes for youse being inconvenienced." The wiseguy scribbled quickly on a card. "Give this to the waiter after your meal, Mister Genovese would like you to eat as his guests tonight. And he'll be offended if youse don't do yourselves proud."

  The Petersons took off to their table, their annoyance at the interruption to an evening forgotten in the slightly guilty thrill of eating at the expense of the infamous Don Vito Genovese. Behind them, two more men in the familiar light gray suits had joined the "boys" from Hotel Security.

  "No offense to Don Vito, Bomp, but the Commission needs to know what this guy thinks he was playing at. He wasn't one of yours gone bad, was he?"

  Frank "The Bomp" Bompensiero looked at the terrified figure held firmly in the hands of his large assistant. Jack "The Horse" Licavoli lifted his prisoner up, turned him around and looked into his face, all without any apparent effort. The Bomp and The Horse exchanged glances and shook their heads. "Ain't one of ours, Dapper John. Youse welcome to him. With Mister Genovese's compliments." The Bomp was a made man and that gave him the right to speak for his Don.

  If the Petersons had looked the right way as they were seated at their table, they would have seen their erstwhile "dealer" being unceremoniously sapped then stuffed in the trunk of a brand-new black Packard limousine. But they didn't, and their extravagant dinner was unspoiled by curiosity as to his fate.

  INS Mysore, Off Pattle Island, Paracel Group, South China Sea

  "Nilgiri reports that Sukanya is starting to unload now Sir." Admiral Kanali Dahm paced his bridge impatiently while his doggie made his report. The three Project 16C APDs had landed the landing force, First Battalion, the Punjab Rifles, smoothly and efficiently. As far as that part of the plan had been concerned, everything was well enough. The trouble was that the plans had been changed again. At the last minute, it had been decided to include an engineer unit in the initial wave so an early start could be made on bui
lding the runway on Pattle Island.

  Like all small last-minute decisions, this one had started a chain of ramifications. The engineers equipment couldn't be accommodated on the old APDs so a small freighter had to be added to the group. Unfortunately, the vehicle transports in the Indian Navy were all 12 knot designs and the APD group would be running at 24. So, a civilian fast freighter had to be chartered at short notice. Civilian freighters didn't carry landing craft so the ones on the APDs had to do the job - and they could handle only one vehicle at a time. So an unloading process that was supposed to take one hour had already taken six and there was no end in sight.

  "They won't be finished before dusk." Dahm's staff officer had anticipated the next question. "Nowhere even close. They'll have the light equipment ashore but the heavy stuff will have to wait until morning. We've looked at working under floodlights but the tides will be wrong and we don't have the equipment here anyway."

  More problems. This initial landing was supposed to be an in and out job. That's why they'd used the APDs to bring the first group. Now they would be stuck here for at least 24 hours while they got the engineering kit ashore. Dahm stared at the situation chart and the strategic displays.

  "Radio the commander of TG2.1. Tell him to get the Sukanya and the APDs inside the atoll by nineteen hundred. Order Nilgiri and Udagiri to take up positions three miles east and west of Pattle respectively. They're the goalkeepers if anything happens."

  Dahm looked at the map, there were Chipanese bases to the north, northeast, northwest and west of them. The ones due west were Army tactical airfields and out of range. Army pilots didn't fly much over water anyway. The threat was northwest, the big airfield complexes around Hanoi and Haiphong. Some of those were Navy and they were close enough to be a threat. Chipanese bombers based there were in range of Pattle Island; only just, but they were in range.

  "We'll position ourselves here." Dahm tapped the operational display. "Northwest of Pattle, on the direct route from the bases at Hanoi. That way we can spring a missile trap on any Chipanese friends that are up there. Do we have a list of what's at Hanoi?"

  "Genzan Kokutai Sir. Orace bombers and Irene fighters. The bombers can only just make it down here, the fighters don't have a chance. Anyway, Orace is a nuclear delivery bird; it has no other function. It's bomb-load is pretty light so if it came in conventional, well, it's a lot of effort to put a few bombs on target. There's some Quills at Haiphong, but they're Army now. Took them over from the Navy after the Showa Restoration Coup. I doubt if we'll see those."

  "This won't go nuclear. Not yet at any rate. The Septics won't stand for it. They've made that very clear, toss a nuke and they'll throw a whole SAC-load right back. That's why we offloaded the nuke warheads for our Sagarikas. My guess is their fleet will do the same. Nobody wants to take the chance of having them on board." Dahm sighed. The plan had been to get his ships clear of here by dusk. Now I'm chained here by the need to defend the shipping at Pattle Island. He felt like he was trying to fight with one leg tied to a stake. "The threat'll come from Hanoi. Has to. We'll get between as a blocking force. If the Chimps do launch an air raid we can chew it up out there."

  The staff officer stared at the display and punched in the coordinates for the indicated position. "If we set sail at nineteen hundred and make 20 knots, we can be there by midnight. Chimps won't be operating before then. If they're going to hit Pattle, they'll want to make the run at oh-three hundred or thereabouts."

  "Agreed. Make it so."

  B10N-1 Shuka Mi-121, 100 miles north east of Pattle Island

  "Niitakayama Nobore!" Captain Genda Minoru gave the order with triumph soaring in his heart His hands pushed the throttles forward, cutting in the afterburners and sending the two Ne-90 engines up to their full 11,000 kilograms of thrust. Sitting beside him in the cockpit, his weapons systems operator reached for the variable sweep controls, and pulled the wings back from their semi-swept position to the fully-swept setting. The combination greatly increased thrust and the low-drag swept position of the wings sent his speed soaring. The slam in the small of his back told him that his Shuka had come alive, that she was running at Mach 1.3 barely 50 meters above the surface of the sea. Alongside, the other five B10N bombers in the formation were keeping pace as the attack formation went from cruising to battle speed.

  Shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles had made the low-level rampages of fighter bombers a long-dead tactic. In a world where any respectable army gave out such missiles to every platoon, every squad, every vehicle, flying low over a battlefield was suicide. Genda had read of the slaughter low-flying fighter-bombers had inflicted on ground troops, the stories of Sturmoviks and Ostriches, of Thunderbolts and Grizzlies and heard his father tell of such things. Those stories were history; their tactics as obsolete as the phalanx, the longbow and the samurai.

  Today, safety lay in speed and altitude, fly over the defenses the way the cursed Americans did. Only not here, not tonight, not with these aircraft, for the B10N-1 was a revolution in aircraft design. Its Ne-90 turbofan engines were economical yet powerful, but that didn't make the aircraft so different. It was its wings; wings that could swing backwards and forwards as the crew wished. Stretched out in the mid-forward position for high altitude, the B10N-1 could make Mach 2.6 and climb to 22,000 meters. Wings further forward still, the aircraft could take off and land on small airstrips, not the huge concrete plains the Americans used. With the wings retracted right aft, it could make Mach 1.3 only a few meters above the sea surface to skim under the enemy radar coverage.

  The sea, that made the difference. There were no shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles at sea. There was no terrain either; the ground avoidance radar kept the aircraft skimming at a set distance over the surface. It would do that over land as well, but the natural contours of the ground made the aircraft bounce and lurch in ways that played hell with the pilot's back. Over the sea, the aircraft vibrated and shook but that was all. Down low, the enemy would only see them coming when they crossed the radar horizon, less than 90 seconds from their target. Flying faster than sound, there would be nothing to warn the Tripehounds that the Shukas were coming to punish them for their impertinence of landing on Japanese territory.

  Fast, low-flying and more sophisticated than any other aircraft in the Japanese Navy or Army, the Shuka had had its problems. Severe development problems had made it more than four years late in entering service. Even now they hadn't been fully solved. During the test program, the navy had lost aircraft after aircraft as one problem had followed another. The Mihoro Kokutai only had 24 B10N-Is on strength; the six aircraft flying tonight were all that were serviceable.

  Still, it was the first combat mission of the new aircraft. As the six had taxied out, their wings stretched forward, their cockpit canopies opened, the centrally-hinged panels looking strangely like seagulls in the dark of the night, everybody in the Hainan Island airbase had turned out to watch. Each of the twelve men in the Shukas had a white headband wrapped around the helmet of his flight suit, given to them by the ground crews to protect them on this mission. As the aircraft had taken off, their engine exhausts scoring long lines in the darkness, the entire airbase had cheered and saluted. Even the Admiral had been there to watch them leave. It had felt good.

  "Running close to Pattle Island now. Enemy radar signal strength picking up." The WSO was using the aircraft's ESM receiver to measure the strength of the enemy radar. According to the satellite photographs they'd seen just before take-off, there were two frigates by the island. They had Jabiru anti-aircraft missiles and were the primary threat. They were defenses though, and they weren't primary targets. Each crew, on each aircraft, knew where they had to put their bombs to do the most damage.

  The key was the radar on the frigates. If those could be disabled for just three minutes, their presence wouldn't matter. At the moment the six racing Shukas were below the radar horizon so the only energy they were picking up was that ducted along the sea surface. It
would be below the threshold strength for a firm contact. As they crossed the radar horizon that would change suddenly, the signal strength soaring as ducted emissions gave way to direct paints. Just like it was doing now. . . . "East wind, hail!'' The code words. East wind meant radar contact, hail meant hit the enemy radars with jamming. All six Shukas were running their jammers at full power as they tried to blind the search and fire control radars on the two frigates.

  Operation Room, INS Udagiri, three miles west of Pattle Island.

  Sub-lieutenant Gitta yawned and looked again at the scope of his Shiva air search radar. The big set was scanning constantly, surveying the sea far out to the west. Nothing there; why should there be? It was oh-three thirty, that dreadful time of night known across the world's militaries as oh-dark-thirty, when the whole world seemed asleep and those who were not would like to join them. Then, Gitta saw a quick flash of a contact to the North East before his whole scanning system dissolved into a mass of pinwheels and rotating clouds. Jamming and that meant.......

  "AIR RAID WARNING RED, RED RED. Say again, AIR RAID WARNING RED, RED, RED "

  Even as he raised his voice to give the alarm, his hands were flying over the controls of his radar. He was trying to burn through the jamming and give Udagiri's Jabiru missiles a target. He recognized the patterns, this was barrage jamming, raw energy poured into the sky to blind the searching radars. Well, there were ways to deal with that. He flipped over a switch, shifted frequencies and narrowed the transmission. Now, he was pouring all his radar energy down a single, tightly-defined frequency band. Udagiri's radar burned through the hostile jamming energy; the enemy transmissions that were spread over a wide range of frequencies and could not match the power of a set operating on a single narrow band.