Ride of the Valkyries

by Stuart Slade

  Once again, the SEALs flowed quietly through the villa, seeking out the real target of the night's operation. The head of this particular gang and one of his lieutenants, an accomplice who was the cousin of a secretary in Cuba. A secretary who had made the ultimately fatal mistake of ratting out the Mob. Thomas himself found the drug lord, asleep in bed with two of his women. He produced a gray-white cylinder from his pocket and waved it gently under the nose of the trio. Their breathing grew deeper and slower as they slipped from sleep to unconsciousness. Then he hoisted his chosen prey up into a fireman's carry and left the two women to sleep off the gas they'd inhaled.

  The rest was very, very easy. They exited the building as quietly and unobtrusively as they had entered and joined up with the cover team waiting outside. If everything had fallen apart, it was the job of the cover team to provide fire support as the strike group fought its way out but things had never got to that point. And never would, not if everybody did their job right. From there, it was a two mile trek through the jungle to the small, air-portable four-by-fours. Thomas dumped his burden into the carry section at the back and mounted up.

  They had about an hour to drive the fifteen miles to the Medellin Airfield where a beat-up, tattered Air Colombia Rotodyne was waiting for them. It was the regular flight from one of the other small towns; it had arrived on schedule and would depart the same way having been "held up by engine trouble." Of course the real Air Colombia flight had been held at the previous destination and word hadn't got through. It would simply be a matter of driving to the airfield, up the tail ramps and into the aircraft and then the whole team would be out. Of course, their Rotodyne was tattered and damaged from the outside only. Inside, it was in excellent condition and its Kuznetsov turboprops gave it almost three times the power of the Darts on the real airliner.

  And it really was just that easy. The SEAL team made their rendezvous with their transport and boarded it, running their little mules into the cargo hold. The Rotodyne took off just before dawn and headed for Cali. Until, that is, it was over the horizon; then it rapidly changed course and made for the sea. The deception wasn't even suspected until the real Rotodyne landed at Medellin two hours later, the pilot telling a strange story of engines that had suddenly stopped working and telephones that hadn't had a dialing tone.

  Almost the same time, the "guards" at the Villa Blanco started waking up and found that their leader and his first lieutenant had mysteriously vanished in the night. That lead to much doubt and anxiety and a number of baseless accusations. Of course it was the feared SEALs who had done it, but they must have had help from inside, surely? In the end, the Second Lieutenant took over and became the new boss of the gang, one who would always have the cloud of suspicion hanging over him. Just why had he chosen that night to be away from the Villa? It was indeed a baseless and unjustifiable slur on his character, but fairness was never part of the human condition.

  Far offshore, a U.S. Navy LPD was waiting. The Rotodyne swung in to land just as the drug lord woke up. He looked around in fury at the grinning SEALs who surrounded him.

  "You will all pay for this. My men will kill you all." The threats were bombastic; their effect ruined by the tremor in his voice. The SEALs looked at each other and grinned even more broadly. After years of doing this sort of thing, they'd heard it all before. A couple of them chuckled a little too loudly.

  "You laugh at me? You laugh at my men? He who laughs at the skills of my men will find there is little to laugh about!"

  Captain Thomas thought about that one for a second, then nodded. "Quite." Then he turned to his team. "Well, that about wraps it up guys. I'll miss you all but I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. The powers that be have insisted I man a desk from now on. Good luck, people, and may your Gods go with you."

  Thomas stepped off the rear ramp of the Rotodyne, his last mission as a SEAL operator successfully completed. It was time to hand over to a new generation and it was time he spent some time with his family. His eldest boy was two years away from being old enough to join up and he'd made his choice very clear already. Jeff Junior wanted to be a SEAL just like his old man. It was good to establish a dynasty. A very good feeling indeed.

  F11F-3 Tiger Deva-One, 14,000 feet over the Indian Ocean.

  "Deva-One, enemy contacts closing on you fast. Altitude plus angels six, bearing two-seven-five."

  Lieutenant Sonlai Mart craned his head around. The warning from the AEW bird was that the enemy aircraft were six thousand feet above him and on relative 275. Then, he squinted as he realized that meant they were coming straight out of the sun. Now was not the time to let the situation develop. "All Deva aircraft, max throttle. We have bandits in the woods." Then he swung his nose up in an arcing turn, hoping to force the enemy fighters, they had to be fighters, into leaving the protective glare of the sun. His wing man followed him; the other pair of fighters turned a split second later.

  "Deva-One! Break! Break-break-break! They're closing fast!" The controller's voice in the AEW bird was panicking. "They're sitting right on top of you!"

  Mart stared into the glare of the sun and saw them. Three black spots, danced in the brilliant light, scything down towards his formation. Three against four, but the Chipanese aircraft had the advantage of position and speed.

  "All Deva aircraft. Buster. Say again Buster."

  He rammed the throttles forward to full emergency power, feeling the thump in his back as the afterburner cut in. Behind him, the three black dots had suddenly sprouted long white trails that arched down towards the four Tigers. Missiles, that left no doubt about it even if there never really had been any. These were enemy fighters. How they'd suddenly appeared this far out from any known enemy base was a mystery that would have to be explained later. Even as Mart realized that something important had changed, he was racking his fighter around in the tightest turn that the web of energy, centrifugal force and gravity would allow. At the same time, he punched the decoy button, sending his own series of white trails out. These were tipped with the brilliant white glare of the infra-red deception flares.

  His wingman and the other pair of fighters were doing the same. The violent maneuver and the flares worked twice but there were three missiles inbound and Mart's wingman was unlucky. The Chipanese missile exploded just under the rear of his fuselage, causing the whole tail section to fragment in an orange blossom. A split second later, there was another, much smaller explosion forward as the Tiger pilot ejected. Mart pulled up in a sharp wingover, knowing that without his wingman he was alone and vulnerable.

  As his Tiger arced upwards, he saw the three light gray Chipanese fighters swarming over his second section, their dark gray rising sun insignia standing out in the brilliant glare of the sun. The lead F11F was already extending, a Chipanese fighter snapping in on his tail. Mart recognized it as a Fuzzy, the American code-name for the Chipanese Ohtori seaplane fighter. Then everything went crazy. The fighter, fired a pair of missiles from its overwing racks while the Tiger's wingman carved in behind him and fired a pair of Sidewinders. For a brief second the sky seemed full of infra-red homing missiles. Then both the Tiger and the Fuzzy vanished in the rolling-ball explosions of missile warheads and aircraft fuel tanks.

  Mart completed his wingover, beneath him one of the two remaining Fuzzys was sweeping in on the Number Two section wingman, the 30mm cannon already thudding its shells out towards the dark gray and white Tiger. Mart swept down. His own Sidewinders wouldn't acquire, the angle and the aspect were both wrong, but his own 20mm cannon were crackling, the tracers streaming towards the Fuzzy. It broke away, black smoke streaming from its fuselage. Mart swept past and then climbed away again. By the time he made another wingover, both Chipanese fighters had vanished and all that seemed to be left in the sky were the two surviving Tigers.

  "Deva-one, I'm in trouble here." Deva-Four's voice was shaky. "He got solid hits with his cannons. I have lights and the engine is running rough."

  "Deva-four, hold o
ne." Mart orbited under Deva-Four. He'd been hit right enough; the fuselage had gaping areas were the skin had been blown off. One of the flaps was hanging loose and the wing structure didn't look too healthy. "You've taken two hits, one's blown skin off your aft fuselage, your port wing is chewed up. We'll abort and head back for the carrier."

  The two Tigers limped away, heading for the safe haven of the aircraft carrier to the south. As they did, their course was very carefully noted by the two surviving Fuzzys.

  Sugu Bay, Southern Coast of Hainan Island

  "It was the AEW aircraft. They saw us coming and warned the Tiger pilots." It was a statement of fact, one that nobody disagreed with. The twelve pilots were gathered around a table in their new briefing room, one that still smelt of freshly-sawed timber and new paper. The table was the scene of the re-enactment of the ambush. Models of the Ohtoris and Tigers were being moved as each pilot remembered what he had done and how. One of the pilots still smelled slightly of seawater, he'd ejected from his stricken fighter and been picked up by a flying boat.

  The same aircraft had also picked up a shot-down Indian pilot who was presently sitting comfortably, if somewhat damply, in an improvised brig. Orders from Naval Headquarters in Tokyo were very strict; all prisoners to be treated with respect and under no circumstances are they to be handed over to the Army. Nobody was naive enough to believe those orders had anything to do with the Hague Conventions. Controlling and confining this conflict so it could be prosecuted to conclusion meant the Navy had to present itself as being "the good guys' to the world at large.

  "Our tactics don't work. Ito losing his Ohtori proved that." One of the pilots spoke reflectively almost absently. Ito started to make an angry retort, but Toda stilled him by lifting his hand.

  "Ito-san, this was your first combat. Mine also and the same for everybody else here. We all made mistakes. We could all have done much better and there is no shame in admitting that. There is shame in refusing to learn from our mistakes. There is even more shame in not transmitting those lessons to others so they will not repeat our mistakes. And Haba-san is quite right. Our tactics, such as they are, do not work.

  "Look what happened this morning. We went in as three independent aircraft, each selecting his own target. Of course, we went for the flight leaders, that was right and proper. But as we went for them, their wingmen protected them. Not well enough but they did. As you went for the leader, his wingman snapped in behind you and shot you down. Too late to save his leader, yes; but he still got you because you were on your own and there was nobody to protect your tail. So our tactics are wrong." Toda lapsed into silence and stared at the models on the table.

  One of the other pilots cleared his throat. "We fly as sections of three. Suppose we were to assign the junior pilot in each three-plane section as the guard and the two most senior pilots as the attackers? The two most senior pilots engage the enemy while the guard picks off any Indian wingmen who try to interfere? Will this work?"

  There was a mixed mumble from around the table. The junior pilots were immediately being very negative, they saw themselves being relegated to the sidelines while those who were already more senior would have all the chances to gain glory. The older pilots were more divided. The idea of fighting as a unit of three aircraft was new to them, it ran against their inculcated code of single combat. Yet, the evidence in front of them was clear. The leader/wingman concept did work. Could it be the code they were all trained to accept without thinking was wrong?

  Toda stretched his back and looked at another chart on the wall, one that had a series of overlays. One marked the range of the F11Fs based on the Indian carrier. That was a limitation; the F11Fwas notoriously short-ranged. Another was the radar horizons from various Japanese-held land masses. A third showed SIGINT and ELINT data; yet a fourth was the flight path of radar coverage from various over-sea flights including this morning's sweep.

  All put together, they defined the area in which the Indian carrier had to be operating. There was a final piece of data, a brilliant red line, the course for home taken by the two surviving Tigers. That lead right through the "‘possible" area for the carrier. It wasn't definitive, a long way from it, but it was a start in narrowing down the carrier's location and operating pattern.

  "We'll try it." His voice cut through the discussion. "First flight, you will reorganize as suggested, two most senior pilots designated as attackers, the most junior as the guard to protect them. Second flight will remain as it is. When third and fourth flights arrive later today, we will do the same with them, third reorganize, fourth stays as it is. We will compare the two systems and see which works best."

  He stopped abruptly as an NCO knocked on the door and entered. "‘Lieutenant Commander, Sir, the Base Commander wants to see you in his office immediately."

  A few minutes later. Toda knocked on the door of the prefabricated building that was used as the base Commander's office and entered. The Commander was bolt-upright behind his desk, facing two men in military uniform that was devoid of any rank or unit insignia. Neither of the men were military. They lacked the bearing that was hammered into military personnel. That and their uniforms identified them as clearly as any unit insignia would have done. They were Kempeitai. The temperature in the room appeared to be chilled but despite that, Toda started to sweat.

  The younger of the two Kempeitai men turned to his superior. "He's here. Sir."

  "‘I suppose he wishes he wasn't. He doesn't look like a fool or a traitor, does he?"

  "‘No, he doesn't. But then if they all did. we would have to find another line of work."

  "True." The older Kempeitai man looked at Toda quizzically. "Lieutenant Commander Endo, I regret to inform you that your commanding officer, Commander Matsuda Ken, has been arrested and charged with crimes against the Emperor and the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces."

  "Involved in a racket; stealing fuel from the Navy and selling it on the black market." The younger Kempeitai man joined his senior in staring at Toda. "You know, Sir, I bet you he thought he could get away with it."

  "He might well have done, of course. We were lucky the case broke open when it did. Look at this one, trying to appear confused and innocent."

  "He isn't very good at it, is he?"

  "I was expecting him to do better. Still, he's very young. Not much experience."

  "That is true, of course. If he had been an experienced man, he would have reported the irregularities he found to us instead of getting involved himself."

  "Running around, stuffing a gun in the mouth of a supply depot manager. Still, I suppose if he hadn't done that, the manager wouldn't have panicked the way he did."

  "And then he wouldn't have acted so foolishly and given us the break we needed to wrap up the black market racket. Also, of course, he wouldn't have got his fuel back." The two Kempeitai men seemed quite oblivious to the presence of the two naval officers who were both standing rigidly to attention.

  "That is true, of course, I suppose we should note that Toda didn't use the situation to benefit himself. He acted to get the fuel needed to train his unit. I suppose that counts for something. He didn't take bribes the way his commander did."

  "Which is why Matsuda has now been reassigned to a position assisting Unit 731 with their research."

  "And Toda's unit did well this morning. Two kills for one loss, acceptable for a unit that has never been in action before."

  "Marginally acceptable, I suppose."

  "More than marginal for a unit that had so much training to catch up on." The older Kempeitai man addressed the bewildered and apprehensive Toda directly. "You are to receive a temporary promotion to Commander. This is temporary you understand. You are now the commander of the Tainan Kokutai pending the appointment of a new commanding officer with adequate seniority. This section based here is now the First Section of the Tainan, not the Second. What was the First Section, and is now the Second, will remain in Japan and act as a training base, feeding you replac
ement pilots and aircraft as you need them."

  The man smiled coldly and without humor. "The duty of the Kempeitai is to punish wrong thoughts and actions. Sometimes we are able to reward the right ones. Commander Toda, you have gained some influential friends with your actions. Also, some powerful enemies. From today, you may count us amongst those friends."

  The two men left without any of the courtesies a Japanese would normally regard as essential. Toda glanced out the window and saw them walking away, exhibiting a complete disregard for the surroundings and people. Then, both Toda and the Base Commander looked at each other and exhaled.

  "I think we're still alive." The Base Commander's voice was tentative and unsure of himself.

  "I think so too. I shall come to a more positive conclusion in a few minutes." Toda felt blood returning to his extremities. It was time to return to normality, Toda felt as if he'd just left the cinema after watching a particularly realistic horror movie. "How goes our base construction?"

  "Ahead of schedule, and with those two around, heaven be praised for that. Minor problems, two Seiku-Kais had to abort with engine trouble. One was carrying supplies, the other our water distillation and purification plant. Neither are critical; the SNLF have sent recon troops inland to search for fresh water supplies. How are your fighters?"

  "One down, one's damaged and beached." The shot-up Ohtori had started to sink when it had landed so the pilot had popped the flotation bags built into the wings and the aircraft had been towed ashore. It would remain there until the Nisskin turned up and was able to repair her. Time, Toda thought, for his first act as Kokutai Commander. "Can your communications get me though to Kagoshima? I need to have two replacement aircraft ferried down immediately.