by Tom Clancy
“No!” Fang retorted. “That is tantamount to the threat of nuclear war. We must not do such a thing!”
“If we do not, then we are all doomed,” said Tan Deshi of the Ministry of State Security. “I am sorry, Fang, but Zhang is correct here. Those are the only weapons with which we can hold the Americans back. They will be tempted to strike at them—and if they do ...”
“If they do, then we must use them, because if they take those weapons away from us, then they can strike us at will, and destroy all we have built in sixty years,” Zhang concluded. “I call a vote.”
Suddenly and irrationally, Fang thought, the meeting had struck out on a path with no logic or direction, leading to disaster. But he was the only one who saw this, as for the first time in his life he took a stand against the others. The meeting finally broke up. The Politburo members drove directly home. None of them passed through Tiananmen Square on the way, and all of them fell rapidly asleep.
There were twenty-five UH-60A Blackhawks and fifteen Apaches on the ramp. Every one had stubby wings affixed to the fuselage. Those on the Blackhawks were occupied with fuel tanks. The Apaches had both fuel and rockets. The flight crews were grouped together, looking at maps.
Clark took the lead. He was dressed in his black Ninja gear, and a soldier directed him and Kirillin—he was in the snowflake camouflage used by Russian airborne troops—to Colonel Boyle.
“Howdy, Dick Boyle.”
“I’m John Clark, and this is Lieutenant General Yuriy Kirillin. I’m RAINBOW,” John explained. “He’s Spetsnaz.”
Boyle saluted. “Well, I’m your driver, gentlemen. The objective is seven hundred sixteen miles away. We can just about make it with the fuel we’re carrying, but we’re going to have to tank up on the way back. We’re doing that right here”—he pointed to a spot on the navigation chart—“hilltop west of this little town named Chicheng. We got lucky. Two C-130s are going to do bladder drops for us. There will be a fighter escort for top cover, F-15s, plus some F-16s to go after any radars along the way, and when we get to about here, eight F-117s are going to trash this fighter base at Anshan. That should take care of any Chinese fighter interference. Now, this missile base has an associated security force, supposed to be battalion strength, in barracks located here”—this time it was a satellite photo—“and five of my Apaches are going to take that place down with rockets. The others will be flying direct support. The only other question is, how close do you want us to put you on these missile silos?”
“Land right on top of the bastards,” Clark told him, looking over at Kirillin.
“I agree, the closer the better.”
Boyle nodded. “Fair enough. The helicopters all have numbers on them indicating the silo they’re flying for. I’m flying lead, and I’m going right to this one here.”
“That means I go with you,” Clark told him.
“How many?”
“Ten plus me.”
“Okay, your chem gear’s in the aircraft. Suit up, and we go. Latrine’s that way,” Boyle pointed. It would be better for every man to take a piss before the flight began. “Fifteen minutes.”
Clark went that way, and so did Kirillin. Both old soldiers knew what they needed to do in most respects, and this one was as vital as loading a weapon.
“Have you been to China before, John?”
“Nope. Taiwan once, long ago, to get screwed, blued, and tattooed.”
“No chance for that on this trip. We are both too old for this, you know.”
“I know,” Clark said, zipping himself up. “But you’re not going to sit back here, are you?”
“A leader must be with his men, Ivan Timofeyevich.”
“That is true, Yuriy. Good luck.”
“They will not launch a nuclear attack on my country, or on yours,” Kirillin promised. “Not while I live.”
“You know, Yuriy, you might have been a good guy to have in 3rd SOG.”
“And what is that, John?”
“When we get back and have a few drinks, I will tell you.”
The troops suited up outside their designated helicopters. The U.S. Army chemical gear was bulky, but not grossly so. Like many American-issue items, it was an evolutionary development of a British idea, with charcoal inside the lining to absorb and neutralize toxic gas, and a hood that—
“We can’t use our radios with this,” Mike Pierce noted. “Screws up the antenna.”
“Try this,” Homer Johnston suggested, disconnecting the antenna and tucking it into the helmet cover.
“Good one, Homer,” Eddie Price said, watching what he did and trying it himself. The American-pattern Kevlar helmet fit nicely into the hoods, which they left off in any case as too uncomfortable until they really needed it. That done, they loaded into their helicopters, and the flight crews spooled up the General Electric turboshaft engines. The Blackhawks lifted off. The special-operations troops were set in what were—for military aircraft—comfortable seats, held in place with four-point safety belts. Clark took the jump seat, aft and between the two pilots, and tied into the intercom.
“Who, exactly, are you?” Boyle asked.
“Well, I have to kill you after I tell you, but I’m CIA. Before that, Navy.”
“SEAL?” Boyle asked.
“Budweiser badge and all. Couple years ago we set up this group, called RAINBOW, special operations, counterterror, that sort of thing.”
“The amusement park job?”
“That’s us.”
“You had a -60 supporting you for that. Who’s the driver?”
“Dan Malloy. Goes by ‘BEAR’ when he’s driving. Know him?”
“Marine, right?”
“Yep.” Clark nodded.
“Never met him, heard about him a little. I think he’s in D.C. now.”
“Yeah, when he left us he took over VMH-1.”
“Flies the President?”
“Correct.”
“Bummer,” Boyle observed.
“How long you been doing this?”
“Flying choppers? Oh, eighteen years. Four thousand hours. I was born in the Huey, and grew up into these. Qualified in the Apache, too.”
“What do you think of the mission?” John asked.
“Long” was the reply, and Clark hoped that was the only cause for concern. A sore ass you could recover from quickly enough.
I wish there was another way to do this one, Robby,” Ryan said over lunch. It seemed utterly horrid to be sitting here in the White House Mess, eating a cheeseburger with his best friend, while others—including two people he knew well—Jack had learned, were heading into harm’s way. It was enough to kill his appetite as dead as the low-cholesterol beef in the bun. He set it down and sipped at his Coke.
“Well, there is—if you want to wait the two days it’s going to take Lockheed-Martin to assemble the bombs, then a day to fly them to Siberia, and another twelve hours to fly the mission. Maybe longer. The Black Jet only flies at night, remember?” the Vice President pointed out.
“You’re handling it better than I am.”
“Jack, I don’t like it any more than you do, okay? But after twenty years of flying off carriers, you learn to handle the stress of having friends in tight corners. If you don’t, might as well turn in your wings. Eat, man, you need your strength. How’s Andrea doing?”
That generated an ironic smile. “Puked her guts out this morning. Had her use my own crapper. It’s killing her, she was embarrassed as a guy caught naked in Times Square.”
“Well, she’s in a man’s job, and she doesn’t want to be seen as a wimp,” Robby explained. “Hard to be one of the boys when you don’t have a dick, but she tries real hard. I’ll give her that.”
“Cathy says it passes, but it isn’t passing fast enough for her.” He looked over to see Andrea standing in the doorway, always the watchful protector of her President.
“She’s a good troop,” Jackson agreed.
“How’s your dad doing?”
“Not too bad. Some TV ministry agency wants him and Gerry Patterson to do some more salt-and-pepper shows on Sunday mornings. He’s thinking about it. The money could dress up the church some.”
“They were impressive together.”
“Yeah, Gerry didn’t do bad for a white boy—and he’s actually a pretty good guy, Pap says. I’m not sure of this TV-ministry stuff, though. Too easy to go Hollywood and start playing to the audience instead of being a shepherd to your flock.”
“Your father’s a pretty impressive gent, Robby.”
Jackson looked up. “I’m glad you think so. He raised us pretty good, and it was pretty tough on him after Mom died. But he can be a real sundowner. Gets all pissy when he sees me drink a beer. But, what the hell, it’s his job to yell at people, I suppose.”
“Tell him that Jesus played bartender once. It was his first public miracle.”
“I’ve pointed that out, and then he says, if Jesus wants to do it, that’s okay for Jesus, boy, but you ain’t Jesus.” The Vice President had a good chuckle. “Eat, Jack.”
“Yes, Mom.”
This food isn’t half bad,” Al Gregory said, two miles away in the wardroom of USS Gettysburg.
“Well, no women and no booze on a ship of war,” Captain Blandy pointed out. “Not this one yet, anyway. You have to have some diversion. So, how are the missiles?”
“The software is fully loaded, and I e-mailed the upgrade like you said. So all the other Aegis ships ought to have it.”
“Just heard this morning that the Aegis office in the Pentagon is having a bit of a conniption fit over this. They didn’t approve the software.”
“Tell ’em to take it up with Tony Bretano,” Gregory suggested.
“Explain to me again, what exactly did you upgrade?”
“The seeker software on the missile warhead. I cut down the lines of code so it can recycle more quickly. And I reprogrammed the nutation rate on the laser on the fusing system so that I can handle a higher rate of closure. It should obviate the problem the Patriots had with the Scuds back in ’91—I helped with that software fix, too, back then, but this one’s about half an order of magnitude faster.”
“Without a hardware fix?” the skipper asked.
“It would be better to increase the range of the laser, yes, but you can get away without it—at least it worked okay on the computer simulations.”
“Hope to hell we don’t need to prove it.”
“Oh, yeah, Captain. A nuke headed for a city is a bad thing.”
“Amen.”
There were five thousand of them now, with more coming, summoned by the cell phones that they all seemed to have. Some even had portable computers tied into cellular phones so that they could tap into the Internet site out here in the open. It was a clear night, with no rain to wreck a computer. The leaders of the crowd—they now thought of it as a demonstration—huddled around them to see more, and then relayed it to their friends. The first big student uprising in Tiananmen Square had been fueled by faxes. This one had taken a leap forward in technology. Mainly they milled around, talking excitedly with one another, and summoning more help. The first such demonstration had failed, but they’d all been toddlers then and their memory of it was sketchy at best. They were all old and educated enough to know what needed changing, but not yet old and experienced enough to know that change in their society was impossible. And they didn’t know what a dangerous combination that could be.
The ground below was dark and unlit. Even their night-vision goggles didn’t help much, showing only rough terrain features, mainly the tops of hills and ridges. There were few lights below. There were some houses and other buildings, but at this time of night few people were awake, and all of the lights were turned off.
The only moving light sources they could see were the rotor tips of the helicopters, heated by air friction to the point that they would be painful to touch, and hot enough to glow in the infrared spectrum that the night goggles could detect. Mainly the troops were lulled into stuporous lassitude by the unchanging vibration of the aircraft, and the semi-dreaming state that came with it helped to pass the time.
That was not true of Clark, who sat in the jump seat, looking down at the satellite photos of the missile base at Xuanhua, studying by the illumination of the IR light on his goggles, looking for information he might have missed on first and twenty-first inspection. He was confident in his men. Chavez had turned into a fine tactical leader, and the troops, experienced sergeants all, would do what they were told to the extent of their considerable abilities.
The Russians in the other helicopters would do okay, too, he thought. Younger—by eight years on average—than the RAINBOW troopers, they were all commissioned officers, mainly lieutenants and captains with a leavening of a few majors, and all were university graduates, well educated, and that was almost as good as five years in uniform. Better yet, they were well motivated young professional soldiers, smart enough to think on their feet, and proficient in their weapons.
The mission should work, John thought. He leaned to check the clock on the helicopter’s instrument panel. Forty minutes and they’d find out. Turning around, he noticed the eastern sky was lightening, according to his goggles. They’d hit the missile field just before dawn.
It was a stupidly easy mission for the Black Jets. Arriving overhead singly, about thirty seconds apart, each opened its bomb bay doors and dropped two weapons, ten seconds apart. Each pilot, his plane controlled by its automatic cruising system, put his laser dot on a preplanned section of the runway. The bombs were the earliest Paveway-II guidance packages bolted to Mark-84 2,000-pound bombs with cheap-$7.95 each, in fact—M905 fuses set to go off a hundredth of a second after impact, so as to make a hole in the concrete about twenty feet across by nine feet deep. And this all sixteen of them did, to the shocked surprise of the sleepy tower crew, and with enough noise to wake up every person within a five-mile radius—and just that fast, Anshan fighter base was closed, and would remain so for at least a week. The eight F-117s turned singly and made their way back to their base at Zhigansk. Flying the Black Jet wasn’t supposed to be any more exciting than driving a 737 for Southwest Airlines, and for the most part it wasn’t.
Why the hell didn’t they send one of those Dark Stars down to cover the mission?” Jack asked.
“I suppose it never occurred to anybody,” Jackson said. They were back in the situation room.
“What about satellite overheads?”
“Not this time,” Ed Foley advised. “Next pass over is in about four hours. Clark has a satellite phone. He’ll clue us in.”
“Great.” Ryan leaned back in a chair that suddenly wasn’t terribly comfortable.
Objective in sight,” Boyle said over the intercom. Then the radio. ”BANDIT SIX to chicks, objective in sight. Check in, over.”
“Two.” “Three.” “Four.” “Five.” “Six.” “Seven.” “Eight.” “Nine.” “Ten.”
“COCHISE, check in.”
“This is COCHISE LEADER with five, we have the objective.”
“Crook with five, objective in sight,” the second attack-helicopter team reported.
“Okay, move in as briefed. Execute, execute, execute!”
Clark was perked up now, as were the troops in the back. Sleep was shaken off, and adrenaline flooded into their bloodstreams. He saw them shake their heads and flex their jaws. Weapons were tucked in tight, and every man moved his left hand to the twist-dial release fitting on the belt buckle.
COCHISE flight went in first, heading for the barracks of the security battalion tasked to guard the missile base. The building could have been transported bodily from any WWII American army base—a two-story wood-frame construction, with a pitched roof, and painted white. There was a guard shack outside, also painted white, and it glowed in the thermal sights of the Apache gunners. They could even see the two soldiers there, doubtless approaching the end of their duty tour, standing slackly, their weap
ons slung over their shoulders, because nobody ever came out here, rarely enough during the day, and never in living memory at night—unless you counted the battalion commander coming back drunk from a command-staff meeting.
Their heads twisted slightly when they thought they heard something strange, but the four-bladed rotor on the Apache was also designed for sound suppression, and so they were still looking when they saw the first flash—
—the weapons selected were the 2.75-inch-diameter free-flight rockets, carried in pods on the Apaches’ stub wings. Three of the section of five handled the initial firing run, with two in reserve should the unexpected develop. They burned in low, so as to conceal their silhouettes in the hills behind them, and opened up at two hundred meters. The first salvo of four blew up the guard shack and its two sleepy guards. The noise would have been enough to awaken those in the barracks building, but the second salvo of rockets, this time fifteen of them, got there before anyone inside could do more than blink his eyes open. Both floors of the two-story structure were hit, and most of those inside died without waking, caught in the middle of dreams. The Apaches hesitated then, still having weapons to fire. There was a subsidiary guard post on the other side of the building; COCHISE LEAD looped around the barracks and spotted it. The two soldiers there had their rifles up and fired blindly into the air, but his gunner selected his 20-mm cannon and swept them aside as though with a broom. Then the Apache pivoted in the air and he salvoed his remaining rockets into the barracks, and it was immediately apparent that if anyone was alive in there, it was by the grace of God Himself, and whoever it was would not be a danger to the mission.
“COCHISE Four and Five, Lead. Go back up Crook, we don’t need you here.”
“Roger, Lead,” they both replied. The two attack helicopters moved off, leaving the first three to look for and erase any signs of life.