Soon the MiG pilots closed with the escaping helos, which had split up and began undertaking evasive maneuvers. The Fulcrums did too, each selecting their first targets. The prioritizing was cut-and-dried here: The AH-1Z Vipers were the most dangerous, so they had to go first.
They were not about to go easily, though. Spotting the Fulcrums, one of the helos banked and got off two Sidewinder strikes before the MiG could return fire, causing the Fulcrum pilots to break left and right in order to evade the heat-seeking missile warheads.
When the Fulcrums came out of their defensive maneuvers, the escaping helos were no longer in visual range. The Fulcrums searched the skies, hunting their prey like the mechanical sharks they so closely resembled. They were not stymied for long. Their long-range threat identification radars soon got a target skin paint on a due west bearing.
Yes, they had them again.
This time the MiG pilots would not make the mistake of closing before firing. They would fire their French Mistral-3 missiles at the weapons' maximum standoff range. The Vipers were primarily tank- and armor-busters, never intended to undertake airborne combat. They possessed nothing like the radars of air dominance fighter planes such as MiG-29 Fulcrums. The MiG pilots simply kept out of range of the helos' weapons, put the pipper on their targets and pickled off their ordnance.
The Vipers didn't stand a chance, and they soon were history. The missiles scored two good kills within a matter of seconds. Puffballs of orange-black fire marked the places in the sky where the Marine helos had flown, whole and intact, moments before. The choppers had completely disintegrated under the impact of the lethal air-to-air munitions strikes. There was just nothing left.
Now the Fulcrums went after the V-22 convertiplanes. Here they had even less to fear from their far slower and completely unarmed quarry. And here again, they could effectively engage and destroy the target from the limits of standoff range. The Fulcrum pilots selected AA-10 Alamo beyond-BVR-capable missiles, the next best in their hybrid warload, and uncaged the birds. The missiles began to track and in moments would be ready to launch.
The MiGs had only seconds left before destruction, however, though their pilots didn't yet realize it. A far deadlier and far stealthier opponent than even the Fulcrums had been tracking the fighter sortie through the skies and was about to launch an AMRAAM strike on each enemy plane.
Behind the sleek armored laminate bubble canopies of the F-22 Raptors, the flight leader and his wingman had both acquired their targets, opened the internal weapons carriage doors and exposed the CSRL multiple launch racks so the AMRAAMs could uncage and complete the launch sequence. Now the Raptors' automatic fire control systems cooked off their birds.
The first and last intimation of the onset of death was the threat radars screeching out warning tones in the Fulcrum pilots' headsets. One moment they were about to fire on their slow-moving, unprotected targets, the next they themselves had come under surprise attack from a far deadlier foe. The MiG pilots broke sidelong to evade, their own attacks automatically aborted because the uncaged missiles had not yet been ready to launch.
The two AMRAAM missiles closed with the bogies and detonated on impact, destroying the Fulcrums in a meteoric shower of metal and flame. High overhead, the Raptors streaked past the fireworks display on opposite bearings. One F-22 escorted the Ospreys toward the Jordanian border. The other fighter plane broke eastward, in search of the idiot treehead colonel who the sortie had learned had gone off looking to win himself a posthumous Medal of Honor.
Chapter Nineteen
Breaux's problems were complicated by a shamal that had blown up during the convertiplane's low-altitude transit of the desert. The V-22 was of course equipped with advanced FLIR imaging modules, but forward looking infrared is essentially a navigational and targeting aid, not a search tool. An effective airborne search effort requires a lot of visual scanning of the outlying terrain with the naked human eye and field glasses where necessary.
The swirling clouds of sand and ice particles, blown by winds of often cyclonic velocity, also made keeping the V-22 airborne a test of the cockpit crew's skill, nerve, grit and determination. The Omega combat personnel at the helm were scared shitless, but they kept right on flying into the teeth of the worsening weather system. None of them had ever encountered anything like this before, not in training or in combat. It was, in short, a gold-plated, died-in-the-wool, fifty-ton-gorilla-sized bitch.
The Osprey continued to fly on.
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The prayers of supplication had been concluded. The Trusted Ones, those brethren beloved of Allah, rose from the dust of the desert floor, their outer clothing stained with ochre patches. In their eyes, Dalkimoni saw the telltale gleam of fanaticism.
He had never fully understood it. He had always loathed it. Sometimes, indeed quite often, he had feared it as the force of mindless destruction that it undoubtedly was.
But the doctor had always known that it could be used. Focused and directed like a laser beam it was one of the primal, elemental forces of human nature, perhaps of the universe itself. It could and had toppled empires throughout the ages. Soon; very, very soon, it was to perform this miracle yet again.
The bomb-maker nodded at his bodyguard of Takavar, provided by Bashar himself. They were to secure the area after the trucks departed. No sign of their presence -- including the hapless ones who'd been killed -- was to be left behind.
Then Dalkimoni and they would depart for Tehran, there to await news of the developments that would take place within the space of a scant few hours. As the cool of the morning gradually changed to the fiery heat of the day, as the shamal dissipated and the desert sun rose to its zenith, other suns would rise. Suns of death -- and vengeance long delayed.
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The Marine piloting the Osprey angrily shook his head. The V-22 was running low on fuel. The convertiplane had limited avgas reserves and would have to turn around real soon if the crew and passengers stood any chance of reaching safety. Though the Osprey was equipped for air-to-air refueling, though it could drink avgas from a KC-10A through its nose-mounted refueling probe, it would first have to cross over to the friendly side of the Saudi or Jordanian border before filling up.
Fuelbirds preferred to dispense aviation gasoline at approximately twenty thousand feet. Flying the boom at this altitude kept the fuel at the right pressure and temperature to insure the maximum rate of dispersal, and also helped prevent other things happening to the avgas, like the formation of ice crystals in the mix.
The maximum ceiling for tanker aircraft was about forty thousand feet. This was a high ceiling for a tanker, but a low ceiling for a SAM. A fuelbird coupled up with a V-22 would be as easy a target for an Iranian SAM as two roaches fucking on the kitchen wall for a well-aimed sneaker.
The bottom line was that the V-22 had to be over friendly air before it had its drink. That was the long and the short of it. The Osprey had been outfitted with additional onboard fuel storage capacity, but the aircraft burned up hundreds of gallons by the minute, and flight time had to be precisely calculated. Breaux understood the equation. He knew that mere minutes remained to spot those trucks, and if he didn't luck out, then the Fat Lady had already sung, and that was it.
Then, with unexpected suddenness, through a break in the swirling maelstrom of the shamal, he caught sight of the dull glimmerings of white-painted rectangular objects below. He thought there were numerical markings on them, the kind trucks often had on their roofs; the kind the captured lorry at the presidential palace had also displayed.
Breaux told the pilot to circle around for another look. As the convertiplane made a second pass, the swirling curtain of sand and ice parted enough to reveal the pumping station directly below.
To Breaux's relief the rectangular objects he'd spotted before turned out to be trucks.
Four of them.
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Suddenly, and from out of nowhere, they ha
d come under attack.
It was difficult to determine just who or what was shooting at them.
Dr. Jubaird Dalkimoni looked up, shielding his eyes, trying to piece together exactly what had happened. He'd heard the unmistakable sound of helicopter rotor blades. That much was clear. Through the parting sheets of whirling sand and driving sleet Dalkimoni could make out the bulky black shape weaving back and forth across the sky.
It was a helo.
Yes. A large one. Almost like a plane.
And he soon saw men fast-roping down from its open rear hatch.
Commandos!
The Israelis perhaps?
Or the Sons of Dogs, the Americans.
Still more likely.
Whoever it was, they would die. Thankfully, he had brought along a force of Takavar and they were ably trained. Let them now do their job.
"Shoot them! There! Above you!" Dalkimoni shouted, gesturing upwards.
Pulling a Skorpion machine pistol from the pit holster slung across his chest, Dalkimoni began firing three-round bursts at the invaders from the sky as if to lead by example. His wild, desperate shooting accomplished nothing, struck nothing. But it encouraged the others to go into action.
All at once defensive small arms fire started up from positions scattered throughout the truck stop. Glowing tracer bullets spat toward the hovering chopper from which human targets were emerging.
There were commandos descending on the truck stop. Americans. There was no mistaking it now. From glimpses of the enemy's chocolate-chips BDUs it was obvious they were under attack by US troops.
The purple berets worn by the assault force completed the picture. Special Forces. From where had they come? It didn't matter. They were here. Fight or be killed was the name of the game.
Dalkimoni's men took cover wherever they could, reloading and firing again and again as the final red tracers in sustained automatic bursts informed them that their ammo magazines were running dry. The Eagle Patchers were now on the ground, outnumbered by unfriendlies. The unarmed Osprey cleared out, but the AH-1Z's rockets and nose cannon evened the score considerably. Once Omega was down and engaged with the enemy, the fight moved away from the trucks, spilling over into the abandoned buildings of the pumping station.
In sum, it became a melee, with part of the US strike force up to its ears trying to take out the Takavar in fierce close-quarter combat, and the rest attempting to secure the nuclear weapons trucks before their hell-bent-on-suicide drivers were able to get them rolling onto the highway again.
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Breaux glimpsed the familiar face of the Arab bomb-maker amidst the shifting, surging chaos of combat. It was just as pug-ugly as in the three-position Bertillon mugshot that the German cop Winternitz had shown him back at the safe house in Berlin. Now, Dalkimoni was hotfooting it to one of the motorcade's SUVs where the bloodied corpse of a bullet-pocked Takavar commando was slumped over the steering wheel.
The bomb-maker struggled to pull the heavy, dead weight from behind the wheel and dump the corpse onto the ground. While Dalkimoni was busy heaving the cadaver, Breaux snapped off a burst of AK-74 fire and a brace of stub-nosed 5.45-millimeter bullets spanged and wheezed against the side of the cab, shattering glass and pockmarking metal. Unhanding the dead man, Dalkimoni quick-drew his Skorpion machinepistol and snapped off an answering nine-millimeter autoburst, forcing Breaux to drop down and kiss the sand.
When he rose back up again, Dalkimoni had ditched the troublesome corpse and was already behind the steering wheel with the ignition roaring. The SUV was now barreling away from Breaux, peeling off smoking rubber as its tires screamed for purchase on the shifting desert sands. Breaux tried to shoot out the tires, but the marker tracers he'd loaded showed him the bullpup rifle's clip only had a few rounds left in it. So far none of them seemed to have inflicted any severe damage on the getaway car. Breaux tossed aside the now dry AK and unholstered his Beretta service sidearm, a double-action weapon he carried unsafetied and hammer-down in condition-one mode.
Gun drawn, Breaux bolted after the truck, nearly taking a hit from another volley of Skorpion autofire that Dalkimoni backhanded his way out the driver's-side window. With the SUV still floundering in the sand, Breaux jumped onto the passenger-side running board and smashed the window to splinters with the receiver of this pistol, shards of safety glass peppering his face and temporarily blinding him.
As Breaux shook off the translucent blue flakes of shattered window glass, Dalkimoni leveled his machinepistol and fired a burst straight across the seat. Breaux ducked just in time to dodge the shot pattern as bullets went whipping past his head, triggering an answering Beretta round on the follow-through.
But nothing happened as the hammer dropped. The Beretta had apparently jammed and hung fire. Not surprising, the thought flashed through Breaux's mind -- only an asshole would trust an automatic to function in the middle of a sandstorm after using it as a fire axe.
Breaux guessed that this clearly made him an asshole, but he could kick himself later. Right now he had a raging Arab terrorist pointing a Skorpion machinepistol at his head, and, unlike his own, the bad guy's gun seemed to be working just fine.
Breaux ducked below the shattered window as a burst of hot lead punched through the space his head had occupied a moment earlier. He considered pitching a mini-grenade into the cab and then jumping off the SUV, but at the reckless speed Dalkimoni was driving he'd probably wind up breaking his own neck. Besides, Breaux wanted Dalkimoni in one piece if he could at all arrange it. He had his own reasons for this.
Now the door went pock -- pock -- pock. Three steel rosebuds blossomed in quick succession to the right and left of the handle.
Then suddenly, from within the cab of the SUV, Breaux heard Dalkimoni howl in pain. Breaux intuitively knew what had happened. Dalkimoni had let his emotions overrule his common sense and continually aimed low to shoot right through the door frame hoping more easily to hit his opponent's vitals.
Inevitably one or more of the PB slugs he'd fired through the door had fragmented on impact. A ricocheting sliver of lead had probably hit him.
Breaux risked taking a Skorpion volley in the face and snapped back up to peer through the glass-less window frame.
Sure enough, Breaux saw that Dalkimoni was bleeding from a wound above his left eye. Blood was pouring down his collar too. A slug fragment had gouged a chunk of meat from his head, but it was a superficial wound. The bomb-maker was still very much alive and kicking. But at least he didn't have his gun anymore. In the heat of action he'd dropped it and it had tumbled out of reach.
With Dalkimoni now disarmed, Breaux tried to yank open the passenger door but it was locked from inside and the lock mechanism damaged by bullet strikes. Reaching in with his hand, Breaux tried to pull the frozen inner latch, dodging the wickedly sharp blade of a spring-loaded knife that Dalkimoni suddenly pulled from his pocket and with which he now tried to slice off Breaux's fingers as he one-handed the wheel.
But the swaying, lurching path of the SUV made it impossible to play Japanese sushi chef with Breaux's hand and control the vehicle at the same time. Breaux was finally able to get a sufficiently solid grip on the latch so he could apply enough leverage to yank open the door.
Breaux was soon in the passenger seat, the passenger door banging open and shut as its damaged lock prevented it from securing against the wildly careening vehicle. Dalkimoni's knife went clattering out the driver's window as both men grappled for it. The fight for control of the SUV quickly degenerated into an ugly primal contest between two antagonists bereft of weapons, bereft of even the ability to use combat skills in the tightly enclosed space. It was now a clawing, punching, head-butting, body-thrashing, arm-wrenching brawl. A death match where grunts of struggle displaced words, and stabs of blinding pain replaced coherent thoughts.
In the end it was the SUV that decided the issue, and the human combatants who had to abide by its judgment call. Now Breaux's hands were
on the wheel, now Dalkimoni's. And now again possession of the steering wheel changed once more. In the end, the four-by-four careened off the access road of the truck stop, fishtailed almost completely around, and crashed head-on into the concrete base of a steel electrical pylon located just off the highway.
The impact of the collision sent both men sprawling against the dashboard, roof and doors, badly cut and batiked with blood as the truck's airbags inflated. The main difference between them was that Dalkimoni had been knocked unconscious in the collision while Breaux still had his wits about him. Breaux figured that made him the winner by default as he dragged the dazed bomb-maker out of the wreckage by his feet.
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By the time Breaux returned to the pumping station, Force Omega combat personnel had the area nailed down tight. Those Takavar who had not been killed in battle were seated in a line with their hands clasped behind their heads, watched over by Eagle Patcher teams with rifles pointed at their faces.
The wounded were either being treated by the team's medic or were already aboard the V-22, while the Raptor, which had found Breaux's detachment, flew a high-altitude security CAP overhead. Bandaged and bloodied, in many cases, most of the American volunteers had survived the engagement and were grateful to be alive. Later, they would be called heroes, but Breaux would see that those who started bragging about it would no longer be part of Omega.
As for the rest -- friendly and unfriendly KIAs were lined up on the desert crust in the burnished copper light of dawn. The only difference between them now was that the friendlies were being zipped into vinyl body bags while the unfriendlies were dragged inside the empty pumping station's blockhouses. Worms, snakes and scorpions would soon have their way with them there.
By the time Dalkimoni came around he was securely handcuffed with cable-ties and under guard with the rest of the Iranian POWs. Breaux was over by the trucks where his counter-WMD people with special technical training and equipment were completing an assessment of the nukes.
They had come to the Mashdad presidential palace prepared to destroy weapons of mass destruction in place if necessary. The Eagle Patchers had carried into combat with them special demolition charges developed by DARPA that were supposed to be able to accomplish this job with minimal risk of environmental contamination.
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