by Dale Brown
knew for sure. The only indications that they might have been involved in something horrible were the faraway stares and wandering attention at the dinner table.
Sometimes, they didn't come back. Instead of reunions with loved ones, there were condolences, tears, and a flag folded up into a triangle. If they were lucky, they got the body back. Even then, no explanations. Never any explanations.
Quite unabashedly, Weston believed one other thing: the ISA picked the right guy for the job. John Weston, an ROTC cadet and high school chess champion from Springfield, Illinois, was pretty much a book-loving stay-at-home-with-thekids ex-farm boy nerd most of the time, but he did have one quality absolutely no one disputed: he could make an MV-22 Pave Hammer transport plane dance.
Right now, however, he wasn't sure if all the dancing in the world could get them out of this mess. "How's it look, Flex?" Weston asked.
"Like shit, boss," Master Sergeant Ed "Flex" Fratierie, the senior loadmaster, responded. The big amateur bodybuilder and Air Force special ops veteran was standing in the port-side doorway of the MV-22, strapped to the interior of the fuselage with a safety harness and wearing night-vision goggles. "I don't see Tin Man. But I do see more heavy military vehicles coming down the road. ETA about five minutes."
"Tin Man, Hammer, we've got company," Weston radioed. "Four minutes out. Better hustle."
"Exfils inbound from the southeast and east, crew," Fratierie radioed on the secure intercom channel, watching Briggs and Wohl through his NVGs. "Identity confirmed."
"Security out!" Weston ordered. Fratierie directed his three commandos to deploy around the MV-22 Pave Hammer tiltrotor as guards during the evacuation. "Get ready to-"
"Heavy weapons fire west!" one loadmaster shouted. "Coming from one of the inbound vehicles. Range four klicks!"
"Aces will be coming in hot in twenty seconds," Deverill reported. "Can you catch him, Tin Man?"
"Roger," Chris Wohl responded. "I need a range and bearing to the inbound, sir."
Hal Briggs stopped, then turned to the west and scanned the
area with his helmet-mounted sensors. He pointed away down the highway. "Three
-point five K meters, Stan," he radioed. "Fast-moving, big-might be a wheeled APC."
"Finally got it right, sir," Wohl said. He raised a large weapon that resembled a cross between an M60 machine gun and a ray gun, sighted through a large electronic multispectral scope, aimed, and fired toward the highway. A hypervelocity projectile about the size of a cigar, but traveling five times faster than a bullet, hissed out of the weapon's muzzle with a sound resembling a loud buzzing cough. There was no recoilthe same electromagnetic impulses that sent the projectile on its way also dampened out the tremendous recoil.
Exactly three thousand and seventeen yards away, the depleted uranium hypervelocity railgun projectile shot through a half-inch of steel plating on a Russian BTR-27 wheeled armored command post vehicle racing down the highway, proceeded unimpeded through the six-hundred-horsepower diesel engine, through the fuel tank, out the back end, and into the engine compartment of a police car traveling fifty yards behind the BTR, before it finally stopped. The BTR's engine exploded, then the diesel fuel exploded. The police car was knocked sideways into the ditch as if it were a toy.
Wohl continued to scan the area with his electronic scope. "I've got infantry moving in," he reported. "Three klicks out. They might be setting up a mortar or getting ready to shoot in grenades. We better move."
"Pop smoke, pop smoke!" Weston ordered. Soon, thick clouds of gray infrared-blocking smoke wafted across the windscreen, covering every direction except the one in which they intended to take off. Hopefully the smoke would make it a bit more difficult for the mortar crews to range in on them. Union, Weston breathed, c'mon, hurry!
"More mortar fire! Incoming!" That time, Weston felt the explosion rattle his plane's fuselage, clumps of dirt, snow, and tarmac pinging off his props and fuselage. Despite the clouds of smoke swirling around the plane, the rounds were being quickly, expertly walked in. Another one or two rounds, and they'd have their range. Weston could almost feel the bad guys
loading that deadly round into the tube, letting it slide down, hearing its ballistic charges light off with a loud K4-BLAM! The MV-22 rocked on its wheels, and two engines coughed and rattled as the overpressure from a large explosion forced air backward through the turbine engines.
But as he watched, one by one, Fratierie saw the oncoming Russian military vehicles blasted apart by some unseen force. The last to die caused a tremendous explosion as its magazine of antivehicle mortars was hit and detonated. But the nonmilitary vehicles-a police car and a second ambulance-were untouched.
"What was that?" Weston shouted on the secure intercom. "Sing out!"
"Looks like our guardian angel took care of our newcomers," one of his loadmasters responded. "Lots of secondaries. Road's clear right now except for a police cruiser and an ambulance."
Good shooting by someone out there, Weston thought. The driving rain and winds were dissipating the cover smoke quickly-there was no more time to waste. "How long until our exfils get on board?"
"All exfils under the tail. Wounded coming aboard." "Roger." Weston revved the throttle, starting to feed in takeoff torque. "Security, pull in. Let's get the hell out of here!"
The loadmasters acting as security forces started pulling back toward the plane-when suddenly they stopped, then dove for the ground. Weston couldn't hear anything over the roar of the engines until the last moment. It was the scream of an inbound mortar round. And as he looked on helplessly, one of his loadmasters disappeared in a blinding flash of light and an earsplitting explosion, just thirty yards from the plane.
"Jesus! " the copilot shouted. "Candy got hit! Triggerman, Flex, check east, see if you can help Candy!"
"Negative," Weston interjected, his words acidity in his throat. It was the hardest decision he had ever had to make, but one he made without any hesitation. "Candy took a direct hit. Get in the plane. Let's go."
"Cap, we can't leave our men behind-"
"We don't have any choice," Weston said. "Security, pull in, now. Flex, where did that mortar come from?"
"More inbound from the north on the other side of the river," Fratierie responded. "Can't pinpoint their location, but the round came from the north, probably the other side of the bridge. Aces, Aces, can you see the newcomers north
of our position?"
"Flex, give me a countdown for when everyone's on board."
"Twenty seconds, Cap ... fifteen ... ten seconds ... cargo ramp's moving, everyone on board! Go! Go!"
Weston poured in power right to the redline, and the MV-22 lifted off. He thumbed the nacelle control knob, which rotated the engine nacelles downward a few degrees, increasing their forward speed. As their forward speed increased, the MV-22's wings produced more lift, but because Weston held the nose down and kept the tilt-rotor aircraft at treetop level, speed increased dramatically. As speed increased more, Weston eventually rotated the nacelles to full horizontal position, changing the Pave Hammer from helicopter to airplane mode. He activated the terrain-following radar and low-light TV sensors so he could see and avoid all ter-rain and obstacles outside in the darkness.
"Holy shit, we made it," the copilot breathed. "I thought we'd never-"
At that instant, the threat-waming receiver in the cockpit emitted a shrill DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE! tone, an A symbol appeared near the top of the display, and an instant later the electronic warfare officer shouted, "Radar-guided triple A, four o'clock, break left now!" A ripple of antiaircraft fire erupted just to the right of the nose, tracers sweeping in their direction. Weston banked hard left, but not quickly enough. The twentythree-millimeter shells of a mobile ZSU-23-2 antiaircraft artillery unit belonging to the Russian Federation Air Force's Troops of Air Defense detachment based at Zhukovsky Air Base ripped into the MV-22's forward fuselage. The force of the big shells piercing the plane's belly and hitting the
copilot's body nearly pushed him right out of his seat and made him look as if he was trying to stand up and turn around to escape
his bloody fate. Weston heard sounds of explosions, popping, and snapping of electrical circuits behind him; most of the electronic readouts and multifunction displays on the forward instrument panel extinguished, and a thin layer of blue electrical smoke filled the cabin. There was a loud squeal in the intercom, and Weston had to rip his helmet off because he couldn't shut it off. The cabin instantly got fifty degrees colder, with swirls of icy, rainy air penetrating the cabin. Ice immediately began to form on the windshield on the inside-soon it would ice over completely.
Weston pulled his copilot's shredded body off the center throttle quadrant, his shaking right hand and arm instantly covered in blood up to his shoulder. "Oh shit," he exclaimed. "Flex! Give me a hand! Help me!" The senior jumpmaster rushed forward, unstrapped the copilot from his seat, and laid him on the deck. It seemed as if blood covered every square inch of the cockpit. "Flex, get in the right seat, help me keep this thing level. We're all blasted to hell." He kept the nose down, but the airspeed was steadily decreasing, and the vibration coming from the right wing was getting worse. "Check the gauges, Flex. What else did I lose?"
"Fluctuating prop RPMs on the right," the jumpmaster said. Weston pulled some power back to try to dampen the vibrations, but it had no effect. "Looks like a bunch of gauges for the right engine are oscillating. Vibration is getting worse, too."
"Shit. I'm going to shut down number two." Weston switched the MV-22's transmission system so that both rotors were being powered by the left engine, isolated the right engine's electrical, pneumatic, and hydraulic systems, then quickly shut off fuel to the right engine to shut it down. "Airspeed's dropped off about forty knots," he said, "but I've got control. Vibration has decreased a bit." He knew that was being very, very optimistic. "Any more damage?"
"We got a bunch of c/b's that won't reset, and a blown fuse light on the number three inverter and current limiter," the jumpmaster reported. "Where's the current limiter fuse?"
"Not accessible inflight," Weston replied. "Let's start shedding electrical loads and setting up the electrical panel for single-inverter operation. Crap, what else could go wr-?"
Suddenly, it was as if the entire horizon ahead of them erupted into sheets of blazing gunfire. The plane had inadvertently drifted right over toward
Zhukovsky Air Base, and almost every antiaircraft artillery piece on the base opened fire on them. Weston immediately banked hard left to try to get away, but there was gunfire in every direction. The arcs of glowing tracer rounds got closer and closer every second. Just then, a searchlight popped on, and in a few seconds it had locked directly on them.
Time to die, Weston thought. No ejection seats, and not enough parachutes for everyone. His only chance was to try a forced landing, but if those triple-A units got a clean shot at them, there wouldn't be enough of the plane left to land. Weston thought of his family, thought about the service his kids would have to attend, thought about ...
Just then there were several sharp flashes of light, one after another, illuminating the cockpit like dozens of flashbulbs popping one after another. So this was what it was like, Weston thought, to take a direct triple-A hit? This was what it was like to die....
"God almighty," the crew mission commander, Nevada Air National Guard Major Duane "Dev" Deverill muttered. "That was the definition of a wrong turn. Either Trash Man is lost, or he's just plain stupid."
From twenty miles east of Zhukovsky, Deverill and his aircraft commander, Nevada Air National Guard Captain Annie Dewey, orbited above the hellish nightmare aboard an EB-IC Megafortress R bomber. They had watched the entire episode from high above, well above antiaircraft artillery range, using the Megafortress's LADAR, or Laser Radar, to paint a threedimensional image of the MV-22's entire approach and escape. ne LADAR also imaged and targeted the positions of some of the advancing Russian forces.
"Is the MV-22 still airborne?" Annie asked.
"Yep," Duane responded. "The Longhorn got to him just in time. Bombers save the day again." Deverill had released an AGM-89D Longhorn Maverick precision-guided missile when
they saw the MV-22 drifting over toward Zhukovsky, and it had scored a direct hit on the antiaircraft artillery site that was about to open fire on them. The Longhorn missile, an upgrade of the venerable AGM-89 Maverick missile, was fitted with an imaging-infrared seeker and a millimeter-wave radar that could detectand home in on vehicles as small as an automobile. It had a range of over thirty miles and was big enough to destroy a main battle tank or penetrate five feet of reinforced concrete. Along with a rotary launcher of eight Longhorn missiles in the center bomb bay and an extended fuel tank in the aft bomb bay, the Vampire also carried a rotary launcher with eight special air-to-air missiles in the forward bomb bay.
"Give 'em a break, Dev," Annie said. "It looked like they caught some triple-A back there after they lifted off. Maybe they're badly damaged." .
Duane snorted, politely conceding the point. "You're right, Heels. I'd hate to think they just plain screwed up."
Annie looked over at Deverill and studied him for a moment. How, she thought, could a guy so damned cute be so damned insensitive?
Annie couldn't help being drawn to him, despite his cocky, confident, self-indulgent attitude. If he wasn't so popular and highly qualified, he would be the biggest asshole on base. But he really knew his shit and he contributed a lot to the I I I th Bomb Wing "Aces High" and to his fellow crewdogs.
"I think he's in trouble," Annie said after studying Dev's arge multifunction display as it plotted the MV-22's position. "We need to help him."
"You know we're not allowed to do that," Deverill said. We're not supposed to be here, remember? We're ghosts." "Ghosts who launched cruise missiles against a country that
we're not at war with," Annie pointed out.
"Hey, Heels, you're preaching to the choir," Duane said. "I'd be just as happy planting a few sticks of cluster bombs on the Russians any day. But the plan was not to descend below fifteen thousand feet or risk revealing our position in any way. If the world found out the U.S. had sent us to fly air cover for an extraction of an American spy inside Russia, it could ruin relations with everybody. Longhorns from high altitude, yes. But
if we get ourselves shot down by a lucky Russian gunner with itchy trigger fingers, we violate orders and the U.S. of A. gets egg all over its face."
"Ask me if I care," Annie said. She switched to a prebriefed tactical channel
and keyed her mike switch: "Hammer, Hammer, this is Terminator on red four. How copy?" No response. She tried several times and thought she heard a scratchy carrier tone, as if someone was keying a mike switch in response but no voice was going out. "I think that's him, but there's something wrong. He might have serious battle damage. We've got to do a rejoin on him, get a look at him, and if necessary lead him home."
"A B-1 bomber flying formation with a MV-22 tilt-rotor? It's kinda like the Great Dane wanting to screw the Chihuahua, isn't it?"
"Dev, I'm not going to sit up here and watch that Pave Hammer flight get chewed up by triple-A with guys I know on board," Annie said resolutely. She paddled off the autopilot that was holding them in their cover orbit. "Get ready to do a rejoin on that MV-22."
"Heels, think about that first for a sec, dammit," Deverill said earnestly. Annie glared angrily at her mission commander, but when she did, she realized that he wasn't giving her an order, just a suggestion. Annie sensed no fear in his voice, only concern that her brave efforts weren't going to do any good. He nodded toward the God's-eye display. "He's at six hundred feet going only two hundred knots. To match him we'll have to sweep the wings forward and deploy flaps and slats, and we won't be stealthy anymore. That also means we can't release weapons and won't be able to use the electronic countermeasures stuff, except maybe for the towed decoy, which we might as well not use at that point, because our radar cross
-section will obliterate the decoy. We'll be just as vulnerable as the MV-22, maybe even more so. At that speed and altitude, we'll be burning fuel like crazy, and we don't have a tanker scheduled to come in over the Black Sea. We may not make it out of the region. We'd have to abort to a base in Turkey."
Annie looked at her mission commander, anger burning in her eyes-but not anger toward him. He was right, of course.
She hadn't considered any of those facts, and that made her angrier still-with herself. Annie Dewey prided herself on developing all the skills and knowledge necessary as an aircraft commander, and first on the list of skills had to be analyzing facts and proper decision-making. She wasn't demonstrating much of that right now.
"I hear what you're saying, Dev," Annie said, "and I agree with all your concerns. Every one of them. But it doesn't matter. I want to go down there anyway."
Deverill's face looked grim, but he nodded, slowly. She felt that he would go along, but she didn't know if he was one hundred percent behind her, and that was important to her. Annie was quiet for a moment; then, without keying a microphone button, she spoke: "Genesis, this is Terminator ... Terminator to Genesis."
A moment later, they heard, "Go ahead, Annie. We're secure."
:'General, you been watching our situation?" 'Affirmative," Lieutenant-General Terrill Samson replied. He was talking to Annie via the satellite-based microtransceiver "installed" into every member of the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center. With the tiny beneath-the- skin transceiver, they could speak with each other anytime, anywhere. "Stand by one." They heard Samson say, "Genesis to Tin Man. How do you hear, Hal?"
"I hear you now, sir," Hal Briggs responded. Hal Briggs and Chris Wohl had the same kind of subcutaneous microtransceivers as everyone else at HAWC. "We're in deep shit here. The plane's pretty shot up and the copilot is dead. Looks like Trash Man lost all his cockpit displays. We need help right now or Trash Man's liable to fly us over another ack-ack site."