by Dale Brown
"Just button it, will you, Gonzo?"
"I'm serious here, man!" Wickland shouted. "What are we doing here? I'm an engineer, for Chrissakes! I've never been in the military! My job is designing and testing weapons and attack systems and writing software, not dropping bombs on Libyans who want nothing more than to shoot my ass off! I want to-"
"Gonzo, I don't give a shit what you want," Tanaka interrupted. "Just keep the computers humming and shut your pie-hole."
"Sure, go ahead-bitch at me. You're the ex-Air Force war hero-you get off on this shit, not me. It's McLanahan who's going to get our asses shot off! I didn't come out here to ..."
"Wickland, I said, shut the fuck up," Tanaka said. "You knew exactly where we were going and what we were going to do, when we briefed this mission. You knew we were going to attack Libya, refuel and rearm, then attack again. You took the money, bought your Mercedes and your big house in Memphis, and got your big stock options. Now you gotta earn your money. So just fly the plane, keep those computers going and that nav system up tight, and shut up."
Wickland seemed to shrivel up just then. He sat upright in his ejection seat, seemingly oblivious to all the new air defense warnings popping up on their threat display. Tanaka looked over at him, and after a few moments realized that the guy was just plain scared. Tanaka, a twentyone-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force and retired lieutenant colonel, with over five thousand hours in about nine different tactical fighter and bomber aircraft, instantly felt sorry for him. Combat was just another phase of flight for Tanaka. The simulators they flew back at Sky Masters Inc.'s headquarters in Blytheville were a hundred times more hectic and every bit as realistic as the real thingTanaka thought it was excellent preparation for these operational missions, so much so that he felt ultraprepared for almost every Megafortress flight. He never realized that the other, less experienced guys might not think that way. Wickland was an engineer, a designer, not atombat aircrewman.
"Listen, Gonzo," Tanaka said, "I'm sorry. I know you're scared...."
"I'm not scared."
"Okay. That's fine. I just want you to do your job-"
"I'm going to do my job, George."
"Good. I know you will. Just think of this as just another sim ride. We're wringing out a new weapon code, that's all, nothing to it."
But as soon as Tanaka uttered those words, he knew they didn't ring true.
"I'm sorry, Greg," Tanaka went on. "We're not in the sim. We're not wringing out a new software program. This is the real thing. The missile that we fail to defeat or we don't see will kill us, not just crash the IPL or freeze the sim. I know you didn't sign up with the company to go to war. And I know you agreed to do this mission on the ground-but now we're in the air, and we're surrounded by about nine hostile SAM systems that will shoot us out of the sky the instant they get a lock on us, and you're having second thoughts." He paused, looking at Wickland, who said nothing. "Am I right?"
"Zero..."
"It's okay, Gonzo," Tanaka said. "We use these call signs and dress up in cool flight suits and pretend we're Tom Cruise and Anthony Edwards in Top Gun, but the truth is hammering us in the head right now-that we're in deep shit, that we could die any second up here; and if we do, no one will know what the hell we're doing up here. We'll be dead, and that's all." Wickland remained silent, but he turned to his aircraft commander, his chest inflating and deflating as if he was having trouble breathing all of a sudden.
"Gonzo, we don't have to do this if you don't want to," Tanaka said. "This is the general's fight, not ours. We're the crew members aboard this plane, but we're not sworn to fight and die for whoever the company is doing all this for. We signed a contract to fly planes for Sky Masters Inc., not get our asses shot at by a thousand Libyan SAMs. So if you want to break out of here, we will."
Wickland's mouth opened in surprise. "You will?"
"Damn straight," Tanaka said. "I realize we're not in this to save our country. We're doing this because we like flying planes and building cool weapon systems and watching them work. So if you say so, I'll call the general right now and tell him we're aborting the mission."
"You will?" Wickland repeated, stunned.
"I said I would," Tanaka said. "We'll climb out, avoid all the SAMs and intercept radars, get out over open ocean away from all other air traffic, head toward the Scotland refueling anchor, and call for gas to take us home or land at our facility at Glasgow or Lossiemouth."
"We'll catch hell for doing that...."
"The company can't do dick to us, Gonzo. They can't fire us, they can't dock our pay, and they can't sue us."
"What about the guys on the ground?"
"If they're smart, they'll bug out shortly after we do," Tanaka said. "I'll let them know exactly what we're doing, and why." That made Wickland swallow hard-he was scared of dying, obviously, but also scared of being thought of as a coward by his cohorts. "Like I said, Gonzo, this is the general's fight, not ours. I'm flying this mission because I happen to believe that we're doing something good, something right-and besides, I like flying this kick-ass plane into battle, real battle. But I respect your wishes, too-we do this together. So what do you say?"
Wickland looked at his supercockpit display, automatically entering commands or adjusting settings. He turned to Tanaka, opened his mouth as if to say something, then turned back to his console.
"Gonzo? What's it going to be?"
The mission commander shrugged. He was called the "mission commander," but truthfully he didn't feel like a commander of anything. All he wanted to do was build and test cutting-edge neural network computer systems. He didn't want to go to war.
Still...
"Let's keep going," he heard himself say. "I spent four
hours getting the interface to work between those hunks of junk in our bomb bay-now I want to see if they'll work."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Tanaka said. "Let's plot a course around as many of these SAMs as we can, then make our way to the initial point on time." He was pleased to see Wickland immediately start punching the supercockpit display's touchscreen and speaking computer commands-he was back in the lab or in the sim, where he really belonged. Whatever it took to get his head where it needed to be ...
"We've got two SA-lOs, one just nine miles east of the IP, the other forty miles west-northwest," Wickland reported. "Looks like they moved them since this morning when those Libyans scouted them."
"The target run will put us just inside lethal range of the second SAM after we're IP inbound, and he'll be alerted if we have to fire on the first site," Tanaka said. "What's the computer say?"
"It says let's get the fuck out of here, go home, and have a beer," Wickland quipped. He turned to Tanaka, smiled, and corrected himself, saying, "Nah, that was me-but I'll do what the computer says: descend to computergenerated lowest altitude, replot the IP to bypass the first SAM, and attack the second SAM with one antiradar missile. It'll take the first SAM at least thirty seconds to acquire us, and by that time we'll be just a few seconds out of detection range and within a minute of flying out of lethal range. We save one antiradar missile for later." He punched up instructions on the touchscreen. "Center up on the bug to the new IP. I've got COLA terrain-following mode selected, minimum safe altitude is on the barber pole."
"Roger, me," Tanaka said. Yep, he thought happily, he's back. "Here we go."
Grumble, this is Lion Seven," the Mi-24 pilot radioed. "I copy you have declared an air defense emergency. Do you need us to reverse course and reenter the security ap-
proach? We are five minutes from bingo fuel, and we have wounded on board. We must land immediately. Over."
The S-300 battery commander had a decision to make. The proper procedure was to kick all aircraft out of the airspace and have them reenter the restricted area, usually on a different ingress route to be sure they were familiar with all the routes, not just the one they filed for. But this guy was bingo fuel, and he obviously saw some kind of action.
Well, the lieutenant thought, all that wasn't his fault. That hot prickly sensation was still hammering away on the back of his neck-no time to ignore it now. "Lion Seven, reverse course and reenter through checkpoint oneone-nine at three hundred meters."
He heard the pilot radio a muttered "Insha'allah," which in this case probably more closely meant "Who do you think you are, God?" rather than "If God wills it." But the pilot responded curtly, "Roger, Grumble Twelve. Reversing course."
"He sounded pretty mad, sir," the radar operator observed.
"If he runs out of fuel and crashes, I'll take the blame for it," the lieutenant said. "But as long as we follow procedures, we can't be faulted too badly. Clear your screens and report."
The radar operators switched their radar briefly from short-range tracking and identification to long-range search. The short-range tracking gave altitude information and more precise tracking information, but sacrificed range, so the radar had to be manually reset for longerrange scans on occasion. The Mi-24 helicopter briefly disappeared from the radar display when the mode was changed. "Radar is clear, sir."
"Very well. Continue tracking Seven to the ingress point."
"Yes, sir."
"Comm, ask him his fuel state again. If we need to, we'll have to coordinate an off-base refueling."
"Yes, sir." He turned to his radios; the lieutetlant lit a
cigarette while they worked. But moments later: "Sir, no reply from Lion Seven!"
The creepy-crawling sensation on the back of the lieutenant's neck was raging now; he crushed the cigarette out with a stamp of a foot. "Radar ... ?"
"He just disappeared off the scope, sir," the radar operator reported. "I had his transponder signal and primary target just a moment ago-now it's gone."
"Any ELTs?"
The radio operator switched his intercom panel-and sure enough, they heard a pingpingpingping! signal on the international emergency frequency. The ELT, or emergency locator transmitter, activated automatically upon impact if the helicopter crashed.
"Shit," the lieutenant cursed, "he crashed. I thought he said he was bingo fuel-he should've had at least a thirtyminute reserve. Those hot dog helo pilots would rather kill themselves than admit they screwed up and stretched their fuel past safe tolerances. Give me a bearing to the signal, notify Units Ten and Nine and have them triangulate his position, then send it to Brigade to organize an immediate rescue." He picked up the command phone. "Brigade, Twelve."
"Go ahead."
"Sir, we have lost contact with Lion Seven. We are picking up an ELT; he may have crashed. He reported he was low on fuel, but he first reported that he ..."
"Sir, unidentified fast-moving aircraft inbound, range thirty-five kilometers and closing! "
"Release all batteries!" the lieutenant shouted, still with his finger on the phone's call switch. He threw the phone into its cradle. "Release batteries and fire!" He looked at the radar screen-it was a hopeless jumble of streaks, dots, swirls, and radiating electrical noise.
"We are being jammed, sir! Heavy jamming, all frequencies!"
"Switch to optronic control, search along the last known bearing. Switch the radar to short-scan multifrequency to
simulate missile guidance uplink-let's see if he switches his jammers to counter the uplink. Where's the optronic crew? Report, dammit!"
"Optronics crew searching along predicted flight path ... Sir, optronic crew has detected a fast-moving target!"
"Match bearings and reacquire in medium-scan mode!"
"Target reacquired .. . target locked in medium-scan mode."
It was a crapshoot after this: time for the missile to fly to its target minus ten seconds, the minimum amount of time it took to lock on with the more precise short-range scan, then transmit the uplink data to guide the missile to its target. No time for guessing now ... "Release batteries and launch two."
The deputy commander hit the "LAUNCH" alarm, flipped a switch guard, and then reached down inside the switch to a covered button underneath. Moving the switch set off another alarm in the command cab; the lieutenant silenced the horn with a commander's "pickle switch" that he held in his left hand, which issued a consent command to the launch controller.
Outside, at a launcher two hundred meters away, a threethousand-pound missile popped out of its launch tube from a slug of compressed nitrogen. The missile flew straight up for about seventy feet before the solid-rocket booster ignited, quickly accelerating the missile to well over five times the speed of sound.
"Twenty seconds to impact." Three seconds later, they heard a second loud blast from outside-the second
5V55K missile had popped out of its launch tube and was following the first on its way to the target. "Second missile away . .. fifteen seconds to impact."
"Stand by to switch to narrow-beam mode . .. now."
The engagement officer switched radar modes. "Target acquired in narrow-scan mode ... target locked, sir! Ten seconds to-"
Suddenly the entire command vehicle violently rocked
on'its eight wheels. The I radar of the S-
300 was carried aboard the same semi-trailer truck as the command unit. The lights flickered, then went out completely. Moments later, a second object struck the vehicle, harder than the first. A burst of fire erupted from the control console. "Evacuate! Now!" the lieutenant shouted. The crew members ran outside just as thick black smoke began billowing out of the command cab.
As the command crew assembled outside, the lieutenant quickly determined the cause of the double explosion-a Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter, just a few kilometers away, was firing guided antitank missiles at the S-300 battery. He realized then that the Mi-24 hadn't crashed-it had just ducked down below the S-300's radar coverage, cruised in, and attacked. It was flying perhaps ten meters above the desert, flying at just thirty or forty kilometers an hour, slowly and carefully picking its targets. Occasionally a blast of machine-gun fire erupted from its nose cannon, followed by a streak of fire as its laser-guided missiles sped off their launch rails and hit home.
In seconds, it was over-and the entire S-300 battery, eight launchers and a I vehicle, had been destroyed, and the Mi-24 helicopter simply disappeared into the night sky. Soon, only the sounds of burning vehicles and screaming men could be heard.
King Sayyid Muhammad ibn al-Hasan as-Sanusi, on board the Mi-24 helicopter in the flight engineer's station, patted the pilot on the shoulders, then turned to the radio console at the engineer's station behind the cockpit. "Headbanger, Headbanger, this is Lion," he radioed. 'Target Alpha is down, repeat, Alpha is down. Commence your run."
At that moment, he saw a long trail of fire coming from the direction of Zillah Air Base. The bombers were on their way.
He hoped to hell the Megafortress could stop them.
LADAR coming on ... now," Greg Wickland reported. Seconds later: "LADAR standby." The image frozen in his wide-screen supercockpit display was almost as clear as a sixteen-color photograph. What he saw horrified him: "The bombers-they're gone."
"Oh, shit," George "Zero" Tanaka muttered. He strained to take a look at the supercockpit display. "Looks like two planes still on the base, getting ready for takeoff."
"Fighters," Wickland said. "MiG-23s. Must be the last of the bombers' air cover." He flashed the LADAR on and off several times so he could keep watch on the fighters, taking a laser snapshot and then rolling and turning the three-dimensional image to pick up as much detail as possible. Soon he could see them rolling down the runwaythe LADAR even detected their afterburner plumes. "Looks like they're heading north-not toward us." He turned to his aircraft commander. "Our mission was to try to destroy the bombers or crater the runway so the bombers couldn't launch. We missed them. What do we do now? There's no use attacking the base if the bombers are gone." His eyes grew wide with fear as he started to guess what Tanaka had in mind: "You're not thinking of going after the bombers, are you?"
"It's our only chance of stopping them."
"
We've only got eight air-to-air missiles," Wickland reminded his AC-not just for Tanaka's benefit, but also to assure himself of how dangerous this plan really was. The EB-52 Megafortress carried eight radar-guided AIM-120 Scorpion missiles in stealthy external weapon pods, along with four AGM-88 HARMs (high-speed antiradar missiles). Internally, the EB-52 carried a rotary launcher with eight AGM-154 JSOW (joint standoff weapons), which were satellite- and imaging-infrared-guided thousandpound glide bombs that could be targeted by the laser radar and attack computers; plus another rotary launcher with eight Wolverine powered "brilliant" cruise missiles, which could locate and attack their own targets. "It's crazy. I think we ought to-" +
"Listen, Wickland," Tanaka interrupted angrily, "right
now, I don't care what you think." He dropped his oxygen mask and looked at his mission commander with pure anger. "I asked you before we entered hostile airspace if you wanted to do this, and you said 'press on.' Now we've stirred up the hornet's nest, we've got friendlies on the ground directly in harm's way, and we are not going to back down now."
"But you said-"
"I know what I said, and I was right-this wasn't our fight, and this is not our country," Tanaka said. "But we're committed. Do you understand that, Wickland? The time to back out was twenty minutes ago before Sanusi's forces entered defended airspace, or even five minutes ago before we started jamming the Libyan SAM sites. Now we're in the middle of the shit, and I'm not just turning around and going home. So you'd better do your job and do it damn well, or I won't wait to be blown up by a I-/'// put a bullet up your ass myself. Now give me a heading to those planes."
Wickland silently did what he was ordered to do. The MiG-23 fighters turned east-northeast, and Tanaka rolled in about thirty miles behind them to follow. Less than fifteen minutes later, they detected another flight of aircraft: three Tupolev-22 supersonic bombers, heading northeast toward the Gulf of Sidra. "There they are," Tanaka said. He began to push the throttles up until they were in full military power.