by Robert Gandt
“Go Battleaxe.”
“Bravo Golf clears Gipper to kill the bandits. Repeat, cleared to kill the bandits.”
While he waited for acknowledgement, an image came to Boyce’s mind. The symbols on the side of Maxwell’s Super Hornet. Three official kills. One still classified. Someday soon the wraps would be off and he’d get credit for it.
Maxwell was going to be an ace. If he followed orders.
Chapter 15 — The Sweetness of Life
Mashmashiyeh, Iran
0855, Thursday, 18 March
Something was happening.
In the distance, he could hear the sound of bombs, cannon fire, the whoosh of jets. The two Sherji in Rasmussen’s hut, Ali and Karim, were agitated, chattering between themselves.
Rasmussen sat at his wooden table, scribbling in his notebook. He feigned indifference. These two were still unaware that he could follow their conversations in Arabic.
“The Americans are coming,” said Ali. “They are bombing the perimeter with their jets, clearing the path for the helicopters.”
Rasmussen didn’t look up. The Americans are coming. An electric jolt ran through him. He felt as if he were dreaming. His heart was pounding like a jackhammer.
“Eeeee!” said Karim. “We have to abandon this place. It is time to go up the river, to escape with the Colonel.”
Ali glanced at Rasmussen. “What about him? Do we kill him or take him with us?”
“Shoot him. It is much simpler.”
Ali looked uncertain. “I will ask. You wait here.”
A string of bombs detonated a mile away, followed by the screech of a low-flying jet. “Hurry,” said Karim. “If you don’t return in five minutes, I will put a bullet in him and leave this building.”
They glanced again at Rasmussen, who continued scribbling. Ali tapped a finger to his head. “His brain is like cow dung. He doesn’t understand anything.”
Ali slung his AK-74 over his shoulder and left the hut, closing the heavy door behind him.
Rasmussen listened to the sounds of battle in the distance. Not since he ejected from his Hornet over Iraq had he been this close to anything that represented the United States. Even when the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003, he was far away, already moved to the squalid cell on the Iranian border.
Now they were here, so close he could hear them. Americans like him.
An unfamiliar feeling was stirring in Rasmussen’s gut. A feeling from a long ago past, so remote he’d nearly forgotten the sensation.
Hope.
It was growing inside him like a living thing. He knew it was irrational, delusional probably, but he clung to it, not wanting the feeling to fade away. The mere presence of such an impossible thought was like a narcotic. It was making him giddy.
Freedom was a mile away. He could hear it in the whoosh of the jets, the thud of the bombs.
Karim was listening too. He stood behind Rasmussen, trying to peer through the slit of the boarded window. He was nervous, shifting the AK-74 from hand to hand, muttering in a low voice to himself.
Rasmussen summoned up all his resolve. He turned in the chair, gathering his legs beneath him. He felt like a disembodied person, watching his own actions from a remote viewing place.
He launched himself from the chair, driving his shoulder into the small of Karim’s back. He felt himself energized with a strength he had not possessed in years. As Karim bounced off the boarded window, Rasmussen seized a handful of long hair. He rammed Karim’s head against the hard stucco wall.
Like most of the Sherji, Karim was wiry and tough. Enraged, he wrenched himself around and lunged at his attacker. Rasmussen stepped into him, driving his fist into his face. Karim lurched backward, stunned.
Rasmussen seized his hair, yanking his head toward him, throwing an arm around him, wrenching the Arab’s neck with all his new found strength. He heard an audible crack.
Karim’s body went limp beneath him. The AK-74 fell from his hands. He slumped to the floor, his legs still twitching.
For a moment Rasmussen stood over the body of the Sherji, his breath coming in hard rasps. He’d never killed anyone before. He thought he should be feeling remorse, or sorrow, or disgust. He felt nothing like that. Nothing but a need to be free.
There’s no turning back now. Escape or die. You won’t be a prisoner again.
He snatched the kaffiyeh off the dead Sherji’s head, then picked up the AK-74. Outside the door, he heard the sound of running feet, hysterical chatter, orders shouted from down the street.
He pulled the kaffiyeh down low over his forehead. He cracked the door open. No sign of Ali. Holding the AK-74 in front of him, he stepped into the shaded pathway. At the end of the narrow street was the low building where Al-Fasr made his headquarters. He turned and walked briskly away, in the opposite direction, toward the sound of the bombs.
< >
Western Iran, 25,000 feet.
Colonel Shirazi tried to control his frustration.
The idiot GCI controller kept screaming about radar contacts to their left and low. Zahdeh had obediently broken his radar lock on the fleeing American fighters and gone back to search mode, looking for the low altitude contacts.
“Do you see any such contacts?” Shirazi demanded.
“No, Colonel,” said Zahdeh. “The targets are not there. Just chaff.”
Shirazi was still boring straight ahead to where the fleeing American fighters should be. With his previous closure rate, he estimated he was nearly in range for an AIM 7 Sparrow shot.
He scanned the horizon in front of him. Any moment he should be getting a visual contact.
“We will attack the first group then. Lock them up again!”
“Yes, Colonel.”
Shirazi called the GCI controller. “Never mind the low altitude contacts. Say the position of the previous enemy fighters. Give me real targets, damn it, not the decoys.”
The GCI controller’s voice was high and strained. “Jaguar Lead, you have targets. . . to the north of you. Eight kilometers. They have reversed.”
Again Shirazi cursed the moronic controller. Damn! He’d had a radar lock on the two fleeing Americans. He could have destroyed them within minutes if this moron controller hadn’t started reporting chaff. Now Zahdeh, his RIO, couldn’t find them on his own radar.
Of course. The Americans’ Radar Warning Receivers would have told them when he broke lock. They were probably cranking around, trying to neutralize him. Very clever, but it wasn’t too late. He could still acquire them visually and kill them with a—
The controller’s shrill call cut through his thoughts like a dagger. “Targets, Jaguar One! Two more targets behind you. Range five kilometers, closing. They are all behind you now.”
Shirazi’s senses went numb. What was the idiot talking about? Targets? He was the target. How did they get behind him?
“Jaguar One, this is Jaguar Two, behind you! Break right!”
As he rolled into the right turn to counter the new threat, Shirazi looked over his shoulder. What he saw made his blood run cold.
A sleek, gray shape, canted twin stabilizers. It was behind Bassiri’s jet, a hundred meters.
“Jaguar One,” said Bassiri in a hoarse voice, “Enemy fighters. You have one at your eight o’clock, very close.”
Colonel Shirazi peered over his shoulder. Yes, Bassiri was right. Another one, very close.
He drew a deep breath through his oxygen mask and waited to die.
< >
Maxwell’s finger curled around the trigger on the stick. He watched the desert camouflage-painted Tomcats swell in his HUD. In his headphones he could hear the insistent screeeee acquisition tone of the Sidewinder seeker head.
He took a quick glance to the right. B.J. Johnson was sliding into firing position on the second Iranian F-14.
“Gipper One-two has the trailer,” she called.
“Roger, stay locked and wait for my call.”
The Iranians knew they were t
here. The lead Tomcat was in a right turn, too late and too ineffective to defeat the Hornets on his tail.
Maxwell already had his signal. Cleared to kill the bandits. Down in CIC Hightree and Boyce were waiting to hear that the Iranian F-14s were splashed. He and B.J. were seconds away from killing both bandits.
He slid his Super Hornet to the outside of the lead Tomcat, his finger poised to launch the Sidewinder. He was close now, almost too close. Any closer and he would have to switch to a guns kill.
Where are Kissick’s F-14s?
He took a hurried glance at his tac display. There they were, across the Iranians’ turn, out of the Iranians’ kill envelope. Gipper Three and Four were one vertical move away from their own kill shots.
The Iranians were dead meat.
Sliding up from the outside of the turn, Maxwell had a good view of the lead fighter. The old Tomcat was a mess. It had a faded paint scheme with numerous dark streaks—hydraulic or oil leaks—running back along the fuselage. The two engines were spewing trails of dark smoke, making it an easy target to follow. American engine makers had long ago cleaned up the exhausts of tactical fighter jet engines.
There was something else. As Maxwell closed on the lead Tomcat, he saw markings on the fuselage, beneath the canopy. Symbols, arranged in a row.
Kill symbols.
Maxwell slid in tighter. His finger was still on the trigger, but his curiosity had taken charge. He was too close for even a guns shot now, but he knew he could put the Tomcat away in a matter of seconds if the Iranian pilot made a sudden maneuver.
He was flying formation on the Iranian Tomcat, escorting it. The pilot and the RIO in the Tomcat cockpit were staring at him.
Maxwell had a good view of the kill symbols on the fuselage. They were Iraqi flags. Five of them.
< >
Mashmashiyeh, Iran
Sherji were running in all directions, shouting at each other, pointing to the east where a steady din of explosions rolled across the hazy marshes. No one seemed to notice the tall man in the dark gellebiah and the kaffiyeh, carrying the AK-74.
Rasmussen came to the edge of the village, then stopped in the shadow of a crumbling stucco building. At the east end of the village was the river and the flimsy concrete bridge. It was guarded at each end by a pair of Sherji.
Shit. He had to get out of the village. Had to cross the river, had to reach the Americans’ positions. If he waited any longer—
Footsteps. Running, coming from behind him.
He whirled and saw them. Ali was charging down the pathway, holding his assault rifle across his chest at the ready. With him was another Sherji, one of the sergeants from Al-Fasr’s headquarters.
They hadn’t recognized him yet. The borrowed kaffiyeh was working, at least for another few seconds. It concealed his telltale shock of white hair.
He turned from them, not too abruptly, and stepped around the corner of the building. Then he ran, sprinting for the cover of the far pathway that paralleled the row of buildings. He reached the corner. As he turned to run back up the next pathway, he stopped.
A Land Rover blocked the narrow passage. It was lurching over the rough stones, coming toward him. Atop the vehicle was a machine gun mount and a Sherji behind it swinging the barrel as if he were searching for a target. He fixed his dark, Arab eyes on the man in the kaffiyeh.
Rasmussen saw the other man in the vehicle, sitting next to the driver. They made eye contact.
Rasmussen recognized him. Abu Mahmed.
Abu kept his eyes on him as he barked a command at the driver. The driver nodded, and the Land Rover accelerated down the street.
Rasmussen fought against the panic that welled up in him. He whirled and reversed course, running back to the end of the street, around the corner. He braced himself for the hail of machine gun bullets.
They didn’t come. He heard only the Land Rover tires crunching on the rocky street behind him.
Still running, he darted around the next corner, back into the street where he’d seen Ali and the sergeant.
They were still there. Side by side, trotting toward him, looking for the American. Ali looked perplexed. He stared at the figure in the kaffiyeh coming toward him, not sure what he was seeing.
Rasmussen leveled the AK-74 and shot him in the chest with a quick, three-round burst. The sergeant yelped and did a sideways dance, swinging his own assault rifle to a firing position. Rasmussen fired three rounds into him.
Behind him he heard the chuff of an engine, the crunch of tires on the crumbling path.
“Stop,” said a familiar voice, “Put down the weapon and raise your hands, or I’ll kill you where you stand.”
He stood there holding the AK-74. The bodies of Ali and the sergeant lay spread-eagled on the gravel in front of him. His freedom had lasted, he figured, four minutes. Four minutes out of a dozen years.
A low-flying jet screeched overhead. The staccato pop of an anti-aircraft gun followed it, then stopped. The Americans were coming, thought Rasmussen, but he wouldn’t be here. He didn’t exist.
He couldn’t go back. Not after being free, even for four minutes. He would make them kill him.
He whirled to fire the assault rifle. Take as many with you as you can.
It was his last conscious thought before something struck from behind and blackness enveloped him.
< >
Western Iran, 25,000 feet
“We’re dead,” said Zahdeh, from the back seat. His voice was flat, without emotion.
Colonel Shirazi didn’t answer. He was beyond thinking about life and death. Nearly thirty years of military flying were about to end in a fireball over western Iran.
It was ironic. They were flying almost exactly over the place where he’d killed his first MiG twenty years ago. The Iraqi pilot had been an amateur, an easy kill.
This one on his left wing was no amateur.
Shirazi saw the American pilot staring at him. It was the look, he thought, that a lion gives a wildebeest. He wanted to look his victim in the eye before killing him.
Shirazi considered his options. He could make a hard break into the Hornet, maybe surprise him enough that he could get inside his turn. Or he could try to ram him.
Neither option was feasible.
Then he saw something else. On the side of the Hornet—kill symbols. Shirazi recognized the symbols. Silhouettes of MiG-29 Fulcrums.
The law of the jungle, he thought. Col. Hassan Shirazi, Iran’s celebrated killer of MiGs, was about to be killed by a stronger opponent. It was inevitable. Maybe even appropriate. He felt a moment of regret that Captain Zahdeh, his RIO, and Bassiri and Mahmood in the second Tomcat, had to die with him.
As Shirazi waited for the cannon shells to shred his jet, he saw another specter slide into view. Below and outside the Hornet appeared another jet—an F-14. But not an F-14 like his own. This one was gray and sleek, bristling with an arsenal of missiles—AIM-9s, AIM-7s, the deadly AIM-120 AMRAAM.
Even before he glanced to his right he knew what he’d see. The second American Tomcat was sliding into firing position off Bassiri’s rear quarter. The two F-14s they’d lost on their radars had somehow executed a reversal and intercepted them.
A voice in English crackled over his earphones. “Iranian F-14s entering the U.S. exclusion zone, this is Gipper One-one on guard frequency. You are being escorted by four American fighters. If you understand this transmission, waggle your wings.”
For a moment Shirazi was too stunned to react. Then he gave the stick a quick left-right movement, rocking the Tomcat’s wings. To his right, he saw Bassiri giving his own jet an enthusiastic wing waggle.
“You are standing into danger, Tomcat. Turn your aircraft to a heading of zero-four-zero and exit the area. Return to your base and land.”
Exit the area? Return and land. It was too difficult to believe. Why would someone with three kills symbols on his jet not add two more easy victories?
He selected his UHF transmitter to
guard frequency. “American Hornet, this is Jaguar One, the lead F-14 you are escorting. We understand your instructions. We are exiting the area.”
The Hornet pilot gave him an affirmative nod.
Shirazi began a gentle turn to the left, and he saw the Hornet slide back. Maybe it was a trap, thought Shirazi. The Hornet could kill him anytime he chose. But if he wanted to do that, why hadn’t he done it already?
“Good job, Jaguar One,” said the voice in English. “Have a nice day.”
Shirazi rolled out on the assigned heading. Have a nice day? He shook his head in amazement.
He saw Bassiri in position off his right wing. The enemy fighters were not in sight, but Shirazi knew they were back there, watching him depart.
As he descended toward his base at Dezful, Colonel Shirazi felt a sense of peace come over him. He had seen enough war. He had seen enough of Iran and its craziness. Somehow he would find a way to leave.
Ahead he could see the sprawling base of Dezful at the edge of a barren mountain range. Yes, thought Shirazi, he would leave this miserable place. He might even go to the United States. He would move to Palm Springs and play golf. Why not? Life was sweet.
Chapter 16 — Payback Time
Mashmashiyeh, Iran
0905, Thursday, 18 March
Where is Abu?
Nearly ten minutes had elapsed since Al-Fasr sent Shakeeb to find Abu. Neither had come back. Now reports were coming in that helicopters were disgorging troops across the river, less than ten kilometers away. Abu wasn’t answering his satellite phone or field radio.
Al-Fasr couldn’t wait any longer. He shoved an extra magazine of nine millimeter rounds for the SIG Sauer into a jacket pocket, then he slung an AK-74 over his shoulder.
“Shut down the equipment and set the explosives,” he ordered Ali, the senior technician in the command center. The Americans would still be able to glean data from the wreckage of the computers, but that couldn’t be helped.