by Bentley, Don
Lieutenant Dmitri Androvinoch stared at the radio in the cockpit of his Su-27 Flanker, wondering if he’d just imagined the last transmission. His eyes flicked across the multiple instrument panels with a fighter pilot’s precision. He verified his heading, his altitude, his navigational display, and the turbine gas temperatures of the twin Saturn AL-31F turbofan engines that transformed sixty-seven thousand pounds of steel into the nimblest of dancers.
Everything was exactly as expected. Everything but the last set of instructions from ground control.
“Say again last transmission for Badger Three Four,” Dmitri said, keying the radio-transmit button on his control stick.
For a minute, he’d assumed that he’d been dreaming, but a second check of the instruments put that notion to rest. Everything showed within normal ranges, which proved that the last transmission had not been a product of too many late nights coupled with too much vodka. In Dmitri’s dreams, his aircraft was always one malfunction away from killing him. If the digital readouts were in the green, he must actually be awake.
“Badger Three Four, this is Outrigger Base. You have a mission change. Intercept a pair of rotary-wing bogeys, heading zero seven five, range two hundred miles. Do not allow them to enter Russian-controlled airspace. Over.”
He hadn’t imagined the radio transmission, but that didn’t mean it made any more sense the second time he heard it.
Since arriving in theater four months ago, Dmitri had spent untold hours flying CAP, or Combat Air Patrol, against a nonexistent enemy. Neither ISIS nor the Syrian rebels possessed an air force, so after weeks of inactivity, Dmitri had started conducting his lonely patrols without a wingman. No reason to waste the jet fuel of two Flankers when one was more than enough.
But tonight, something had changed.
On occasion, ground control had him check on a Turkish aircraft buzzing along their border to the north, but the heading Dmitri had been provided took him in the opposite direction—toward American-controlled airspace.
“Outrigger Base, Badger Three Four. Confirm weapons status. Over.”
“Badger Three Four, Outrigger Base. You are weapons free. I say again, weapons free. Try to intercept the helicopters before they enter our airspace. If they refuse to turn back, bring them down.”
“Badger Three Four copies all,” Dmitri said, slewing his Zhuk-ME multimode radar toward the heading Outrigger Base had specified. He transmitted a quick energy burst and watched as a pair of icons representing helicopters flickered into and out of existence on his targeting screen.
Dmitri frowned as he tuned the radar, steering more energy down a narrower azimuth in an attempt to gain better resolution on what had to be the American helicopters. If Dmitri had to guess, he’d bet that the helicopters were outfitted with some sort of stealthy modifications to hide their radar return.
Even so, the algorithms that processed and deciphered his targeting radar had been upgraded just before Dmitri’s Syrian deployment, and the work seemed to be bearing fruit. He didn’t have a perfect lock, but he didn’t need one. He could always use the radar information to slew his electro-optical targeting system and then find the helicopters via their distinctive infrared signatures.
Either way, the approaching aircraft were still in American airspace, but wouldn’t be much longer. Once they crossed the imaginary line dividing Russian- and American-controlled airspace, Dmitri’s orders were clear.
Dmitri wrenched his fighter into a steep bank, slamming the throttle forward. In the space of a single heartbeat, the engine noise went from a comforting rumble to an all-out battle cry as afterburners ignited, turning the Flanker from a simple plane into a ballistic missile.
Confusing as the order had been, Dmitri was sure of one thing—his nights of boredom had just ended.
* * *
—
Chief Warrant Officer Three Joel Glendening inched the collective upward with his left hand as he nosed the cyclic forward with his right. The MH-60 Black Hawk responded as he’d intended, the composite rotors biting into the air in larger chunks even as the jagged line representing the temperature of his helicopter’s turboshaft engines edged further into the red.
The MH-60’s all-digital display was a far cry from the simple analog instruments that Joel had cut his teeth on, but even today’s remarkable technology was no match for the laws of physics. The thin desert air couldn’t sufficiently cool the eight-hundred-degree engines. If Joel held this airspeed for any longer than the nine minutes and thirty-three seconds ticking downward on his engine display, he would risk causing permanent damage to the helicopter.
But that was okay. According to the moving map on his second multipurpose display, he needed to maintain his blistering pace for just seven minutes and twenty-three seconds. Then he’d slow from his almost one hundred fifty knots to a full hover in the time it took a Ferrari to accelerate from zero to sixty.
After that, the real fun would begin.
“How we doing, Chief?”
The voice asking the question sounded slightly distorted as it crackled over the helicopter’s intercom system, but Joel would have recognized the distinctive tone anywhere.
As a member of the Army’s vaunted 160th Special Operations Regiment, Joel had flown countless missions in support of an untold number of bearded shadow warriors. Still, Colonel Fitz was in a class all his own. Utterly fearless, the Unit commando embodied the warrior ethos, and Joel found himself purposely aligning his flight schedule to match the Colonel’s missions. Colonel Fitz’s operations were executed with an audacity and precision that made Joel remember why he’d volunteered for the Night Stalkers’ grueling selection process in the first place—to fly men like Colonel Fitz on missions deemed too risky for anyone else.
This operation was shaping up to be no exception.
“So far, so good, sir,” Joel said, eyeing the moving map display as he answered. “In six minutes, I’ll hit the release point. Exactly one minute and twenty seconds later, you’ll be standing on the target building’s roof.”
“That’s what I’m talking about, Chief,” Fitz said, reaching from his jump seat located between and slightly behind the pilot and copilot seats to slap Joel on the back of the helmet. “You know why I like flying with you guys? I can set my watch by you fuckers.”
“Plus or minus thirty seconds, sir. Night Stalkers don’t quit.”
At that moment, a bright red icon on Joel’s threat display flared to life, accompanied by a warbling tone in his headset. A rush of emotions tumbled through Joel’s mind—fear, disbelief, and anger chief among them. But it was a sense of disappointment that he felt most strongly. Disappointment because, for the first time in the ten-plus years since he’d joined the Regiment, Joel had a feeling that he might just miss his hit time.
* * *
—
Twenty-five thousand feet above the pair of Night Stalker helicopters and approximately one hundred miles away, Lieutenant Androvinoch looked at the symbols on his heads-up display with a sense of unbridled satisfaction. He’d never actually locked up a hostile airborne target before. Within a week of arriving in theater, he’d realized the odds of his doing so on this combat tour were almost nonexistent.
And yet here he was, streaking through the sky like the bird of prey his fighter was meant to be, his R-27 Alamo A air-to-air missiles targeting the pair of helicopters that were even now unsuccessfully attempting to mask their approach into Russian-controlled Syrian airspace.
His airspace.
According to his tactical computer, the helos were within thirty seconds of crossing the invisible line denoting the border between Russian- and American-controlled territories. If he went by the letter of his instructions, Dmitri would be well within his rights to engage the Americans now, since, by the time the eighty-six-pound warheads swatted the helicopters from the sky, both aircraft would be solidly within Ru
ssian airspace.
Still, although Dmitri might be young, he was no fool. Laying waste to the jihadis and the rebels was one thing. Starting a shooting war with the Americans was something else entirely. Instructions from Outrigger Main or not, Dmitri wanted his actions firmly on record before he turned the two aircraft skimming along the desert floor into smoking piles of metal and twisted flesh. Taking his gloved left hand off the throttle, he keyed the international distress frequency, known as Guard, into his UHF radio and began to transmit.
* * *
—
American helicopters, you are entering restricted airspace. Turn around or you will be fired upon. I say again, turn around or you will be fired upon.”
Joel’s eyes snapped from his aircraft-survivability screen—on which a triangular red shape symbolizing a missile lock bounded his helicopter’s blue icon—to his radio, as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing and hearing.
“What the hell’s that?” Colonel Fitz said, shouting over the warbling siren that accompanied the missile lock’s visual indication.
“Stand by, sir,” Joel said, his voice still crisp and professional even as his sphincter tightened. Toggling his radio-selection switch to UHF, Joel thumbed the transmit button on the cyclic stick between his legs.
“Last calling station,” Joel said, his voice calm despite the fact that his stomach was twisted in knots. “This is a U.S. Army helicopter proceeding on an approved mission through sector Charlie. I say again, this is a U.S. army helicopter proceeding on an approved mission through sector Charlie. Stand down. Over.”
* * *
—
Stand down? The American’s arrogance was breathtaking. The blustering helicopter pilot had just acknowledged to the assorted nations undoubtedly eavesdropping on the unsecure frequency that he had knowingly violated Russian airspace. Dmitri had been more than accommodating, and the Americans had returned his kindness by spitting in his face. Verifying the information from his targeting radar, Dmitri made a decision. The intercept course he’d been following at just over Mach 1 had closed the distance to the American helicopters considerably. Perhaps it was time to demonstrate his intentions in a manner that left no room for interpretation.
Activating the aircraft’s master arm switch, Dmitri edged the Flanker’s nose downward, lifted the trigger guard on his stick, and squeezed the trigger.
* * *
—
The stream of red tracers split the night sky like a lightning bolt. In turn, Joel was forced to execute the one battle drill he’d never thought he’d actually use: react to air attack.
“Taking fire!” Joel shouted on his wingman’s frequency even as he bottomed the collective and cranked the cyclic to the left, banking to the aircraft’s limits in a desperate attempt to maneuver inside the attacking plane’s dive angle. In the world of air-to-air combat, a helicopter’s single advantage was its nimble turning radius. By turning into the attack, Joel hoped to cause his attacker to overshoot.
Short of praying, he had no other option.
“What the hell?” Colonel Fitz said, his voice colored with equal parts surprise and anger.
“The Russian jet fired on us,” Joel said, arresting the MH-60’s precipitous descent with a jerk of collective. Any lower and his landing gear would be kissing sand.
“Turbine Six Three, this is Six Four. Did the Russian shoot at us?”
“Affirm, Six Four,” Joel said, echoing his wingman’s bewildered tone. “You hit?”
“Negative, Six Three. But that burst of cannon fire looked like it almost took off your nose.”
“American helicopters, American helicopters.” The Russian voice echoed across Guard before Joel could reply. “There will be no more warning shots. Turn back now or you will be fired upon. Acknowledge. Over.”
Joel paused for a moment, his thumb over the radio-transmit toggle. He was furious, but he was also damn lucky and knew it. The Russian bastard could have loosed an air-to-air missile. In that scenario, Joel and his wingman would have been knocked from the air without ever even seeing their killer. But the Russian had fired a warning shot instead. Joel couldn’t claim to understand the geopolitical ramifications of what had just transpired, but he did know that the Russian pilot was offering him a way out.
He intended to take it.
“Russian aircraft,” Joel said, “we acknowledge and are proceeding back to American airspace.”
The words tasted sour on his lips, but he said them all the same. Enduring a bit of humiliation was better than ending his career as a pile of burning wreckage strewn across the desolate Syrian desert.
“What the fuck, Chief?”
“Sorry, sir,” Joel said, the anger in his voice mirroring Colonel Fitz’s. “He’s got us. No way in hell we can cross into Assad-controlled territory with that fast mover up there circling like a vulture.”
“You’re aborting?”
“No choice, sir. You know me—I’ve flown into hell and back for you guys, and I’ll do it again. This is different. If we turn inbound, he’ll smoke us. Sorry, sir. Your operative is on his own.”
FORTY-FIVE
I placed my phone back in my lap, my mind still reeling as I tried to digest Fitz’s words.
Mission aborted.
That part had been pretty unambiguous, but the rest was still a bit hazy. Something about the Russians locking down the airspace and firing on Fitz’s helicopters. My first tour in Syria had convinced me that the norms I associated with Western civilization didn’t apply here, but what had just happened was outrageous even by Syria’s standards. A Russian fighter had fired on two American helicopters.
This was dangerous territory.
“What’s going on?” Einstein said. The edginess to his voice was growing more pronounced with every minute we remained within sight of his former laboratory and Shaw’s current prison.
I’d never met Shaw, and probably wouldn’t have even if everything had gone according to plan. But once again, the enemy had decided to exercise his vote. Now my plan looked about as solid as a cloud of dust scattered by the fickle Syrian wind.
“Keep an eye on the building,” I said.
I was more concerned with giving Einstein something to focus on than worried about the need for additional security. Somewhere above us, a Sentinel was watching with its unblinking eye. The stealthy UAV was relaying my phone calls and documenting the mission for posterity. The semiautonomous aircraft represented the pinnacle of aerospace engineering—a wingman who never tired, who could see in the dark, and who was immune to enemy radar.
In short, the hundred-million-dollar drone was the perfect machine to watch my back, and yet I would have traded the technological marvel for a crippled Frodo in a heartbeat.
Frodo.
“I’m going to make a call,” I said, getting out of the truck in search of privacy. I dialed Frodo’s number from memory as I hobbled to the rear of the vehicle and put the phone to my ear. If prisoners on death row were granted a last meal, maybe a spy on a hopeless mission could pray for a final miracle.
Any way I looked at it, Shaw was in trouble. Even if I was up for a one-man rescue worthy of a cut-rate Jason Bourne flick, that ship had sailed about the time I received my fourth mission-ending injury. A shattered ankle, a gunshot wound to the leg, a broken wrist, and more concussions than the Bengals’ offensive line suffered meant that, in my current condition, I’d have trouble rescuing Shaw from a class of unruly kindergartners. The smart thing to do—the only thing to do—was to turn the truck around and start driving for American-controlled territory. With more luck than I was entitled to, perhaps Einstein and I could make it back to friendly lines before dawn.
But even as the idea took form, I discarded it. Last time I’d left this country, my best friend had been in a medically induced coma, and my asset and his family were dead. The next three m
onths had been no better. I’d shut Laila out, abandoned Frodo, and exiled myself to Austin on the premise that distance somehow equated to healing.
But premise had been all it really was. Instead of friends and family, I’d kept company with a dead toddler’s ghost and shared my most meaningful conversations with Jeremiah the shoeshine man. Far from providing any semblance of healing, the months of separation had made my situation worse. The shakes came more frequently and with greater intensity. Each day, Abir seemed less a phantasm and more a flesh-and-blood little girl.
How long before I started practicing Arabic with her?
How long before I decided to join her?
I stared at the unassuming building a football field away, fingers stretching into the chords for “Tequila Sunrise” as Frodo’s phone rang unanswered. The mournful E minor in the song’s bridge seemed oddly appropriate right now. In another bit of songwriting brilliance, Messieurs Henley and Frey had perfectly captured the battle between darkness and light through alternating E minor and C major chords. In the bridge’s final verse, a melancholy A minor transitions to a bright D seven, sonically rendering a hopeful sunrise after a night filled with despair. I didn’t know if a tequila sunrise was in the cards, but I did know that, one way or another, this was where my journey had to end—exactly where it had begun.
I’d once seen an interview with a surviving member from Easy Company of Band of Brothers fame. When pressed to explain how he’d maintained his sanity during his unit’s continent-spanning fight against the Nazis, the grizzled veteran had summed up his mental state with a surprisingly straightforward statement. “Once I accepted that I was already dead, everything else was easy.” Leaving might be the rational choice, but for me, it wasn’t an option. To paraphrase that unassuming veteran, I was already dead. And dead men didn’t run.
“Matty? Is that you?”