by Tom Clancy
“Okay, people,” PJ’s voice came over the intercom before that conversation went any further. “One more stop and we call this one a day.”
29.
Fill-ups
IT HAD STARTED with the President’s warning. Admiral Cutter wasn’t used to having to make sure his orders had been carried out. In his naval career orders were things that you gave and that other people did, or that you did after being told to do so by others. He placed a call to the Agency and got Ritter and asked the question, the one that had to be an unnecessarily insulting one. Cutter knew that he’d already humiliated the man, and that to do so further was not a smart move—but what if the President had been right? That risk called for further action. Ritter’s reaction was a troubling one. The irritation that should have been in his voice, wasn’t. Instead he’d spoken like any other government bureaucrat saying that yes, the orders were being carried out, of course. Ritter was a cold, effective son of a bitch, but even that sort had its limits, beyond which emotion comes to the fore; Cutter knew that he’d reached and passed that point with the DDO. The anger just hadn’t been there, and it ought to have been.
Something is wrong. The National Security Adviser told himself to relax. Something might be wrong. Maybe Ritter was playing mind games. Maybe even he’d seen that his course of action was the only proper one, Cutter speculated, and resigned himself to the inevitable. After all, Ritter liked being Deputy Director (Operations). That was his rice bowl, as the government saying went. Even the most important government officials had those. Even they were often uncomfortable with the idea of leaving behind the office and the secretary and the driver and most of all the title that designated them as Important People despite their meager salaries. Like the line from some movie or other, leaving the government meant entering the real world, and in the real world, people expected results to back up position papers and National Intelligence Estimates. How many people stayed in government service because of the security, the benefits, and the insulation from that “real” world? There were more of those, Cutter was sure, than of the ones who saw themselves as the honest servants of the people.
But even if that were likely, Cutter considered, it was not certain, and some further checking was in order. And so he placed his own call to Hurlburt Field and asked for Wing Operations.
“I need to talk to Colonel Johns.”
“Colonel Johns is off post, sir, and cannot be reached.”
“I need to know where he is.”
“I do not have that information, sir.”
“What do you mean, you don’t have that information, Captain ?” The real wing operations officer was off duty by now, and one of the helicopter pilots had drawn the duty for this evening.
“I mean I don’t know, sir,” the captain replied. He wanted to be a little more insolent in his answer to so stupid a question, but the call had come in on a secure line, and there was no telling who the hell was on the other end.
“Who does know?”
“I don’t know that, sir, but I can try to find out.”
Was this just some command fuck-up? Cutter asked himself. What if it wasn’t?
“Are all your MC-130s in place, Captain?” Cutter asked.
“Three birds are off TDY somewhere or other, sir. Where they are is classified—I mean, sir, that where our aircraft happen to be is almost always classified. Besides, what with that hurricane chasing around south of here, we’re getting ready to move a lot of our birds in case it heads this way.”
Cutter could have demanded the information right then and there. But that would have meant identifying himself, and even then, he was talking to some twenty-something-year-old junior officer who might just say no because nobody had told him otherwise, and such a junior officer knew that he’d never be seriously punished for not taking initiative and doing something he’d been told not to do—at least not over a telephone line, secure or not. Such a demand would also have called attention to something in a way that he didn’t want....
“Very well,” Cutter said finally and hung up. Then he called Andrews.
The first hint of trouble came from Larson, whose Beech was circling the FEATURE LZ. Juardo, still fighting the pain of his leg wound, was scanning out the side of the aircraft with his low-light goggles.
“Hey, man, I got some trucks on the ground down there at three o‘clock. Like fifteen of ’em.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” the pilot observed, and keyed his microphone.
“CLAW, this is LITTLE EYES, over.”
“LITTLE EYES, this is CLAW,” the Combat Talon answered.
“Be advised we have possible activity on the ground six klicks southeast of FEATURE. Say again we have trucks on the ground. No personnel are visible at this time. Recommend you warn FEATURE and CAESAR of possible intruders.”
“Roger, copy.”
“Christ, I hope they’re slow tonight,” Larson said over the intercom. “We’re going down to take a look.”
“You say so, man.”
Larson extended his flaps and reduced power as much as he dared. There was precious little light, and flying low over mountains at night was not his idea of fun. Juardo looked down with his goggles, but the tree canopy was too heavy.
“I don’t see anything.”
“I wonder how long those trucks have been there....”
There was a bright flash on the ground, perhaps five hundred meters below the summit. Then there were several more, small ones, like sparklers on the ground. Larson made another call:
“CLAW, this is LITTLE EYES. We have a possible firefight underway below FEATURE LZ.”
“Roger.”
“Roger, copy,” PJ said to the MC-130. “Aircraft commander to crew: we have a possible firefight at the next LZ. We may have a hot pickup.” At that moment something changed. The aircraft settled a touch and slowed. “Buck, what is that?”
“Uh-oh,” the flight engineer said. “I think we have a P3 leak here. Possible pressure bleed leak, maybe a bad valve, number-two engine. I’m losing some Nf speed and some Ng, sir. T5 is coming up a little.” Ten feet over the flight engineer’s head, a spring had broken, opening a valve wider than it was supposed to be. It released bleed air supposed to recirculate within the turboshaft engine. That reduced combustion in the engine, and was manifested in reduced Nf or free-power turbine speed, also in Ng power from the gas-producer turbine, and finally the loss of air volume resulted in increased tailpipe temperature, called T5. Johns and Willis could see all this from their instruments, but they really depended on Sergeant Zimmer to tell them what the problem was. The engines belonged to him.
“Talk to me, Buck,” Johns ordered.
“We just lost twenty-six-percent power in Number Two, sir. Can’t fix it. Bad valve, shouldn’t get much worse, though. Tailpipe temp ought to stabilize short of max-sustainable ... maybe. Ain’t an emergency yet, PJ. I’ll keep an eye on it.”
“Fine,” the pilot growled. At the valve, not at Zimmer. This was not good news. Things had gone well tonight, too well. Like most combat veterans, Paul Johns was a suspicious man. What his mind went over now were power and weight considerations. He had to climb over those goddamned mountains in order to tank and fly back to Panama....
But first he had a pickup to make.
“Give me a time.”
“Four minutes,” Captain Willis answered. “We’ll be able to see it over that next ridge. Starting to mush on us, sir.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” Johns looked at his instruments. Number One was at 104 percent rated power. Number Two was just over 73 percent. Since they could accomplish their next segment of the mission despite the problem, it went onto the back burner for now. PJ dialed some more altitude into his autopilot. Climbing ridges would be getting harder now with greater weight on the airframe and less power to drag it around.
“It’s a real fight, all right,” Johns said a minute later. His night-vision systems showed lots of activity on the ground. Johns keyed
his radio. “FEATURE, this is CAESAR, over.” No answer.
“FEATURE, this is CAESAR, over.” It took two more tries.
“CAESAR this is FEATURE, we are under attack.”
“Roger, FEATURE, I can see that, son. I make your position about three hundred meters down from the LZ. Get up the hill, we can cover. Say again, we can cover.”
“We have close contact, CAESAR.”
“Run for it. I repeat, run for it, we can cover you,” PJ told him calmly. Come on, kid. I’ve been here before. I know the drill.... “Break contact now!”
“Roger. FEATURE, this is Six, head for the LZ. I repeat, head for the LZ now!” they heard him say. PJ keyed his intercom.
“Buck, let’s go hot. Gunners to stations, we have a hot LZ here. There are friendlies on the ground. I say again: there are friendlies on the ground, people. So let’s be goddamned careful with those fucking guns!”
Johns had wished a hundred times that he’d had one of these over Laos. The Pave Low carried over a thousand pounds of titanium armor which went, of course, over the engines, fuel cells, and transmission. The flight crew was protected by less effective Kevlar. The rest of the aircraft was less fortunate—a child could push a screwdriver through the aluminum skin—but those were the breaks. He orbited the LZ, a thousand feet higher and two thousand yards out, traveling in a clockwise circle to get a feel for things. Things didn’t feel good.
“I don’t like this, PJ,” Zimmer told him over intercom. Sergeant Bean on the ramp gun felt the same way but didn’t say anything. Ryan, who hadn’t seen anything at any of the landing zones, also kept his mouth shut.
“They’re moving, Buck.”
“Looks like it.”
“Okay, I’m spiraling in. AC to crew, we’re heading in for a closer look. You may return fire directed at us, but nothing else until I say otherwise. I want to hear acknowledgments.”
“Zimmer, acknowledge.”
“Bean, acknowledge.”
“Ryan, okay.” I can’t see anything to shoot at anyway.
It was worse than it looked. The attackers from the Cartel had chosen to approach the primary LZ from an unexpected direction. This took them right through the alternate extraction site selected by FEATURE, and the team had not had the time needed to prepare a full defensive network. Worst of all, some of the attackers were those who had survived the fight against KNIFE, and had learned a few things, like the way in which caution was sometimes improved by a speedy advance, not diminished by it. They also knew of the helicopter, but not enough. Had they known of its armament, the battle might have ended then and there, but they expected the rescue chopper to be unarmed because they had never really encountered any other sort. As usual in battle, the contest was defined by purpose and error, knowledge and ignorance. FEATURE was pulling back rapidly, leaving behind hastily arranged booby traps and claymores, but, as before, the casualties were less a warning to the attackers than a goad, and the Cartel’s veterans of Ninja Hill were learning. Now they split into three distinct groups and began to envelop the hilltop LZ.
“I got a strobe,” Willis said.
“FEATURE, this is CAESAR, confirm your LZ.”
“CAESAR, FEATURE, do you have our strobe?”
“That’s affirm. Coming in now. Get all your people in the open. I say again, get all your people where we can see them.”
“We have three down we’re bringing in. We’re doing our best.”
“Thirty seconds out,” PJ told him.
“We’ll be ready.”
As before, the gunners heard half of the conversation, followed by their instructions: “AC to crew, I’ve ordered all friendlies into the open. Once we get a good count, I want you to hose down the area. Anything you can see is probably friendly. I want everything else suppressed hard. Ryan, that means beat the shit out of it.”
“Roger,” Jack replied.
“Fifteen seconds. Let’s look sharp, people.”
It came without warning. No one saw where it originated. The Pave Low was spiraling in steeply, but it could not wholly avoid flying over enemy troops. Six of them heard it approach and saw the black mass moving against the background of clouds. Simultaneously they aimed at the sky and let loose. The 7.62mm rounds lanced right through the floor of the helicopter. The sound was distinctive, like hail on a tin roof, and everyone who heard it knew immediately what it was. A scream confirmed it for the slow. Someone had been hit.
“PJ, we’re taking fire,” Zimmer said over the intercom circuit. As he said so, he trained his gun down and loosed a brief burst. Again the airframe vibrated. The line of tracers told the whole world what and where the Pave Low was, and more fire came in.
“Jesus!” Rounds hit the armored windshield. They didn’t penetrate, but they left nicks, and their impacts sparked like fireflies. On instinct, Johns jinked to the right, away from the fire. That unmasked the left side of the aircraft.
Ryan was as scared as he had ever been. It seemed that there were a hundred, two hundred, a thousand muzzle flashes down there, all aimed straight at him. He wanted to cringe, but knew that his safest place was behind the thousand-plus-pound gun mount. The gun didn’t really have much of a sight. He looked down the rotating barrels toward a particularly tight knot of flashes and depressed the trigger switch.
It felt like he was holding a jackhammer in his hands and sounded like a giant was ripping a canvas sail to bits. A gout of flame six feet long and three across erupted before his eyes, so bright that he could barely see through it, but the tight cylinder of tracers was impossible to miss, and it walked right into the flashes that were still sparkling on the ground. But not for long. He waved the gun around, assisted in the effort by the gyrations of the helicopter and the incredible vibration of the gun. The line of tracers wiggled and wavered over the target area for several seconds. By the time his thumbs came up, the sparkling of muzzle flashes had stopped.
“Son of a bitch,” he said to himself, so surprised that he momentarily forgot about the danger. That wasn’t the only incoming fire. Ryan selected another area and went to work, this time holding to short bursts, only a few hundred rounds each. Then the chopper turned fully away and he had no more targets.
On the flight deck, Willis and Johns scanned their instruments. They’d allowed themselves to be surprised. There was no critical damage to the aircraft. The flight controls, also protected by armor, engines, transmission, and fuel cells were impervious to rifle fire. Or supposed to be.
“We got some people hurt back here,” Zimmer reported. “Let’s get it over with, PJ.”
“Okay, Buck, I hear you.” PJ brought the chopper back around, looping to the left now. “FEATURE, this is CAESAR, we’re going to try that again.” Even his voice had lost its icy calm. Combat hadn’t changed very much, but he’d grown older.
“They’re closing in. Move your ass, mister! We’re all here, we’re all here.”
“Twenty seconds, son. AC to crew, we’re going back in. Twenty seconds.”
The helicopter stopped and pivoted in the air, not continuing its majestic sweep, and Johns hoped that those who were watching would be unprepared for that. He twisted the throttle control to max power and lowered his nose to dive in hard on the LZ. Two hundred meters out he brought the nose up and yanked the collective to slow down. It was his usual perfect maneuver. The Pave Low lost forward airspeed exactly at the right place—and dropped hard on the ground because of the reduced power from Number Two. Johns cringed when he felt it, half expecting it to set off a booby trap, but that didn’t happen and he left it there.
It seemed to take forever. Minds and bodies pumped up with adrenaline have their own time, the sort that stops the ticking of watches. Ryan thought that he could see the rotor blades spinning individually at the top of his peripheral vision. He wanted to look aft, wanted to see if the team had gotten aboard yet, but his area of responsibility was out the left-side gunner’s door. He realized at once that he wasn’t being paid to bring am
munition home. As soon as he was sure that there were no friendlies in front of him, he punched the gun switch and hosed down the treeline, sweeping his fire about a foot off the ground in a wide arc. On the other side, Zimmer was doing the same.
Aft, Clark was looking out the back door. Bean was on his minigun, and he couldn’t shoot. This was where the friendlies were, and they moved toward the chopper, their legs pumping in what had to be a run, but seeming to be slow-motion. That was when the fire started from the trees.
Forward, Ryan was amazed that anyone could be alive in the area that he’d just hosed, but there it was. He saw a spark on the doorframe and knew it had to have been a bullet aimed right at him. Jack didn’t cringe. There was no place to hide, and he knew that the side of the aircraft was getting hit far worse. He took an instant to look and see where the shooting was coming from, then trained on it and fired again. It seemed that the blast from the gun must push the aircraft sideways. The exhaust flames from the gun bored a hole through the dust kicked up by the spinning rotor, but still there were flashes of fire from the treeline.
Clark heard the screams inside and out over the low howl of the miniguns. He could feel the rounds hitting the side of the aircraft, and then saw two men fall just at the tail rotor of the helicopter while others were racing aboard.
“Shit!” He leapt to his feet and ran out the door, joined by Chavez and Vega. Clark lifted one of the fallen soldiers and dragged him toward the ramp. Chavez and Vega got the other. There was dust kicking up at their feet from the fire. Vega fell five feet from the ramp, taking his burden down with him. Clark tossed his soldier into the waiting hands of his team members and turned to assist. First he took the team member. When he turned, Chavez was struggling with Vega. Clark grabbed the man’s shoulders and pushed backward, landing on the edge of the ramp. Ding grabbed Oso’s feet and swung them around, leaping over them to grab the base of the minigun as the helicopter started lifting off. Fire came straight through the door, but Bean now had a clear field for his weapon and swept it across the area.