Razor's Edge d-3

by Dale Brown

  But they were a lot better than the talking heads. One civilian expert talked about how “potent” the high-altitude SA-3 missile was and how it was likely the reason the F-16 had been shot down. In Mack’s opinion, the SA-3 was a fairly decent little weapon in its day, and no piece of explosive that could move through the air at three times the speed of sound could be taken for granted.

  But it was a medium-altitude missile, designed more to stopgap the vulnerabilities of the SA-2, and at least arguably more effective at 1,500 feet than at 35,000. And hell — the Israelis had befuddled the damn things in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. You couldn’t ignore the stinkers, but there were a lot more gnarly problems over Iraq, that was for damn sure.

  Like SA-2s? Talk about a weapon system that had been thoroughly compromised. So how had it nailed three F-16s and two F-15s?

  No way. General Elliott had to be correct. It had to be a Razor, or a close proximity.

  How would he fly against it? he wondered.

  He’d taken a few turns as a sitting duck against Razor during its development; he could go on that. Clouds de-creased the laser’s efficiency, so that was the first thing to look for. It didn’t operate in bad weather.

  There was some sort of latency thing; it had to warm up between bursts. So you sent out decoys, got it to target the ghost, then nailed the sucker while it recharged or recalibrated or whatever the hell it was lasers did.

  Mack got up off the couch as CNN went to a commercial and walked down the hallway in the direction of the squadron commander’s suite. He got about halfway there before an airman caught up to him from behind.

  “Captain Smith—”

  “That’s Major Smith, kid,” Mack told the airman, who stood about five-four and was thinner than a cherry tree.

  “Sorry, sir,” said the airman, so flustered he proceeded to salute. “Sir, General Elliott, uh, retired General Elliott, he’s looking for you. He’s in Colonel Witslow’s office, back this way.”

  Everybody on the damn base has it in for me, Mack thought as he stomped through the hallway. He found Elliott buttoning a parka in Witslow’s office.

  “Ah, there you are Mack. Grab some flight gear, we’re going for a ride.”

  “No shit, General, great,” said Mack, relieved that he finally had something to do. “Where to?”

  “To the mountains. The official name is Al Derhagdad, but they’re calling it High Top. You’ll see some old friends.”

  “We taking a helicopter?”

  “There are none available till morning, and I’d like to get out there right now.”

  “Hell, let’s grab our own plane,” said Mack, instantly fired up. If they borrowed an F-15E Strike Eagle, he’d be able to wangle into one of the mission packages for sure.

  “My thought exactly,” said Elliott. “There’s an OV-10 Bronco with our name on it out on the tarmac.”

  “A Bronco?”

  The Bronco was an ancient ground support aircraft once used by the Air Force and Marines. Diving with a tailwind, it might break 300 knots.

  Might.

  “You’ve flown one, haven’t you?” added Elliott.

  “Uh, sure,” said Mack. He wasn’t lying, exactly — the Marines had had a few in the Gulf, and he’d hopped aboard one for a familiarization flight just before the start of the ground war. He’d gloved the stick for perhaps five minutes.

  “If you’re rusty, we can find someone else,” offered the general.

  “No, sir, I can handle it,” said Mack quickly. He could fly anything. “Marines still using them for covert insertions?”

  “Actually, this aircraft belongs to Thailand and was en route to an air show in Cairo, where it was going to be sold. The Thais seem to think they might get a better offer from an unnamed American company that I happen to be slightly affiliated with.” Elliott didn’t even hint at a smile.

  “We’re going to take it for a test drive.”

  Chapter 38

  High Top

  2205

  Danny Freah squatted behind the rock as Bison got ready to ignite the charge. It had started to rain ten minutes before; the wind whipped the drops against the side of his face like pellets of dirt.

  “Ready!” shouted Bison. “Clear the area!”

  “Bison, only you and I are out here,” Danny told the demolitions man.

  “Yes, sir. Clear the range!”

  “Clear.”

  Bison pushed the button on his remote detonator. The ground shook slightly, and dust spun up from the cliffside just out of range of the halogen spots. Danny got up and walked toward the ridge obstructing the end of the runway; the charges had loosened more stone, but most of the stubborn mountain had refused to yield.

  “This is a bitch fuck,” said Bison, cupping a cigarette in his hands to light it. “We’re gonna have to blow it again.”

  “Let’s check it first. We got a few feet off,” said Danny.

  “Inches maybe.”

  Bison’s estimate was probably nearer the mark, Danny realized. The runway wasn’t going to get much longer without considerable effort, nor were they going to be able to knock down the approach. But at least the loose rocks would give his guys more to do. Guard duty was already starting to wear thin, and they hadn’t been on the ground twelve hours yet. He’d have to find them something real to do once they got bored playing with the bulldozers.

  A half-dozen medium-size tents had been set up, along with two large ones that were supposed to serve as mess and an auxiliary headquarters. The Whiplash Mobile Command Headquarters — the trailer — had been brought in on the MC-17 and was now fully operational, except for the link to Dreamland. The problem was in the satellite system, which was brand new. The scientists back home had it isolated and hoped to have it fully operational soon.

  The Megafortresses were parked only a few feet away— Raven with its wingtip half apart. To Danny’s mind, it wasn’t the most secure setup; the planes were out in the open and bunched together, very vulnerable to a mortar attack. On the other hand, it would take an extremely dedicated fanatic to approach the base. His men had established an IR and ground radar picket around the slopes; a chipmunk couldn’t get within three hundred yards without them knowing about it. And even though it twisted every which way, they had the rock-strewn dirt road covered for a good half mile in both directions.

  It was more a path than a road. A donkey — or a goat — would scrape its flanks on some of the curves.

  Danny itched to get in on the action south, maybe hop down and look for the pilots. If the Marines ever got here, they might be able to do that.

  “Can I fire up the ’dozer and clear the rocks away?” asked Bison.

  “Yeah, go ahead — wait a second. Maybe I’ll take a shot at that.”

  “Privileges of rank, huh?”

  “I want to see what all the fuss is about,” said Danny.

  But as he took a step toward the ’dozer he heard the drone of a propeller in the distance.

  Chapter 39

  Over southeastern Turkey

  2230

  Mack jammed the throttles for probably the eight hundredth time since taking off, looking for the Bronco to give him even two more knots. He told himself it was a damn good thing it was dark; if it had been daytime, he’d be able to see how slow he was going and really get frustrated. The gauge pegged 260 nautical miles per hour, but Mack doubted he was going half that fast. The altimeter showed 18,000 feet, and that he almost could believe — he had cleared a peak a short while ago by what looked like a good three inches.

  Though a propeller plane, the Bronco wanted to be taken seriously. You had to wear a speed suit and strap yourself in, just like in a pointy-nose, go-fast jet. And it did respond — you could stick where you wanted it to go, by God; the sucker moved its nose and tail with good, solid jerks.

  But it wasn’t an F-22 or an F-15 or even an F-16. And the damn cabin was colder than hell. General Elliott, sitting in the seat behind him, had given up his campaign
to cheer him up; more than likely he’d passed out from hypothermia.

  Somewhere ahead was the scratch base they were heading to, High Top. Two Megafortresses had managed to land on a strip that probably wasn’t even long enough for this plane. Typical Whiplash/Dreamland stunt, he thought. Probably patting themselves on the back.

  He couldn’t get away from them, try as he might. Zen would be there, with his gorgeous wife. Merce Alou.

  Danny Freah.

  Odds were Jennifer Gleason would be too. Now there was a brain worth digging into. Though to be honest, Bree was more his style.

  Mack checked the INS against his paper map. He’d long ago learned to rely on GPS readings that showed his location on three-dimensional maps accurate to half a centimeter. This — hell, this was just about dead reckoning, same sort of navigating Christopher Columbus used when he thought he’d discovered China.

  God, was he going soft?

  Bullshit on that. Mack knew right where he was. And he could fly anything — any friggin’ thing — any time, anywhere. This old workhorse was proof of it.

  Slower than horseshit, though. God. Taxi would’ve been faster. Donkey cart.

  So where the hell were these jokers? He knew he ought to be in their face by now.

  Mack hit the UHF radio, trying to get the controller at High Top. Nothing came back.

  The wind whipped up. His forward airspeed stepped lower, dropping below 250 knots.

  “How we doing, Major?” asked Elliott from the back.

  “Pluggin’ along, sir.”

  “Handsome aircraft, isn’t it?”

  Handsome?

  “Uh, yes, sir.”

  “A lot of grunts owe their lives to OV-10s,” said the general, renewing his pep-talk bid. “Impressive little airplane in its day.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Eight-eight Delta Zeus, this is High Top base,” said a low but clear voice on the Bronco’s UHF channel. “Hey there, Wild Bronco, we have you at ten miles. You’re looking good.”

  Wild Bronco?

  “Delta Zeus acknowledges.” Mack did a quick check of the INS — stinker was right on the mark.

  “Getting close, General,” Mack told his passenger.

  “Very good, Mack. You made good time. We may turn you into a bird dog yet.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The ground controller ran down the runway’s vital statistics, emphasizing not only its relatively short run but the obstruction at the approach. The lights flicked on, and Mack was somewhat surprised — he’d expected a simple box and one, a very basic pattern often employed at scratch bases. But the CCTs had enough lights out to make a 747 pilot comfortable; they’d even managed a warning strobe on the ridge near the start of the runway.

  “Looks like LAX down there,” said Mack.

  “Uh, sir, we can do without the insults.”

  “I was kidding,” said Mack.

  “So was I. Wind has been a bitch. I’ll give you readings all along. There’s a notch in the hills that seems to am-plify it about fifty yards from the leading edge of the runway; we’ve measured it at sixty there.”

  Sixty. Holy shit.

  “We’re looking at only thirty knots at the moment,”

  added the controller, “but God only knows if that’ll hold.

  At least it stopped raining, huh, Major?”

  “Delta Zeus.”

  “That’s — hold on — thirty-two knots, gusting, uh, gusting to forty-five. Thirty knots.”

  “Thirty knots, Delta Zeus,” acknowledged Mack. The high-winged Bronco would be buffeted by any wind, but 30 knots — let alone 45 or 60—would make things somewhat hairy on the narrow and short runway. He’d have to push his right wing down, stick and rudder himself into what amounted to an angled skid across the tarmac.

  Check that, metal grid.

  He came at the runway well off to the east, no flaps, expecting the winds to push him in line as they tried to tear his wing over. Mack wasn’t disappointed. As he fought the stick and left rudder, the plane touched down almost perfectly on the center line of the runway. That was about the only thing that was perfect — he went reverse pedals, reverse engines, reverse prayers, then jammed the brakes so bad they burned, and still nearly fell off the edge of the runway. Fortunately, the wind finally died and he turned around to follow a crewman waving him toward a parking area at the extreme northeastern end of the field. He bumped over a dirt and rubble ramp, the plane jittering a bit as he found a spot next to one of the Megafortresses.

  The big black plane loomed in the darkness beyond a hand-portable spotlight, a puma ready to strike.

  General Elliott had his canopy open and was clambering out the side of the plane before the props stopped spinning. Mack waited for the crewman who’d flagged him in to help chock the wheels and secure the aircraft, then made his way toward some nearby tents.

  “Here’s Mack,” boomed General Elliott as Mack entered the large tin can that served as Whiplash’s temporary headquarters.

  “The whole gang’s here, huh?” said Mack, glancing around and nodding to Merce Alou, Breanna Stockard, Jeff, and Chris Ferris. Jennifer Gleason’s beautiful body was tucked into a loose sweater — Mack turned a 150-watt smile on her before waving to everyone else.

  “Okay, so here’s my theory,” said Elliott, already well into his business here. He told them about how the planes could only have been shot down by a long-range laser, possibly guided by the SA-2 and other radars. “Mack looked at one of the planes,” added the general.

  “So?” There was an edge in Jeff Stockard’s voice as he nudged his wheelchair forward from the corner where he’d been sitting. Same old Zen — he probably still blamed him for the accident that cost him his legs.

  “Like the general said, only thing that could have nailed that plane was the laser,” Mack told him. “Exploded the wing, sliced it right off.”

  “So why isn’t CentCom telling us this?” said Alou.

  “CentCom doesn’t completely buy the theory,” said Elliott. “They don’t think Saddam has a laser. And neither the satellites nor any of the sensor aircraft have picked it up.”

  “If it’s as potent as Razor,” said Zen, “it’ll have at least a three hundred mile radius. It could be well south of the shoot-downs.”

  “Absolutely,” said Elliott.

  Zen pulled the map of Iraq off the table into his lap and began plotting the shoot-downs. He drew a rough semicircle about three hundred miles south of them. The swath included Baghdad as well as more northern cities like Kirkuk and Al Mawsil.

  “If they set things up right, they could theoretically feed coordinates from any of the radars they have to direct the laser into the vicinity of the aircraft,” said Elliott.

  “Then they could turn on a fire-director radar quickly, and fire as soon as they locked, which could be within seconds.”

  “They wouldn’t need radar to get the general location,” said Mack. “A standard air traffic job in Kirkuk would give them enough of a lead. They could even use an IR sensor to lock on the target.”

  “They could use the laser itself to find the target,” said Jennifer. “We used a similar technique when we were studying optical solutions for the C3 communications systems. They might also be able to overcome targeting limitations by shooting through a calculated grid after they get a contact. Say they have a target down to a cer-tainty of three hundred meters, following a certain vector. You fill the box with as many pulses as you can cycle. You could increase the number of shots by trading off some—”

  “However they’re doing it, the laser has to be located and destroyed,” said Zen.

  “I don’t know,” said Alou. “If CentCom doesn’t think it’s possible—”

  “The Iraqis nearly built a nuclear bomb. This would be child’s play compared to that,” said Bree.

  “Not exactly,” said Elliott. “But still doable.”

  “Hey, the hell with CentCom. They’re relying on the CIA,” said Mac
k. “They have an arrogant attitude that’s blinding them to reality.”

  Zen laughed.

  “What?” said Mack.

  “Jennifer, how do we detect the laser?” asked Zen.

  “Can we detect the deuterium?” asked Mack.

  The computer scientist shrugged. “Not my area. Deuterium is hydrogen with a neutron in its nucleus. I doubt it would be easy to detect. We’d have better luck looking for the energy discharge. It would be in the IR spectrum, intense but extremely brief. A sensor looking for a missile launch might be able to detect it theoretically, but the computer code would probably kick it out because it was so brief.”

  “There are no launch detection satellites configured for Iraq,” said Elliott. “What do we have that we can use?”

  “Our gear on Quicksilver? Hmmm.” The scientist twirled her hair around her finger as she worked out the problem. “Quicksilver’s IR launch detector is fairly sensitive, though I’m not sure about the range or the spectrum.

  C3 takes selective data from it, so obviously the software can be screened — I have to think about it. I might be able to work it. I have to talk to Ray Rubeo.”

  “Secure connection with Dreamland is still pending,”

  said Alou. “Lieutenant Post told me it’ll be at least an hour more.”

  “Where’s Garcia?” asked Breanna. “He might know something about the sensors.”

  “He went with Hall to look after Mack’s airplane,” said Alou.

  “Not just any airplane. An OV-10D Bronco,” said a loud voice from outside. “Talk about your house down the road.”

  Mack turned as a short, somewhat squat technical type breezed into the trailer, shoulders bouncing as if he were listening to a Walkman. Garcia snapped to attention as he caught sight of Brad Elliott.

  “General!”

  “How are you, son?”

  “Fine, sir. Thank you for remembering me, sir.”