GOLAN: This is the Future of War (Future War)

by FX Holden

  He was right. Low and to the east was a growing roar. On the horizon he saw two small dots, approaching fast. He had no flares or even flags to signal the aircraft with. “Bell, what’s the signal for a ‘require assistance’?”

  “To an aircraft? Capital V.”

  “Good enough. Quick, down and flat!”

  Amal watched mystified as both Marines put their rifles down and stretched out across the roof with their arms straight up along the ground behind them, their legs meeting at the feet so that their bodies formed a V.

  Jensen, staring straight up, heard the two jets screaming toward them and saw only shadows before they blasted past. He rolled up onto a knee and saw one aircraft breaking right, the other breaking left, pumping out flares and chaff as they turned. There was cheering from the yard below again, so Johnson or Buckland were still convinced they were American.

  “Get on that handset again,” Jensen said.

  In her trailer on Cyprus, O’Hare was paging through the vision from the two Fantoms. She didn’t have a recon camera package on either of them, but she had the wide-angle cameras used to simulate cockpit views and as she’d overflown the small town, she’d banked the aircraft onto their wings so that they would capture a wide-angle view of the ground below. She jumped through it frame by frame, seeing nothing unusual as they crossed a highway empty of traffic on the outskirts of the town, some seemingly empty fields, a few houses and …

  “Wait, what’s that?” Kovacs said, pointing at the screen. “Something burning?”

  O’Hare went back a couple of frames and zoomed in on the object.

  “That’s an armored personnel carrier, maybe a small scout vehicle, on fire,” O’Hare said. “Three, maybe four people on the ground a couple hundred yards back, more standing around. Can’t see their uniforms with this crappy resolution.” She paged back and forth, but the image they had was about as clear as it would get. She copied it and kept moving the vision forward. “OK, look here,” she said. “Center of town. I’ve got what looks like four, five wrecked vehicles in a circle around this intersection. These here … troops, in cover.” She went forward two frames. “And on this rooftop outside town, three more.”

  “Why are they laid out like that?” Kovacs asked, seeing two figures stretched out on the rooftop. “Are they dead?”

  “Not yet, but that’s the international ground to air signal for ‘need assistance’,” Bunny told her. She compared the images of the burning tank and the troops on the outskirts of the town. “Different uniforms, see,” she said. “These guys down from the burning vehicle, dark uniforms, these guys on the roof, desert camouflage. If I was a betting girl, I’d bet the guys on the roof are the US Marines that IDF corporal was talking about.” She made a copy of all the imagery and sent it through to the AWACS aircraft.

  “Falcon, Valor. We have some recon imagery for you. We think it shows a firefight in the town of Buq’ata in the Golan Heights. The troops below appear to be US Marines, signaling for assistance.”

  “Valor, Falcon copies. Maintain contact, but do not respond yet. Still waiting on Akrotiri.”

  “Let me try, Sarge. Maybe they just need to hear an American accent?” Patel suggested.

  Jensen nodded. Patel was the only one among the squad trained to work with close air support aircraft.

  Amal passed the radio over to him. “The Druze troops will be using the same radio system as me. They can listen in on every word you say.”

  Jensen pulled Patel close. “Don’t use your own name. We want an evac, alright. Ask them to find a landing zone east of here so we don’t have to go through town. Depending how long it takes, we’re going to need rations, ammunition…”

  Patel nodded and kneeled by the radio. “Map, you have a map?”

  Amal carried a map of the Golan Heights in the pack with her radio and pulled it out, unfolding it and showing him their location and the map reference. Patel put his finger on it.

  “US aircraft over Buq’ata, this is 1st Marines, 3rd Battalion JTAC, attached to UNDOF forces Merom Golan. Friendlies are at coordinates 33.198, 35.787, a large domestic dwelling. Under assault by a company-sized force of Druze militia following a terrorist attack in the town. Enemy in various positions around town, closest enemy troop concentration is 200 yards distant at 33.198, 35.786, bearing … uh … 272 degrees our position. Estimated size, 20 pax. We require immediate evacuation…”

  A new voice broke in over the radio. “US aircraft over Buq’ata, please disregard. Terrorist elements have stolen an IDF radio. Repeat, terrorist elements have stolen an IDF radio and are holding civilians as human shields in the town center. We have initiated an operation to free the civilians, please ignore all radio calls. IDF ground forces out.”

  Jensen recognized the voice immediately. It was their friend, the colonel.

  “How can we tell who is who down there?” Kovacs asked. “That last caller could be telling the truth.”

  “Except terrorists don’t dress in Marine combat uniforms and lie flat on a roof using JTAC protocols to task air assets, where I come from,” O’Hare said. “OK, time to take a risk.”

  “Oh no. What…”

  “Not with your precious aircraft. We need to get that Marine unit down there, if that’s who it is, speaking to us on an encrypted frequency so that no one else can butt in. That means I need to send them the encryption key code, but I can’t call it down to them on the radio because anyone else listening in would get it too.”

  “Then how…”

  “Creative thinking, Shelly,” O’Hare said. “Let’s hope there’s someone down there who thinks like me.”

  Jensen had no desire to play radio tag with the Druze colonel. That would only further confuse whoever was listening in. They needed a visual signal that the pilot would recognize as uniquely US forces, but what?

  “Jets coming back around,” Bell said. His hearing was good, but maybe that ran in the family. Jensen had heard his brother was a sonar operator in the Navy.

  They looked up and saw the aircraft approaching again, this time in line astern formation, one behind the other. A little higher this time, and further to the east. It occurred to Jensen that this put them out of line of sight of the Druze troops in town, probably to reduce the chances of getting attacked by ground-to-air missiles. But as they crossed from left to right, each jet fired four flares and then spat out a cloud of tinfoil chaff that glittered in the sunshine before they banked away.

  “Doing more recon,” Jensen decided. “Worried about ground-to-air missiles.”

  “Maybe, Sarge,” Patel said, frowning. “Just…”

  “Just what, Corporal?”

  “Nothing.” Patel turned his head to one side, then the other. “They’re coming back around.”

  In a carbon copy of their last run, the two jets crossed the town from left to right. Each machine fired off exactly the same decoys as it blasted past, four flares and a cloud of chaff.

  “What are they doing?” Jensen asked, frustrated. Amal had her ear to her radio handset. “Anything on radio?”

  “No. They have not responded.”

  Bell had scratched something in the dirt, and suddenly looked up. “Morse! It’s morse, for the number two. Four dots and a dash.”

  “Two what?”

  Over the next five minutes they saw the two US fighters flash past several more times. The second time they fired five flares. The third time, five clouds of chaff.

  Bell was busily scratching in the dirt on top of the roof. “Two, five, zero.” On their fourth run, they dropped three flares. “Sierra. That’s two, five, zero, Sierra.”

  “It’s a four-digit encryption code!” Amal said, lifting her radio onto her lap and flipping open the cover for the keypad. “Two…”

  “Five, zero, Sierra…”

  She punched in the code. “Handshake! That was it. You’re online with the pilot and encrypted.” She gave the handset to Patel.

  “US aircraft, this is Corporal Ra
vi Patel, 1st Marines, 3rd Battalion JTAC, attached to UNDOF forces Merom Golan…”

  As the voice came in loud and clear over the speakers in the trailer, O’Hare gave Kovacs a wink. “Someone down there can think out of the box.” She flipped on her mike. “US aircraft to unidentified ground unit, we copy your transmission. We are awaiting confirmation of your identity.”

  “You want my goddamn social security number, pilot?” Patel asked, exasperated.

  “Stay cool, Corporal,” O’Hare told him. “I understand your situation. I am awaiting orders. Out.”

  O’Hare could imagine the stream of invective that probably followed her cutting transmission, but what could she do? She switched to the AWACS frequency. “Falcon, Valor leader. We have a confirmed handshake with the unit on the ground at Buq’ata now. Encrypted comms link established, what am I doing here?”

  “Valor, we can confirm a Marine squad from 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines was dropped at Buq’ata earlier today. They have not made contact with 1st Battalion headquarters and we are trying to reach UNDOF command in the Golan Heights but there is severe comms disruption across Israel right now. Ask that JTAC for a report on their situation and maintain contact until you are relieved. We’ll pass his report to 1st Battalion command and see what they want to do.”

  “Valor copies. Out.”

  “That does not sound promising,” Kovacs observed. They’d had one screen in the trailer running a cable news station all through the mission and Kovacs had been monitoring it. “But there is total chaos across Israel right now. Internet and cell phones down, landlines and power out across most of the country, they’re predicting anarchy on Tel Aviv stock exchange when it reopens…”

  “I don’t think those Marines are too bothered about their stock portfolios right now,” O’Hare told her. “Let’s get them back on the radio.”

  Patel gave Bunny a full report on their situation, updated with their spoiling attack on the Namer IFV, plus its precise coordinates.

  “So that was the armored vehicle we saw burning?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Patel said.

  “I’ve recorded your report, Corporal. I’ll pass it on to our AWACS and they’ll relay it to 1st Battalion command.”

  “We’re a long way from Hawaii, ma’am, and right now you’re our only friend,” Patel told her.

  O’Hare checked her mission time. She had only another ten minutes on station before the next flight came in to relieve her. “Sergeant, if I had orders I could potentially prosecute ground targets for you, but I don’t. Apart from buzzing around overhead to show those Druze troops we’re here, there’s not much I can do right now. My kites are unmanned and I’m stuck in a trailer on Cyprus or I’d land beside that UN outpost and go inside to kick some ass for you.”

  “I believe you would, ma’am.”

  “I’ll be pulling out in about ten mikes. The next pilot on station may have better news for you. Meantime, I’ll get on the horn to Marine 1st Battalion command personally. What do you need?”

  “We need a Big Boy tiltrotor or the like to lift us out. There are fields east of our position that would do for the egress. But if we have to wait long, we’re going to need ammunition – five fifty-six by forty-five for our M27s, and oh three thirty-eight for the Barrett, some 40mm grenades, yeah, and food.” Patel gave Amal a wink. “Like, pepperoni pizza will do, but not frozen, we got no power to reheat it.”

  O’Hare laughed. “You want stuffed crust with that pizza order?”

  “If you’re paying, ma’am.”

  “I’ll see what we can do, Corporal.”

  O’Hare ran a quick eye over her tactical screen and began punching in the commands she needed in order to get her five remaining Fantoms safely on their way back to Cyprus. As the next flight of two Fantoms checked in over Lebanon, she briefed the pilot, wishing him luck. The other pilot was a Texan she’d nicknamed Longhorn because he was … short.

  “Those Marines die on your watch, I’m going to find out how many you killed, Longhorn, and I’m going to kill you, bury you, then dig you up and kill you again that exact number of times, you got that?”

  “Loud and clear, Bunny,” he replied.

  She adjusted her headset and eye glass so that it was sitting comfortably again for the flight home and then paused what she was doing, turning to Kovacs. “You think that Druze officer is still listening to us down there?”

  “I would be. In case you said anything in the clear again.”

  “You get his name?”

  Kovacs showed Bunny her notepad. “Yeah, it was in the JTAC’s contact report, why?”

  Bunny tapped a key on the keyboard, put her five aircraft into a delta V formation and pointed them at Buq’ata, just above rooftop height. “Let’s send him a little message.”

  Zeidan Amar had opened a hatch into the Namer IFV and then backed away again as a thick cloud of smoke boiled out of it, along with a smell he would remember for the rest of his days. Cordite and burned human flesh. He tried to open the ramp, but there was no response to the release button on the outside of the hull. He had no hope that any of the men inside would have survived that inferno. But a vague hope the turret might still be repaired, yes, why not?

  That had been just before the first US aircraft had passed overhead. Coincidence? He didn’t believe in that kind of coincidence. His radio operator had come running over with the message that the US Marines were broadcasting in the clear … a mistake under pressure, probably. He’d gone on the radio to try to muddy the waters, but then the broadcasts had stopped. They’d probably realized their mistake and switched to an encrypted channel, but he could still hear the damn jets buzzing around to their east, making several passes, no doubt to map the position of his troops. He had squads on the highway and the four main roads out of Buq’ata, a total of about fifty men, not counting the ten he’d lost in the attack on the Namer IFV. He was just ordering his men to get under cover, inside houses or under trees, when the radio crackled to life.

  “This is US Marine Air Wing for Colonel Zeidan Amar of IDF Golani Brigade, do you read?” a female voice said, then repeated the hail.

  He considered not replying. But if the American on the radio knew his name, there was no point hiding anymore. She would pass it on to IDF liaison sooner or later and the questions would start, just as he had expected they would. He was prepared.

  His operator held out the radio handset and he took it. “This is Colonel Amar, come in.”

  “Colonel, our JTAC has advised that you and your troops have killed and wounded civilians in Buq’ata and threatened to attack our Marines. We have a message for you. US reinforcements are on their way to Buq’ata and you do not want to be there when they arrive. Marine Air Wing out.”

  “Whoever you are…”

  “Duck, Colonel.”

  The radio operator held out his hand for the handset. “They have cut transmission, Colonel.”

  At that moment he heard a growing roar and stepped out into the middle of the street, staring up at the sky. Sweeping in low over the fields to the west of Buq’ata he saw one, two … five low-flying dart-shaped aircraft headed straight toward him.

  “Into cover!” he yelled.

  O’Hare slid her mouse pointer a couple of millimeters across her targeting screen and put a crosshair on the burning IFV near the center of the town.

  “Lava Dogs JTAC, Lava Dogs JTAC, Marine Air.”

  “Marine Air, go for JTAC.”

  “I am inbound that IFV. Want to make double sure it won’t trouble you.”

  Patel rolled to a gap in the small wall around the terrace and checked there were no civilians near the still-burning tank. He could see a few Druze soldiers hovering nearby, but no townspeople. “Good copy, Marine Air. You are cleared hot.”

  “Roger, JTAC, Marine Air coming in hot.”

  She had air-to-ground JAGM missiles in her weapons bays but no authority to use them, so she slaved the five four-barrel rotary cannons of her Fantoms
onto the target she’d painted with the laser of her lead aircraft and then tied them to the trigger on her flight stick. Five hundred yards out from the rising column of smoke over the burning vehicle, she pressed the trigger and held it down.

  One hundred and eighty-nine miles away from her trailer, five streams of supersonic 25mm high-explosive rounds slammed into the Namer IFV at the rate of 3,300 rounds a minute.

  The three Americans and the Israeli on the rooftop terrace watched as the five Fantoms hammered toward Buq’ata and then opened fire on the IFV with a tearing, shredding noise that only hit their eardrums after the jets were already pulling around to the north in perfect formation.

  Bell whistled, watching them go. “If that Namer wasn’t dead before, it’s dead now. Way to send a message.”

  The five jets turned into small dots and then disappeared, the sound of their engines fading as it rolled across the hills either side of the town.

  “Did that drone pilot sound to you like she had an English accent?” Jensen asked Patel thoughtfully. “Or Irish maybe?”

  “Australian,” Bell said. “I’ve got an ear for accents. She was Australian.”

  “Makes sense. Never met an Australian I didn’t like.”

  As O’Hare leaned back in her chair, she rolled her head around on her neck, easing out the tension.

  Kovacs, however, was only getting more tense. “You weren’t authorized for a close air support action!”

  “That was a guns test,” O’Hare said.

  “On an infantry fighting vehicle!”

  “Guns test, on a wrecked vehicle,” O’Hare corrected her. “I wrote a routine that slaves the guns of multiple Fantoms to a single target. You can put the birds into formation – line abreast, delta V, just not line astern – and they’ll open fire simultaneously on the target the lead aircraft is painting with its laser. It seems to work pretty well, right? And for the record, that JTAC cleared us in.”