Mitchell caught the headset and put it on as the bird lifted over the trees on the eastern edge of the pickup zone. He keyed the intercom. "We've got two more men farther up along that finger to the northwest."
"We've got company!" Lassiter yelled through the set as he accelerated the helicopter and jerked it hard to the left. Those in the back were tumbled on top of each other. C.J. screamed with pain as he landed again on his shattered arm. Two helicopters roared by out of the northwest and started to circle.
"The next one will be a gun run," Jean yelled. "They're circling to the east to come back. Turn north and dive into the riverbed."
In less than a second Mitchell took all this in: His wife was on board. They were being attacked by Chinese helicopters. And up there on the ridge, he could see the red and green tracers of Riley and Chong's firefight.
Riley had hit his first two targets before the rest could find cover. The sudden silence was deafening.
"How many did you get, Tom?"
"I'm pretty sure I got two. How about you?"
"Two. That leaves us six. We've got about five minutes before they get reinforced."
There was a burst of fire from up ahead and green tracers flew by to their right. Another burst. "Shit! We'll never make it running." Riley looked at Chong. "What do you say, wild man?"
Chong had made his peace in the dark of the previous night. He was ready. "This is as good a place as any. I'd rather take a stand here than get chased down by helicopters come dawn."
"OK then. This is it. I'll see if I can take out these six ahead. You might as well cover to the east. That's where our next visitors will come from."
2:27 a.m. Local
The lead Z-9 strained as it banked in a steep left-hand turn. Wei had only a brief glance at the aircraft as they flew by. An American UH-60 Blackhawk. This was going to be a real challenge.
Wei calculated in his mind as he completed the turn and gave chase. From what he had seen of the S-70s the transport battalion had, the Blackhawk held a great edge over his helicopter in terms of maneuverability and speed. The Americans also held a big edge at night.
Wei grinned. He had two aces up his sleeve, however. The first was that he was armed and the American wasn't. The Blackhawk was just a transport helicopter. The second was that there were five Z-9s and only one Blackhawk. He watched with grudging admiration as the American helicopter dove for the riverbed and fled north only a few feet above the water.
Lassiter had 579 down very low, skimming just above the surface of the river. Although he was down lower than the enemy could go, he was forced to go much slower than the other helicopters at altitude. As he took a left-hand bend in the river he glanced back. The running lights of the lead enemy helicopter were only eight hundred meters behind. In the moonlight he tried to make out what type of aircraft was chasing them. The only one he knew that had a built-in tail rotor was some sort of Aerospatiale. Maybe an SA-365 model Dolphin.
Junior Lieutenant Baibang was trying to keep up with the chase. The intruder had disappeared from his screen—probably down too low for him to track. He could see the two center Z-9s turning to the north in apparent chase. He ordered the Z-9 to the east to stay in a holding pattern. The two to the north he ordered into blocking positions along the river, which the intruder seemed to be following. The intruder would reach the blocking force in about forty seconds.
2:28 a.m. Local
Wei watched as the dark silhouette of the Blackhawk disappeared around a westerly turn in the river. Since he was flying well above tree level at three hundred feet, Wei decided to cut the corner of the bend and try to make up some of the distance between the two aircraft. He knew there was a blocking force only a kilometer ahead, but he wanted to get as close as possible before they brought down the intruder. He flew over the elbow of land and looked down into the river.
The American was gone! Wei started slowing down as he looked around. Where did they go? The second Z-9 shot past him as the pilot of that bird belatedly tried making the adjustment. Wei banked right and caught movement out of the corner of his right eye. He turned his head just as the American rose out of the riverbed. Wei sighed to himself with relief. The UH-60 must have flared to a halt and let him fly by. The American was probably going to double back toward the border. He might have made it, too, if I hadn't slowed down in time, Wei thought.
Enough of this playing around. Wei started banking hard right as he ordered his copilot to prepare to fire the miniguns. The Z-9 was only halfway through the turn when Wei saw a flash of light on the side of the Blackhawk.
"Again!" Lassiter yelled as the closest Z-9 exploded into a ball of flame. Jean Long punched the firing button and the second Stinger leapt from the side of the helicopter. The trail Z-9 was about nine hundred meters to the west and had started a long, sweeping turn to come back. The supersonic Stinger raced it down in a second and a half. The heat-seeking missile flew straight up the right exhaust of the Z-9 and the helicopter blossomed into flames.
Mitchell keyed the intercom in his headset. "Head northwest. Straight toward that ridgeline."
Lassiter accelerated. Northwest was as good as any other direction. If those helicopters had reported in, the Chinese would know that he had followed the river. It wouldn't be smart to do that again.
Riley stared to the east at the ball of fire that had been ignited in the sky. Then there was a second one. "What the hell is going on?"
A burst of automatic fire up ahead caused him to turn his attention back to matters closer at hand. Hidden behind a rock, he fired the M79, blooping another high explosive in the direction of the surviving Chinese.
2:29 a.m. Local
Baibang didn't know what to make of it. The two Z-9s in pursuit had disappeared from his screen. He couldn't raise them on the radio. He called the two hovering just above the riverbed to the north—no, they hadn't seen anything.
Baibang was puzzled. The intruder should have reached the blocking force thirty seconds ago. And where did the two in pursuit go? He ordered the two in the blocking position to move south along the river. Then he called the J-7s to give them final vectors. He gave the jets a course that would put them to the east of the last sighting of the intruder. No matter what happened, the intruder eventually was going to have to head for the coast.
"Goddamn!"
Colonel Ehrlich swiveled his head to look at the radar operator. "What's the matter?"
"Did you say that Blackhawk was armed, sir?" "Yeah. They had Stingers on board. Why?" "Then you can splash two Chinese helicopters.
2:30 a.m. Local
"There. Ahead and to the left. Did you see those green and red tracers?" Mitchell was leaning forward, pointing between the two pilots. "The red is our people."
"Who's up there, Mitch?" Jean asked as Lassiter swooped in toward the firefight.
"Dave Riley and Tom Chong."
Riley heard the rotor blades coming toward them. He arced another high-explosive round toward the Chinese, then looked south, while Chong continued to cover their front. At first Riley didn't see anything. He was expecting to see the searchlights of a Z-9 coming at them. He quickly pulled up his goggles and turned them on.
Riley blinked. A Blackhawk. He pulled up his SVD and took aim at the cockpit. The goddamn Chinese were trying to land troops right on top of them! He started to squeeze the trigger when something occurred to him. Every other helicopter they'd seen tonight had searchlights on— this one didn't. Riley remembered Olinski's words in the briefback about the Chinese pilots—that they didn't fly blacked out because they didn't have night-vision goggles. Riley figured they had nothing left to lose. He'd take a chance.
2:31 a.m. Local
There it was. The intruder was back on his screen briefly. Off to the north. Baibang called the two Z-9s and redirected them to the new location. He called the inbound J-7s.
"Tiger Flight leader, this is Yanji Control. I have you with an ETA of one minute. Change heading to three three zero zero mi
ls. The intruder is heading north from last reported location. Over."
"Roger, Yanji Control. Activating our tracking radar now. We should pick up something soon. Decreasing altitude to one thousand meters."
"Get your harness buckled, Tom!" Riley yelled out. Chong turned in surprise. "We've got a Blackhawk inbound." Riley turned on his infrared strobe and held it up.
On board 579, Comsky slid open the left door while Hoffman slid open the right. Each man held a 120-foot nylon rope in a deployment bag. Lassiter flared the Blackhawk to a halt eighty feet above the ground by the IR strobe. The two bags were thrown out and hurtled to the ground.
"I've got this one," Chong yelled as he ran forward. He pulled the deployment bag off the rope and hooked the end loop through the two snap links in the shoulders of his vest. Twenty feet away Riley did the same. The two ran together and linked arms.
No shots had yet been fired by the Chinese soldiers. They probably assumed that the helicopter was one of their own, but Riley knew they'd soon wake up and take action.
"We've got them!" Mitchell yelled as he peered off the deck of the cargo compartment. Lassiter snatched in collective and quickly pulled the helicopter over onto an easterly heading.
Riley and Chong felt their vests tighten around them as the rope became taut. Their feet came off the ground and they were savagely swung out to the west by centrifugal force. Riley gasped for breath as he and Chong held onto each other, momentarily forgetting where they were. A line of green tracers stitching the night air quickly reminded them.
As he straightened out the Blackhawk, Lassiter keyed his intercom. "Two more helicopters coming out of the east."
"Find someplace to land. We've got to get them in." Mitchell watched tracers make a pattern around Riley and Chong and pass by the helicopter.
"We can't. There's no time. Pull them in!" Lassiter responded.
Mitchell was astonished. "How the hell are we going to pull them in? I've got only two healthy bodies back here!"
Long turned to Lassiter. "I'll take the controls. Go back and help them."
Lassiter unbuckled and climbed over the seat, back to where Hoffman and Comsky were struggling with the left rope, pulling it up inch by inch.
Chong felt his rope jerk. He looked up and saw someone hanging over the edge of the deck, signaling him to separate from Riley. He tapped Riley and pointed up. Riley let go.
Long glanced to her right and saw the Chinese helicopters closing rapidly. She was flying at only seventy knots with the two men dangling below. She also had to stay 150 feet above ground level to keep from slamming the men into the earth. She looked around, trying to think of something to do.
2:32 a.m. Local
Baibang was running out of airspace. He now had the intruder on his screen heading east. Two Z-9s were closing rapidly on it from the east. He ordered the third Z-9 to also start an intercept vector to the north. As he finished giving that order, his radio crackled again.
"This is Tiger Flight leader. I've got the intruder on tracking radar. Preparing to fire."
"Those fast movers are on top of our bird. We need to do something now."
The young operator who had been tracking the action looked up at Colonel Ehrlich. "I can do something, sir. Give me a few seconds."
At an altitude of a thousand meters, the J-7's tracking radar easily picked up 579. The lead pilot armed a pair of missiles—Chinese copies of the Russian AA-2 Atoll. His hand paused over the guidance switch. The AA-2 missile under his left wing was guided by a built-in infrared heat seeker. The one under the right wing was guided by radar homing using the plane's radar.
The pilot chose the left missile. Since his target was so slow moving, he'd pass by too quickly to keep his tracking radar on it. He got on the radio and ordered his wingman to do the same.
Only one thing to do, Jean Long decided. She banked left, straight toward the onrushing helicopters. By doing this, she reduced both the amount of time they would have to fire and the Blackhawk's silhouette.
2:33 a.m. Local
The pilot of the lead J-7 yelled over his radio, "Fire." Two Atoll missiles leapt forward, one from each aircraft.
The 579 was moving at 70 knots, the two Z-9s at 125 knots. The Blackhawk closed the five-hundred-meter gap between them in three seconds. The Z-9 pilots had not anticipated this maneuver and were able to fire only a quick, poorly aimed burst from their miniguns before the Blackhawk shot past them. The Z-9 pilots stared in amazement at the two men suspended below the aircraft.
The Atolls made up their electronic minds immediately after leaving the wings of the J-7s. They went for the hottest targets available.
"Jesus Christ!" Chong closed his eyes as the two helicopters approached and roared by. He was dangling only ten feet from the edge of the deck. The night sky lit up and the force of the two explosions buffeted his body and the Blackhawk.
2:39 a.m. Local
"Tiger Flight leader. This is Yanji Control. You just shot down two of ours! The intruder is still moving southeast."
The Tiger Flight leader swore. So much for infrared. This was his first time in combat and his first time firing live missiles. He wouldn't make that mistake again. He didn't have a choice now anyway. As the J-7s completed a sweeping turn and started their second run, Tiger Flight leader called his wingman. "Fire your second missile on radar guidance. Launch five kilometers out and slow to just above stall speed to keep your radar tracking."
His wingman acknowledged.
Ehrlich stared over the operator's shoulder at the image of the J-7s closing again on the 579. He didn't know what had just happened, but there were two fewer Chinese helicopters and 579 was still flying. He didn't think the Blackhawk could survive another encounter with the fast movers. "Whatever you're doing, we need it now," he said to the radar operator.
"Just another second, sir." She was furiously working her computer keyboard.
"Now!" Tiger Flight leader ordered.
His wingman's thumb closed on the firing switch in concert with his. Two more Atoll missiles were launched.
2:40 a.m. Local
Chong was pulled into the cargo compartment. Staring out, they could all see the burst of flame and the twin streaks of light, as two missiles came screaming toward them.
The AWACS radar operator punched the "Enter" button on her keyboard. "That should do it."
Mitchell and the rest of the men in the cargo compartment watched mesmerized as the two missiles closed rapidly. Then, suddenly, they both veered off. One flew almost straight up into the night sky. The other turned down and impacted with a roar into the ground. Chong turned to help the others begin pulling in Riley. He noticed, for the first time, that the right side of his uniform was covered with blood.
2:41 a.m. Local
The Tiger Flight leader stared at his tracking screen in confusion. The clear image had dissolved into meaningless clutter.
"Yanji, this is Tiger Flight leader. We're switching to guns. Give us a vector back to the target. All our tracking radars are down. Over."
The flight leader reached over to his console and flipped the arming switch for the 30mm cannons mounted in the wing roots on either side of the plane. The other pilots did the same. Firing fifteen hundred rounds a minute, the cannons would make short work of the intruder.
"Roger, Tiger Flight leader. I'm going to loop you around to the west so you can come at the intruder from the rear. Turn right to heading one eight five zero mils."
Baibang grabbed his other handset. "Wolfpack Three, this is Yanji Control. Over."
The remaining Z-9 came on the net. "This is Wolfpack Three. Over." "Wolfpack Three. Turn on a heading of zero eight zero zero mils. The J-7s are going to do a gun run. I want you to head for where the intruder would cross the border, just in case. Over." "Roger. Heading of zero eight zero zero mils."
2:42 a.m. Local
With Chong's help they had Riley halfway up. Chong could feel no pain or discomfort. Nor could he see any sign
of a wound other than his blood-soaked uniform.
Jean knew they were running out of time. The border was five minutes away and the coast was twenty minutes farther. The fast movers were zero for two, but sooner or later they'd get their act together. She didn't have any tricks left. As soon as they got the last guy in, she'd drop down and try to outmaneuver them.
"Maintain one eight five zero mils. Over."
The Tiger Flight leader acknowledged Yanji Control.
"Jam the ground radar in Yanji, too," Ehrlich ordered.
2:43 a.m. Local
They pulled in Riley, and Chong now knew where the blood had come from. "Jesus Christ. Look at him!" Chong grabbed Comsky and pointed. Riley's uniform was completely soaked with blood. As Chong unsnapped the team sergeant from his harness, Comsky immediately began searching for the wound.
It wasn't hard to find. Riley must have been hit just after they were picked up. Two rounds had punched small, neat holes in his lower right stomach. The trajectory of the rounds had carried them through his body and out his upper right back. The exit wounds were a mess of torn flesh and bone. Pulling bandages out of the aircraft's first-aid kit, Comsky worked desperately to stop the flow of blood.
Jean Long had 579 back down in the trees. The two jets flew by just above their stall speed at two hundred knots. She couldn't understand why they appeared to be searching for her visually. Why didn't they just use their radars?
The Tiger Flight leader wanted to slam his instrument panel in frustration. Without his onboard radar, and now without Yanji Control, he was almost blind. Somewhere below, the intruder was running. The border was approaching rapidly. The Tiger Flight leader looked down. If he didn't turn now, he'd cross into North Korean airspace. He keyed his radio. "Break off."
Dragon Sim-13 Page 33
