“What the hell is the big attraction?” Hunter asked himself. “Why have so many people died over a bunch of sand?”
There were human skeletons everywhere too. Some still dressed in uniforms, helmets still strapped onto bare jawbones. There were clutches of them, here and there, like the wreckage, victims of wars past and forgotten. Watching them, Hunter got the distinct and unnerving impression that he was floating through a graveyard.
The S-3A returned after the carrier had been in the canal for about an hour. Hunter met Russell as he emerged from the jet and immediately noticed the battle-hardened veteran was visibly shaken.
Hunter ushered him to a remote corner of the Saratoga’s mess hall and signaled one of the cooks to bring them some “strong” coffee.
“Jezzuz, Hawk,” E.J. told him. “I’ve never seen so many ships in my life! I thought The Modern Knights were stacked!”
“What kind of ships?” Hunter asked as the cook dropped off a steaming pot of laced coffee.
“You name it, they got it, mate,” E.J. answered. “Battleships, missile cruisers, armed freighters, rocket-launcher ships. They must have fifty or sixty destroyers alone. Plus a helicopter assault ship. One of those crazy half-battleship-half-carrier jobs.”
“Russian?” Hunter asked.
“Through and through,” E.J. said, swigging the coffee. He felt the whiskey-laced mixture slide down his throat. “Still got the hammer and sickle on it. A lot of the ships do.”
“Well, Lucifer is an equal-opportunity employer,” Hunter said. “He’ll hire anyone to help him destroy the world.”
“They must have sixty Hind gunships on that flattop,” E.J. continued. “The BBC guy has a lot of good footage. And the troopships! They got LSTs, steamers, converted cruise liners, barges, tugs, you name it! All of them stuffed with soldiers. Those guys must be chomping at the bit to get to the Med just so they can spread out.”
“Were you spotted?” Hunter asked.
“Maybe, maybe not,” the Australian answered. “I didn’t get any radar-lock indications, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t spot us visually.”
“No aircraft flying above or near the fleet?”
“Just one airplane,” E.J. said. “This P-3 Orion. It’s an old Navy job, still with the long, pointy ass-end, you know?”
“Yeah, we intercepted some radio transmissions from it a while ago,” Hunter said. “That’s how we knew the Sovs were laying mines in the Canal.”
“That’s right,” E.J. replied. “This must be the same airplane. Yet, if anything was going to spot us, that plane would have. They’re usually jammed with enough gear to rival an AWACs, aren’t they?”
“Yes, usually,” Hunter said, after thinking for a moment. “Unless they are carrying some other type of gear on board now … ”
They left the mess hall and went to the CIC. There the BBC crew had set up a large-screen TV and videotape-playback machine. Heath, Yaz, Olson, O’Brien, and The Commodore were all on hand. Without much fanfare, the cameraman switched on the TV and inserted the freshly shot videotape.
Even though Hunter knew what to expect, he was still stunned. Spread out on the Red Sea near the southern entrance to the Canal, Lucifer’s fleet looked like one of the huge armadas the US had thrown against the Japanese in the South Pacific.
“My God,” Heath blurted out, speaking for everyone. “How in hell can we expect to hold up that whole bloody thing?”
“Between Lucifer and The Modern Knights, they must have hired just about every ship in the world,” O’Brien said.
Even the normally stony Olson was slightly rattled. “This is a formidable force … ” he said with typical understatement in his Scandinavian-accented English.
“Their biggest problem will be getting all those ships through without causing one hell of a traffic jam,” Yaz said, dejectedly.
“No,” Hunter said, stemming the tide of negatives. “Their biggest problem is going to be us … ”
The Jaguars took off first, four of them catapulting into the air with a rush of steam and a scream of jet exhaust. The quartet climbed and began long circles around the carrier.
The Tornados launched next. Six of them, each carrying 18,000 pounds of anti-shipping bombs, streaked off the carrier and joined the Jags orbiting above. Then the carrier’s elevators brought up the spaceship-like SAAB Viggens. The fighters, their delta wings bulging with overstuffed bombs, went airborne in less than two minutes. Unlike the other airplanes, they stayed in a ground-hugging holding pattern.
Hunter launched next, the Saratoga’s rejuvenated catapult flinging him hard and fast out over the water. Meanwhile, two of the Harrier jump-jets were lifting off vertically from the stern of the carrier. The remaining Harrier as well as the Beta group of Tornados would be left behind in order to protect the flotilla if necessary.
The air group finally formed up, went through a series of armament and communications checks, and then headed south. The first direct attack on Lucifer was about to begin …
The lead ship in Lucifer’s fleet was a cruiser manned by crew of Chilean mercenaries. A squadron of destroyers and corvettes, all carrying crews of mixed nationalities, was next in line, followed by the first group of troop-carrying vessels—tugs, small freighters, and barges.
Although Lucifer knew the Saratoga was heading for the Canal, his lack of reliable intelligence and recon led him to believe the carrier was still dead in the water in the Mediterranean. A powerless ship, surrounded by a bunch of yachts and frigates, posed little threat to his vast fleet, so he thought. Though he was upset that the Russian Navy subs hadn’t finished off the disabled carrier during their first attack, he wasn’t worried. When his armada had traveled through the Canal, he would send his own warships to do the job themselves. This message he had foolishly passed on to the commanders of his fleet, who, in turn, bragged about it to their crews.
That’s why it was with great surprise that the lookout on Lucifer’s lead cruiser spotted the flight of four Viggen jets approaching at wave-top level and heading directly for him. Were the airplanes allies? Free-lancers that Lucifer had hired to protect the fleet through its Canal passage?
He knew the answer was no as soon as when he heard the anxious voice of his comrade in the cruiser’s communications room. He was screaming through the intercom that “unidentified enemy aircraft” were heading for the ship. Instantly, the lookout knew a big mistake had been made.
The four Viggens roared right over the cruiser, so close the lookout felt the need to duck. As the jets screamed by he saw their wings were jammed with strange-looking bombs. He watched as they continued up and over the destroyers behind his ship and soon disappeared around a slight bend in the Canal. His first thought was one of relief. “At least they didn’t drop those things on me,” he whispered.
Then he turned around and saw the Tornados …
The British swing-wing fighter-bombers were right in front of him, six altogether, flying in pairs. Their underwings also carried clumps of bombs. But unlike the Viggens, two of the planes were zeroing in on the cruiser. And the lead Tornado was firing its cannon at him.
The lookout felt the cannon shells rip up his right arm, take a chunk of his shoulder off, and graze his head. Suddenly he couldn’t move; he was in shock. Everything was moving in slow motion. He saw the lead Tornado drop two silvery cannisters. Both struck the forward gun housing on the cruiser, passed through the compartment, and tore two side-by-side holes in the deck. A tremendous explosion followed, so powerful it lifted the bow of the ship right out of the water.
Only the lead Tornado dropped any bombs; like the Viggens, the six airplanes streaked overhead and continued down the canal.
The lookout, half his body already covered in blood, was now hit square in the face with a wave of flame resulting from the explosion. Suddenly his hair, his uniform, his very skin was on fire. In fact, the whole ship was instantly covered in flames.
He screamed, but no sound came out …
By this time, the warning klaxons were blaring on the dozen destroyers and corvettes sailing behind the ill-fated cruiser. The startled crew members, roused by the sound of the approaching jets, first watched the four Viggens pass over, then saw the Tornados deliver a devastating blow to the lead ship.
They knew they were next.
The guns crews were not yet at their posts when the Jaguars appeared. The small, aging jet fighters were flying very slowly four abreast and coming in on a slight angle. After passing over the blazing cruiser, they simultaneously opened up on the first four destroyers with their powerful nose cannons. The combined barrage caught one ship broadside, perforating it, killing any sailor unlucky enough to be on its starboard side. A succession of secondary explosions followed immediately.
The four jets passed over their first victim, and started riddling another—a smaller destroyer escort. The rain of deadly cannon shells walked up the side of this ship and quickly found their way to its magazine. The vessel’s ammunition went up, obliterating everything from its forecastle to its stern. The explosion was so quick and so sudden, two of the Jag pilots had to yank back on their sticks to avoid being caught up in the conflagration their cannon fire had caused.
One by one, the destroyers were attacked by the slow-moving Jaguar foursome. Those ships lying directly in the jets’ line of attack were caught helpless and with no room to maneuver. No return fire was offered in defense. They were chopped up like lambs in a slaughter.
Further down the canal, word had reached the group of twenty troop-carrying vessels that the fleet was under attack. But these ships too suddenly realized their vulnerability.
Two armed tugs were leading the troopships, followed by fifteen large, open, square river barges of the type used to carry wheat, coal, or garbage in peaceful times. Now they were filled with the advance troops of Lucifer’s Legion. The soldiers, already weary from spending so much time packed like sardines on the barges, panicked when they heard the approaching sound of jet engines. Out of the blazing Middle Eastern sun, they soon saw the outline of the four Viggen jets.
The overstuffed bombs, also known as Greendogs, were just that. Cannisters filled with HE, wrapped in an overstuffed layer of plastic explosive. The devices, an old trick Hunter had picked up along the way, precluded the need for a fuse or any kind of sophisticated arming mechanism. The bombs simply exploded on contact with anything, be it the metal side of a barge or the water nearby.
The Viggens had arranged themselves in a single file and separated themselves by a quarter of a mile. The flight leader passed over the armed tugs, routinely ignoring the feeble gunfire coming from the boats’ machine guns, and bore down on the river barges.
“Stingers!” the troop commanders on all the vessels began yelling at their air-defense teams. But a Stinger cannot be fired immediately. Time is needed to prepare the shoulder-held antiaircraft missile for launch. And time was running out quickly for the barge troops.
The first Viggen swooped in on the lead river barge no more than fifteen feet above the water. Its pilot flipped a switch and one Greendog bomb fell from its bomb rack. The high-explosive-packed cannister hit the lip of the barge perfectly, igniting the plastic explosive. This in turn set off the 200 pounds of HE inside the bomb instantaneously.
The Viggen pilot had never seen a green explosion before, but now, as he pulled his jet up and turned to look back on his target, he saw a spectacular ball of emerald flame enveloping the river barge. When the smoke and fire cleared, even the Viggen pilot was startled to see that nothing—absolutely nothing—was left of the barge.
By this time, the second Viggen was screaming in on another, even larger river barge. Below, the helpless soldiers could only cower as the Greendog bomb landed in their midst and exploded. The terrifying green fire instantly splashed all over the men, igniting them like human matchsticks. At the same time, the bomb blew out a huge hole in the bottom of the barge. The water immediately rushed in, for a moment extinguishing the burning soldiers, but also sucking them down to their deaths. The barge went under in two seconds. As with the first barge, no one survived.
Chapter 39
BY THE TIME THE TORNADOS reached the barges, the area looked like a scene out of Hell.
The Viggens had done their work—gruesomely and efficiently. The Tornado pilots were shocked to see the Canal water had turned red and the shoreline was covered with smoldering pieces of bodies. Three of the barges looked to be unhit, yet they were doing circles in the Canal, as if their skippers had gone mad. Many of the soldiers had jumped overboard in fear. Those who didn’t drown instantly were forced to swim through the bloody, torso-filled water. By the time they reached the shore, the stink of burning flesh had overwhelmed most of them and they dropped, frozen in shock. Only a few hardened souls made it up and away from the shoreline, only to run crazy into the scorching desert.
The Tornados continued on, noting that the Viggens, their heavy bomb loads expended, were now cruising at 15,000 feet providing aircover.
Five miles down the canal was the next group of Lucifer’s ships—four large guided-missile frigates protecting two cruisers. These six ships were the main targets for the Tornados.
The enemy vessels were by this time well aware that the fleet was under air attack, so their gun crews were at their stations when the first two Tornados appeared over the northern horizon. The two British jets, moving slowly as if at attack speed, bore down on the six ships. The frigates at this point had maneuvered so they formed a diamond-shaped pattern around the cruisers. However, all six of the ships’ radars were concentrating on the two Tornados approaching from the north.
In the heat of the impending action, their radar operators didn’t see the four other Tornados approaching from the west.
The sound characteristic of a jet engine is a strange and unpredictable thing. Wind direction, temperature, speed, location, and many other factors determine not only how loud the engine is, but also whether a person can hear it approaching or not. Sometimes, soldiers in trenches can hear the sound of enemy aircraft approaching from miles away.
Other times, they simply look up and an enemy jet is right on top of them …
The captain of one of the protecting rear frigates looked up from his bridge console to see a Tornado was right on top of him. He had no time to shout out a warning or alert his gun crews—they, like everyone else on the six ships, were awaiting an attack by the two Tornados slowly approaching from the north.
But this Tornado was so close, he could see the pilot’s face as it streaked by. It was all happening so quickly. In a second, the Tornado had already dropped two bombs on one of the cruisers, broad-siding it with a tremendous one-two punch of explosions. The frigate captain, an ex-Argentine-navy man, felt his jaw drop in surprise as he watched the British jet pull up and away. “How?” he asked himself.
He didn’t see the second Tornado until it was too late …
The bomb crashed right into the frigate’s bridge, exploding on impact. The captain was blasted into a thousand pieces, as was everyone on the bridge. The explosion carried on down to the frigate’s guided-missile storage room, ignited two missiles, which in turn blew up. A third missile actually launched itself and traveled a crazy flight path before impacting on the shoreline. The blazing ship turned over immediately, a huge hole on its deck belching dirty, black smoke.
By this time, the two Tornados coming in from the north had banked westward to avoid any opposing fire, then twisted back so as to attack the ships on an easterly course. With one frigate destroyed and a cruiser heavily damaged, the smoke surrounding the ships was thick and obscuring.
This made no difference to the Tornado pilots; they were bombing on instruments anyway. They streaked in and simultaneously unleashed their loads on the other cruiser. Five of the eight bombs were direct hits. Two were near misses, and one skipped across the water to slam into one of the frigates. The cruiser, its structure unable to withstand the five massive explosi
ons, cracked in two places. One break came near its stern, the other right below on its bow. More explosions followed as water reached its engine room. Its sister cruiser, already mortally wounded, tried to spin away from the devastated ship. But it was too late. The doomed cruiser’s main ammo magazine erupted, exploding with the force of a hundred bombs, sending out a wall of fiery shrapnel that hit the sister ship head on. Its steering facilities destroyed, the crippled cruiser rammed its sister ship, and together they were sucked down in a whirlpool of fire and water.
The remaining frigates knew now was the time to escape. But two more Tornados were waiting for them. Three screeching bombing runs later, one frigate lay destroyed and two were beached and burning.
Their work done, the Tornados turned northward and headed back to the carrier.
Hunter had watched the destruction of the enemy ships from a height of 10,000 feet. Now it was his turn. He linked up with the two Harriers and proceeded even further down the waterway.
His target-identification device indicated two large ships approximately fourteen miles away. Judging by their electronic signatures, Hunter determined one was probably a helicopter assault ship, the other possibly a battleship.
He armed his payload and, with the Harriers in tow, dropped down to 1000 feet. He kicked in his target-acquisition system and armed his Sidewinders just in case. Sure enough, ahead of him was the distinct outline of a flattop.
“It’s a Moskva helicopter carrier,” he radioed the two Harrier pilots. “We can expect it to be jammed with antiaircraft weapons, maybe missiles. The other ship looks like an old pocket battleship. It also is probably well-covered with AA.”
“What do you have in mind, major?” one of the Harrier pilots, a man named Chester, asked.
Lucifer Crusade Page 29
