The Mercenary

by Dan Hampton

  The Mercenary

  A Novel

  Dan Hampton

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part 2

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  An Excerpt from VIPER PILOT

  Prologue

  About the Author

  Also by Dan Hampton

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Blurry curtains of rain dropped from the sky and obscured everything around the airfield. Layers of oily gray clouds tore away from the overcast and rolled heavily toward the nearby coast. Beyond the coast lay the sea. Blown flat by the wind, only the white crests of the breaker line flickered through the night.

  From the shadows on the far north side of the airfield a dark shape slowly crept forward. A big twin-tailed jet fighter taxied deliberately through the rain and slid to a stop at the end of the long runway. Showing no lights, the aircraft swung around and crouched on the concrete. Vapor wafted upward from the hot tail section and rain streamed from its gray metal body. Inside the warm, dimly lit cockpit the pilot barely spared the shining wet runway and black night a thought. It was a terrible night to fly by most standards but that was one reason he was doing it. Weather and bad conditions were just variables to him. Not obstacles.

  This was his business.

  He yawned and glanced again at the three big multicolored displays before him. Adjusting the brightness on the fire control radar, he was pleased to see the damn thing appeared to working. A Russian design manufactured by the Chinese—could that be any worse? Finishing the built-in tests, or BITS, on the air-to-air missiles, he noticed that one had failed. Not that it mattered. Tonight wasn’t about air combat. In any event, no one was going to intercept him and force a dogfight. He rechecked the weapons and attack display, called the WAD, to verify that the six cluster bombs beneath the wings were configured correctly. They were.

  Looking up, he squinted through the pelting rain at the fuzzy outline of the control tower and then glanced at the time readout on the Heads Up Display. He was early by a few minutes. Reaching around to the side console, the pilot pulled out a pair of night-vision goggles. Removing his helmet, he ignored the whining of the engines and attached the goggles to the mounting bracket. Replacing the helmet, he lowered the goggles, switched them on, and stared again at the control tower.

  Much better. Not daylight exactly, but green twilight was certainly better than black sludge. He made several small adjustments to the focus, then flipped the gogs back up to see the cockpit gauges. Russian and Chinese pilots didn’t fly with NVGs so the instrument and display lighting inside the cockpit wasn’t compatible. But the pilot wasn’t about to do what he’d come for without goggles.

  This jet was a big bastard, he thought, and glanced around the cockpit again. The SU-27SK was called a FLANKER by U.S. and NATO pilots, and a J11 by the Chinese. It was probably the best multi-role fighter ever produced by the old Soviet Union and more than a match for all but the latest American fighters. With weapons hardpoints for ten air-to-air missiles and more than 20,000 pounds of fuel, it was a dangerous adversary. He smiled slightly. Flown, that is, by the right man.

  A flicker caught his eye and the pilot looked up to see a green light blinking dimly through the thick haze. It was the “prepare to launch” signal from the control tower. There would be no radio calls tonight. At least not to him. He flipped the small handle by his left knee to arm the ejection seat, then put his hand on the throttles. Rotating the night-vision goggles down over his eyes, the pilot stared at the other parallel runway a mile to the right. The flashing anti-collision beacons of two other FLANKERS were plainly visible. He knew they were to take off precisely at 2145 hours and that they would do just that. They would fly a two-hour practice mission inland over the Qilan mountain range here in eastern China and then return to land shortly before midnight.

  He also knew that they knew nothing about him.

  Suddenly a pair of huge orange flames lanced through the darkness as the lead FLANKER lit his afterburners. Starting slowly, they sped down the runway and smoothly rotated upward. Orange changed to blue and then abruptly vanished, leaving only the disembodied strobe light climbing away into the clouds. Then the second FLANKER lit off and sped down the runway after its leader.

  Across the airfield, the pilot waited until the second jet began to climb and then pushed his own throttles forward. He felt his shoulders hit the back of the ejection seat as the fighter surged down the runway. Straining against the tremendously powerful Lyulka turbofan engines, the pilot leaned forward and stared at the ribbon of glistening runway before him.

  The FLANKER picked up speed fast as the burners kicked in. Without lights the pilot could only use the wet gleam from the center stripe to keep himself on the runway. At 170 knots he eased the stick back and braced his right forearm against his thigh. The big fighter’s nose lifted and the wings wobbled as the jet tried to fly. Left hand locked on the throttles, the pilot pulled the stick back a bit farther and felt the wings bite into the moist, heavy air. One bounce . . . another . . . then the main wheels left the runway and the FLANKER was airborne.

  Ignoring the HUD, he used the old-fashioned attitude indicator to keep the nose exactly ten degrees above the horizon. Rocketing upward into the dark drizzle, he pulled the throttles out of afterburner and slapped up the landing gear. He wished the burners hadn’t been needed but the jet was so heavy there hadn’t been a choice. The two other fighters would mask his noise and hopefully distract anyone who might be watching.

  That had been the point of launching them. But fifty-foot flames from his engines would be impossible to hide. On the other hand, Luqiao Air Base was hardly a metropolis, and in China no one questioned military affairs. Except the military. He shrugged under the shoulder harness. Nothing to be done about it now. In any event, it was too late to stop him.

  Two hundred feet . . . five hundred feet . . . the altimeter spun upward and he smoothly bunted the nose over to hold one thousand feet, then gently walked the throttles back to hold 400 knots. That was fast enough for the moment.

  Damn the metric system. Translating it was a nuisance and all the indicators and instruments were metric. He frowned under the mask and brought the FLANKER around in a smooth, gradual left turn to avoid the mountains south of Luqiao. This was his third flight in the SU-27 and he was glad he’d taken the other two. Despite the risk of discovery, he could at least now fly the thing and use the weapons systems. A simulator
was fine, and he’d spent five days flying that too, courtesy of the Chinese government. But nothing took the place of air under your ass.

  He knew the other two FLANKERS had turned right and circled above him before heading off to the west. Steadying up on an easterly heading, the pilot flipped the NVGs down, nudged the fighter over, and descended back through the clouds. At 500 feet he started paying attention again. Letting his eyes flicker between the altimeter and the blackness beyond the canopy, he forced his fingers to relax around the stick. Flying tense was never good.

  Three hundred feet . . . one hundred fifty feet . . .

  Easing the fighter still lower, he didn’t think about the absurdity of flying an unfamiliar jet over unknown terrain at night in the rain. It was simply an obstacle that he had overcome with skill and experience. The darkness shredded apart a bit as he came down out of the clouds. Eyes out now, he instantly found the ground and flew visually.

  There!

  A pale ribbon of sand stretched out north and south as far as he could see. The beach. The coast.

  Holding the jet rock steady at 100 feet, he switched on the autopilot and felt a slight tug as it engaged. Exhaling slowly, he relaxed his hold on the controls until only his fingertips were resting on the stick. Ignoring the sweat dripping down his cheek, the pilot focused intently upon the autopilot for a few long, skeptical moments. He then called up the navigation data and checked the route timing.

  Converting kilometers in his head, he read 107 miles to the air traffic reporting point of SALMI. This was a point, called a fix, which commercial airliners crossed on their way over the East China Sea, and it was his first destination. Walking the throttles forward an inch to hold 500 knots, he again glanced at the time display for his arrival at SALMI: 2204 . . . four minutes past ten P.M., and a little more than fifteen minutes from now. He disconnected one side of his oxygen mask and let it drop.

  Perfect.

  He smiled then, white teeth against his dark face, and shifted back against the ejection seat. With a roar lost in the thundering surf, the fighter streaked over the rainswept beach and disappeared out to sea.

  Captain Dei Wang yawned hugely and rubbed his red-rimmed eyes. He was nearing the end of his eight-hour shift and his breath stank of old tea and his uniform smelled stale. He was trying, unsuccessfully, to not stare at the wall clock. He yawned again and wriggled in his seat a bit. The Battalion Tactical Operations Center, called a BeeTock in English, might sound impressive but very little thought had gone into comfort. Still, it could be worse. He could be manning a ground radar site on a mountaintop or commanding a leaky patrol boat. At least he was warm and dry here.

  And bored.

  Wang shook his head at that. Less than a hundred miles west across a narrow stretch of water lay the most fearsome military power on this side of the world. And China had publicly vowed that this small island of Taiwan was now, and would be forever, part of China. This was precisely why Taiwan had purchased two battalions of the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) from the United States.

  Each battalion consisted of eight launchers with four missiles each, plus the associated radars and support equipment. This first battalion had been purchased and deployed after the recent round of threats from Beijing. American reasoning held that the PAC-3 system would act as a deterrent against Chinese aggression. No one had been sure of that, especially the Taiwanese. You could never be certain when dealing with the Chinese. Strangely though, Beijing had backed down and the entire island was now convinced they’d been saved by the American missiles.

  Wang glanced around the big five-ton trailer. It was full of displays and data-processing equipment that could control the entire battalion in the event of an air battle. The system was truly amazing, he thought. Targets were tracked and engaged through a phased array radar that could scan immense areas of sky in microseconds. Targeting information was then passed to the Engagement Control Station (ECS), where operators physically launched the missiles. The BeeTock interfaced with long-range search radars and air traffic control radars to provide the overall situation to the batteries.

  Supersonic within twenty feet of leaving the tube, the Patriot missile hurled its 200-pound warhead at five times the speed of sound toward the target. It could intercept enemy aircraft and missiles at any altitude and at ranges out to fifty miles. The Americans truly were technical geniuses. Once both battalions were operational the Chinese would not be able to control the sky over the Formosa Straits. Without control of the sky there could be no invasion. Taiwan would be safe.

  He yawned again and was thinking about another cup of tea when theInformation CoordinationCentral hotline buzzed. Wang frowned. The ICC was essentially a clearinghouse. Other Patriot batteries, Air Defense Headquarters, air traffic control—all could communicate with the BeeTock this way.

  The young sergeant hung up the phone and turned around.

  “Taipei approach control, sir.” He stood up and stretched. “Delta Flight 275 has called in over the APITO reporting fix . . . inbound to Taipei, on time.”

  Wang chuckled and nodded. “A bit nervous, are they? I suppose that’s understandable. We’ve only been operational for six days.”

  Wang knew about reporting fixes. They were points in the sky lined up in a row north of Taiwan and were used by air traffic control to sequence airliners into Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport. APITO was the farthest north in the chain and well beyond radar range. More to break up the boredom than for anything else he flipped open a binder of standard operating instructions, or SOPs. Idly turning the pages he found the one that depicted the string of fixes. APITO. There it was. The next point was 75 miles closer to Taiwan.

  SALMI.

  Ten minutes into his flight and fifteen miles west of SALMI, the mercenary toggled the ZHUK air-to-air radar out of standby mode. He would be emitting now and visible to any frequency-monitoring equipment but it was unavoidable. The FLANKER had an infrared tracking system but it was fairly inaccurate and wouldn’t function well in any type of wet weather. Like tonight. Using the radar had been discussed with the Chinese air force officers who’d put the mission together and they’d agreed the risk was acceptable. Taiwan had no such frequency monitoring equipment and the U.S. Navy was sitting in a Japanese port at the moment.

  He needed the radar. He needed it to find the airliner.

  Flying 500 miles an hour at a hundred feet over a pitch-black sea would make most pilots tense but the mercenary was professionally relaxed. He’d gotten more familiar with the jet and actually liked it. The heavy frame and huge wings made it more stable at low altitude than the F-16s he had once flown. The cockpit layout wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as a western fighter but he’d adapted.

  There.

  A green rectangle appeared at the upper right corner of his fifty-kilometer radar display. The aircraft, or contact, was about ten miles north of SALMI and they were approaching each other at right angles. He manually adjusted the range scale to twenty-five kilometers and locked onto the contact.

  Thirty-two thousand feet for the airliner . . . and he himself was flying at one hundred feet. Time to move.

  The pilot pulled the fighter to the right to set up an intercept heading, then shoved the throttles into afterburner. Surging forward under tremendous power, he let the jet climb to 500 feet, then looked up. It was still overcast and that was good. No one above the clouds would be able to see his afterburner plumes. Of course, h
e’d have to come out of burner above the clouds or the airline pilots might see him.

  Converting metric in his head, it was about eight miles to SALMI and twelve miles to the target. He glanced at the airspeed readout in the HUD. Just past the speed of sound . . . fast enough. As he pulled smoothly back on the stick, the FLANKER shot upward from the sea.

  Straining forward against the harness, he watched the inky darkness give way to gray as the jet sliced into the cloud deck. It looked like soggy cotton, he thought, concentrating on the attitude indicator to avoid spatial disorientation. Flying completely from his instruments, the mercenary’s gaze flickered constantly between the radar display and the attitude indictor.

  At seven miles from the target, he was passing 15,000 feet, and the airliner lay about thirty degrees left of his nose . . . 900 kilometers per hour . . . about 500 knots. Easing off the stick a bit, he shallowed out the climb. Still encased in the cloud deck, the pilot pulled right to increase the intercept heading and risked a quick glimpse outside. Nothing but muck. Greenish gray now because of the goggles but still muck.

  Five point three miles . . . passing 22,000 feet.

  He glanced at the fuel display, then the radar. Soon . . . it had to be soon. The pilot felt the familiar itching in his fingertips as adrenaline shot through him. Every sense was heightened, every feeling amplified. His reflexes were keyed and even his vision seemed sharper.

  Suddenly the jet shot out from the weather deck. Reacting instantly, the pilot pulled the throttles out of afterburner and the jet once again vanished into the darkness.