by Robert Gandt
“It’s old stuff, CAG. No big deal, just a personality conflict.”
“Personality conflict, my ass. That’s like calling the gunfight at the O. K. Corral a friendly argument. My gut hunch is that there’s a story about how this shit started with you and DeLancey.”
Maxwell deliberated, drumming his fingers on the table for a moment. CAG’s hunch was right: There was a story, and it went back over a decade. But it was one he couldn’t tell. Not now. Perhaps not ever.
“Sorry, sir. It’s personal.”
As CAG glowered at him, Maxwell peered across the room at the far bulkhead. He allowed his mind to fly back in time, to a black January night over Iraq.
Chapter Eight
Night One
USS Saratoga
1930, Wednesday, 16 January, 1991
He remembered how eerily quiet it had been on the flight deck. No jet engines running, no tugs, vehicles, catapults, arresting engines. The air was still. You could hear a whisper. Saratoga had not yet turned into the wind.
“Those guys are counting on us,” Lieutenant Commander Gracie Allen was saying as they walked across the deck. “The F-15s, the B-52s, the Stinkbugs — they’re gonna get their asses shot off if we don’t take out the radars first.”
They were walking line abreast — Allen, Maxwell, Rasmussen, and DeLancey. Maxwell could hear the clunk of their flight boots on the steel deck.
“When we get close,” Allen said, “take your individual strike lines and assigned altitudes. That’s the only way we can de-conflict, because we’re gonna be too busy to watch each other.”
The briefing had been efficient, without hyperbole. They had devoted the past month to studying their likely targets, planning run-in lines, rehearsing tactics.
Maxwell was a new lieutenant, a nugget only three months in the squadron. His section leader was a slow-talking lieutenant commander named Gracie Allen. The leader of the second section was Lieutenant Commander Raz Rasmussen, a jovial, blonde-haired guy with a quick wit. Rasmussen’s wingman that night was a cocky, flamboyant lieutenant named John DeLancey.
Even in those days DeLancey and Maxwell hadn’t hit it off. Neither could explain the bad chemistry between them, but they both understood that it was an instinctive thing. To DeLancey, the more senior and experienced squadron officer, Maxwell was too cerebral, too introspective to be a fighter pilot. Maxwell, for his part, disdained DeLancey’s noisy swaggering and posturing. The two men avoided each other.
Gracie Allen had overall lead of the four-ship flight, with the call sign “Anvil.” Their job was to shoot HARMs — anti-radiation missiles intended to snuff out Iraq’s air defense radars. The mission was critical because the inbound strike aircraft — other F-18s, F-15s, F-111s, B-52s — all depended on them. The HARM shooters had to take out the deadly barrage of radar-directed anti-aircraft guns and SAM batteries or the coalition air forces would be decimated before they reached their targets.
In the stillness of the evening, they manned their jets. Twenty minutes later they launched from the deck of the Saratoga. They were headed for Baghdad.
<>
The winter night was clear and smooth. The SEAD — Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses — package amounted to nearly forty jets, F/A-18 Hornets and A-7 Corsairs from Saratoga, America, and Kennedy. They remained in a single cluster until reaching the splitup point, 120 miles from the target.
The lights of Baghdad glimmered on the horizon. Already they could see flashes, explosions, tracers arcing into the sky. It meant that the stealth fighters — the F-117 “Stinkbugs” — were in the target area.
Maxwell tried to make sense of the hysterical chatter on the tactical frequency. Everyone was transmitting at once, cutting each other off.
As dash two, he was flying on the left flank of the four-ship. He was nearly overwhelmed trying to keep track of his leader, check his radar, check his position and distance to go, listen to the relentless chatter on the radio. In the blackness he could no longer see Gracie Allen out there on his right. At the split point, each of the Hornets had taken a two-mile separation and five-hundred feet of altitude difference from the adjoining jet. From now until the missile launch point, each pilot was on his own.
Then, cutting like a knife through the chatter: “Bogey! Twelve o’clock, thirty miles!”
Instantly, every pilot’s head went to his radar. Where? Whose twelve o’clock? Is it a MiG?
Maxwell tagged him. On his radar he was getting an EID. — Electronic Identification. It was a MiG-25, codenamed “Foxbat.”
The other three pilots in Anvil Flight picked him up at the same time. Twenty-five miles, closing fast.
But they couldn’t shoot. At least not yet. According to the rules of engagement read to them at the mission briefing, an electronic ID was not good enough. There were too many allied warplanes in the same airspace. The Hornets were required to obtain a positive identification from the AWACS. Or get a VID — Visual Identification — which at night was impossible.
Maxwell heard Gracie Allen on the tac frequency: “Request clearance to fire on the bogey.”
“Who’s that?” said the AWACS controller. “Say your call sign.”
Maxwell watched the blip on his radar. Twenty miles. The MiG was coming directly at him. Maxwell selected air-to-air mode on his weapons selector. Five more miles and I’m gonna shoot.
Gracie was yelling on the radio. “Anvil Flight has a bogey at twenty miles! We need clearance—”
Bleep.
“—clearance. Do you have PID? State your —”
Bleep.
Each transmission was being overridden by another.
Fifteen miles.
Maxwell saw something in his radar, at the far extreme of his gimbals. It looked like —
Shit! Another bogey! A second MiG, two miles abeam the first.
“Trailer!” Maxwell transmitted. “Two miles —”
Bleep. He was cut out. He tried again to send a warning. Then he heard something that chilled his blood: His RWR was howling at high pitch.
A missile was in the air. Coming at him.
<>
Captain Jabbar had no illusions about what would happen. The night sky was filled with enemy fighters. The mother of all battles had been joined.
“Make your peace with Allah,” his flight leader, Lieutenant Colonel Al-Rashid told him before they took off. “We will be joining him tonight.”
He and Al-Rashid had barely reached altitude in their MiG-25s when they observed the line of enemy fighters. Jabbar’s heart nearly stopped. It looked on his radar like an advancing armada. The line stretched a hundred kilometers. All flying north, toward Baghdad.
Jabbar’s Sirena was chirping, but it did not yet indicate that they were being targeted. They had the advantage, for the moment.
On the radio, Rashid reported, “I have a lock on the far right fighter. Take the left.”
On his own radar, Jabbar slewed his target acquisition box over the blip of another enemy fighter. He prepared to shoot.
A second later, Jabbar saw the white plume of Rashid’s Acrid missile rocketing off into the night.
<>
“Anvil 41, spiked and defending!” Maxwell yelled into the radio.
He yanked the Hornet into a max-G break. The RWR was warbling like a crazed parrot.
Hard right and down. Outturn the missile. Pull!
He hit the chaff button, then hit it again, dispensing bundles of the aluminum foil to decoy the Acrid missile’s guidance system.
He was turning into the other three Hornets of his flight, but he knew the evasive turn would take him underneath and behind them. In the darkness he couldn’t see other fighters. No enemies, no friendlies. It was like knife-fighting in a blacked-out room.
Over his shoulder, he saw the white torch of the missile coming for him. He stabbed the chaff button once again.
It worked. The missile went for the chaff. Then it wobbled, lost guidance, went dumb.
&n
bsp; Maxwell kept pulling. Now to get back on the run-in line. Get the nose pointed back at the bogies.
He found himself under the second section, a couple of thousand feet beneath Rasmussen and DeLancey. He checked his radar, then peered out in the darkness.
Above and to the left — a plume of fire! An air-to-air missile leaving its rail. By the distinctive torch of the missile, Maxwell knew that it was an AIM-7 Sparrow missile. The thing looked like a fire-tailed comet.
Raz had taken a shot. But in the heat of battle, he hadn’t called a Fox One.
<>
Damn, thought DeLancey, watching the trail of Rasmussen’s missile rocketing into the night. He was out of position, a mile too far back. He had been playing catch-up, trying to juggle all the radio calls, checking his position, setting up the armament panel before they got to the HARM-firing point.
Now that goddamn Rasmussen was about to bag a MiG.
DeLancey went to his radar, trying to sort the bogey. Wait! Over there, gimbals left, was that another bogey? Were there two?
Which one had Rasmussen taken his shot at?
DeLancey didn’t care. Quickly he locked up the lead bogey.
Whoom! His Sparrow missile leaped out ahead of the jet, aiming for the unseen enemy.
“Anvil Forty-one, Fox one,” Delancey called on the radio. “Bandit on the nose.”
<>
Jabbar knew that Rashid’s missile had missed. It should have impacted by now. The enemy pilot had somehow evaded the Acrid.
Now he and Rashid were too close to get off another shot. In fewer than fifteen seconds they would merge with the enemy fighters. Jabbar’s only hope was that they could somehow convert to a stern attack.
Then he heard it: Chiiiiirrrrrp! Chiirrrrrp! The Sirena. It was howling.
The enemy had awakened to the fact that the MiGs were out here. Chiiiiirrrp! Chiirrrrrrp! A radar-guided missile was inbound.
Toward whom? Him or Rashid?
“Break!” he yelled to Rashid. “Break to the —”
Kablooom!
The fireball of Rashid’s MiG lit up the sky.
For a moment Jabbar closed his eyes. Then he opened them and saw the flaming debris of the MiG falling toward the black desert. So Rashid was the first to keep his appointment with Allah.
The Sirena resumed its slow chirp. Jabbar could not believe his luck. They had targeted Rashid’s jet without spotting his wingman. But Jabbar knew it wouldn’t last. He had to close the remaining distance between them quickly, before they acquired a missile lock. Get behind the bastards.
Jabbar shoved the throttles past the detent. Baroom! He felt the two big Tumanksy afterburners jolt him forward like the kick of a mule. He knew he was trailing two great columns of fire, perhaps giving away his position.
So be it. Now he needed speed. Speed was life.
<>
Maxwell saw the bogey explode. He felt like cheering. Attaboy, Raz!
Then, seconds later, coming from behind — another missile.
DeLancey, Maxwell realized. It had to be. DeLancey was behind Rasmussen, displaced to the right. What was he shooting at?
Fascinated, Maxwell watched the second missile arcing. . . arcing. . . veering downward. . .
Toward the wreckage of the destroyed MiG. With a brilliant flash, the missile exploded in the burning hulk of the Foxbat.
Then Maxwell spotted something else. Off to the right, two bluish streaks of flame. Afterburners? Yes, thought Maxwell, peering into the night. The long blue flames were the twin afterburners of a Russian-built fighter.
Another bogey. But where? He scanned his radar, searching.
Nothing. The bogey had vanished. That was bad news.
<>
Jabbar hauled the MiG-25’s nose hard left. He completed the 180-degree turn as he came out of afterburner.
Still no warning from the Sirena. He was behind the enemy fighters. And they didn’t know. The trick now was to lock one of them up and —
There. On his radar. He judged that it was an F/A-18. If the geometry of his turn had been correct, then it was the same fighter that killed Al-Rashid.
It was appropriate, thought Jabbar. An eye for an eye. An F/A-18 for a MiG-25.
He selected ripple fire and squeezed the trigger. Whoom! Whoom! The two Acrid missiles streaked out beyond the long, pointed snout of the MiG.
Jabbar waited, listening for the shrill warning of his Sirena. It was slow-chirping. They still didn’t know he was there.
<>
In his peripheral vision, off to the left, DeLancey saw the streaks coming from behind. For an instant he was confused. What the hell? Was someone shooting from behind them? Was that goddamned nugget Maxwell taking a shot?
Or was it. . .
The MiG?
DeLancey felt a sudden stab of fear. How could the MiG have converted them? If he had gotten behind them, he would pick them off like grapes.
DeLancey keyed the mike, about to tell Raz to break hard right when —
Kabloom. An orange ball of fire lit up the night.
Dumbstruck, DeLancey watched Rasmussen’s Hornet plunge like a meteor toward the floor of the desert.
“What was that?” he heard Gracie Allen say. “An air-to-air kill?”
DeLancey removed his thumb from the transmit button. There was nothing to say.
<>
Captain Jabbar watched with satisfaction as the fireball plummeted to the earth. Rashid would not die alone tonight.
But now what? He had other Hornets on either side. He wasn’t painting them on his radar — and they weren’t painting him — because they were nearly abeam. But they certainly knew he was here. They would be searching for him.
In the distance, to his right and to the left, Jabbar could see the flashes of missiles being launched. Air-to-air? Air-to-ground missiles? Anti-radar? They were all rocketing off toward targets in Baghdad.
Jabbar considered his situation. He would love to kill more of the murderous bastards. But he was in the middle of a hornets’ nest. If he swung his nose right or left, he would appear on their radars. They would pounce on him like dogs on a rat.
Jabbar decided he would live to fight another day. He eased the throttles of the MiG-25 back to idle and commenced a sweeping descent to the left.
He had avenged the death of his leader, Lieutenant Colonel Al-Rashid. Most surprising of all, he was still alive. For having downed an American fighter, he could expect to receive the highest decoration his country could give him.
That made it a very good night indeed.
<>
From across the CVIC room, Maxwell watched DeLancey. He was describing with his hands how he had shot down an Iraqi MiG-25.
Adrenaline was still flowing. The mood in the debriefing swung from mourning the loss of their squadron mate, Lieutenant Commander Rasmussen, to elation at having conducted the first massive air strike against an enemy since the Vietnam War.
And killing the first MiG.
“I locked the guy up,” said DeLancey. “I made sure I had a positive I. D, then — Zap — shot him in the face with a Sparrow.”
The captain of the Saratoga loved it. He clapped DeLancey on the back. “Goddamn, I’m proud of you, son. You’re the real thing.”
“We got us a MiG killer,” chimed in the squadron skipper.
“Hey, now there’s a great call sign,” said the CAG. “Killer! Killer DeLancey!”
Everyone in the room cheered. It was perfect, they all agreed.
Maxwell watched, saying nothing. He waited until DeLancey was alone, basking in the glow of his new celebrity. DeLancey flashed a cocky grin as Maxwell walked over to him.
“I know who killed the MiG,” Maxwell said. “It wasn’t you.”
The grin evaporated from DeLancey’s face. “What are you talking about?”
“Rasmussen shot down the Foxbat.”
DeLancey’s eyes darted around the room, then riveted on Maxwell. “Rasmussen’s dead. How do you know
—”
“I was there. I saw it. It was Raz’s kill.”
DeLancey leaned close to him. “Listen, you fucking nugget. You don’t know what you saw. I got that MiG, and no one else. Are you calling me a liar?”
Maxwell hesitated. Yes, he realized, that’s exactly what he was doing. But what would it get him? He was a nugget. It was his word against that of a senior lieutenant. DeLancey had already been declared a hero by acclamation.
Maxwell had been in the Navy long enough to know what would happen. He would be hung out to dry.
“Okay,” he said, turning away from DeLancey. “Keep the MiG.”
He felt DeLancey’s eyes follow him out of the room. He knew the truth. And DeLancey knew that he knew. He had made a permanent enemy.
Chapter Nine
Latifiyah
Baghdad
2300, Thursday, 15 May
Tyrwhitt gazed out at the lights of Baghdad. It was warm outside, peaceful now, the lights of the city twinkling in the darkness like a blanket of diamonds. On evenings like this, Tyrwhitt could visualize what it must have been like that night in 1991.
It was the mother of all sound and light shows. Sirens, gunfire, tracers arcing through the blackness. . . Tomahawk missiles cruising like homing pigeons. . . the earth trembling with the impact of bombs. . . sudden eruptions of fire and brick and evil black smoke. . . the veil of darkness cloaking the invisible enemy. . .
From these very windows in the Rasheed Hotel the international press pool had witnessed the dismantling of Baghdad. Here in the Rasheed Hotel they watched the most spectacular display of military pyrotechnics in modern warfare.
When would it happen again?
Soon, Tyrwhitt thought. Sooner than anyone expected.
He turned from the window, feeling the onset of the old familiar loneliness that afflicted him on nights like this. He had had enough of Baghdad. Enough of Iraq and its problems. For too long he had lived in this squalid and oppressed place. He had lived with this same debilitating fear, dreading the day when the Bazrum would knocking on his door.
