Strike Force Alpha

by Mack Maloney

  Ryder couldn’t believe it. He tried calling Phelan back, but the young pilot didn’t answer his phone. The dreadful silence made him think. Why was Phelan on this rampage? Just as Phelan’s words to him back on the ship seemed to inject him with a much-needed dose of humanity, had his rah-rah words to Phelan created the opposite effect? Everyone in Murphy’s group was suffering from battle fatigue in one form or another. Had Ryder’s little sermon pushed Phelan the other way, and right over the edge?

  Ryder switched back to the channel being used by the American fighter pilots; both Navy and Air Force guys were blabbing on here now. In among the cacophony of excited voices and radio calls, he heard Phelan, talking nonstop.

  It took Ryder about thirty seconds of listening to this channel to learn what had happened down here in the strait while he’d been farther up north. No airliner had come within a mile of the carrier. The carrier’s unusual defense had worked that well. But it was not just because the American pilots, both Navy and Air Force, were the best around. They also knew where the airliners were coming from. How? Because of Red Curry. The Navy had played the third level of the CD-ROM and learned just about all of the terrorists’ plans just minutes after the attack had begun in earnest. This intelligence included the flight paths the hijacked planes were taking to attack the carrier.

  The death and destruction that resulted was appalling. It brought to Ryder’s mind another incident from World War II. Toward the end of the war with Japan, in June of 1944, swarms of experienced American fliers fell upon hundreds of Japanese planes being flown mostly by inexperienced pilots. The Americans knew where the Japanese planes were, knew from what direction they were coming. The result was a slaughter in the skies. The historians called it the Battle of the Philippine Sea. The pilots involved called it the Marianas Turkey Shoot.

  Another burst of excitement exploded from the VHF channel. One last airliner had appeared. It was another 737, coming from the east, flying very low, almost on the surface of the water. Though it had caught some people off-guard, it soon had many fighters firing on it, with the support ships adding everything from SAMs to CIWS to the mix. The plane was coming apart one piece at a time along its two-mile death glide, but somehow it kept on going. Running this gauntlet, almost totally engulfed in flames, only caused more ships and more planes to fire at it. The voices on the radio reached a new crescendo as it seemed nothing could stop this one last airliner. It was now within a mile of the carrier.

  That’s when Phelan appeared from out of nowhere. He put a cannon barrage squarely into the airliner’s left wing. There was a fuel tank here and it exploded, sending the airplane cartwheeling across the water. It finally hit so close to the Lincoln, the carrier was engulfed in a tsunami of smoke and flames. The big ship almost disappeared completely before finally emerging from the other side of the black storm.

  And then, just like that, it was over.

  The swirl of U.S. jet fighters slowly began to break up. The ships below had reached deeper waters of the Gulf and were in the process of dispersing. Suddenly everything got quiet on both radio channels.

  Even Phelan had stopped talking.

  A minute later, Ryder was down to just 500 feet, skimming the surface of the water. No one was paying any attention to him now. He was here because he had to experience for himself that almost indescribable moment just after a great battle has ended. The air down here was still full of debris. Pieces of lightweight flaming material were blowing like sparkling snowflakes in the wind. The water was still smoldering, full of oil and gas, pieces of airframes, tires, seats, safety vests, and, he was sure, many, many bodies.

  Farther to his south, the airspace immediately around the carrier looked like an airplane junkyard moving in three dimensions. The extent of damage from friendly fire was also more apparent near the water’s surface. At least six Navy fighters had been shot down accidentally, either by the ship-borne weapons or by missiles fired by other planes. Many more Tomcats and Hornets were gliding around, wings or engines smoking, not quite damaged enough to bail out of but obviously in need of a place to land as soon as possible. The Lincoln began recovering those aircraft most seriously damaged first. A traffic jam of limping airplanes quickly lined up behind them.

  Ryder exited the area and climbed back up to 15,000 feet. He settled on a spot about five miles north of the battle group’s current position.

  He hit his radio again. So many Navy pilots were talking, Ryder couldn’t understand any of them.

  “How many?” one pilot kept yelling over the others.

  Finally all the noise left the channel as the audio feed from a briefing aboard the carrier was piped in for all the pilots to hear. The carrier’s CO came on. He began reading a tally sheet, his voice amazingly calm, almost eerie, it was so monotonic. Two planes were reported down in the Saudi desert, one crashed, one in a forced landing—those were the planes Ryder had dealt with. Then some unexpected good news: Delta guys had regained control of three other aircraft and had forced them to land, two in Oman and one in Iran. The Navy had shot down all the others. One of these had also crashed in Iran, but there were early reports of some survivors. The rest of the planes were now floating in pieces on the waters of the Gulf.

  Then came a silence. It lasted for several long seconds.

  Finally someone asked: “So we got them all?”

  “Roger that…” the monotonic voice replied.

  If there was any cheering, everyone must have done it with their microphone turned off. Ryder didn’t hear a thing for the next 10 seconds. Then the carrier’s CO resumed talking. There was no way around it, he said. Four airliners saved meant six had been destroyed. Grim by any standard. But even in this came a small victory, especially for Ryder’s conscience. According to the Lincoln’s CO, three of the four jets saved were fairly large planes, almost jumbo jets. They’d been carrying more people than all the other airliners combined. So, as he put it, more people were saved today than had been killed. But Ryder had to wonder: Was that really a victory?

  Someone asked the CO to repeat the tally. Ryder counted on his fingers as the officer spoke. Four saved, six shot down. Ten for 10.

  But suddenly Ryder realized there was something wrong here. Something that had been lost in the fog of war.

  True, 10 planes had been hijacked in the unsuccessful attempt to sink the carrier. But on the terrorists’ CD-ROM Kazeel had specifically stated “a dozen large airplanes” would be involved in the operation.

  All 10 of the hijacked airliners had been accounted for.

  But where were the other two planes?

  Marty Noonan and his KC-10 Extender refueling craft had spent the last 30 minutes circling high above the strait. He and his crew had watched the astonishing battle from six miles up.

  What had happened below still didn’t seem real. The chaos of metal and men was frightening and not something for which Noonan was prepared. His tanker’s UHF radio had become so cluttered with anxious and excited voices, Noonan had turned it off and had simply watched in silence as the fantastic events unfolded.

  Aloft again on yet another double-up training mission, he and another tanker from Bahrain had been rushed to the scene as soon as the first reports of the hijackings had come in. Luckily, they were very familiar with the airspace due to all the flying they’d done above the Gulf recently. In those countless training missions with their Bahrani copilots, the American tankers had flown down to Hormuz, to go around in circles, sometimes for hours, before flying back to Bahrain again. Now they were actually down here for a reason, or so they thought. In all this time, not one of the U.S. warplanes below needed to come up for a refueling. Everything had happened that fast.

  But that was OK, too. The two KC-10s just continued doing what they did best.

  Circling and waiting….

  Once it appeared that everything was calming down below them, Noonan turned his UHF radio back on. There was still a storm of excited voices and static, but now he thought he
was able to decipher what was going on. Ten airliners had been hijacked; 10 had either been shot down or landed somehow. But now other people were coming on the airwaves and saying that there were still two more planes out there. But where?

  Noonan almost laughed. He put this comment down to the excitement of battle and how easily things could get confused. If there were two more planes, why weren’t they showing up on the Navy’s hot-shit radar? Besides, he was flying the highest of any plane connected with the battle. He searched the skies now and found they were clear to both horizons.

  “Two more planes?” he was saying. “There ain’t two more planes left up here.”

  That’s when he saw a glint of metal off to his right. He turned just in time to see his Bahrani copilot coming at him, not with a pot of coffee but with a box cutter, its blade extended to its fullest length….

  Ryder had finally got through to a couple Navy pilots on his radio. He’d explained to them who he was and why he thought two more planes might be out there. They’d agreed to pass his information on to the carrier’s CIC.

  The moment he broke off with them, he saw the huge KC-10 tanker suddenly appear above him.

  Ryder recognized the aircraft right away. It was Noonan’s Extender. He could tell by the image of the red Pegasus—the Mobil Oil flying horse—emblazoned on its tail.

  But what was it doing? Active refuelers rarely came down below 20,000 feet; at least that’s how Ryder was familiar with them. This one, though, was falling like a stone.

  And right behind it was another.

  Ryder switched channels for his chin mike. For one foolish moment he thought he’d be able to radio the two tankers directly and tell them they had to clear the area immediately, that this was still a combat zone and nowhere for two planes full of gas to be….

  But that’s when it hit him. Could these be the last two airplanes?

  “Phelan!” Ryder roared into his cell phone. But the young pilot was already on the case.

  “Those coffee-making bastards,” he was cursing wildly. Then he added: “I’m climbing….”

  This was not good. The tankers were still about seven miles away from the carrier, but there was no doubt now that they were intent on crashing into it. But Ryder had lost contact with the Navy pilots and couldn’t raise them again. Both UHF and VHF channels were still overloading, and any other U.S. aircraft not damaged in the great battle were at least two minutes away.

  Bottom line: he and Phelan were the closest to the two refuelers. It would be up to them to stop them.

  Ryder looked at his ammo counter. He still had exactly 24 cannon shells left. He was sure Phelan had less. In fact, the way the young pilot had been thoughtlessly blazing away earlier, there was a good chance his gun was completely dry.

  “Ammo check!” Ryder called up to his wingman. Phelan was now about five hundred feet above and ahead of him.

  There was no reply.

  “Lieutenant Phelan…give me your ammo count!” Ryder said again.

  Again Phelan did not acknowledge his request. Instead, he just said: “I’ll take Noonan’s plane….”

  Ryder had no time to argue with him. They were now about a half-mile behind the tankers, even as the tankers closed to within five miles of the carrier. Ryder went left and began lining up on the second refueler.

  He thought he’d already spent his time in hell, but at least in this instance things were more clear-cut. These weren’t airliners filled with innocent people. They were guided missiles filled with thousands of gallons of gas. The tankers had to be shot down, simple as that. As for the American personnel onboard the planes, Noonan included—well, Ryder had to assume just like the Delta guys on the airliners the Navy had shot down, they’d fought the hijackers but lost. The chances were great that they were already dead.

  But Ryder knew he had to use his head. With only two dozen shells left, he had to shoot this thing down well before it reached the Lincoln. Even a near miss on the carrier could prove catastrophic.

  He booted full throttle and suddenly was going faster than he thought possible in the jump jet. He came right up on the tanker’s tail and immediately fired off six cannon shells. Only three hit, and they caused no discernible damage. He fired off three more, but again to no avail. He smacked himself upside the head. What was he doing? He wasn’t going to take down this monster by firing on its rear end.

  He pulled back on the throttle, then dived below the huge aircraft. The tanker was full of JP-8 aviation fuel, highly volatile. Fuel, the lifeblood of this crazy adventure, first not ever enough of it and now too much. There was only one place to hit this plane.

  Ryder pushed 45-degree deflection nozzle and raised the Harrier’s nose 10 degrees, all in three seconds. It was a maneuver only a jump jet could do. His cannon was now pointing at the bottom of the descending aircraft, right where the wings met the fuselage. He let off three more cannon shots. Incredibly, they seemed to bounce right off. What were they? Duds? He didn’t know. He tried again, three more, practically single-fired. Everything seemed to go in slow motion even as the distance between him and his target was shrinking. He could see these shells going right through the center of the big plane—but so far to no effect.

  He was running out of time. He kept the trigger depressed and watched his ammo count dwindle. Just nine shells left. Now six. Now just four….

  He let the last three go at once—and that’s when the sky suddenly turned pearl white. Just for a second. Then it turned to yellow, and yellow to orange, then to nothing but red. Ryder had finally hit something on the big plane and it had caused a violent explosion. Again instinct took over. One of his hands yanked his plane up and over; the other went full positive deflection. In other words he went flat out, straight ahead.

  He would retain a memory that he actually flew through all those flames, and maybe he did. But he also found himself going sideways over the top of the tanker’s fuselage as the bottom half of the plane was falling away. He was moving at an incredible rate of speed, pushed along by the force of the huge explosion, but it was just too much for the Harrier to take. It flipped over and began spinning out of control. His panel lights were blinking like crazy. His engine was coughing and about to stall. For one brief moment he thought if he just let it go and plowed in, maybe he’d see Maureen again soon. But in the same instant he knew she would have disapproved. So he was able to dredge up an old test pilot’s trick. He applied heavy right rudder and used just about the last of his gas to go full throttle. The Harrier began bucking as if it was being pulled in two directions at once. But that was the whole idea. The engine spazzed once, twice…but then came back on at full power.

  He recovered flight, went wings level, and tried to get his bearings. He felt like he’d been hit on the head with a hammer. His stomach was turned inside out, too. But when his vision cleared he could see the tanker going down in four large pieces right below him. It hit the water with a mighty crash, causing yet another huge explosion, this one birthing a mushroom cloud of white smoke and water vapor. And then, just as quickly, it was gone.

  Ryder took in a deep breath of oxygen and felt it run through his body. Then came a startling question: Where the hell was Phelan?

  No sooner did the thought arrive than the other tanker went right over Ryder’s head. It was bearing down on the carrier—and Phelan was riding right beside it. A bizarre moment ensued. It almost looked like Phelan was flying in formation with the big fuel plane, following it down. He had no ammo left; that much was clear now. And neither did Ryder. But for some reason the young pilot had pulled up almost level to the tanker’s cockpit. He seemed to be looking inside. The two planes were now less than two miles from the carrier.

  What was he doing?

  Suddenly Ryder’s phone rang. It was Phelan.

  All he said was: “Go see my mom. Tell her what happened out here today.”

  “We’ll both tell her when it’s over,” Ryder replied, not really getting what Phelan was saying. />
  That’s when he saw Phelan bank his Harrier as sharp and clean as if he were coming in for another perfect landing. This time, though, he just kept on going—and slammed into the nose of the KC-10.

  There was one long weird moment when the two planes flew along, almost cojoined. But then Phelan’s Harrier blew up—and a moment later, the second refueler blew up, too.

  Now just a mass of burning metal and igniting jet fuel, the wreckage went straight down and crashed into the sea about a mile north of the carrier.

  Chapter 31

  The Persian Gulf was in chaos.

  The massive terrorist attack had been thwarted and the USS Abraham Lincoln had survived intact. Praise for the U.S. military was flooding in, but the world markets immediately began roller-coastering, even more so than before. Oil prices especially were all over the map, spiking both historic highs and lows within 20 minutes of the news coming out of Hormuz. Was the U.S. victory a good thing or not? No one could really tell. Al Qaeda had been dealt a serious blow, maybe its last. But hundreds were dead. Most of them passengers on the hijacked airliners, most of them Arabs. Cries of revenge were already coming from nearly every radical Muslim nation. But just who would pay the price was uncertain.

  Suddenly the Middle East seemed more unstable than ever.

  All this was certainly not good news for the six men who were at that moment leaving Prince Ali’s palace outside Riyadh in a caravan of limousines.

  The Next Big Thing had been a bust and their fingerprints were all over it, especially Ali himself. That’s why he and the others had their trunks packed and were leaving the Saudi Kingdom as quickly as they could.

  Their destination would be Switzerland, as they had many friends there. The question of transportation had been a slight problem, though. Once word of the foiled attack reached them, they knew there was no way they could all fly off in their private jets, making their way to Zurich individually. That would have been way too suspicious. Plus the U.S. Air Force and Navy were throwing every airplane they had into the skies above the Gulf, acting as if they were expecting another attack. Furthermore, American troops were being rushed to just about every civilian airport in the region in order to scrutinize every passenger jet thoroughly and prevent any further hijackings. Even the Saudi national police were supposedly looking for the instigators of the plot, which meant the government needed some warm bodies to arrest. No, flying six Gulfstreams out of Riyadh anytime soon was out of the question. There would be no better way to attract attention to themselves.