by Mack Maloney
Each time Norton saw this, he felt a little bit better about recommending the National Guard pilots for this program.
But there was still one last sticking point: The operational details of the mission were still unknown to them. They knew pretty much where they were going. And why. But they didn't know exactly what they were supposed to do once they got there. And more important, when they were going.
But because of events on the other side of the globe, these questions were going to be answered very soon.
Chapter 14
Persian Gulf 0955 hours
The name of the oil platform was Qarah al Khalif #6.
It was a three-tiered, six-shaft exploration and pumping assembly located equidistant from the eastern shore of Iraq and the western shore of Iran, in the northernmost region of the Persian Gulf.
The platform got its name from a nearby island, and it was indeed one of a half-dozen sea pumping facilities in the area. It was owned by a consortium of oil wholesalers whose main office was located in Bahrain. Also known as Qak-Six, the platform and its five cousins held the distinction of being the only offshore pumping facilities in the region to continue operations during the Gulf War. In fact, the six Qak platforms had been protected throughout the conflict by U.S. Navy aircraft and ships, this even though both Iran and Iraq held a substantial stake in their ownership and operation. Such was the quality of crude pumped from their wells.
This was a special day on Qak-Six. It was the last day of the month. This meant not only payday for the 313 workers on the huge platform, but also the beginning of a ten-day vacation granted most of the workers once every five months.
Three ferries had been engaged by the platform's owners to carry the workers down to Bahrain for their furloughs. Bahrain was the destination of choice for the majority of the workers—Filipinos mostly—as it was considered the most westernized of the Gulf States. Translation: There was a night life there, and if one looked hard enough alcohol could be found, and even female companionship.
It was just before ten in the morning when the first ferry, fully loaded, pulled away from the platform's docking area. It was a cloudy raw day, not unusual for this time of year in this part of the Gulf, and the water was choppy. But this did not dampen the spirits of the workers, their pockets full of money, their bellies filled with the anticipation of stepping on dry land again.
The first ferry had just cleared the platform and the second one was maneuvering into place when a long, loud, guttural groan shook the rig. The noise was so sudden and so distinct that those few workers still left on the top tier thought it was one of the rig's automatic stabilizers suddenly losing its footing. But the platform itself was not moving, and the catastrophic shift to one side indicating a leg was failing did not occur. Thankfully, the problem was not with the rig itself.
That was when many people saw an airplane appear on the murky horizon and relaxed. In a freak of atmospherics, the growl of the plane's engines had proceeded it, carried, no doubt, by the twenty-five-knot westerly wind. This had caused the sudden thunderclap.
With much relief, the loading of the second ferry resumed.
It was not unusual to see aircraft flying by the oil rig. Both Iraqi and Iranian patrol planes passed by every few days, and occasionally a British, American, or even Saudi aircraft could be seen plying the skies this north in the Gulf too. Most gave the oil rig a wag of the wings and they would be off.
The second ferry was about halfway full when the plane finally went by the oil platform. It was flying very low and its engines seemed extremely loud. The plane was painted all black with a charcoal-like quality to the tone. Traces of a camouflage scheme could be seen on the wings and tail.
Many aboard the platform knew what kind of airplane this was: a C-130 Hercules, the ubiquitous American-built cargo hauler and general all-round workhorse of many nations' air forces. What did mildly surprise some people was that the airplane carried no markings, no tail numbers, no insignia to identify what country it belonged to—this, and the fact that its nose was so long and its fuselage so thick.
The plane passed about one thousand yards to the south of the oil rig and kept on going, disappearing into the mist to the east, possibly heading towards Iran, just forty miles away. The loading of the second ferry was nearly completed, and the third boat was being signaled to come in. That was when the people on the platform heard another thunderclap. All eyes turned east and to everyone's surprise, they saw the airplane had turned and was coming back.
The workers on the first ferry would have the best view of what happened next.
*****
The plane passed so close to the oil platform this time that the whole structure shook from top to bottom. The water below was suddenly foaming, kicked up by the plane's engine exhaust. Suddenly three long streaks of flame erupted from the side of the airplane. This fire came so quickly and was so vivid, many on the ferry thought the plane was in trouble and had doubled back, perhaps to attempt an emergency landing near the oil platform.
But a moment later, a geyser of flame erupted from the top of the platform itself. Had the plane flown so close to the rig that it had hit something? No—the plane was still flying. It roared right over the first ferry. Then came a tremendous explosion. It sent shock waves through the ferry and the water around it. All eyes looked up to see the oil platform's mast disintegrate in a puff of smoke. Now a second explosion went off, louder than the first. An instant later, the entire upper tier of the rig was engulfed in flames. Only then did the people on the ferry realize the airplane had fired on the oil platform.
And now it was coming back again. . . .
The airplane swept by the platform a third time, a continuous stream of fire pouring out of its left side. The oil rig began to shudder, and hundreds of small explosions peppered it up and down. Flame was suddenly everywhere. Many workers began leaping into the water, some on fire themselves. Others were trapped and quickly engulfed in flames.
The plane roared by again. Now a huge gun muzzle could be seen protruding from its left side. It was firing large-caliber projectiles at a frightening rate. The workers on the ferry saw the control house go up first in this fusillade. The main pump hut went next. Then the living quarters, then the turbine station. Oil was gushing wildly out of some pipes now and being ignited in many places.
Inside of ninety seconds, the oil rig was a burning wreck. Bodies were in the water; many more workers were badly burned on the platform itself. The plane went by twice more, delivering high-powered shells in such a methodical fashion, it seemed unreal to the people on the first ferry. Was this really happening? Why would anyone want to destroy Qak-Six?
Stunned, the ferry captain finally started pounding on his vessel's radio, intent on sending out an SOS. But as soon as he switched his comm set on, it made a loud crack and went dead, a victim of the gunship's high-powered electronic-jamming suite. The plane went by the oil rig one last time, but there was no shooting this time. This pass was just to survey its deadly work. The sixty-six workers on the first ferry stood on the rail, astounded by what they had just seen. The few people still left on the platform could not have survived the brutal assault—and those injured and in the water would not live for more than a few minutes in the choppy cold sea.
Still, the ferry captain had to make an attempt to rescue any survivors. So he ordered his vessel to turn about and head back toward the burning oil rig.
That was when those aboard the ferry saw the big plane turn once again—and point its nose right at them.
*****
The USS LaSallette was not an ordinary ship.
It was one of the oldest operational vessels in the U.S. Navy, its keel having been laid in the winter of 1955. It boasted very few weapons. Twin .50-caliber machine guns on the stern and bow were its only outward defenses. Its helicopter, a small OH-51, carried only rudimentary antiship missiles and a single .30-caliber machine gun on its nose mount. There were but a dozen M-16's on board,
with a total of three hundred rounds of ammunition available. The only other potential weaponry consisted of some smoke grenades and flares.
The LaSallette was not a warship per se. Its superstructure was a forest of antennae, satellite receivers, radar dishes, and microwave arrays. More than half its crew of 214 worked on monitoring data pulled in by these various devices. Officially, the LaSallette was a C3 platform, for command, control, and communications. In reality, it was a spy ship. It cruised the upper reaches of the Persian Gulf periodically, snooping on Iraqi radio and TV transmissions, gathering intelligence, watching for any military movements. It had been compared to a floating AWACS plane, and this was not entirely inaccurate.
This day it was on a typical SigInt mission. A number of Republican Guard units had been on the move in the upper part of Iraq recently, some heading south, others moving east. Routine maneuvers perhaps. But the LaSallette had been sent into the northern gulf to troll the airwaves for any indications as to what these elite Iraqi units might be up to.
It was by fate then that its course brought it steaming over the horizon just as the AC-130 gunship had finished off the last survivors of Qak-Six's number-one ferry. With its long-range snooping radar and TV equipment, the LaSallette was suddenly flooded with data emanating from the burning oil platform and the mysterious airplane orbiting above it. There was no doubt among those interpreting this information that the gunship had attacked the oil rig and had killed just about all of its occupants. The proof of this was pouring into the hard drives of the ship's main computers.
And for the first time in a year and a half of rampage and destruction, the people flying the gunship suddenly had a very big problem on their hands.
They had witnesses.
By the time the LaSallette's crew were called to their battle stations, the AC-130 was heading for the ship at full speed.
The captain immediately ordered his helicopter to launch. Gunners assigned to the .50-caliber deck guns scrambled to their positions. Everyone above the rank of CPO was issued an M-16 and a clip of ammunition. The communications shack was sending out messages to any and every Allied ship in the immediate vicinity—but the airplane's jamming suite prevented all but the first few seconds of any message to escape. It made little difference. The captain had already done a sweep of his immediate area. The nearest U.S. ship was sixty miles away.
The LaSallette was trapped and very much alone.
*****
The secure photo-fax machine in Smitz's billet started beeping at exactly 3 A.M.
The CIA man rolled over, sleepily checked his alarm clock, and then clicked the fax machine's Receive button.
A red sheet was the first to emerge. It was covered with black dots and a thick black band running diagonally down its side. This indicated the message he was about to receive was of the highest security—Eyes Only—and should be destroyed as soon as he was through reading it.
Smitz finally got out of bed and stumbled into his pants and shirt. He was used to these late-night interruptions by now. They had a certain rhythm to them. The fax would take sixty seconds to print out, long enough for him to reheat a half-filled cup of coffee from earlier that night. He slipped it into his microwave, and then visited the head. The fax machine and the micro beeped at exactly the same time. "Message received," he typed into its keyboard. The machine clicked twice and then went silent.
He took his coffee from the micro, burning his fingers in the process. Finally he sat down to read the missive.
The cover sheet was protecting a photograph Smitz recognized as being shot from an aerial recon camera called an ICQ-23. It was a secret type used on U-2's and some versions of the new RF-18 Navy recon fighter.
The photo showed a smoldering hunk of metal in the midst of an oil-slicked sea. Smitz didn't know whether he was looking at the remains of a ship or an airplane or something else. It took the explanation on page three to tell him this was all that was left of an oil platform in the upper Persian Gulf known as Qak-Six.
The summary was brief. There were 322 people dead. No known survivors. The rig was perforated with holes, big and small. They were almost symmetrical in their placement. Smitz bit his lip. There was no doubt in his mind what horror had been visited on the oil platform. The AC-130 had struck again.
No sooner had he finished reading the grim report when his fax began beeping again. He hit the Receive button and started another blurry photo printing out.
This one he watched from the first moment of its inception, and as it scrolled out, he felt his eyes go wider and his jaw drop lower. There was no mystery about this image. It was a high-altitude photo of a ship, one that was in the process of sinking. It was obviously taken from a passing satellite just seconds before the vessel slipped beneath the waves. In the very northwest corner of the photo was a very small indication that looked like the rear end of an airplane in retreat.
Below the picture was a simple caption. "USS LaSallette C3 vessel sinking this day 705 hours GMT. With loss of all life."
"Damn," Smitz breathed.
He was still staring at the photo when his phone rang. The noise startled him so much he whacked his head on the ceiling of his tiny billet. He leapt for the phone, snagged the receiver, pulled on the cord, and finally brought it up to his ear. His eyes passed over the hands of his luminescent watch. It was 3:15 in the morning.
Who the fuck could this be?
The man's voice at the other end sounded very far away.
"Hold for the President," he said.
Chapter 15
This night had started out pretty much like any other for Norton and Delaney.
They'd lifted off about 2300 hours with Norton in the pilot's seat of the Hind and Delaney riding up front.
Their first order of business was to transit fifty-five miles out in the Caribbean and do a routine navigation exercise around a spit of land called Whiskey Rocks. After this, they linked up with the other choppers and practiced formation night flying and refueling exercises. This completed, they all returned to base. While the other choppers were done for the night, Norton and Delaney took on more fuel, switched positions, and then took off again. They had two more hours of flying time available, and Delaney wanted to get more time behind the wheel. Yet no sooner were they airborne when they got a call from the base telling them to return immediately.
This had never happened before. They turned around, both thinking that the satellite window was closing sooner than anticipated. But as soon as they were down again, they saw the ground crew meander out of Hangar 2 to take care of the chopper. They didn't seem to be in any hurry, indicating a satellite pass-over was not the problem. It had to be something else.
With Delaney agreeing to watch over the care and handling of the Hind, Norton hurried over to the Big Room to find out what was up.
*****
He burst in, like a kid late for class, to find most of the usual suspects were there. Smitz, Rooney, Ricco, and Gillis, of course. The SEALs. The Army pilots. The CIA security people. As Norton was walking in, they were all starting on their way out. Everyone looked grim. No one said a word to him as they passed by.
"Jeesuz, what's happened?" Norton asked Smitz, who was trying to hurry out of the room himself.
"The people running the gunship just fucked up," he said breathlessly. "They sank a Navy C-3 ship. In the Gulf. Two hundred guys went down with it. They also nailed an oil platform, killed everyone on board that too."
Norton just stared back at him, letting the news sink in.
"A Navy spy ship? Damn, that's not good," he mumbled.
"As a result, we just got our orders, right from the top," Smitz told him, each word landing like a hammer blow to Norton's stomach. "We're moving out. Now."
"Now?" Norton asked incredulously. "You mean like today?"
"No, I mean as in 'now,' " Smitz replied. "Right now. The transport planes will be here in ten minutes. We take off in one hour."
Norton shook his head as if
to clear it.
"Wait a minute," he began to protest. "We're not ready to go anywhere. We've been barely flying those choppers for a week. No way are we ready for combat. I thought the plan was for thirty days of practice."
"Well, the plan just changed," Smitz said, turning to leave. "Don't ask me why, but when the gunship was shooting up refugees and villages, it just wasn't this high a priority. But now it is. So we're moving out."
He started for the door again, but Norton grabbed him.
"Wait a minute! We haven't even been briefed on the fucking mission yet," he protested. "Not on the operational stuff anyway. How are we supposed to know what the hell to do?"
Smitz pushed his hand away.
"We'll get our final briefing once we're on-site," Smitz said. "Now, I want you to find Delaney, get suited up, and both of you get down to the flight line, ASAP! I've got to go wake the Marines."
With that, Smitz ran out the door.
Norton was suddenly alone in the big empty room with the garish murals. The one by the front door looked particularly eerie at this moment. Norton stared at it, then felt a shudder run through him.
The three jumbo black women with pots on their heads were really laughing at him now.
*****
Ten minutes later, he stumbled into the preflight ready room.
He'd looked all over for Delaney. In Hangar 2, back at their billet, out on the flight line. But his partner had disappeared. No one seemed to know where he was. Nor was Norton in any mood to search any further for him. Let someone else deliver the bad news. At the moment, he needed time to absorb it himself.
