Drone Strike: A Dreamland Thriller (Dale Brown's Dreamland)

by Dale Brown

  Where was Lieutenant Kayvan?

  Two figures were crouched near the rear of his MiG. One was one of the maintainers who’d arrived a short while before. The other was his wingman.

  “The planes!” yelled Vahid, starting toward them. “Kayvan! We’re taking off. We’re taking off!”

  16

  Iran

  TURK STEADIED THE PHANTOM AS HE CLEANED THE landing gear, coming off the runway a bit slower than Old Girl would have. He had more weight and weaker engines: two 500-pound bombs were strapped under his wings, and a pair of old model Sidewinders on the outer rails. But on the positive side, the plane was loaded with more than enough fuel to make Kuwait.

  The first thing he needed to do was jettison the bombs. As he banked westward, he checked the armament panel—old school but easily operated. He reached to the switch to select the weapons so they could be jettisoned. Then he remembered the control unit, still hidden in the ruins near the village.

  Why not drop the bombs there?

  COLONEL KHORASANI STARED AT SERGEANT KARIM AS he ran down the hill from the control car.

  “Colonel, one of the teams searching the old ruins found a computer in the rocks,” said the sergeant between gasps for air. “Electronics. Computers.”

  “Where?” demanded Khorasani.

  “Platoon two,” said Karim. He pointed to the left side of the ruins. “It would be in that direction.”

  “Go back and tell the commander to meet me,” said Khorasani. “I’ll walk.”

  He let his binoculars fall to his chest and began walking down the embankment. The reinforcements were still fanning out around the area, moving in slow motion. For all the braggadocio of its lower ranks, and all the connections of its leaders, the Revolutionary Guard was at its heart a disorganized bunch of rabble one step removed from the streets.

  Khorasani was truly baffled about what had happened. While the carnage he’d seen indicated a large, efficient force, anything above squad size would have shown itself by now. Were the Americans or the Israelis fielding invisible soldiers now?

  He would figure it all out later. For now, they must be destroyed.

  The squad commander was a sergeant, an older man, fortunately. They were the only ones worth a whit in the Guard. The man raised his hand to salute.

  “Where are the items that were found?” Khorasani asked.

  A jet passed overhead, drowning out the man’s answer. The sergeant glanced upward, but Khorasani ignored it—it was about time the air force got involved.

  Another problem.

  “The computer?” he asked as the jet banked away.

  “We found it in that house below,” said the sergeant, pointing. “It was under some rocks. We left it in case the positioning was significant.”

  On the other hand, the older ones knew nothing about computers.

  “Let’s have a look,” the colonel said, starting for the ruins.

  THE PHANTOM’S GROUND-ATTACK RADAR WAS WORKED from the rear seat, and there was no chance of getting Stoner to activate it without a lengthy explanation. But Turk figured he could do a dead-reckoning drop—point the nose and let ’em go.

  He took a practice run first, getting the feel of the plane and his target. It wasn’t as easy as he thought. He realized as he cleared that he would have overshot by quite a bit, and that was before gravity pelted him in the face and chest. He’d have to come in slower and wait even longer.

  The soldiers on the ground would undoubtedly realize something was up. Next pass and go.

  As he circled to take a second run, Turk tried to remember the last time he had done a dead-reckoning dive on a target. He couldn’t remember doing it ever, though he was sure he must have practiced at some point. In fact, the only situation he could think of that was even remotely close involved a video game when he was thirteen or fourteen.

  At least he’d been good at that.

  Turk steadied his aim as he lined up, using the nearby house for reference and trying to calculate where momentum would put the bombs.

  Five hundred pound bombs. All I have to do is be close.

  He pickled and pulled off. The plane jerked upward, glad to be free of the extra weight.

  Not like in a video game, that.

  The Phantom continued over the city, passing the railroad tracks and the open desert to the west of Istgah-E Kuh Pang. More Pasdaran vehicles had arrived, and there were pools of men gathering at the center of town. Turk banked south, pushing the Phantom over the area where he had bombed.

  Black smoke and pulverized brown rock lingered in the air. The corner of the building had been replaced by a double crater. There were bodies on the ground.

  Mission complete. Time to go home.

  17

  Iran

  VAHID STARTED THE MIG ROLLING. THE SMOKE FROM the fire made it impossible to see much of the airport in front of him, let alone where the attackers were. He guessed that they must be near the runway, but decided he would have to take his chances and try rushing by them. Staying on the ground would surely cost him his MiG.

  The fire blocked the normal access to the runway. Instead, Vahid turned his plane along the narrow road in front of the terminal building. Meant to be used by cars, it was lined by light poles. Seeing the MiG’s wing coming close on the left side, he pulled one wheel off the cement, riding cock-eyed all the way to the service access road before turning onto the ramp that led to the middle of the runway. Gaining speed as he went, Vahid turned right, trundled to the end and pulled a U-turn on the uneven and ill-repaired concrete apron before lining up to take off.

  The F-4 near the fuel truck spit a fireball across the field. Flames licked across the wings and up the tail, small curlicues feasting on the paint.

  Vahid heard One Eye shouting at him: Go!

  He hit his throttle and rocketed down the white expanse, lifting into the morning air. Worried that whoever had attacked the planes on the ground had shoulder-launched missiles, he let off flare decoys, jerking the nose of the MiG upward, pushing the plane for all she was worth.

  He started to breathe easier as he climbed through 5,000 feet. No longer worried about shoulder-launched missiles, he began a climbing orbit around the airfield, rising as he spun around looking for whoever had attacked the base. He didn’t have much to attack them with—besides his cannon, there were a pair of radar missiles and another pair of heat-seeking missiles on his wings—but he’d at least be able to give their location to the units on the ground.

  Assuming the ground answered. Vahid had taken off in such a rush that he hadn’t even contacted the tower. He tried doing so now, only to belatedly realize he had inadvertently knocked the radio off when climbing into the cockpit.

  One Eye would never have let him live that down. Vahid hit the switch and heard the controller practically screaming into his ear, demanding he respond.

  “Shahin One acknowledges,” he told the man. “I’m off the field and looking for the attackers.”

  “Be advised—someone has stolen Badr Two.”

  “Repeat?”

  “Badr Two took off without authorization.”

  “Who took it?”

  “Unknown. The pilots are on the ground. It may have been one of the Israelis!”

  “Impossible,” said Vahid. He turned out of the climb and circled toward the control tower, certain that the enemy forces had taken it over.

  “Captain Vahid, are you receiving? This is Major Morad.”

  Morad was the leader of the Phantom squadron; they’d been joking over tea just a few minutes before.

  “Major, where are you?” asked Vahid. “What’s going on with the control tower?”

  “Captain, I’m in the tower. I’m on the ground. We’re all on the ground. One of my aircraft has been taken. Pursue it.”

  “I have it heading north,
” answered Vahid. “What are my instructions?”

  “We’re getting in contact with General Shirazi.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t one of your pilots?”

  “They are all here. It must be a commando, stealing our secrets.”

  That is very doubtful, Vahid thought.

  “I am setting up an intercept,” he told the major. “Stand by.”

  18

  Iran

  TURK PULLED THE HARNESS AGAINST HIS SHOULDER, tightened it as far as it would go against his shirt. He felt naked, and in a sense he was—no pressurized suit, no survival gear, not even a “hat.” While the Phantom’s cockpit was pressurized, he knew he had to be careful not only about his altitude but his maneuvers—a sharp turn might knock him unconscious, perhaps permanently.

  If he had to stay low and level, his better course out of the country would be north—get up and out through the Caspian, where the air defenses were far weaker. It was a little farther, but it was in the direction of the units that were supporting the SEALs. It also might seem counterintuitive to the Iranians; they’d expect him to go toward Kuwait.

  Level at 5,000 feet, he turned north and moved the thrusters to max, winding the J-79-GE17 turbojets up like tops ready for a good spin. The Iranian Phantom gobbled fuel; Turk could practically see the needles dive toward empty. He backed off his thrust, deciding that 350 knots was a decent speed, a compromise that would conserve fuel while making good time. At roughly six miles a minute, it would get him to the coast before the Iranians could scramble their northern fighters. Once there, he could goose the afterburners for a few seconds and ride the wave to Baku in Azerbaijan.

  There was one last problem: he had no way to use the radio. Breanna and the others were undoubtedly tracking him; he assumed—hoped—they would alert the authorities there as he approached. Landing itself would not be a problem. The runway had been built for Soviet military use and was more than long enough to get in comfortably.

  He thought of using the sat phone. That might work.

  Not now—he had too much to do and worry about in the unfamiliar plane at low altitude. He’d wait until they were over the water and out of Iranian territory. There was nothing they could do at the moment anyway.

  Fifteen minutes to the coast, by his watch.

  Turk rocked back and forth in the cramped cockpit, checking his gauges, studying the instrument panel. The main controls for the Phantom’s radar were in the rear compartment, and while he had made sure the unit was on before taking off, he now had no way of doing much more than that. Against the Iranian air force, the Phantom’s early X Band radar would still be a perfectly acceptable tool, but he had almost no control over it beyond the ability to lock a single target at relatively close range. The Pulse Doppler mode that had been preset was useful, allowing the pilot to “see” targets ahead as long as he could interpret the old-style screen. Targets moving “on beam” or at the side in the direction of the plane were essentially invisible, a problem if he was pursued from either flank. But the radar was fine for what he wanted; it would help him avoid problems. If he saw contacts ahead, he’d go around them.

  For now, the sky was clear. Fourteen minutes to the coast. They were going to make it.

  VAHID COULD SEE THE F-4 FLYING AHEAD FIVE MILES. IF it was being flown by an enemy, he wasn’t being too obvious about it. He was relatively low, at 5,000 feet, and going only about 350 knots: not slow, exactly, but hardly running away.

  He was going north, in the general direction of the Tehran air base where the Phantom wing was ordinarily assigned, which was a puzzle. It seemed more logical to Vahid that the pilot should be heading toward a safe haven.

  But Major Morad was adamant that the plane had been stolen. He hadn’t radioed back with additional directions; apparently he was still waiting on General Shirazi.

  Vahid closed the distance to the F-4 slowly, aiming to draw in tight to the plane’s left wing. The Phantom, meanwhile, made no move to avoid him.

  It also didn’t answer on the assigned radio frequency, or even the rescue band used for emergencies. That was suspicious, though not enough to shoot the plane down.

  Vahid drew to about thirty meters of the Phantom, matching his speed as he pulled parallel to the aircraft. He could see two men in the cockpit. They didn’t seem to have helmets.

  The man in the rear looked at him. Vahid waved and pointed, motioning that they must follow him.

  THE VIEW OUT OF THE COCKPIT WAS SO RESTRICTED and Turk was so focused on what was in front of him that he didn’t even notice the MiG on his wing until it was practically touching.

  When he did see it, his shudder shook the plane.

  He drew a deep breath, trying to plot what to do.

  Ignore it.

  He held steady, deciding that if he acted nonchalant, the pilot would break off and leave him alone.

  Unfortunately, that was pure fantasy, as the MiG soon demonstrated with a swoop over his front quarters. The other plane passed so close that the missiles on its undercarriage nearly hit Turk’s right wing.

  Two of those missiles looked like radar homers, Russian R-27 Alamos. The others were heat-seekers, early Sidewinders, from the looks of them. Any one of them could turn the Phantom into a dead hunk of tin in an instant.

  Turk waited until the plane reformed on his left wing, then waved to the pilot, signaling that he didn’t have a headset.

  I’ll stall for time, he decided. I’ll get close enough to the coast to make a dash for it.

  But the MiG pilot wasn’t having that. He signaled adamantly that Turk had to follow him, pointing with his finger to the ground and gesturing violently.

  “OK, OK,” said Turk, feigning compliance as he gestured with his hands. “Where do you want me to go?”

  The pilot moved his hand left. Turk pretended not to understand.

  Turk thought he might catch the MiG by surprise if he went to his afterburners. If he did that, he might be able to get enough of a lead to outrun it, at least to the border. But there was no way that he could outrun the radar missiles, which had a seventy kilometer range.

  THE PILOT IN THE PHANTOM SEEMED SOMEWHAT OUT of sorts, gesturing wildly, willing to comply but keeping his plane on the course it had been flying. Vahid guessed that the man was one of the mechanics who’d been working on the plane when it was attacked; he didn’t have a helmet, and while he was doing a good job of keeping the airplane straight, he didn’t seem capable of turning or even going very fast.

  Major Morad’s claim that the plane had been stolen seemed ridiculous. Even in Iran, the Phantoms were obsolete. Undoubtedly this was a story the squadron commander was concocting to cover up whatever was really going on.

  Life in Iran was becoming unbearable.

  Vahid radioed for instructions. Neither Morad nor the controller answered. Having the Phantom follow him back to the base they had just taken off from seemed like a foolish move if it was still under attack—a reasonable guess, given Morad’s radio silence.

  Vahid pushed the MiG slightly ahead, easing in front of the older plane by thirty or forty meters.

  “Follow me,” he said over the emergency radio frequency, even though the pilot didn’t seem able to reply. “Take a turn slowly and gently—bank. Use your stick.”

  There was no answer from the plane. Instead, Morad radioed him, finally answering his earlier calls.

  “I have spoken to one of the general’s aides. We need you to switch to Western combat control.” The major added the frequency and the name of the controller, a colonel whose name sounded like arrr as the transmission broke up. Vahid tried to puzzle out the name but couldn’t work it against his memory, nor did the voice sound familiar after he found the frequency.

  The colonel, though, seemed to know him, and immediately asked if he had the Phantom in sight.

  “I have it on my
wing,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at it. “The pilot appears to be a novice. I think he is one of the maintainers who panicked when the base was under attack. He can fly straight, but otherwise—”

  “You are to proceed to Tabriz air base,” said the colonel, cutting him off. “We are scrambling fighters to meet you.”

  The airfield, located outside the city of the same name, was the headquarters for Tactical Squadrons 21, 22, and 23. But it was some 370 kilometers to the east; Tehran would have been much more convenient.

  “I’m not sure how much fuel he has,” radioed Vahid. “Nor do I think he can maneuver. I don’t think he’s much of a pilot. From the looks of him, he’s a maintainer who panicked to try to save the plane.”

  “You have your orders, Captain. We will have escorts in the air within ten minutes.”

  “Roger.”

  “If the plane does not comply, you are authorized to shoot it down.”

  “Destroy it?”

  “Affirmative. Attempt to do so over open land. But that should not be your deciding factor. Take it down at all costs if it doesn’t comply.”

  TURK WAITED UNTIL HE SAW THE PILOT GESTURING FOR him to follow. The man seemed almost desperate, moving his hands vigorously.

  He needed to wait until the last possible moment. It was a contest of time now; time and distance.

  The odds were not in his favor. But when had they ever been?

  Turk rode the Phantom steady, watching the indicated airspeed carefully. He felt a little light-headed, but was sure that had nothing to do with the plane—they were at 4,000 feet now, and even if the cabin were wide-open he ought to be able to breathe normally. So it was nerves, a problem he could handle. He slowed his breathing, relaxing his muscles as best he could. He leaned gently on the stick, nudging the Phantom so it seemed like he was turning in the direction the MiG wanted.

  His other hand settled onto the ganged throttle, waiting.

  The MiG pilot saw him moving and began his bank, aiming to lead him wherever it was he wanted to go. Turk started into the turn very slowly, then, as the MiG started to pull ahead, he killed his throttle, practically stalling the Phantom. The MiG floated into the middle of his windscreen. Turk hit the trigger, spitting a burst of 20mm rounds out from the plane’s centerline.