Iron Gate

by Richard Herman

  She panned the western ridgeline with the sun at her back as a Tomahawk flew along the ridge, using the same cratering munitions to sweep the ridge clear of AAA and SAM sites. For a moment, she panicked, not knowing which way to run. Another Tomahawk smashed into the eastern hillside. They’re targeting the munitions storage bunkers, she told herself. The headquarters building behind her disappeared in a fiery blast. She added Beckmann to her target list.

  Then it came to her. It was a well-executed surgical strike and the housing area was totally untouched. A truck was cutting across the open grass areas and headed her way. She dove into a clump of bushes.

  *

  Maggot was skimming along the top of the fog bank when he heard Puma lead call: ‘Abort, abort, abort.’ At the same time, he saw the first Aero.

  ‘Bandits, bandits,’ Gorilla shouted over the radios. He had seen them first.

  Maggot didn’t hesitate. The Warthogs had to shed their ordnance or they would be sitting ducks for the Aeros. ‘Jettison, jettison,’ he radioed. The ordnance from the ten Warthogs rippled off and disappeared into the fog. Maggot called up the air-to-air gunsight and turned into the first Aero he saw. He wanted to take the fight down to the deck, but the fog had taken that option away. Much to his surprise, the Aero overshot, like it had never seen him. The compass gray paint of Maggot’s Warthog had blended in with the fog.

  But Gorilla wasn’t so fortunate. The lead Aero was on him. ‘Gorilla!’ Maggot shouted over the radio. ‘Break left!’

  *

  The Compass Call EC-130 cut a lazy orbit twenty miles west of the Iron Gate. Pontowski and Waldo were stacked above it in a CAP and followed it around the sky. Normally, F-15s or F-16s escorted a Compass Call because there was too much talent and high-priced top secret technology onboard the EC-130 to put it at risk. Since no F-15s or F-16s were available, the Warthogs were given the job instead.

  Pontowski’s headset exploded with shouts as Maggot’s Warthogs engaged. Instinctively, he sorted the threat. Maggot and his Warthogs were fifteen miles east of the base, thirty-five miles from his position, and had been jumped by a dozen or more Aeros. Damn! he thought. How did the Aeros get airborne?

  ‘Do we go help ’em?’ Waldo asked over the radio.

  Pontowski made a hard decision. ‘We stay with Sparky,’ he replied. Sparky was the call sign of the EC-130 they were escorting.

  An unfamiliar voice came over the radio. ‘We appreciate that.’ Among other things, Sparky monitored communications, friend and foe, and could play havoc with radio transmissions.

  ‘Can you help them out?’ Pontowski asked.

  ‘We are,’ the voice answered. ‘They ain’t talking to each other.’ The ‘they’ were the Aeros and Sparky was jamming their radio frequencies with an ear-splitting, deafening noise.

  *

  The Aeros were sequencing on to the A-10s in pairs when they were hit with the high-pitched, shrill shriek of comm jamming. It was a painful, major distraction that could not be ignored. The two pilots in the lead barely had time to turn their radios off before they merged with the Warthogs. The pilots behind them automatically cycled to a backup frequency only to be met by the same screech. Then they turned off their radios.

  Sparky had taken away the Aeros’ communications and made it an even fight.

  Maggot had reacted instinctively when he saw the Aero going for Gorilla and his ‘break left’ call was in the time-honored tradition that when in doubt, put your nose on the bandit. Gorilla had not seen the Aero and had reacted instinctively.

  Now both A-10s had their noses on the Aero, their throttles firewalled. Gorilla was head-on to the Aero and Maggot was at the Aero’s low four o’clock position. But Gorilla had bled off his airspeed in the hard turn and put his nose over to regain his cornering speed. All fighters have a speed range in which they best maneuver in a knife fight. The Warthog’s happens to be very narrow.

  An aerial engagement is fought largely on instincts because the pilot does not have time to consider rationally his next move. The pilot must have the ability to sort the mass of information flooding into the cockpit, instantly focus on what is critical, and then react instinctively. Those instincts are the product of hours of flying training and years of experience. A green or low-time pilot dies because of poor instincts that have not been developed. Contrary to popular imagination, time does not stand still nor is it compressed in an engagement. A pilot must be aware of the time factor as well as his position in space, for disorientation can kill as quickly as inexperience. Altogether, it is called situational awareness.

  This fight lasted another forty-five seconds.

  Gorilla squeezed off a short burst of cannon fire to distract his adversary. Then he bunted his nose over and disappeared into the fog deck below him. Immediately, he was on instruments and pulling, breaking out of the fog. The ground was somewhere down there and his radar altimeter was useless in the rapidly changing mountainous terrain.

  Maggot was at the Aero’s four o’clock position when Gorilla took his shot. Maggot automatically turned right, anticipating the Aero’s reaction. The Aero also turned to the right, coming into Maggot’s gunsight. If either A-10 had been carrying a Sidewinder, the Aero would have been dog meat. But the A-10s escorting the Compass Call EC-130 had the only Sidewinders. The Aero pilot solved Maggot’s problem and kept his turn coming, right into Maggot’s gunsight.

  Before he could gun the Aero out of the sky, Gorilla bounced out of the fog and into the Aero. It looked like a minor midair, the wings of the two aircraft barely brushing. But the forces were horrendous and both aircraft went out of control. Maggot honked back on his stick and ballooned over the two fighters. He rolled violently to the left and pulled his nose to the ground as another Aero shot past, canopy to canopy, its gun firing. Maggot had not seen it until the very last moment. The Aero pilot nosed over and ran for safety, disengaging as another pair of Aeros sequenced in for a hit and run.

  Maggot caught sight of a parachute disappearing into the fog bank. Whose?

  More shouted commands as the two Aeros blew on through, never slowing down. ‘Circle the Hogs!’ Maggot shouted. He fell in behind two other A-10s as they came around to take on another element of Aeros coming into the fight. An A-10 fell in behind Maggot. Jumping into a chain of Warthogs was not a recommended tactic for increasing one’s longevity because at least one Hog would always be in a position to bring its cannon to bear.

  But this time, one of the Aeros had the time, position, and range to launch a Kukri, the South African version of the Sidewinder. The lead Warthog flared. The fight turned into a true furball as two more Aeros swooped into the fight. Of these four, only one made any attempt to turn with the Hogs. For the others, it was one pass, haul ass. Maggot was almost in position to fire on the turning Aero when another Warthog cut in front of him and gunned the Aero out of the sky. The radio traffic was deafening.

  ‘Chief, come back right!’ Chief Twombly was in trouble.

  ‘Say position!’ Someone was confused and lost.

  ‘Goat! Bandit seven o’clock!’ A good call that saved Goat Gross.

  ‘Where they go?’ The fight was over and the Aeros were gone. The radios were eerily silent.

  Maggot forced his breathing to slow, another instinctive reaction learned from experience. Hyperventilation in combat was a real danger. ‘Join up,’ he ordered. ‘Ops check.’ Now fuel was a concern. Maggot remembered checking his once during the engagement but he couldn’t be sure if the others had.

  One by one, the Warthogs checked in with their call sign and fuel remaining. Goat Gross was last. He had taken battle damage and was flying on one engine.

  Because they had launched from Desert One, they were good on fuel. But there were other problems — three A-10s had not checked in. ‘Chief,’ Maggot called, ‘say state.’ No answer. ‘Bull, how copy?’ Silence. ‘Gorilla, you copy?’ The radios were silent.

  Pontowski’s voice came over the UHF. ‘Recover at homeplate,
’ he ordered.

  The attack on the Iron Gate had been a bloody fiasco.

  *

  Friday, April 24

  Near Paarl, South Africa

  *

  Piet van der Roos was working with his father in a vineyard when he heard the sound of approaching jets. Like all aviators, he looked up. A flight of four Warthogs in route formation passed overhead. His eyes followed them. ‘They are returning from an early-morning training mission,’ he told his father. ‘Pontowski is a devil when it comes to training.’

  Then he heard more. He followed the sound until he saw a formation of three A-10s flying line abreast. He glanced at his watch: ten minutes to eight in the morning. It was too early and too many aircraft for a training mission. His eyes squinted, trying to see if they were carrying ordnance. But they were too high to tell without binoculars.

  He counted the minutes, waiting. Two more Warthogs came into view, flying much slower. One was trailing smoke and from even his distance, van der Roos could see the left vertical stabilizer was missing. ‘They’ve been in combat,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘Who with?’ his father asked.

  ‘There’s only the Iron Guard.’ Piet van der Roos looked up again. ‘They lost either one or three aircraft.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘The Americans fight in twos or fours,’ he told his father.

  ‘Is three bad?’ the elder van der Roos asked.

  ‘One is bad enough. But three out of twelve is a twenty-five percent loss rate.’

  ‘You like the Americans,’ his father said. It wasn’t a question, only a simple statement of fact. ‘Were your Pumas part of it?’

  ‘Probably,’ Piet answered. ‘They’re good lads and would want part of the action.’

  ‘Why do they do this?’ the old man asked.

  ‘I don’t know, Papa.’

  The old man looked at his only son. He was glad Piet was back at home and out of harm’s way. But he also knew his son. ‘Do what you have to do,’ he grumbled.

  Piet walked out of the field, past the small group of workers trimming the vines back, and climbed into the waiting Range Rover.

  *

  Friday, April 24

  Iron Gate, near Bloemfontein

  *

  Sam was shaking, partially from the cold but also from the aftershock of the attack. She had counted twelve explosions before the shelling stopped but smoke still billowed into the sky, surrounding her with dark pillars. She poked the lens of her camera out of the bushes where she was hiding and panned the eastern ridgeline which was capped by a line of fires. She saw people running toward the main base and pulled back into the foliage. How long before they would start searching for her?

  Sam turned the camera in her lap and ejected the cassette. It was almost played out. She unzipped her fanny bag and fished out a fresh cassette. God, I’m thirsty, she thought. Behind her, the wail of sirens echoed down the valley.

  Move now, she told herself, while there is still confusion, before they start to search. She grabbed her camera and ran for the housing area, pointing and shooting as she ran. She skidded under the low branches of a tree next to a playground. Again, she focused on a house, documenting damage from the attack. Her camera only recorded broken windows. But she knew what flying glass could do. She panned to the next house and froze.

  A man was walking directly toward her.

  Itzig Slavin stopped short of the tree Sam was hiding under. He motioned for her to follow him and they walked quickly back to his house. He held a finger to his lips, signaling her to be silent. She followed him into the kitchen and collapsed into a chair. His wife handed her a glass of water and went back to cooking breakfast. ‘We can talk here,’ he told her, pointing to one of the bugs that had been masked. ‘But no loud noises and stay away from the windows.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, handing the glass back. ‘More, please.’ He refilled it and handed it back. ‘How did you know I was out there?’

  ‘MacKay told us and we were watching for you. Where is he?’

  Sam shook her head. ‘Who’s MacKay?’

  ‘The black American who works for Beckmann. Are you alone?’

  Sam nodded. ‘I was trying to escape.’ Slavin set a large breakfast in front of her and Sam ate, surprised she was so hungry. When she was finished, she was shown to the bathroom and then taken into the dining room. Six legionnaires were lying on the floor. Three of them were asleep.

  Bouchard raised his gloved left hand in recognition. ‘Miss Darnell,’ he said, ‘please join us.’

  *

  Beckmann was standing at a center console in the command bunker asking questions and issuing orders. Not once did he hesitate as he drove his staff, recovering from the attack. He knew exactly what he wanted and how to make it happen. MacKay’s view of the man had been conditioned by a narrow association, mostly through Kreiner, and this was an entirely new side. The bastard is good, MacKay thought. One part of him may be crazy, but not this part. And he has his priorities absolutely right.

  A critical key to any military unit is how fast it can reconstitute after an attack and get ready to fight again. The first clue came when the Aeros landed. The runway had been cratered and made unusable by a Tomahawk’s runway denial munitions. Yet, it only took Beckmann’s engineers eighteen minutes to fill in enough holes for the Aeros to land. The Tomahawk had been wasted on the wrong target. The Tomahawk that had swept the ridgeline with the same munitions had been more effective.

  MacKay made a mental note to pass that information on to the weaponeers and mission planners. If he ever got out of there.

  The more MacKay watched Beckmann, the more he understood. The man was a genius who hovered on the edge of sanity. MacKay listened as the major in charge of security, MacKay’s immediate superior, blustered his way into trouble. The American photographer was missing and the major kept repeating, ‘She cannot escape.’

  Beckmann stared at the major and said nothing. Then, ‘Really?’ It was the same word, spoken in the same way, that MacKay had heard twice earlier. MacKay had no illusions about his own capabilities and at that moment, he knew he was no match for Beckmann. And he had told Beckmann that the response to the alert had been a shambles. Beckmann knew it was a lie. Or did he? The cold fear of uncertainty captured him.

  Two facts emerged in the aftermath of the attack. First, the Iron Guard was a very small organization, much smaller than MacKay had been led to believe. For most of its manpower, it relied on a reserve-type militia made up of ‘commando’ units. Secondly, and equally important, all command flowed from Beckmann. There was no downward shift of authority. None. It was a product of his paranoia.

  At one point, Beckmann turned his attention to MacKay and ran a mental scorecard. Why had the American lied about the response to the alert? Yet, MacKay had been the one to push him into action that had ultimately saved his Aeros and spoiled the attack. His feverish mind arranged the pieces in a pattern that made sense to him. He understood the black American. ‘Return to Interrogation,’ he told MacKay. He watched MacKay go and turned to more pressing matters. First things first.

  ‘When will the telephones be on line?’ he demanded.

  ‘Twenty-four to thirty-six hours,’ came the answer. Beckmann’s silence demanded an explanation. ‘There was extensive damage to the headquarters building where the main relays were housed. We still have the base radio system.’

  ‘Estimated time in commission for the radar?’ Beckmann asked.

  The tactical commander made a radio call and asked the same question. ‘In approximately nine to ten hours,’ he told Beckmann. ‘By 1800 hours at the latest.’

  Sparky, the EC-130, had monitored the radio call.

  *

  Friday, April 24

  Ysterplaat Air Base, Cape Town

  *

  The base was organized chaos as the A-10s taxied in. The aircraft were marshaled into the revetments and maintenance crews swarmed over them, ch
ecking them for battle damage, refueling, and uploading ordnance. At the same time, Intelligence debriefed the pilots for the first reports that had to go out while Lydia Kowalski and Lori Williams, Pontowski’s Executive Officer, demanded his attention.

  ‘How’d it go?’ Kowalski asked.

  ‘It was a shambles, a fuckin’ massacre,’ he told her. ‘The Aeros were up and we lost three Hogs.’ The look on his face matched the bitterness in his voice. ‘And another one ain’t gonna be flyin’ for a long time.’

  ‘De Royer is in the command post,’ Kowalski said.

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ Pontowski growled.

  Now it was Lori’s turn. ‘Colonel, the guard at the main gate called. Elizabeth Gordon is there and is demanding to see you.’

  ‘Tell the guard to arrest her if she even looks this way.’ He handed his flying gear to Lori and asked her to take it to personal equipment. ‘I’ve signed for the survival vest,’ he told her. ‘Make sure the Beretta gets turned in.’ He barged through the door into the command post. ‘Are you in contact with Sparky?’ he asked the on-duty controller. The captain nodded. ‘Are they in radio contact with any of the pilots?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the captain answered. ‘Gorilla, ah ... Captain Moreno, is talking on his survival radio. A Puma is going in after him.’

  The load that had been bearing down eased a notch. ‘Anything on Bull or Chief?’ A shake of the head. ‘Who called the Puma in?’ Pontowski asked.

  ‘General de Royer,’ the captain replied.

  De Royer was sitting in front of a bank of telephones and radios, his back ramrod straight. Four of his staff from the UN command center were with him. ‘Thank you, sir,’ Pontowski said. What do we do now? he thought.

  De Royer answered his unspoken question. ‘We have a small element of surprise on our side and we must attack again, before the Iron Guard recovers. I need to speak to your planning staff, the Compass Call aircraft’ — de Royer fixed Pontowski with the old dead-fish look — ‘and your CIA chief of station.’

  Pontowski turned to the controller. ‘Recall Sparky and get Maggot and Kowalski in here.’ He glanced back at de Royer. The general was pacing the floor, ticking off commands to his own staff. Pontowski shook his head as he remembered the dossier Mazie had shown him on de Royer: ‘... an extremely aggressive battlefield commander prone to take high risks’.