The Mingrelian

by Ed Baldwin

  The Iranian pilot fires two Sidewinder missiles, and they lock on to their target. He sees the ridge approaching and pulls up to avoid following the raider into the mountain. Losing contact with his target in the clouds, he knows his radar cannot reacquire it. He breaks to the south and returns to Imam Khomeini International Airport.

  The klaxon on Emmet’s console is joined by a high pitched alarm.

  “Missile!”

  The first missile was fired from the left wing of the Phantom. Now at Mach 2, it is locked on to the heat signature of the C-130’s left outboard engine. As the old C-130 dips over the ridge, the missile loses sight of the heat signature at the same moment it detects proximity. It explodes. The second missile is locked on to the heat signature from the right outboard engine, but when it loses the heat signature it isn’t close enough to detect proximity and passes harmlessly overhead.

  The first missile is just over the left outboard engine when it explodes in a massive fireball. Shrapnel shreds the outer third of the wing, penetrates the cargo bay and blows out the pilot’s side window. Raybon Clive’s head explodes, splattering the cockpit with blood and brains.

  Boyd Chailland takes control of the aircraft and feels it pull sharply into the dead engine, which is burning fiercely. The radar altimeter reads 200 feet above ground level and visibility is zero.

  “Davann, get in the jump seat. Read off the engine fire checklist.”

  Raybon’s shattered body fills the left seat as wind rushes through the now gaping window. Boyd hands the checklist to Davann.

  “Slow down, gradual right turn. Plenty of room,” Emmet says calmly. “Keep your nose up.”

  “Throttle to idle,” Davann says.

  Boyd pulls the No. 1 engine throttle to idle.

  “Pull Fire Handle.”

  Boyd reaches over his head and pulls the large red Fire Handle, which shuts down the engine and blows a fire retardant into it. Nothing happens. He’s practiced this in the simulator and talked about it in class. He reaches in front of the throttles and pulls the Condition Lever all the way back, feathering the prop. The drag is less. He shuts off the fuel valve to the burning engine, but it continues to burn. He pulls back the throttles of the other three engines and begins a gradual right turn.

  “Rick, damage report,” Boyd says over the intercom. “Look at the tail, the wings, look for fuel leaks, fires, check for casualties. Call back on the intercom.”

  “Gradual climb, heading two eight zero,” Emmet says.

  “That wing is going to burn off in about two minutes,” Boyd says, shaking his head as he looks out the pilot side window at the fire consuming the left outboard engine. “Where can we put this thing down?”

  “Increase your rate of climb,” Emmet says. “We’re climbing Mount Damavand, there’s a smooth slope on the other side. Two minutes.”

  “We want to land uphill.”

  “Roger.”

  “JUBA to PECOS, Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!”

  Emergency protocol would be to give his location and describe his damage and his plans, but he is well within Iranian airspace and doesn’t want to give them any clues as to where he might be found in the slight chance that he doesn’t crash. He assumes the wing will fall off any second and they’ll have about enough time for a Hail Mary and then they’ll be done. Not a religious man, he sees no point in reciting some words. God knows who he is; if he made the grade, fine. If not, it’s too late now to change it.

  “One dead, three injured, tail intact, no fuel leak, left outboard engine burning,” comes the damage report from Shands.

  “PECOS to JUBA, bailing out?”

  “Negative.”

  Chapter 43: New York

  This is Brian Williams at the NBC News Center with breaking news. As we continue our nonstop coverage of the nuclear war in the Middle East, we have late breaking news from Israel. We are live with our chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, in Tel Aviv. Richard, what can you tell us?”

  “Thank you, Brian. The government of Israel has just released the latest casualty figures from its nuclear exchange with Iran. The updated estimate of fatalities has now reached 50,000, with an estimated 100,000 injured. Already, 70,000 have been treated at emergency hospitals set up around the nation. The towns of Safed, Dalton, Jish and Amirim were completely destroyed, and anyone there is assumed to be a fatality. Those towns are shown on this map, Brian. This larger, shaded area west of the Sea of Galilee has sustained extensive damage with many buildings destroyed by blast and fire. That area continues to be highly radioactive, and anyone able to leave has been told to leave immediately.

  “The weapon that was exploded by Hezbollah has been determined to have been a plutonium bomb of approximately 1 megaton. To put that in perspective, Brian, the bomb over Hiroshima was the equivalent of 16 kilotons of TNT, so this one would have been 60 times larger.

  “The two smaller weapons detonated by Israel along the Golan Heights and the border with Lebanon were in the 10 kiloton range. Casualties there include the invading Hezbollah fighters, estimated at 10,0000.

  “Prevailing winds have carried the radioactive plume south into Jordan and threaten the cities of Jerusalem and Amman. Civil Defense officials there are releasing guidelines for protection but have not recommended evacuation.”

  “Richard, what have you learned of the missiles launched from Iran into Israel? Were they nuclear?”

  “Yes, Brian. Israel reports examination of the debris from the 10 medium-range ballistic missiles launched by Iran and intercepted by Patriot Missile batteries in Israel has revealed that four of them were plutonium bombs, the other six were conventional.”

  “What about the Gaza Strip, Richard?”

  “Brian, there were no nuclear detonations in Gaza. There was a mass assault by Hamas fighters, but they were slowed by the extensive fortifications built up there, and when they breached those fortifications, they ran into withering artillery fire. Israeli forces have restored their border.”

  “Thank you, Richard. This has been Richard Engel in Tel Aviv.

  “Now to other breaking news. The Arab news agency Al Jazeera reports that Niavran Palace, home to the Grand Ayatollah and Supreme Leader in Tehran, is surrounded by an angry mob and that shots have been fired. In this unconfirmed report, Revolutionary Guard militia have taken responsibility for the safety of the Supreme Leader. It is not known if the Grand Ayatollah is in the palace or elsewhere.”

  Chapter 44: Mount Damavand

  “W

  e’re over the top,” Emmet says.

  The radar altimeter reads 1,000 feet, the regular altimeter is at 14,000 feet. They break out of the clouds, and sunlight streams into the cockpit, accentuating the red blood splattered over the windshield and instruments.

  “Look over at 10 o’clock. That’s the flattest area. Can you put it down there?”

  “Have to,” Boyd says, seeing a wide field of snow without protruding rocks. It is at least a 20 per cent slope. He pulls the throttles of the three functioning engines and pushes the yoke forward to begin a slow descent as he circles to the northern side of the mountain and begins to line up an approach for landing. He clicks the intercom button.

  “Rick, come up here to help with a casualty.”

  Then he speaks to Davann.

  “We need to move Raybon. We’ll have to use both seats to land.”

  “Oh,” Rick Shands says simply as he climbs into the cockpit from the below and sees the carnage. He grabs a blanket from the bunk at the back.

  Davann stands and puts his hands under Raybon’s arms, gently lifting his friend and mentor up from the left seat. As his torso slides up, his head falls to the side showing a jagged, hand-size piece of metal that hit just below his left ear and sheared off half of his skull. Multiple smaller shrapnel wounds pepper his left arm and side. The side window is gone, and the fuselage of the aircraft is fenestrated with shrapnel from the exploding Sidewinder missile
.

  Rick steps up with the blanket and wraps it around Raybon as they lift him across the jump seat, behind the navigator’s seat and lay him out on the lower bunk.

  Davann looks briefly into the shattered face, then covers it with the blanket.

  “Who is the fatality in the back?” Boyd asks.

  “The Ayatollah’s secretary. Pretty much the same story as Raybon.”

  “We’re going to crash land right up there, get everyone to the front of the cargo bay and strapped in.”

  “Roger.” Shands descends the steps, shouting as he goes. “Everybody to the front, strap in, put your head between your knees, get ready for an impact. We’re going to crash.”

  “Get in the seat,” Boyd says to Davann, unhooking his headset from the right seat and stepping over to the left seat. He is grateful for the blast of cold air coming in from the shattered window; he won’t have to smell Raybon’s blood. He hooks his headset in by the left seat and adjusts the shoulder harness and seatbelt.

  “Before crash checklist.”

  Davann hurriedly plugs his headset into the right seat and begins the checklist from memory.

  “Flaps, full. Landing gear, down …”

  Davann pulls the flaps down and grabs the landing gear lever as he’s picking up the checklist.

  Boyd has dropped the aircraft a thousand feet, and the airspeed is above 200 knots as he turns into the mountain, heading south again. Closer now, the wide expanse of clean-looking snow is huge, at least a mile wide and several miles extending up the side of Mount Damavand. He pulls up the nose and throttles back almost to idle as he lines up the approach. Visually, it appears there is a slight side slope of about 5 percent. That will require him to hit nose up 20 degrees and one wing slightly lower.

  Airspeed drops as he climbs, adjusting his angles, trying to convert landing going up to the feeling of landing flat. He uses the rudder to compensate for a slight crosswind.

  “PECOS, this is JUBA. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” Davann is on the radio now.

  “JUBA, squawk 7777.”

  “Roger.” Davann dials in the transponder code. The transponder is an aircraft unique signal that gives location, speed and altitude when queried by the air traffic control system. It is used to identify specific aircraft in traffic and help air traffic controllers to de-conflict flight patterns. The AWACS radar could not get an accurate location for them while they are so close to the mountain. The transponder will help locate the crash site.

  “Airspeed 120.” Davann begins calling out the airspeed as they approach stall.

  Boyd pulls the throttles to idle.

  “One ten, 50 feet.”

  The stall warning buzzer comes on.

  “One hundred knots, 20 feet.”

  Boyd feels the controls begin to go mushy, he pulls the nose up just as the wings lose lift and the 100,000 pound aircraft drops 10 feet into snow at 100 miles an hour.

  There is a deafening noise as the landing gear hit first and shear off, cutting the speed substantially and throwing the pilots forward in their shoulder harnesses. Then the aircraft belly hits the snow and the propellers, still turning slowly, are bent back. As the aircraft slides up the hill, the tail breaks off, just in front of the jump door. The left wing, which has been burning for five minutes, breaks off at the outboard engine, and the right wing digs into the snow. The aircraft jerks to the right and makes a half turn before coming to a creaking stop.

  There is silence.

  Chapter 45: Niavaran Palace

  D

  abney St. Clair is locked in a cell in the basement of Niavaran Palace. She’s been hearing gunfire since she was brought here two days ago from the shattered hotel room she’d been in when the first nuclear detonations occurred. The first night it was volleys, 10 minutes apart. It sounded like a firing squad. If so, a dozen people had been executed, and more the next day. Then she heard random shots in the neighborhood. Bandits? Looters? Now it sounds more like a siege, and it’s getting more intense.

  The door bursts open, and Farhad Shirazi rushes in.

  “We must go,” he says, standing in the door holding her suitcase and motioning for her to exit. All pretense of her being an honored diplomatic guest is now gone; she is a prisoner and she knows it. She’s been well cared for, with a bathroom in her cell and regular food and water, but a prisoner nonetheless. Odd, she’d thought at first, to have a fully functioning jail cell in the palace of the supreme leader of a modern nation. Now the utility of it was beginning to dawn on her.

  “Where are the others?” she asks. She’d been part of a group of a dozen diplomats and has not seen them for four days.

  “They are safe elsewhere,” Shirazi says.

  He’s been her only contact. There are no English speakers on the Grand Ayatollah’s personal staff.

  They rush upstairs to general chaos. Men are running around with weapons and carrying suitcases to the back of the palace and packing them in the Ayatollah’s limousine and accompanying vehicles. Shirazi pushes her to the back of the palace and into the Ayatollah’s personal vehicle. Automatic weapons on the roof of the palace rake the street in front of it that hours ago had held hundreds of people. There is answering gunfire from surrounding buildings.

  In a moment, the Ayatollah himself rushes in. He has shaved his beard and is dressed in a Western-style suit. The doors are closed. It is the driver and a bodyguard in front, Shirazi, the Ayatollah and Dabney in the back seat. She can see a side gate open, and the van in front filled with heavily armed guards races out through it. The limo accelerates to follow it. They turn in the street as bullets bounce off the armor plate. In a moment they are on a main street with a police escort and accelerating away from the palace.

  “Sir?” Dabney leans around Shirazi to engage the Ayatollah in conversation. She had met him just five days ago in a formal state dinner, though it was in a receiving line and not an actual conversation. He doesn’t speak English.

  The Ayatollah scowls and turns toward the window.

  “Don’t address the Supreme Leader,” Shirazi says, pulling her back.

  She sits back but watches the man out of the corner of her eye. He smells like tobacco and cheap cologne.

  Shirazi says something to the driver and guard in front. They pull passports out of their pockets and hand them to Shirazi. He puts them together with three passports he has in his hand, securing them with a wide rubber band. Dabney St. Clair’s black diplomatic passport is on top.

  *****

  Prince Col. Turki bin Muqrin Al Saud of the Royal Saudi Air Force is leading a four ship flight of F-15E Strike Eagles traveling at Mach 1.1 at 45,000 feet, 100 miles south of Tehran. He is now a fighter pilot ace, having been credited with six “kills” in the opening engagements of this war. The Iranian Air Force turned out to be less formidable than previously thought. Its tactics were no match for the Arab and Israeli fighters they met at their border, and any that strayed even an inch into the Persian Gulf met American fighters.

  The skies now belonged to the Arabs and Israelis. The Imam Khomeini International Airport had been spared in the initial assault, as no known combatant aircraft were located there. But just an hour ago, a fighter had launched from there and gone supersonic over Tehran. In addition, there was a rumor that the Grand Ayatollah was going to try to escape the country in his personal jet. Prince Colonel Al Saud had orders to crater the runway to prevent any flights from Imam Khomeini International Airport.

  Preceding Prince Col. Al Saud into Tehran is a flight of four electronic countermeasures Tornados armed with radar-seeking missiles. As he decelerates from supersonic, his aircraft detects the first sweep of air defense radar in the Tehran defense district. Almost immediately, he hears the flight lead of the Tornado flight vector his aircraft and within seconds there are explosions on the horizon. The radar is silenced. The air over Tehran belongs to Prince Al Saud. His flight of four aircraft makes one pass at 20,000 feet, dropp
ing eight 1,000-pound bombs equipped with an inertial navigation system. The bombs crater both runways at Imam Khomeini International Airport making them unusable.

  Chapter 46: Mount Damavand

  “G

  rab the fire extinguisher,” Boyd says to Davann, leaping from his seat and rushing to the ladder behind the cockpit. Looking down into the cargo bay he sees bright sunlight and a vast snow field behind as the aft third of the aircraft is gone. He smells jet fuel. The passengers, bunched up in a pile against the forward bulkhead just beneath the ladder are beginning to move.

  “Get that fire extinguisher,” he says, pointing aft to the right side of the aircraft just in front of where the ramp and the Vulcan cannon had been. One of the Marines jumps aft. Boyd descends the ladder, reaches over Ekaterina, who is just standing after removing her seat belt, and grabs another fire extinguisher, which he hands to another Marine.

  Stepping over Grand Ayatollah Mashadi, Boyd closes the oxygen shut-off valve on the bulkhead. He steps to the back of the aircraft and looks down the mountain following their skid mark. The tail broke off first and rests 200 yards down the hill. The left wing, with the outboard engine still burning, is 50 yards closer and off to the side of the skid. When the left wing fell off, the right wing dug into the snow, and the aircraft turned a quarter turn to the right. It sits across the mountain, angled downward.

  “Fire!” One of the Marines is looking out the window. The right outboard engine is engulfed in flame.

  “Take that fire extinguisher and see if you can get it out. Everyone, prepare to evacuate. We’ve got two hot engines and 10,000 pounds of jet fuel on board.”

  The ragged little band of wounded and evacuees shuffles to the rear. The first Marine with a fire extinguisher rushes to the jagged open aft of the aircraft and steps out. He sinks up to his waist in loose snow, unable to move.