Wings Of Fire

by Dale Brown

"An hour and a half?" Patrick asked incredulously. He could scarcely believe he could sleep that long with everything that was going on. "Everything all right?"

  "Mrs. Salaam wants to talk with you," Luger said. "I'll be in the command post." He turned and departed, but not before giving Susan an inquisitive, concerned look.

  "Your officers have been standing guard over us the entire time," Susan said to Patrick. "They are very loyal to you."

  "You should have waited outside."

  "You looked restless. I thought I could help."

  "That was your voice I heard?"

  Susan nodded. "Feeling better?"

  "Yes." He sat up and swung his legs around to the floor, expecting her to stand to let him get up. But she didn't move, and he found himself face-to-face with her. She glanced at his lips invitingly, looked deeply into his eyes, then averted her eyes and let them roam across his broad chest and thick shoulders. The only sport Patrick ever excelled at was weight lifting, a sport that was solitary, much like the man himself. He had been doing it for many years,

  and it showed. He lingered there for a moment, trying to decide what she was doing, then got up and pulled a clean T-shirt from his duffel bag and pulled it on. "Let's go outside to the command center where we can talk, Susan."

  "I need to talk with you in private first," she said. He nodded, deciding to stand right there, but after a short, awkward silence, he returned and sat beside her on the bed. "I spoke with your officers outside while I was waiting. I still don't know Taurus's real name; it's obvious you and Mr. Luger are very close." Patrick did not respond. "I gave them the very latest information we have on both the Libyan naval vessels that searched the site where your ship was sunk."

  "Thank you. I'm sure it'll all be very useful."

  "Judging by the information they requested and the information they reviewed after I arrived, I'd guess you were planning a soft probe on either the Tobruk joint operations center or the Darnah naval base," Susan said.

  "I must be sure to remind my team members that you used to be an intelligence officer," Patrick said with a wry smile.

  "And you have obviously been trained to not offer any information to anyone, even in casual conversation."

  "We're eight thousand miles from home, at a strange military base-there's nothing casual about this situation."

  "Are you ever going to trust me, Patrick?" Susan asked.

  "Would it upset you if I said 'no'?"

  "Yes, it would," Susan replied. It was obvious to her that he didn't care if it upset her or not. She paused for a moment, then said, "Going in to either Darnah or Tobruk even in normal day-to-day circumstances would be very, very dangerous. Both bases are massively armed fortresses, especially for Anglos but even for Arabs. But our intelligence information tells us both bases are at the absolute highest readiness stages, just short of all-out wartime conditions. I strongly advise you not to plan to go in there unless you have your target-I'm sorry, I should say, your wife-located first. Or unless you have some massive firepower lin-

  ing up behind you to support a soft probe that could turn hot in a matter of moments."

  Her inquisitive eyes told Patrick she was still fishing for information-he was glad for the rest, because he needed to stay sharp to avoid giving this beautiful, captivating, disarming woman any good intelligence data. "I know that, Susan," Patrick said. "But I'm counting on the combat operations to help screen our movements in a soft probe. You know as well as I do that security measures sometimes get curtailed when moving men and equipment is the most important thing."

  "It's risky."

  "She's worth the risk."

  "I didn't mean to imply she wasn't," Susan said. "But if you're discovered, even if you can fight your way out, your entire operation is finished-they will kill your wife and erect an unpenetrable wall around every military and government base, building, or office. All you will have left... is retribution. Will that be enough for you?"

  "I don't intend to let that happen."

  "With all due respect, Patrick, that's a pretty bad attitude," Susan said directly. "Think about it for a moment. What if you did nothing? What if you did no probe at all, so your team never risked discovery? Your wife is probably in a Libyan medical facility badly injured, probably unconscious and unable to speak, so they will wait until she regains consciousness, which means you still have time to plan, locate her precisely, and wait for the perfect opportunity.

  "If she is conscious, they may try to interrogate her. That could take days, perhaps weeks. If she talks, they will keep her alive to extract every bit of information from her. That still gives you time."

  For the first time, Patrick reconsidered his plan. Susan was absolutely correct: There was nothing to be gained by going in now. War could break out any moment between Libya and Egypt, or just about anywhere in northern Africa, and Patrick and his team would be right in the middle of it.

  - But holding back and waiting would put him no closer to rescuing Wendy. It didn't matter what Libya was planning against Egypt, or if war would break out any timefor him, the most important thing was finding and rescuing Wendy.

  "Thank you for your advice, Susan," Patrick said. "I'll take it into serious consideration."

  Susan Bailey stood, stepped toward Patrick, and touched his shoulder. "What has happened to you, your wife, and your men is already a horrible tragedy," she said, "but please don't compound the tragedy by launching off on an impossible mission against overwhelming odds for an objective that you cannot define."

  Patrick nodded, then opened up the door. "Dave." Luger appeared within seconds-obviously he was standing very close by. "Please escort Mrs. Salaam outside."

  Susan looked into Patrick's eyes once more, but his deep-blue eyes were even more dark and inscrutable than before-he might as well have been wearing the strange high-tech helmet right now. She left without another word.

  Patrick put on his flight suit and flying boots and went into the command center, where he met up with Hal Briggs. "Glad you got some shut-eye, Muck," he said. He motioned to a stack of CD-ROM disks inside an open metal briefcase. "Mrs. Salaam brought over tons of intel for us-some of it's only a few hours old. I doubt if even the U.S. government has this data." He looked at Patrick closely. His longtime friend was staring at the doorway where Susan Salaam had just exited. "What'd she have to say, Patrick?"

  "Same as you-don't try going into Libya."

  "Well, then I'll give her credit for more than being a drop-dead stone fox," Briggs quipped. "What are you going to do?"

  Patrick picked up a few of the CD-ROMs and looked at their index labels. He chose a couple of them and headed for the portable computer terminals. "I'm going to do a little target study," he said.

  "What does she want with us, Muck?" Hal asked.

  "Same thing that the Central African Petroleum Partners

  want-to fight and die for them," Patrick replied. "I don't know if she wants revenge for her husband's assassination, or something else-but I've got my own agenda first."

  It appears that Zuwayy has ignored our warning," Patrick McLanahan said grimly as he began the briefing a few hours later, "so we're going to put the strike plans in motion in about two hours."

  His entire group of Night Stalkers were inside the semiunderground bunker reserved for them by Susan Bailey Salaam and General Baris, south of the airfield in an isolated part of the sprawling Egyptian joint forces base. Patrick was wearing his battle armor with the helmet on the table nearby, the power pack and electromagnetic rail gun plugged in and ready to go in just a few moments. He was definitely ready for battle.

  "The primary target area will be the command-andcontrol center at Benina, ten miles east of Benghazi," Patrick went on. "It is located at a Libyan air force base, with a large mix of Russian and French fighters and transports based there, plus antiaircraft systems of all sizes. Our target is the air operations center." He displayed a highresolution image of the air base, with one building outlined with
a red triangle. "This building is the headquarters of Libyan air combat operations in the eastern half of the country, and it is also an alternate national military command center. It forms the junction of all communications from the eastern half of the country to Tripoli.

  "The attack will commence with a flight of three Wolverine cruise missiles, launched from over the Med," Patrick continued. "They will spread out and perform a coordinated multiaxis attack on the air defenses north of the city of Benina. Each Wolverine will attack three air defense sites with cluster munitions, followed by 'suicide' attacks on the air traffic control radar site, the northern security headquarters here, and the southern security headquarters, here. -

  "The main attack will follow thirty seconds later-a

  flight of three more Wolverine cruise missiles. They will use a flight path cleared for them by the preceding Wolverine suppression attacks, but they will be programmed to divert if necessary to avoid any air defense sites missed or pop-up threats not targeted by the first flight." He switched slides to a close-up of a small cluster of buildings on the northeast side of the large two-runway airfield. "This is the Benina Command Center, headquarters of Libya's Eastern Joint Operations Center and Eastern Air Defense Sector. The heart of the facility is two stories underground, protected by twelve-inch reinforced concrete on each floor.

  "Each Wolverine will carry two different warheads: a deep-target penetrating warhead using a rocket-propelled one-thousand-pound warhead, followed by a onethousand-pound thermium nitrate high-explosive warhead. Each Wolverine will travel a different flight path but will be programmed to hit the same spot; each missile will perform a pop-up push-over maneuver to drive the first warhead down through the roof to the subfloors, followed by the thermium detonation. The weapons should have no problems going through each level to the command center level, even if they put armor in we don't know about.

  "As you know, the thermium warhead has the explosive power of five tons of TNT," Patrick went on, "so if the FlightHawk can determine if the target has been destroyed, we may divert the other Wolverines, probably the third one, to a secondary target, which is the military communications facility at Benina. If we need a tertiary target, we'll switch to the combination petroleum-fired power plant and desalination plant just east of Benghazi-that should turn out the lights and shut off the taps in Benghazi for quite some time."

  Patrick displayed another map, this one of northwestern Egypt. Hal Briggs noted that Patrick's briefing was cool, calm, professional, and well under control. He had seen Patrick give countless reports and briefings over the fourteen years he had known him, and despite everything that had happened to him and everything they were, facing now, he seemed like the same emotionless all-business guy he'd

  always known. Yet in a way, this mission was much different: Although Patrick planned this mission as a strike against a very-high-value military target, Hal reminded himself, it was still a punitive strike-Patrick was simply lashing out at the Libyans. That was not like him at all.

  "We'll position ourselves at three principal border crossings in western Egypt-Salum, Arasiyah, and Shiyah," Patrick went on. "We'll have Egyptian Mi-8 and Chinook CH-47 helicopters with us, enough to take at least fifty survivors with us, along with Egyptian security forces and some of our own commandos. In case the prisoners are turned over after the attacks commence, we'll be ready to take them or go in and rescue them if the Libyans have a change of heart. If the prisoners show up anywhere along the border, the other helicopters can respond to help. Questions?"

  The telephone in the briefing room rang; all heads turned, because they knew that the Charge of Quarters would not allow any calls through during a briefing unless it was absolutely urgent. David Luger picked it up immediately; he listened, then snapped his fingers at the television set bolted in one corner of the room. "CQ says turn on the TV right now," Luger said.

  Patrick couldn't believe his eyes. There, on Egyptian national TV, was Ulama Khalid al-Khan, giving a press conference. The caption at the bottom of the screen, written in both Arabic and English, read "LIBYAN PRISONERS RELEASED TO EGYPT."

  "The men were rescued from the Mediterranean Sea by the Libyan Navy," Khan was saying, replying to a reporter's question. "I have no details as to why or how their ships were sunk. The Libyan government detained the survivors until their identities could be verified-apparently there were some survivors whose identities or even their nationalities could not be verified, so it took longer than usual. But once all of the survivors were identified and questioned on the incident, King Idris of the United Kingdom of Libya ordered their release. He requested that I assist-in providing transportation and medical care for the survivors, and I im-

  mediately agreed. He asked me to assist in processing the survivors and seeing to their care and repatriation.

  "Yes, there are casualties," Khan said, replying to another question. "Several dozen men were fatally injured in the incident. In addition, several men were injured while being detained by the kingdom of Libya, apparently because they refused both to reveal their identities and also to cooperate with Libyan authorities. They were suspected of engineering the attacks on friendly, neutral shipping in the Mediterranean. When they resisted while in detention, they were dealt with harshly, as any detainee who lashes out at his rescuers deserves."

  "Yeah? Let's have a look at some of those 'resisters,' " Hal Briggs scoffed. "I'll bet the Libyans tortured the hell out of them." He saw Chris Wohl glaring at him disapprovingly-it wasn't until then that he realized with horrified embarrassment that Wendy and some of the Night Stalkers might be some of the ones killed while in captivity. He looked at Patrick with a silent apology, but Patrick's attention was riveted on the television.

  "Despite the unfortunate loss of life, the incident is now at an end, thanks to the king of United Libya," Khan went on. "The prisoners will be taken to a location where they will receive medical care and then released. This spirit of cooperation between Libya and Egypt also paves the way for further talks between our two countries in other matters, such as the cessation of attacks against suspected terrorist training centers in southern Egypt and Chad, and the resumption of talks aimed at bringing more cooperation in planning mutual petroleum production contracts."

  The interoffice phone rang again, and Luger answered it right away again. This time, he looked panicked as he slammed the phone down. "The Egyptian base commander, Vice Marshal Ouda, is outside the compound with a force about the size of an armored company. He wants to talk with you upstairs, on the liaison freq."

  Patrick donned his helmet, unplugged his fully charged battle armor, and went upstairs to the front of their halfunderground concrete facility. From the topmost security

  room, Patrick could look outside without being seen. There was a twelve-foot-high fence surrounding their building, topped with razor wire, about fifty feet away. The military district commander's armored vehicle and several dozen light tanks and heavy armored personnel carriers were stationed outside the gate, weapons trained inside. More tanks and armored vehicles were spread out all along the perimeter-the Night Stalkers were suddenly sealed up tight.

  "Dave, we got trouble," Patrick radioed to Luger. "We got a company of armor outside the fence. They're not coming through the fence, but they've got us surrounded pretty well."

  "I can have a FlightHawk and a couple Wolverines with SFWs overhead in about four hours," Luger said. "We'll have to reprogram the weapons from the Benina strike, but that'll only take a few minutes."

  Patrick thought quickly; then: "Find a safe orbit area for the Megafortress and the tanker," Patrick said, "and have them stand by as long as possible. We're just hours away from getting our guys back-I don't want to do anything to piss off the Egyptians now. But I want the strike aircraft available in case we have any trouble getting our folks out."

  "We've only got one refueling aircraft available," Luger reminded him, "and it's been on the go for two days straight. If we send the Megafortresses
into holding orbits, that means less fuel for the strike package, less fuel reserves for the tanker, and more flying hours. Those guys will be wiped."

  "That can't be helped," Patrick said. "We've got to fly those planes hard until our guys are rescued. The tankers will just have to keep cycling as best they can. Contact Martindale and see if he can get us some more tanker support."

  "Okay," David said. "Remember, we have that escape tunnel we found as a backup." In the first few hours after occupying the bunker, which was an old security outpost protecting the southern part of the base, the Night Stalkers found an emergency escape tunnel, which ran several hundred meters west. "I'll send some guys out to cheek to see if Ouda is covering it."

  "Roger," Patrick said. "Cancel the strike meeting and have everyone get ready to bug out-we might have to move in a hurry." He switched to the Egyptian liaison radio frequency: "Vice Marshal Ouda, this is Castor," he said in his battle armor's radio. His battle armor's communications computer made the translation from English to Arabic and back again for him. "We have heard about the prisoner exchange between Libya and Egypt. We will not interfere. Once our men are returned to us, we will depart."

  "The prisoner exchange will take place tomorrow morning," Ouda said via the computer datalink translation. "You are to stay here. No one will be allowed to leave this compound."

  "Where will the prisoners be taken?"

  "Here, by bus," Ouda replied. "They will be inprocessed, identified, examined by doctors, and questioned first. Then the Egyptian government will contact representatives from the various governments and they will be allowed to take their citizens with them. The airfield will be available for their use if needed. The government of Egypt is doing everything we can to facilitate this exchange-we do not want you or your men to interfere."

  "We will not interfere," Patrick said. "I request permission to allow one of my men to accompany the foreign government representatives to see the prisoners."

  "Denied," Ouda said quickly. "Not one of you is allowed to leave. If you try to leave, I will order my men to attack."