by Dale Brown
Which impressed the Army major standing and barring his way at the entrance not a whit.
“But I’m Cascade,” Jed repeated.
“Good for you,” said the major. “You’re also too young to shave.”
“I get a lot of that,” said Jed. “If you just let me take the retina scan—”
“What makes you think there’s a retina scanner aboard?” said the major.
Two Navy officers trotted up the steps. The major nodded at them and let them pass into the interior of the plane.
“You didn’t even ask for their creds,” said Jed.
“This is a Navy operation,” said the major. “I’m only providing tactical assistance. Besides, they beat the pants off me in a poker game last night.”
“Actually, this isn’t a Navy operation at all,” Jed told him, momentarily wondering if he might get further by suggesting he played poker as well. “We’re still working with Madcap Magician.”
Jed was fudging—overall command of the operation was due to shift to the Navy as soon as the command staff could arrive, which wouldn’t be for a few hours.
“And you think that’s going to make a difference?” said the Army officer.
“To be honest, it makes no difference,” said Jed. “Listen, Major, no offense, but I spent several hours this morning talking to the ambassadors of Egypt and Saudi Arabia about their refusal to allow U.S. planes to use their bases. Then I had to listen to an Iranian cleric, obviously a madman, denounce me for a half hour. Even more frustrating was talking to the State Department’s Middle Eastern desk, trying to explain to them why quick military action and not diplomacy was required. To be honest with you, I’m in a really pissy mood.”
The major frowned at him, but finally moved back from the door. There was no retina scan—in fact, there was no security device at all.
“You don’t want my NSC card at least?” Jed asked him.
“I’ll throw you in the ocean if you don’t check out,” said the major, pushing him into the operations area. “Don’t touch anything. These monitors here—”
“Are slaved to different parts of the SAR, which gives you approximately a sixty-degree view of a selected battlefield area. Smearing of the image is countered through interferometry calibration, as well as the Litton LR-85A Inertial Measurement System. There are a total of eighteen consoles aboard this craft, which is an upgrade from the original twelve and the seventeen powered stations in the first production models, though of course one could argue that there are never enough. Frankly, the main concern with JSTARS is not the physical operation of the battlefield view and coordination system, which demonstrated its potential in the Gulf War, but rather the temptation to use the craft to micromanage the battlefield, robbing individual officers, ground- and air-based, of their decision-. making role. The same concern was raised—and to some degree remains valid—with AWACS operations. And I’d be up for any poker games you do manage to organize. I assume we’re not taking off for hours, right?”
The major frowned, but said, “You’ll do,” before turning and walking away.
Northeastern Ethiopia
22 October 1996, 2000 local
“WE’RE NOT STOPPING.”
“I know that,” Bree snapped, working to hold the Megafortress on the rain-slicked tarmac. Flaps, brakes, reverse thrust, and a hurried Hail Mary seemed to have little effect as the big plane hurtled rapidly toward the end of the runway. Shapes loomed left and right, lights streaming with the rain. Breanna’s arm locked as the Mcgafortress’s nose bounced harshly across the poorly maintained concrete. A jumble of low buildings lay ahead; the Megafortress threatened to slide into them sideways, her left side trying to jerk forward.
Finally the plane’s forward momentum eased, the brakes or maybe the prayer catching. Breanna eased the big plane back to the center of the runway, managing a full stop three yards from a large puddle that marked the end of the concrete.
“That wasn’t four thousand feet,” said Chris. “Let alone six. And I thought it never rained in Ethiopia before January.”
Breanna edged her throttles carefully, turning the EB-52 toward the side access ramp on her right. As she did, a Hummer with its lights on approached from the right, driving along the apron. She guessed that it had been sent to show them where to go. Rolling slowly, her heart returning to normal, she turned the Megafortress onto the path. The truck pulled a 180 and began speeding away toward a hangar area.
The runway had had minimal lighting, and this access ramp had none; Fort Two’s lights provided a narrow cocoon for her to steer through. Breanna saw another plane standing at the far end of the ramp—a parked MC-130 Hercules.
“Must be the place,” said Chris, spotting the military transport. “We’re going to have a hell of a time taking off in this rain,” he added.
“We’ll round up some volunteers to push,” she told him, watching their guide truck disappear to the right. Breanna leaned back in her seat, the exhaustion of the long flight finally taking its toll. They had pushed Fort Two about as fast as it had ever gone for much longer than it had ever flown. While she and Chris had switched on and off—and the computer autopilot had helped considerably—Bree’s brain was crispy and her legs and arms felt as if they had been run over by a steamroller. She hadn’t slept now in more than twenty-four hours, and had needed three caffeine pills—she didn’t like anything stronger—en route.
Four large Pave Lows and a civilian DC-8 airliner were parked at the far end of a group of buildings that looked more like warehouses than hangars. The Hummer spun off and blinked its lights; Bree began to swing the plane around into the designated parking area. Two Marines with M-16-and-grenade-launcher combos appeared from one of the buildings, sauntering up as if they landed Megafortresses here all the time.
“Gee, where’s the brass band?” asked Chris.
CAPTAIN FREAH WAITED IMPATIENTLY AS THE BOMBER trundled toward its parking area. He’d been able to sleep only a few hours, but felt a burst of energy and excitement as the big plane finally stopped. Undoing his restraints, he bolted up from the uncomfortable jump seat and grabbed his gear. Squeezing into the hatch area, he pulled down the handle to open and lower the access ladder. It sounded like a bus tire puncturing as it burst open; Danny took it two steps at a time, ducking his head and scooting out from beneath the plane. A pair of rain-soaked Marines waved him toward a nearby pickup. After the cramped quarters of the Megafortress navigational bay, even the warm but heavy rain felt good. Danny stood out on the tarmac getting soaked while the rest of his team disembarked. Leaving Hernandez behind to wrestle with their gear in the storage bay, they hopped into the rear of the pickup. The rain surged as the truck started, but it seemed to be a final burst, for by the time they reached the low-slung building at the far end of the base it had slowed to a drizzle.
Freah jumped over the side of the truck, walking double-time inside. Hal Briggs greeted him in the hallway.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” said Briggs, slamming Danny with a shoulder chuck. “Damn. I thought the ETA you gave was a typo.”
“You didn’t think I’d let you have fun without me, did you?” asked Freah. His men filed in behind him; Danny introduced them.
“Grub’s that way,” said Briggs, pointing down the hall. “You’ll find a cafeteria, whole nine yards. You have a half hour,” added Briggs, glancing at his watch.
“Just a half hour?”
“Ospreys should be here by then.”
“Ospreys?”
“Since you busted your hump to get here, we’ll give you something real to do,” said Briggs. “Come on. Let me fill you in over at the terminal building. It’s our command bunker.”
“What is this place?” Danny asked.
“Russkies built it as a commercial strip place back in the seventies, then abandoned it when they realized the area was too rugged to support any sort of industry. Thank God for Commies with money, or at least bulldozers and cement, huh?”
Freah foll
owed the major back outside. They walked around the side of the building to a Humvee. Briggs got in and Danny followed; they drove back toward the area where the Megafortress had parked.
“Shit. You came in a Megafortress?” said Briggs as they passed the plane.
“How do you think we got here so fast?”
“They had room to land?”
“I guess.”
Briggs turned right between the last and next-to-last buildings, then made a sharp right onto a long access road. They followed it as it circled around a row of small hangars; they looked more like sheds.
Three F-117 Nighthawks and three F-16 Vipers were parked beyond the sheds, guarded by a dozen air commandos. Briggs slowed just enough to let the guards know it was him, then sped on toward a large terminal building. Even in the dark it was obvious the building had been abandoned for some time. Lights shone eerily inside, and shadows seemed to leak from the broken windows. Two more Air Force Special Ops guards with M-16’s met them as Briggs pulled to a stop. Danny recognized one of the men, but barely had a chance to nod as Hal walked briskly inside.
A group of men clustered inside the empty reception hall, examining a series of maps spread over a trio of tables. The maps spilled over the sides; there were clutches of satellite pictures and a few rough sketches arranged around them.
“This is Danny Freah,” said Briggs, introducing him around. Quickly, Briggs filled him in on the situation. A Marine assault team supported by four F-16’s had attempted to take out several batteries of SAM missiles and a Silkworm base on the Somalian coast, while a flight of four F-117’s went after a pair of Silkworm bases a few miles to the northwest. Both of these bases were more extensive and better defended than had been thought, and the team came under heavy fire. An F-16 and one of the F-117 stealth fighters were downed. The F-117 was apparently lost to an SA-2; the long-wave radar was able to detect the vortices caused by the plane, and it was especially vulnerable while launching its missiles.
“We don’t jam the radars—or I should say we didn’t—since that costs us the element of surprise. Our targets were destroyed,” Briggs added. “Frankly, the SAM had only about a one-in-a-hundred chance of getting the plane. It was an acceptable risk.” He jabbed his finger at the map, pinpointing a spot on the hilly plains just south of the coast. “We have a strong suspicion that the pilot was alive because we have radio intercepts from an Iranian MiG about a parachute in this area. His name’s Stephen Howland. Captain. Twenty-six. From Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.”
Danny nodded.
“Our intelligence is limited,” admitted Briggs, “but we think that the Somalians have already recovered at least the plane. CIA has a source saying he saw an airplane on a flatbed truck out on this road. It’s not really a highway; more like a dirt road with pretensions that runs through these mountains and hills. Anyway, it would make sense, because this road goes right to Bosaso, on the northern coast, which is within five miles of where we think the plane went down. From Bosaso they might go down to Mogadishu. Or maybe they’ll try for Libya, heading west on this highway here. It’s been improved recently; we think the Iranians have helped widen and repave it. It hooks up with Burao. From there they would have a highway, a real highway, through Ethiopia, the Sudan, Libya, wherever they want to go.”
“Why Libya?”
“Libya has signed up for the Greater Islamic League,” said Hal. “So bringing the prisoners there might be one way of guaranteeing that their partner is involved. The Iranians may also figure that with a Presidential election coming up, pounding Tehran will be an enormously popular thing to do.”
“Would it?” asked Danny.
“I don’t know about the politics,” said Hal. He quickly went on. “They also know we’re sending ships up from the Indian Ocean. They also suspect that we could base forces in Kenya. So to the Iranians it might seem safer to go by ground. They might not think we’re watching.”
Briggs slid one of the satellite pictures around and pointed at it. It covered an area near the northeastern coast of Somalia. “One of our satellites is being repaired by the shuttle, and the remaining birds aren’t positioned very well for coverage. We’re also having a hell of a lot of trouble because of the weather and the clouds,” said Briggs. “This image is several hours old. We’re trying to arrange an overflight in the morning. We have a Delta Force team ready to go in as soon as we have a target. But we’re talking several hundred square miles to cover. And it’s nearly four hundred miles from here. We’d like to get the stealth fighter back, or at least blow up the wreckage. As soon as it’s located, we go. Same thing on the pilot.”
“What about the F-16?” asked Danny.
“You may know him—Mack Smith. He was at Dreamland. Tall guy. Typical pilot ego.”
“Sure.”
“He went out over here, a few miles away. Mack seems to have stayed around to help the Marines. The Marines credit him with saving their necks, because their helicopter was under fire. Two members of the assault team apparently saw it get hit and left their helicopter to help Smith.”
“No shit.”
“Yeah. Like I said, their helo was getting hit and in the confusion the pilot decided his best course of action was to get out,” Briggs said. “He didn’t know he was missing two men. In any event, he did manage to save the rest of the team and the helicopter.”
Briggs slid the satellite image away, jabbing his finger at a yellow blotch on the map. “We’re getting an intermittent signal beacon from this spot here, about two, two-and-a-half miles south of the Silkworm base, back in these hills here. We haven’t been able to raise the pilot. We sent a rented Cessna and managed to get this,” he added, moving around the papers to find some sketchy photocopies of snapshots.
“We think it’s the wreckage of the plane. Satellite will survey this area as well,” said Briggs. “We’re sending a team at first light. Worst case, we can destroy the wreckage. We’ll also have a team overfly the area of the radio transmission. If Smith’s down there and can work the radio, they’ll grab him.”
“That our job?”
“No. We want you to help secure this site here. Your team and a small group of Delta operators, hitting them from two sides, airlifted by Ospreys. It’s a village about ten kilometers further west that the Iranians have been using to train the Somalians. The feeling is that if Smith and the Marines were captured, they’d be held there.” Briggs pulled a pair of reconnaissance photographs and some hand-drawn sketches from the other side of the table and showed them to Danny. “These were taken a few hours ago. They give the general layout. This school here used to belong to a Catholic missionary order. You see the gun emplacements. And this here is a SAM site.”
Danny strained his eyes to make out the small blotch beneath Major Briggs’s finger. It looked like a microscopic Brillo pad.
“We think it’s an SA-6, which comes on a mobile launcher. It’s likely that there are now more, since the defenses at the Silkworm site were beefed up,” said Briggs.
“Where the hell are they getting all this hardware?” Freah asked.
“Where aren’t they?” said Briggs. “The Silkworms come from China, where they may also have bought some fighters. There’s been a large inflow of weapons into Libya from Russia. Some of that has disappeared, which we think means it’s headed here. There have also been some small boats slipping into Mogadishu in the south, with or without help from the Yemenis; it’s unclear.”
Briggs continued laying out the situation. The antiaircraft defenses posed a serious problem. The F-117’s and F- 16’s would be needed to help the other operations. The Ospreys would arrive without escort or backup, traveling quickly at treetop level. Though that was under the detection envelope of the missiles’ ground radars, it would be dicey.
“We’re short on air support,” said Hal apologetically. “The Eisenhower is heading up from the Indian Ocean, but they won’t be close enough to help us for at least two days. We’d like to have Smith and the
others out by then. If we don’t., this thing is likely to escalate even further.”
“We have the Megafortress,” suggested Danny, who’d been waiting for an opportunity to offer the plane. “They’re packing cruise missiles and four JSOWs fresh out of the development lab. They can cover us going in.”
“Are you talking about my airplane?” said Captain Stockard, walking toward them from the door. She was still in her flight gear, wearing a deep scowl.
“Captain Stockard,” said Briggs. “How are you, Bree?”
Breanna ignored him, speaking to Danny instead. “That’s my aircraft. With all due respect, Captain, I’ll discuss its capabilities.”
“I was just pointing out that it carried weapons,” said Freah.
“Did you mention the runway’s about five hundred feet too short to take off from?” said Breanna. She turned back to Briggs. “And I don’t want to talk about landing. Why the hell didn’t you give us a heads-up on that, Hal?”
“I wasn’t aware you were flying a Megafortress in to begin with,” said Briggs. “How are you, Rap?”
“I’ve been better. My butt’s sore and I came this close to blowing out my tires.”
“We’re installing mesh,” said Briggs. “We can push that up. I can’t do anything about your butt while you’re in uniform,” he added.
“Very funny. When’s the mesh going on?”
“ASAP. A thousand feet okay?”
“I’ll have to do the math,” Breanna said. “Major Cheshire has to be told. Raven’s heavier than Fort Two because of the older engines. If it’s wet and she’s carrying fuel, she’s going to have a hard time stopping.”
“Raven? Another Megafortress?”
“We made the flight without a crew,” said Breanna. “Cheshire’s following with a weapons officer and a navigator. She should be here within twelve hours, maybe less.”
“Shit. We can use her.”
“Damn straight,” said Danny. “The plane has jamming gear.”
