Fire Arrow

by Franklin Allen Leib

  “So where does that leave us, gentlemen?” the President’s voice was tight with frustration and fatigue.

  “We can cancel and set it up tomorrow, with in-flight refueling,” said General Vaughn.

  “Or we could go without the Air Force, and hope the Navy CAP gets all the aircraft in the air,” said General Elmendorf.

  “Arch?” said the President, looking at the CNO, who was in hasty conversation with the naval staff officers.

  “Mr. President,” said Admiral Daniels, carefully weighing his words, “we can do without the Air Force, but we run a terrible risk of major losses, maybe even a capital ship. Even a poor pilot can get lucky with an antiship missile. The place to eliminate the threat of the Libyan Air Force is on the ground, and for that we need the air force F-111s.”

  “We all understand that, Arch,” said the President, after waiting for the admiral to go on.

  Admiral Daniels took a deep breath. He spread his large hands in front of him and spoke slowly. “I suggest, Mister President, that we simply notify the French we are overflying, sir. Just tell them. After the fact, we’ll give them any kind of apology they want, or even put the word out that we did indeed fly all around the continent of Europe to avoid offending their delicate sensitivities.”

  “Nobody will believe that!” interjected General Elmendorf.

  “Mr. President!” burst in the Secretary of Defense. “An overflight of French territory without their permission is an act of war!”

  “Jesus, Mr. Secretary, the French aren’t going to war over this!” Admiral Daniels threw up his hands. The computer display had been returned to display the map of Europe and Africa. All eyes were drawn to the pulsing light in the center of England, which represented Upper Heyford.

  The Secretary of Defense looked angrily at the Chief of Naval Operations. “The French, Admiral, are our oldest allies!”

  “What have they done for us lately?” asked the President rhetorically. “How long can we hold the bombers while we talk to the French, General Vaughn?”

  General Vaughn looked at the digital clock on the wall. “Not more than another half hour, Mr. President. May I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course.”

  “The head of the French air defenses and I know each other pretty well. He used to be a test pilot, a good one, and he spent quite a bit of time at Edwards when I was commanding general there. He usually stayed at my quarters.”

  “Well?”

  “Let me see if I can reach him. I don’t think the French would shoot, but if he knew, there would be much less chance of an error.”

  “OK,” said the President, weighing the choices.

  “Then we could have the Secretary tell the French Ambassador about your decision, with the cover story Admiral Daniels suggests. Given it’s the middle of the night in France, our aircraft would probably be out of French airspace before the government could even find its voice to protest.”

  “What about the return flight?” asked General Elmendorf.

  “We can get those tankers from Keflavik back on station to the west of Portugal in plenty of time. They should be landing back in Iceland already. It will be tight, but doable,” said General Vaughn. This time the group of air force officers behind him nodded, some enthusiastically.

  The President sat silently, his chin in his hands, staring at the computer display. The officers and the two cabinet secretaries looked at each other and around the room. “Well, I think we’re going to have to do it. I won’t risk the loss of more of our people in what is already a dangerous operation to save Gallic pride, or faintheartedness, whichever it is. Make it so, Arch.”

  The President slumped back into the shadows as staff officers scurried to make the needed changes in the op-orders, and to arrange for the quick turnaround of the KC-10s at Keflavik. The Secretary of State grinned to himself in the dim light as he began making notes of what he would say to the French Ambassador. I’m the chief foreign policy officer of this administration, he thought, and as such, I should have argued vigorously against this terrible insult to an old ally. But, God help me, I love it!

  Uqba ben Nafi, 033 GMT (0430 Local)

  Sergeant Julio Cifuentes of the Cuban People’s Army had been up all night and was getting cranky. That strutting maricon of a Russian captain had demanded that the ZSU-23-4 be made ready for duty without delay to defend the air base against the yanqui marines, who the smooth-looking Russian colonel insisted would soon be landing by helicopters. The ZSU was an especially effective weapon against helicopters, and since the Libyans by themselves had no hope of getting this one running, Sergeant Cifuentes, the head of the vehicle maintenance assistance team that the Maximum Leader, Fidel Castro, had sent to Libya, had been told to do it himself. And so far Sergeant Cifuentes had been unable to get the motherfucker to run.

  The fact was, thought Cifuentes as he lay head down and sweating in the engine compartment, he rather liked the ZSU. It was an ugly machine, with a big, blocky turret mounted above tank tracks, but it was a self-contained antiaircraft system, with four water-cooled 23mm cannons that were capable of firing 800 rounds per minute each. (If you tried to do that, however, as the monkeys in Angola had done while Cifuentes watched in disgust, you would expend all the ammo in the vehicle in half a minute and melt the barrels; to do it right you fired in very short bursts.) The vehicle had its own fire-control radar, which could both acquire and track targets, as well as optical and infrared sights. Best of all, it was normally reliable and easy to maintain. The six-cylinder, 240-horsepower diesel was an old and proven design, and could drive the ZSU at fifty kilometers per hour over level ground, if Cifuentes could just get the damn thing to run.

  Cifuentes removed the high-pressure second-stage fuel pump and handed it to Mohammed, his handsome, friendly, and very stupid “mechanic,” who was, in fact, of little use other than as a helper. Cifuentes climbed out on the engine compartment and motioned Mohammed to take the pump to the bench, where he would tear it down yet again.

  Paris, 0330 GMT (0430 Local)

  General Henri Beneteau replaced the telephone in its cradle on his ornate antique desk. He dug a crumpled packet of Gitanes from the pocket of his robe and lit one of the strong cigarettes. What his old friend General Vaughn had just told him had made him both angry and sad. He had protested vehemently to Vaughn, while at the same time feeling ashamed at the gutlessness of France’s socialist government. Nevertheless, he felt his beloved nation about to be violated by the American aircraft that would soon be streaking through French skies against the expressed wishes of her government.

  General Beneteau unlocked a drawer of his desk and removed the list of secure telephone numbers of key French government and military installations. He knew he should telephone the President and the Premier, as he had threatened to do, but instead he dialed the number of the duty officer of the Air Defense Command, underground near Metz. He had a short and eventually heated conversation with the captain who was on duty. The captain had demanded that the general make his request a direct order, and Beneteau had shouted at him. The captain had signed off with a curt “oui, mon général,” and hung up. Beneteau sighed and locked away the telephone list. He knew he should get dressed and go into his office in the Defense Ministry, but for the moment he just sat and smoked. How sad it is, he thought, that in our times, the sleep of a soldier is more often disturbed by politics than by war.

  Uqba ben Nafi, 0345 GMT (0445 Local)

  Senior Lieutenant Kim Dong-Hoon of the North Korean People’s Air Force sat in the cramped cockpit of his Mirage 5, parked in a large revetment off the taxiway at the southern end of runway 03/21. His wingman, Lt. Choi Kuen-Buk, was parked next to him. They had been driven down to the aircraft at 4:00 a.m., relieving two other North Korean officers, and would sit here until relieved at 8:00 a.m., turning up the engines once an hour.

  Senior Lieutenant Kim was bored, but happy. He was eating kimchee from a plastic cup. His sister had sent it to him from P
yongyang, and he savored each pungent, crisp bite. His sister’s letter had said the young cabbage had been harvested from their family’s tiny garden two years ago, packed with others in an earthen jar, along with vinegar, red pepper, spices, and garlic, then buried in the garden, to be dug up the following summer.

  Kim liked especially to eat kimchee in his aircraft, because the fragrance of the garlic and spices hung around him in the tiny space, and could be savored over and over. He smiled when he thought of the strutting Cuban captain who would relieve him in the morning, and how he would curse and bellow about the “stink” in the cockpit. Kim had decided he liked Cubans even less than Russians.

  Kim glanced across at Choi’s aircraft. His wingman’s head was back, and he appeared to be asleep. The two Libyans manning the auxiliary power cart between the two aircraft were certainly asleep, stretched out on the tarmac.

  Kim was happy at the thought of getting in some real flying, even though his commander had warned that flying a missile attack against the American Sixth Fleet had to be viewed as a high-risk mission. Kim was primarily a fighter pilot, but he had volunteered to stay behind when the rest of the aircraft had been flown out two days before, because he loved to fly the sleek, dart-shaped, elegant French aircraft. The Mirage felt so much lighter and more responsive to his touch than the heavier Soviet machines he was used to, and it could accelerate beyond Mach 2 at high altitude, or race along on the deck at 750 knots, as long as its pilot had the skill and the nerves. The Mirages had been modified by Russian technicians to carry the Soviet AS-7 antiship missile and its electronics package, originally designed for the Russian Yak-36 Forger aircraft.

  Kim swallowed a tiny, well-chewed bite of his sister’s kimchee and burped, filling the cockpit with the aroma of garlic. He stretched his cramped muscles and thought about guiding his missile into a great, fat aircraft carrier.

  Over the central Mediterranean, 0330 GMT

  Lieutenant Colonel Bowie dismissed the final briefing and sent the unit commanders back to discuss the plan with their troops. Most of the men were cleaning rifles and checking ammunition belts, grenades, and other equipment. The men had been fed before the briefing, and had been told that the mission was still a go and that the aircraft had almost reached their first assembly point over the southern end of the Adriatic Sea, where they would orbit at cruising altitude. Their second assembly point would be at very low altitude some forty miles off the Libyan coast near El Asciar.

  Prior to the colonel’s briefing, the men had had no official word that they would be jumping into Libya, but most had guessed. What they hadn’t guessed was that they would be making a mass tactical jump from 650 feet up and landing mostly on paved runways. The men were reminded to make good parachute landing falls and to turn their MC-1 steerable parachutes into the wind and flare them by pushing the handles attached to the risers away from them as they landed.

  The troops were also surprised that they were jumping right in the middle of an air base known to be ringed with Libyan tanks, but that explained the many extra cases of Dragon antitank missiles stacked in the front of the aircraft. Captain William Schubert, the infantry company commander, looked around at the faces of the men. Some looked scared; some grinned foolishly. Schubert knew there would be many casualties, and many more if he and the other officers and non-coms did not get the troops assembled into their units and dispersed to their areas of operation within minutes of the landing.

  Captain Schubert found 1st Lt. John Connelly, commander of the two-platoon task force of M-551 Sheridans from the 3/73, briefing his four tank crews. The other four were with 2d Lt. Robert Baird on the second troop C-141. Both C-141s would off-load their troops on the same pass over the long runway, and the Sheridan crews would have to assemble in revetments alongside the runway, or in whatever other cover they could find, until the subsequent wave of aircraft came in and LAPESed out the vehicles. That couldn’t happen until the infantry had cleared off the runway.

  Captain Schubert joined the tankers’ briefing. Navy Lieutenant Brown was there as well, listening carefully.

  “I expect the first thing we’ll want to do is to lay smoke along the southern end of runway 11/29,” said Lieutenant Connelly. “Met reckons the wind will be light and offshore.”

  “Won’t the Navy put smoke in there before we land?” asked a Spec 4 gunner named Harrigan, who was cleaning a 9mm pistol.

  Connelly looked at Lieutenant Brown, who answered. “As soon as we have the Operation Execute Signal from Top Hat, the Navy will shell the tank positions in the recon photos south of runway 11/29 with very heavy H-E, and lighter VT frag rounds as well, to pin down any personnel in the open. Lighter ships will shell the positions you can see marked on the beachfront, without spot. The heavy should get at least an area spot from the SEALs in the control tower.” Brown pointed to the Operations Building. “The tower is here.”

  “What’s ‘heavy H-E,’ Lieutenant?” asked Captain Schubert.

  “Battleship. Sixteen inch; shells weigh almost 1,900 pounds apiece.”

  “Jesus,” whispered Sgt. Matthew Tucker, one of the Sheridan commanders.

  “What’s their rate of fire, Lieutenant?” asked Lieutenant Connelly.

  “The New Jersey will be approximately fifteen miles offshore, so as to deliver plunging shot. More accurate, and easier to correct. Best rate of fire, two rounds per minute per gun. Nine guns, so eighteen rounds a minute.”

  “And the light frag?” asked Captain Schubert.

  “From destroyers, approaching the beach from the twelve-mile limit at flank speed as soon as we get the OES. They have a range of about fourteen miles, but will close right up to the beach to be able to knock out anything they can see, or that we or aircraft can spot them onto. Forty rounds per minute per gun; three destroyers, the Adams, the King, and the Lawrence, two guns each.”

  “Jesus Christ, that is metal! How long can they fire?” asked Sergeant Tucker.

  “At least five minutes,” replied Lieutenant Brown, “maybe a bit longer. As soon as the pilot of this aircraft signals that he has turned to final approach, some four miles from the end of the runway we’ll drop on, the ships will raise and hold fire. They won’t be able to fire again across the runway until the aircraft are clear. After that, they’ll fire on our spot, and once everybody and all the vehicles are clear, the battleship will crater the runway to prevent enemy tanks from crossing in any kind of order.”

  “So what about the smoke, sir?” asked the Spec 4, reloading the clip for his Beretta pistol.

  “The last rounds out from the battleship will be smoke, but they should fall no closer than 200 meters south of the runway.”

  “So we’ll have to pop our own smoke at the runway’s edge,” said Lieutenant Connelly.

  “Hell, sir, we might as well. We’ll have to sprint up that runway anyhow, to get into the choke points around the Ops Building,” said Sergeant Tucker.

  Lieutenant Connelly looked at the two-by-three-foot plan of “Wheelus Air Base” and tapped the center. “What we have to be prepared for is a genuine tank assault - from anywhere on the base. A tank anywhere in the area of this plan can hit the Ops Building or any of our forces from where he is. Assuming the navy and marine air get the bad guys that are at least 500 meters away from us, we’ll have to fight any that are close in, tank to tank.”

  “Practically every grunt makin’ the jump gonna carry a Dragon, sir,” said the sergeant tank commander of the number-four Sheridan, a hard black man named Dobbs.

  “Which makes me think,” said Connelly, tapping the plan, “we should sprint to the apron and hold until the infantry can establish strong fighting positions for the Dragons, then organize ourselves as a maneuver platoon to go after any organized unit of enemy tanks that shows up.” Lieutenant Connelly turned and smiled at his men, then looked at Captain Schubert. “Captain?”

  Captain Schubert gave a thumbs-up and smiled back. “Excellent. Maybe a light section covering the long runway, a
nd a heavy to the western end of the base. That should let you move to oppose tank formations coming from the beach or from the south, while the infantry holds the fixed choke points.” Schubert stood. “Let’s get the colonel’s OK. I feel better with you guys free to maneuver.”

  “So do we, Captain. We can run, and we can shoot, but we are too lightly armored by far to be pillboxes.”

  Uqba ben Nafi, 0345 GMT (0445 Local)

  Praporshchik (Warrant Officer) Dmitri Sergeivich Tolkin gestured to the tank and BTR drivers, motioning them backwards into the supply hangars on the northern end of runway 03/21. The vehicles were maneuvered into place in the narrow spaces and shut down. The doors were closed, confining the sharp smell of diesel smoke. Tolkin stood with his back toward the hangar doors and lit a cigarette, avoiding the gaze of the officers, especially the zampolit, Captain Suslov, who strode back and forth shouting useless orders at the sweating Spetznaz troopers.

  “A word, Tolkin?”

  Tolkin whirled, dropping his cigarette, and saluted Colonel Zharkov. “Of course, Comrade Colonel.”

  “No need for all that courtesy, Tolkin. We enjoyed ten months in Afghanistan together, remember?”

  Tolkin had always liked Colonel Zharkov, because he thought and acted like a soldier, despite his reputed party connections, yet he was wary of the colonel’s confiding demeanor. “Of course, Comrade Colonel. Then, we had the black-asses on the right side of our guns.”

  That’s a test, thought Zharkov, and smiled. “Do you trust me, Tolkin?” he asked abruptly.

  Tolkin did, but he was surprised by the question. “Comrade Colonel?”

  “Old Russian proverb, Tolkin: ‘It is not always your enemies who put you into it.’“