Fire Arrow

by Franklin Allen Leib

  Benghazi and Tobruk, Libya

  The sixteen air force F-111Es from the 20th Tactical Fighter Wing at Upper Heyford turned inshore on receipt of the “Execute Fire Arrow” signal, rotated their wings back to full sweep of 72.5 degrees, and accelerated toward the coast at best sea-level speed of 915 knots. All the aircraft carried mixed ordnance loads. The two lead aircraft carried Shrike antiradar missiles on outer external underwing hard points, with the missile electronics package in their internal bomb bays. All aircraft carried Walleye II television-guided bombs, and 750-and 1,000-pound iron bombs. Four aircraft in each attack force carried suspended underwing units (SUUs) of Sadeye cluster bombs. Each aircraft carried as well a pod containing the AN/ALQ-131 defensive jamming electronic countermeasures. For the F-111 aircraft, this was a light load.

  The bombers began their attacks with Shrike missiles, as the lead aircraft gained altitude rapidly to draw the missile guidance radars. As soon as the radars had been reported destroyed, Colonel Wight, with the Benghazi flight, ordered the general attacks on both bases.

  The attacks on Benghazi and Tobruk were identical in concept, differing only as required by the different arrangement of the two bases. Aerial and satellite reconnaissance of both bases had been heavy, and showed their revetments and taxiways packed with fighter and attack aircraft of all types in the Libyan inventory. The mission of the eight aircraft attacking each base was threefold. First, eliminate the surface-to-air missile defenses. Second, crater the runways and eradicate the control and support facilities of each air base to prevent the launching of any effective counterattack against the Air Force or the fleet. Finally, destroy as many aircraft as possible on the ground. The first part of the mission was accomplished by the Shrike missiles. The second part was effected by attacks using Walleye II bombs, which were given targets by the pilots before they were dropped and then guided themselves until impact. Eighteen of these bombs were dropped at Benghazi and fifteen at Tobruk, aimed at control towers, ground-control approach radars, mobile antiaircraft guns, repair facilities, ordnance depots, and POL (petroleum, oil, and lubricants) tank farms. Following the Walleye II drops, each flight made runs dropping 750- and 1,000-pound bombs, many with armor-piercing cases and base-detonating fuses, which blew gaping craters in the runways, concentrated around intersections and taxi-access points.

  The final wave of four aircraft at each target flew low over revetments and parking areas, dropping Sadeye one-pound cluster bomb units from the cylindrical containers suspended under the wings. Each SUU held over 600 bomblets, and each aircraft carried two containers. When the containers popped open, the bomblets were strewn in a cloud 150 meters long and sixty meters wide.

  Each Sadeye bomblet was a steel shell filled with three-quarters of a pound of TNT into which 600 steel shards had been embedded. Some of the bomblets were fused to explode thirty feet above the ground, others to detonate on impact. Originally conceived as an antipersonnel weapon, the Sadeye fragmentation bomb had been found to be especially effective against parked aircraft. Aircraft that had been disarmed and drained of fuel simply collapsed like wilted butterflies as the steel shards shredded their thin aluminum skins and cut away landing gear beneath them. The ready aircraft burned and exploded as the hot steel splinters sliced through fuel cells and weapons packages. If maximum casualties had been wanted, some of the bomblets would have been fused to explode from ten to thirty minutes after impact, to destroy fire-fighting crews and equipment, but the mission was directed against the aircraft alone.

  The last F-111s completed their bombing runs, then raced out over the Mediterranean at low level. The Tobruk raid had taken four minutes; the raid on Benghazi, a somewhat larger base, had taken just under five. The aircraft reformed in two groups twenty-five miles at sea. All sixteen reported normal weapons function and no damage to themselves. Colonel Wight ordered a course for the Strait of Gibraltar and a slow climb to economic cruising altitude, giving the Tobruk bombers a higher airspeed so they could catch up to the Benghazi flight.

  The eight navy F-14 Tomcats that had flown fighter cover for the F-111s waited on station until the navy RA-5C photoreconnaissance aircraft from Nimitz photographed both bases, then followed them back to the carriers. Not a single Libyan fighter had risen to challenge the bombers, and the Tomcat jocks voiced their disappointment in muted chatter on the fighter net.

  Airborne final assembly point, eighteen miles north of El Asciar, Libya

  The lead C-141 and the other carrying the remainder of the infantry company left the low-level orbit, descended even lower, and headed for the coast. Lieutenant Colonel Squitiero, flying the lead aircraft, watched the second aircraft form on him, thirty meters higher and fifty meters behind. He spoke briefly into his lip mike, and both aircraft descended further, the leader flying in the ground effect, barely forty meters above the calm sea. Lieutenant Colonel Squitiero flexed his hands on the yoke. Nap-of-the-earth flying was even harder over land, and he could see the low bluff of the Libyan coast coming up fast ahead of his aircraft.

  USS New Jersey, twelve miles north of Uqba ben Nafi

  The battleship was moving at five knots, barely rolling in the light swells. Her two anti-submarine pickets, the frigates Capodanno and Truett shadowed her, one 4,000 yards ahead, and the other 4,000 yards off the battleship’s starboard quarter, out of the sound shadow of New Jersey’s mammoth screws. The battleship’s fire-control computer aimed the guns, which pointed upward into the gradually lightening sky. When the Operation Execute signal was received, the captain turned to the gunnery officer on the bridge and nodded. The gunnery officer spoke into the headset he wore under his helmet. “Main battery, commence fire.” Nine jets of flame gushed from the sixteen-inch guns, each sixty-seven feet long, hurling 1,900-pound shells at targets preset into the gunfire-control computer. The first targets were the fighter revetments and antiaircraft gun positions at the southern ends of the two runways. After enough shells had been spread over these to assure destruction, the computer shifted the fire to the tank positions south of runway 11/29. The noise was deadened by the protective headgear worn by every exposed man, but it lasted and resonated through the ship’s steel structure, unlike the sharp, short crack of smaller naval guns.

  With a low, clattering roar of 1,000 freight trains, the shells fell through the air over Uqba ben Nafi and landed at the distant ends of the runways, and then at fifty-meter intervals in the grassy scrublands south of the long runway. Ricardo, in the control tower, heard the shells overhead and turned to watch the bright orange bursts and feel the concussion. He keyed his radio handset. “Devastation, this is Black Widow. No spot, you’re right on target, out.”

  The New Jersey would fire two broadsides a minute, until the C-141s crossed their final phase line four miles east of the runway. The computer would make adjustments to each salvo to ensure that the entire length of the area of the tank fighting positions was bombarded. The huge shells dug overlapping craters fifty meters across in the hard earth and collapsed the fighting positions that had been bulldozed out for the tanks three days before. The tanks would have been destroyed and buried in their own holes if they had been where they had shown up on the reconnaissance photos, but they were gone.

  Closer to shore, the destroyers Adams, King, and Lawrence approached the beach on an angle so that both forward and aft guns could engage. Each ship could fire automatically at forty rounds per minute per gun until the magazines were empty. Their targets were the antiaircraft guns at the northern end of runway 03/21, the tanks believed to be dug in on the low bluff overlooking the beach, and a low hill behind the beach some 1,000 meters to the east of the northern end of runway 03/21, where yesterday’s photos had shown two platoons of tanks.

  The destroyers didn’t get a spot from the SEALs, but their gunnery was excellent. Three 57mm guns and their crews were destroyed at the end of the runway by the first salvos, sending up a series of secondary explosions easily visible from ten miles at sea. The rain of shell
fire collapsed the empty depressions the tanks had dug for themselves in the sand.

  Uqba ben Nafi

  Senior Lieutenant Kim sat up quickly. He had seen a bright flash in the window of the distant control tower, and then the tower’s lights had gone out. He pressed the microphone switch on the stick of his aircraft. “Chosun Flight Leader to tower, over!” He got no answer and tried again. The Libyans might be asleep, but there was always a North Korean Air Force officer in the tower when Korean pilots were operating.

  “What is it, Chosun Leader?” Lieutenant Choi’s voice came in loudly in Kim’s ear. Kim was glad to hear him awake and alert.

  “I saw what might have been an explosion in the tower window, Choi, and now I can’t raise the tower.”

  “Do you think it could be an attack?”

  “I don’t know. Wake the ground crew; it is nearly time to warm up the engines again, anyway.”

  In thirty seconds, they had the turbines started and the auxiliary power cart disconnected. There was still no response from the tower. Kim ran down the aircraft and missile checklists with Choi over the radio as the two aircraft taxied onto the runway and rolled slowly north. What to do? He wondered. Go? We should go.

  Kim saw the yellow tracks of two missiles flash in from the sea, and saw the bright bursts of their detonation on targets. He pushed his throttle forward and raced through the rest of his takeoff checklist. He heard a low rumble growing beneath the high-pitched whine of the jet, and then a terrific explosion behind him shook the aircraft violently.

  “What was that, Leader?” screamed Choi.

  “Bombs, or shells. We go, Choi, roll in my wake!” Kim increased the thrust to takeoff power and accelerated toward the darkened control tower.

  USS Inchon

  The Flag Plot was busy, but controlled. Lieutenant Colonel Loonfeather lit a cigarette from the butt of one just finished as a sailor dropped an envelope in front of him. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Latest satellite photo, sir, in from the ground-control station in California. The Chief of the Watch in Combat told me to bring it right up.”

  “Good. Thanks, and thank the chief.”

  “Yes, sir.” The sailor moved on.

  Loonfeather looked at the date-time group. The photo had been shot only an hour before and was an infrared image. He glanced at it, his mind with the paratroopers now flying toward the Libyan coast at 300 knots. His attention was suddenly engaged as he looked at the photo. “Shit! Bob, look at this!”

  Colonel Brimmer looked at the photo. Infrared images were hard to read unless you were used to them. “What is it, Rufus?”

  “The defensive setup! It’s totally different! Look, the tanks on the beach are gone, and the ones on the edge of runway 11/29 have been pulled back and concentrated two kilometers south of the airfield!”

  “Where are the rest? It looks like maybe a dozen shapes to the south,” said Brimmer uncertainly.

  “You can’t tell,” said Loonfeather, his fingers tracing the images on the photograph. “They could be close together. Their heat signatures could merge, especially if they had been run recently. Shit! They had to have been run recently!”

  “But that couldn’t be forty tanks.”

  “No, Bob, no more than twenty.” His finger traced the photograph. “Where would the rest be?”

  “Where would you put them, Rufus?”

  Loonfeather held his chin in his hand, concentrating. Ancient memories teased his mind as he stroked the photo with his fingertips. A place of concealment. In a deep draw, under the cottonwoods. Loonfeather’s fingers stopped in the area west of the runways, marked “golf course” on the old plans of Wheelus. He spread his fingers and examined the area, but there were no heat signatures.

  “There. Along the stream in the old golf course. But there’s nothing there.”

  “Could they be concealed from the satellite, by trees or other camouflage?” Brimmer stared at the photograph, willing a sign.

  “Ordinary camouflage shouldn’t hide the heat of tank engines. They had to have been moved after that last photograph, and should still be plenty warm. But it could be,” said Loonfeather. “Dammit! Must be!”

  “Christ, Rufus! That area is practically on top of the Operations Building! Much closer than the Airborne, after they land! Can we warn Colonel Bowie?”

  “We’ll try, Bob. Right now Colonel Bowie is about as busy as a man can be.”

  Uqba ben Nafi

  Hooper took off his helmet and his earplugs. He moved in front of the hostages and tried to smile some encouragement into their frightened faces. The shells from the battleship were very loud and the building shuddered, even though the nearest shells were landing more than half a mile away. These people realize this nightmare is far from over, he thought.

  “Commander Hooper,” said Leah, at his side.

  Hooper felt her animal energy, and envied Stuart. “Yes, Captain?”

  “We should dispose of this Abu Salaam.” “We’ll take him back with us.”

  “To America? Why? He will get a trial; he will embarrass you, and you will lock him up until the Palestinians take enough hostages to make you exchange him.”

  “We don’t exchange criminals for hostages.”

  “Bullshit!” Leah spat. “You have, and you will! Kill him, now!”

  Hooper sighed. She was probably right. “We don’t kill prisoners, Leah.”

  “I will do it for you.”

  “Leah, look. We have a deal, remember? You are here in American uniform, ostensibly an American SEAL. You will follow my orders, OK?”

  “Hey, Hoop!” called Osborne from across the room. “Ricardo says he hears noises, a heavy diesel engine.”

  Hooper listened and heard a faint drumming, accompanied by the squeaking clank of a tracked vehicle. He snatched his helmet off the floor and put it on. “What can you see, Ricardo?”

  “Just turned into the alley, Hoop, next to the Maintenance Building. Funny-looking thing; looked like it has four light cannons on top of a light tank chassis.”

  “That is a ZSU, Hooper,” said Leah, listening in her own helmet radio. “The Syrians have them. Antiaircraft cannons; very high rate of fire.”

  “Jesus!” said Hooper. “Ricardo, can we get a shot with a Dragon from up there?”

  “Negative, Hoop; it’s too close. The Dragon won’t arm until it has flown at least 200 meters.”

  Hooper ran to the radio and picked up the handset. “Thunder, this is Black Widow. Can you hold things up a minute? We have a new threat, over.”

  “Jesus CHRIST!” yelled Ricardo into his helmet mike. “Commander, there are two fighter aircraft taking off, straight at us!”

  “Call it into Top Hat, Ricardo,” said Hooper, rushing to the front window. He heard the scream of jet engines and saw the two aircraft as a blur passing in front of the Ops Building.

  A ZSU, and now fighters have gotten past the naval shelling! thought Hooper, shaking his head. If the fighters come in with the C-141s, we could have a disaster.

  Colonel Zharkov’s lead tank was a third of the way along runway 03/21 when the missile-radar truck parked next to the supply warehouse exploded. Moments later, the first shells from the ships offshore began lighting up the night and causing his tank to sway as the ground rolled beneath it. Zharkov smiled as he was able to figure out the Americans’ artillery plan. If I hadn’t moved the tanks from the ridiculously exposed positions the Libyans had established, he thought, they would be gone.

  It was clear that his own mission had to be aborted. Somehow, the Americans had gotten in and taken control of the hostages. “What I need,” he said to himself, “is a safe place to hide until they are gone.”

  “Over there, sir,” said Grishkin, his gunner, pointing. Zharkov hadn’t realized he had keyed the intercom mike.

  Grishkin had pointed to the Maintenance Building, across the open apron. One of the large bay doors stood open and light streamed out. The hangar looked large enough to
hold his six vehicles, and it was too close to the Operations Building to be shelled from the sea. “Good, Grishkin. Driver, head for that open door, and speed it up, please.”

  Zharkov switched from intercom to radio as his driver turned the tank onto the angled turnoff and sped toward the Maintenance Building. Zharkov instructed the vehicles to follow him and for the BTRs to back in first, then the tanks. And then, thought Zharkov, we will close the doors and wait to see what happens next.

  Zharkov looked back toward the runway and was amazed to see two jet aircraft roar aloft. Mother of God, he thought, those must be the ship-killers. I never thought they would get up!

  Sergeant Cifuentes heard three sharp explosions and saw the result of one of them. A radar truck at the edge of the golf course just ahead of him disappeared in a white-hot flash. Then the heavy explosions started south of his position, masked from him by three-story buildings. The blasts looked like heat lightning, but the swaying of the ZSU told Cifuentes they were either bombs or shells.

  The sergeant was suddenly afraid. The Americans will shell, and then the clouds of helicopters the Russian colonel had spoken of would really come. Fixing vehicles for these Libyan boludos was bad enough, but dying for them was crazy. Cifuentes forced himself to go on, and he turned left and drove quickly to the end of the runway, then backed into the deep shadow of a small shed topped by a light tower. A quick burst from Cifuentes’s AK-47 extinguished the light at the top of the tower.