USS Ticonderoga
“Kill it,” said Captain Conroy.
The missile officer, Lieutenant Commander Tarter, pressed the “Destruct” button and saw the missile-tracing screen go blank. “Killed, Captain,” he said into his headset.
“Combat, Air Defense,” barked the squawk box. “The bandit launched his sea skimmer. We have it.”
“Shoot it!” said Captain Conroy.
“Too close for a missile, Captain. We’ll have to rely on the CIWS.”1
“Will we interpose our hull between the missile and the America?”
“Maybe just, Captain,” said Decker. “Close.”
“Kill the missile jammers,” said Captain Conroy.
“Sir?” said the ECM officer, Lieutenant Moore.
“We have to pull the missile away from the carrier.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Lieutenant Moore, stabbing a switch. “Here she comes.”
The missile curved in toward the cruiser, flying ten meters above the sea surface. When it closed to under 800 meters, flying at Mach 1, the CIWS activated automatically. The six-barreled Vulcan cannon spewed out 300 shells in three seconds. The missile disintegrated 500 meters from the ship. The CIWS itself shut down automatically, its fire-control radar waiting passively for another alarm from the ship’s central computer.
1 The Close-In Weapons System is a totally automatic defensive system capable of shooting down missiles, or even navel gunfire projectiles, based on the 20mm Vulcan cannon.
Sergeant Cifuentes stiffened in the sudden silence that marked the end of the shelling. Dios mio, they will come now, he thought. He climbed up onto the turret, lowered himself into the gunner’s seat, and lit off the hydraulics that moved the turret and elevated the guns. Mohammed stood on the back of the vehicle and watched.
The turret bucked and shifted as the hydraulic pump motors wound up to constant speed. Since he didn’t have a radar operator, Cifuentes would have to use the optical sights. But against massed helicopters, the optics were better anyway because the gunner could shift targets faster.
The sky was lightening rapidly and Cifuentes looked east to see the first pinkish fingers of dawn. His eyes snapped open and his jaw dropped. Clearly silhouetted against the sky were two enormous black airplanes. As they crossed over the far end of the runway, Cifuentes could see parachutes. “Santa Maria, Madre de Dios,” whispered Cifuentes as he armed the guns. When those planes are halfway to me, he thought, I will fire. The maximum range of the cannons was 2,500 meters. Cifuentes had the lead aircraft in the optical sight and the guns elevated as he held the image. One burst for each aircraft, he thought, but I will be sure to get the first one.
“Go! Go! Go!” chorused the jumpmasters, tapping each man on the shoulder as he stepped into the slipstream. Lieutenant Brown was about ten men from the door, pulling his static line along the wire over his head. He felt the adrenaline coursing through his body as his heart pounded in sync with the “Go, go, go!”
The aircraft were over the middle of the runway now, and their engines were very loud. Cifuentes mentally crossed himself and squeezed the firing handle. The ZSU bucked and quivered as a thick stream of green tracers surged toward the lead aircraft.
“Jesus CHRIST!” screamed Jones, falling flat on the pavement. The ZSU’s cannons had fired from the shadow of a shed not forty meters away. Stuart dropped beside him, the RPG-7 launcher already resting on his shoulder. Stuart reached forward with his left hand, pulled the arming pin on the grenade, and aimed at the base of the four guns as they fired a second burst. The vehicle filled the entire field of the night optical sight. Stuart squeezed the trigger and the grenade’s rocket motor drew an orange line behind it as it streaked to the target.
The grenade detonated in front of the turret and the cannons abruptly stopped. Stuart saw the bodies of two men on the runway next to the smoking vehicle. He stood and grabbed Jones by the shoulder. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Jones nodded and scrambled to his feet. Both men whirled as they heard the roar of multiple cannon fire from the south. They could see green tracers rising from another ZSU south of the runway intersection. Jones sat on the runway, resting the Dragon launcher on his shoulder and bracing the forward rest with his feet. He saw a streak of missile exhaust race across the runway, and then the turret of the ZSU disappeared in an almost flashless explosion.
“Feeney got him,” said Stuart, again pulling Jones to his feet. “Not your day, Jones.”
“I have a feeling I’ll get another chance,” said Jones.
“Let’s go.”
They sprinted down the runway as parachutes continued to fall from both aircraft.
Lieutenant Brown heard a tearing, booming sound behind him, and saw colored balls of fire shoot through the aircraft. Several soldiers in front of him fell down. Brown could see the back of one man’s head split open, gushing blood.
The jumpmaster on Brown’s side of the aircraft was bleeding from a cut on his scalp.
“Keep moving, keep moving, go!”
Brown tripped and fell on top of a dead man in front of him, his foot caught. Troopers behind him climbed over his back. Brown could see his static line hook tangled with those of the dead men, as well as with hooks of men behind him who had cut their lines. The right door jumpmaster grasped the back of Brown’s harness and pulled him over the dead men, then cut his static line near the main chute. “Get moving, Troop!” yelled the jumpmaster, pushing him toward the door. “Jump your reserve! Move!”
Lieutenant Colonel Squitiero pressed the mike button on the yoke as he fought to keep the aircraft level. “Thunder, Carousel Leader. We’re taking heavy ground fire. We’re hit. Out.”
The C-141 was pulling to the right and losing altitude slowly. A warning light over the rpm gauges told him the right inboard engine was on fire, and the right outboard was losing power. We’re going in, he said to himself, but if I can keep this thing flying, the rest of those boys in the back could get out. Squitiero looked at his copilot, young First Lieutenant Harkins. “Get out, Harkins,” he said calmly.
“Colonel, I should stay-”
“Go, Harkins. I can do this by myself. Get as many people out as you can.”
Harkins unclipped his harness and rose from his seat, his parachute dragging behind him in its seat pack. “Good luck, Colonel.”
The aircraft began to shake violently and bank to the right, heading for the Mediterranean despite Squitiero’s turning the yoke hard left.
As Harkins entered the troop compartment and headed aft, the aircraft banked nearly forty-five degrees, and the copilot found himself walking on the bulkhead as much as on the steel flooring. Harkins could see two jumpmasters and the infantry colonel guide the last few soldiers out the right side door, including one who was still hooked up to the left side wire. The aircraft was settling fast, and Harkins was climbing, dragging his parachute behind him. He made the door with the help of the colonel, and they went out together. Harkins felt the heat of the fire on the right wing singe his face, and then his parachute opened with a snap.
He saw that he and the colonel were going to land in the sea, although the colonel was working the risers of his parachute to swing him back toward the beach. Harkins’s big emergency chute wasn’t really maneuverable, so he just floated down. He turned and watched the C-141 roll over gracefully, burning all along the right side, and plunge into the sea. He watched in vain for a final parachute.
USS Inchon, 0510 GMT (0610 Local)
Lieutenant Colonel Loonfeather put the handset down and looked at the clear plastic status board in front of him. The board had a large plan of Uqba ben Nafi Air Base on it. Information received from the various elements of the airborne assault as to their location and situation was plotted by sailors monitoring the various radio nets. The sailors wrote backwards from behind the board, or represented different units with self-adhering plastic symbols.
“How does it look, Rufus?” asked Colonel Brimme
r quietly.
“Well, it’s fucked up, Bob, but fortunately the Libyans seem to be waking up slowly. We’ve lost one aircraft, and I’m afraid we may have lost the task force commander. Major Donahue thinks maybe the last ten or fifteen troops in the lead aircraft landed beyond the drop zone, but he has no communication with them. Unfortunately, that group seems to include the naval gunfire spotting officer, though we’ve collected his sergeant. We’ve relayed to him the information about the one- or two-company tank force we saw in the satellite photos, and he’s talking to the battleship.”
“We’ve sent two flights of Cobras to check that out,” said Colonel Brimmer.
“Pray they don’t have another fucking ZSU,” barked Loonfeather.
“How come we didn’t know about those?” asked Brimmer.
“We never saw them in any of the photographs. Damn!”
Loonfeather pushed the charts and photographs off his console. “We’re lucky, in retrospect, that the SEALs spotted the first one and ended up in position to get both,”
“Well, if the Cobras get shot at, they can back off and spot for the battleship.”
“Yeah, if the Libyans don’t reach the runway before I get my Sheridans down and moving.”
“How long for that?”
“The aircraft just crossed the final phase line. The first vehicle should be on the ground in less than two minutes.”
Lieutenant Brown hit the ground hard, and he was pretty sure his left ankle was broken. It had seemed that his reserve parachute had barely deployed before he bounced off the side of a tall palm tree and crashed into dense bushes. He could see straight up, but not to the sides. To the south of him he could hear voices shouting in a language he assumed to be Arabic, and the roar of many heavy diesel engines.
I’m in the middle of the old golf course, he thought, and in the middle of a major formation of tanks. I’ve got to find someone with a radio and call for fire before those tanks can move out.
He untaped and unclipped the Dragon and set it in front of him. He never had an opportunity to release it to dangle beneath him during his rapid descent, and that had assured his broken ankle. He worked the bolt of his M-16, chambering a round. He heard movement in the bushes to his left and pressed himself against the bole of the palm tree.
“Hey, Lieutenant! Lieutenant Brown! It’s Links!”
Links! Links had a radio! “Over here, Links, by the tree!”
Links slipped into the brush and sat beside Brown. He was panting from exertion. “Jesus, Lieutenant, I saw you come down. I landed about fifty meters east, practically on top of a camouflaged tent!”
“Is your radio working?”
“Yeah. I got a quick radio check with Sergeant Bright. He’s over on the other side of the airfield, where we were supposed to land.”
Brown spread the plan of the air base on the ground. It had a fine grid overlay for precise spotting. A warship’s inertial navigation computer could calculate the ship’s position relative to any point on the plan, and relay that information directly to the gunfire-control computer. Brown motioned Links closer. “Show me exactly where we are.”
“OK. See this road that curves off to the south? We’re in a depression - that should be it.” Links pointed to a rough oval of contour lines. “All this immediate area is overgrown, and it’s crawling with tanks.”
“What are the tanks doing?”
“They’re mostly just starting up. Some have formed up alongside the road. There are a lot of people running around, waving their arms and yelling, sir. Looks like a regular army early reveille clusterfuck, sir.”
Lieutenant Brown smiled despite his pain. “Their officers probably slept in some nice dry quarters. OK, call Sergeant Bright on the company command net and tell him where we are. Make it point three-four-niner-slash-one-four-one. Then shift over to spot net and call Big Bang for me.”
“We goin’ to work right here, sir?”
“Yeah. We got to bust up these tanks before they move out.”
“We’re kind of in the middle of their AO, sir.”
“I know, Links, and I have a broken ankle. Call us in, then help me get out to where I can see.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Links began talking into the radio.
Brown stood slowly. His ankle hurt like hell; he felt he could walk on it, but not far. As soon as he could reach a vantage point, he would take Links’s radio and tell the RTO to take off.
“OK, Lieutenant. The sergeant’s doing a prespot for some tanks south of the airfield. Big Bang is on.”
Big Bang was Naval Gunfire Control on New Jersey. Brown took the handset. “Big Bang, this is Flashlight Six. Request immediate fire on point three-four-niner-slash-one-four-one. Target is concentration of tanks, over.”
“This is Big Bang. I’m giving you Stonewall and Steel Gage. Talk to them, out.”
Links led Brown through a hole in the brush and up out of the depression. Lying in dry grass, they could see tanks and smaller vehicles crawling out of camouflaged positions and forming up on both sides of the road. Officers, both Russian and Libyan, gestured and shouted. The shouting was clearly audible. Brown estimated the nearest tanks were roughly fifty meters away.
“OK, Links, give me the radio and take off.”
“What the fuck, sir?”
“Links, I’m calling for fire on this position. I can’t run; you can. Try to make the beach; you’ll be spotted.”
“I ain’t gonna di-di and leave you here, sir.”
“There’s no sense both of us getting killed. Anyway, that’s an order, Marine.”
Links took off the radio pack and set it beside the officer. “Good luck, sir,” he said, backing away slowly. The lieutenant was already talking on the radio.
Brown called the two destroyers, Adams (Stonewall) and King (Steel Gage), and set up the shoot. Both were in position. Brown asked for immediate fire.
“Flashlight, Stonewall. Be advised that we are under a lift-fire order. The Air Force has eight aircraft inside controlled airspace dropping cargo.”
Damn! Brown felt himself near panic. “Stonewall, I need that fire! These tanks are about ready to roll!”
Captain Maxwell “Blue Max” Blumenthal, USAF, had his aircraft commander’s seat reclined as far as it would go, so he could sight over the top of the instrument panel of the C-141 at the rapidly approaching airfield. His co-pilot, First Lieutenant Horace Wiley, leaned forward and watched the ground hurtling by forty feet below the aircraft with increasing anxiety. Blumenthal held the yoke lightly in both hands, adjusting to the tiny but sickening bumps caused by the unevenness of the ground effect. He had his dark visor down and locked, and was trying not to think of crashing. A lazy grin split his face below the visor. “Airspeed,” he said, not wanting to look at the gauges for even a second.
“One hundred knots,” said Wiley, his voice constricted. “Jesus, Max, we are practically in the scrub.”
“Don’t look out, Ace, if it bothers you. Is the one-eight bird still on us?”
“Tight formation,” said Wiley. “Twenty meters off the right wing.”
Blumenthal gave the yoke a tiny twist to the right. The runway slid away to the left as he lined the bird up on the taxiway to the north of it. “Everything ready in the back?”
“Sergeant Gaynor says ramp is down, drogue chute deployed.”
“OK. Stay on the intercom with him. As soon as we cross the airfield endline, tell him to punch it out.”
“Jesus, Max, why can’t we just lay it down on the runway?” Wiley’s voice whined, which irritated Blue Max despite his concentration.
“We the first, because we the best, Ace. Each later bird has a LAPES lane further south, easier.” Max could see people running around on the runway, and tall palm trees at the far end. Steady, Max, he thought, grinding his teeth behind the smile. Steady.
The numbers “29” were clearly visible at the end of the runway. Max eased the yoke forward, and the giant aircraft descended. “Nine
ty knots. Jesus, Max!” whispered Wiley.
“Relax. Blue Max can fly. Just be ready to give me takeoff power when I call for it, and then to suck the wheels and flaps.”
“Right, Max.” Ace’s voice was a harsh croak.
The end of the taxiway rushed up and under the aircraft. Max flared as if to land. “Now, Ace!”
“Cut it loose!” screamed the co-pilot into the intercom. The aircraft’s nose lurched suddenly upward, and the stall-warning horn bleated loudly. Max pushed the yoke forward, forcing the nose down toward the runway. “Takeoff power!”
Wiley pushed the four throttles forward as hard as he could. The engine noise behind him rose to a scream, but painfully slowly. “Loadmaster says clean away!”
“Airspeed!”
“One-fifteen! Coming up!” Wiley watched buildings flash by above the right wing. “One twenty-five.”
Should be enough, thought Blumenthal, pulling the sluggish yoke slowly toward his chest. Come on, big girl!
“Positive rate of climb. Trees, Max!”
“No-o-o problem. Suck the wheels! Reduce flaps to forty percent!”
Wiley retracted the landing gear and reset the flaps. “Gear up, flaps forty percent!”
“Where is the one-eight bird?”
Wiley craned his neck right and aft. “Higher than us, and turning away north. He’s OK.”
Max nodded, babying the yoke, feeling the full power of the jet engines push them higher and faster, away from the awful airstrip. The bird climbed steadily and turned toward the Mediterranean. Max eased the throttles, let out his breath, and switched his headset to intercom. “Sergeant Gaynor! You get that tank out good?”
“Slicker than shit off a shiny shovel, Cap. The one-eight bird dropped his right next to ours. The tankers are already swarming all over them.”
“Good. Close the ramp. Retract the flaps, Ace. I got me a taste for some Spanish brandy.” Blue Max raised his visor and looked across at his copilot. “Think you can climb us back to economical cruise and fly us to Torrejon, Lieutenant?”
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