by Dale Brown
But he knew there was no way Saddam could manage the sophistication needed to develop such a complicated weapon, let alone field it. He couldn’t even build a secure phone system.
“Is ISA involved?” asked Dog.
“No. We’re up to our ears with China and the rest of the Middle East right now. This is CentCom’s show. Things are ramping up quickly here, Colonel,” said Elliott. “I wanted you to know what you might be up against. The Megafortresses would be prime targets.” Dog leaned back in the chair. The seat, the desk, everything in the office had once belonged to Brad Elliott. He’d built this place, fashioned it into a high-tech center comparable to the fabled Lockheed Skunk Works, maybe even Los Alamos, if you adjusted for the difference in budgets and the times.
Then he’d been kicked out, sacrificed because of politics. No, not entirely, Dog amended. Elliott did bear some responsibility for the so-called Day of the Cheetah spy scandal, if only because he was sitting at this desk when it happened.
He’d landed on his feet with ISA, and yet …
“I appreciate the information, General,” Dog told him.
“I’m going to take it under advisement.”
“I don’t want our people, your people, getting surprised,” said Elliott.
“That’s not going to happen,” said Dog, sharper than he intended.
Elliott said nothing. It occurred to Dog that the retired general had probably had a hand in getting the Whiplash order issued—in fact, it may have been the reason he’d been sent to investigate in the first place.
“Thank you, General,” Dog told him. “I appreciate the heads-up.”
“You’re welcome.”
The line went dead. Dog keyed his phone. “Ax, get Rubeo over here. I need to talk to him.”
“Dr. Ray is on his way,” said Ax. “How ‘bout lunch?”
“How’d you know I wanted to talk to him?”
“Musta been a coincidence,” said the chief master sergeant. “Ham or roast beef?”
“Neither,” said Dog.
“Yeah, I know you want a BLT. I was just testing you.” Dog was tempted to call Ax’s bluff by saying he’d have something completely different, but before he could, there was a knock on the door and an airman entered with a tray.
“Ax,” said Dog, still on the phone, “if—”
“Light on the mayo, easy on the burn,” said the chief, sounding a little like a short-order cook. “Anything else, Colonel?”
Incirlik
28 May 1997 0700
TORBIN DRESSED QUICKLY AND THEN HEADED OVER TO THE squadron ready room, skipping breakfast. Though he’d managed nearly six hours of sleep, his body felt as if he’d spent the time driving a jackhammer into several yards of reinforced concrete. He walked with his head slightly bent, nodding as others passed without actually looking at them. He’d gotten a few steps into the building when a lieutenant called his name and told him that General Harding wanted to talk to him.
Harding was in charge of the wing Glory B was assigned to. Torbin didn’t know where his office was and had to ask for directions.
“General, I’m Captain Dolk,” said Torbin when he finally arrived. He stood in the doorway of the office, one hand on the doorjamb.
“Come in, Captain. Close the door, please.” The general began talking before Torbin sat. The first few words blurred together—rough out there, all hell breaking loose, a difficult job. “The Phantom is an old airframe,” continued the general. “I used to fly them myself, back in the Stone Age.”
“Yes, sir,” said Torbin.
“Things have changed tremendously. Hell, we’re using AWACS, standoff weapons, GPS—we’re even going to have a pair of Megafortresses helping out. The Wild Weasel mission belongs to an earlier era.” He thinks I fucked up, Torbin realized.
“These days, we can jam radars with ease. Locate ‘em, knock ‘em out before they turn on. That’s the way to go.
Much safer than waiting for them to turn on. I have a pair of Spark Varks and a Compass Call en route.”
“General, we can still do the job.” Harding drew himself up in the chair and held his round face slightly to the side. His cheeks, ruddy to begin with, grew redder. “There’s no mission for you today, son. You’re to stand by until further notice.” Torbin waited for the general to continue—to ball him out, to say he screwed up, to call him an idiot. But he didn’t.
“I didn’t screw up, sir,” said Torbin finally. “I didn’t.
My pilot didn’t and I didn’t.”
Harding stared at him. He didn’t frown, but he sure didn’t smile. He just stared.
“I’ll do anything I can,” said Torbin finally. “Anything.
The radars that came on, the missiles—they were too late and too far to hit those F-15s.”
“I appreciate your sentiments,” said Harding.
Torbin felt the urge to smash something, kick the door or punch the wall. He wanted to rage: No way I screwed up! No stinking way!
But he took control of himself, nodded to the general, then walked slowly from the office.
Aboard Quicksilver,
over southeastern Turkey
1300
ZEN FELT A SUDDEN SHOCK OF DISPLACEMENT AS THE FLIGHTHAWK slipped away from the Megafortress, launching herself as the mothership rose on the stiff wind’s eddy. No matter how many times he did this, it still took a moment to adjust to the difference between what his body felt and what his eyes and brain told him it should feel.
And then he was in the Flighthawk, seeing and feeling the plane through his control helmet and joystick. He fingered the speed slider and nudged toward the rift in the peaks where the scratch strip sat.
“Systems in the green,” said Fentress, monitoring the flight from his station next to Zen.
“Thanks.” Zen pushed the Flighthawk downward against the violent and shifting winds. A thick layer of clouds sat between the Flighthawk and the airstrip, but the synthesized view in his screen showed every indentation in the rocks and even gave a fairly accurate rendering of the brownish-gray concrete that formed the landing area.
It looked to be in much better shape than they’d expected.
Still, even if Danny’s plan worked, the strip was going to be on the narrow side. Zen slid the Flighthawk into a bank, gliding five thousand feet above the shallow ridge that formed the main obstacle to lengthening the runway.
“I’m going to get under the clouds so we can get the precise measurements,” he told Breanna over the interphone.
“Go for it.”
“Looks narrow down there, Bree,” he added.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Zen slipped under the clouds and manually selected the video feed for his main display. Mountaintops spread out on the horizon, giants sleeping beneath green and brown mottled blankets.
“Bree could slide pickles into an olive jar,” said Chris Ferris, the copilot.
“Watch your language,” joked Breanna.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t handle it,” Zen said. “I said it would be tight.”
“I thought you slept on the way over,” said Breanna.
“I did. Why?”
“You sound a little testy.”
“Airspeed dropping,” said Fentress.
“No shit,” snapped Zen, turning his full attention back to his plane. Indicated airspeed had nudged below 300 knots. He backed his power off even more, letting it slide through 250. The small-winged U/MF became increasingly unstable as its speed dropped, but Zen needed the slow speed so they could get a good read on the target area. “Computer, begin dimension survey as programmed.”
“Computer,” acknowledged the Flighthawk’s C3 flight system. “Dimension survey initiated.”
“Captain Fentress, give the feed to the flight deck,” said Zen.
“Aye aye, sir,” said Fentress, apparently trying to joke—a new development that Zen had to leave unremarked, as the Flighthawk hit a gnarly gust of wind. He ramped up thrust but w
as nudged off course and had to start the whole run over again.
“If we had more altitude, I could get a better angle for Captain Freah,” said Fentress, who was giving Freah the feed so he could plot his jump after the missiles did their work. “Save some time.”
“Curly, let me fly my plane, okay? We’ll do it like we rehearsed.”
“Yes, sir,” said Fentress.
They were silent until he reached the end of the runway area and began recovering.
“We’ve got it up here, Jeff,” said Breanna. “Glitch downloading the targeting data to the missiles. Take us a minute.”
“Flighthawk commander acknowledges.”
“Getting awful formal,” said his wife.
“Just doing my job, Quicksilver leader.” Breanna didn’t answer. Chris Ferris marked the location on the Megafortress’s automated targeting system, then opened the bomb bay doors. The two hand-built missiles whose noses looked like spherical clusters glued together sat on a massive rotating bomb rack in the rear of the plane.
Ferris gave a countdown to launch, handing the process to the computer at five seconds. A sharp metallic trrrrshhhhh sounded over the interphone circuit as the first missile launched; 3.2 seconds later the second tore away.
“Ground wire loose somewhere,” said Louis Garcia, who was sitting in the rear bay. “Going to have to fix that when we get down.”
“Three seconds to target,” said Ferris. “Two, one—”
Over southeastern Turkey
1310
WHEN THE BACK DOOR OF THE MC-17 OPENED, THE TEMPERATURE inside the hold dropped dramatically. The cold bit at Captain Danny Freah’s skin despite the layers of thermals and special drop suit he wore. But at least it meant they’d be getting to work soon—the worst part of any operation was the wait.
Danny moved his hand up to the visor of his combat helmet, clicking the control to increase the resolution on the feed he was receiving from Zen’s U/MF. A fair amount of smoke lingered from the explosion, but the weapons seemed to have done their job perfectly.
“We’re up next,” said the transport pilot. The communications and video were piped in through a hardwire; the MC-17B/W did not yet have an internal wireless connection. “Should be good to go in zero-one minutes.”
“Show’s under way,” Danny told the others in his team.
“Look alive, look alive,” said Hernandez, the team jumpmaster. Though he’d already checked everyone’s equipment twice in the past five minutes, he began one last inspection.
“First pass is for the ‘dozers,” Danny said, though the reminder wasn’t necessary.
“Sure I can’t ride one down?” asked Powder.
“Next jump,” said Danny.
“He just wants to make sure he gets his turn driving,” said Egg Reagan. “Trying to bump me.”
“I ain’t bumpin’ you. It’s Nursey who shouldn’t be at the wheel. You ever ride in a Humvee with him?”
“I’m not the one who lost his license,” answered Nurse.
“Who lost their license?” asked Danny.
“Just a rumor,” said Powder.
“We’re cleared,” said the MC-17B/W pilot. “Dust is settling. Okay, boys, look good.” One of the loadmasters near the tail ramp waved a fist in the air, then pushed a button on the thick remote control panel in his hand. The bulldozer closest to the doorway jerked forward on its skid; lights flashed above the opening. In the meantime, the MC-17 slowed dramatically, its jet engines whining and shuddering. Danny tightened his grip on the rail behind him as the plane turned herself into an elevator, gliding down ten stories in the space of a few half seconds. The two bulldozers lurched forward on their automated launch ramp. They slowed as they cleared the door, seeming to stop in midair before bobbing outward, one after another.
Danny turned his gaze back to the top half of his visor and its feed from the Flighthawk. A lot of dust, nothing else. Then a large black rock furled into view, followed by another. As the U/MF flew past, smoke and dust started to clear and Danny saw the drogue chutes chuttering off to the right, the ‘dozers sitting on the ground.
“Fuel’s up,” said the loadmaster. Two more crates made their way toward the door. These were perfectly square. Four barrels of diesel fuel for the ‘dozers, along with some hand pumps and additional equipment, were contained inside custom-made cylinders packed into the spidery interior lattice of the special shock-absorbing crates. Following the fuel were two more skids with jackhammers and assorted gear. After they were out, the MC-17 began climbing to give them a little more room for their jump.
“Wind’s a bitch out there, boys,” said Hernandez. “Be sharp.”
“As a pin,” said Powder.
Danny took a breath as the yellow light came on above the door, indicating that they were almost ready. He took his place in the second line, still holding the rail as they waited for Hernandez’s signal. The seven men on the team went out practically together, two teams abreast holding hands.
A “normal” rig for a recreational parachuter always includes a special altimeter device to deploy an emergency parachute once the jumper passes a preset altitude in case the main chute fails. A device that worked on essentially the same principles in the Whiplash jumpers’ gear deployed their MC-5 ram-air parachutes based on a preprogrammed glide course. Sending GPS data as well as altimeter readings to their combat helmets, the “smart rigs” turned the Whiplash team members into miniature airplanes. They steered the boxy, rectangular chutes through the swirling winds, their bodies lurching as counterweights as they fought through the difficult fall. All seven men came down within ten yards of each other—a tight squeeze between the equipment and the work area, though if this had been an exercise at Dreamland or the Military Free Fall Simulator at Fort Bragg, Danny would have made them repack and jump again.
Stowing his chute quickly, the captain cleared his rucksack off the work area and recalibrated his smart helmet’s com set, waiting while it searched for the tactical communications satellite deployed by Raven. That took only about five seconds, but by then the others were already pumping fuel into the ‘dozers, which seemed to have come down okay. Danny walked over to the pile of rubble created by the AGM-86s.
There were rocks all over the place. Annie had promised a fairly even pile.
But the ridge itself was gone, and the pockmarks from the explosion seemed a few inches deep at most. They’d have it flattened and meshed in no time.
“All right, get the ‘dozers, let’s go,” yelled Danny. “The rest of you guys, get the equipment squared away and then get ready for the mesh. Should be here in thirty minutes.”
“You sure we can get it all down, Cap?” asked Bison.
“Timetable’s tight.”
“Bison, if you had a problem, you should have spoken up before,” said Danny.
“No sir, not a problem.”
“He’s just trying to slow things down because he’s got the latest time in the pool,” said Powder.
“What pool?”
“We bet on how long it would take,” admitted Bison sheepishly.
“You guys get to work before I make you take out hammers and pound these boulders into dust,” Danny told them.
Liu fired up his bulldozer first, moving it off the thick planks of its landing crate. The sergeant had claimed that he had worked two summers with a construction firm; as improbable as that seemed—Liu stood perhaps five-six and weighed 120 soaking wet—he had demonstrated at Dreamland that he knew how to work the ‘dozer, slamming the levers around like an expert. He pushed ahead now, angling the rocks straight off a shallow cliff at the right side of the strip.
Egg had trouble getting his ‘dozer started.
“Hey, use it or lose it,” shouted Powder from the ground as Egg fumbled with the ignition.
“What’s the story?” shouted Danny.
“Something’s screwed up with the engine,” said Egg.
He pulled off his glasses, cleaning them on his shirt,
then pushed back his cap on his bald head as he studied the machine. He looked more than a little like an owl in cammies.
“Pull out the doohickey,” said Powder.
“Shut up,” snapped Egg. He leaned over the front of the ‘dozer, looking in the direction of the engine.
“Loose wire or something?” Danny asked.
“You got to pull the doohickey out. It’s basically a Volkswagen with a big ol’ blade on it,” said Powder.
“What the hell is he talking about?” Danny asked Egg, who by now was strung over the front of the machine.
“Got me, Cap.”
“Can I try?” Powder asked.
Danny was about to order him to help square away the rest of the gear when Egg jumped down. “You want to try it? Go ahead, fucker. Be a wise guy.”
“Captain—if I get it going, can I drive it?”
“Go ahead,” insisted Egg before Danny could say anything. “Come on, know-it-all. Let’s see you start it up.
This is a diesel. It’s not a Volkswagen. It’s a bull-fucking-dozer.”
“Bull-fucking-dozer,” laughed Powder, clambering into the seat.
“He’ll never get it going,” Egg told Danny. “No way he’s going to. I think the—”
The rumble of the second ‘dozer coming to life drowned out the rest of what the team’s heavy equipment expert had to say.
Aboard Quicksilver,
over southeastern Turkey
1413
ZEN EASED THE FLIGHTHAWK BACK BEHIND THE MEGAFORTRESS then gave the verbal command, “Trail One,” telling the computer to put the plane into a preprogrammed escort course behind the mothership. They had refueled just before approaching the target area; assuming things went well on the ground, they’d have nothing to do for the next two hours. A pair of MH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters were en route out of Incirlik, escorting Chinooks carrying runway mesh. O’Brien and Habib, meanwhile, had finished testing the combat configuration on Quicksilver‘s Deep Drink sensor suite and were scanning Iraq for signs of trouble.
