Training on the employment of the missile had been almost nonexistent. Since the instructions supplied with the missile were in Russian and English, all the gunner and the commander knew about it had been passed on to them verbally. Its internal workings, what would happen when it was fired — even whether or not, stored for who knows how many years, it would work at all — these were a mystery.
Hoisting the missile onto his shoulder, the gunner popped the fixed sights, one near the front and one in the center, into the upright position. Supporting the launcher with his left hand, he carefully wrapped his right hand around the trigger grip and turned in the direction of the army compound to watch for his target to appear.
He didn't have long to wait. Out of the swirling cloud of dust that rose from the center of the army compound, the unmarked helicopter appeared. Doing as he was told, the gunner looked along the open sights, centered the helicopter, and began to follow it. Applying a slight amount of pressure with his right hand, he pulled the trigger back to its first position. A red light came on, just as the Ethiopian instructor had said it would.
Momentarily distracted by the appearance of the light, the gunner allowed the helicopter to fly out of his sight picture. He quickly corrected his error, bringing the muzzle of the launcher around until the helicopter once again appeared to be perched on his sights. As he continued to maintain his sights on the helicopter, he watched for the red light to turn green. Once it changed colors, he pulled the trigger all the way in and braced for the explosion.
The initial reaction of the missile, however, was a surprise. There was dull explosion as the booster charge kicked the missile out of the launcher. As they watched the missile emerge from the launcher and hang in the air for a second, both the gunner and his leader thought it had been a dud. But their anxiety was replaced by joy when the sustainer motor ignited and kicked the missile out, accelerating it to Mach 1.5. Relieved that he had done nothing wrong, the gunner lowered the launcher and watched as the missile raced to catch the departing helicopter.
"JESUS CHRIST! Missile, seven o'clock — headed right for us!"
The scream from the crew chief startled Dedinger. He lurched forward and looked to his right, then corrected himself and looked to the left. The copilot was also looking left, as was the crew chief.
Recognizing the danger, the copilot barked to the pilot, "Jerry, bank right and take it down, now!"
The resulting violent maneuver threw Dedinger back against his seat and blocked his view of the incoming missile. The crew chief was also thrown off balance. Barely hanging on, he regained his balance, then lunged forward toward the open door in order to track the incoming missile.
"Where is it? Can anyone see it?"
For a second, no one answered the pilot. The crew chief spoke first. "I lost it. Colonel, look out the right door. I can't see it from the left side."
Dedinger was about to shift position when the impact fuse made contact with the side of the helicopter's main engine and set off the five-and-a-half-pound warhead. The resulting detonation caused a violent jolt, giving the occupants just enough time to realize that they had been hit before the catastrophic explosion engulfed the helicopter, its crew, and its sole passenger.
Kinsly stood there for the longest time, watching the bits and pieces of the helicopter rain downward. The main frame and the heavier fragments fell as part of a huge fireball that reminded him of a great burning meteor. Following the fireball, small, light pieces floated downward, each trailing a thin wisp of gray smoke against the harsh blue sky. There was nothing Kinsly could do. The Sudanese major had already turned away from him and run off to rally his men to pursue the assailants. The odds of catching them were slim to nonexistent, but they would try.
Unnoticed, Sergeant Veldez came up behind Kinsly. "Well, sir, looks like we need to get a new colonel."
Stung by the callousness of Veldez's remark, Kinsly turned on his heels and faced Veldez. "Sergeant, I don't appreciate that kind of humor. I don't give a damn what you thought about that man — he was one of us and now he's dead."
Veldez, startled by his lieutenant's response, was about to respond but stopped when he saw the anger in Kinsly's eyes. They stood there for a moment, Kinsly enraged and Veldez not knowing how, or if, to respond. He had fucked up. Everyone reacted to death differently. Veldez's efforts to soften the harsh reality of their stock-in-trade, death, were not appreciated by Kinsly. Kinsly's approach was proper, dignified. Each man had great regard for the other as a soldier; they understood each other's position on most issues, and respected it— most of the time. It was a rare occasion when Veldez overstepped his bounds.
Kinsly waited, staring at Veldez as he allowed the tension of the moment to ease. Veldez responded by coming to attention. "Sir, permission to take the team out and recover the remains of the crew and Colonel Dedinger."
Relaxing his stance, Kinsly turned his head in the direction where the helicopter had disappeared. A pillar of black smoke rose in the sky. He studied it for a second before turning back to Veldez. "Take your time, Sergeant Veldez. It will be a while before we can get them out."
"Will you be coming with us, Lieutenant?"
Kinsly considered the question. It would be so easy to say no. Veldez could handle it. There was no need for an officer to accompany the recovery party. Kinsly had no great desire to see more charred remains; he had seen enough of them in Iran. But it wouldn't be proper for him to stay behind. He was their leader. It was expected. It was the American way — leaders sharing the shit details as well as the good deals. Besides, he had to recover Dedinger's briefcase or, failing that, at least confirm that it and its contents were destroyed. "Yeah, I'll be going. But first I need to report. Have Terrel crank up the radio." Looking at his watch, Kinsly considered the time difference between the Sudan and Washington. When this hit the Pentagon, someone, no doubt, was going to have a great Monday morning.
As he wandered along the seventeen and a half miles of corridors of the Pentagon, affectionately known as the Fudge Factory, Major Scott Dixon couldn't make sense of the excitement generated by the report of a training accident. For the past hour and a half, he had been bounced from one office to another, hand-carrying a sealed folder that, as far as he was concerned, dealt with nothing more than a routine occurrence. In each office, he handed the folder to the secretary or an aide, who immediately whisked it into the general's office. Five minutes later, the secretary or aide was summoned back into the presence of the unseen general to retrieve the resealed folder. Each time it was a little fatter and had a new routing slip attached to it. Except for a perfunctory hello, no one spoke to Dixon or asked him any questions. In effect, Dixon was a highly paid mailman.
On normal duty days, Dixon was the operations officer for one of five duty teams that manned the Army's Operations Center round the clock. Reports of serious training accidents were only a fraction of the dozens of operational reports and messages concerning the daily status of the Army units and operations in the field handled by Dixon and his enlisted assistant. It was his task to ensure that the reports and messages were routed and handled properly. He or his assistant would check the addressee and make sure that the incoming report was in the proper format and that all information needed by the action agency was included. That done, they would verify that the final product was routed to the appropriate agency or that the proper actions required by the situation were initiated. In the case of a message concerning the death of a military member, Dixon's responsibility ended with an annotation in the duty log and the routing of a copy of the message to personnel, so that notification of the next of kin could begin. Only when such an incident had an impact on operations or held the potential for future problems did Dixon become involved.