Captain Vali studied the gray overcast sky as he steadied the helicopter toward its patrol point on the Amman-Baghdad Highway. A trainee could accomplish this make-work mission.
The voice of his weapons operator snapped in his ear.
“Captain, I have two helicopter contacts directly ahead.”
Vali glanced forward toward the operator’s cockpit, directly below him in the Hind’s nose.
Two helicopters? As far as he knew, his two-chopper flight should be the only one in the sky for at least fifty miles.
Before he could key his mike to acknowledge, the operator added, “Captain, I believe the Intercept Station G-5 is under attack.”
Vali threw his hand to the throttle, nudging the big warship toward its 180-mile-an-hour maximum speed.
God had smiled upon him.
CHAPTER 52
Smoke furled from the GCI site, now fifteen miles away. Captain Hawkins steadied himself near the door of the big Pave Low, his teeth rattling with the whomp from the Super Jolly Green Giant’s rotor. Somewhere beyond the smoke British RAF Major Clinton Rhodes was hunkered on the ground, waiting for the big green rescue choppers to appear.
“Says he could do with a spot of tea,” laughed Sergeant Winston, mocking the pilot’s accent. He had the British major on the UHF rescue band.
“Tell him to keep transmissions to a minimum,” said the captain, just barely loud enough to be heard. “We still got a ways to go.”
If you stared at it long enough, the desert sand revealed endless varieties of shades, everything from yellow to gray to black and even green. Roads blurred; buildings, vegetation merged into the terrain. You lost a sense of where you were, forgot how much danger you were really in.
Someone yelled up front. A crew member barked in reply.
“He’s waving. Yeah, we got him. It’s him, it’s him,” shouted Winston, talking to the pilot and his captain simultaneously. “He sees us. Damn! We got real contacts on the radar.”
Hawkins folded his fingers around the metal bar he had steadied himself on. The Sikorsky angled herself for the approach, skimming even lower.
“Enemy helicopters are coming right for us,” Winston told him. “They’re moving pretty fast.”
“Let’s hope we move faster.” Hawkins cinched his helmet and checked his rifle, narrowing his eyes for the job at hand.
CHAPTER 53
Dixon snapped the mike button angrily. “No way I’m backing off, Major. You can’t go home blind.”
“I can make it back. Besides, these are just transport helicopters.”
“Let me do my goddamn job.”
There was no answer. Mongoose really had the lead out, pushing his Hog as fast as it could go along the heading Cougar had broadcast. Dixon did a quick check of his six, his hand glued to the stick and throttle.
“Stay with me,” barked the lead pilot.
Mongoose dipped his wing toward the thick overcast between them and the ground. Dixon followed, his Hog plunging through the curtain of tufts and wind drafts. The plane bucked, then shrugged it off, slipping toward the earth like an Olympic-class diver, smooth and poised.
Breaking into the clear, Dixon realized for the first time that their path was dangerously close to the GCI site. Though at the moment he was out of range of any antiair left down there, he had to keep it in mind if things got complicated.
Hell, he’d have to keep a lot of things in mind. Like the fact that they would almost surely end up with less than enough jet fuel in the tanks to get home.
It took a second for Mongoose’s brain to register the helicopters, and another long second after that for it to realize they were the Pave Lows.
“Those are our friendlies,” he told Dixon, just in the case the kid had the same trouble.
“Roger that.”
“We want positive visual IDs before we take the boogies out,” Mongoose told him. The rules of engagement issued for the start of the air war were not quite that stringent, but the major didn’t want to take any chances, even though the AWACS had already identified the contacts as Iraqi. “Make sure the bastard’s Iraqi before you blow him away.”
“Roger that.”
Three or four other voices overran the rest of the transmission. Mongoose pushed the confusing babble to the side of his brain and steadied the Hog, giving the MH-53s as good a berth as possible. If they were talking to their downed flier he didn’t hear it; at this point, the only voice that was going to make it through the filter of his brain was Dixon’s…
And God’s. In that order.
Air to air tactics weren’t exactly his forte. The truth was, you practiced getting away from things in a Hog, not shooting them down. But Mongoose had a rough plan mapped out in his head. Once he had the enemy choppers in his face, he’d swing around to make a rear attack with the Sidewinders; the helicopters’ exhaust would give the heat-seekers a good target to aim at.
He double-checked the armament panel, making sure the Sidewinders on the double-rail at station one on the left wing were armed and ready. The missiles needed to cool their noses a bit, so their heat-seeking gear would work right. Once ready and in the thick of things, the missiles would cue the pilot for launch with an audible growl that meant “shoot me, shoot me.”
Assuming he could find the enemy birds. The blank sky wasn’t giving them up easily.
Finally, he spotted a black fur ball about seven o’clock off his left shoulder. He had just pitched his stick slightly, willing the Hog toward it, when he saw a much larger black shadow considerably higher and directly in line with the bearing the AWACS had given.
“We got one high, we got one low,” he barked over the radio. “Follow me through. We want to get them from behind their three-nine.”
“Roger that.”
Dixon stared at the immense black beetle growing in the bottom left corner of his windscreen. That was no utility chopper out on a picnic run. It was immense, with stubby wings projecting toward the ground like muscled shoulders. And the damn thing was moving.
Big-time Hind, he thought; he wasn’t sure what model. It would — or at least could — have air-to-air.
Dixon’s AIM-9 Sidewinders had been on long enough for the heat-seeking gear in their noses to cool down. But the major was right — they had to attack from behind. The missiles needed the heat signature from the engine exhaust to home in for the kill.
The helicopters weren’t going to make it easy. Something sparked from the wing of the angry bug as it suddenly whipped out of Dixon’s screen.
CHAPTER 54
Doberman didn’t need a calculator to know they didn’t have anywhere near enough jet fuel to double back and help Mongoose and Dixon. In fact, he suspected they would run themselves dry even if they found the Iraqis and crashed them in record time.
Which made it all the harder to leave them. But it was the only thing to do.
A-Bomb concurred. “I say we kick butt on the refuel, then go find them.”
“You read my mind.”
“Damn, I’d like a piece of that,” moaned A-Bomb. “Air-to-air Hog action. It’s what I’m talking about.”
Doberman decided to make absolutely certain the AWACS people knew how low Mongoose and Dixon were going to be when they finished their job.
“Cougar, this is Devil Two. Request that you expedite a tanker contact for Devil One and Devil Four. They’re beyond bingo.”