out end to end it would no doubt reach Satan’s capital in Washington.
Only two of his sites had been hit in the morning’s bombardments. That was well within acceptable parameters. At this pace, it would take the Americans a full week to eliminate his radars. By then the army would be out of missiles anyway.
Tahir glanced at the television monitor in the corner, then picked up his cell phone and adjusted the headset. When that was on, he carefully placed the second headset—a Soviet-made unit older than he—over it. He had to position it slightly to the side so he could hear from both sets, but the trouble and the pressure against the edge of his ear and temple were worth it; he could talk and monitor his radar at the same time. Prepared, he let his glance sweep across the console before him one last time, then drew his body upward with a great breath, exhaling slowly as he delivered his trust to Allah, waiting for the alert.
Aboard Quicksilver , over Iraq 1602
ZEN HELD HAWK ONE EXACTLY SEVENTY-FIVE METERS BEhind Quicksilver’s tail, waiting for the signal to hit the flares. The Megafortress’s airfoil shed air in violent vortices, and holding the position here was actually more difficult than closing in for a refuel.
“I need another few seconds,” said Jennifer, fingers violently pounding one of the auxiliary keyboards at the station next to him. “Hang tight, Zen.”
“Yup.”
“You ready upstairs, O’Brien?” she asked. “I need you to initiate sequence two right now.”
RAZOR’S EDGE
197
“Sequence two initiated,” said the electronic warfare officer.
“Zen, on my signal …”
“Okay, Professor.” Zen nudged his power ever so slightly as the Megafortress tucked forward, riding an eddy in the wind.
“Now.”
“Bingo,” he said, punching the flares, which were ordinarily used to decoy IR missiles.
He couldn’t tell whether the test had worked or not, and neither O’Brien nor Jennifer said anything. Zen held his position, wanting to get on with things. But such was the life of a test pilot—weeks, months, years of routine, spiced by a few seconds worth of terror.
“All right. That worked well. I think we’re okay,” said Jennifer. “Let’s do it at one mile.”
“Two minutes to border,” said Breanna.
“Acknowledged, Quicksilver,” said Zen. He tucked his wing, hurling Hawk One toward the ground as he started to loop out to the launch point for the flare. Jennifer wanted him to pickle it as close to the ground as possible and had calculated a precise angle, twenty-two degrees from the sensor. Zen tucked down toward a wide rift, his altimeter marking his altitude above the valley at a thousand feet.
“I’m going to put it at fifty feet,” he told Jennifer. A large cliff loomed on his right; he nudged the Flighthawk onto its left wing, clearing the rocks by twenty feet. A wide valley opened up in front of him. A river sat near the center of it. His speed had dropped below 200 knots.
Sliding his nose forward, he ducked below seven hundred feet, six hundred, burrowing into the valley.
“Almost there,” he said as he passed through five hundred feet.
198
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“Transmission!” yelled Habib, breaking in over the interphone circuit.
“You’re at the right angle,” Jennifer told Zen.
“Five seconds,” said Zen, concentrating as the Flighthawk slid down below a hundred feet.
“Transmission—I have an American voice—Guard band!”
“Hawk leader, hold off on the test,” said Breanna calmly. “Habib, give us a location.”
“Trying!”
“What?” asked Jennifer.
“We have one of the downed pilots,” Zen told her. He pulled level, did a quick check of his instruments, then started the preflight checklist on Hawk Two, still sitting on Quicksilver’s wing.
“He’s behind us. I don’t have the location—I can’t—he said he saw us fly overhead,” said Habib, his stutter no doubt matching his heartbeat.
“He saw Hawk One,” said Breanna, her voice almost quiet. “Zen, tuck back up the valley. We’re going to slide back around. Habib, get us a good location. Chris, talk to the AWACS and tell them what we’re up to.”
“I’d like to launch Hawk Two,” Zen told Breanna.
“Let’s hold that until we have a good location on the flier,” she said. “I don’t want anyone getting distracted up here.”
“Hawk leader.” Zen banked Hawk One back in the direction it had just come from. He had the radio at full blast but could hear nothing; reception in the Flighthawks was extremely limited. Then again, Quicksilver’s standard radio wasn’t picking up the signal either. Only the sophisticated gear Habib controlled was capable of finding and magnifying the faint signal, which was undoubtedly being distorted and weakened by the rocky terrain and towering mountains.
RAZOR’S EDGE
199
“You’re headed back toward him,” Habib told Zen.
“He can’t see you, but he hears something.”
“Could be bogus,” said Breanna.
“Aware of that, Quicksilver. RWR is clean.”
“I concur,” said O’Brien.
“You’re overhead—he thinks you’re at about fifteen thousand feet.”
“Tell him I’m about a fifth of the size of an F-15,” said Zen. “I’m a hell of a lot lower than he thinks.”
“I can’t talk back to him,” said Habib. His listening gear was just that—built for listening, not talking. They’d have to wait until they got close enough for Quicksilver’s set to make contact.
Zen magnified the visual feed ten times but saw nothing but large rocks. A cliff loomed ahead; he climbed, deciding to circle above the hills where he wouldn’t have to worry about running into anything.
“I still don’t have him on standard Guard band,” said Chris over the interphone. “Can you pipe your input into our radios?”
“Negative,” said Habib.
“Are you sure you have his location right?” asked Breanna.
“I don’t have it nailed down,” said Habib. “But we’re very close.”
“I have a radar,” said O’Brien. “Slot—no, I’m not sure what the hell it is.”
Zen’s RWR went red, then cleared.
“Clean,” said O’Brien.
“Hawk leader copies. I had a blip too. Jen?”
“I can’t tell if it was a blurp or the real thing,” she said.
“He’s lost you,” said Habib. “I lost him.”
“I’m going to goose a couple of flares over that valley where he must have seen me,” said Zen. “Let’s see if that wakes him up.”
200
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
High Top
1620
DANNY FREAH WATCHED AS THE MARINES OFF-LOADED
gear from the transport helicopter, ferrying large bundles out the rear to a six-wheeled trolley that looked like something they’d borrowed from a Home Depot outlet. A separate crew of Marines, meanwhile, refueled the CH-46E from one of the barrels of fuel it had brought with it.
One of the pilots hopped out of the cockpit, ambling over to say hello.
“Have a cigar?” The Marine, tall but fairly thin, had left his helmet in the chopper. He had at least a two-day-old beard, so rare for a Marine in Danny’s experience that he wondered if the pilot was a civilian in disguise.
“Don’t smoke,” said Danny. “Thanks anyway.”
“Hey, not a problem,” said the pilot, who took out a pocketknife to saw off the end of the short cigar. “You’re Captain Freah, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Name’s Merritt.” He took out a Colibri lighter and lit the cigar, sending a pair of thick puffs into the air before continuing. “Friend of yours asked me to say hello. Hal Briggs.”
“You know Hal?”
“I do some work for him, every so often. A lot of these guys in the MEU do, SF stuff,” said the pilot, adding the abbreviation for Special Forces. Danny knew that his old friend Hal Briggs was deeply involved with covert actions for ISA, but operational secrecy meant he was hazy on the details.