“I can get pretty damn close.”
“All right. Stand by.”
Danny switched into the Dreamland circuit. “Jen? I have a hole that needs to be filled. If we use the laser designator to mark it out, can you hit it with the Hellfires after you get the mortars?”
“Do it.”
“Boston, move back and lase it. I’ll get the Werewolves in.”
“Working on it, Cap.”
“Whiplash leader, this is Werewolf. Tell your people to duck.”
There was a roar below as one of the Werewolves began chewing up the beach area with its chain guns. Then the ridge exploded with a barrage of Hellfires raining down on the spot Boston had designated with the laser. The AGM-114C was not the optimum weapon for the attack against the foxholes, but the roughly eighteen pounds worth of explosives in its nose did a more than adequate landscaping job anyway, permanently rearranging the geography of the cliffside.
“Boston, you OK?” Danny asked as the smoke cleared.
“Oh yeah, we’re cool. We’re moving up.”
“Pretty Boy, you on the line?” asked Danny, trying to sort out where everyone was now that the biggest threat had been dealt with.
“I’m your left flank, Cap,” Sergeant Jack Floyd replied.
“We’re moving to the ridge.”
“Bison?”
The sergeant didn’t answer. He would have been one of the last men out of the Osprey.
SATAN’S TAIL
327
“Everybody, take the ridge,” Danny yelled. He cradled the M249 under his arm and began running for it himself.
Aboard the Abner Read
2351
JENNIFER PULLED WEREWOLF ONE TO THE WEST, GLANCING
quickly at the window in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, which showed the aircraft’s vital signs. Everything was in the green.
“Werewolf, keep to the south,” said Zen. “I’m taking a run at the patrol boat off to the east. Remember, they’re still shelling the hulks in the harbor.”
“Negative, Flighthawk leader,” said Eyes, cutting in.
“We’re targeting the patrol craft with Harpoons.”
“Roger that, I see them inbound. This boat isn’t targeted.”
“We don’t have it.”
“Watch where I go and you will.”
“Standing by.”
As Jennifer cleared out from below the cliff, she saw a group of shadows down by the water. She pushed the stick in their direction but was moving too fast to get a shot without the computer’s automated targeting system, which she’d had to take offline to gain control. She tried to flip Werewolf Two out of its automated trail mode but couldn’t manage it quickly enough to get a shot with that aircraft either.
And it was a good thing. She saw that the men were moving toward the shore, not away from it. It was the second landing party coming in to try and cut off retreat. She took a deep breath and went back to work.
STORM TURNED TOWARD THE HOLOGRAPHIC DISPLAY AS THE
words cut through the cacophony around him:
“Submarine is out of the pen—moving at twelve or fifteen knots to the east, to get away from the breakwaters and bar-riers,” said Eyes.
328
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
Don’t let the bastards get away. Don’t let the bastards get away!
“Weapons, target the submarine,” he said.
“We don’t have it on the targeting system. The sound is being obscured by the channel and the battle,” Eyes interrupted. “We have the location from the Dreamland people and we’re keeping track.”
“What’s the status of the bombardment?” Storm asked.
“Another few minutes.”
“As soon as it’s complete, move east with the submarine so he doesn’t get away,” said Storm. “I want that son of a bitch.”
Aboard Baker-Baker Two
2359
STARSHIP FOUND IT DIFFICULT TO CONCENTRATE WITH THE
chatter on the Dreamland circuit, but he didn’t want to completely turn it off. They were flying just outside the territorial limits of Yemen. The usual assortment of ground radars were working, but at the moment they had the skies to themselves.
Flipping back and forth between two aircraft wasn’t as easy as Zen made it seem. Starship found it too easy to confuse which one he was in, since there were no visual cues on the main screen. Granted, part of the problem was that he was flying at night, and there were pretty much no visual cues period, just distant lights and the looming shadow of the Megafortress. But it couldn’t take all that much to program in a line indicating which flight you were looking at, a color-coded bar or number at the top of the screen, say.
“Hawk Three, this is Baker-Baker Two,” said Breanna.
“We have a flight from the Ark Royal coming south. The Brits are running a bit ahead of schedule.”
Starship glanced at the sitrep map. The aircraft carrier SATAN’S TAIL
329
was at the very far end of the screen, as were two Harrier aircraft flying patrol nearby. The Harriers were versatile aircraft, though not much of a match for front-line fighters or the tiny Flighthawks, which were invisible to their radar except at very close range.
“We’ve advised them an operation is in progress,” Breanna added. “Their course will take them through the center of the gulf, as we were briefed. Closest point of contact with the operation should be about seventy nautical miles in an hour or so. I’m advising the rest of the task force.”
“Roger that,” said Starship.
He leaned back in his seat. Commander Delaford was working the Piranha controls next to him. He was in his own world, literally miles away.
“I have two MiGs, coming off Aden,” said Spiderman, referring to an airfield in southern Yemen. “They may be interested in the Ark Royal.”
“Let them know,” said Breanna.
“Doing so.”
The two MiGs were identified as MiG-29UBs, an export model of the front-line Russian lightweight fighter. They were about two hundred miles away from Baker-Baker Two.
“Another pair right behind them,” added Spiderman.
“Must be putting on quite a show for the British,” said Starship, turning Hawk Three back toward the Megafortress.
“Hawk Three, be advised that first flight of MiGs is changing course,” said Spiderman a minute later. “I may be paranoid, but they look like they’re on a direct vector toward the assault area. And they’re moving.”
White House Situation Room
1600
JED FOLDED HIS ARMS TIGHTLY AGAINST HIS CHEST, STARING AT
the sitrep screen from the Wisconsin. It showed the assault team on the ground, moving down the slopes—the positions 330
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
of the Whiplash team members were marked with green triangles—as well as the locations of the aircraft and ships involved in the operation, all superimposed on a satellite photo of the area. The downed Osprey was marked by the computer with a black rectangle.
“Damn it, what the hell is going on down there?” said Balboa.
“The Osprey was struck from the ground,” said Jed.
“I meant that rhetorically,” said Balboa. “Storm should have asked for more support. He’s a good officer, but he goes off half-cocked.”
Jed stared at the screen, trying very hard not to point out that this was a textbook example of the pot calling the kettle black.
“It sounds confused there,” said the Secretary of State.
“Yes, sir. It is a bit,” said Jed.
“This isn’t going as well as I’d hoped,” muttered Hartman.
“It’s not over yet,” said Jed, unsure what else to say.
Northern Somalia,
on the ground
11 November 1997