Joint Task Force #1: Liberia (34 page)
“Where are the UFAVs?” he finally asked.
“Fifteen miles southwest of us.”
Holman nodded at Upmann. “Go ahead, Chief of Staff. Tell
Mispellion
to start the script.”
A couple of minutes later, over the clear-voice ship-to-ship channel, a deep bass voice broke over the low murmur in CIC. “
Boxer
, this is the aircraft carrier
Teddy Roosevelt
. We are one hundred miles southwest of your position. How copy, over.”
A shiver rode up his spine. This had better work.
“
Roosevelt,
this is
Boxer
. I read you loud and clear.”
“Okay,” Holman said, reaching forward and tapping Petty Officer Watts on the shoulder. “Turn those UFAVs around, start bringing them up in altitude so they’ll reflect off the French radars, and tell them to activate their package.”
“Deathhead Leader, CIC; come to course three-zero-zero. Ascend to altitude two-zero-zero,” Petty Officer Watts said over her intercom.
Below in the hangar deck, hidden from sailors who strolled by the four odd-looking cocoons, the four UVAF pilots turned their four-plane formation to the right, in a long semicircle, bringing the unmanned fighters around in a 180-degree turn. Only when they steadied up on course 300 did they start their climb to twenty thousand feet as Petty Officer Watts had directed.
Holman walked over to the holograph display. The information technicians and cryptologic technicians were working the data input for the three-dimensional table. Above the faint white light shining across the tabletop, a green shimmer identified the holograph display. A few inches above the top of the table, images of the USS
Boxer,
USS
Spruance,
USS
Stribling,
and USS
Hue City
rode on virtual waves. The formation was heading southeasterly, closing the Liberian coast. Northeast, a pattern of four French Super Etendards headed toward them. A quick glance at the display numbers showed the French fighters were fifty nautical miles away.
Behind Holman, the CIC operators and those on board the
Mispellion,
nearly one hundred miles from them, acted out the
Mispellion
masquerading as an aircraft carrier. He knew if he was Colbert, he would easily see through the charade. It was up to the electronic simulators on board those unmanned
pieces of shit
to convince them otherwise.
“The fighters are ascending, sir,” Upmann said.
“Whose? Ours or theirs?”
“Ours. The French should see them on their radar within the next minute.”
“Let’s hope this works, Leo. If those fighters see us sitting here with turning helicopters and Ospreys, they’ll know we’re about to launch.”
“Screw them.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know them that well. Unfortunately also, I don’t know how much they’ve worked themselves into believing they can attack us and get away with it.”
Upmann shook his head. “Sir, for once I have to disagree. Sure, we’ve our differences, but I can’t see the French attacking us. At the very least, who’d buy their wine and water?”
Holman bit his lower lip, his eyes squinting as he thought about it. “You’re probably right, Leo, but let’s play it out. If the French fighters turn, then they believe it. If they don’t, then we’ll launch while they watch. Enough of this. Launch our Marines. By now, Thomaston needs them.” Even as he gave permission, he knew being out at sea, away from the watchful eyes of the media, meant no one would ever know for sure what really happened—if anything did. He sighed. He wanted to agree with Leo about the French, but for all the bluster they sometimes dished out, they could also surprise you. You never knew whether what they were saying was for public consumption or if they actually meant it. Whatever French diplomacy did, it always complemented some hidden political scheme.
The French blamed the Americans for handing control of NATO’s Southern Command to the British, effectively returning the Mediterranean Sea to their historical enemy. They were reluctant partners in the Middle East peace process, throwing up small political obstacles for the Israelis as the agreement gap closed.
Ankle-biters,
Holman called them—obstacles not so large they brought everything to a stop, but small and continuous enough that they created distractions, making sure everyone knew the French were still around. He wondered if this veiled confrontation out of sight of the world was France’s way of warning the United States to not ignore this European ally. If so, it was a piss-poor way of doing it. As much as he
hated to admit it, the military was sometimes an unwilling cog in the conundrum of foreign diplomacy.
“Commander,” the ATC called. “I have video return on our fighters.” The ship’s air-search radar had picked up the UFAVs.
Fighters, she called them!
Damn, this world of the twenty-first century was changing too fast. “Transformation,” they called it. “
Amazing,”
Holman thought. Throw a few polished words together. Make sure they complemented something politicians wanted, and you were their golden boy. Probably why Lieutenant General Lewis Leutze was doing so well at the Pentagon. Leutze had been Holman’s Joint Task Force commander during the North African crisis two years ago, when the United States Sixth Fleet had been left on its own to rescue American hostages held by Islamic terrorists. Now, the
dynamic
Army officer had moved from being the Director Joint Staff J-3 in charge of Operations to the number-three slot on the Chairman’s staff. Even as Holman weighed French reaction to the imminent amphibious landing he was launching, his mind traveled down what most would consider unconnected logic trails. Holman listened to the air-search radar operator reporting the latest contact information, and he watched quietly as his Chief of Staff flittered from operator to operator. The Holograph Display Unit drew his attention as it shimmered for a moment, shifting the icons for the aircraft and ships slightly in response to a computer update on contacts and locations.
“
Boxer,
this is
Roosevelt
. We’re closing your location. I have launched four F-14 Tomcats your way to provide CAP,” came the male voice from the
Mispellion
. CAP was short for Combat Air Patrol, and identified a mission where air-to-air-combat-capable aircraft orbited overhead to defend a battle group against enemy aircraft.
“Deathhead Leader, Combat,” Petty Officer Watts said, seated to the right of Holman. “TAO said start simulating Tomcats. We have video on your aircraft now. They are bearing one-six-zero, forty-five nautical miles from battle group.”
Aircraft! It bugged the shit out of him for them to call those unmanned aerial vehicles aircraft. He opened his mouth to say something, and realized it would sound like whining, but—
shit!—
aircraft have pilots on board. These were nothing but a
maze of electronics, computers, and data downlinks. The way things were going in the military, all you needed was a computer degree and
you too could be a fighter pilot
.
It would take some getting used to directing fighter operations via internal communications. Some of the things the young lady was saying to Shoemaker and his bunch would never be broadcast in the clear. Too many operational details revealed.
“Ma’am,” the air-search radar operator to his left said to the TAO. “Three of the French fighters have reversed course. They’re setting up an orbit halfway between us and their battle group.”
“Combat air patrol,” Upmann offered.
“What about the fourth?”
“He’s still coming—wait!” A few seconds later, the air-search radar operator continued. “He’s turning toward our fighters, Commander. He may be heading southwest of us to see if he can confirm the presence of an aircraft carrier.”
“Let’s call them UFAVs, not fighters.” He saw the questioning look in Stephanie Wlazinierz’s eyes, but it passed quickly as she acknowledged Holman’s command.
Commander Stephanie Wlazinierz, Tactical Action Officer for Commander, Amphibious Group Two, pushed the talk button on her headset and passed the order through Combat. Then she turned to the admiral. Her short-cropped hair was pressed against her head by the headset. She shoved the headset up and off her right ear, pushing her brown hair into a large wing. “Admiral, French fighter approaching the UFAVs, sir. Request instructions.”
Holman bit his lower lip. “Turn two of the UFAVs toward the approaching French fighter and let’s see if we can scare him off. The other two—the other two, send them to form up on the helicopters and Ospreys once they’re airborne.”
She nodded curtly, brought the headset back down, and passed Holman’s orders verbatim to the Air Intercept Controller, Air Search Operator, and the Air Traffic Controller. Her stout legs were spread slightly to maintain balance. Holman couldn’t hear his deputy operations officer’s instructions through the intercom, but seconds later he heard Petty Officer Watts relay the orders to the UFAV pilots.
Pilots! Ought to
be another word he could find to describe the operators of unmanned aerial vehicles. Maybe drivers. Yeah, he liked that word! Drivers never left the ground. They just motored about!
Seconds later, Watts transferred control of Deathhead Leader and Deathhead Four to the Air Intercept Controller manning the console to her right. The first class operations specialist manning AIC pushed his mouthpiece closer to his lips.
On the holograph display, the four UFAVs split into two pairs. One pair continued toward the USS
Boxer, Spruance, Stribling
, and
Hue City.
The other two turned on an intercept course toward the French Super Etendard fighter. Holman let out a deep breath. Two years ago he would have enjoyed the challenge, but he wasn’t the admiral in charge then. What was he going to do once the French figured out there were no Tomcats? What would he do if a French fighter shot down an unmanned American aircraft? It’d be hard to qualify such a thing as an act of war! You throw a piece of new technology on the battlefield not covered by international convention, and someone destroys it! You couldn’t very well argue it was an act of war, if they counter with safety concerns for their pilots.
Shit! This was worse than a
New York Times
crossword puzzle. Where was the sage advice from European Command and Washington that usually flooded such an operation? You’re damned when you’ve got it and you’re damned when you don’t.
Holman glanced at the large analog clock mounted above the main combat console. Not the accurate digital clock at each computer console or warfighting station, but the twelve-dollar Navy supply variant with huge numbers, two dark hands, and a red second hand. A clock that was in every compartment of a warfighting ship. Ten minutes to nine. How was Thomaston holding out? Had that been an explosion they had heard before losing contact with the retired three-star general, or just an unexplained burst of static arriving with the rising sun?
Leo Upmann turned to Admiral Holman. “Sir, if we are going to do it, now is the time.”
“You’re right, Leo. This is our window of opportunity. Launch the Marines. Then check with radio and see if they
have heard anything from Thomaston. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Thanks, Admiral. That definitely improved my morale.”
Holman grinned and patted his shirt pocket, surprised to discover no cigar.
THOMASTON PICKED HIMSELF UP. HOLDING HIS M-16
across his chest, he ran, zigzagging across the compound to kneel beside the destroyed Civil War cannon. Gray dust blocked the view of the front gate. He could see the fighting. Militiamen standing on makeshift platforms fired over the top of the armory wall. To his left, several others lay on the ground, shooting into the dust cloud surrounding the gate. He reached up and slapped his left ear. A ringing sound inside his head seemed to be blocking out the sounds. Concussion, he thought.
A southern gust of wind blew the cloud from the gate toward him. The dark Ford SUV previously blocking the front gate lay on its side, flames leaping from the windows and around the chassis. The front of the armory was exposed. A huge gap lay open where the chain-link fence and car had been.
Samson Roosevelt slid beside him on his right, the young man’s M-16 blasting into the cloud of dust. The weapon was firing, but the noise was muffled. Thomaston raised his weapon. He blinked several times, trying to clear the blur from his vision.
Retired Lieutenant General Daniel Thomaston saw
Samson’s lips moving. He pointed to his ears and shook his head. What if this didn’t go away? He stretched his lower jaw, rotating it back and forth. His ears popped.
“—General,” Samson said.
There! The noises were slightly muffled, but he could hear them now. “What’d you say, Samson?”
A fusillade of bullets passed over their heads, sending them ducking behind the cannon debris.
What he wouldn’t give for just one rocket-propelled grenade launcher—
shit
, what he wouldn’t give for some grenades. These rebels only had M-50s and a mortar—which was giving him hell—not to mention they outnumbered him about five to one. Other than that, it’d been a nice day.
“Sir?” Samson asked, touching the general lightly on the shoulder.
“What was that? Sorry, my ears are still ringing.”
“General, we can’t stay here. The front gate is gone. Mariah and French are wounded. They’ve been taken to the park.”
Thomaston stared at the young man for several seconds. His vision seemed okay now. Moisture ran down his cheeks. He saw the look in the man’s face. Probably thinks I’m crying. He reached out and touched Roosevelt on the arm. “It’s nothing,” Thomaston said, reaching up and touching his eyes. “Slight concussion from that last mortar.”
“Roger, General,” Samson said in a voice that told Thomaston a slight doubt existed.
Well, Samson Roosevelt wasn’t the only one scared. He gripped his M-16 tighter. It was decision time. This was why the Army had paid him the big bucks. The Afro-topped young man waited, his eyes alternating between the front gate and Thomaston. Thomaston looked along the south wall. In several places, mortar rounds had demolished the barbed wire. Mortar hits in three spots had opened the perimeter to the attackers. How many militiamen did he have left? He’d started with thirty-two. Four were dead. He had seen a couple wounded limping to the rear. Some manning the wall had treated themselves and refused to leave. The enemy was going to breach the walls. They could do it any time they wanted. He’d lost count.
Apparitions appeared through the settling dust around the
gate. Samson raised his M-16 and sent a burst across the front. Africans fell.
“Sir, what should we do?”
“Get everyone back to the vehicle park, Samson,” Thomaston ordered. His mouth was dry. How long before these assholes overran the armory? He looked up at the clear afternoon sky. Where in the hell were the Navy and Marines?
Damn you, Holman, where in the hell are you?
Samson raced across the yard to the far side of the south wall where eight or ten, Thomaston could not recall, fought. Spurts of dirt exploded into the air as enemy bullets tracked the youth’s run.
Daniel Thomaston fired into the fading dust cloud. If enemy infantry was moving toward the gate, the burst should keep their heads down for a few seconds. He ran forward to where Mariah and French had defended the right side. Pressed against the wall, Thomaston worked his way along, ordering the remaining defenders toward the rear of the burning armory building. Glass exploded from a top-floor window sending shards of tiny fragments raining down on the compound. A piece of glass struck the side of his face, opening an inch-long gash. Flames shot out of the window, sending a fresh wave of dark smoke rolling upward.
Two groups of townspeople dashed past. Samson trailed. He would have made a great sergeant, Thomaston thought, if he’d been in the Army and had a proper haircut. Samson turned, crouched slightly, and fired several semiautomatic bursts into the cloud of dust masking the front gate. The young man reached up, unclipped the magazine, letting it drop to the ground as he slammed in a fresh one.
Yeah, one hell of a sergeant.
Thomaston looked both ways and realized everyone was gone but him. Looking over his shoulder at the gate, he took off toward the edge of the building, keeping away from the heat of the conflagration. Samson dove behind a slight rise in the ground that stretched from the edge of the building to the north wall. The man rolled once, coming to a stop with his stomach pressed onto the ground. He began firing past Thomaston. Thomaston glanced behind him again as he ran. Rebels were flooding through the front gate. Their weapons were
firing blindly into the armory. The dust had blinded them, he realized.
The M-16 jerked as Samson fired at rebels so close together they bumped and jostled in their headlong rush to get inside. Thomaston saw retired Sergeant Major Craig Gentle rushing toward him and Samson from the vehicle park. Another fifty feet and Thomaston would be at the rise.
Gentle dove onto the ground, scrambling on all fours to crawl up alongside Samson. Thomaston changed direction, heading toward the two men from an angle, dodging to keep from putting himself between them and the rebels. A bullet was a bullet, and it didn’t matter whether it originated from a friendly weapon or an enemy. If it hit you, it did the same amount of damage. Only difference was you usually got an apology from your own people.
Other men and women started to appear on the rise. God, he hoped none of those defenders on the ridge accidentally shot him. Gentle and Samson swept their weapons back and forth, racking the packed mob that was growing in size as more and more of the combat-crazed fanatics fought through the front gate. About eight other townsmen and militiamen formed a row on each side of Roosevelt and Gentle. A bullet whizzed by his ear, so close he felt the heat as it passed. Thomaston didn’t know whether it was an enemy bullet or one from his own men and women. It wouldn’t matter where it came from if it hit him.
Thirty feet!
Nearly there
, he said to himself. Suddenly, his whole body slammed forward. He flew through the air, tumbling end over end. The row of defenders passed beneath him. He landed with a thud that rocked his teeth and knocked the breath from him. He rolled a few times and stopped. Through closed eyes that failed to respond to his urge to open them, he heard the shouts of others running toward him.
He was facedown. He wanted to push himself up, but his hands refused to move—motionless, numb. With much effort, Thomaston twisted his head to the side. Two townsmen grabbed him under the arms and started dragging him toward the rear. He heard Gentle shouting orders. The firing line was retreating—a fighting retreat to the vehicle park. His eyes opened partially. They were trapped now. No way out and
nowhere to go. Their survival depended on the Navy and Marines. The men dropped Thomaston at the bumper of one of the school buses that made up the left side of the defenders’ square. What a dumb move on his part! He glanced toward the rear of the armory. They needed to blow a hole and make a run for the jungle and rain forest along the southern edge of Kingsville. Many, if not most, would die, but it was the only chance he saw for anyone to live. He should have listened to his instinct and taken the southern route last night.
Gentle stood with legs apart, facing the enemy. Thomaston’s breathing eased, sharp tingling sensations working their way down his body as feeling returned. Gentle, in his usual polished sergeant-major style, was shouting orders, repositioning fighters, and cursing the enemy in the fighting retreat to the parking area. Fire from overlapping M-16’s slowed the enemy’s advance. More Africans appeared through holes in the walls.
Sharp needlepoints of pain followed the tingling sensation of feeling returning to his arms and legs. The two men picked up Thomaston again and pulled him into the center of the perimeter built from SUVs, a school bus, and two pickup trucks. They laid him on a tarp someone had draped across the top of the burning-hot pavement. It provided little insulation, and no shade from the mid-afternoon sun. Air simmered above the gray pavement. The only clouds in the sky were from the burning building and exploding ordnance.
“God,”
Thomaston mumbled softly.
“A rain shower would be appreciated—and a thousand Marines.”
The acrid smell of gunpowder, its sharp tang mixed with the moisture-sapping dryness of the smoke from the burning building, filled the air around the man-made perimeter.
“Daniel, what have you done to yourself?” Reverend Jonathan Hew asked, easing himself down into a cross-legged position beside Thomaston. The man had a smile planted across his face. He lifted Thomaston’s hand and ran his own hand up and down the right arm.
“Nothing,” Thomaston said, his voice dry and raspy. “Water, Reverend, would be appreciated. Just a little water and I’ll be all right.”
Reverend Hew was up and gone a second or two before
returning with a small plastic bottle of warm water. This time he squatted beside the general. Thomaston shakily turned the bottle up and drank the whole thing in three gulps. Combat and heat. Two things known to kill a soldier who wasn’t careful. The sound of gunfire erupted to the right, opposite where Gentle and Roosevelt moved slowly backward, delaying the advance and holding a retreating line.
“General, you lay right there until you feel better,” Reverend Hew said, patting Thomaston on the shoulder. “God works in mysterious ways, brother.”
Thomaston pushed himself up on his elbows. “It’s not God who scares me, Preacher. It’s his followers.”
“Daniel,” Reverend Hew said, putting his hand on Thomaston’s shoulder as the retired Army Ranger lieutenant general pushed himself upright. “God’s watching over us. He has his own plans, but I think He would feel more comfortable with those plans if you remain alive.”
Thomaston rotated his shoulders and stretched his neck, checking his body. Satisfied he was okay, he stared at the shorter, gray-haired man with the familiar spreading middle-age stomach who had led the town in their spiritual needs. He reached over and patted Reverend Hew on the shoulder a couple of times. “Reverend, you tell God, if that’s his plan, I concur wholeheartedly.”
The sound of combat drew nearer. He wiped his eyes again, clearing away the pollution of combat.
“God will endure, Daniel.”
“Reverend, if you expect God to intervene, then you have more confidence than I do.” He pushed off the bus. His body ached, but it was nothing a ton of Motrin, a case of beer—
maybe two
, and his hammock wouldn’t fix.
Gentle, Samson, and the others backed into the square perimeter. The wounded Harold French, his leg bandaged, leaned against a nearby Ford Explorer, firing his M-16 over the hood. The idea that this giant of a man wanted to die crossed Thomaston’s thoughts. There was only French and his son Mahmoud, who was killed yesterday by the rebels. Thomaston’s face tightened as he understood that for Harold French, there was nothing left to live for except killing those who had killed
his son. Every person has a trip wire that when crossed, sent men to their deaths.
A woman, firing an M-16 from beneath the wheels of the lead SUV, jerked backward several feet. Blood poured from wherever the bullets had hit her. Thomaston could tell with one glance that she was dead.
Short overlapping bursts from the defenders stopped the rebels at the rise along both sides of the building. How long they could hold them there, Thomaston didn’t know.
“I need my M-16,” he said.
Someone shoved a rifle into his hand. “Here, General, take Seams’s. He won’t need it anymore,” the unidentified townsman said, pointing to several tarps in the rear that covered the dead.
Thomaston joined the defensive fire. The number of enemy on the rise was increasing. There was nothing to stop them from entering the armory, and there was no back door for Thomaston and the others to flee. Few recognized the terminality of life when it was fast approaching, but for Thomaston, he knew this was their Alamo. Somewhere out there, rescue waited. Probably waiting for him to call. A call that would never come, for in the burning building, Beaucoup’s radio helped fuel the blaze.
Another defender flew backward as a bullet caught her. One of the ladies ran up and with the help of a young boy, pulled the wounded girl to the rear.
The enemy was going to ground, diving for the sparse cover that being horizontal gives.