Strike Force Alpha (33 page)

But then, suddenly, it was over. The calamity just went away. Habel stayed down on the ground, thinking this was death and death was very quiet. But finally, he opened his eyes and before him he saw an incredible sight. Rolling to a stop on the hard desert sand not 300 feet away was a huge yellow airplane.

Habel’s mind was reeling. What sorcery was this! His camels were too stunned to cry; they could barely get back to their feet. How did this contraption get here? It was huge. And it was smoking all over, especially on its wings. And its tires beneath those wings had been torn to shreds. All through his many years, Habel had only seen airplanes passing over his head,
never
one up so close. It looked complicated and frightening.

Suddenly doors all over the airplane flew open and huge orange balloons came bursting out. The balloons made a type of slide and onto these slides Habel saw people start flowing out of the airplane. These people were all Muslims; Habel recognized their dress. Many were women and children; many were elderly. They were sliding down the balloon things and running through the sand, away from the plane. Some were laughing. Some were crying. Some were doing both.

As this was going on, Habel saw two bodies tumble out of the front door of the airplane. They missed the slide completely and hit the ground in one thump. When this happened a great cheer went up from those who had already exited the airplane.

Then came the strangest thing of all: a figure in a
burka
came to the front door. Before Habel’s eyes this person stripped off the
burka
to reveal a military uniform beneath. This was not a woman but a man who had been wearing woman’s clothing. And he was not an Arab. His skin was white and he appeared huge and muscular.

This strange man finally slid down the orange balloon himself. The people who’d come out before him met him at the bottom and surrounded him and now were cheering him, kissing him.

Old Habel didn’t know what to make of this. Maybe he
was
dead and the devil was trying to confuse him. That’s when some of the people who’d exited the airplane spotted him and ran over to him. Again, they were all laughing even though Habel could also see tears in their eyes.

They were shouting at him: “The Americans saved our lives! We were dead, but now we are alive again!”

At that point, Habel determined this really was a trick of Satan. He’d never heard anyone in this region talk kindly about Americans. It was almost as rare as someone talking kindly about the Jews. He quickly grabbed his camels and tried to hurry away.

But then all the people on the ground were looking back up into the sky again. Suddenly there came another earsplitting noise. And Habel heard the people cheering wildly and saw them waving their hands in the air.

A moment later, the Harrier jump jet roared by, flying very fast and very low. It spun around on its wings once, a victory roll of sorts.

Then it turned southeast and rocketed off toward Hormuz.

The USS
Ballston Spa
had entered the Strait of Hormuz about ten minutes ahead of the aircraft carrier
Lincoln.

It was a replenishment ship, lightly armed and filled with food and water rather than missiles and bombs. Minutes before, the ship’s crew had been called to general quarters along with the rest of the battle group. Word was passed that terrorists had hijacked an unknown number of airliners in the area and that they were planning to crash them into the
Lincoln.
Some of the crew had seen a great flash off port side about ten minutes earlier. This was the first airliner being shot down by the fleet’s F-14s. Trouble was, there were more commandeered airplanes out there, somewhere, and they were heading this way.

Ensign Alby Hirsch was the armaments officer for the
Ballston Spa.
He was at his position, the ship’s forward gun mount, one of only two such weapons aboard the ship. Three young sailors were with him. All of them were equipped with binoculars and they were nervously scanning the skies around them. The air was filled with the sound of sonic booms and now more explosions; the sky above was a mad patchwork of contrails. It made for a frightening combination. Hirsch had completed his officer’s training only a month before. This was his first deployment. He’d never imagined anything like this happening, at least not on his maiden cruise. At the moment, he was wondering if he’d ever see a second one.

He was trying to keep his wits about him, though. He continually checked his weapon, its ammo, its crew. The weapon was a .50-caliber machine gun, a peashooter compared to some of the hardware on the ships around him. It was intended to shoot at small boats that might menace the supply ship and certainly not to fire on adversarial aircraft. Or hijacked airliners. But Hirsch’s training had taught him that every head, every hand, every weapon, was important in an emergency. He had to proceed on that point.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his arm, nails digging deep into his skin. The youngest sailor on the gun crew, a kid no more than 18, had grabbed him and was pointing off to starboard. He couldn’t talk. Hirsch looked north and soon saw why: an enormous airliner, flying just 50 feet above the water, was coming right at them. It was less than a half-mile away. Two F-14s were on its tail, cannons blazing wildly. Ships in front of the
Ballston Spa
were firing at the airliner, too. It was trailing two long streams of smoke and flame behind it.

The noise around Hirsch became deafening. Cursing, shouting, the clatter of many guns, big and small, as the airliner, looking positively unreal, ran this gauntlet, flying so low it was stirring up the surface of the water. Like a nightmare in slow motion, many of the shells being fired from the Navy ships were hitting the airliner—but some were hitting the pursuing Tomcats as well.

And the airliner just kept getting bigger. The plane seemed to be adding power even as the flames about its wings grew in intensity. Hirsch ordered his men to open fire. The gun started chattering, but Hirsch could not hear it. He could see the silver on the airliner’s nose, the disturbingly Arabic trim. It seemed to be moving along on a wave of exploding ordnance. It was being hit all over, yet it did not veer one iota from its course. It was coming directly at the
Ballston Spa,
its nose pointing right at the midships.

Hirsch wasn’t sure what to do. What could possibly stop the huge plane from plowing into them? Should they keep firing at it? Should he order his men to jump overboard? Did they have time to do anything at all—except pray?

Suddenly a gray streak entered his field of vision from the right. Incredibly, a Harrier jump jet had come out of nowhere and appeared nearly on top of them. It swooped down into a hover just off starboard bow, placing itself between the
Ballston Spa
and the oncoming airliner. A guardian angel sent to save them was all Hirsch could think of, though he’d never believed in such things. The Harrier began firing its cannon at the airliner. Hirsch could see impacts all over the big DC-10. But would it be enough to stop the onrushing plane?

The Harrier hung there for what seemed like forever—though only a few seconds really passed. Finally the barrage of cannon fire took effect. The front of the airliner began to break off just 500 feet out, and for some reason this caused the huge plane not to plummet but to rise. A second later the Harrier moved out of the way, and a second after that the huge plane went right over the top of the
Ballston Spa,
tearing off its antennas, his halyards, and everything else above the bridge before plunging into the water on the port side.

The impact was so enormous, it created a backwash the size of a tidal wave. It swept over the deck of the ship, carrying Hirsch over the side with it. One moment he was in his gun mount; the next he was 10 feet underwater. Just him, no one else. Sheer fright pushed him to the surface. He came up gasping for air and nearly in shock. He couldn’t believe he was still alive.

He had begun swimming furiously back toward the ship when he heard another tremendous roar. He turned in the choppy water to see an F-14 Tomcat, in flames, heading right for him. It was one of the planes that had been trying to shoot down the airliner. Again he couldn’t believe it. Had he really survived one incoming plane, just to be killed by another? He went back under as the stricken fighter hit the surface not a hundred feet away. The waterborne concussion went through Hirsch like 10,000 volts, pushing him even farther into the depths. Once again he found himself madly swimming to the surface. By the time he reached air again, the Tomcat’s fuselage was just starting to sink. Hirsch could see hundreds of perforations from the shattered cockpit to the horribly bent tail section. The two pilots, still in their cockpit, were both headless.

As the big fighter sank beneath the waves, it was obvious what had happened. The Tomcat had been shot down by gunners on the other Navy ships, even while it had been trying to shoot down the airliner. The pilots had been killed by their own troops.

A line was thrown from the
Ballston Spa,
now dead in the water, and with no little effort Hirsch was pulled back onboard. He was soaking wet and had a cut on his head, but he refused to go below. He retrieved his helmet and rejoined his crew at the gun mount instead. The pandemonium had not lessened any around them. The noise was tremendous, the multiple sonic booms twice as loud. There were so many explosions going off high above them, the
Ballston Spa
was being barraged with shock waves blowing straight down onto its decks.

No sooner had Hirsch caught his breath than he was hit hard by something on the top of his head. It struck his helmet with such force it caused a loud
ping!
Before he could react, something else hit him on the shoulder. Then again on his head. He managed to look up and saw an astonishing sight. It was raining airplane parts. Pieces of seats, chunks of plastic, rubber. They were falling out of the sky, into the water and onto the ship. Farther down the deck other sailors were getting hit by red-hot engine parts. A huge tire went right through the top of the bridge. Then Hirsch heard a loud
thump!
He turned to see that a body had fallen out of the sky and had landed just 10 feet away from him. It was a man, or what was left of him, middle-aged, in a suit and tie, still clutching a briefcase. He’d been horribly burned all over.

Then came another
thump!
—another body. Then another loud bang as a piece of jet engine came down on a group of sailors fighting a fire at middeck. One man had pieces of the engine go right through his body. He threw himself into the water, never to be seen again.

Hirsch began screaming into the phone attached to the gun mount, demanding medical personnel up on deck until he realized the phone’s wires had been cut in the first rain of falling debris. His crew huddled all around him now as more airborne wreckage came down. The air was filled with horrible sounds and with smoke. Thick and putrid, it was swirling all around them.

What was happening? It could only be one thing: an airliner had been blown out of the sky high above the ship, and the wreckage was now coming down on them. Hirsch screamed for his men to take cover inside the gun mount and stay there. In just the last two minutes, he’d come close to being killed at least three times. He really didn’t want to try for a fourth. He squeezed himself in next to his crew and put his hands over their heads. Then he started to speak to God in earnest.

Seconds later came another loud
thump!
Hirsch looked up to see a body had fallen not an arm’s length away from where he was crouched. It was a woman this time, clad in a
burka
. She had landed on her stomach and was bleeding from everywhere. Her eyes were still open, though, and she was looking right at him.

She seemed to be asking him:
Why me?

There was only one super highway in Oman.

It was simply called the National Road. It stretched from one end of the tiny country to the other, from the coast of the Arabian Sea up to the tip of the Persian Gulf.

Because it passed mostly through desert, the highway was long and straight; there was no need for curves here. It was eight lanes in all, four going in each direction, a bit optimistic perhaps on behalf of its builders, but a smooth ride nevertheless.

The highway was used mostly by tanker trucks hauling oil from the port city of Mirabet in the south up to
u
r in the north. Occasionally citizens in private cars or SUVs took advantage of the quick route between the two halves of the country. There was also a bus that passed back and forth once a day.