The Last Phoenix (24 page)

“I’m in hot on the lead tank,” Bag radioed.

“Press,” Duke replied. “You’re covered. I’ve got the end tank. Come off to the right and you’ll see me at your two o’clock.”

Lurch fell in behind Waldo as they dodged through the
clouds, descending like falling bricks. At twenty-five hundred feet they broke clear. “Jesus!” Waldo shouted to himself. Off to his far left a bright line of tracers reached out from the airport, cutting the sky behind Duke, who was rolling in on a tank. Waldo punched at his UHF radio and called up Guard, the emergency channel used by aircraft in distress. “Simpang Tower, cease fire! Cease fire! We’re friendlies going after the tanks advancing on you.” Three seconds later the deadly streak of high-explosive shells cut off. Orphaned, the tracers crossed the sky like a train steaming over a prairie horizon.

Even though the Warthogs were moving across the ground at 560 feet per second, fast by normal human standards, it was way too slow for Waldo’s sense of survival. He quickly sorted the targets. Bag was clear of the lead tank, which was now a smoking hulk, and jinking hard. A line of flares popped out behind his A-10 to decoy any surface-to-air missile that might be coming his way. Duke had just launched a Maverick antitank missile at Tail End Charlie and had broken off to the south. That would trap the two middle tanks. “Lurch, take the tank on the right. I’ve got the one on the left.” The end tank disappeared in a satisfying puff of flame as the Maverick did its thing.

Deciding that Duke had the right idea, Waldo called up the Maverick on station nine. His GAU-8 cannon, the seven-barreled, thirty-millimeter Gatling gun, was designed for tank plinking, but he opted for the Maverick on the premise that it was better to launch and leave rather than get up close and personal with an unknown opponent who might have a few nasty surprises of his own. He rechecked the master arm switch, making sure it was in the up position.
No switchology errors today,
he told himself. He mashed the mike switch. “Bag, clear my six when I come off.” He dropped down to the deck and firewalled the throttles, his airspeed pushing 340 knots.

When the tank was at two o’clock and three and a half miles away, he popped to a thousand feet and rolled in. What happened next was the product of years of training and fif
teen hundred hours’ experience flying the Hog. Automatically, his left forefinger played the slew/track-control button on the throttle quadrant and drove the symbol for the Maverick’s seeker head in the heads-up display over the tank. His finger mashed the button to lock on, and when the symbol pulsed, his right thumb mashed the pickle button on the stick, sending the Maverick on its way. He hit the transmit switch. “Waldo, rifle.” All the while he was jinking hard, making constant, random heading changes to break any tracking solution, and never looked inside the cockpit. Once the Maverick was launched, he turned away and slammed his Warthog down onto the deck. All this took less than eight seconds—which later he would claim was way too long.

“I’m in,” Bag radioed.

Clear of the tanks, Waldo looked back and saw Bag’s Hog in a low-level pass at six hundred feet. Six canisters of CBU-58s came off cleanly as two lines of tracers reached for the A-10, clearly visible in the fading light. The ground twinkled with flashes as the bomblets exploded. Now Bag was clear, racing for safety on the deck. “RTB,” Waldo radioed. “Stick a fork in ’em. They’re done.”

“Smokin’ holes in the ground,” Bag replied as the four jets headed for home plate.

Camp Alpha

Sunday, October 3

The voice was bodiless and at a distance, yet it was still close. “General, you’re needed in the command post.” Slowly Pontowski came awake as sleep yielded to the voice. Doc Ryan was hovering over his bed. “Sorry, sir. But the NMCC is on the secure line.” The voice was bodiless and at a distance, yet it was still close. “General, you’re needed in the command post.” Slowly Pontowski came awake as sleep yielded to the voice. Doc Ryan was hovering over his bed. “Sorry, sir. But the NMCC is on the secure line.”

Pontowski pulled himself to a sitting position and glanced at the clock beside his bed. It was 0130 Sunday morning. “Don’t you ever sleep?” he asked Ryan.

“They need help in the command post,” Ryan replied, as if that explained everything.

Pontowski pulled on his fatigues and boots. “They better have coffee,” he warned.

“Your reputation has preceded you,” Ryan replied. He led the way to Clark’s minivan, which was waiting outside with her driver, and they rode in silence to the command post. This time there were two guards at the barricade sealing off the bunker. “My medics,” Ryan told him. “They hate being security police augmentees, but we haven’t got much to do right now. I figure we can help until the rest of Chief Rockne’s cops arrive.” Pontowski wondered if the doctor was pushing his people too hard. He made a mental note to discuss it with Clark.

Inside the command post, Maggot and Waldo were huddled with Clark in the communications cab. A sergeant he had never seen before stood at the big Plexiglas status board and grease-penciled an ETA on two inbound helicopters. In the notes column he wrote
PC
: 37.

PC,
Pontowski thought.
Precious cargo.
Kamigami and the First SOS had snatched a few more innocent villagers out of harm’s way. Then he saw the other number at the bottom of the board:
AC
: 20.
Twenty aircraft. How many will I lose before this is over?
But for every aircraft lost, there was a human price.
How many pilots?
Because he was half awake and his mental defenses down, the fear buried deep in his subconscious burst free.
How many?
All the numbers were there, beating at him. Maggot and his 30 pilots. The chief of Maintenance with his 309 wrench benders and gun plumbers who kept the aircraft flying and armed. Clark and her support group of 108 personnel who made the base work. Rockne with his 102 cops, most of them too young and inexperienced. Doc Ryan with his 8 medics.

The number 562 beat at him. But it was more than a number. It was 562 faces—each one a living, vibrant individual.
How many will I lose? None today,
he promised himself. Slowly he forced the numbers back into the shadows, promising to deal with them later. But he had forgotten to include himself in the grand total.

“Am I the only person getting any sleep around here?” he
asked. The answer was an obvious yes. He sat down at the console.

“General Butler is on the secure line,” Clark told him.

Pontowski punched at the monitor button so they could all hear. “Pontowski here. Go ahead, Bernie.”

The voice was tinny and crackly, the result of scrambling, a multisatellite relay, and unscrambling. A slight delay was noticeable, but it was not too distracting. “The shit has hit the diplomatic fan,” Butler said. “Some human-rights group we’ve never heard of is claiming you used a secret terror weapon at Kuala Lumpur.”

“We launched three Mavericks,” Pontowski replied, “expended four hundred fifty-eight rounds of thirty-millimeter ammo, and dropped six canisters of CBU-58.” He waited.

“Can you confirm that?”

“We know what we uploaded and what the jets recovered with. The math is pretty simple.”

“Did you confirm your BDA?” Butler asked. BDA was bomb-damage assessment, which was always controversial.

“Come on, Bernie. You know how it works with an unknown threat. The jocks were too busy getting the hell out of Dodge. The flight lead, Lieutenant Colonel George Walderman, did a quick visual as he pulled off. He thinks they got four tanks, but didn’t hang around to check out the BDA from the CBU.”

There was a short break as the system did its magic. “Apparently CBU is now a terror weapon.”

“It’s the shotgun approach to bombing,” Pontowski told him. “It chews up soft targets something fierce, and it’s fairly awesome if you’re on the receiving end.”

Again the pause. “I’ll tell Wilding and brief the president.”

“We’re all loaded out for the morning and waiting on an ATO,” Pontowski told him.

A short break. “Don’t launch without an ATO. It might be best if you downloaded any CBU.”

“What the hell’s going on there, Bernie? CBU’s damn good area-denial ordnance. It beats the hell out of napalm,
which was squirrelly to deliver and only made for good TV coverage. This is no time to start playing politics.” He drummed the console with his fingers, waiting for a reply.

Another voice came on the line. “Kennett here. The videos we’re seeing are very gruesome. The Chinese have involved the UN, and Senator Leland is calling for a congressional inquiry. You can expect a visit from the GAO.” The GAO was the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress headed by the comptroller general, with over five thousand employees.

Pontowski almost lost it. “What the hell is the matter with you people? You’re treating us like some peacekeeping mission. We’re not here to stand around wearing a blue beret and watch a massacre.”

Maggot made a waving motion to Ryan. “Get him some coffee. Quick. The stronger the better.”

It was enough to calm him down. “I apologize, sir. I just don’t like hanging my people out to dry.”

The pause was longer than normal. “No apology necessary,” Kennett said. “I feel the same way. Coordinate with SEAC and do what you can.”

Butler came back on the line. “The situation in Saudi has gone critical. The UIF has broken out, and it’s touch and go. The president doesn’t need any more distractions right now.”

“Understand all,” Pontowski replied. He broke the connection. He looked at his small staff. “Does anybody have any idea what the hell is going on?”

“You’re getting your ass kicked,” a soft voice said from the doorway. As one, they all turned. Victor Kamigami was standing there with Tel and Colonel Sun.

Clark bristled. “What are you doing here?”

“I called when they landed,” Doc Ryan said, “and asked them to come over. They’ve got good intelligence, and we don’t.”

Pontowski studied the flight surgeon for a moment, not sure whom he was dealing with. An inner voice told him to use the man. “What are you suggesting?”

“We work together,” Ryan said. “We’ve got all this room
here, good communications, and not enough people.” He gave a helpless shrug. “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Colonel Sun looked around the room, liking what he saw. “We should work together.”

Maggot stood up, shedding his fatigue like a worn coat. “We need forward air controllers on the ground. Can you do that for us?”

“I don’t see why not,” Kamigami replied. He looked at Tel. “Would you like to give it a try?”

“What’s a forward air controller?” Tel answered.

“Ah, shit,” Maggot moaned, sorry that he had brought it up.

Pontowski made a decision. “Let’s do it. Victor, get a liaison officer over here as soon as possible. Doc, you seem to have a clue, so work out the coordination. Maggot, cock the jets for launch at first light. And get some rest. You’re no good to me dead on your feet. Janice, see if you can get the rest of Rockne’s people here ASAP.” He stood up. “We came here to make a difference, folks.”

Washington, D.C.

Saturday, October 2

The sure knowledge that the war had made her a prisoner of the White House grated on Madeline Turner like a rasping hot file, and she saw the election slipping away. But there wasn’t a choice, for the demands of handling a two-front war had to take priority. Still, it was a prison she loved, and she certainly had unrestricted visiting privileges. That was another problem, because the growing terrorist threat had forced the Secret Service to sharply curtail the daily tours. Across the street in Lafayette Park, a drummer had taken up a vigil and slowly beat a bass drum in protest over the war. Its dull, rhythmic cadence reached into the residence on the second floor, and when her chief of security suggested that the drummer could be made to disappear, Turner had immediately vetoed it. She would endure.

“It is annoying,” she told Parrish as they made their way to the Situation Room for the afternoon briefing. “But that drummer’s almost become a tradition.” She allowed a tight smile. “And we mustn’t disturb tradition.” The Marine guard held the door open for her, and Parrish announced her presence. Besides the ExCom, the chief of Naval Operations was waiting for her. She sat down. “Mazie, gentlemen,” she said, “before we begin, I would like to announce that General
Butler will be the acting DCI until we can identify a replacement. General Butler will be part of the selection process, but he’s declined to be the permanent director.” To tell from the nodding heads and looks around the table, it was a good decision. “Well, shall we get started?”

The briefing had developed into a set pattern, with a heavy reliance on the monitors and a direct feed from the NMCC. The communications experts in the Pentagon had turned it into a slick and professional presentation geared solely for her consumption and available on demand. The president’s face was a frozen mask when the casualty lists flashed on the screen. They were eighteen hours into the renewed fighting, and twenty-six soldiers and airmen had been killed. The numbers beat at her with an intensity beyond anything in her experience, demanding a price. She was not an overtly religious person, but when she stood in front of her Creator, how could she justify so many deaths of the people she was sworn to protect?
And the enemy?
she thought.
Have I no obligation to them?
Yet this war was not of her making and had been thrust upon her by the very people she must kill. She would not shrink from it, but she prayed that there was such a thing as a just war.

The screens with their messages of death and destruction shifted to the closing logos. General Wilding sensed what was troubling his president, and like her, he knew that there was no escape from what he had to do. “We’re still in a tactical retreat,” he said, “and falling back on prepared positions. It’s a tactical strategy that’s working well, and the UIF is advancing at a high cost in men and matériel. So far the Saudis have taken the brunt of the fighting and experienced most of the casualties, but we will go on the offensive.”

“When?” was all Turner asked.

“As soon as possible,” Wilding answered. “But logistics are a problem.” He turned to the CNO. “Admiral.”

The man that stood up was a throwback to an earlier age, with his weather-beaten face and ruddy complexion. “Madam President, two convoys from Diego Garcia are en route to
Saudi Arabia; one to Ad Dammām in the Persian Gulf, the other to the port at Jidda in the Red Sea.”

Turner’s brow knitted. “I’m worried about those new mines we encountered and any submarines that might be a threat.”

“Those mines,” the admiral said, “operate on a mass-sensing principle, and we’ve developed a countermeasure that’s almost too simple to believe. But it does appear to be effective. There are still three known submarines operating in the area. However, two Los Angeles–class attack submarines are escorting each of our convoys. If any of those unidentified submarines come within fifty miles of a convoy, those subs will experience a very short but exciting life.”

“How soon before they dock?” she asked.

“In six days,” came the answer. “On Friday.”

She tensed as the prospect of another six days’ mounting casualties loomed in front of her. She steeled herself and went on to the next subject. “Malaysia?”

Butler stood up. “The fighting is localized in Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately, SEAC doesn’t seem to know what to do with itself or how to respond.”

“Is it a question of supplies?” Turner asked.

Butler shook his head. “No, ma’am. The MAAG reports they can’t absorb what we’re giving them.”

“What about the protests over the AVG?”

Butler humphed in disgust. “All contrived. I talked to General Pontowski less than thirty minutes ago. Four of his A-10s were cleared by SEAC to attack enemy tanks on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. They used three Maverick antitank missiles, expended four hundred fifty-eight cannon rounds, and dropped six canisters of CBU-58s on troops they caught in the open. The CBU-58 is a canister-type bomb that spreads grenadelike bomblets over a wide area. That’s the terror weapon we’re hearing about.”

“If you can’t win it in combat,” Shaw snarled, “win it with the media.”

Turner stood. “I’m meeting with Secretary Serick and my foreign-policy advisers in a few minutes. Mazie, Bernie,
please join us. General Wilder, I’ll take this evening’s briefing at the NMCC.” She quickly left with Parrish in tow. The briefing had lasted less than twelve minutes.

She would endure.

Camp Alpha

Sunday, October 3

Pontowski was tired. He glanced at the master clock on the front wall of the command post. It was 0630 Sunday morning.
Less than five hours’ sleep,
he thought. In one corner the intelligence officer from the First SOS was writing information on a white board with a Magic Marker. He seemed right at home and spoke excellent English. Almost as an afterthought he wrote
GULF WAR
:
DAY
27. Behind the intelligence officer, Kamigami and Sun were speaking quietly to the young-looking major who would man the console. Kamigami looked up, and Pontowski said, “When you’ve got a moment, Victor.” Kamigami nodded and turned back to his two officers.

“Coffee,” Pontowski muttered. He wandered out to the small buffet and poured himself a cup. A little TV above the coffeepot was tuned to the BBC channel reporting the chaos in Kuala Lumpur. A reporter was standing in a street lined with burned-out cars and dead bodies. The sound was off, but the camera told the story. “A wonderful thing,” Pontowski murmured, thinking of the speed of modern communications and the series of satellites that relayed information around the world in seconds. It was a driving force that set the pace of modern civilization, including war.

Kamigami joined him. He looked fresh and rested even though he had returned from an extraction operation less than six hours ago. “When do you sleep?” Pontowski asked.

“Catnaps,” Kamigami replied. “Every chance I get. It’s a habit I picked up years ago.”

“I’ve got to learn it,” Pontowski said, more to himself than to Kamigami. “Your troops are settling right in.”

Kamigami nodded. “This is like their old command post. They like it.”

The young intelligence officer rushed up. He skidded to a halt and took a deep breath, composing himself. “Colonel Sun said for me to tell you that Kuala Lumpur has fallen to the enemy.”

Pontowski turned up the volume on the TV. “The last of the Malaysian Army units defending the city have surrendered,” the reporter said, “and we’ve been ordered to the airport for immediate evacuation.”

“Now it gets interesting,” Pontowski said. He turned off the TV.

“Sir,” the intel officer said. He showed Pontowski the clipboard he was holding with a small map of Malaysia. “The SA, the Singapore Army, is moving into positions along this line, approximately sixty miles south of Kuala Lumpur.” He drew a line from the west coast to the east coast. “The strategy is to anchor this defensive line on Melaka”—he circled a town on the west coast—“and Mersing.” He pointed to a town on the east coast. “That will force the PLA to move down the center.” He drew a big slashing arrow down the center of the peninsula. “By coming down the middle, it must cross two main rivers and capture the bridges at Bahau and then at Segamat.”

Pontowski spanned off the distances, not liking what he saw. The bridges at Segamat were fifty miles to the northwest of Camp Alpha and the last obstacle in the PLA’s path. “They’re coming right at us. This is going to get up close and personal.”

“It would be good to know what’s headed our way,” Kamigami said. “Maybe a little visual reconnaissance?”

“If we can get below the cloud deck,” Pontowski added.

“I’m flying into Segamat this morning,” Kamigami said, “to set up forward air control with the SA brigade there. A pilot would be nice to have along. Maybe a little demonstration with a few Hogs?”

“We can do that,” Pontowski replied. “Let’s talk to Maggot.”

Segamat, Malaysia

Sunday, October 3

Waldo hated helicopters and firmly believed they were a flying perversion, a violation of every known law of physics. Only voodoo, or some other occult art, kept them airborne, and something was certain to go wrong at any given moment. It didn’t help that he was on a French-built helicopter, but as he had served as a forward air controller at one point in his career, he was the logical choice to go with Kamigami to set up FAC procedures with the Singapore army at Segamat. At first he had wondered about the relationship between Kamigami and his young aide. But he quickly realized it was a combination of uncle-nephew and commander-subordinate. “How can he sleep like that?” he asked Tel.

Tel looked surprised. “General Kamigami? I don’t know, but I wish I could.”

“Anyone who can sleep on a copter has got a screw loose somewhere,” Waldo mumbled. The sound of the rotors beating the air changed pitch as they settled to the ground. He looked out a window on the port side and saw that four officers were waiting for them. Behind them he could see extensive camouflage netting and sandbagging. There was little doubt that this was a brigade that intended to fight.

“Have you ever been a FAC before?” Waldo asked.

Tel shook his head. “I know how to work the radios, and I also speak Malay and Chinese.”

“That’s a beginning,” Waldo said, mostly to himself. The helicopter bumped to the ground, and Kamigami woke up.

Maggot rolled his Hog 135 degrees and headed for the break in the clouds below him. He radioed his wingman. “Duke, I’ve got a break over here.”

“Looks like a sucker hole, white man,” Duke replied.

“Looking better all the time,” Maggot transmitted. “I can see lots of green below and blue above.”

“Don’t get them confused,” Duke said. He fell in behind
his flight lead, and the two A-10s dropped through the clouds. “Segamat at four o’clock, six miles,” he radioed.

Maggot rolled to his right and saw the small town surrounded by rice paddies. “Tallyho.” He checked the time. “We’ve got twenty minutes before check-in. Let’s look around.” He turned northward, toward the Taman Negara. The National Park was over a hundred miles away, but if the intelligence briefing from the First SOS was accurate, that was where the threat would come from. “We could use a Joint STARS,” he told Duke. Two clicks on the mike switch answered him, signaling agreement. The Joint STARS was a highly modified Boeing 707 with sophisticated radar that could find, track, and classify any movement on the earth’s surface—vehicles, troops, people, or animals. But there was no way they would see a STARS until the Gulf War was over.

Besides a chance to explore his area of operations, it gave Maggot a chance to fly the reengined A-10 they had gotten fresh out of depot maintenance. The jet delighted him and performed with a crispness and acceleration he had never experienced from the old TF34-100 engines. The modification gave the old bird a new lease on life. Duke crossed behind him and zoomed, doing a rolling scissors to fall in behind him. Maggot dodged around a cloud and for a few moments let the twelve-year-old in him out as they worked their way to the north, buzzing villages and the occasional truck or bus. Then reality intruded.

“Traffic’s getting heavier,” Duke radioed, flying parallel to a main road. “All moving south. Looks like refugees to me.” Maggot answered with two clicks on the mike button. Both men had seen it before, when the AVG was in China. “Clouds are starting to move back in,” Duke warned.

“Rog,” Maggot answered. He had to decide whether to fly lower, turn around, or punch back to altitude while he could still find a hole in the cloud deck above him. The decision was made for him.

“Break left!” Duke shouted over the radio. He had seen the distinctive flash of a shoulder-held, surface-to-air missile
as it was launched, and for a few brief seconds he was able to track it before he lost sight. “SAM at your left seven, two miles.”

Maggot reacted automatically, slicing down to his left, streaming chaff and flares out behind to defeat any tracking solution. He had to get a visual on the missile coming his way. He didn’t see it. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. He loaded his jet with five G’s as he dove and turned, seeking sanctuary close to the ground. If it had been the old Soviet-built SA-7 Grail from the 1970s, the combination of flares and maneuvering would have defeated it. But he was being tracked by a much newer version, an SA-14 aptly called “the Needle.” Its cooled infrared seeker head easily sorted the flares as it streaked toward the A-10. It closed with an eight-G turn and passed inches over Maggot’s left engine exhaust—a near miss. But its graze fusing worked as advertised, and the warhead detonated, sending 4.4 pounds of high-explosive fragmentation into the Warthog.

But the Warthog refused to die and kept on flying. Maggot hauled back on the stick, firewalled his good engine while feathering the left, and zoomed, reaching for every bit of altitude he could find. Duke crossed under him, leaving a string of flares to decoy any missile that might be coming his way. Maggot lost sight of Duke when he punched into the cloud deck, still climbing. Just as he broke out on top, a second missile flew up the right intake and exploded. The entire aft section of the A-10 flared, and only the titanium bathtub surrounding the cockpit saved Maggot from the blast. The stick died in his right hand. He grabbed for the ejection handles at his side and rotated them back with a squeezing motion. The rocket pack sent the Aces II seat up the rails with an eleven-G kick. In less than two seconds Maggot separated from the seat and fell free as his parachute streamed out behind. The canopy snapped open with a satisfying clap, and he was drifting to earth. The Aces II had done its magic. Now he was back in the clouds. He pulled out his survival radio and keyed Guard. “Duke, how copy? I’m in the clouds and okay.”