The Last Phoenix (35 page)

A man stepped out of a doorway and called to Boyca, the Malay equivalent of “Come here, doggie.” He squatted on the ground and called again, beckoning to her. But Boyca refused to move and stood still. The man pulled out a knife and inched toward her. Boyca sensed the danger and darted
away, directly toward Rockne. Rockne laid his M-16 on the ground and carefully removed his goggles. Boyca came up to him, panting. Without a word, he stroked her ears and drew his knife. The man was almost to the shadows, totally unaware of what was there. Again he spoke in Malay, cajoling Boyca to come to him. His right hand dangled at his side, still holding the knife.

Rockne went into a linesman’s stance, as if he were playing football. The man took another step toward him, paused, raised his knife, and then took another step. Rockne exploded out of the shadows, his left hand sweeping the man’s knife aside as his own knife flashed in an upward motion. He drove it into the man’s sternum, lifting him off the ground. The man hacked up a cough, but it died with him. Rockne pulled him back into the shadows and rolled the body under the shed. He quickly donned his gear, but Boyca was already moving. She stopped and lay on her stomach, paws outstretched, her head up, looking directly at the door of a cinder-block building.

Southern Malaysia

Monday, October 11

Paul, a young airman called Spike, and Jake lined up behind Jessica in the shadows as they waited for the command to move on the building. But Boyca was still lying in front of the door, an obstacle in their way. The first half-light of the approaching sunrise cut at the shadows, and Jessica’s night-vision goggles began to wash out. She ripped them off and jammed her helmet back on. The men did the same as her eyes adjusted to the ambient light. Now she could see Rockne’s dark mass against the wall of the shack, gesturing at Boyca, trying to get her to move out of the way. Finally he gave a low whistle, and Boyca scampered to him, clearing the path.

“Go,” Jessica said in a low voice. As one, her team moved out, trying to stay in the rapidly dissipating shadows. They made it to the door as the upper limb of the sun cracked the horizon. Automatically, they stacked against the wall, boots touching. Jake, the last man, squeezed Spike’s arm, signaling that he was ready. Spike relayed the signal to Paul, who passed it to Jessica. She reached for the doorknob and tested it. The door swung open, and she moved quickly, bursting through the “fatal funnel.” She buttonhooked to the right and into the corner, never stopping as she moved down the side
wall. Paul was right behind her, moving to the left wall, clearing his side of the room.

Before Spike could move through the door, a burst of gunfire raked the doorway, knocking him backward. Jessica fired a short burst into the muzzle flash and was rewarded with a scream of pain. A weapon clattered to the ground as Jake came through the door.

“Don’t shoot!” Pontowski shouted. A flashlight snapped on and swept the room. Pontowski was on the floor, a dead body lying across him. “One more in the next room,” he said.

Paul never stopped moving and went through the next door as Jake fell in behind him. They were a team and moved as one with blinding speed. Another short burst of gunfire. Silence. “All clear,” Paul said.

Jessica stepped around him and took a deep breath. A man was down on the floor, crunched over his weapon, an M-16. “What the hell?” Jessica muttered to herself. She examined the body. It was a teenage boy wearing a Malaysian Army uniform. She kicked the M-16 aside and picked it up. “Jammed,” she said. “You are one lucky dude,” she told Paul. She hurried back into the first room to check on Pontowski. He was still under the body.

“Mind untying me?” Pontowski muttered. “Damn, that was fast.”

“That’s the idea, sir,” Jessica said, relief in her voice. “Who else is in the building?” she asked.

“That’s it.” He rolled clear of the body. “They were deserters. Malaysian Army. Kids scared silly.”

“Check on Spike,” she told Paul and Jake.

“He’s dead,” Rockne said from the doorway. He knelt beside Pontowski. “You okay, sir?”

“Just my shoulder. Broken collarbone, I think.”

“Can you travel?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Rockne stood and walked to the doorway. He spoke into his whisper mike, asking for a status report from the men posted outside. “We’ve got lots of movement out
here,” a staff sergeant told him. “The gunfire must’ve stirred ’em up. It’s hard to tell in this light, but I think they’re all civilians.”

“Find a wheelbarrow or a cart and get ready to move out.”

“That’s not necessary,” Pontowski told him. “I can walk.”

“It’s for Spike, sir. No way am I gonna leave him here.”

Camp Alpha

Monday, October 11

The three men clustered around the chart table in the back of Alpha’s command post. “SEAC is pressing us hard to take this one,” Maggot said. “Singapore can’t take many more missile strikes and think this will stop it. But if this is what they say it is, it’s got to be heavily defended.”

Waldo carefully plotted the GPS coordinates in the tasking message and spanned off the distance. “One hundred and sixty nautical miles. Thirty minutes’ flying time.” He visualized the terrain and different attack headings. “All we need are a couple of F-16s to discourage any SAMs.”

“I already asked,” Maggot told him. “None available.”

“This is very important,” Colonel Sun said. He searched for the words to make the two Americans understand. “In Singapore the people are so packed in, a single missile kills many. They are so helpless.”

Maggot shook his head. “If we had something cosmic like an AGM-154, that would give us enough standoff distance and we could send one right down the entrance.” An AGM-154 was a fifteen-hundred-pound standoff glide bomb with an inertial or GPS guidance system that under the right delivery conditions could fly up to forty miles.

Waldo thought for a few moments. “We got some AGM-65Gs.” He looked at Colonel Sun. “That’s a Maverick with a double IR seeker head and a three-hundred-pound blast-fragmentation warhead. It’s good for taking out tanks and hardened targets. Pretty accurate with the right jock.”

Maggot shook his head. “The Maverick has a standoff
distance of fourteen miles max. But you’re going to have to get a lot closer than that.”

“Innocent people are dying,” Sun murmured. “My family is there.”

Waldo heard the pain behind his words and committed. “We don’t know for sure what they got for defenses. We may be able to get close enough to acquire the entrance and get a lock-on.”

“We know they got Gadflies,” Maggot reminded him. “Max range twenty-one miles, and it can come down into the weeds and get you.”

Waldo looked hopeful. “So if a monopulse radar comes up talking, we get the hell out of Dodge. It sure wouldn’t hurt to send two Hogs up to take a look.”

Maggot relented. “You and Neck got it. Launch ASAP.” His palms were flat on the chart, and he leaned forward. “But I want my jets back.” He was really saying he wanted Waldo and Neck back.

Waldo grinned. “No problemo, boss.” It was the first time anyone had called Maggot “boss.”

Taman Negara

Monday, October 11

“Target on the nose at thirty,” Waldo radioed. Neck answered with two clicks of the transmit button. Waldo glanced at his radar warning display. No threats were showing, and only an early-warning search radar at their deep six was active. He decided it was probably friendly and disregarded it. A loud chirping noise blasted his ears. He turned the volume down. “Neck,” he radioed, “I got a Firecan in search mode.” A Firecan was an old AAA radar. If the radar shifted to a higher frequency and focused its beam on one aircraft, then it was locked on and in a guidance mode and tracking.

“Got it,” Neck replied. “Maybe a fifty-seven. Looks like it’s coming from the target.” Both men were confident they were up against either an old thirty-seven-or fifty-seven-
millimeter antiaircraft artillery battery with a max effective range of two and a half miles. And they knew how to kill one of those.

Waldo made a decision and mashed the transmit button. “Trick-fuck,” he said, calling for the tactic they would use. “I’m the fuck.”

“I’m the trick,” Neck replied, confirming his part so there would be no confusion. The pilots had given a crude name to a tactic that worked very well against a single defender. The plan called for one aircraft, the trick, to act as a diversion while the other aircraft hit where the defender wasn’t looking. Waldo broke out of formation and dropped his Hog down to the deck, below radar detection. He set up a tight orbit and throttled back while Neck flew a wide arc around the target. When he was well away from Waldo, Neck climbed until the radar found him, getting the gunner’s attention. Then he dropped behind a ridgeline for a little more cat and mouse. He popped up long enough to allow a radar lock-on and then back down behind the ridge, baiting the gunner. When he was on the opposite side of the circle from Waldo, he radioed, “The trick’s ready.”

“Go,” Waldo replied.

“Trick’s in,” Neck transmitted. He turned into the target, firewalled the throttles, and jinked hard. His warning gear came alive as the radar found him and locked on. “Lock-on,” he radioed. He had the gunner’s undivided attention and was still out of range.

“Fuck’s in,” Waldo radioed. He pressed from the opposite side of the circle, betting that the gunner was fully focused on Neck. If at any time the radar found Waldo, the attack was off and he would turn away. Neck darted behind a ridge and broke the lock. But the radar was waiting for him the moment he cleared the protective terrain. He reversed course, heading away, until the radar locked on. Immediately he turned behind a ridge, broke the lock, and popped up so the radar could find him again. It locked on as he streaked along the top of the ridge, away from the target. This time he made no effort to break the lock. “Six
miles out,” Waldo radioed. He was rapidly closing on the target.

Now the timing was critical. Neck pulled up and reversed again, turning toward the radar. He headed for the target and dropped down to the deck, breaking the lock-on. When he was four miles out, he pulled up to fifteen hundred feet, allowing the radar to lock on. His warning gear blasted at him as he came into range. “The trick is good,” Neck radioed.

“I’m in the pop,” Waldo replied. He pulled back on the stick and climbed, going for a visual. He wasn’t disappointed. Eight rapid puffs emerged from the tree canopy as the gunner fired a short burst at Neck. “Break left!” Waldo transmitted, just in case Neck hadn’t seen the smoke. He had and was already in the break, finding safety next to the ground. Although neither pilot saw them, the eight rounds passed overhead and wide. Waldo’s left hand flew over the armament-control panel as he selected bombs ripple. Why waste a Maverick when a pair of Mark-82 AIRs would do the trick? The five-hundred-pound bombs may have been “dumb,” but the weapons delivery system in the Warthog, the low-altitude safety and targeting enhancement system, or LASTE for short, was anything but. The target marched down the projected bomb-impact line in Waldo’s HUD. When all the delivery parameters were met, the bombs pickled automatically.

Neck pulled up to get a visual on Waldo. He saw the other Warthog as the two bombs flashed. A fraction of a second later a third explosion ripped the top of the jungle canopy. Waldo had gotten a secondary, a big bonus in the world of tactical fighters. Almost simultaneously he saw the tunnel entrances. “Target in sight,” Neck radioed. He rolled in and called up a Maverick. He glanced at the TV monitor on the right side of his instrument panel and drove the crosshairs over the middle entrance.

Waldo passed underneath as he ran for safety, away from the gun he had just killed. His RWR gear came alive with a new warning—a monopulse radar. “Break it off!” he shouted over the radio. But it was too late. Two missiles
were streaking at the doomed A-10. “Eject!” Waldo yelled as the jet disappeared in a blinding flash. What he didn’t see was a Maverick missile homing in on the tunnel. A deadly calm settled over him as he ruddered his Hog around and dropped below fifty feet, flying below two ridgelines and heading directly for the area where the two missiles came from. He saw what looked like a pile of brush moving down a dirt road. Again he kicked the rudders and brought his Hog’s nose around as he mashed the trigger. A long burst of cannon fire walked through the jungle and up to the camouflaged vehicle.

It disappeared in a fiery cloud.

Tel’s ears were still ringing when he reported back to Kamigami. “I saw it,” he said. “A missile flew right into the middle tunnel entrance and exploded.”

Kamigami listened without comment as Tel filled in the details and other reports came in. “So,” he finally said, doing the grim cost accounting, “one missile on target, one Triple A battery bombed, and one Gecko surface-to-air battery destroyed for the price of a Warthog.”

“No parachute was seen,” Lieutenant Lee told them.

Another report came in from the team watching the tunnels. Four camouflaged transporter/erectors, each loaded with a missile, had exited and were moving south. “They must have a blast shield inside,” Kamigami said. His chin slumped to his chest. “Not a good exchange.” He looked up. “Send a message.”

Camp Alpha

Monday, October 11

Waldo’s flight suit was still wet with sweat as he recapped the mission. There was no attempt to gloss over the simple fact that he had lost his wingman. “I called for a trick-fuck.”

“It may have worked in the Gulf or South Africa,” Maggot said, “but the PLA is a different cat. My guess is they
build their defenses in layers, with one weapon system covering for another. What got Neck?”

“I got a radar warning for a monopulse radar. That’s when I called to get the hell out of Dodge.” Waldo thought for a moment, trying to recall every detail. “Wait a minute. The symbol…it was different…it may have flashed at me.” He looked at Maggot, now clearly distraught. “Oh, shit. A Land Roll.” The Land Roll radar was matched to the SAM system NATO called the Gecko, a self-contained, highly mobile system with six missiles on a six-wheeled vehicle. “When did they get those?”

Maggot shook his head. “Who knows? But it looks like the Russians are their supplier of choice. What else do they have?”

Janice Clark joined them. “You need to see this,” she said, handing Maggot a message.

Maggot scanned it and then carefully reread every word. “It’s from Kamigami. Neck got a Maverick off. Flew right into a tunnel. A shack.” He crumpled the message into a wad. “It didn’t do any good. Twenty minutes later four tactical missiles moved out.” He stood up and took a deep breath. “No parachute was observed.” He slumped into his chair, thinking. Finally he stood up. “Any word from Rockne?” Clark shook her head. “Okay, folks,” Maggot announced. “We’re evacuating. When’s the next C-130 due in?”

“No word yet,” Clark told him. “They said they’d be back but weren’t sure when.” She was deeply worried. “They might not make it.”

“We’ll be ready if they do,” Maggot said. “Have a group standing by ready to board the moment it lands. We can pack ninety to a hundred bodies on board at a time.” He paced the floor. “We’ll shanghai that fucker if we have to.”

Clark parked her minivan under the camouflage netting behind the aircraft shelter and then walked to the rear entrance. Even though it was a short walk, she was sweating and wished her driver were back. By being available, lit
erally at her beck and call, he had increased her efficiency, and she needed him. She banged on the small blast door until someone answered. Inside, a group of men were waiting for her. She checked her clipboard and ticked off the names. “Okay, listen up,” she called. “We’ve got a C-130 due to land in a few minutes. When I give you the high sign, I want you out of here and running for the parking ramp, which is about a hundred yards through the trees. Everyone know where that is?” Nods all around. “Great.” She paused, searching for the right words. “We tried to make a difference here. But it wasn’t in the cards. Now it’s time to go home.” One man headed for the rear door. “What’s the problem?” she called.