DESTROYED! TARGET I)ESTROYM!
A profound silence followed. Job cleared his throat nervously.
"Flukes happen," said Sean. "Shall we try it again?"
"Pull!" said Claudia, and concentrated on her aiming Screen' Incoming Sean called. "Six o'clock high. Lock and load." He brought the next Hind in from behind her at treetop level, attack speed. She had three seconds to react.
"Locked and loaded." Claudia pirouetted like a ballerina and picked up the Hind in the sight ring. "Actuator on." As she said it, Sean flung the Hind into a climbing sideslip, giving her deflection in three planes. it wQAd be like trying to hit a high bird in a gale of crosswind.
in their screen the watched with disbelief as Claudia swung smoothly, keeping the image in the exact center of her aiming ring and the missile sobbed and then settled into its high-pitched tone.
"Target acquired. Fire!"
TARGET DEsTROy mi TARGET DEsTRoYED! The screen blinked at them, and they fidgeted uncomfortably.
Job murmured, "Twice on the trot. That ain't no fluke, man."
Claudia laid the launcher on the table, readjusted the peak of her cap over her eyes, then placed her fists on her hips and smiled at them sweetly.
"I thought you said you didn't know how to shoot," Sean accused her with righteous indignation.
"Would a daughter of Riccardo Enrico Monterro not know how to shoot?"
"But you are stridently opposed to blood sports."
"Sure," she agreW. "I've never shot at a living creature. But I'm death to clay pigeons. Papa taught me."
"I should have guessed when you said "Pull."" Sean groaned softly.
"As a matter of interest"--Claudia examined the fingernails of her right hand modestly---"I was Alaska State women's skeet champion three years running and runner-up at the national championships in 'eighty-six."
The two men exchanged embarrassed glances. "She got you with a sucker punch." Job shook his head. "And you walked straight into it with both eyes closed."
"AD right, Miss Alaska," Sean told her sternly. "You are so damned clever, you've just landed yourself the job of instructor.
From here on you are in charge of this equipment. Job and I will split the Shanganes into two classes and give them the basics. Then we'll pass them on to you for simulation. It'll speed up the whole works."
General China interrupted them as he strode into the amphitheater, beret cocked jauntily, slapping his swagger stick against his thigh and taking in their preparations with quick, inquisitive eyes.
"How soon can you begin training? I expected to be further J
along than this."
Sean recognized the futility of trying to explain to him. "We'll get along better without interference."
"I came to warn you that Frehmo have launched their offensive.
They are coming at us in force from the south and the west, a two-pronged drive, obviously trying to push us out of these hills, away from the river, into more open terrain where they can deploy their armor and their helicopters to better advantage."
"So they are whipping the hell out of you," Sean needled him with a thinly concealed sneer.
"We are falling back." China acknowledged the jibe with just a glitter in his eyes. "As soon as my men attempt to hold up their advance at a natural strongpoint, Frelimo simply calls in the Hinds. The Russian pilots are showing us the close-support skills they learned in the mountains of Afghanistan. They simply obliterate our defenses. It is not a pleasant experience to listen helplessly on the radio while my field commanders plead for help. How soon can I send them the Stingers?"
"Two days," Sean said.
"So lone. Is there no way you can hurry it up?" Impatiently China slapped the swagger stick into the palm of his hand. "I want you to let me have at least one trained team immediately. Anything to be able to hit back at them."
"That, General China, would be crass stupidity," Sean told him.
"With all due respect"-Sean showed none in the tone of his voice-"if you deploy the Stingers piecemeal, you'll be tipping your hand to the Hind crews."
"What do you mean?" China's voice cracked like breaking floe ice.
"Those Russkie pilots have met the Stingers before, in Afghanistan, you can be pretty damn sure of that. They'll know every countermeasure in the book and then a few more. Right now they are blissfully convinced that they are the only things in the sky.
guard is wide open, but you let one Stinger By and all that will change. Okay, you might put one down, but the rest of the squadron will be ready for you."
China's frozen expression thawed and he looked thoughtful.
"So what do you suggest, Colonel?"
"Hit them all at once with everything you've got."
"When? Where?"
"When they are least expecting it, a full-scale surprise attack on their laager-at dawn."
"On their laager?" China shook his head irritably. "We don't know where they laager at night."
"Yes, we do," Sean contradicted. "I have already pinpointed the laager. I'll train Alphonso and Ferdinand and set up the raid for them. Give me two days, and they'll be ready to go."
China thought for a moment, hands clasped behind his back, staring up at the blue African sky as though he expected at any moment to see those dread humpbacked shapes appear.
"Two days," he agretd at last.
"Two days, and when I have your missile crews trained and ready to leave on -the raid, you let me and my party go. That is my condition."
"There is a Frelimo column between here and the Zimbabwean border," China reminded him.
"We'll take our chances," Sean snapped. "That is the bargain.
Do I have your word on it?"
"Very well, Colonel. I agree."
"That's fine. Now, when do you expect Alphonso and his detachment to arrive?"
"They have already reached our lines. I expect Alphonso and his men will be here in another hour or so, but they will be exhausted, they have been in action almost continuously for twenty-four hours."
"They aren't on a Sunday school picnic." Sean was callous.
"Send them to me as soon as they arrive.
They came in at last, moving with the slack, stumbling gait of a boxer at the end of ten hard rounds. Their tiger mission sl gut the Unimog truck and crossed mt4 Mozambique on abandoned foot.
He "The bush is full of Frelimo, and the air is full of hen shaw and wiped Ins face wearily on a grubby, tattered bandanna.
paused hcraft, but the hen shaw can speak from the sky. They