“I am assuming this is not a social call, Major?”
Craig Thompson reached into his smock and removed his mapcase, from which he withdrew a map of the area they now occupied, and the SACEURs written orders.
“You are aware of the soviet special forces who have been active behind the lines?” He got nods from Pat and the Adjutant.
“The majority are army, but one or two groups are KGB Special Forces. The other night, three such groups joined forces to overrun the USAF airfield that the airborne early warning and JSTARS aircraft operate from. It would seem to have been a pre-planned operation, using deep cover operatives with access to the location. German Intelligence raided several homes after the attack and found in one a notebook with the location of safe houses and supply caches… terribly careless of someone, that.” He opened his map and pointed to the forest that was to their north. “We estimate that there are between fifty and a hundred soviet Special Forces in here, near the centre.”
Pat leant across to peer at the map.
“How do you know that?”
“Piss sniffers sir. The Yanks dropped remote devices in the forest after the notebook was found, they detect the ammonia present in urine.”
“Humph!” The CO was not greatly impressed with gimmicks. “I seem to recall they did the same along the Ho Chi Min trail… not a great success really.”
“Perhaps not, but half an hour before first light an MLRS Battery will drop several loads on the forest, and those of your unit not acting as cut-offs, will sweep through and clear it. I have already spoken to General Allain, and your battalion and attached sub units are now tasked.”
Pat had already read the line in the orders that authorised G Squadrons OC to call on assistance from other units, and it took some clout at such a time as this to collar a whole MLRS battery, however.
“Major, admittedly it is a danger having Special Forces loose in the rear areas, but you know where they are now so why not just flatten the wood and have done with it?”
“Geilenkirchen AFB was not the only raid this trio of groups has carried out, but it is the rape and mutilation of prisoners, female and male during the process of each raid, that has made the good general order that they should be, um… annihilated.”
“Major, whereas I can see SACEURs point of view, I am not… not, going to order my men to kill enemy wounded, or those trying to surrender. A war crimes trial will investigate any allegations SACEUR wants to lay against any prisoners taken.”
Major Thompson frowned momentarily.
“Strange, I heard that your men did exactly that at Leipzig airport.”
“Well you heard wrong!” Leipzig had been a hard fight that followed straight after one where the soviets had killed all the wounded when they overran the Guards position. Some men in his battalion had not given quarter, when perhaps it would have been the case had they not lost mates that way in the first battle. It hadn’t been ordered or encouraged, it had just happened.
“You require my men Major, so you will have them.” Pat looked at his Adjutant. “O Group here in one hour, no move before… 0330hrs.” he declared after doing a quick mental, time appreciation.
The F-16 was maintaining its position to the right rear of the Boeing and it resumed its descent toward the waves. Updrafts caused the fighter to buck and shake, making its pilot stare worriedly at the airliners damaged wing. Hidden by the darkness over to his right, was the sea Lough that led up to Shannon, the land north of that was County Munster, its northern boundary being the Galway Bay. He looked down to his right, seeing the Loop Head light and knowing the Boeing had only forty miles further to go from this point.
“One Four Eight, Gun Lead.”
“Go ahead Gun.”
“How are your passengers holding up?”
“Oh, about the same as us… the clinical term would be, ‘about as well as can be expected under the circumstances’… which for me means, right now I’m wearing elastic bands around the bottoms of my trouser legs, to stop my socks filling up with brown Adrenaline.”
The humour in the otherwise flat calm of the ACs voice brought a wide grin to Arndeker’s face. He didn’t know either pilot’s names, but he was determined to hoist a drink or two with them after this was over, and find out.
At Galway Lifeboat station the volunteer boat crews who lived furthest away were still arriving, having been summoned from their beds. The ready lifeboat was far out in the bay, manned by the first arrivals and so the remainder made themselves tea and sat around where they could hear the RT set. All anyone had been told was that an airliner was in trouble, and it was going to ditch in the sea because it couldn’t steer.
Liam McGonnigle, a lifeboat Cox’n and local dentist was the last man in through the door, still dressed in his best suit and hot from the dance floor at the local Rotary Club. “Who’s taken her out?” he asked as soon as he made it through the door.
Someone answered without looking around, unwilling to take his attention from the constant chatter on the radio, as if it were a TV set “Big Sean, little Sean and Patrick with the limp.”
“Jay’zus… there I was fending off the desperate blue rinsers, and the ugliest trio in all of Ireland are going to be fishing grateful stewey-desses from the bay!” said Liam with a strong note of irony.
The speaker, who was the station’s manager, turned and replied.
“Those are harsh words to be coming from the face of such a hideous looking man, Liam.”
Liam grinned back at the speaker before squinting at a dry marker board fixed to the far wall.
“Has the new carburettor arrived for the left outboard on the number two boat?”
“It has so… but I’ve had no time to bless me own face today… are you thinking on taking it out Liam, the starboards fine but the others still as like to pack it in?”
“I’m thinking it’s awful cold tonight, and some that gets into the water won’t be making it into the boats.”
The station manager refilled the kettle and took down another mug for Liam.
“Who will you take, to crew with you?”
“Young Terry and that Adrian fella… I know one’s from Sligo and the others English, but I’m thinking they’re good hands.” Adrian had been born and raised in Galway, as had his father, but his grandfather had hailed from Liverpool, and that was enough for him to wear the label.
It took fifteen minutes to get ready and then get the reserve boat in the water; Liam started up the twin 70hp Evinrudes, listening carefully for signs of trouble from the bothersome portside motor as his two crewmen cast off. It seemed to be behaving, so with a last wave he opened the throttles, turning the Atlantic class boat westwards toward the ocean.
Arndeker carried on down to five hundred feet with the Boeing before slipping into trail five hundred metres behind, and fifty feet above it. Small ships and lifeboats were strung out in a five-mile long line, somewhere along that line the VC-25A would ditch.
Twenty thousand feet above them, the Royal Air Force AWAC orbited the area, its operators tightly controlling not only the helicopters and vessels, but a small fleet of ambulances that were in holding areas too.
Sgt Palo was buckled in on her seat against the bulkhead, sat upright but deliberately leaving her hands open in her lap, creating a picture calm. She wore a headset attached to a waterproofed, voice activated radio strapped to her waist, the pilots would give them the word that ditching was imminent, after which the cabin crew would use them to co-ordinate the evacuation. The German Chancellor and British PM were silent, deliberately ignoring the buffeting, constant vibration, and Senator Rickham, who was dry retching into an almost full puke bag.