“Echo acknowledges,” the scout-company commander radioed back.
Turabi studied the board for a few moments, counting scout units, then flipped the channel selector: “Airborne Two, this is Green One, I don’t see any of your units up. What’s the problem?”
“Green One, we lost the diesel-powered pump for the refueling bladders,” the helicopter-company commander radioed back. The helicopters were refueled from giant twenty-thousand-deciliter collapsible rubber bladders, resembling tire inner tubes, using high-volume, diesel-powered pumps. They could have all the fuel they needed available — but if the pumps went out, getting the fuel into the aircraft’s fuel tanks was long, hard work. “Our first chopper should be airborne in five to ten minutes.”
“Two, if you ever again fail to report a malfunction like that in a timely manner, I’ll have your eyeballs for breakfast!” Turabi shouted. “Break. Airborne Three, how fast can you get a cover aircraft over to grid three-zero-Charlie?”
“Green One, stand by,” the commander of another helicopter company reported. After a short but utterly nerve-racking wait: “Green One, I’ll send a unit in right now, ETE three minutes. He can be on station for about five minutes before he bingos.”
“Very well, Airborne Three. Break. Airborne Two, get your aircraft in the air as soon as you can, or—”
A tremendous explosion outside shook the command-post vehicle so hard that Turabi almost flew out of his seat. “What was that?” he shouted, struggling back to his seat.
“A bomb!” someone else shouted. “At least a two-hundred-kilo gravity bomb! It hit the radar truck!”
An antiradar missile or TV-guided missile, Turabi thought. Too big for a small, helicopter-fired missile, Turabi knew — it had to be from a fixed-wing aircraft. And if it was TV-guided, it could just as easily have hit the command-post truck — that would have been a juicier target. No one had reported any low-level bombers inbound, so it had to be a cruise missile, launched from high altitude, or a long-range guided missile. “Switch to the number-two radar van and recalibrate,” Turabi directed, “then order them to go to intermittent operation.” It took several moments, but finally he could see the radars up front in the command vehicle come back to life. They were still in the fight, but down to their last radar array.
“Should we retreat, sir?” the operations officer asked nervously, shouting his question out at the top of his lungs even though Turabi was only a couple meters away. “I think we should get out of here now!”
“No one is retreating, Captain — not yet,” Turabi said quickly. No, he thought, they should have retreated days ago — it was way too late now. “Calm yourself. Go get a report on that impact area. Have someone check for chemical or biological weapons. Pressurize the command cab.” Turabi had to swallow hard as the pressure quickly built up in the command-post truck. If those last weapons dropped nearby had chemical or biological weapons aboard, the positive pressure inside the cab would help keep toxic chemicals from seeping inside. On the commandwide net, Turabi radioed, “All units, I think that was an antiradar-missile attack. Check for biochem weapons and report. Bravo Three, Bravo Three, wheel north to H-1 and engage targets.”
“No targets spotted yet, Green One.”
“They’ll be there!” Turabi insisted. “Bravo Four, back up Bravo Three to the north. Bravo Six, move forward and take Five’s position on the tail, and do it right now,” Turabi ordered. “Prepare to move to the west to engage the enemy’s left flank if they come in from the north. Acknowledge.”
Another long pause, more confusion on the network. Turabi thought the reserve unit had bugged out already. But finally: “Acknowledged, Green One, Bravo Six is on the move.”
“Very well. Move up as fast as you can. Break. Bravo Five, take Bravo Two’s position on the left flank and move forward fast. Airborne One, take the point. Airborne Two, get your birds fueled and move north to cover Bravo Three and Four, and you’d better have them all up in ten minutes or I’m going to rip your head off and shit down your throat! Airborne Three, don’t engage those Hinds — go around them and see if you can get them to follow you. They have to be low on fuel. Get Chärjew to start moving fuel down here on the double!”
He thought for another moment. There was no supply line behind them anymore, Turabi knew. They would either make it to Bayramaly and their objective, the petroleum-control station outside the city, or they would get smashed out here. If they ran out of fuel, they weren’t going to get any more from Chärjew in time. The reserve force, Battalion Six, had to move up to join the fighting. If they didn’t advance, they were going to turn and run back to Chärjew on first contact.
“Bravo One and Bravo Two, move out and engage the point vehicles. Blast them the hell off the highway, and don’t dance with them — those Hinds will be after you before too long. I want both One and Two at the objective point in one hour, or we’re going to get chewed to pieces. Let’s get moving, or we’ll die out here in the desert.”
He held on as the command vehicle lurched forward, wheeled sharply left up and down over the edge of the highway, and drove several dozen meters away into the cotton fields. Moments later another explosion shook the area — and, yes, it had landed two hundred meters northeast on the highway, exactly where they’d be if they’d pulled back and stayed on the highway. Crap, this was getting hairy now. Turabi could practically feel a TV- or laser-guided bomb on its way for the command-post vehicle right now.
“Fast-movers!” the senior watch officer shouted. “Sukhoi-24s, at least two inbound!”
“Inbound PGM attack!” Turabi radioed. “Radars to standby! All units pop smoke.” Not only could the tanks and heavier armored personnel carriers obscure themselves with smoke from their exhaust stacks, but they could also fire volleys of smoke grenades several dozen meters away to make it appear as if there were more vehicles than there really were. He didn’t know if it would fool sophisticated sensors, but it was the only countermeasure his forces had.
“SAM-12 Bravo One,” the ops officer reported. One of the air-defense units in the lead battalion was launching surface-to-air missiles, their mobile 2K12 “Cub” missiles. “Another SAM-12 Bravo One… SAM-12, three missiles away, Bravo One.” That was a typical Cub engagement, Turabi knew, but he had ordered the operators to launch only one missile at a time to try to save missiles. Each battalion had only six systems — nine missiles total — to counter all the high-powered fighter-bombers at Mary. “Got one!” the ops officer crowed. “SAM-33 Bravo One engaging.” The SAM-33, or 9K33 Osa, or “Wasp,” was a short-range, low-altitude capable antiaircraft-missile system — that meant that the aircraft had blown past the longer-range Cub missile system and had to be engaged by the shorter-range, close-in Wasp. “Triple-A-Six-Mike Bravo One engaging radar.” Now the self-propelled antiaircraft guns were responding. The enemy aircraft were coming in fast.
“How many aircraft, damn it?” Turabi shouted. “Where are they?”
“Got another one!” the comm officer crowed. “Sukhoi-24s, coming in low! They—”
They heard it almost simultaneously: the hiss of a high-speed jet passing very close by, like a fast-approaching swarm of angry bees racing across the desert, followed by two sonic booms that rattled everything not welded in place, followed by a string of large explosions. One or two bombs landed close enough to make the command-post vehicle jump a meter or two off the ground, and Turabi wasn’t sure which direction was up — they could have been blasted on their side or blasted to hell, for all he knew. The lights went out inside the cab, and there was nothing but a loud squeal in his headphones. An electrical fire started someplace — the cab started filling with acidy fumes.