They were still easing into that position when the UHF radio cracked to life. "Bandit Six, Bandit Six. This is Lone Star One. Daytona now." "Lone Star" was the call sign of the F-111s; Lone Star 1 was the flight leader — from his nickname and his drawl, it wasn't hard to tell where that zoomie came from. "Daytona" was the name given the initiation point, or IP. It was at that point that the F-111s would begin their bomb run.
Mennzinger switched his radio to the HF band to acknowledge the call. "Lone Star One, this is Bandit Six. Set and ready to spot."
The response was quick from the F-111s. "Lone Star One copies."
Switching to the battalion net, Mennzinger contacted the battalion commander. "Eagle Six, this is Bandit Six — Lone Star in contact and passed Daytona. Bandit set — we have not been picked up by search or acquisition radar — over."
"Roger, Bandit. Corsair Six, commence your attack — over."
Corsair 6—the call sign for the C company commander— acknowledged. That acknowledgment was followed by a volley of rockets from the battle position where C Company had been set and waiting. Mennzinger looked at his watch. It was 0300 hours local.
In the 2nd Corps operations center there was silence. All eyes were on the clock with local time as the sweep hand raced up to the 12. When it hit, it was as if everyone's heart skipped a beat. General Horn turned to his chief of staff. "Well, they're in. Now it's all theirs."
General Darruznak picked up his fourth cup of coffee, then turned to Horn. "A bullet or a brevet?"
Horn chuckled. "Yeah, something like that. Only we're not the ones who'll get the bullet."
In his frustration, Shegayev pounded the radio with his fist. "Can't you get this damned thing to work?"
Aliyev bent over to look at the radio and check the settings and connections. Finished, he looked up at Shegayev. "Comrade Lieutenant, the radio is functioning properly. It must be the other station, or perhaps jamming."
Shegayev, totally frustrated, was about to yell when the sky to the west was lit up by a series of flashes. Standing upright in the ditch, Shegayev looked in the direction of the flashes. The sound of the rockets firing, then impacting took several seconds to reach him. He had been too late. He had failed to warn his commander of the impending danger. He stood there for a second as the horror of his failure began to sink in. As he did, the rest of his patrol began to pop their heads up and look to the west at the wild light show that was beginning to grow in intensity.
Kinsly paused and turned to look back at the airfield. Satisfied that they had done their job, he turned and was about to duck down and continue through the ditch when he saw something. Dropping until his eyes were level with the rim of the ditch, Kinsly could clearly make out the image of a man standing waist high in the same ditch not thirty meters to his front. The flashes also betrayed the round forms of helmets that seemed to keep popping up around him.
Dropping down, he gave the signal to hold up. Quickly he evaluated his options. He had twelve men against an ambush patrol. On past nights the Russian ambush patrols consisted of no more than ten men. He therefore didn't have any real superiority in manpower. The Russians would have at least one PK machine gun. Kinsly had none, only rifles. But he did have one advantage: surprise. He knew the Russians were there, and they didn't know he had seen them. Guessing that the Russians would be making a beeline to the airfield, Kinsly prepared to ambush the ambush patrol.
"Lone Star One — thirty seconds."
The lead F-111 was thirty seconds out. Ignoring the flashes and explosions rocking the airfield as C Company continued to smash air defense emplacements, Mennzinger prepared to spot for the F-111. With his head down on his sight, he laid the cued line of sight reticle on a point in the center of the fuel blivets. Satisfied, he hit the laser button with the middle finger of his right hand and the radio transmit switch with his left toe. "Bandit Six — laser on."
There was a pause. The F-111 was already climbing slightly, ready to lob its bombs. Then it came back. "Lone Star One — spot." Another pause. The PAVE TACK laser acquisition system had found the reflected laser light from Mennzinger's laser beam. Automatically the F-111 's PAVE TACK target designator locked onto the spot and began to provide the F-Ill's navigation/attack computer with the data it would need for bomb release. The F-111 pilot acknowledged that the spot had been detected. "Lone Star One — lock — bombs away."
Watching, Mennzinger thought that he saw the cluster bombs break up and the shower of bomblets that followed. There was no doubt when they began to land on and between the blivets. His sight turned from images of black and green to pure black as the bomblets exploded, splitting the blivets and igniting the fuel. Pulling his head back, Mennzinger watched the spectacle as the entire fuel dump appeared to rise up in the sky in a huge fireball. In his ear he heard the attack sequence being repeated as Lone Star 2 contacted Bandit 1. Mennzinger watched and listened as, like clockwork, each F-111 in its turn hit the IP and began its run in.
After releasing his finger from the laser button, Mennzinger depressed the radio transmit switch with his left toe. "Bandit Six — laser off."
The fireball rising in the sky caught Shegayev by surprise. He stopped running and looked up. As he did so, the soldier behind him plowed into him. Shegayev didn't even notice the collision. The spectacle to his front was, all at once, mesmerizing and appalling. Neither did Shegayev, or any of the men behind him, notice half a dozen grenades come rolling into the ditch.
As soon as the grenades began to explode, Kinsly and Sergeant Lou Washington were up and running forward in the ditch, side by side, to where the Russians were. With their weapons at their hips, they fired as they went. Right behind them two more men from his team followed, lobbing grenades further down the ditch. Like a World War I trench raid, Kinsly took on the Russians. Outside the ditch, to their flank, Kinsly's Sudanese soldiers lay waiting, rifles leveled at the rim of the ditch. If the Russians realized what was happening and tried to get out of the ditch, they would be picked off by Sudanese.
They didn't have long to wait. Two Russians in the rear had survived the first grenade attack. Quickly realizing that the enemy was coming from the front, they stood and prepared to run back. The Sudanese sergeant told his men to hold fire for a moment. The Russians, not making fast enough progress, climbed out of the ditch and began to run for the clump of trees across the road. When they were in the center of the road, the Sudanese sergeant told his men to fire. In a hail of bullets, the two survivors were cut down.
Kinsly and his raiding party didn't stop until they had passed the last dead Russian and had gone twenty meters further down the trench. He yelled to his men to hold up. The four men dropped down and caught their breath. They were all sweating despite a cold breeze that was beginning to pick up. Turning to Washington, Kinsly asked if he thought they had gotten all the Russians. Washington was about to stick his head up and look but stopped when he remembered that the Sudanese were still out there, waiting. "Captain, we'd better call off our people before we check out the commies. Hate to end the night gettin' nailed by our own."
As spectacular and complete as their surprise was, the Russians at the airfield weren't totally paralyzed. As Lone Star 6, the last F-111, rolled in, a Russian paratrooper let go an SA-7 surface-to-air missile. Lone Star 6 had just released his load of bombs when the SA-7 exploded, damaging the right engine. In a single, terrible moment Mennzinger watched as the F-111 dipped to the right slightly and made a sharp descent. As it did so, its right wing tip scraped the runway, trailing a shower of sparks. Then the plane nosed down and flipped to the right, standing on its nose in the process. It had almost finished a full cartwheel when it exploded in the center of the runway. As if the crash of the F-111 were the grand finale at the end of an act, the runway cratering bombs began to explode around the remains of the stricken F-111.