“Comes to eating, that’s true. Flying, that’s another matter,” Conover said.
“Now to three-five-five,” Abrams said.
Conover eased into the turn, keeping the nose down and the throttles at idle.
Altitude thirty-one thousand feet.
The speed was holding well at just under Mach 1.
Ahead, down in the darkness, were the sleepy lights of the capital city. They had taken video recordings on earlier passes, and Pearson had talked them through the frames until they had a positive ID on the target.
They were descending quickly now, the numbers spinning off the radar altimeter.
Passing through fifteen thousand feet.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever fired on civilians before,” Abrams said.
The screen went to a green-tinged night vision view. The Mekong River was clearly identifiable.
“They’re not civilians,” Conover said. “Snakeheads. That’s the way I think of them. Cut off the head of the snake, and the body goes into convulsions.”
“Good point, Con Man. AGL two-five-hundred. Hold it there.”
Conover eased the throttles forward. Even at that throttle setting, no one on the ground would ever detect them. Shadow in the night, passing over at four hundred knots.
He could no longer see Delta Orange, who was flying cover for him a thousand feet above.
“Two aircraft in formation six miles west,” George Williams reported from Delta Orange. “Must be Kampucheans, but they don’t know we’re here.”
“Roger, Nitro.”
The city’s lights were flashing past on the screen now. Abrams put the target rose on the screen.
“There’s the convergence of the two rivers, Con Man. Take the left fork. Up the Tonle Sap.”
“Without a paddle for someone.”
Anatoly Shelepin had been sleeping the peaceful sleep of a world leader when the telephone began to jangle, and he stumbled out of bed for the living room.
“A gentle night,” Druzhinin told him.
“And a cool one.”
“Ridiculous bloody code,” Druzhinin said.
“What!”
“The space station has been overrun, and—”
“It cannot be!”
“It is, Anatoly. I expect an attack here at any moment.”
“But, Oleg, they will…”
“They will.” Druzhinin was very firm.
“Call the hospital. Bring the children over.”
“No one is answering at the hospital, Anatoly. I have sent Kasartskin, but I fear the worst.”
Druzhinin hung up on him.
Shelepin was about to call Pavel when he saw lightning flash past the window, across the compound.
One of the houses exploded in a tremendous burst of concussion, white light, and orange-yellow flame.
Another streak of lightning.
An explosion that rocked the floor under his feet.
He ran for the front window.
But it imploded, driving shards of glass into his face and torso.
Shelepin was blown backwards across the room, landing on his back.
Looking down at his bare chest, he watched rivers of blood flowing from a hundred wounds.
From fifty-five thousand feet, Munoz had captured the northern part of the city on the screen. The angle of the night vision lens kept changing as the backseater struggled to keep the view static while the MakoShark coasted at six hundred knots.
“There we go, jefe.”
McKenna saw the white eruptions appear in the upper left screen. There were four of them.
“Yellow, Blue.”
“Yellow. We put four in the compound, Snake Eyes. Confirm the right compound.”
“Good show, sport,” McKenna said. “Cancha, you take the lead. Country Girl, take your look.”
Dimatta would now lead the attack on the air base, with Conover flying his wing. Lynn Haggar was positioned north of the base, and she would make a first run over the hospital and evaluate the conditions. If it appeared that the children had been moved to the airstrip, McKenna could still call off the attack.
With the leadership possibly decimated, and with the space station out of commission, McKenna’s priority now was the two remaining ICBMs, followed by the aircraft of the New World Order. He had told Admiral Cross he was more interested in destroying equipment than people, and Cross had agreed with him.
“Deltas, Red on approach. We’ve got aircraft in the region. Counting seven now, most flying ovals over the base.”
“Protection,” Munoz said on the intercom.
“And maybe bait, Tiger, if Delta Green is up there somewhere.”
“Go to three-four-five, compadre.”
“Going.”
The lights of Phnom Penh drifted away to the left, then off the screen. McKenna scanned the checklist on the small screen, making certain he was ready to start the turbojets.
They headed north, closing on the base. Through the windscreen, McKenna couldn’t see any aircraft.
“I want a sweep, Snake Eyes.”
“Take two.”
Munoz switched the screen to the radar output, and McKenna watched as the forward antenna, in the attack mode, painted targets. He counted the seven Haggar had reported.
“Eighth just taking off,” Munoz said.
“Deltas, Red. I see no activity at the hospital. Hold one while I make a pass on the road to the lake.”
“Deltas, hold,” McKenna said.
He eased the controller forward and began to bleed off some altitude.
Checked the armaments panel. All greens.
“Three-two miles to target, jefe.”
“All number twos,” McKenna said, “light up the radars and select your targets. Orange, you’re still making the strafing run.”
He got a chorus of “rogers” in reply.
The four newly activated radars suddenly alerted, and possibly alarmed, the pilots of the defending aircraft. They began to scramble in various directions.
“I’ve got two in the northwest quadrant,” Munoz said. As soon as he made the selection, he put two orange target symbols on top of them.
“Make mine the three south of the base,” Abrams called. “You draw ’em in, Orange, and we’ll pounce.”
“I want the two on the west side,” Ben Olsen radioed.
“We’ll get the one that’s climbing out to the north after our pass,” Williams said.
“Deltas, Red. I count seven buses and eight trucks near the lake. Going down… let me… yeah! We got kids!”
Everyone on the channel whooped.
“Delta Orange, make your run,” McKenna ordered.
With the turbojets idled to reduce the heat signature to almost nil, Dimatta started his approach from the south a four hundred knots.
“Altitude angels five,” Williams said.
“We drawn anyone yet, Nitro?”
“Not yet. Wait… here’s one coming our way.”
“Shut it down.”
“Hold one and see if we can pull another one in.”
“Not too damned long,” Dimatta said.
“The others have killed their radars now,” Williams reported.
The defenders of the base had likely begun to lock onto the active radars when they suddenly disappeared, leaving them to chase air.
The threat receiver sounded in Dimatta’s earphones and the HUD indicator flashed, “MISSILE LOCK-ON.”
“Goddamn it, Nitro!”
Williams switched the radar to passive.
Two seconds later, a missile of some kind flashed over their heads.
And a second after that, one of Delta Yellow’s Wasp IIs slammed into the aircraft that had fired it. A bright yellow-orange-red sunflower erupted high to their right.
“Hot damn!” Abrams yelled. “Down one! Sukhoi, I think.”
“One-two out,” Williams said. “AGL two thousand.”
In poring over the photos of the base, they had determined that, though they couldn’t see them, any aircraft had to be spotted in revetments to the left and right of the runway. Most of the aircraft were probably in the air by now. The more important facilities and supplies (control, ordnance, fuel, possibly the two ICBMs) were probably located at one end of the strip or the other.