“Jammin’ him?” the pilot asked the EWO.
“All over him,” came the reply.
“Any SAMs?”
“Just that SA-6 radar, still in search.”
“It’s bogus,” the pilot said, relieved.
“We’re getting another ZSU radar, bearing 140,” the EWO reported.
“That’s number two’s target.
The second gunship flew past the first, headed southeast to take on the second ZSU. The gunships set up parallel orbits around each ZSU. It allowed them to keep a constant bearing on the target for firing, a consistent pylon turn around the target. No escape. Just an old-fashioned gunfight: Keep shooting until one of you is dead.
“Any sight of the aircrew?”
“Nothing,” the sensor operators said. They were checking every hill nearby with the IR, but couldn’t find anyone.
“Watchmaker, you got a glint patch?”
“Affirmative.”
“You got him?”
“No, sir, nothing.”
The glint patch was a small patch worn on the flight suit underneath a squadron patch. It Velcroed to the flight suit, and made it visible to infrared or ALLTV, by showing up as a strobe. “We should have it by now,” the sensor operator said, concerned.
The first thing they heard was the shell slamming into the earth.
“What the hell — “ Woods exclaimed as they dived to the ground. “What was that?”
“Gunship,” Wink declared. “I’d bet anything. One of those Hercules things, with guns out the side.”
They heard a supersonic crack and glanced up to look for some muzzle flash, but could see nothing in the dark sky.
“I thought they’d be coming with helos,” Woods said, worried.
“They’re probably on their way. They sent the bouncers first, to clear the floor. Come on,” Wink said, standing, as the gunfight began below them in earnest. They could see red tracers racing up into the black sky, into pure emptiness, as far as they could tell. But the sound of the returning fire was growing louder. It sounded as if the Spooky had all three guns going as they heard another airplane fly overhead and another ZSU light up the sky to the southeast.
One more 105 shell hit the ground in the valley below them, almost making them miss the distinctive sound of an AK-47 bullet glancing off a boulder ten feet away.
The Captain of the Pave Low studied the new image on the screen in the middle of the cockpit. A digital picture of their location and the terrain around them in a 3-D format, it showed all the hills, mountains, valleys, and changes in altitude of any kind in the terrain. He had decided which of the hills was the most likely to be the one where the downed aircrew were hiding. It fit the range and bearing of the call the Spooky had gotten from them. What he wasn’t sure about was the location of the ZSU.
The Captain continued straight for the hill, his night-vision devices illuminating the darkness in front of him. His rotor wash was stirring up pebbles and sand below him as he strove to get as low as he could without his landing gear hitting the ground.
He glanced again at the computer screen. Seven minutes until they were over the target. He spoke softly into his intercom to have the loadmaster in the back alert the commandos. “Seven minutes.”
“Watchmaker, you got a firefly?”
“Affirm,” Woods replied, as Zev looked through his massive nightscope for whoever had just shot at them.
“Light it off, we still don’t have you.”
“Wilco,” Woods replied, reaching into the side pocket of his survival vest. He pulled out the 9V battery and the small black box, maybe two ounces, and hooked it up. Another bullet whizzed by them.
Zev aimed carefully through his scope and pulled the trigger on his Remington 500 sniper rifle. “One dead,” he announced coolly. “Many more behind him. Maybe five hundred yards away.”
“Got him!” the ALLTV sensor operator said. He saw a streak from the firefly coming from the top of a hill, lower than the one they had been searching diligently with all their sensors. He zoomed in on the hill with the IR sensor as the TV stayed locked on the ZSU, which was now moving. Its operators realized that if they were to have any chance at survival they had to get away from this invisible airplane with too many guns. They could shoot wildly without directing the fire while on the move, but at least that way they might live to shoot another day.
In the lead Spooky, the Fire Control Officer watched the movement with comfort. He smiled to himself. You can run, but you just die tired. The ZSU could no longer shoot at them effectively. In the back the airman tossed the brass shell casing from the 105 into a large square box bolted to the ramp of the airplane, then turned quickly and grabbed another of the fifty-pound shells from the rack and slammed it into the breach of the howitzer.
Suddenly the IR sensor operator exclaimed, “Multiple bad guys closing in on our airmen!” He had seen the whitish figures on the dark green background moving up the hill toward the figure with the streak from the firefly. “We’ve got to get some fire on them.”
Through his night-vision devices the Spooky pilot watched the distant men scramble over the boulders toward the Americans. “Get the 25-millimeter on them!” he cried.
“Redirecting the 25-millimeter to antipersonnel!” the Fire Control Officer declared, training the Gatling gun on the men who could now be seen clearly on the ALLTV. The officer began firing the 25-millimeter gun at eighteen hundred rounds per minute, its maximum rate of fire.
Woods ducked as the 25-millimeter rounds began raining down on the hill five hundred yards from them, splintering rocks and sounding like the Indy 500 with all the cars crashing into each other.
Zev was watching through his scope. “They are stopping those that aren’t getting hit. That will at least keep them there.” He looked at Woods. “Where are the helicopters? We must get out of here!”
42
The first ZSU-23 locked on to the Spooky quickly. It erupted again and its 23-millimeter cannons lit up everything around, making the valley look like a small room filled with anger and flame. The sky fired back as the Spooky rolled high over the hill and zeroed its battery of angry guns on the ZSU. The darkness was full of muzzle blasts on the ground and in the air as the antiaircraft battery and the mobile airplane hammered at each other.
The Spooky quickly got the upper hand, its jammers confusing the ZSU’s radar. Each time the radar would lock, the electronic countermeasures of the Spooky would pull it off, directing the ZSU’s bullets elsewhere. The 105-millimeter Spectre cannon pumped shell after shell out of the airplane at the armored vehicle. The howitzer was accompanied by the blinding fury of the 40-millimeter gun next to it.
Woods, Wink, and Zev crouched behind a massive boulder and listened to the gun duel between the meanest antiaircraft gun in the world and the meanest airborne gun platform in the world. The bullets flew back and forth, thousands of rounds of steel flying along the same path, like a bullet freeway.
The howitzer blasted out shell after shell. Suddenly a 105 round found its mark slammed into the turret of the ZSU. The vehicle and its barrels erupted in flames and explosions, causing a blinding white flash on the TV and the IR.
The pilot in the lead Spooky radioed the second plane. “Scratch one ZSU. How you coming?”
“Seconds away. We’ll get him.”
“Yours a nonfactor for the evacuation?”