“Torch, hit the admin building.” It was Stansell. He had been monitoring the UHF radio. “Jack, fall in behind Mover and take out the left side.”
“Roger,” Doucette answered.
“Rog, copy all,” Jack said. It was his first transmission, he had been maintaining radio silence. He broke out of the low orbit he was in and turned toward Kermanshah, now seeing Doucette’s F-111 in front of him.
Mado’s voice crackled over the UHF. “Use your call signs and authenticate. Repeat, authenticate your last transmissions.”
“Fuck that noise,” Contreraz grumbled. He had recognized Stansell’s voice. He bumped his target cursors a hair to the right — a final refinement. “Ready, Ready …” Contreraz watched the range counter on his scope roll down to 23,000 feet as the Time To Go counter ran out. “PULL.” Doucette brought the nose of the F-111 up into a forty-five degree climb, smoothly following the command steering from the Weapons-Nay Computer.
The F-111 twitched as two bombs rippled off. “Bombs gone,” Doucette called over the UHF. He banked 110 degrees away to the right and began bringing the nose to the horizon. Contreraz continued to track the target through the Pave Tack pod. The bombs would fly for almost thirty seconds before hitting the target …
“Romeo One,” Bryant’s voice came over Trimler’s FM radio, “lase the right side first. Repeat, lase the right side of the wall first.”
“Romeo One copies,” Trimler said, “Right side first.” He pointed at the closest Ranger holding a mule. “Laser up, right side,” he commanded. The man raised his head above the ditch and leveled the mule at the wall.
“Laser on,” came over the radio. Trimler had turned up the audio on the PRC-77 so the Ranger could hear the transmissions. Maintaining silence was not a concern now.
“Gadget’s on,” the Ranger said, squeezing the trigger to the first detent to place the crosshairs and then to full action to turn the laser on.
“Gadget’s on,” Trimler relayed.
A spotter yelled, “One of the guards has seen the plane, he’s coming down the ladder like his tail’s on fire. I can see the bombs …
“Spotters down,” Trimler barked, trying to keep them from being hit by flying debris or bomb fragments …
Mary Hauser was curled up on her bunk, trying to conserve what body heat she could. For the first time she was thankful for the blanket-like chador. When Amini, the friendly guard, had said it was time to return to her cell and leave Landis, she had covered the doctor with her blanket. Amini had protested but she had insisted and started to raise her voice. Rather than risk discovery, he had given in.
At first the muted rumbling didn’t register with her. Then she snapped fully awake as the sound grew louder … It was a jet flying by the prison at high speed. She knew what it meant … “Come on, you beauties, come on. ” Her voice, she realized, echoed down the hall, and she hoped it reached every corridor in the administration building above her head, and especially that Mokhtari heard.
“Doc, hit the deck,” she called out as she threw herself on the floor and rolled under the bunk.
The two five-hundred-pound, laser-guided bombs fell in tandem toward the prison. It had been a perfect toss and both seeker heads picked up the reflected laser energy bouncing off the wall. The bombs made little jerking motions, refining their trajectory as they homed. The first bomb impacted two feet left of the spot the Ranger was illuminating with the mule and exploded on impact. The Ranger’s reactions were right on. He actually saw the bomb as it struck the wall and threw himself back into the ditch, holding onto his helmet. The explosion blew over the men, pounding their bodies, stunning their senses. But they had been in the same situation before and thanks to their training there was no panic.
The second bomb lost the laser signature it was homing on when the first bomb exploded. It then went into a memory mode and continued on its last trajectory, flying through the crumbling gap the first bomb had knocked in the wall and on into the administration building. It exploded on impact.
The F-15E streaked down the valley, its airspeed riveted on 540 knots. Shadows and early morning mist had degraded their forward visibility but the forward looking infrared sensor in the navigation pod slung under the right intake was creating a perfect picture on Jack Locke’s head-up display. They were still ten miles away. “Amb, I’m goin’ to lay down a Snakeye,” Jack told his backseater.
Furry wished they were carrying a GBU-15 with a 2,000 pound warhead. He wanted to guide something big onto the prison. As he continued to work he did not have to bury his head in a scope like Contreraz. Instead he sat upright monitoring the four displays in front of him. His fingers played on the switches and buttons of his hand controllers as he readied the system for the delivery. He had his cursors on the same spot Jack was aiming for. And the radar image was a perfect match with the infrared. He activated the system. “You’ve got steering,” he told Jack.
“See if you can get a better picture,” Jack said.
Again Furry’s fingers played a tune on his hand-controllers as he worked the radar screen. He enlarged the area around the prison and froze the image. He had a high-resolution patch-map of the prison compound that covered two-thirds of a nautical mile.
“Shit hot,” Jack called over the intercom, “Doucette did it. Two bulls right on target. Amb, check for BDA.” Furry looked over Jack’s right shoulder doing a bomb-damage assessment. He could see the smoke and dust still rising from the right side of the prison. They were less than twenty seconds out. The HUD showed Jack that he was dead-on and had the steering wired.
On the videotape that recorded the run it looked easy with all the sophisticated systems working as advertised, but they were working because of the men in the cockpit. And there was no better example of that than Jack Locke, a cool pro who had already lived through the pressure-cooker of combat. He had learned through experience how to confront the unbelievable stress that flying a mission generated. Few men juggled the task-saturation, the disorientation, the incredible number of tasks that had to be performed at once and correctly in aerial combat. If he balanced them all, life and success.were on the other side of the equals sign. It was a hard formula that most men chose not to solve — Locke was doing it out of choice — and he was a master at it.
As they flashed over the open space in front of the prison, Furry could see the Rangers crouched in the ditch and felt the bomb separate from the left stub pylon. Then they were over the prison, going straight ahead to clear the frag-pattern the bomb would kick up. Jack dipped the right wing so they could get a better view of the compound. Then they were clear, flying over the old barracks behind the prison. Jack pulled up to the right so they could see where their bomb hit.
“A bull,” Furry yelled when he saw the hole they had punched in the wall. “Not much left of the admin building. Doucette started a fire down there — nothin’ left but hot hair, teeth and eyeballs. Rangers ain’t goin’ in through there.”
“Here comes Spectre,” Jack said. The AC-130 gunship was right behind them and setting up a thirty-degree left-hand pylon turn around the prison …
Mokhtari was almost dressed when he first heard the deep rumble of Doucette’s F-111 running in on the prison. For a moment he stood in his bedroom, the sound not registering as it grew louder. When he realized it was an airplane he dove under his bed. The explosion of the first bomb taking down the outside wall washed over him. He was not prepared for the intensity of the second bomb when it exploded inside the administration building. The power of the noise and shock-wave stunned him but he did not pass out. In a dreamlike state he felt the floor under him collapse, was aware that he was falling through to the floor below …