But a loud knock and a slight roll got Russell’s attention. He’d seen no tracers or bright bursts. Just a single rapping sound on his left wing like a rock striking the undercarriage of a speeding car. But the warning lights remained dark. The indicators on his instrument panel were all steady green. He kept his eye on the digital fuel gauge. The fuel ticked off in orderly fashion pound-by-pound.
Russell took a deep breath of oxygen and exhaled slowly. Must’ve been a spent round falling back to earth, he thought. Or a bird startled to flight by the guns.
The sky was dark again. He was through the wall of fire. Another tone announced his arrival at five thousand feet. Another sounded shortly thereafter at the last heading change — a thirty-degree turn to the left.
In the dim starlight, the tall smokestacks rolled into view. Russell could’ve flown by sight and released his bombs visually from there if he’d had to. But the planners had chosen the two release points very carefully. The first was the tailgate of a production line for 155-mm artillery shells. The shells were loaded there onto trucks and carted away. The two-thousand-pounder would fly straight into the loading dock. The explosion should rip into the plant from its one unhardened Achilles Heel. The second bomb would fall straight through an airshaft into an underground explosives bunker. The Nighthawk was perfect for that mission. The two infra-red imaging turrets recessed into its nose — one for target acquisition, one for tracking and laser designation — were accurate to a single meter.
After passing the two-mile mark, Russell know, the computer would open the bomb-bay doors any second. It was then that enemy radars would have their best chance. The carefully designed lines of the stealth aircraft would be disturbed. Russell shut the thought from his head as he eyed the looming smokestacks. The computer automatically handed off targeting from the forward-looking images to the downward-looking images. At one mile, his mind — the computer’s back-up system — and the bomb-release ‘pickle’ were one.
His thumb flicked open the cover to the buttons atop the thick grip. One would release the first bomb; another the second. Russell’s eyes remained fixed on the nav/attack screen. They switched from the triangle and line to the digital readout just beside it. The screen displayed a variety of falling balls and merging circles. But Russell’s preferred focus was the range to his bomb-release point.
When it hit zero, the bomb-bay door flew open and the computer released a bomb. The aircraft floated upward but remained straight on line. The bomb rode a laser beam fired from under the nose down toward the aimpoint. There were no turns on this bombing run. The range numbers to the second target all reset instantly. Almost as soon as Russell digested the new readout, it came time to drop the second bomb.
A brilliant flash lit the instrument panel and dash. Russell hit the pickle a split-second after the computer release, and again the F-117A soared. He scanned the instruments for flashing red warning lights. Russell rolled the ship on her side and jammed the throttle to the stop. The bomb-bay doors thudded shut. A second and brighter flash lit the night.
As the plane banked, he saw the blazing display. The entire factory was rapidly being engufed in flame.
He returned the F-117A to straight and level exactly on his egress heading. The sky was lit repeatedly by explosions from his first bomb. But the target area of his second was dark and still. But in the light from the flames Russell noted jetting black smoke. It came from the air vents with such force that it looked like the exhaust from a revving engine.
Russell blipped the pre-recorded ‘Mission Accomplished’ message back to the 49th Fighter Wing. He then settled peacefully onto the course that led back to the sea. There were more guns firing now than before. But his windshield was dark and clear. He settled into his seat and craned his neck every so often to watch the flames.
The moon was full. The cloudless night was brutally cold. They had lain still and quiet for three hours — buried in thick banks of snow at the Amur River’s edge. There had been no sound, no movement, no sign of the Chinese.
Captain John Hadley rose first. One after the other his ‘A’ detachment of eleven U.S. Army special forces crawled from the snow in rapid succession. The nine NCOs and two officers didn’t need to be told what to do. They deployed in a semicircle to give as much defense in depth as a twelve-man unit could. His two lieutenants approached Hadley in the darkness. The only sounds were the squeaking snow.
Hadley and his two officers knelt ‘I want this over with fast,’ Hadley said. He spoke in just over a whisper. ‘The clock starts when the first man’s on the ice. Got that?’
’ There were two quiet ‘Sirs.’ Army shorthand omitted the implicit ‘Yes.’ They were off. The snow was so dry that it reminded Hadley of the beach near his home town in Florida. The saccharine sand there squeaked loudly as you trudged across it.
There was some time spent assembling the equipment. But it was all done under the cloak of strict noise and light discipline. Hadley searched the bends of the river in both directions. They had seen nothing of the armored cars that patrolled the flat ice pack. His two Dragon teams would have little trouble knocking them out. But one word by the vehicle’s crew over the radio and he and his men were as good as dead. To get in, spend a day and night deep behind enemy lines, and get out depended not on his ‘A’ team’s ample firepower. Their survival relied one hundred percent on stealth.
Four men rose and headed onto the ice. One measured distance by rolling a large wheel at the end of a pole. The two behind him lugged the heavy drill between them. The fourth — a lieutenant — rode shotgun. His M-16 was raised high and at the ready. They all wore night-vision goggles, but Hadley chose not to don his. There was no need. The four figures threw shadows onto the ice from the bright moonlight.
Hadley took another nervous check in both directions. A single man sat hunched over earphones. He’d cleared snow from a patch of ice. He listened to the ice through a flat microphone for the sound of an approaching vehicle.
The man measuring the distance stopped. The distinct whine of an electric motor easily carried the distance. The tone sank nearly instantly as the bit hit ice. The operator kept its motor humming. He was wasting no time standing exposed in the center of the river.
It seemed to take forever.
The whine finally fell silent. The two men extracted the bit and took off running. Their bulky gear and heavy load slowed the men to a lumbering pace.
They were breathing hard when they reached the bank.
‘Lemme see it,’ Hadley said. Two men hoisted the drill into the air. The stainless steel teeth were covered in white shavings. Hadley brushed the slush clear and saw the four-inch-thick tube of solid ice. That core sample was the sole purpose of their mission.
‘All right,’ Hadley announced, ‘let’s get the hell outta Dodge.’
Hadley felt relief at leaving the river behind. But egress was the most dangerous phase of all. They followed their tracks back toward the landing zone. A scar across the virgin snow. If it was snowing hard or blowing briskly, the tracks could be covered in a matter of minutes. But on relatively still nights — like that night — the deep indentations were a dead giveaway. For the only two-legged creatures in the woods were soldiers. If a Chinese patrol found the tracks, they’d either hunt them down or lie in ambush. The twelve-man A detachment was strung out in a line over a hundred meters long. They pulled 200-lb ahkio sleds filled with gear, weapons and ammo.