"Yes, Sir."
Ledbetter walked off toward the oil derrick, Plutarsky moved forward toward Shurab. "Do you understand your orders, Sir?"
"I will not be addressed by a subordinate—"
"I don't give a flying—" But Shurab had turned his back on Plutarsky and was walking toward the guard house. At which point Plutarsky blew a fuse. He reached out, grabbed Shurab by the collar from behind and yanked him up and back so that he landed on his rear end. This time, the mud was sticking — all over Shurab's starched fatigues.
Shurab, appropriately enough, swore loudly in Arabic and shouted an order. All five of the Iranian guards moved toward Plutarsky, but before they could take two steps toward him Plutarsky's nine-millimeter Beretta service pistol appeared in hand. "One more step and fancy-pants gets a hole in his starched shirt." Everyone then froze… until abruptly Shurab laughed, stood up and brushed himself off.
"My apology, Sergeant," Shurab said, smiling. "I will go." He ordered his men to back away, and Shurab headed toward the western guard post. With Plutarsky still watching him, pistol drawn, Shurab suddenly stopped and turned. "Touching a superior is a capital offense in my country, Sergeant. And you are in my country."
"I'm not impressed by you or your damned country."
Shurab waved gaily at Plutarsky, turned and left. Plutarsky hold the pistol in his direction until he was well out of sight, then holstered it and trotted back to the oil derrick, feeling he had lost for winning.
"I heard some shouts back there," Ledbetter told Plutarsky when they met a few minutes later. The lieutenant was absently staring up at the revolving antenna belonging to the main search radar. "Problems?"
"Nothing I can't handle, sir." Plutarsky followed his young commander's gaze up to the top of the derrick then to the L-band radar bunker nearby, but all he noted was a slight squeak in the massive bearings supporting the search antenna every time the green mesh dish swung toward the north. "I'll get someone on those bearings, too… "
But Ledbetter wasn't listening. Suddenly, without a word, he took off at a fast trot back toward the underground command trailer.
"Sir…?" Plutarsky had to run to catch up to the lieutenant's long-legged lope. "Something wrong, sit?"
"Didn't you hear it, Sergeant?"
"Hear what? The bearings…?"
"The L-band pulse-acquisition radar," Ledbetter said. "They turned the L-band radar on."
"I didn't hear anything," Plutarsky said. Ledbetter was speeding up, and Plutarsky had to hustle to keep pace with him. "How can you hear a radar?"
"The L-band radar in the bunker is slaved to the search radar," Ledbetter told him. "Every time the bearings in the search radar squeaked at the ten o'clock position I could hear the L-band radar move. I-Hawk's been activated."
"Well, shouldn't we have gotten a—?"
Just then Ledbetter's walkie-talkie beeped. Ledbetter already had it in his hand and didn't wait for the message. "Ledbetter here. Sound air-attack warning. I'm on my way." Both he and Plutarsky were back to the underground trailer by the time the first air raid warning horns began blaring.
"I'll make the rounds of the launchers," Plutarsky called out as Ledbetter hurried for the dirt stairs leading down to the trailer.
"Better clear the Patriot launchers first," was the last thing he heard Ledbetter say as he disappeared underground.
The trailer smelled musty. Three radar operators sat on the right side of the trailer at bare control consoles, and a long row of power transformers, electronics racks and circuit breakers lined the left side. The only light in the trailer came from the radar screens and the control panels. Just as Ledbetter entered he heard one of the operators on the combined UHFVHF radio calling: "Unidentified aircraft one hundred miles north of Robat, heading one-six-zero, altitude two-zero thousand, authenticate Delta Sierra, Over." The operator had a finger on a switch that would broadcast a computer-synthesized warning message in Russian and in Arabic, but Ledbetter put a hand on his shoulder. "No need to give them more than one chance to identify themselves, Sergeant. If they don't have an IFF transponder or didn't call ahead of time it's a bad guy."
"Yes, sir. "
"Tracking six, repeat six inbounds," the search-radar operator said. "They look like they're almost line abreast. Slightly staggered altitudes… now showing eight aircraft, sir, eight inbounds."
"Range?"
"Approaching max Patriot range in about one minute."
"Patriot has the inbounds, sir," one of the other radar controllers reported. "I-Hawk has the bogeys," the third put in.
"All batteries clear to launch at optimum range," Ledbetter said. "I need a report on—"
"Inbounds turning, sir," from the search-radar operator. "All inbounds turning right toward… Now I have several high-speed inbounds, altitude three-zero thousand and climbing, speed… speed well over the Mach and accelerating. Heading toward us…"
Ledbetter went over to the search-radar scope. The picture showed the whole scene in sharp relief. The classic Kingfish Soviet cruise-missile launch and flight profile was being represented just like a training simulation: the big heavy launch platforms, probably Tu-95 Bear or Tu-16 Badger strategic bombers; the launch just before the bombers reached the engagement circle for the long-range Patriot missiles and the escape turn; the missiles in their high-speed climb to supersonic cruise altitude. In less than a minute they'd be bearing down on their target: the Americans' SAM emplacements.
"Radio warning message in the blind on all tactical and emergency frequencies and on FLTSATCOM," Ledbetter ordered. "Three-thirty-fifth CAB under attack; attack profile shows Soviet missile attack. Send it."
"Yes, sir. " There was a one-minute pause, with the search-radar operators calling off the range to the nearest missile. "Message acknowledged on FLTSATCOM. I'm receiving warning messages from the other sites."
"Missiles now climbing above five-zero thousand feet, speed approximately Mach two, range fifteen miles… Altitude decreasing now… Missiles dropping rapidly… Range ten miles… nine… eight… seven…"
Sergeant Plutarsky had just received a ready-for-action report from the second Patriot missile launcher bunker he visited when the first of the high-altitude Patriot missiles cooked off, the sudden glare and awful ear-shattering sound of the Thiokol solid-fuel motor almost knocking Plutarsky off his feet. Two more missiles launched in rapid succession, along with missiles at other bunkers. Most of the missiles were headed almost straight up. The air was quickly filled with hot, acid-tasting smoke.
Plutarsky had just stopped to wipe sweat from his face and decide where to go when an explosion erupted ahead of him. This time he was not merely knocked off his feet — he was picked up by a red-hot hand and thrown ten yards backward. The air seemed to be sucked right out of his lungs and replaced by superheated gas that choked him as if he were drowning in lava.
Somehow he found himself alive and whole when he dared to open his eyes. There were fires all around him. The ground for dozens of yards around looked as though it had all been run through a huge grater. There was nothing taller than a clump of dirt standing anywhere. He tried to stand but found his right ankle twisted or broken.
There was one barely recognizable object nearby, and he crawled on his hands and knees, down where the air was a bit cooler, toward it. He didn't have to crawl far to realize what it was. The explosion had been so great that it had excavated the command trailer completely out of the ground and then crumpled it like a sheet of paper. The ten-foot-tall trailer had been squashed down to no more than a few feet high.