Which didn’t make sense, because hell, now he had them right in his face and the screen was still blank. No matter how he pointed the FLIR head on the Mav, he had nothing.
Seeker head wasn’t working right.
Oh.
Skull banked the Hog through another turn. Leander asked what the hell was going on.
“We’re hosing these guys,” answered A-Bomb. “Be with you in two shakes.”
Knowlington gave the shadows one more look with his Mark-One eyeballs. All he could see were shadows dancing on shadows and an eerie reddish glow cast by the fires A-Bomb had started when he hit the trucks.
Only thing to do was fire off one of his LUU-2 illumination flares.
It was a very dangerous move. The flare might help the Iraqis see the Frenchman. It could also make the Hog an easy target as he ducked low to make sure the pilot was for real and alone. But Skull couldn’t clear the helicopter into an ambush.
“Leander Seven, I’m going to drop a log,” Skull said over the rescue frequency. “Hold back. A-Bomb, get between the Iraqis and the helo, just in case there’s more we missed. I’ll take some turns, knock down anybody left by the trucks and look for our guy.”
“Two,” snapped A-Bomb. “Give me three seconds.”
Knowlington needed more than that to get into position. He saw a few pinpricks of red on the ground, but couldn’t tell if the Iraqis were firing at him or the downed airman. He goosed off the flare, accelerated, then slammed back to take a look. The stark effervescent light cast by the lou-two as it slowly descended on its parachute swing turned the world into a scene from a Grade B sci-fi movie, earth devastated after a nuclear accident.
Still couldn’t see.
Screw it.
Skull tucked his wing, swooping toward the flare and charging in the direction of the Frenchman. He plunged so low he got beneath the slowly descending LUU-2; the light silhouetted the dark hull of the plane and made it an obvious target, but Knowlington didn’t worry about that — he was too busy flying. He skimmed along the ground and found three Iraqi soldiers blinking assault rifles toward him.
Skull blinked back, teasing his GAU-30. The soldiers disappeared in the swirl of erupting dirt, uranium and explosives. He nosed upwards, continuing his path toward the trucks A-Bomb had hit. Shadows scattered — he fired at them, realizing they were Iraqi soldiers. He fired high and there wasn’t time to bring his aim down as he winged over the position, wheeling back around at the edge of the bright circle of light.
As he churned back around, he spotted a stick figure about fifty yards from the spot where he’d obliterated the first group of Iraqis. He began crawling as Skull approached, moving toward the south.
Had to be the Frenchman.
“I’m on that other truck,” announced A-Bomb.
It took Skull a few seconds to spot the vehicle a quarter-mile ahead on his left, a six-wheeler that looked more like a boat than a truck. A moment after he saw it, A-Bomb’s missile turned its hull into molten steel and foam.
Skull turned back toward the first group of trucks, looking for the soldiers he’d seen. They were gone, obviously hiding from the Hog and its monster cannon.
“Leander Seven, the heavy stuff is cleared away,” Skull told the SAR helicopter. “Few ground troops by the burning vehicles. We’ll walk you in if you feel up to it.”
The PAVE Low pilot replied with a string of curses indicating he was more than up to it. The big Sikorsky popped up, racing forward into the bright arc of the still-burning flare. As Skull banked behind her one of the crewmen lit up the mini-gun at the door, spraying the area near the destroyed trucks. Meanwhile, the Eagles that had been tasked to help out announced that they had arrived with a swoop down to a thousand feet. Their massive engines shook the ground like lightning bolts from the Norse god Thor.
Which just happened to be their call sign.
The French pilot shouted something over his radio. Skull caught a glimpse of him running to the helicopter.
“Said we’re magnificently ugly,” explained A-Bomb as the PAVE Low abruptly lifted up and began heading south. “Those French know beauty, let me tell you.”
“Thor Flight, appreciate it if you can run Leander home,” Skull told the F-15s. “We have a prior engagement.”
“Thor Leader copies. Thank you, Devil Flight; thumbs up to you.”
Skull had already snapped his Hog onto the course for Kajuk. A-Bomb acknowledged that he, too, was on the proper heading.
“Say boss, not that I’m complaining, but we’re out past bingo, aren’t we?” A-Bomb added, referring to their fuel situation. Bingo was the not all together theoretical turnaround point, the spot where you had to fly home or risk running out of gas.
“Might be,” said Skull, making sure he had the throttle at maximum.
CHAPTER 42
Wong felt the first shell of the T-72 explode in the distance. The tremble knocked him into the dirt; by the time he managed to get back up and grab the suitcase with the explosives, another round had landed. This one landed parallel to him but well to the east, a good hundred or more yards away from where he’d left Salt and Davis. But the tank had to be neutralized, or sooner or later his men would be killed.
Perhaps sooner — a third salvo landed behind him, close enough to lift him off the ground and deposit him chest-first six or seven feet away. The explosives case landed square on his back, knocking the air out of his lungs. As he struggled to breathe, Wong rolled over and tore open the case. He hastily wired three of the C-4 charges for firing; reaching for another he heard the whiz of a fresh shell heaving through the air. He froze, waiting for the explosion he sensed would be less than twenty yards away, more than likely fatal. But the shell apparently landed with a dull plop, burying itself in the ground without exploding; still cringing, Wong grabbed the remote detonator, leaving the set charges on top of the open case. He ran as fast as he could toward the tank, the wireless detonator cupped against his body. As the T-72 launched another shell, he detonated the explosives.
His idea was to use the explosives to create a diversion and at the same time cloud the tank’s laser range-finder; he hoped to get close enough to the tank to draw its attention as the smoke cleared, giving Davis and Salt more time to pin down the convoy for the scrambling A-10s. Had Wong calculated the gambit according to his usual coefficient of probabilities, he would have been presented with an alarmingly small coefficient — but sometimes even he preferred not to do the math.
Of course, had he done the math, he would have taken a few more steps before igniting the explosives. The C-4 was not particularly suited to the task at hand, but it was nonetheless true to its inherent explosive nature — it made a nice, big boom as it was ignited, filling the air with grit, dirt, and pulverized rock. The force of the explosion knocked Wong flat, slamming his face against the hard surface. His cheekbone cracked — technically, the zygomatic cranial bone on his right side suffered a clean fracture — but Wong hardly felt it; the shock of the blast had already knocked him unconscious.
CHAPTER 43
Doberman could see the dark shadow as it rode up toward him in the distance, a knife poking into the sky. His own ECMs were useless against the missile, and he had no way of knowing if the fuzz being thrown by the electronic warfare craft to the south was working. He tossed some chafe and pressed on, trying to keep his eyes on the targeting screen, where he had only blurs.