“Go through dry and check your switches,” Waldo radioed.
Neck’s eyes darted over the armament-control panel. The master arm switch was still off, and he suppressed a groan. He had made a switchology error. Furious with himself, he ruddered the Hog around, now determined to kill the trucks and armored vehicles. He moved the master arm switch to the down position. A mental Klaxon sounded, warning him not to pop to altitude. He firewalled the throttles and stayed low as he ran in. The black boxes in the A-10’s weapon-release systems did their magic, and this time six bombs separated cleanly, walking across the trucks.
He pulled off to the left. “Flares!” Waldo shouted over the radio. Neck hit the flare switch on the right throttle. Eight flares popped out behind him just as a Grail homed in. The shoulder-fired missile exploded, sending high-explosive fragmentation into the tail of Neck’s Warthog. The aircraft shuddered as he fought for control. He rolled the wings level as four high-explosive twenty-three-millimeter rounds passed overhead. A fifth round hit the left side of the fuselage, just below the canopy rail, while eight more rounds passed underneath.
Pontowski sat back in his chair, his feet up, chin on his chest, as Waldo debriefed the mission. The words came at him in packets of bad news, telling a tale he had heard many times. “Switchology error…reattacked…my fault, should have been one pass, haul ass…a Grail and ZSU-23 working together…bad juju.” Waldo stood there. “So do we keep at it?”
It was a fair question that demanded an answer. Pontowski looked at Maggot, not willing to take the decision away from him. The monkey was on Maggot’s back, and he knew it. “It’s the first goddamned ten days of combat,” Maggot said. “If we can get a jock through it, his chances of survival go sky high.” He paced the floor. “Neck made three basic mistakes. A switchology error, he hung around to reattack when he should have gotten the hell out of Dodge, and he was late hitting the flare switch.”
He stared over their heads and thought out loud. “A Grail alone can’t do it. It messes up the control surfaces something fierce, but the Hog can handle that. And the tub normally works.” The tub was the titanium armor plating that surrounded the A-10’s cockpit like a bathtub. “We know the F-16s can get their heads down.” He made the decision. “As long as we got F-16s for SEAD, we keep flying. Brief the pilots that from now on it’s one pass, haul ass, stay in the weeds, keep the flares coming, and jink like a son of a bitch.”
“Too bad it cost us a Hog to relearn what we already knew,” Waldo said.
Maggot reached for the phone, punched the button for the med clinic, and asked to speak to Ryan. “Hey, Doc, how’s Neck?” He listened for a moment. “Good enough. Give him back when you’re done.”
It was late afternoon when Tel and his team reached the rendezvous point. It was just a spot in the jungle, totally devoid of distinctive features, and Tel checked his GPS. Certain they were at the correct coordinates, he sent his men into defensive fire positions. “Very good,” a voice said from the shadows.
Tel shook his head. “We never saw you.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” Kamigami replied. “How’d it go?”
“Lost the lieutenant when we stumbled into a guard post. But we cleared the bridge as planned. The A-10s were on time, but one was shot down before it could release its bombs. We were taking counterbattery fire and had to withdraw.”
Kamigami appreciated his understatement. “And the bridge?” Kamigami asked.
“The last I saw, it was still standing. I don’t know if the AVG went back after it or not. We had other problems. I got to admit, those bastards chasing us were good. Luckily, it was night, or we would’ve never made it.”
Kamigami asked him more questions and reconstructed the mission, approving of the way he had ambushed his pursuers. Without doubt, Tel had proven himself. “We’ve got marching orders,” he told the young man. “We’re going after the Scuds in the Taman Negara. We rendezvous with three helicopters tomorrow morning and switch out the men before insertion.”
“I want to stay,” Tel said.
Kamigami shook his head. “I need you back at Alpha for a formal debrief.” It was a weak excuse, and both men knew it. “Get some rest. We move out in an hour.” Tel turned to leave and find a tree to rig his hammock. “One thing,” Kamigami said, stopping him. “What happened to the midnight pisser the corporal took out?” One of the hard facts of special operations was that you couldn’t take prisoners in the field.
Tel hesitated. Did he want to admit that he had stripped the unconscious man, strung him up by his heels over the stream, and punched two holes in his neck? “He’s still there, hanging around.” He couldn’t help himself. “Someone will find him.”
The ExCom gathered in the Situation Room for the ten o’clock meeting and quietly found their places. Vice President Kennett looked across the table and nodded at Mazie and Butler. “Well done,” he said.
“The waiting was the hardest part,” Mazie said. “I wasn’t sure if von Lubeck could deliver.”
“It is a new role for the Germans,” Butler said. “Personally, I was more worried about the Turks.” He fell silent when the door opened, and came to his feet when the president entered. Everyone in the room joined him.
For a moment she stood there, her eyes bright and clear. Then she smiled. “The drummer’s gone.”
Butler hoped his face did not give him away. As acting DCI, he had a few options not available to the average human being, not to mention politician, and had simply exercised one. Madeline Turner smiled at him, and the color drained from his face. There was no doubt that she knew. “Please be seated,” she said, letting him off the hook.
“The protesters hate success, Madam President,” General Wilding said. “May I offer my congratulations for Operation Saracen?” He searched for the right words, not wanting to sound like a brown-nosing apple polisher. “Convincing our allies to open a second front was brilliant.”
“The credit belongs to Mazie and Bernie,” she said.
Wilding allowed a tight smile — he knew how it worked. “If I may,” he said, starting the briefing. For the first time in weeks the news was good, and all the tension and worry that had borne down on him with a relentless and crushing weight was finally lifting. “Operation Saracen is going well, and the Germans reached Mosul two hours ago, nine hours ahead of schedule. The Iraqis have fallen back into the city and are showing unexpected resistance. The Germans plan to leave a covering force in place, bypass the city, and drive for Baghdad. In the south, Operation Anvil is hammering hard at Saddam’s Spider.” He warmed to the subject, venting his pent-up frustration while reveling in the change of events. “We plan to open a major offensive in seventy-two hours. We’re going to hold them by the nose while kicking them in the butt.” But then reality intruded, and he clamped a tight control on his emotions. “We still have some hard fighting in front of us, Madam President. But we have the logistics and personnel in place to do the job now.”
Turner tapped her fingers together. “Malaysia?” she asked.