The radar-killing HARMs were in the air. One after the other came the reports, “Magnum! Magnum!”
Fascinated, Tracey watched the attack unfold on her display. She saw several of the Iraqi radars shutting down. They had picked up on the bad news that they were targeted, and they were hoping to elude the incoming barrage of HARMs.
Too late, bubbas, thought Tracey. The HARM had a memory like a killer elephant. Once it found a radiating source, it locked the target’s position into its guidance system.
The Brits were the first on target. She saw the blips of the Tornado strike jets streaking across the Shayka Mazhar air base, southeast of Baghdad. They were dropping APAM anti-personnel and armor munitions intended to crater the runway and make it unusable for the squadrons of MiG-29s and MiG-25s based there. Tracey always shuddered when she thought about how the APAM worked. The stuff would shred every object on the field — man or MiG — that stood taller than waist-high.
Tracey heard the Tornado lead: “Sledgehammer is off target, one-hundred over one-hundred.”
“Hammer copies,” answered Butch Kissick. “You are green south, green south.”
Kissick glanced over at Tracey and winked. It was good news. The Tornado leader was reporting that they’d put a hundred percent of their munitions on target — with no losses.
So far, so good, thought Tracey. It meant that no MiGs would be taking off from Shayka Mazhar today. But something told her this couldn’t last. They still had Al-Asad and, most of all, Al-Taqqadum to worry about. Where were the MiGs?
Jabbar had to laugh.
From the cockpit of his MiG-29, parked under its camouflage netting, he could see the Krait missile. Saddam’s priceless death weapon looked like a section of drainage pipe, resting on its loading cradle out in the middle of the tarmac. It was exposed to attack from the air.
That was precisely what Jabbar expected to happen.
When he received the report that Shayka Mazhar air base was under attack, he knew they had only minutes left. Al-Taqqadum would not be spared. Standing beside his fighter, he had summoned the commander of the ordnance crew: “Remove the Krait missile from my aircraft.”
The commander, a round-faced captain, stared disbelievingly. “Sir, I do not have that authority.”
“You do now. I just gave it to you.”
“But Colonel, what will I do with the weapon?”
“I suggest you shove it up Saddam’s ass.”
“But Colonel —”
“Move, you idiot!” For emphasis, Jabbar produced his Makarov automatic pistol. He pointed it in the officer’s face. “Unload the missile.”
Possessed with a new understanding, the ordnance officer leaped to his task. Within five minutes, he and his loading crew had detached the Krait missile from the fighter.
Jabbar ordered his seven best pilots to man the remaining MiG-29s. He himself would fly the specially prepared MiG that, until minutes ago, had been designated to conduct the doomsday mission against the American aircraft carrier.
Fuck doomsday missions, thought Jabbar. And fuck the maniac who dreamed up an attack that would ensure the total destruction of Iraq. In a single act Jabbar had spared his country an unspeakable horror.
Sitting in his cockpit, Colonel Jabbar felt a sense of calm satisfaction. His old red helmet — the same one he had worn for ten years — rested on his cockpit rail, ready to don. He was prepared do what he did best: fight the enemy in the sky.
With eight jets. It was futile, of course. This fine February day would surely be the last for him and his gallant young pilots. But if they kept their composure and pounced when the enemy was least ready —
Jabbar saw a car driving across the ramp. It was a black Fiat.
The Fiat was followed by a truck with two dozen Republican Guard in the back. In the car Jabbar could see at least four Bazrum agents.
They stopped to inspect the unloaded Krait missile. Jabbar saw the agents looking around. One of them pointed at his MiG parked under the camouflage net.
Jabbar knew it was time. He called down to his crew chief. “Hurry, Suliman! Remove the camouflage net! We’re starting engines.”
Puffy black mushrooms were erupting two thousand feet below them. Fifty-seven millimeter, Maxwell guessed. Or maybe eighty-eight. The AA was coming from somewhere near the Latifiyah complex. None of the bursts was yet above twenty thousand.
Maxwell wished for a moment that he could roll in on the gun positions. It would be nice to treat the inhabitants to a shower of high explosive. But not this trip. Today they had more important business.
No SAMs were in the air, at least not yet, and that suited Maxwell just fine. If the HARMs had done their job, the SAM sites were now a smoldering ruin.
Both Chevy flights — DeLancey’s division of four Hornets and Maxwell’s flight of four — were approaching the initial points. Strangely, the chatter had subsided on the tactical frequency. Maxwell could see that the lead division was in a shallow dive, and though he couldn’t see the actual weapons he knew that the laser-guided GBU-24 bombs would be dropping from the fighters toward their destinations.
That was the beauty of smart bombs, he thought. Not just that you could thread them through an opening no larger than a ventilator shaft. You did it while remaining outside the killing range of the anti-aircraft guns. For a strike fighter pilot, it was life insurance.
On his FLIR display Maxwell picked up his assigned target — a row of low buildings on the inner periphery of the Latifiyah complex. They housed a missile assembly line — for another minute or two, anyway.
In the adjoining row of structures, he saw a building erupt in a geyser of debris, and he could imagine hearing the explosion — Kaploom.
A second later — Kaploom — the adjoining building.
One after the other — Kaploom Kaploom Kaploom — Chevy One flight’s bombs were exploding on their targets. One building after the other was vanishing in a dirty brown puff.
As Chevy One’s bombs rained down on their targets, Chevy Five flight, Maxwell’s next flight of four Hornets, approached the initial point.
Maxwell shoved the nose of his Hornet over in a shallow dive. He took a glance to either side. They were out there in combat spread — B.J on the left, Craze and Hozer on the right. Each was busy acquiring his own target with the jet’s laser designator.
For an instant Maxwell worried about his wingman. If a nugget’s nerve was to fail, this was the moment. He pushed the mike switch for the back radio, the frequency shared only by his flight. “Are we having fun yet, Chevy Six?”
A sassy voice answered, “No sweat, boss. Just a walk in the park.”
Maxwell smiled inside his oxygen mask. So much for his wingman’s nerve. B.J. Johnson was cool.
In his HUD, Maxwell slewed the laser designator over the target… fine-tuned it… sweetening the designation just a little left… up just a smidgen… there… right over the transom of the front door…. Release!
Now the hard part. Waiting, letting the laser designator illuminate the target while the GBU-24 plunged like a hawk to its quarry.
Twenty-five seconds to impact.
Ten seconds.
Maxwell knew that if he did his job right, the brown, nondescript building in his HUD— he’d been told it was a missile propellant lab — would be converted to a smoking crater.
Five seconds.
Zero seconds. The GBU should be —
Kaploom.
Maxwell felt like cheering. Not quite a bulls-eye, he calculated. More like three or four feet. Close enough for government work. No more propellant lab. No more building.