ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (33 page)

A red light blinked on the HUD, flashing the symbols
‘00’ next to the Chaff icon. He was out of radar decoys, and on checking the
store’s inventory for flares he noted that he had only four of those remaining.
His heart was in his mouth as he flew, oblivious to the whereabouts of the rest
of the aircraft, determining only to get clear of what had become a waking
nightmare.

Without realising it he passed beyond the Soviet
armour and was above open country once more, but he was still shaking and in
his mind’s eye tracer was still seeking him out. He became aware of an F-16 at
his left wingtip, its pilot looking worriedly at him, and beyond that F-16 was
a single Gripen that was trailing smoke.

With great effort he pulled himself back to the
present, attempting to replace the headset lead in its socket but only
succeeding after several abortive tries, his hands just shook too much.

Beside his own aircraft, only the other F-16 and the
damaged Gripen had got out. His No.2 was in the aircraft off his port wing,
asking him for his situation and for further instructions. Should they make a
third run, strafing with cannon, sir?

They had left dozens of enemy fighting vehicles in
flames, scattered mines in the paths of others that would blow off tracks and
hinder them, but they had not deflected the enemy one single degree from his
purpose and the advance was continuing unchecked.

Arndeker could only respond to the radio requests with
single syllable answers, and his voice sounded so weak, so frail, that his
wingman assumed he had been wounded and took the lead, shepherding his squadron
commander toward their home field.

The return flight was uneventful, which was just as
well because there was no fight left within Arndeker’s frame. The control tower
slotted them for landing in order of damage and injury. The Gripen and its
pilot were in no condition to return to Sweden so it accompanied them west to
their field. The pilot was losing blood so he entered the pattern first, and
Arndeker followed behind him, flying woodenly in jerky motions like a nervous
pupil on his first solo.

The Gripen was a
quarter
of a mile ahead of Arndeker, grey smoke still leaving a thin trail behind it as
it let down toward the airfield. There had been a raid whilst the flight had
been up, and thick black smoke rose from a dozen places within the facility.
The runways had been prime targets for the raid this morning, as they had for
previous raids and the longest was now peppered with small craters along a
third of its length. A second runway was blocked, and a bulldozer was shoving
the still smouldering remains of a Red Air Force Flogger from the tarmac but
the runway they were lined up on was intact, and soon they would be safely down
once more.

The whine of electric motors announced his gear was
lowering, and he felt the triple thumps as the gear locked into place. The
flaperon’s extended further as the airspeed bled off, and the F-16 followed the
Gripen toward the tarmac.

The Swedish aircraft was above the outer marker when
it exploded like a thermite grenade, and Arndeker gawped uncomprehendingly at
the fireball, his brain not registering the warning shouts in his headset from
the controller and his surviving wingman, or the tracer flashing past from
behind, missing widely at first but zeroing in.

His ECM suite was silent, it hadn’t warned him of an
approaching enemy because no radar energy was being radiated and no infrared
systems had locked him up. They had been caught at their most vulnerable by a
pilot who had gone back to basics, relying on nothing more complex than a gun
sight projected onto his HUD.

Bangbangbang!
The impacts snapped him out of his trance-like state and he realised
his danger. He selected Gear Up and pushed the throttle all the way forward to
Zone One Afterburner, needing to recover some airspeed fast before he could
manoeuvre worth a damn but there was no accompanying kick in the pants. ‘AB
Fail’ flashed on the HUD, informing him the Afterburner was non-functional.
Bile rose into Arndeker’s mouth, it tasted acrid and he spat it out. His flight
suit was already stained with vomit, and in truth he was past caring about such
things as appearance. The turbulent wake of a Fulcrum shook the F-16 as it
passed above him and to the right, its cannon still firing at him as it
overshot. Arndeker looked down toward the Patriot site that guarded the base,
but only a blackened, scorched area of earth marked where it had been when he
had taken off for this mission, less than an hour before.

His heart was beating a tattoo in his chest as he
watched the airspeed build, but far, far too slowly. Any drastic evasive action
he took right now would only result in a stall but he tried a shallow bank to
the right, to avoid being a sitting duck for anyone else that may be back
there.

His F-16 wallowed drunkenly despite his gentle touch
on the side stick and rudder, so the Fulcrum had damaged some control surfaces
at the very least. He could land, and save his aircraft for the repair shop, or
punch out here and now. What remained of his self-esteem rose to the surface
and he determined to stay with the machine, to put it down in one piece.

He was at 400 feet as he crossed the airbase perimeter
and his airspeed had risen to 200 knots. He couldn’t see the Fulcrum any longer
and maybe it had cleared off back to its own lines. Arndeker called up the
controller, telling him he was going around before trying to land once more.

230 knots and Arndeker was muttering aloud to himself,
mouthing encouragements to the F-16 like a coach egging on a flagging member of
a cross-country team.

“Come on, come on, that’s it, good girl, push it a
little more, give me a little extra, that’s it, that’s it, not much further
now.” The canopy exploded into a thousand fragments and the cannon strikes
sounded like a sledgehammer hitting a trashcan as the rounds struck the
fuselage. Arndeker screamed in pain and fear as something struck him hard in
the side of the chest, he felt ribs snap but then a sheet of flame filled the
bottom of the cockpit, lapping around his feet, ankles and lower legs. The
Neoprene of his G-suit may be fire proof, but it didn’t prevent him feeling the
heat of the flames.

The master fire warning light shone a bright crimson
on his panel and the stall warning whooped in his ears as the nose of the F-16
rose drunkenly, announcing its departure from controlled flight and began a
sideslip toward the earth. Arndeker blacked out momentarily as the blood was
forced from his brain by the acceleration of the ejector seat throwing him
clear. He was oblivious to the sudden release of pressure to his shoulders and
waist as the safety harness that bound him to his seat fell away, but he
registered the nauseous vision of ground then sky, ground then sky, before his
parachute opened. At a height of only fifty feet the canopy fully deployed,
arresting his head over heels fall to deposit him on the grass beside the far
end of the runway, the shrouds of the parachute settling behind him.

It took him a second to realise he was down on the
ground and still alive, and he ran his hands over himself as he sought
injuries. He felt pain in his chest whenever he breathed; shrapnel from an
exploding cannon shell had come through the side of the cockpit but struck the
9mm Berretta he wore in the shoulder harness. The pistol had probably saved his
life in a way not intended by the manufacturer, but it would never fire again.
Arndeker was peppered with minor wounds from tiny pieces of shrapnel, including
shards of Perspex but he was ninety nine per cent good to go, in body at least.
There was nothing to prevent the flight surgeon from applying some sticking
plasters and marking him fit for duty.
He
removed the Beretta from its holster and stared at it, perhaps he couldn’t put
a round through some fleshy part of his body but maybe he could bludgeon a knee
cap, and then they couldn’t make him fly again could they, at least not for a
while?

He heard the pounding of feet approaching and looked
over his shoulder. Men were running toward him, running past the dispersals in
which sat the twisted and the charred skeletons of two A-10s. The blast walls
on three sides had not protected them from the liquid fire of napalm.

The wreckage of his own F-16 belched smoke and flame a
few hundred metres away and at the opposite end of the runway the Gripen burned
fiercely, whilst in the field beyond was another burning F-16, that of his
wingman. He was a squadron commander without a squadron, a pilot without an
aircraft to fly or any nerve remaining to fight. The nearest man was too close
now for him to be able to incapacitate himself without what he saw as his own
cowardice being plainly obvious. He allowed the damaged firearm to fall from
his fingers and sat, with shoulders slumped in abject despair.

Arkansas Valley, Nebraska, USA.

The stresses of this day of days showed upon everyone
present in the room.

All stood as the President entered and took his seat,
waving everyone down.

“Sit, everyone please sit.”

General Shaw remained upstanding, his briefing notes
laid out before him with thick red marker pen annotations here and there.

“Mr President?”

“Go ahead
General.” The President wagged a message slip in his hand.

“I got this a couple of minutes ago so start with
Guiana, how bad is it and how badly does it screw up
Guillotine
?”

A map of South America appeared on the screen behind
Henry and he cleared his throat.

“As you are aware Mr President, the ESA facility on
the equator has been attacked but it was not a result of a security leak?”

Henry addressed the President’s question by bringing
up the aerial photographs of the surfaced Typhoon and Kilo. His eyes flicked
momentarily to the CIA director but Terry ignored the look.

“No Mr President, there is no possible way that this
attack could have been put together within the timeframe of our formulating
Guillotine
.”
He pointed to the huge Russian submarine.

“This is a Typhoon, that is to say that ‘Typhoon’ is
NATO’s designation for Russia’s largest class of submarines carrying ICBMs. However
this one has been extensively modified to provide at sea refuelling and
replenishment for diesel electric submarines such as this Kilo class beside it.”

The picture altered to the computer enhanced
photograph that clearly showed the fuelling hose connecting both vessels.

The next photograph was of the submersible upon the
Kilo’s rear casing.

“These were taken a week ago by an Argentinian P3
Orion out of Tierra del Fuego which attacked and sank both vessels. But the
sinking’s were only made public after a delay of several days.”

The President stared long and hard at the photograph
on the screen.

“What is the sailing time for a diesel submarine from
China?”

“Three to four weeks the cross the Pacific with
refuelling along the way, Mr President.” Henry replied.

“The conversion of the Typhoon was most certainly
carried out pre-war sir, so it is entirely possible that this was being planned
as long ago as two years.” He did not need to add that the infiltration by
Chinese intelligence agents had made discovery of this preparation by the NSA
or CIA highly unlikely.

At last the President nodded, satisfied that their
best hope was not already doomed.

“The attack failed and we can still provide satellite
support, sir.” General Shaw assured him.

“I spent a half hour on the phone with the French
Premier.” The President said. “I have to say that I was having trouble reading
his reaction. I expected Gallic rage but he was surprisingly reticent for
someone who has almost had some of his sovereign territory nuked, he certainly
seems to be taking it better than I did.” The President had a gut feeling that
the French were not likely to just shrug off a nuclear attack, even one that
had been defeated.

“Our people in Russia almost had the difficulty factor
of their mission doubled Joseph, so look at it from that angle instead.” The
President took a sip of water.

“Now, as you will notice there are just we few of us
members of the choir present, so go ahead Terry, the floor
is
all yours?”

Terry smiled at the President.

“Did you ever get one of those discs through the mail
from a company offering free Internet time, where you load the disc into your
PC and it connects you to the company’s server?”

It had taken a little longer than Terry Jones had
predicted for the secrets of the CD-ROM to give
themselves
up.

The President nodded in agreement to Terry’s question
of course; there had been a time when the things had been a modern day plague
with the postman delivering the unsolicited offerings from various competing
companies almost daily.

“Well this disc lets us in through a backdoor to the
PRC’s space and satellite program.” Terry held the item aloft.

“Is this true?”

“Yes sir, indeed it is, however as a spook I prefer
this feature………..” The plasma screen on the wall of the briefing room had been
showing western Germany and the positions of the opposing units; it now changed
to depict the Philippines and events there from the Peoples Republic’s
perspective.