The Fourth War (22 page)

 

Fifty-nine miles to the north, circling over a narrow valley with steep mountains on the north and rocky-topped buttes on the south, a flight of two Su-27 fighters flew in combat formation. The pilot in the lead aircraft, a thirty-seven-year-old colonel, pulled at his oxygen mask, releasing the pressure from against his tight beard. Sitting in the cockpit of the Soviet-made Su-27, surrounded by instruments and soft glowing lights, he was no longer tired, but intense and alive, showing none of the previous hesitation he had been feeling before. The target was coming, and he felt his back ache. His hands held the flight controls in a tight grip as he tensed for the fight.

Below him, the three helicopters were slowing, staying very near the ground. The pilot glanced at the time and then checked his fuel. He was running low on gas. “Snatchers, Bogey Dope?” he asked over his tactical radio. There was silence for a moment until the wingman replied, “Negative, Lead.”

“Okay, tally south to the Bulls Eye. Let's take one last look before we have to bug out of here.”

“Two,” his wingman grunted in reply.

The two Su-27 fighters moved south, sweeping the skies with their radar. Turning, they had to climb aggressively to keep themselves clear of the mountains. The colonel pulled up the nose of his aircraft, trading airspeed for altitude, popping his fighter to thirty thousand feet. His fighter, light on gas, climbed like a rocket, and he popped above the mountaintops effortlessly to where the moon burned from over his shoulder, shining very bright. He swept his eyes across the horizon, studying the night, then scanned with his radar and got a quick hit. His heart jumped, his throat tightened, and he sucked a quick breath.

A hit. It was out there. The target had arrived.

He waited and prayed, pleading desperately with his God.

But the bogey disappeared very quickly, leaving nothing but empty, dark sky. His radar showed nothing and the warning tone fell silent in his ears. He cursed and he muttered, slapping his hand on his knees. He stared through his heads up display, then his radar growled again in his ears.

“Two, check ten,” he asked in a desperate voice.

“Roger. I've been getting something, but I can't get a lock.”

“Stay with me,” the colonel said as he pushed up his speed.

 

The radar beam from the Su-27 fighters washed over the top of the wounded B-2. Behind the cockpit, parallel to the aircraft's contour flow, several dents marred the surface of the delicate bomber from where the air refueling boom had slid down the side of the jet. The dents were hardly more than dimples, but they weren't the only damage that had been done to the plane. Along the trailing edge of the beaver tail, a sixteen-inch piece of control surface had also been broken away.

The imperfections bounced back only traces of radar energy, but taken together, it was enough for the Su-27s to get a hit.

 

Inside the B-2, the crew was busy. They had decided in the preflight briefing that Bradley would fly the aircraft during the bomb run, leaving the more challenging task of target identification, selection, and aiming to Tia. She was focused on her work, mentally blocking out the other elements of the flight as she scanned with her radar, updated the INS, searched for the target, compared coordinates, rechecked the weapons configuration, confirmed the ingress route and timing, and searched for infrared clues to confirm the location of the target. The rules of engagement required that the target be confirmed through two independent and positive sources, radar and infrared. Without their communications, they weren't going to get any help identifying the target from the team on the ground.

At twenty-three miles Tia had target confirmation. The aircraft was on time, on course, and well within the release envelope. The weapons were prearmed and responding to her internal commands. The target coordinates had been fed into the warhead's internal computers.

“Twenty miles,” Bradley announced.

“Ready,” she replied.

Bradley let the aircraft's automatic flight control system fly the aircraft as he searched the night sky. His defensive display chirped once, then emitted a steady warble as it detected air-to-air radar, ten o'clock, and twenty-one miles. Bradley glanced at his defensive display. There they were, two Su-27s.

Tia glanced over, a worried look on her face.

“I got it,” Bradley assured her.

The second Su-27 was behind his leader, two miles in trail, climbing to the same altitude. The fighters didn't maneuver, but continued on a straight course, circling the airspace where the Pakistani warheads had been hidden in the cave at the base of Tirich Mir.

Tia ignored the fighters, concentrating on her task. “Two minutes to release,” she announced in a flat voice.

Bradley tore his eyes away from his defensive display. “Confirm bomb checklist complete.”

“Affirm. Good offset and aim point. Weapons waiting to arm. Confirm coordinates.”

Bradley studied the central CRT and checked the target coordinates for the fifth or sixth time. “Confirmed,” he announced.

“Bomb checklist complete.” Tia looked up from her radar screen. “Fighters?”

“Bandits are blind.”

“Codes,” Tia said.

Bradley's mouth went suddenly dry. He looked down at the red-topped security box situated between them. Together, the two pilots reached into the metal container and extracted the authentication code cards. Slightly larger than a credit card, the nuclear codes had been wrapped in clear plastic, then sealed and stamped.

Bradley read the coded number stamped across the front of his card. “Confirm. Alpha, Zulu, three, niner, niner, Bravo, seven, six, one, five, Whiskey.”

“Roger,” Tia replied. “Alpha, Zulu, three, niner, niner, Bravo, seven, six, one, five, Whiskey.”

They had the same war codes. Both pilots broke the seal, bent the cards over to split them open and reveal the eight-digit code within. The pilots then turned to their data control panels and entered the codes carefully.

“Complete?” Bradley asked after entering his code.

“Affirm,” Tia answered. She turned to him.

“Ready to initiate?” Bradley said.

“On your command.”

“Ready, three—two—one.” Both pilots turned their initiator switches.

Inside the belly of the aircraft, the nuclear warheads accepted the codes. The weapons were armed and ready for release.

The cockpit was silent. Tia returned her attention to her radar. Twenty seconds passed in silence and Bradley turned to his defensive system display, which was growling in his headset, a jagged spike emitting in the 300 megahertz range. “Bandits collapsing,” he said. “But they're blind, they don't see us.” The fighters were getting closer, but it did not appear they were yet aware of the Stealth. “Continue,” Bradley instructed as he watched the fighters draw close.

“Range of bandits?” Tia asked him.

“Three miles. Closing. Thirty-one and thirty-six thousand feet.”

“Three miles! That's pretty close, boss!”

Bradley didn't reply.

“You got 'em!” Tia demanded.

“Roger that. Two thousand feet below us. Continue bomb run!”

“Thirty seconds to release.”

“Active jamming ready. I'll light the fighters up with jam if they give us so much as a peep.”

 

The Su-27 pilot studied his radar display.
There was something there!
There
had
to be something there. But it was like tracking a ghost or a mist in the wind; he would see it, a spike on radar display down in the 75-megahertz range, which indicated a very low power source, but it always disappeared before his system could define an azimuth, altitude, or range. Like a blind cat chasing a mouse, he could smell it, he could feel it, but he didn't know where it was. He studied his radar. There! He got a quick peek again.

“Snatchers, check left twenty,” he commanded and the two fighters snapped left precisely twenty degrees. “Come off high. Angels thirty-eight. Echelon left,” the flight leader cried.

The second fighter pulled its nose up into the sky, climbing in seconds to thirty-eight thousand feet and maneuvered forty-five degrees to the lead fighter's left side.

“Target Bullseye, seven eight zero, twelve, faded.”

The target was directly west of the mountain, twelve miles out, but his radar couldn't lock up a solid return.

“Stay with me now,” was the colonel's final instruction.

The Su-27 pilot lifted his head and jerked it to the right as something caught his eye, passing in front of the moon. Instinctively, he pushed up his throttles to close the distance between the shadow and his fighter. He strained, trying desperately to pierce through the night while cursing the fact that his squadron had never “acquired” the newest U.S. night-vision goggles. If an American Stealth bomber was out there, the goggles might have made the difference between finding the bandit and letting it get through. He unloaded the aircraft, pushing over momentarily to zero Gs, then rolled onto his back to see what was underneath. He hung upside down, his shoulder harness holding him in position as he scanned the darkness below. The blood rushed to his head, but he didn't notice as he scanned north to south, breaking the sky into four or five equal segments, scanning the sky by the light of the moon. Rolling the aircraft upright, he pulled into a tight turn back toward the tallest peak in the nearest mountain range.

 

Fifteen seconds,” Tia announced.

“Cleared hot,” Bradley replied.

“Picture?”

“Spike, two miles. Turning. It looks like they don't see us.”

Tia shook her head, then turned back to her weapons displays. Ten seconds to weapon release. Bradley checked his airspeed and pulled it back to five hundred eighty knots, just below the bomb bay spoiler redline. Six seconds prior to release, the bomb bay doors would swing open on their hydraulic pistons. A spoiler would then descend in front of the bay to allow the weapons to clear the aircraft before being thrown back by the wind. With the spoiler deployed, the B-2 would bounce back more radar energy.

“Fighters climbing,” Bradley announced after watching his screen. “They're going to be close, maybe two hundred feet overhead. Let's get this release and get out of here.”

 

The Su-27 pilot saw it again, a deep shadow in the night. He jerked his aircraft into a tight three-sixty circle and the G meter racked instantly up to seven g's. Catching his breath, he held it while squeezing his abdominal muscles to stop the flow of blood from his head while his g suit billowed tightly, compressing the veins in his calves and thighs. His vision narrowed slightly as he took another breath then grunted again, forcing the blood back into his eyes as he pushed the button on his secure radio.

“Say status on the Pumas,” he demanded in an even voice.

“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes until we're finished here.”

“I've got a possible target, twenty miles, inbound.”

The radio was silent before the voice shot back. “You know what to do.”

The pilot hesitated. “Confirm I have an
arrow,
” he insisted as he craned his neck.

“Affirm on the
arrow.
Do what you have to to bring that aircraft down.”

The pilot grunted and clicked his microphone twice. Twisting in his seat, he banked his fighter again. The night was full of shadows from the moon reflecting off the mountaintops. He turned and he swore as he twisted and stared.

And then he saw it. A huge, black silhouette in the night. It flashed in the moonlight, like the shiny skin of a snake, passing almost directly behind him. He jerked his head and twisted up one hip. He lost it! Where was it? Off the left or the right? He tightened up the turn then let the nose drop in a very steep descent, all the while looking over his right shoulder at the blackness behind him.

Then he saw the bomber. He barely had time to shoot. He selected his cannon and let off a three-second burst, the 20 mm barrel sending a jarring vibration through his seat. He aimed as carefully as he could, avoiding the front of the bomber as he sent his shells through the heart of the aircraft, focusing on the engine bays and flight controls.

Despite the pilot's aim, the shells sliced the B-2, cutting a line from the cockpit to the tip of the tail, the white-hot shells cutting through the thin metal like they were passing through water. The cockpit shattered in pieces, sending steel and composite pieces scattering with the force of a bomb. As the shells moved back across the airframe, fuel, fire, and metal exploded in the air.

Fourteen Kilometers South of Camp Cowboy
Northern Afghanistan

Peter Zembeic stood by his horse, feeling her breath as her chest muscles stretched the leather saddle strap behind her front legs. She took a long breath and snorted and Peter pulled close to her side. The night was dark, with no moon yet above the high hills, and the stars were too weak to provide enough light. So he listened and sniffed, his senses pulling in what he could.

The smoke from the fire was bitter. Green wood. Not well-cured. The recent rains had made dry firewood more difficult to find. Behind him, along the base of the mountains, a single falcon screeched in the night, hunting for rodents among the sage and low brush. The wind came down from the mountains. No more rain tonight. It was cold and getting colder and the hair on his arms tingled with goose-bumps. An early winter was coming; he could feel it in his bones.

The American listened and waited for almost twenty minutes, then slipped Isabel's reins over her ears and dropped them on the wet grass. He didn't bother to tie her, she wouldn't go anywhere, and he patted her neck as he stepped away. Whispering in her ear, he slipped down the hill. Emerging from the shadows on the edge of the camp, he stepped into the light of the fire in the center of the small camp.

The warlord was there, king of his world, surrounded by his harem and his men. He waited near the fire for the American, sitting on a low log. The warlord Lashkar Gah was a huge man, thick as a tree, with stumpy legs and round arms and hands so thick and calloused they looked like small baseball mitts. Peter approached and bowed slowly while bringing his hands to his chest. “Lashkar Gah, good to see you. Thank you for inviting me here.”

The old warlord nodded to the American, then motioned to a small log beside him and Peter sat down. The two men sat in silence while a fat lad (all of the people in Lashkar Gah's village were huge; the women and children as well as the men) set a wooden plate of steer loins and sheep-gut sausage between them. Peter waited until Gah nodded to the food, then reached for a greasy sausage and smelled the mixed meats and spices. He took a huge bite, stretching the thin membrane until it broke and the warm meat and hot spices burned like fire in his mouth. Though hard and distrustful people, the Afghani herdsmen certainly knew how to eat. Sheep-gut sausage and Shi tea—Peter would miss them both when he got back to the States.

Gah watched him chew on the sausage, seemingly anxious, shifting back and forth in his seat. He glanced at a tent on his right, then back at the fire. Peter watched him, but didn't question. The warlord Gah was always nervous. It was a dangerous life that he lived. He concentrated on his meat, then sucked down a mouthful of sweet tea. Gah watched him, satisfied, then lifted his own piece of meat and shoved it in his mouth. The two men ate in silence, then stared at the fire. The stars glittered above them and the fire soon grew cold, until Peter stood and walked to the logs stacked behind them, split one of them with a long ax, and threw a couple pieces on the fire. Sitting down again, he turned to his host. “What do you have, General Gah?” he asked.

The warlord grunted and wiped his greasy hands on his pants. “You are in danger,” he said in a straightforward tone.

Peter stared at him, his eyes flickering in the light of the fire. “We all live in danger. It is part of our job. Me. You. Are any of us safe?”

Gah shook his head. “This is more,” he said. Though he spoke in a whisper, his voice was low and powerful. “There are men—new men—men I have not seen before. They are asking about the
Apostle
. You need to be careful. That is all I will say.”

“Who are they?” Peter demanded, but Gah shook his head. He had said all he would, and Peter recognized the determined move of his head.

He tried one more time, but the village leader refused. “That is all I will say,” he repeated, and Peter knew it was true.

The two men sat by the fire in silence again, eating and smoking for twenty minutes or so until Peter pushed himself up. He tried leaving the warlord a couple hundred dollars for the warning, but the tribal chief shook his head. “It wouldn't be right,” he said as he threw the money back to the soldier. Peter nodded, slapped his shoulder, then slipped into the shadows. Finding Isabel where he left her, he mounted his horse.

 

The warlord waited and listened as the sound of the hooves disappeared along the rocky trail. He remained by the pit, staring at the flickering flames, until the fire had died down to nothing but glowing black and orange coals. As the moon fell behind the tree line, the clouds settled lower and the night turned very dark. He smoked and he stared until the stranger silently emerged from the tent to his right.

“Was that him?” the stranger whispered as he dropped to his knees by Gah.

The chieftain watched the mercenary a moment, his face nothing more than a dark oval in the night, then turned back to the dead fire.

“Was that
Rasul al-Laylat
?” the stranger demanded again.

The warlord turned back to him, then nodded. “Yes, that was he.”

“You have been working with an American?”

“I have betrayed neither friend nor religion, I will tell you that.”

The thin fighter snickered. “I wonder if that is true?”

The chieftain glared. The stranger didn't see his burning eyes in the dark. “I don't answer to you about my business dealings,” Gah finally said.

“We will see, we will see,” the mercenary muttered again. “But I'm thinking the Great Master wouldn't be happy to learn of your American friend.”

“I have nothing to hide.”

“Perhaps that is true. But you have an obligation to your people. The Great One wants this American. Now, are you going to help?”

Gah didn't hesitate. Though he liked the Apostle, this was business now. And his situation was precarious. “I will help you,” he said.

The mercenary grunted as he answered, “Of course you will.”

 

Peter Zembeic watched Gah's camp from a small knoll to the west. Buried in the low underbrush, his breath came heavy and deep from his hard sprint uphill to get to his perch above the camp. Two hundred yards behind him, Isabel had been tied to a tree and he felt naked without her and the gear hidden in her saddlebags.

From his hiding spot in the brush, Peter watched the warlord as the night wore slowly on. Time passed, the fire grew cold, and the moon and stars disappeared until the night grew far too dark to see anything. So he listened and waited, then pulled out his nightscope and peered at the camp, but the light was insufficient and the distance too great to see anything but shadows around the cold fire. He waited another five minutes, then stood and turned. Hiking in silence, he moved down the hill to his horse, his knees aching, his body shivering, his hands stiff and cold.

 

The mercenary glanced around him, then leaned in the dark toward Gah. “I need a runner,” he said with a hunch of his shoulders. “Someone I can trust to send a message through.”

The warlord Lashkar Gah nodded, then pointed to one of his men who stood on the outskirts of the fire and the mercenary walked toward him and leaned to his ear. His message was simple. “I have found the
Apostle.
Give me two days, and I will deliver his head.”

Peshawar, Pakistan

A little more than three hours after the runner had left Lashkar Gah's camp, the young Afghani was meeting with Angra in the crowded lobby of a run-down hotel. A throng of humanity hustled around them; beggars, hustlers, prostitutes, and guests, and the two men sat at the small wooden tables near the back wall of the lobby. They eyed each other suspiciously and kept their voices low. Angra looked around comfortably, this was his territory and there was no reason to fear, but the runner kept his eyes moving, constantly glancing here and there.

The runner delivered the message as quickly and accurately as he could. Angra listened carefully, then nodded and leaned toward the young man and said, “Go back and deliver this message to your master for me. I don't want gunshots or explosions and certainly no roadside bombs. This can't be a combat fatality. I want an assassination, a political hit. I want a graphic beheading. And use a dull knife. And pictures, we want pictures, something we can show to the West.”

Kill 31
Over Eastern Afghanistan

The force of the collision knocked Bradley back in his seat, sucking the air from his lungs and compressed his heart in his chest. His oxygen mask was ripped from his helmet and sucked through the slicing hole that ran across the side of the cockpit. The screaming wind, cold and biting, was a tornado in his face. The bitter cold froze his eyelashes, making it impossible to see. Blinded and disoriented, and struggling to breathe, he fought with the aircraft as it slipped into a dive.

White mist exploded in the cockpit as it depressurized. Everything that wasn't strapped down was sucked through the hole in the jet—pencils, papers, water bottles, flight plans, communication cards, flight books, panel covers, debris from the floor—everything was instantly pulled from the cockpit. Bradley wiped his gloves across his face, clearing the dirt and blood from his eyes. He glanced over to Tia. She lay slumped, her body limp, her head blown about by the wind. He reached over and grabbed her wrist and she slowly reached up to clasp his hand.

Bradley struggled to breathe, his thoughts growing rapidly dim. The depressurization had instantly metabolized the oxygen in his blood and his brain was beginning to starve. He had to get down. He had to descend. Without his oxygen mask or cabin pressure, it was a matter of seconds before he lost consciousness. His fingers had already lost feeling and his feet were growing numb. He glanced toward Tia, checking that her oxygen mask was tight against her checks, then slammed his throttles to idle and banked the jet on its side, rolling over and forcing the nose to slice toward the ground. The wind was like a freight train. It beat his face and crashed in his ears. He squinted against the onslaught. His fingers were nearly frozen and his teeth chattered in his head.

Bradley peered straight ahead. He was on the north side of the mountain, where the highest peak reached up to twenty-five thousand feet. He pushed the aircraft east, descending along the slope of Tirich Mir, the rocky ledges a mere four or five hundred feet under his jet. The bomber's descent matched the slope of the mountain.

Warning lights flashed in the cockpit; red, yellow, and orange. The aircraft vibrated, then bucked as his number three engine blew itself apart, terminally wounded from bullets and debris. Bradley threw out the rudder/brakes, then cross-controlled the bomber to slow the aircraft down. His digital altimeter was almost unreadable:
twenty-four thousand, twenty-two thousand, twenty thousand feet.
His fingers were aching and his head started to spin. The air seemed to grow hot and he started to sweat. He gulped like a diver coming up from the deep. The aircraft rolled on its side and the horizon tilted around him. The cockpit grew dark as he neared the edge of consciousness.

Eighteen thousand, fifteen thousand.
The altimeter was impossible to read. It was hot. He was sweating. His brain was nearly starved now. He saw the ground rising. Such a beautiful night. He glanced up at the stars. Why were they burning so bright? He felt calm, almost peaceful. Why had he been so afraid?

A warning chime sounded in his ears. Fast rising terrain! The ground screamed at him now; rocks, boulders, craggy fissures, trees, and steep mountain cliffs. He flew toward the main valley leading up to Tirich Mir. He was heading for China. He didn't have any choice.

Thirteen thousand feet.
The spinning slowed and he realized it was only his head. But he was descending too fast! Eleven thousand feet passed and his lungs pulled more oxygen from the thin air. His vision came into focus. He breathed deeply again and again.

He pulled back on the stick, raising his bomber's nose in the night. His aircraft came level just above eight thousand three hundred feet. His airspeed bled off quickly as his wings caught the air. Three hundred fifty knots, three hundred, two eighty-five. The aircraft started to wallow and he brought his rudder/brakes in. He took a quick glance over to Tia. She hunkered behind the broken windscreen to stay out of the wind.

The aircraft continued slowing. Two hundred, then one-eighty knots. Bradley pushed up the power. The aircraft shuddered violently as his number two engine started to fail. With a gut-wrenching
boom!
its compressor blades spun off the main spool, sending pieces of metal cutting through the main firewall. New warning lights flash in the cockpit. Bradley brought number two engine to idle and the vibration decreased. A soft glow began to illuminate from behind his head and greasy smoke poured into the cockpit through the pressurized vents.

The
ENG FIRE
light began to flash in his face.

Bradley punched the fire button, shutting the number two engine down, then hit the fire suppression button to spray retardant into the engine bay. He studied his master caution panel. His primary generators and the main hydraulic systems were gone. He moved the flight controls and the aircraft rolled sluggishly under his hand. Tia stared wildly at him and he reached for her hand. “You okay?” he was asking. She squeezed twice in reply. It was the only way they could communicate above the roar of the wind.

She motioned toward the controls. “Do I take it?” she meant.

Bradley shook his head, pointed north, making a level motion with his hand, then simulated pulling the ejection handles that were positioned near his knees. Tia nodded, understanding. He would get over flat terrain, then they would eject from the crippled airplane.

Tia pointed to the center panel. The number-one engine exhaust gas temperature was climbing into the red. The engine was dying, literally cooking itself. They had to shut it down before it blew apart. Tia reached for the number-one engine cutoff switch, but Bradley grabbed her hand. They were down to two engines. He would keep number one going as long as they could, to make certain they had time to eject. He lifted four fingers sideways, then made a fist twice, telling her to let the engine get to nine hundred degrees before she shut it down.