Over three thousand miles away, on the other side of the world, the old Mongolian herdsman entered his gher, reached down toward the four sleeping SAS/D men, first grabbing David Brentwood by the collar, then shaking Choir Williams, Aussie Lewis, and Salvini. Instantly Aussie slipped his hand beneath the del for his pistol. The Mongolian stopped him. “Dogs,” he said quietly.
“Dogs?” Brentwood asked sleepily. “What do you—”
The old man put his finger to his mouth and motioned to listen. “We tell you dogs. They are—”
“Jesus!” Salvini said, whipping the sheepskin cover off him. “Tracking dogs.”
It wasn’t yet dark — no way could they risk a daylight trek from the gher through the desert.
“How far away?” David asked.
The old man made a circling motion with his hand. “Helos. Minutes.”
“Bastards are probably searching every settlement,” Aussie said.
“Right,” David instructed. “Sal, get on your blower and call in our map reference for a FUST — we’ve got no choice. We’re in too far for our helos to help.”
Within a minute Salvini had his whip aerial up through the gher’s smoke opening and broke radio silence, giving their position for a FUST.
“Choir,” Brentwood instructed. “You go first.”
“Ta!” It was an ironic Cockney thank-you.
“Aussie, you and I’ll provide covering fire if any Spets show up to intercept. Sal, you stay here. Aussie and I’ll fan out outside the gher and see whether we can spot them first.” Suddenly Brentwood turned to the old man. “How do you know there are helos and dogs coming?”
The old man was astonished that the American didn’t know. “Herdsmen,” the old man explained — one camel herdsman told another and so on. Then the old man had a stroke of genius for Aussie and Brentwood if they were to make a reconnaissance outside the gher. Camels.
Dressed in their dels high atop the animals, they would be able to see for miles across the plain toward the mountains, and this way everyone else could stay under cover in the gher. Salvini was inside the gher, manning the radio. He’d only used a burst message, and hopefully there had not been time for any enemy intercept to backplot him. No sooner had Brentwood and Aussie mounted their respective camels than a bulbous-eyed Hind E passed low overhead, heading further to the northeast, Aussie waving up at them.
“Silly bastard!” Choir called out.
“Gotta play the part, ‘aven’t we, squire?” Aussie said.
“What are you going to do,” Choir asked, “when they come back and let out some dogs sniffing for us? Thanks to that bastard Jenghiz they’ll have scent from stuff we handled back at the drop-off.”
“Not to worry, sport,” Aussie said flippantly. “The old CT’ll be here in a jiff.” He meant the Combat Talon aircraft.
But for all of Aussie’s patter, they knew it was more bravado than certainty. The “old CT” or MC-13 °Combat Talon wouldn’t be over them in a jiff, and the best hope they had now was the low-flying F-15 Eagles coming in in fluid four formation, screaming low overhead to avoid radar, the first pair closer together than the second pair, the wingman further apart, all four releasing four packs from their hard points.
As quickly as they had appeared over the Mongolian desert, the Eagles were gone in a screaming U-turn, with the high Hentiyn Nuruu as a backdrop. Only when the Mongolian herdsmen from the ghers had retrieved the four drum-size packages and like excited schoolchildren were feeling the silk canopy of the bundles did Brentwood think they might have a chance. Problem was, you didn’t even get a chance to practice a FUST it was considered so dangerous — it was only ever used as a last resort. The best they could do in training was to use dummies to show you how it should be done.
“Go check the helium tanks!” Brentwood called out to Choir amid the excited chatter of the Mongolians as they gathered around to see what was inside the cylindrical-shaped helium canisters. One canister was already open, a FUST harness spilling out. Afraid that some of the FUST tackle might get tangled in the herdsmen’s excitement, Brentwood asked the old man to call his herdsmen off. It took one command, the headman smacking the butt of his slung rifle for emphasis, and they were gone, leaving only Aussie and Brentwood, still on the camels, as Choir checked the packs.
“Bloody lovely in’t it?” Aussie complained. “Bloody lovely. There they are, opening the packs, and I’m stuck up ere having my ass reamed out by this bloody great beast while Sal’s inside having a cuppa!”
“Looks like you got a bum rap!” Brentwood jousted.
“Oh, very droll. Very fucking amusing I’m sure. Let’s see what your ass looks like after—” He stopped as Salvini burst from the gher to tell them the fighter-escorted Talon would be there in twenty minutes.
“You beaut!” Aussie said, slapping the camel’s rump in his excitement, the animal immediately taking off, throwing Aussie two feet in the air before he came crashing down and saw three specks coming out of the eastern sky: Spets helicopters, one of them probably the one that had previously passed overhead. The enemy helos looked to be losing altitude, coming straight for the ghers.
“Only one chance,” Aussie said, calling out to Brentwood, who had just spotted the approaching helos.
Within minutes Aussie and Brentwood, devoid of the dels, showing only their light SAS/D camouflage drill uniforms, were tied together as the headman waved at the three helos. One helo peeled off, the other two fanning out toward other settlements some miles to the south of Nalayh. As the helo came down, blowing up dust of such intensity it was as if the whole settlement had been momentarily obliterated, Aussie could barely see the black rotor spin of the Hind.
The headman holding on to the rope that was tied to Aussie and Brentwood waved up again at the Spets pilot, who saluted back and who could see several of the other herdsmen now jeering at the two Americans, one of the herdsmen throwing patties of camel dung at the two bound SAS/D men.
As the high whine of the Spets chopper’s two 2,200 SHP turboshafts decreased, making a chunky sound in the gritty sand cloud, Aussie could hear the rear door opening where the eight-man assault squad would be soon filing out to take aboard their prisoners and setting loose the dogs. As the door was opened, the head herdsman, in a swift movement that belied his age, shot the pilot point blank with his range rifle, while Brentwood and Aussie, with one pull on the bowline knot that bound them, quickly tossed six stun grenades into the rear cabin. The explosion was loud, yet the sounds of the dogs and men screaming and dying was muffled as if inside a great boiler.
The rotors began to cough to life, but not before the headman had also taken out the copilot, the undernose 12.7mm multibarrel rotary machine gun immobilized by a maneuver that would have done any American rodeo proud, as ropes from two camels, one pulling hard left, the other hard right, prevented it from moving, even if the operator above was still functional enough to try for a traverse. Aussie, David, and Choir went inside the cabin, where four of the Spets were already dead from the concussion, the others in such a state that they fell quickly beneath the enfilade of small-arms fire.
“Bloody waste!” Aussie said, reloading the Parabellum mag, then grabbing a fire extinguisher to put out a small electrical fire that had started up forward. “And a bloody shame none of us can drive one of these friggin’ things.” It was a singular deficiency that none of them had ever thought much about before. They were men who had been trained to survive in the harshest environments in the world, wherever they were dropped, and it was a matter of no small pride that at least one of them could get by in the local language, but piloting a chopper had not yet been added to the course, and for a moment they all felt less for it. But if that was the case, they would soon have ample opportunity to show what they were made of should the Combat Talon and its fighter escort appear.
Already Salvini had received a burst message that ChiCom fighter units were being scrambled to intercept the incoming American F-15 Eagles. And it was only now that Aussie Lewis and the others realized what an extraordinary sacrifice the Mongolians had made for them and how it answered Freeman’s question about whether or not the Mongolians would stand in his way if Freeman drove south. Everything the SAS/D team had seen showed clearly that the Mongolians had no intention of trying to stop the Americans from reaching Mongolia’s hated Chinese neighbors.
For Freeman, however, this might not be that much help after all, for he could not move south with any confidence so long as the missiles in the Turpan depression in western China were still intact. The British Labour party was playing blackmail with the Tories: We’ll support an overflight if you will agree to higher capital gains tax. It was a question of who would give in. Meanwhile Frank Shirer was being summoned to the wing commander’s hut at Lakenheath. Here a Captain Fowler-Jones, from the British navy air arm, was accompanied and introduced by a Captain Moore of the USAF. Fowler-Jones did most of the talking.
“So you’re not satisfied?”
Frank was taken aback — wasn’t the British officer corps supposed to be known for its polite reserve?
“Haven’t time to waste, old boy,” Fowler-Jones pressed. “You’re not satisfied flying the big jobs?” Fowler-Jones indicated the nine B-52s on the rain-slick tarmac.
“Well,” Shirer began tentatively. “I’d rather be flying Cats.”
“He means Tomcats,” Captain Moore put in.
“Yes, yes, I know. F-14s. Good plane, but we have all the fighter pilots we need, at least for that caliber weapons platform.”
There was a long pause.
“Shot down, weren’t you?” Wing Commander Fowler-Jones said bluntly, opening a file and studying it. “Twice.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked up at Shirer. “Learn anything?”
Shirer shrugged. “A MiG-29’s a lot better than we thought it was. In the stall slide it can—”
“Yes, quite, but your nerves, and I want gospel on this. Up to snuff?”
“Yes, sir — I believe so.”
“Believe so? Know so?”
“Know so.”
“Well then,” Fowler-Jones said to the U.S. captain. “That’s that.”
“May I ask—” Shirer began.
“Harriers!” Fowler-Jones said. “We’re very short of men on Harriers. Vertical takeoff and landing. Old carrier pilots like yourself often get quite good at it in a short time. Short takeoff and landing, that is. You game?”
“Yes — yes, sir.”
“You sound hesitant!”
“No, sir, I’m just—”
“Yes, yes, I know. You just expected a top-of-the-line combat fighter. Well I’ll tell you this, Shirer, we need good Harrier men right now. Can’t go into all the whys and wherefores at this time. Need to know. Follow me?”
“Yes, sir,” Shirer lied. The man talked like a telex machine.
“Quite frankly they’re the only aircraft in any supply we have left in this theater. Idea is that if this mission to China goes off then we could give Harrier escort. In-flight refueling of course.”
The Harrier, Shirer thought. Jesus — it might be better than jockeying the Big Ugly Fat Fellows, but it had always been the ugly duckling of production lines with its funny ferry tips or swivel jet nozzles at the end of each wing that made it look more like an aspiring fighter blighted by dropsy than a revolutionary new aircraft.
“Not the new Harrier Two, mind you,” Fowler-Jones explained, to show there was no misunderstanding. “It’s the Harrier One. Single-seater job we’re offering you people.”
“People?”
“Yes,” Captain Moore put in. “The idea is to put in a flight or two of Harriers to go in with the B-52s.”
“Yes,” Fowler-Jones cut in. “Riding shotgun, I believe you chaps call it. If we get the word go, it would mean two Harriers per bomber. As I say, in-flight refueling — in Pakistan before you go over the Hindu Kush to join the big chaps on the raid in. I assume you’re in-flight qualified?”
Shirer still hadn’t shown the kind of enthusiastic response Fowler-Jones had been looking for, and he snatched up his cap and gloves. “Well of course if you’d rather not. I just thought that some of you people were itching—”
“No, sir,” Shirer began. “I mean yes. I’d be happy to go, sir.”
“Good. Your combat experience — just the thing we need. But you’ll have to get used to the Harrier in short order. That’s up to you, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, sir. What field?”
“They’re squadroned in Peshawar. You’ll join them there.”
“Yes, sir.”
With that, Shirer saluted and Fowler-Jones was gone.
“Is it anywhere near Lakenheath?” Shirer asked Captain Moore.
“What?”
“Peshawar.”
“You’re joking! Other side of the world! You heard him— Hindu Kush and all that. Harrier squadron is based in Peshawar. At the moment Pakistan is in bed with Washington and London. You see, this way they don’t have to move fighters around where they’d be noticed by the Chinese.”
“Oh? How about moving nine B-52s around? They’d notice that, wouldn’t they?”
“Sure would, but we’ve been flying C-15 relief planes from the military’s air transport command during the spring floods, dropping urgent food relief. At least that’s one reason why planes have been flying back and forth from London to Pakistan for the last two weeks. So when the B-52s show up on Chinese radar they won’t know the difference. That is, until they start turning in toward the Turpan depression. That’s when they’re going to need you boys.”
“Oh,” Shirer said, “and what do you think the Chinese’ll do then?”
“Don’t worry, pal,” Moore cut in. “All their top-of-the-line fighters — Fulcrums especially — are in eastern China. Right now they’re trying to bottle up Manchuria and keeping one sharp eye on Taiwan. They can’t have their jets all over the place at the same time.”
“No, but when the B-52s start crossing that old Hindu Kush or thereabouts, buddy, they’ll move a few.”
“Sure they will, but by then the mission’ll be half over. You guys in the Harriers probably won’t see anything more exciting than an avalanche.”
“This is all assuming that the Chinese don’t figure we’re going to hit them.”
“Right. Where’s your faith in Intelligence? Look how we pulled me wool over old Saddam Insane’s eyes.”
“Maybe, Captain, but the Chinese aren’t the Iraqis. Besides, once bitten, twice shy. Anyway,” Shirer continued, “what the hell are British Harriers doing in Pakistan?”
“They aren’t British, they’re Pakistani. But don’t worry. By the time you go up there’ll be Old Glory on the tail.”
“Jesus,” Shirer said, “this is all politics.”
“So what’s new? All you need to know is you’d better get a handle on the fuckers in case you’re going in. Brits’ll make the decision yea or nay anytime now.”
“Yeah, well I hope the Chinese fall for your relief flight routines.”
“Don’t worry. They’re too busy trying to lock up Manchuria.” Then Moore hit him with the bombshell. He’d have ten days from the moment he reached Peshawar to train on the Harrier. To brighten him up, Moore told Shirer that the older single-seater went faster than the newer Harrier Two.
“How fast?” Shirer asked, the veteran of Mach 2.3 Tomcats.
“Around point nine,” Moore said.
“Point nine!” Shirer stopped in his tracks.
“Not all the time,” Moore assured him. “Sometimes it drops to Mach point eight.”
“Jesus Christ! Has it got enough power to take off?”
“Well, it hasn’t,” Moore said, adopting Shirer’s ironic tone. “You see there are these four guys, good runners, one under each wingtip, one under the nose, the other under the—”
“Up your ass!” Shirer said.
“Not if I can help it.”
Shirer couldn’t help laughing. Well hell, at least he’d be flying again — a lone eagle.
Pulling out the coil of strong ply nylon rope and the tight roll of twenty-three-foot-long polyethylene balloon, Aussie clipped on the first of the Thermos-size pressure tanks and pulled the safety pin, releasing a hiss of helium gas, the balloon inflating in an obscene condom shape until the second tank kicked in and filled the twenty-three-foot-high balloon that now, with its flanged tail also inflated, took on the shape of one of those tethered AA balloons used during the German air attacks over Britain.
Within five minutes the white balloon, trailing its white nylon rope like some gigantic tadpole tail, rose to five hundred feet, the end of the rope trailing earthward, already attached by means of a ring bolt to a wide strip of canvas harness that was now clamped tightly against Salvini’s midriff. The Combat Talon’s dull rumble could be heard before the sudden scream and sonic boom of the F-15 fighters that were well ahead of the Talon passing over them.
Even though the dust had settled, it was still difficult for Aussie to see the horizontal V that extended from the Talon’s nose like a pair of scissors, one blade projecting left, the other right, the idea being that the Talon, using the balloon as a fix above it, would fly its V into the nylon rope like someone extending two index fingers in front of him, snaring the line, which would then jerk the man off the ground as the Talon kept going, winching him up.
Should the Talon miss catching the cable with its nose V, the cable, instead of endangering the props, would slide off the V against a taut protective wire strung from wingtip to the forward fuselage, thus buffeting the balloon rope along the protective wire away from the props. At least that was the theory. It was tough enough to do without interference, but with the knowledge of Siberian MiGs now scrambling aloft to meet the F-15s, everything, as Aussie said while checking Choir’s harness, was “a tad tight!” Next Aussie made sure that Choir’s chute was firmly attached in front of him and head held up.
“You ready, Mr. Williams?”
“No — Mother of God,” Choir replied.
“Ah! You’ll be laughin’ in a few minutes. Here she comes. Come on, Choir, legs straight out, hands palm down, head up — atta boy.”
The rope looked like a thread of curving cotton stretching between him and the four-tailed balloon. There was a line of orange tracer arcing from the east and then two orange streaks: Sidewinders from the F-15s. Aussie could see the slack taken up as the Talon’s V snared the line, then suddenly Choir was jerked violently aloft. It was the most dangerous moment, for if the Talon hit a wind shear or lost altitude for any reason, Choir would smash into the ground at over 130 m.p.h. But the Talon kept climbing, and slowly they could see the arc that was the balloon’s line with Choir at its end reducing in angle as the Talon crew continued winching him up, the line growing tauter. Salvini was the next to go, his balloon already hissing loudly, inflating with the helium and rising heavenward.
Aussie glanced at his watch. It was 1005. Smacking Salvini’s boots together, making sure he was in the correct position, Aussie joshed him. “Bet you ten bucks they winch me aboard faster than you.”
“What?” Salvini asked, his anxiety, for all his SAS/D training, suddenly betraying itself.
“Bet you ten bucks,” Aussie repeated, “that they take longer to winch you in than me.”
“Oh yeah? And how do you figure that?”
“Easy,” Aussie retorted. They could hear the tracer getting closer. “You’re heavier than I am.”
“I’m as fit as you are.”
“Course you are. But you’re heavier. Come on, pay up or shut up.”
“You’re sick,” Salvini said, his anxiety written all over his face.
“All right, five bucks. I can’t do better than that. Right?”
Salvini nodded, thinking that the Australian was now asking him if he was in the proper position for the jerk. He was, but Aussie always liked to make sure of a bet. “Five bucks, okay?”
“Yeah — five bucks, all right, all right. Where’s the Talon?”
“She’s making the turn,” Aussie said. Just then a small sandstorm broke locally and they could see nothing.
“Damn it!” Salvini said.
“Don’t sweat it, sport,” Aussie encouraged. “The Talon’ll pick it up. We can’t see them, but they can see the rope up higher. Just you get ready for the—” Before he finished, Salvini simply disappeared into the dust, Aussie barely glimpsing his boots as he was jerked aloft.
“Two up, two to go,” Aussie said cheerfully. David Brentwood was thanking the Mongolian herdsman who had risked his life and family to help them. Already the herdsmen were gathering up their ghers and packing, ready to move, to avoid any punishment patrols that might be sent out from Ulan Bator.
“Come on, Dave!” Aussie yelled. “Or you’ll miss the friggin’ bus.”
Within two minutes Brentwood was in his harness, Aussie having already released the balloon from its small bedroll-type wrapping. As it expanded, disappearing into the dust, it looked like some fantastic ghost in a mustard cloak.
“Palms down,” Aussie instructed him. “Davey, you want to make a wager?”
“No.”
“Ten bucks they winch me in faster than you?”
“No. You’ve got some scheme to help pull yourself up a few feet on the cable and beat us all, is that it?”
“No way,” Aussie said. “Look, I’ve never been on one of these things either. I just figure my luck’s in. What do you say — ten bucks.”
“All right — anything to shut you up.”
“That’s my man.”
“Where’s that damn Talon?” Before Aussie could answer him, there was a loud explosion, followed by another.
“I hope to hell that’s one of theirs,” David said.
“We’ll soon know if the Talon doesn’t reappear.”
“How will we know in this dust storm? Lord, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Huh,” Aussie said, “locals tell me this is only a bit of a whirly. In the Gobi they say you can’t see your hand in front of your face during a dust storm.”
“All very educational, Aussie, but how the hell can we tell where the Talon is?”
“Keep your bloody head in position. Don’t want a case of whiplash on top of—”
Suddenly Brentwood was being dragged along the ground, swearing, bumping on pebbles, then he too suddenly disappeared into the whirling dust storm.
Next Aussie, already in harness, pulled two helium tanks to fill the balloon, and within minutes could hear the Talon off to the north, making its circle, his balloon now ascending. The old herdsman shook his hand, and around them, like shadows in the darkness of the dust, he could see the various odds and ends of the herdsmen’s life, as the canvas-and-felt homes came down to be loaded onto a wagon, a small TV being wrapped carefully in a carpet, and camels laden with bedding and harness, the Mongolians wishing him well with their Eskimo-like smiles and golden teeth.
There was a crash like thunder, either a Siberian or American jet hitting the desert floor, then in less than a second, Aussie, his arms now crossed tightly in against his chest, was airborne, the spring in the nylon cord making the initial ascent smoother, faster than he’d anticipated. But then the spring was at its end, and this was followed by a sudden jolt, so fierce that Aussie felt his head was about to come off.
Once above the two-hundred-foot-high dust storm that had invaded the ghers, Aussie could see far above him the three, now small, balloons that had been severed free once the V-shaped scissor clamp had got hold of the previous three lines. Now from the tail of the aircraft another vertical line descended that would hook onto the rescue line and haul it up and into the belly of the plane. The Talon was flying higher than usual because of the loss of visibility due to the dust storm. They liked to see their man as quickly as possible before engaging the winch.
With wind and dust screaming about his ears, Aussie could hear the staccato of machine gun fire off to the west where the American and Siberian fighters were engaging, and now and then he caught a glimpse of tracer as one of the Siberian fighters would try to break out of the American fighter’s box to try to bring down the Talon. A Fishbed-J MiG-21 was visible for a moment when Aussie, dangling like a toy at the end of the enormous rope, was six hundred feet above ground, but as soon as he’d seen the Fishbed-J with its green khaki camouflage pattern he saw an F-15 Eagle on its tail and the spitting of fire from its 20mm, six-barrel rotary cannon. The Fishbed immediately started making smoke, rolling into evasive action, its twin barrel GSh 23mm cannon firing from its belly pack. Suddenly Aussie knew he was in free fall, the line severed.
He had less than a second to make the decision that was no decision at all: either pull the key ring release on his chute or smash into the ground. His right hand grabbed the key ring and jerked hard. There was a flurry of air about him like a hundred pigeons being released, and suddenly his downward thrust was slowed as the chute filled and he descended back into the dust storm. The Talon, already having overstayed its welcome, was forced to turn back northeastward across the Mongolian border into Second Army territory before the Siberian MiGs got lucky again.
Aussie used swearwords on the way down he thought he’d forgotten. Whether the line had somehow fouled in one of the props despite the safety wire rigged in front of them or whether it had been a lucky tracer bullet didn’t really matter. Whatever severed the line, he wasn’t going back with his three buddies. But, like all members of the elite SAS and Delta Force commandos, he was trained in how to turn a losing situation into a winning one.
Cold reason also told him, though, as he entered the gritty dust storm and hit the ground harder than he had wanted, that the Spets helicopters and patrols would soon head out from Nalayh and possibly Ulan Bator looking for him. And right now he had four hundred miles of grassland and desert between him and the safety of Second Army. It seemed impossible, yet the only thing he could think of was the motto of his unit: “Who dares wins,” or, as General Freeman, echoing Frederick the Great, would have said, “L’audace, I’audace, toujours l’audace!” But meantime Aussie was stunned by another realization: that he had just lost fifteen bucks cold.