Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 (12 page)

 
          
“We
launched a FlightHawk recon aircraft while you were on your way back, Patrick,”
Wendy began in a low monotone voice. “We did detect radioactive elements in the
atmosphere over Samah consistent with a number of nuclear warheads, so some of
the rockets you destroyed were nuclear. The bad news is, we also detected VX
nerve agents, also consistent with a number of warheads, maybe as many as a
half-dozen.”

           
“Holy shit,” Hal Briggs breathed.
“With an SS-12 they could hit Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Tel Aviv .. .”

 
          
“Or
Cairo, Alexandria, or the Suez Canal,” Patrick added. “And Libya has a number
of ex-Russian long-range bombers, tactical fighters, coastal antiship, and
ship-borne weapon systems capable of delivering those warheads too. They could
hold all of southern Europe at risk.” Patrick looked at his intelligence
briefing notes. “Our private intelligence sources told us there might be as
many as six other bases, including two more secret bases like Samah, hiding
ballistic missiles armed with nuclear or chemical warheads. I’d like to set up
a complete reconnaissance schedule with as many FlightHawks as we can, scanning
every square foot to try to locate the other missiles.”

 
          
“Agreed,”
Chris Wohl said. “We can have a strike team standing by either offshore or in
Egypt to move as soon as targets are located.”

 
          
“We
should also push to upgrade the sensors on the recon FlightHawks,” Wendy added.
“We can put an ultrawideband radar on a FlightHawk to let us scan for
underground bunkers and communications lines under the sand.” The
ultra-wideband radar, or UWBR, was one of the most significant advances in
surveillance and reconnaissance: a radar capable of seeing through some medium-
density objects. The system normally fit only on a full-size aircraft, but Jon
Masters had redesigned it to fit on board a small, unmanned aircraft. “The
FlightHawks will have only a few hours’ loiter time because of the size of the
UWBR system, but we’ll be able to scan the country quicker and more
efficiently.”

 
          
“Then
let’s get it all moving this way immediately,” Patrick said. “I don’t want to
give the Libyans a chance—” Just then, an electronic warning tone sounded—the
collision warning. Everyone in the briefing room immediately shot to their feet
and headed out to their emergency stations. At the same moment the phone from
the bridge sounded; Patrick picked it up before the second ring. “Go ahead,
Brian.”

 
          
“We
got a situation, General,” Brian Lovelock, the captain of the
Catherine
, responded. “We’re receiving
distress signals from two vessels within thirty miles of our position, saying
they’re under attack from unidentified aircraft. No warning given. The
attackers appear to be moving from east to west—in our direction.”

 
          
“Got
it,” Patrick replied. He pressed another button, this one hooked directly to
the Combat Information Center and his longtime friend and partner, David Luger.
“Dave, what do you have?”

 
          
“We’re
just now picking up four high-speed aircraft bearing one-zero-five, altitude
less than one thousand feet, heading west at four hundred eighty knots,” Luger
responded. The
Catherine
had an
entire combat radar system hidden aboard the salvage ship, disguised as
standard navigation radars—it was as combat-capable as many world navies’
warships. “Sorry we didn’t pick them up earlier, Muck, but they are right down
on the friggin’ deck. Their ETE is four minutes.”

 
          
“Sound
general quarters, everyone to air defense positions,” Patrick ordered. “Better
start a complete data dump to the satellite and then destroy the classified.
Someone’s on the warpath out here, and I think we’re next.” On his subcutaneous
microtransceiver, he said, “Patrick to Wendy .. . Wendy, I want you aboard the
Pave Hammer, along with the civilians.”

 
          
“I’m
staying,” Wendy said. “I can have a FlightHawk armed with air-to-air missiles
airborne in three minutes.”

           
“Wendy, no argument. You’re
evacuating with the other civilians.” He paused, then said, “Bradley is waiting
for you.”

           
There was a slight pause, but
Patrick knew invoking the name of their son would do it. “All right.”

           
“We’ll hold them off as best we
can,” Patrick said. He hit the hidden switch on his exoskeleton, stepped into
it after it stood itself up, attached it to his body, locked his helmet in
place, then ran up on deck. He immediately dashed over to the bow of the
Catherine
, which was facing east, in the
direction from which the attackers were coming. “Combat, this is Castor,”
Patrick radioed. “Range to bandits?”

           
‘Twenty-two miles and closing. ETE
less than three minutes.”

 
          
As
he searched the morning sky with his helmet-mounted sensors, three crewmen trotted
over to him, wheeling a large crate on a cart. Patrick unlocked the crate and
with one hand extracted the weapon inside. It was an immense M-168 six-
barreled Vulcan cannon. Normally mounted on a big Humvee or M-113 armored
personnel carrier, the eight- hundred-pound Vulcan cannon was designed for use
against ground targets and fast-flying helicopters at ranges out to a mile and
a half. It had a maximum rate of fire of one hundred rounds per
second
—anything it hit would be chopped
to hamburger in the blink of an eye.

 
          
“Combat,
Castor,” Patrick radioed as he hefted the big cannon. The hydraulically powered
exoskeleton made it ridiculously easy to level the big gun and move it smoothly
and precisely in any direction. “Where are they?”

 
          
“Bearing
one-zero-two, range eighteen miles, low.” Patrick activated all of his battle
armor’s sensors and began scanning at maximum range. “Roger. Nike, Taurus,
Pollux, you guys up?”

           
“Nike up in ten seconds,” Wohl
replied.

 
          
“Taurus
will be up in twenty.”

 
          
No
reply from Pollux—and Patrick realized that there never would be one either,
ever again. “Roger, Stalkers,” he said sadly. “Report when you’re ready to
engage.” At that moment, several of their commandos, wearing lightweight
non-electronic battle armor, began to set their Stinger MANPADS (Man-Portable
Air Defense System) up beside Patrick. The Stinger MANPADS was a portable
shoulder-fired heat-seeking antiaircraft missile. Other commandos brought
caskets of reloads. “My MANPADS is up on the bow. Hammer, what’s your status?”

 
          
At
that moment, Patrick heard the low, steadily quickening roar of the CV-22 Pave
Hammer’s engines starting up behind him. It had been raised up on deck from its
hold faster than Patrick could ever imagine. “Hammer is starting engines. We’ll
be airborne in two minutes.”

 
          
“Make
it one minute, Hammer,” Patrick ordered. “Combat?”

 
          
“Bearing
zero-niner-seven, range fifteen miles .. . stand by, aircraft turning slightly,
range decreasing rapidly.. . - We’re being highlighted by X-band airborne radar.
They got a lock on us.”

 
          
“Get
the Hammer off the deck now,” Patrick shouted.

 
          
“Sixty
seconds. All civilians are aboard.”

 
          
Patrick
felt a rush of relief—and then a thrill of fear as his sensors picked up the
aircraft. He saw two at first, then three. “Contact, range nine miles and
closing fast” The roar of the Hammer’s engines increased—it was close to
liftoff speed. “Eight miles .. . seven miles . .. bandits climbing slightly ...
six miles .. .”

 
          
“Sparkle!
Sparkle!” Luger shouted. Everyone knew what that meant—they were being
highlighted by a targeting laser.

 
          
Just
then, Patrick saw another target appear—much smaller and much faster.
“Stalkers,
missiles inbound!
Missiles
inbound! I’ve got two in sight!” Patrick raised the big Vulcan cannon and
snapped off the safety with a quick thought-command. The two missiles were
coming in fast, wavering slightly up and down in altitude but coming in
straight and true. “Dave, countermeasures starboard
now
!”

 
          
Behind
him, two rockets streaked from hidden launchers. Each rocket was an electronic
decoy, designed to broadcast radio and infrared signatures several thousand
times larger and brighter than the ship. They drifted up slowly, making
inviting targets. Would they be inviting enough ... ?

 
          
They
were. Both missiles veered to the right, chasing the decoys. Patrick tracked
them with ease. The first missile hit the first decoy—but the second decoy
must’ve crashed or malfunctioned, because the second missile only jinked
slightly right and then veered left, back on the
Catherine.
Patrick issued an electronic command, and the big Vulcan
cannon opened fire. A shaft of fire fifteen feet long belched from the muzzle,
and a hundred empty cartridges showered onto the deck in front of the Stinger
crew. Off in the distance, the second enemy missile exploded in a cloud of
fire.

           
“Forward MANPADS up!” Patrick
shouted. As he placed the Vulcan cannon on the deck as gently as if he were
setting a golf bag down on the fringe of the green, the team of commandos
stepped forward and placed the Stinger launcher on his shoulder. Patrick
immediately locked onto the incoming fighter, waited until it got within range,
then fired.

 
          
The
lead fighter must’ve seen the launch immediately, because it immediately banked
hard right and started ejecting decoy flares. But the second fighter was not as
quick. He made a gentler turn, obviously hesitant to get too close to his
leader at night and low to the ocean, and did not pop any decoy flares until it
was far too late. The Stinger missile flew a smooth, unerring arc right up tjie
fighter’s hot tailpipe and exploded. The Stinger crew could not see anything so
far away at night, but through his millimeter-wave imaging radar and infrared
sensors, Patrick could see the second fighter dip precariously close to the
ocean, regain altitude, dip again, climb, then plunge almost straight down into
the dark Mediterranean. He saw no ejection seat blast free, or any parachute.

 
          
“Splash
one,” Patrick announced. After all the death, destruction, and pain he had seen
that day, the crash of this unidentified attacker meant absolutely nothing to
him. “First bandit is bearing zero-eight-zero, twelve miles, turning east.”

 
          
At
that moment, he heard the CV-22 Pave Hammer tilt- rotor aircraft lift off the
deck. Thank God, he breathed, Wendy was going to be safe, as long as they were
able to keep those fighters off its tail until they were safely wavehopping
away.

 
          
“Taurus
has three bandits, bearing two-five-zero, range nine miles,” Hal Briggs shouted
on the command network. “Comin’ in low and smoking.’”

           
“Nike has contact on the bandits at
two-five-zero,” Chris Wohl chimed in. “Switching to Stinger. Taurus, you hang
on to the Vulcan.”

           
“How about we both take a Stinger?”
Briggs suggested. “I can grab the Vulcan and knock down any stragglers after I
launch.”

 
          
“Rog.”

 
          
“Stalkers,
I have a surface contact, bearing two-two-three, range twenty-nine miles,” Dave
Luger announced. “He’s hitting us with an India-band Plank Shave surface search
radar and an India-band Hawk Screech fire-control radar. I make this a
Koni-class frigate, probably Libyan. He’s coming in fast, almost thirty knots.
He could be within missile range at any time.”

 
          
“Should’ve
known it was the Libyans,” Wohl muttered on the command net.

 
          
“Think
they might be pissed at us for blowing up their nukes?” Briggs chimed in.

 
          
“Pissed
enough to attack every ship close enough to have based the chopper,” Patrick
said. “Let’s deal with the fighters first, then the frigate.” He didn’t have to
say the obvious—they were going to have a fight on their hands, one they had
very little chance of surviving.

 
          
Stinger
missiles soon began rippling from the starboard deck and fantail as the Libyan
fighters closed in. Only the combination of the Vulcan cannons and decoys were able
to keep the
Catherine
from being hit.
Even so, one missile came close enough to rattle the deck with bits of
shrapnel, caught at the last possible moment by a last-instant blast from Hal
Briggs’s cannon. But their efforts finally paid off. “Stalkers, air search
radar is clear,” Luger announced. “Good shooting. No radar contacts. The rest
RTBed.”