Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 (33 page)

 
          
It
was a ridiculous story. The most superficial examination of official records
showed Zuwayy’s real birthplace and lineage—he was definitely no Sanusi. There
was ample evidence that King Idris had only five sons, not six; Zuwayy’s
concocted evidence was disproved immediately. But Zuwayy stuck to his story,
and eventually the people of
Libya
accepted it. He turned Jaghbub back into a
holy city and announced the reincarnation of the United Kingdom of Libya, to
the delight of the people of
Libya
and the amused relief of most of the rest
of the world. He then went about having all the Arab history books changed to
reflect his fictional lineage.

 
          
In
fact, Jadallah Zuwayy, the self-appointed and totally fictional king of
Libya
, hated Jaghbub. Yes, it was beautiful and
fertile. But it was well within artillery range of Egyptian forces, just
fifteen miles away. Although he had built a modem stronghold there, with the
most modem air defense network surrounding it and a force of ten thousand
troops and a couple hundred armor, artillery, and mechanized infantry pieces in
place, it was still over a hundred miles from civilization and reinforcements,
and could be easily overrun or infiltrated. But its weaknesses made it a good
hideout. No military forces would ever touch Jaghbub, especially the Great
Mosque, for fear of scorn by the rest of the Muslim world—it was considered as
holy a shrine as
Mecca
or
Medina
. And it was far enough away from the
Mediterranean coast to give him ample warning of an attack or invasion from the
sea.

 
          
It
was Zuwayy’s alternate headquarters, his safest hiding place in all of
Libya
—and the entrance to his preferred escape
route, should his plans fail and his little self-conceived revolution dissolve.
It was an easily concealed flight from there to
Sudan
,
Yemen
, then
Saudi Arabia
or
Syria
, all of whom might give him safe passage or
asylum. Besides, occasionally he would do a prayer service or celebration at
Jaghbub, televised throughout the Arab world, and the people of
Libya
would delight in seeing the historic mosque
and
Green
Palace
in use once again.

 
          
The
mosque and the
Green
Palace
, the home of the as- Sanusi kings, were
located inside a sixty-acre ancient sun- dried brick walled fortress. The
original three-meter-high walls were heightened an extra four meters,
reinforced with steel, and topped with motion detector probes, with a catwalk
on the inside and guardposts installed every ten meters around the perimeter.
The original wooden gate was reinforced with Kevlar and steel, with an extra
set of electrically operated steel antitank doors inside. Along with the mosque
and the palace, there was a small security building, an eight-horse stable and
bam, a covered riding arena with bleacher seats, and a short equestrian
show-jumping course. North of the compound out as far as two kilometers,
antitank and antipersonnel mines were laid across the open desert. Guards
patrolled the oasis and the area to the south, and more guards patrolled by
boat on
Lake
Jaghbub
.

 
          
The
military base was located to the west and south, spread out over several
hundred acres, including an airfield large enough to accommodate light to
medium transport planes. The entire area was defended by radar, numerous
antiaircraft artillery batteries, roving patrols with man- portable SA-7
antiaircraft missiles, and a wide variety of low- and medium-altitude-capable
mobile surface-to-air missile systems, including several SA-6, SA-8, SA-9, and
SA-13 units deployed in random patrols over two hundred square miles around
Jaghbub. The Libyan army practiced artillery and mortar fire missions in the
desert beyond the airfield.

 
          
There
was at least one squadron of attack helicopters stationed at the air base,
including ex-Soviet Mil Mi-24 heavy helicopter gunships and French-made SA342
Gazelle light helicopter gunships, and one full armored battalion with
ex-Soviet main battle tanks and armored personnel carriers. The base was
considered too close to the Egyptian border to base a large number of
fixed-wing combat aircraft there, but a few ground attack and air defense
aircraft played a “shell game,” hiding in one of a dozen reinforced concrete
shelters located on the base. There was even a road-mobile Scud missile
battalion located there, with a dozen SS-1 Scud missiles deployed all over the
region at presurveyed launch points, ready to strike at preprogrammed targets
in Egypt, Chad, Kenya, or Ethiopia, or targets of opportunity passed along by
reconnaissance forces.

 
          
The
Egyptian intelligence data Patrick had received from Susan Salaam and Ahmad
Baris gave precise details on all of this—and all had been passed along to
Patrick’s mission planners in
Blytheville
. Now the Night Stalkers were on the attack.

 
          
The
EB-52 made the turn at the bomb run initial point. Most threats were several
miles ahead or far behind them, so Franken and Reeves risked a slight climb to
two thousand feet above the desert just as the computer began the first launch
countdown. “Computer counting down,” Lindsey reported. “Release switches to
‘CONSENT.’ ”

 
          
Franken
made sure his red-guarded switch was up and the switch inside was up. In this
highly automated digital cockpit, he noted with a trace of humor, it was always
amusing that Patrick McLanahan and the other designers always kept these Cold
War-era “two-man control” switches in place. Both switches had to be set to
release a weapon. It was of course possible for one person to activate both
switches—but the idea was for one of two persons to overrule the other if the
need arose. Some things—some mind-sets—never change.

 
          
At
zero, the port-side FlightHawk detached itself from its wing pylon and fell two
hundred feet while it unfolded its wings and flight controls and started up its
small turbojet engine. Once it had stabilized itself, it began a climb to its
patrol altitude. A minute later, the second FlightHawk launched as well. Both
unmanned combat aircraft carried air-to-air weapons, long-range surveillance
sensors, and electronic jammers and decoys, all to protect the Megafortress
while it was in the target area. At the flight planned point, the Megafortress
started a right turn in its racetrack orbit area, which allowed the FlightHawks
time to fly into their patrol positions east and west of the racetrack.

 
          
“Computer
started the countdown to bomb bay weapon release,” Lindsey reported several
minutes later. “FlightHawks are on patrol and ready.”

 
          
“Get
ready, Linds,” Franken said. “We might be getting busy again.”

 
          
She
hurriedly took a big sip of water from a plastic bottle. “Then I better get
something in my stomach to barf up,” she said. But judging by the way she said
it, Franken was sure she would be ready if things started to heat up again.

 
          
When
the computer counted down to ten seconds, the forward portion of the EB-52’s
bomb bay doors swung open and a Wolverine cruise missile dropped free, followed
by seven more in twelve-second intervals. The Wolverine missiles resembled fat
surfboards, with a small turbojet engine in the tail. They had no wings or
flight- control surfaces, but used mission-adaptive skin technology to reshape
the entire missile body to create lift and steer itself with far greater speed
and precision than conventional flight controls.

 
          
Each
Wolverine missile had four weapon sections, including three bomb bays and a
fourth weapon section right behind the sensor section in the nose. Using an
inertial navigation system updated by satellite navigation, the Wolverine
missiles flew to preprogrammed bomb run initial points, then activated infrared
and millimeter-wave radar sensors, looking for targets. Their small size and
low profile meant they were almost invisible to the air defense radars
surrounding them—but they were all able to detect, analyze, classify, and lock
onto the radars themselves.

 
          
The
Wolverine missiles then worked together with the FlightHawks to analyze and
correlate the radar transmissions and then locate the associated missile
launchers. The radar units for most air defense units were set up far away from
the missile launcher so antiradar missile attacks would not destroy the
missiles or launchers; they were usually connected by some sort of electronic
link, usually a microwave system or cable. Many times the enemy would set up
decoy radar transmitters, hoping the antiradar weapons would go after the
decoys. But the FlightHawks were able to determine from the type of radar
detected what kind of air defense system it was, and if it had a remote
launcher setup it would listen for the data transmission between the radar unit
and the missile launch unit in a surface-to-air missile battery, compute the
location of the launcher, and pass its location to the Wolverine missiles. In
this way, their weapons wouldn’t be wasted on nonlethal radars or on decoys.

 
          
Six
of the Wolverine missiles were programmed for SEAD, or suppression of enemy air
defenses. As they flew over each air defense weapon site they detected, they
scattered cluster bombs across the missile launchers. Each of the Wolverine’s
three bomb bays held seventy-two one- pound high-explosive fragmentary
bomblets, which covered an area of about thirty thousand square feet with
shrapnel. If a Wolverine attacked a particularly lethal SAM site but the
FlightHawks determined that the site was still active, it would command the
Wolverine to turn around and reattack the target. Two of the Wolverines were
hit by antiaircraft artillery fire, both by gunners who, with their radars turned
off so they wouldn’t be targeted by the radarseeking weapons, merely swept the
skies with their guns blazing, hoping to get lucky. Once all three bomb bays
were empty, each surviving Wolverine missile would perform a suicide dive into
a fourth target, where an internal two-hundred-pound high-explosive warhead
would destroy one last target and hopefully all remnants of the missile itself.

 
          
The
remaining two Wolverines were programmed to hunt down vehicles instead of
antiaircraft sites. Instead of bomblets, they carried devices called
sensor-fuzed weapons, or SFWs. There were eight SFW canisters per bomb bay in
the Wolverine. When the infrared sensor in the Wolverine’s nose detected large
vehicles nearby, it flew toward them and ejected two SFW canisters overhead.
The canisters floated down on small parachutes, spinning as they descended. As
they spun, tiny heat-seeking sensors spotted the location of vehicles on the
ground. At a precise altitude above the ground, the canisters exploded, sending
dozens of one-pound slugs of molten copper at the vehicles. The copper slug was
like a sabot round from a tank or artillery piece—the hypervelocity slug was
powerful enough to punch through three inches of solid steel. Once inside a
vehicle, however, the slug cooled enough where it couldn’t penetrate the other
side—so the slug simply exploded and spattered inside, creating thousands of
tiny white-hot copper bullets that shredded anything in its path in the blink
of an eye. Like the other Wolverines, these tank-killing cruise missiles
located, attacked, and reattacked targets until all of their SFWs were
expended; then they suicide-dived into preprogrammed targets—one into the base
command post, the other into a communications building.

 
         
Hal
Briggs marveled at the intelligence information they received from the
Egyptians—it was all up to date and incredibly detailed. As he scanned the area
with his battle armor’s electronic sensors, the satellite datalink connecting
him with the temporary headquarters at Mersa Matruh filled in details of what
the sensors picked up—guard posts, boundaries of minefields, fence positions,
even locations of doghouses and latrines were pointed out. FFe was kneeling
just to the north of the minefield, scanning the compound, when suddenly he
heard a ripple of explosions.

 
          
“Nike,
looks like our little buddies are on the job,” Hal radioed on the secure
command satellite network. He heard several secondary explosions as a Wolverine
cluster bomb attack destroyed a pair of SA-10 antiaircraft missiles, sending a
balloon of fire into the night sky. The