Collateral Damage (23 page)

“This is Shogun Actual,” called the helicopter commander. “All allied assets, be advised. We have two men still on the ground. They are moving through the field at the north side of the village. Mountain Three is coming for a pickup.”

The men, providing an overwatch from the northern end of the village, had been separated as the units began exfiltrating. Confusion on the ground had sent the helicopters skyward before they reached the pickup point.

Damn.

The two SAS men on the ground were in radio contact with the controller. The men, using the call sign Rodent, were on the north side of the village. The helicopter pilot flying Mountain Three was closing in. He told them he would meet them wherever they wanted.

“Hell if necessary,” added the man, who had the slight lilt of a Boston accent.

They told him they would go north and meet him in the flat desert area. No one was following them.

The air controller, meanwhile, tried to gather more information about the crowd that had been following. The SAS men said they hadn't seen any weapons, something Turk and Grizzly confirmed. But someone aboard the helicopter believed he had.

It was impossible to know the real facts. As a practical matter, the rules remained the same for the two A–10 pilots: they could watch, and buzz the crowd if necessary, but at the moment they couldn't fire.

How strange it must be on the ground, Turk thought. A civilian in the war zone was a voyeur, an observer, maybe reluctant, maybe against his or her will. Yet the fascination to find out what was going on must be incredible.

You'd be drawn to the strangeness, if not the danger. The danger might not even seem real, because the situation was so bizarre—men with guns running through your village, a nightmare in the middle of the day. But it was absolutely real, and a false move or a mistake could easily lead to your death—either from someone on the ground or someone in the sky.

Was that what it had been like in the village when the Sabre attacked? It must have been worse—hell simply broke open from the sky without warning, arriving on the nose of a fast-flying missile before the plane was close enough to make a noise.

A terrible, terrible mistake.

Not his, though. Not his.

The troopers on the ground moved around the backs of two houses, toward the Y intersection at the center of town. Turk used the zoom feature on the satellite image to check the path they were intending to take—it cut through the hill off the northern road and down into the desert. The village was tucked behind the ridge there, cutting off the view from the buildings.

He looked down at it. Clear, as far as he could tell. So far, so good.

And what of the nightmare for the soldiers on the ground? They had two great fears—their legitimate enemy, trying to kill them, and the innocents walking through the village.

If they
were
innocents. How could you even tell?

It was easier in the old days, when you just decided everyone was bad and rolled over the place.

The SAS troopers crossed the street near the mosque.

“We're going north on the street,” reported Rodent. “We—”

He stopped talking. Turk heard gunfire in the background.

“We're under fire,” said the Brit.

“Do you have a target?” called Grizzly.

“Negative,” said Rodent. “We're in cover. We can't see the gunman.”

“Rodent, is it the mosque?” Grizzly asked.

“Stand by.”

“I can take the mosque out.”

“Stand by.”

“Turk, you see the gunfire?”

“Negative.”

Turk, about a mile and a half behind Grizzly, zeroed into the area on his screen, using maximum resolution. He couldn't see any gunfire at all. Hitting the mosque would be easy enough, but without a positive ID that it was the target he couldn't take the shot. The helicopter, meanwhile, held short, about a mile and a half away.

“We need a target, Rodent,” said Grizzly.

The ground unit replied with a curse.

“Rodent, can you beam them with your laser designator?” asked Turk.

“Negative. We're not sure where they are.”

“Are you under fire?”

No answer.

“Rodent?”

“We're sorting it out, mate. We hear people moving east of us.”

“East of you?”

“And north. Both.”

“I'm going to try and get eyes on,” Turk told Grizzly. “I'll come through, then maybe we can nail them.”

“Roger that. Good.”

“Rodent, can you try and get them to fire?” Turk told the ground unit.

“They don't bloody well handle requests, Yank. And if they did, that wouldn't be one I'd make.”

The haze from the earlier smoke grenades had drifted across the eastern end of town, obscuring Turk's view as he came up from the south. As he cleared past it, he saw two quick flashes on the far right. They were coming from the roof of a building on the corner of the intersection. The location didn't seem to have an angle on Rodent's position, however.

“How close is that gunfire?” he asked the ground unit.

“Close enough to count.”

He told the British soldiers about the building. They agreed it was the likely source, though from where they were they could see only a small corner of the roof.

“May be why they're missing,” said Rodent.

“You sure that mosque is clear?” Grizzly asked Turk. “It has that whole road covered.”

“I didn't see anything there. You?”

Grizzly didn't answer. He told the SAS troopers to keep their heads down, then dialed his Maverick into the building Turk had ID'ed as the sniper nest.

Ten seconds later the building exploded.

Rodent called in to say that they were moving. More gunfire erupted on the street, coming from behind a parked car. This time the target was obvious. The Brits took cover, and Turk put a Maverick into the vehicle, setting it on fire and killing or wounding the two gunmen behind it.

“You sure that mosque is clean?” asked Grizzly.

Stop with the mosque, thought Turk. But he answered calmly. “I don't see anything there.”

“We're moving,” said Rodent.

There were a few more shots, but the pair made it to the northern fork and then ran down the hill. They were clear of the village.

“Helicopter is inbound,” said the controller.

“Let's take a pass between the landing zone and the village,” said Grizzly. “Make sure things are cool.”

Turk got behind him. Grizzly told the controller and the helicopter what they were doing.

“You sure that mosque doesn't have anything?” asked Grizzly.

“Yeah.”

“I'll bet that's where they came out of. Those places are nests.”

Grizzly went across the top of the hill. Turk got his Hog a little lower. His airspeed kept declining; he was barely over a hundred knots, very close to getting a stall warning.

“Looking clear.”

A large black bug appeared on the horizon. The SAS men ran toward it. As the Blackhawk swooped in, the two A–10s flew east to west across the village, between it and the SAS troopers.

“Something on my left,” said Grizzly as he cleared west. “You see that?”

“I'll look for it.”

“Two or three people.”

Turk saw the figures on a small path at the side of the knoll. There were four—at least two were children.

“Just kids,” he told Grizzly.

“You sure?”

Turk slid his aircraft left. He could have fired at them if he wanted.

But they were kids.

“Yeah. Just kids.”

“You see a weapon?”

“Negative.”

The helicopter touched down. Within thirty seconds it was back in the air, Brits aboard. Grizzly took another pass, running between the village and the Blackhawk. As he did, there was a puff of smoke from the hillside.

“Flares! Break right, break left!” called Turk, even before the missile launch warning began blaring. “Missile! Turn hard! Left! Flares! Flares!”

Something sparked in the sky. Turk looked to his left, where the other aircraft should be, but there was nothing there.

He jerked his head around, afraid. But Grizzly was there—he'd gone right.

Turned toward the damn missile.

There was a dot of red in the pale blue. Two dots.

Decoys, thought Turk. He's past.

“I'm hit,” said Grizzly a moment later.

2

Southern Libya

D
riving away from the radar complex, Rubeo zipped his jacket against the cold and considered something one of his professors had told him.

Only thought experiments fully succeed in science.

As a pimple-faced teenager extremely full of himself, he had considered that an exaggeration. He'd pulled off dozens of experiments that were one hundred percent successful. As time went on, however, he saw the truth in his professor's remark. And while he had come to appreciate that the failures were almost always more interesting than the successes, at this particular moment the limits of science were a challenge.

Even though the UAV gathering the electric data had been shot down before completing its survey, the map it provided of the devices at the complex was fairly complete. The aircraft's sensors had found the main generators and the trailers with the radar control units. The detail was good enough for an eighty-five percent certainty on the ID of the radars that detected planes and controlled the missiles.

Eighty-five percent was considered more than enough; the matching algorithms were extremely exacting. Additionally, the radars had already been identified by the receiving unit independent of the Mapper, so the match confirmed that the system was working properly.

The next stage was more difficult. The computers at Rubeo's headquarters compared the diagrams with known circuitry maps of the “stock” radars. They found them exactly the same. Since modifications would be needed to interfere with the UAVs, Rubeo could now be certain that hadn't happened.

Or rather, that those units hadn't done it. Because there was still a portion of the complex that had not been mapped. The section included a small shed and a trailer. The electronic map implied some sort of activity there—there were two power lines leading in—but the rest was open for interpretation.

Or imagination. Unable to rule anything out, most people tended to think of the worst. It was an interesting human prejudice, Rubeo knew, but one even he couldn't escape.

Would a jamming unit fit in the trailer?

Absolutely. The devices the Russians had deployed near the Georgian border to deter spying UAVs were about that size.

If they were there, wouldn't the Libyans have used them to deter the attack?

Perhaps. But that was just it—a guess, not definitive proof.

“Guys could use some rest,” suggested Jons.

Rubeo turned to him. He'd been concentrating so fully on the problem that he forgot where he was.

“Halit up there keeps nodding off,” added Jons. “If we stop out here, away from the town, we'll be a little more secure. Sleep until the afternoon. You wanted to see the place in the day.”

“Yes,” said Rubeo, coming back fully to the present. “Let's find a place.”

3

Over southern Libya

G
rizzly's plane was ahead of Turk, to his right, just below eleven o'clock. It looked OK, rising in the sky.

He escaped.

He got lucky.

A black smudge appeared on the left side of the plane. It grew exponentially, surrounding the engine.

Flares floated below. Smoke trailed down to them, black and gray billowing in a mad stream.

“Grizzly! Get out!” Turk yelled over the radio.

“I have the plane,” replied the other pilot.

“Your left engine—there's black smoke pouring out of it.”

“Yeah, I got a problem there. You get those guys?”

“Negative.” Turk was in no position to take a shot at them and wasn't about to leave the other pilot simply to get revenge.

“I told you to watch those people on the hill.”

“They were kids. They weren't the problem.”

“I'm coming through one thousand feet,” said Grizzly. “Still climbing.”

“Think about getting out,” said Turk. “Are you sure you got it?”

“I got it.”

Turk told the controller what was going on. He wanted the helicopter that had just made the pickup to stand by in case the Hog went down.

Grizzly jettisoned the last of his missiles, lightening his load. He was at 3,000 feet, still climbing, though slowly.

He had sky under his wings. Maybe he could make it.

He's
going
to make it,
Turk told himself.

Besides the engine, the A–10 had been hit in the wing and tail. There was damage to its control surfaces. Grizzly reported a small leak in the hydraulic system. He'd also taken a few splinters to the side of his windscreen.

“Nice little spiderweb on the left side,” he told Turk. “Almost artistic.”

Turk plotted a course farther east that would get them away from most of the government forces. The trade-off was that it would increase the amount of time it would take to get home.

“I'd rather take my chances in a straight line,” said Grizzly. “If we go too far east, I'm going to run out of fuel anyway.”

“Be better if you could get higher,” Turk told him.

“No shit. I'm trying.”

Turk rode in and took a look at the left wing. He was stunned at what he saw—it looked like something had taken a bite out of the last five feet. The rest of the metal was ripped and gouged.

“You got a bunch of holes,” was how he described it to Grizzly. “How's your fuel?”

“Gauge says I'm good.”

“The tank on the left wing?”

“Full.”

Turk doubted that the reading was correct. He hesitated to say anything, however—for all he knew, the aircraft itself didn't know, and saying something would break the spell.

“I think it's optimistic,” he said finally.

“You see fuel coming out?”

“Negative.”

“Bladders might have contained the damage.” The A–10's tanks were equipped to stop leaks.

“Maybe. We're coming up toward the Castle,” Turk added. “You're gonna have to cut east. There's no way you're going to make it. You're still way under ten thousand feet.”

The Castle was a government-held town that had gained its nickname early in the conflict because it was so well armed. While the antiaircraft launchers stationed there had been bombed repeatedly, it was thought that the government still had a number hidden in the city. Besides those weapons, there were ZSU antiaircraft guns, which posed a serious threat to a low-flying aircraft.

The air boss had vectored a pair of Spanish F–16s south to provide cover. Turk checked in with them, giving them a rundown of the situation. They could deal with a major antiair site, but Turk was more worried about a MANPAD or even an overachieving triple-A battery. By the time one of those was spotted, it might be too late.

“You have to come more east,” he told Grizzly.

“I'm working on it. Having a little trouble steering. It's really fighting me.”

“Copy.”

“I don't want to have to bail out,” added Grizzly.

“I know. I'm with you.”

“I don't like the idea of parachuting, Turk. The only times I've done it, I puked.”

“It's better than the alternative.”

“I don't know.”

Turk realized that the other pilot was worried his plane would fall apart if he stressed it at all, even in a slight bank. While he sympathized, he couldn't see an alternative.

“We gotta turn, Grizzly. You aren't gonna make it otherwise.”

“I should have some sort of wise-ass comeback here, shouldn't I?” asked Grizzly. He put the Hog into a gentle bank eastward.

Grizzly made the turn. The plane stuttered, but leveled off. A few minutes later, still south of the Castle, Turk noticed its rear tail surface was shaking up and down.

“Grizz?”

“I'm going to have to get out,” answered the other pilot. “I'm sorry. We just aren't going to do it today.”

“It's cool.”

“I'm going to try to get a little farther north.”

“Don't hold it too long,” said Turk.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

The helicopter that had picked up the last SAS men was about ten miles farther east, and the AWACS controller had another SAR helicopter coming south. The F–16s had been joined by a flight of Eurofighters for air cover. And Shooters One and Two, having just completed their refuel, were heading in their direction as well.

Turk got a radar indication. Something at the Castle was beaming them.

“You see that?” he asked Grizzly.

“Yeah. Bitchin'.”

The radar was a SURN 1S91 “Straight Flush” used for target acquisition by SA–6s—not particularly welcome under the circumstances.

The F–16s immediately went to work. But that didn't make the sweat factor any less for Grizzly or Turk. They flipped on ECMs, hoping to confuse any missile that might be launched.

But Grizzly had other problems.

“My other engine's ramping down,” he said.

“I'm seeing smoke from the right side,” said Turk, noticing a wisp near the wing root.

“Ah, shit, I got a lot of problems here,” said Grizzly. “Panel looks like a goddamn Christmas tree. Controls not responding. Damn.”

Something flew off the right wing.

“Grizzly—out! Now! Your wing's coming apart,” said Turk. He was shouting over the radio. “Time to get out. Go! Go!”

“Left engine failing. I think the fuel pump or something is going.”

There was the understatement of the year, thought Turk. “Time to bail, damn you.”

“I want a couple more miles.”

“Get out now while you can. I'm seeing flames.”

“Got another warning.”

“I'm going to shoot you out if you don't pull that damn handle,” cursed Turk.

The answer was a small explosion from the aircraft as Grizzly abandoned his plane. A second later the A–10E's right wing flew apart. The plane jerked hard to the left, then fell into a spin as flames enveloped the fuselage.

Turk banked, watching the parachute descend. As he took his first turn, he got a launch warning—a trio of SA–6s had been fired in his direction.

His first thought was to get away from the parachute—he didn't want Grizzly to be hurt by the missiles. It wasn't necessarily rational—the odds of the missile hitting the pilot were exceedingly small—but he nonetheless reacted automatically, pushing away from the falling canopy. He then turned to try and beam the missile's radar—putting the plane on a ninety degree angle to lessen the odds of it tracking him. He fired metal chaff, accelerating, and finally pushing down hard on his wing.

One of the missiles tanked, pushing down into the desert, where it blossomed in a mushroom of dirt and spent explosive. The other two sailed well past the Hog, losing it in the fog of electronic countermeasures.

Turk turned back in Grizzly's direction, hunting for the parachute. It wasn't where he thought it would be. His heart lurched and a hole opened in his stomach: Where the hell was his wingmate?

Finally he found the chute, farther east than he had thought. That was a good thing—it was farther from the city.

“I have a chute,” he told the AWACS. “A good chute. He's looking good. I have him.”

A fireball rose from the direction of the city. The missile battery that targeted him had just been hit by radiation-tracking missiles.

Turk settled into a wide orbit above the parachute. The AWACS vectored in more support aircraft; the SAR helicopter and the Blackhawk with the SAS soldiers both headed for a rescue.

Turk spotted a pair of pickup trucks coming from the direction of the city. He dropped low and accelerated, heading in their direction.

“I have two trucks approaching the landing area,” he told the controller.

“Roger that. We're seeing them.”

“I'm hitting them.”

“Stand by,” said the controller.

The ROEs directed that Turk could only shoot at the trucks if they took hostile action. But there was no question in his mind what he was going to do. He rolled toward them.

I should have hit the kids earlier.

But they were kids.

“Shooter Four, you are not authorized to engage.”

“Give me a break,” snapped Turk.

“Repeat?”

“I'm going to protect my guy.”

“Shooter, you are not cleared to engage. We have them under surveillance.”

Where the hell was your surveillance when he was hit? Turk thought. But he didn't say that. He forced himself to be logical—got back inside his calm pilot head.

“I'm going to check them out,” he told the AWACS.

“Predator is overhead,” said the controller. “We are looking at the truck. No hostile activity or indication at this time.”

Turk tucked the A–10E toward the ground, riding up parallel to the road. The trucks were ahead.

“Shooter Four, this is Shooter One,” said Ginella over the radio. Her voice was sharp. “Say your status.”

“Checking out two trucks headed in Grizzly's direction, Colonel,” responded Turk.

“Be advised, Big Eyes is telling us those are civilian trucks. You are not to engage. Repeat. Do not engage.”

“Negative,” said Turk, who was now close enough to see the vehicles. “Both have men in the back. Uniforms.”

“Don't shoot them, Turk. You are not cleared.”

He flashed by.

“Shooter Four, what's your status?” asked the controller.

Turk didn't respond. He pulled the Hog around, checked the air around him, looked at the ground, then put the A–10's nose directly over the road.

If he wanted, he could take both trucks with his gun in short order.

And maybe he should do that.

Was he compensating for having screwed up earlier? But he hadn't screwed up—he'd done the right thing. They had been kids. Surely.

He knew what he saw. And yet the other Hog had been hit by a missile. The facts were the facts.

“Turk, acknowledge,” said Ginella. “Where are you and what are you doing?”

“I'm looking at them. The trucks. They're on the road. They're a mile from where Grizzly's coming down. Going in that direction.”

He was sure they must be soldiers—rebels wouldn't be coming out from the Castle.

Maybe they'd shoot at him. He pressed the plane down, went over the trucks at barely fifty feet.

No flash, no launch warning. Not a peep.

By the time he banked away, the trucks had stopped dead in the road. Both made quick U-turns and headed back in the direction they'd come.

“Still think they're sightseers, huh?” said Turk.

“Not the point, Shooter Four,” responded Ginella.

“I have helicopters inbound,” said Turk, spotting the approaching birds. He could hear them calling Grizzly on the Guard or emergency band. Grizzly acknowledged, then waved.

“SAR assets in contact,” reported Turk. “They're in contact.”

“Let the choppers do their work,” said Ginella.

“That's my plan.”

S
hooter Squadron escorted the helicopter to the coast, then split away as the chopper headed for the Italian carrier
Garibaldi
.

Turk got a fuel warning when he was still twenty miles from Sicily. He contacted the tower and the entire squadron was bumped up, allowing him to land right away.

He pulled himself out of the cockpit, feeling as if every part of his body had been pounded.

Ginella met him on the tarmac.

“What the hell happened?” she asked.

“We were north of the hamlet. They'd just made the pickup of the SAS guys.” Turk held his hands wide, trying to sort it out in his head. It had been so vivid when it happened, yet now it seemed clouded. “There was a group of kids—”

“Start from the beginning. What happened with the SAS guys? Did they find the pilot?”

Turk realized he wasn't even sure, though in fact they had. As he recounted the story, he realized he had either blanked out or simply forgotten vast portions.

Given how much debriefing he'd been doing over the past few days, he ought to be getting better at this, but for some reason it seemed worse. More details would occur to him as he went, and he had to backtrack and revise.

“How did you let him get hit?” she asked finally.

“I—I didn't let him get hit,” said Turk. “He turned right. I told him to break left. He went into their path.”

Would that have saved him, though? Turk wasn't sure.

She shook her head.

“The only people I saw on the ground were kids,” added Turk.

“Kids with a launcher?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

Ginella stared at him.

“You think I screwed up?” he said.

“You didn't see the missile on the ground?”