The Mercenary (2 page)

Thirty-two thousand feet for the airliner
. . . and he himself was flying at one hundred feet. Time to move.

The pilot pulled the fighter to the right to set up
an intercept heading, then shoved the throttles into afterburner. Surging
forward under tremendous power, he let the jet climb to 500 feet, then looked
up. It was still overcast and that was good. No one above the clouds would be
able to see his afterburner plumes. Of course, he'd have to come out of burner
above the clouds or the airline pilots might see him.

Converting metric in his head, it was about eight
miles to SALMI and twelve miles to the target. He glanced at the airspeed
readout in the HUD. Just past the speed of sound . . . fast enough. As
he pulled smoothly back on the stick, the FLANKER shot upward from the sea.

Straining forward against the harness, he watched
the inky darkness give way to gray as the jet sliced into the cloud deck. It
looked like soggy cotton, he thought, concentrating on the attitude indicator to
avoid spatial disorientation. Flying completely from his instruments, the
mercenary's gaze flickered constantly between the radar display and the attitude
indictor.

At seven miles from the target, he was passing
15,000 feet, and the airliner lay about thirty degrees left of his nose
. . . 900 kilometers per hour . . . about 500 knots. Easing
off the stick a bit, he shallowed out the climb. Still encased in the cloud
deck, the pilot pulled right to increase the intercept heading and risked a
quick glimpse outside. Nothing but muck. Greenish gray now because of the
goggles but still muck.

Five point three miles . . . passing
22,000 feet.

He glanced at the fuel display, then the radar.
Soon . . . it had to be soon. The pilot felt the familiar itching in
his fingertips as adrenaline shot through him. Every sense was heightened, every
feeling amplified. His reflexes were keyed and even his vision seemed
sharper.

Suddenly the jet shot out from the weather deck.
Reacting instantly, the pilot pulled the throttles out of afterburner and the
jet once again vanished into the darkness.

Momentarily disoriented by the bright moon glow
against the clouds, he blinked rapidly behind the goggles. Bunting the nose over
slightly, he glanced at the radar to get a bearing, then stared outside. Unlike
a western fighter, the FLANKER had no visual pointing cues in the HUD to help a
pilot see the target. But that was what the goggles were for.

And there it was.

A blind man couldn't miss it . . .
especially with NVGs. About three miles away and maybe 2,000 feet above him. He
was slightly behind and below the wingline of the big airliner. Almost a perfect
intercept position. He wasn't visible from the cockpit and the chances of a
passenger happening to see and understand the flash from the afterburners was
very small.

But he was much, much too fast. Overshooting the
airliner vertically, he rolled upside down to keep it in sight and stabilized
about 1,000 feet above the commercial jet. Pulling back hard on the stick, he
used gravity to slow down. With his left thumb he slid the switch forward that
opened the big speed brake and the FLANKER shuddered as it lost speed. Inverted,
the mercenary snap-rolled the jet and pulled back down behind the other
aircraft.

It was a Boeing 777 and he could see the Delta
markings on the tail. Jockeying the throttles, he carefully closed to a mile and
exactly matched the airliner's airspeed. Quickly cross-checking his own engine
gauges and fuel, he then switched the ZHUK radar back to standby. Bumping up
slightly, he maintained a high position directly behind the airliner's tail and
toggled on the autopilot. This position would keep him out of the jet wash and
completely invisible to those on board.

Relaxing then, he shifted in the seat, dropped his
mask and ran a gloved finger around the inside of his helmet. Eyeing the Time
over Target Display, the pilot saw they were right on schedule. Seventy-five
miles to the BULAN intersection and the next reporting point. After that to
PABSCO. Then straight into Taipei. He allowed himself another smile. No need to
worry about Taiwan's air defenses now.

The airliner had just opened the door.

“S
ir.”
The Taiwanese sergeant put his headset down and swiveled his chair around. “That
Delta flight is over BULAN”—he stifled a yawn—“and a Lufthansa jet is reporting
APITO.”

Captain Wang waved nonchalantly. He got off in less
than an hour and was thinking about his current girlfriend. She was an Air
Singapore flight attendant, almost twenty-three years old, and in a hurry to
experience life. That made him grin. Her more exotic requests often left him
exhausted. Not to mention bent. The thought of her young, naked body lying in
his bed was far more pleasant than the position of commercial airliners.

The buzzing of the phone interrupted his thoughts
of nipples and tight skin. The sergeant turned again. “Sir . . . the
ICC is reporting something odd.”

“So . . . ?”

The sergeant swallowed hard. He was clearly not
happy to irritate his officer. “The ICC reports that the Early Warning site at
Sungsan reported a possible midair collision incident with the Delta
airliner.”

Wang frowned. “With whom?”

“The supervisor didn't know. It was a spurious
contact . . . only visible long enough to trip their threshold.”

“And then?”

The sergeant shrugged. “It disappeared.”

Wang suppressed a sigh. “And yet the Delta jet is
alive and well over BULAN.”

Just then the other hotline buzzed and Wang picked
it up himself. It was the direct link to the Engagement Control Station. Located
in its own five-ton tactical truck, the ECS physically controlled the firing of
each Patriot battery.

“Wang.”

“Sir, this is Lieutenant Chia. The Weapons Control
computer just went into automatic mode. It's tracking a contact bearing 020
degrees for 185 miles.”

The captain swung around and tapped his monitor to
bring it out of standby. It was a 30-inch-square flat-glass display centered on
Taiwan. A big blue rectangle depicted the Air Defense Identification Zone that
theoretically protected Taiwan's airspace. Fifty-mile rings emanated outward,
and by touching various function buttons, he could call up a myriad of display
options. He called up geographic references and all the various ATC routes and
navigation points in the area appeared on the display.

Running the mouse northeast out from Taipei, he put
the cursor at about 180 miles. It was directly over a faint blue triangle.

BULAN.

“Sir?” The lieutenant's voice was a bit strained.
“Sir . . . what should we do?”

Spurious contacts. Wang inhaled sharply. He had
been trained in the United States and was well aware of the Patriot's aggressive
record. Its accuracy claims had been somewhat overstated in both Gulf wars. More
damning, it had been directly responsible for shooting down several Allied
aircraft. The AUTO mode was notorious for identification problems and in the
absence of valid solutions, the system erred to the aggressive side. Meaning it
shot first and asked questions later.

“
Do
, Lieutenant?”
Captain Dei Wang wanted to become Major Wang. He was definitely not going to be
responsible for shooting down a commercial airliner with Taiwan's first
operational PAC-3 system. “I'll tell you exactly what to do. Exactly. Are you
listening?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You're going to override the AUTO mode and go to
MANUAL control. I repeat, MANUAL control. You will continue to monitor all
inbound air traffic but will not, under any circumstances, initiate an
engagement without the duty officer's direct order. There will also be
no
practice locks in the MANUAL mode. Do you
understand?”

“Yessir.” The man sounded relieved. “I understand.
I will note your instructions in the log for my replacement.”

“And Lieutenant . . .” Wang turned the
volume up on the digital recorder that recorded all the BeeTock's voice
communications. “You will instruct your relief to run a full diagnostic scan
when we bring the system down in the morning.”

“Yessir. An excellent idea, sir.”

Wang smiled and hung up the phone. Now he was
covered. Just to be on the safe side.

S
tately and slowly, the airliner began its gentle descent. On board, the
flight attendants passed through the cabins and collected trash, raised seat
backs, and answered silly questions about the weather in Taiwan. The 306
passengers stretched, wobbled to the toilet, and struggled back into their
shoes.

In the cockpit the pilots reviewed their instrument
approach plates, checked the landing conditions, and thought about getting some
feeling back in their butts. All in all, Delta Flight 275 was a peaceful,
satisfied collection of humans floating softly back to earth.

But they didn't know about the FLANKER.

The big fighter was hanging silently and invisibly
in the darkness just beyond the tail. Waiting. Waiting for this very moment. The
mercenary was flying silky smooth, barely touching the controls. Matching the
Triple Seven in airspeed and heading and staying just above the level of its
horizontal tails to avoid the jet wash. Commercial airliners also all had
traffic collision avoidance systems (TCAS) to help them avoid hitting each
other. However, they only functioned when both aircraft were using the proper
transponders, and although the fighter had such equipment, it was off. In any
event, he was flying in the blind zone off the airliner's tail to prevent
inadvertent activation. He was also close enough to blend in with the bigger
jet's radar return. Not difficult flying—not for him—but tedious.

Walking the throttles back an inch, the mercenary
let the fighter's nose drop and slipped a bit to the right to avoid the
uncomfortable position directly above the airliner. Now he could fly formation
using the corners of his eyes and devote his attention to the next phase of his
flight. And the reason for being here.

He turned up the rheostat lighting on the consoles
and focused on the ordnance selection panel. Unlike a western fighter with glass
displays, most of the FLANKER's weapons had to be manually configured. But that
was all right. Though more cumbersome, it was simpler and there were fewer
chances for a mistake.

He carefully rechecked the sequence of signals,
called release pulses, which would free the cluster bombs from their racks under
his wings. This was vital because it dictated the pattern in which they would
impact the target, and this, in turn, determined how destructive they were.
Since there would be only one chance at this, it had to be right.

The Triple Seven's big right wing suddenly dropped
as the airliner turned toward Taiwan. Pulling the throttles back to idle, he
fanned open the speed brake. The fighter slowed and he dropped back still
farther and more aft of the airliner. No sense being seen by some curious
passenger.

Ignoring the growing weight of the goggles and the
burning in his eyes, the mercenary concentrated again on the weapons. Each
cluster-bomb canister weighed 1,000 pounds and contained 350 softball-sized
bomblets that exploded on impact. This created a shotgun-blast effect on the
target. The density, or bomblets per thousand square feet, was determined by how
far above the earth the canister opened. His were all set to open at 1,500 feet
above the ground level. This would put about eight exploding bomblets in each
thousand square feet. Enough to kill armored targets like tanks.

Certainly enough to kill his target.

T
he
lieutenant in the ECS watched the green-coded square drift slowly down the
display.

DL 275.

Delta Flight 275. If it had been identified as
HOSTILE it would have been red. UNKNOWNs were yellow. The green square was just
below the reporting fix of PABSCO, about seventy miles northeast of Taipei. He
moved the mouse-controlled cursor over the airliner's square and a block of
English information popped up.

Delta Flight 275/ Boeing 777-ER/EL 103

PW4098

ALT-19000/350 KIAS

FRIEND

The lieutenant was fluent in English but he pulled
out his laminated quick-reference checklist to be certain. So it was at 19,000
feet and descending. Its airspeed was 350 knots and it was identified as a
positive friendly. It had also been loaded in the electronic global database as
Number 103. This would also assign all known electronic characteristics of this
particular Triple Seven into the common database so it could be recalled in
situations such as this.

But . . .

He frowned. Something wasn't quite right. There was
a slight shadow of another square behind the DL 275 mnemonic.

Another square, and this one was yellow. That meant
something was unresolved electronically. An ambiguity. The lieutenant
right-clicked the mouse to expand the display.

AI

PWXXXX

APG 68/AR600/ZHUK

UNKNOWN

He frowned and rummaged through the top desk drawer
of his console for the ambiguity tables. Many radars operated in the same
frequency range and were ambiguous, or overlapping, with the same basic
characteristics. This made identification based on electronic means somewhat
perilous. Still, if you knew what each similar signal could be electronically
and then discounted what it could not be, based on geography or the situation,
you could arrive at a reasonable solution.

He flipped open the plastic-coated checklist and
ran down the signals that were ambiguous in the AI, or airborne intercept, radar
frequency range.

APG-68.

Fire control radar for an F-16 fighter. Not likely.
The closest F-16s were in Korea. They were never this far south.