The Mercenary (35 page)

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VIPER
PILOT

A rare and thrilling look into the
elite world of real-life fighter pilots.

Prologue

Angel of Death

March 24,
2003

Nasiriyah,
Iraq

“C
'mon
. . . c'mon . . .” I gritted my teeth. Forcing my aching
jaws to relax, I pulled the throttle back further and dropped the F-16's nose a
few degrees toward the ground. As the Viper slid down into the dusty brown mess
below us, I felt unaccustomed anxious twinges jab through my gut.

“All Players, all Players . . . this is
LUGER on Guard for Emergency Close Air-Support. Any CAS-capable flights report
to LUGER on Indigo Seven . . . repeat—any CAS-capable flights report
to LUGER on Indigo Seven. Emergency CAS in progress. LUGER out.”

I stared at the stack of mission materials on my
knee. I'd never heard of Indigo Seven, but I had a comm card that was supposed
to have every frequency in the galaxy on it for a given mission.

Fuck it.

Another fucking freq I don't have. I swore at the
idiots who'd done the mission planning in the
six
months before the war. They drank coffee, sat on their butts, and generated an
enormous amount of material, 90 percent of which was useless.

I knew some of them. Smart guys, but so utterly
convinced they were correct that they'd failed to heed anyone else's
suggestions. The results spoke for themselves. I didn't even have a decent
large-scale map of Iraq, and no provision had been made at all for Close
Air-Support missions (CAS). I was a Wild Weasel, a surface-to-air missile
killer—close air-support wasn't our primary mission. But those of us who'd
fought the First Gulf War or Kosovo knew better. When troops on the ground
needed help, any fighter available was supposed to be there—fast.

FUEL . . .
FUEL
. . . the green symbology flashed in the center of my
Heads Up Display (HUD). Toggling it off, I quickly typed in a new minimum fuel
number. A much lower number. It might keep the warning signal from bothering me,
but it wouldn't put another pound of JP-8 in my fuel tanks. It was also a
cardinal sin. If you didn't have enough fuel to finish your mission, then you
returned to base. Simple.

Or not.

The Second Gulf War was in its fifth day, and a
unit of the Third Battalion Second Marines had gotten cut off north of Nasiriyah
in southern Iraq. They'd called for Emergency Close Air-Support, which meant any
fighters able to respond were to scratch their existing missions and race to the
scene. It was literally life or death.

Operating under the call sign ROMAN 75, my
four-ship (a flight of four fighters) had been immediately rerolled to try and
save the Marines. Unfortunately, the biggest sandstorm in recent history was
headed this way, and two other flights of fighters had been unable to get down
through the stuff and find the grunts.

So I wasn't optimistic.

But this was war, and you did what you had to
do.

“ROMAN . . . ROMAN . . . this
is CHIEFTAIN . . . say . . .” CHIEFTAIN was the Marine unit
that called for close air-support. The crackling radio erupted with the
unmistakable popping of automatic weapons in the background.

I swallowed, hard. I knew what he was asking.
Where the hell are you? What's taking so long? You've got to
get here NOW or we're all dead.

I licked my lips, feeling my tongue rasp over
cracked skin that hadn't tasted water in nearly eight hours. “CHIEFTAIN
. . . CHIEFTAIN . . . ROMAN 75 is attacking from the south
. . . sixty seconds.”

Southern Iraq is ugly. No two ways about it. As I
stared out over the vast Mesopotamian plain, I wondered, not for the first time,
why we never seemed to go to war in pretty places. Lichtenstein or Ireland
maybe. Bermuda.

Today it was just a tan mess. The jagged blue-green
scar of the Euphrates River was muted, like someone had thrown a sheer brown
cloth over it. Usually the earth east of the river, toward the Iranian border,
looked green and relatively fertile. Now it was blanketed in shades of mud. The
horizon worried me, since it had disappeared into a dirty-brown wall boiling up
from the southwest, covering Iraq in an ominous shadow. Farther west, the sky
had turned a dull black from the ground up to 50,000 feet. The sun was a faded
orange smear, barely visible through the curtain of sand.

I glanced around the cockpit again. Adjusting a
setting here, rechecking one there. Along the right console, way in the back, I
had a canvas bag about the size of a shoebox. This held the aircraft's data
cartridge and classified tapes. Once they were loaded, I used the bag for my
water bottle, extra piddle packs, and some food. I unzipped it so, hours later,
I could get inside with one hand. I always looked forward to snack time. Sort of
a reward for surviving.

My fighter dropped through 7,000 feet, and I stole
one more look at the ominous sky around me. The sandstorm was almost here. The
front edge of it had rolled up from the southwest, obscuring everything in a tan
haze. I'd split off my Number Three and Four aircraft and just kept my wingman
orbiting above the target area. There was no need for both of us to be down
here.

“ROMAN . . . RO . . .”

There was panic in the Forward Air Controller's
voice, and I fought back the nearly overwhelming urge to shove the nose forward
and dive into the fight. I wouldn't help them by getting myself killed. If I
could see the ground, it would be different, but the dust made an immediate
attack impossible.

I keyed the mike and spoke clearly and
unemotionally. I hoped a calm, confident voice would do them good, even if I
hardly felt that way myself. Fighter pilots are great actors.

“CHIEFTAIN . . . confirm no friendlies
are on the road. Repeat . . . confirm no friendlies are on the
road.”

“Affirmative! Affirmative . . . all
friendlies . . . road . . . west of the road
. . .”

I zippered in reply, and as the dust swallowed the
jet, I called up my Air-to-Ground weapons display and selected one of the two
AGM-65G infrared Maverick missiles slung beneath my wings.

They were big. About 600 pounds each and able to
precisely guide by tracking contrasts in the heat, or lack of heat, around a
target.

“Sonofabitch
. . .”

I was staring at my display, seeing what the
Maverick saw, and it was crap. Completely washed out, like a TV station that had
gone off the air in a cloud of brown static.

Four thousand feet . . . and five miles
to the target. Not much time.

I quickly switched to the other missile. Same
thing. “Bastard . . .”

The blowing sand wasn't helping, but it wouldn't do
this much damage, and I thumped the glare shield in frustration. I'd been so
busy that I'd forgotten that the sun was going down. IR missiles worked fine at
night, because they basically tracked contrasts, not a visual picture. But for a
few hours on either side of sunset or sunrise, everything was the same
temperature unless it was heated internally. Called diurnal crossover, it was
unavoidable, and it nearly always destroyed the infrared picture. This was
exactly why we used other weapons during those times. But the only other tool I
had was my cannon. That meant getting very low and very close.

But men were dying. Our men.

I strained forward against the ejection-seat
harness and continued down.

Three thousand feet. Four hundred eighty knots and
descending. I was riveted to my radar altimeter, which gave me a digital readout
of my actual height above the ground. A lifesaver at night or in bad weather.
Like now.

Maybe the dust will thin out
lower down
. I took a breath and ignored my thumping heart. It truly
was hammering against my chest. No kidding.

“ROMAN . . . ROMAN . . . the
Rags have crossed the road . . . they're . . . they're
. . .
stand by!
”

“Rags” was politically incorrect shorthand for
raghead
. Meaning the Iraqi Army, in this case. I
tried to lick my lips again but gave up. Pulling the throttle farther back, I
fanned my speed brakes to slow the F-16 down as it passed 2,000 feet.

There!

I blinked several times to make sure I wasn't
hallucinating. Darker brown. Rocks and the ugly, stunted green bushes that
dotted Iraq. Ground!

Immediately staring forward through the HUD, I
centered the steering cues toward the only position I'd been given.

3.3 miles.

I quickly glanced at the Radar Warning Receiver.
Happily, it was empty of any signals from radar-guided missiles or antiaircraft
artillery. Of course, it wouldn't pick up infrared missiles or the few hundred
AK-47s down there, but I'd take what good news I could find.

Leveling the fighter at a thousand feet, I closed
the speed brakes and pushed the throttle enough to hold 400 knots. This gave me
speed to maneuver without sucking down what little gas remained.

“ROMAN . . . they . . .
position . . . between the road and the hill . . .” The
transmission was garbled and riddled with static.

Hill? What hill?

His radio was breaking up badly. Something else to
blame on the approaching sandstorm.

“ . . . anything on the road
. . . repeat . . . kill anything on the road!”

“ROMAN 75 copies.” So, nothing friendly was on the
road, and I had a license to kill.

And there it was.

A winding gray ribbon running north to south. The
edges were irregular and dust swirled over most of it as I angled in from the
southeast. Cranking the jet over, I lined up the steering line on the target.
Staring down at the display above my left knee, I was seeing what the Maverick
missile saw.

Nothing. Not a fucking thing.

As I raised my eyes, the Iraqi column suddenly
appeared out of the muck. Instantly flicking the
dogfight
switch, I called up my cannon symbology and shoved the nose
forward.

But it was too late.

I saw enemy vehicles, several armored personnel
carriers, and lots of running figures as I flashed overhead. What I looked like
to them I couldn't imagine, but the whole area disappeared behind me in about
three seconds.

Jabbing the
MARK
button on the keyboard beneath my HUD, I banked up hard to the west.

“CHIEFTAIN . . . CHIEFTAIN
. . . ROMAN 75 is off west . . . re-attack in ninety seconds
. . . from the north.”

He didn't answer.

Swearing slowly and fluently, I put the target
directly behind me and headed due west. The visibility sucked, but I thought I
saw a rounded bit of higher ground and some movement. It must be the
Marines.

Hang on, guys . . .

The
MARK
point was
just that. When I hit the button, the F-16's computer wizardry marked the point
on the earth I was flying over, like a pin on a map. It generated a latitude and
longitude with steering and distance to the exact position I'd overflown. That
particular function had been created for just this type of situation. I now knew
precisely where the Iraqis were—and how to attack them.

At four miles from the target, I pulled up to 2,000
feet and swept north. I'd fly an arc until I found the road and then attack the
rear of the convoy with my cannon. They'd never see me coming out of the
dust.

“ROMAN Two . . . One on Victor.” I pulled
the throttle back and looked at my dwindling fuel readout.

“Go ahead One.” My wingman was still up there
somewhere, thankfully.

“Call LUGER and have him bring a tanker as far
north as possible. You meet the tanker and stay with him.” LUGER was the
orbiting AWACS. Theoretically, he knew where all the fighters and tankers were
operating at any given time. Theoretically.

“Two copies.” Good man. No questions or chatter.
All he added was, “It's getting a little shitty up here.”

“One copies . . . I need to re-attack.
Get the tanker. You're cleared off.”

I was now truly on my own. But my wingman was
carrying anti-radiation missiles, utterly useless in this situation, so he might
as well go get gas. I didn't expect the tanker to cross into Iraq, but it was
worth a try. Unhooking my sweaty mask so it dangled against my cheek, I glanced
outside.
What I wouldn't give for a drink of
water.

“ROMAN . . . ROMAN this is CHIEFTAIN
. . .” The radios exploded to life again. “ . . . moving
. . . vehicles . . . the road. APCs and trucks
. . . battalion strength . . .”

He was breathless, and as he broke off, I could
hear the clanging of a heavy weapon firing. One of ours, I hoped.

4.2 miles.

The target was now back over my left shoulder and
completely obscured by dust. I was also getting bounced around a bit by the
turbulent winds on the front edge of the storm. Oh, and the ground had
disappeared again.

Fucking terrific.

But I couldn't wait any longer. Racking the fighter
up, I pulled a hard, quick five-G turn and came around heading southeast. I knew
I'd be angling in over the road, but maybe if the Iraqis saw me, they'd leave
the Marines alone for a few minutes.

Rolling out, I called up the gun symbology and
rehooked the oxygen mask.

“CHIEFTAIN . . . ROMAN is in from the
north . . . thirty seconds.”

“ROMAN . . . God's . . . hurr
. . .”

And he broke off again
. For
God's sake hurry.

I'm coming buddy . . . hang on.

Anger lanced through me and my fatigue vanished.
There were American Marines down there fighting for their lives. Guys like me
from towns like mine. Men with mothers and girlfriends and kids of their
own.