in the jump seat, looking down at the satellite photos of the missile base at Xuanhua, studying by the illumination of the IR light on his goggles, looking for information he might have missed on first and twenty-first inspection. He was confident in his men. Chavez had turned into a fine tactical leader, and the troops, experienced sergeants all, would do what they were told to the extent of their considerable abilities.
The Russians in the other helicopters would do okay, too, he thought. Younger—by eight years on average—than the RAINBOW troopers, they were all commissioned officers, mainly lieutenants and captains with a leavening of a few majors, and all were university graduates, well educated, and that was almost as good as five years in uniform. Better yet, they were well motivated young professional soldiers, smart enough to think on their feet, and proficient in their weapons.
The mission should work, John thought. He leaned to check the clock on the helicopter’s instrument panel. Forty minutes and they’d find out. Turning around, he noticed the eastern sky was lightening, according to his goggles. They’d hit the missile field just before dawn.
It was a stupidly easy mission for the Black Jets. Arriving overhead singly, about thirty seconds apart, each opened its bomb bay doors and dropped two weapons, ten seconds apart. Each pilot, his plane controlled by its automatic cruising system, put his laser dot on a preplanned section of the runway. The bombs were the earliest Paveway-II guidance packages bolted to Mark-84 2,000-pound bombs with cheap-$7.95 each, in fact—M905 fuses set to go off a hundredth of a second after impact, so as to make a hole in the concrete about twenty feet across by nine feet deep. And this all sixteen of them did, to the shocked surprise of the sleepy tower crew, and with enough noise to wake up every person within a five-mile radius—and just that fast, Anshan fighter base was closed, and would remain so for at least a week. The eight F-117s turned singly and made their way back to their base at Zhigansk. Flying the Black Jet wasn’t supposed to be any more exciting than driving a 737 for Southwest Airlines, and for the most part it wasn’t.
Why the hell didn’t they send one of those Dark Stars down to cover the mission?” Jack asked.
“I suppose it never occurred to anybody,” Jackson said. They were back in the situation room.
“What about satellite overheads?”
“Not this time,” Ed Foley advised. “Next pass over is in about four hours. Clark has a satellite phone. He’ll clue us in.”
“Great.” Ryan leaned back in a chair that suddenly wasn’t terribly comfortable.
Objective in sight,” Boyle said over the intercom. Then the radio. ”BANDIT SIX to chicks, objective in sight. Check in, over.”
“Two.” “Three.” “Four.” “Five.” “Six.” “Seven.” “Eight.” “Nine.” “Ten.”
“COCHISE, check in.”
“This is COCHISE LEADER with five, we have the objective.”
“Crook with five, objective in sight,” the second attack-helicopter team reported.
“Okay, move in as briefed. Execute, execute, execute!”
Clark was perked up now, as were the troops in the back. Sleep was shaken off, and adrenaline flooded into their bloodstreams. He saw them shake their heads and flex their jaws. Weapons were tucked in tight, and every man moved his left hand to the twist-dial release fitting on the belt buckle.
COCHISE flight went in first, heading for the barracks of the security battalion tasked to guard the missile base. The building could have been transported bodily from any WWII American army base—a two-story wood-frame construction, with a pitched roof, and painted white. There was a guard shack outside, also painted white, and it glowed in the thermal sights of the Apache gunners. They could even see the two soldiers there, doubtless approaching the end of their duty tour, standing slackly, their weapons slung over their shoulders, because nobody ever came out here, rarely enough during the day, and never in living memory at night—unless you counted the battalion commander coming back drunk from a command-staff meeting.
Their heads twisted slightly when they thought they heard something strange, but the four-bladed rotor on the Apache was also designed for sound suppression, and so they were still looking when they saw the first flash—
—the weapons selected were the 2.75-inch-diameter free-flight rockets, carried in pods on the Apaches’ stub wings. Three of the section of five handled the initial firing run, with two in reserve should the unexpected develop. They burned in low, so as to conceal their silhouettes in the hills behind them, and opened up