Collateral Damage (22 page)

“Negative. Hold your position.”

“Shooter One acknowledges. Holding position.”

“We oughta take a ‘low-and-slow' and see what's up,” said Grizzly. “Just let them know we're here. At least shake 'em up a bit.”

“Negative,” snapped Ginella. “Just do what they want.”

“I wasn't saying I was going to do it.”

“Silent coms,” she told him.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I have a vehicle on the road, two vehicles,” said Coop. “You see these, Colonel?”

“Yes, roger that,” said Ginella. “Groundhog, be advised we're seeing two pickup trucks with people in the truck beds. They're approaching the road to your village.”

“Splash them.”

“Negative, Groundhog. That's not in my ROEs.”

The ROEs—rules of engagement—permitted the Hogs to shoot at a target only if it presented an imminent danger to friendly forces or themselves. In this case, the men in the trucks would have to be firing at the commandos to justify aggressive action.

“We don't need company,” said Groundhog.

“Understood, Groundhog. But we're limited by our orders.”

Turk expected the British soldier to tell them what they could do with their orders. But he didn't reply.

“Coop, follow me down,” she said.

The two Hogs dove toward the roadway, dropping precipitously. They rode in over the pickup trucks, accelerating and jerking away.

Ginella's idea was clear—she was putting the fear of God, or rather Hogs, into them.

The trucks sped up, continuing past the turnoff for the village.

The two jets cleared north and came back around.

“I'm getting close to bingo,” said Coop.

“Acknowledged,” said Ginella. “Groundhog, what's your status?”

“Working toward the mosque,” he replied.

“Do you have resistance?”

“Negative.”

They took a few more turns. Finally, Ginella admitted the inevitable.

“Groundhog, my wingmate and I are going to refuel. I'm turning you over to Shooter Three and Shooter Four. You'll be in good hands.”

“Affirmative. Thanks, mate.”

Ten minutes later the SAS trooper radioed that they were going inside the mosque. He asked the two planes to fly over “loud and low”—exactly the distraction Grizzly had thought of earlier.

“We're on the way,” said Grizzly. “Ten seconds.”

Turk came in off Grizzly's right wing, his head swiveling as he searched the ground for some sign of resistance, or even life. The small village seemed completely deserted, with no one on the streets. Ordinarily the small towns had goats, dogs, or other animals wandering about. He saw nothing.

The two planes circled left, pulling up around one of the small hills. As they did, Turk caught a glint off something to his right. He raised himself in the seat, looking back over his shoulder.

“Hey, I think we got those trucks coming back,” he told Grizzly. “Got something on the road.”

“What is it?”

“Turning.”

Turk circled back to get a better look at the trucks. Grizzly contacted the airborne controller, trying to see if the Predator overhead could shift closer for an image. He then tried to contact Groundhog directly, to check on their status.

The Brits said only that they were “good.” By then the trucks had gone off the main highway, moving in a direct line toward the road that led to the village.

“Those the same trucks as before?” Grizzly asked.

“Can't tell,” said Turk. “What about the Predator?”

“The trucks are a little far from the road for the Predator to spot. He has to stay eyes on the village.”

“By the time they're in range they'll be in the hills.” The geography would make it harder to watch the trucks there.

“Let's get in their faces,” said Grizzly. “See if we can run them off like before. I'll come in first. They fire at me, light them up.”

“Yeah, all right. Roger that.”

Grizzly led him south before banking and pushing down, his nose angling toward the pickups. Turk waited, giving the other plane enough of a head start so he could react if he saw anything. He tucked down, pushing the Hog through 1,500 feet and picking up speed.

He was on the back of a sleek stallion. The engines rushed behind him, a steady whoosh. He edged his finger on the trigger of the gun, double-checking the panel to make sure the weapon was ready.

The two trucks were no more than thirty yards apart. The lead vehicle was just reaching the road to the village as Shooter Three came in ahead of him, low.

Something winked below Grizzly's A–10.

Gunfire?

Turk couldn't tell if it was a muzzle flash or just a reflection from the sun.

Another glint. A flash.

Weapon. Guns. MANPAD!

“Flares! Evade!” yelled Turk, warning the other plane even as he pressed the trigger to zero out the threat.

The big gun in the nose of the A–10 began rotating. The force of the cannon was so intense that it seemed to hold the Warthog up in the sky. The burst lasted not quite two seconds, but in that time, somewhere over one hundred rounds burst from the gun. Nearly every one hit the truck—or would have, if there was truck left there to hit. The heavy slugs tore the front of the truck in half, igniting a huge fireball and vaporizing a good portion of the vehicle.

“Missile in the air!” yelled Grizzly.

Turk's warning system was bleating as well, but he was too focused to pay attention. He leaned his body left and the jet followed, moving quickly as he lined up his second shot. He was a little too close to get more than a few slugs into the truck before he passed it, but they were more than enough to stop the vehicle.

Turk dished flares and turned hard right, himself a target now. Gravity hit him in the side of the face and chest. He felt the bladders in his flight gear pushing hard against his stomach and his legs. The Hog floated a bit, moving sideways as it struggled to sort out the conflicting demands of gravity and its pilot's will.

The peak of the hill loomed dead ahead, a jagged slag of red and brown.

“Power, baby,” Turk said, his hand already slamming the throttle. “Power.”

The Hog's nose pulled up and the aircraft lifted in the sky, almost hopping over the hilltop.

He felt weightless. He wasn't sure what had been launched at him. He was afraid it was on his tail.

“ECMs,” he said, momentarily reacting as if he were in the Tigershark. He recovered quickly, hitting the panel to activate the electronic countermeasures—a fancy name for a radar jammer.

The Hog continued to climb for a few more seconds before Turk realized that whatever had been launched had missed. Either it had been sucked off by the flares or was unguided to begin with, just a rocket-propelled grenade. He banked back around.

The first truck was hidden by steam and smoke. The second was sitting on the side of the road.

He had it on his nose. He glanced up, locating Shooter Three on his left wing at about ten o'clock, coming up from the south.

“I'm going in on that second truck,” Turk called on the radio.

“Roger that.”

“You OK?”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm good, I'm good. Go for it—I got your six.”

The truck was fat in his windscreen. The men on the ground were firing at him—Turk could see their muzzles blinking.

One of his missiles would have wiped out all of the men, but he wanted to save them for the SAS unit. And in any event, he'd already made up his mind on how he was going to attack.

The truck grew large in his pipper. He pressed the trigger, spitting a steady stream of spent uranium into it.

The vehicle disappeared beneath a cloud of smoke. Turk cleared south.

“We're good, we're good,” said Grizzly. “Hold south of the village.”

“We need to move back east in case we have to run into the village,” said Turk.

“Yeah, all right, you're right. Good—let's get there. Follow me.”

As they pushed their aircraft back into a position that would make it easier to support the ground units, Groundhog checked in, asking what was going on.

“Just smoked two pickups that fired on us,” reported Grizzly.

“Copy.”

“What's your situation?”

“We're going through the building.”

“You have subject?”

“Negative.”

“We're standing by.”

“Copy, Shooter.”

The brief engagement had been more physical than Turk realized. His arms and upper body felt as if he'd been in a boxing or MMA fight, sore and drained.

But his breathing was calm. The action had relaxed him.

Groundhog reported that there were people on the street.

“A lot of watchers,” said the British soldier.

“Threatening?” asked Grizzly.

“Negative. Just watchers. We're moving to your south.”

A minute or two later he called back.

“We're on the street,” said Groundhog. “Can you take a pass?”

“Stand by.”

“I'm with you,” Turk told Grizzly.

“Follow me through. Same game plan.”

“Let's make it fast,” said Turk. “We don't want to push our luck.”

“No shit on that.”

Turk dropped the Hog through four hundred feet as he came down. Grizzly was another hundred feet lower. He dropped to two hundred feet as they came over the village. Turk worried his wingman would plow into the buildings or the nearby hill, but he cleared them and rose south.

The flyover lasted only a few seconds, but each moment was a full day, weighted with tension. Turk looked left and right, heart pounding. He saw the broken edges of the roof tiles, a half-eroded garden wall on the largest house, a car that had lost its tires.

And he saw the tops of heads ducking, a bald man, two startled teenagers, a woman white with fear.

He punched the throttle, powering away.

“Wooo-hoo,” said Grizzly as they climbed. “You see that crowd?”

“Copy.”

“Weapons?”

Turk had to think about what he had seen. People moving, standing. Weapons?

None that he remembered. He tried processing it again.

“Negative. Not even rifles,” he added.

“You sure?”

“I think so. You see something?”

“No.” Grizzly sounded disappointed.

Groundhog began squawking. They were calling the helicopters in for a pickup.

“We're moving to the south side of town,” said the SAS soldier. “Do you copy, Shogun Six?”

“Shogun Six copies.”

“Point is marked as Landing Four on your map. It's behind a low wall.”

“Affirmative. We copy.”

Turk spotted the two helicopters flying from the north, crossing in a wide arc west of the hamlet. They were aiming at a field behind a large building.

“Got people in that building,” said the helicopter pilot.

“Are they aggressive?” asked the controller. “Weapons?”

“I just see people.”

A three-way conversation between the helicopters, the controller, and the ground unit ensued. The voices were quick and sharp as the men tried to determine whether the people in the building constituted a threat. No weapons had been spotted, and the ROEs declared that they be left alone. That seemed to be a relief to all concerned, especially the ground unit.

As a precaution, Turk noted the building. He could blast it with a missile if necessary.

The dozen members of Groundhog hopscotched down the street toward the landing point. Turk could see knots of people moving roughly parallel to the soldiers.

“A lot of people down here,” said Groundhog.

“We want to keep them as far back from the helicopters as possible,” said Shogun. “More Hog psyops.”

The helicopters touched down. The Brits fell into a dead run.

They were still twenty or thirty yards away when one of the helicopters jerked upward.

“Gun! Gun!” yelled someone over the radio.

Turk, about a half mile east of the pickup area, strained to see what was going on.

Grizzly radioed Groundhog and Shogun but got no answer. Bits of smoke appeared in a line on the ground about a hundred yards from the pickup area, near the village.

“Shogun's firing,” said Grizzly.

“Hold back,” warned Turk. “Helicopter is circling.”

Turk had to bank to give the chopper room. Smoke spread across the field. It looked like something from a smoke grenade rather than gunfire.

“Groundhog? Groundhog!” said Grizzly. “Say your situation. What the hell is going on?”

The first helicopter circled south, ramping upward. The second helicopter remained on the ground.

“I don't see any gunfire,” said Turk.

“I can take out that building,” said Grizzly.

“Negative, negative,” said Turk. “There's nothing coming from there. Hold off.”

The blades on the second helicopter began rotating furiously. The helicopter rose upward, cutting across a thick fist of smoke.

“We're good, we're good,” Groundhog said. “All recovered.”

Turk lost sight of the helicopter as it passed behind him, flying northeastward. He found Grizzly on his left and followed him upward, climbing away from the village.

Barely two minutes had passed since the ground element began running for the choppers. It had been a tangle of confusion, at least from Turk's point of view. He tried sorting it in his mind: the helicopter that lifted off had seen people coming and decided to hold them off with gunfire that missed but scared people away. The other chopper made the pickup, the trooper tossing smoke grenades behind to cover their retreat.

Simple. Assuming that was the way it went. It was hard to decipher even the most obvious action in combat.

The helicopters arced northward, getting away from the village. Turk started thinking about the long flight home—and how long he would sleep once he reached the hotel.