G.I. BABY (24 page)

“I’ll wait for you,” she said, barely a whisper. But it resonated inside him.

It was her who cut the call.

He leaned over on the table and rested his head on his arm.

It was true what a lot of his comrades had lamented one too many times while on tour. He used to scoff at them. Not any more.

Love made men soft.

Worse, it made battle-hardened soldiers fear death.

CHAPTER
15

TODAY WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY.
 

Craig stared at the cloudless sky for a few seconds, marveling at the unusual shade of blue blanketing the horizon. It seemed too lovely to go to war today.

Funny thought. Pansy-ass. Getting worse, too.

It WAS war everyday in these parts, lovely day or not.

The techs saluted as he approached the Eagle. He gave the “as you were” salute and boarded the plane.

It was another team of four fighters today. Their mission: Hit high-value targets in Raqqa. This made him nervous as shit. Bombing heavily populated areas was his pet-peeve.

But orders were orders.

He was just a soldier following orders.

Minutes later, his pack was cruising over Raqqa at 35-thousand feet.

Strange but the Muj had no SAM party to greet them today as they came within radar-range. His HUD was clean. The RWR was quiet as a corpse.

This was good, but his instinct was telling him something else.

He asked the AWACS for a radar sweep of the city.

It came negative of SAMs.

To presume that they’d wiped out all the SAM sites from their previous attacks would be foolish. But why were there no radar signals today?

His pack did a recon over Raqqa before flying near the target coordinates.

“All Greco players, advise SAM sites, over.” Greco was the codename of his team today.

“Greco Two here. No joy on any SAM or Triple Alphas, over.”

Three and Four reported the same.

Really strange but they had a mission to carry out.

“Alright, Grecos, let’s move it. Dropping down to 10K, going for Target 1, over,”

His team followed their mission plan.

They maintained formation as each executed their tasks. It was easy when no SAMs were ruining their timetable.

“I have joy on Target 1. Moving closer to 5K. Greco Three, proceed to Target 2. Greco Four, cover me, over and out. ”

He dove to five-thousand feet to get a better visual of his target, a building that Special Ops reported was being used as storage for the ISIL’s money. You got that right. Since they couldn’t move much legally, they stored their oil black market sales inside heavily fortified buildings and would probably get it laundered at a future date. Who knew how those fuckers cleaned their ill-gotten money?

BEEP…BEEP…BEEP!

It was so quiet that the sound of the RWR made him jump despite being strapped securely to his seat. That didn’t sound good. It was telling him a SAM was locked on him. Where was it, he didn’t know yet. What was it…the symbol was not showing what generation missile it was.

Shit. He knew it was too good to be true.

——*****——

Richard was fretful today.
Andi was worried as he’d been crying intermittently. She didn’t know if he was gassy or something else was ailing him. Bella went home for the weekend and she was alone in the apartment. Greta would arrive to stay the nights with her after her day job at her Auntie Frida’s cleaning service.

The baby started crying again. She carried it and danced around the room, but Richard won’t sleep. He was kicking his small legs against her arm.

Then she saw it. Her baby had tears in his eyes.

What did it mean? Was her baby hurting?

She called Bella.

“Has he burped?”

“Yes. He even pooped minutes ago. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, Bella. Maybe he’s hurt?”

“Don’t panic. Check his diaper. Maybe it’s itchy, too tight. It could be any of those irritating things for the baby.”

“Okay. I’ll call you again soon.”

“Okay, hun.”

She put the baby on the bed and stripped him of his diaper, checking for irritants. She found nothing unusual.

She put powder on his body then put back his little clothes on.

She tried to feed him but he won’t take her nipple. She was at a loss what to do so she took her phone and played one of Craig’s voice records. He’d recorded several clips where he was talking to the baby, and one where he was singing.

Craig singing? Who knew?

Richard stopped fretting and lay still as his ears caught Craig’s voice from the phone’s speaker. He paid attention and made cooing sounds as his father talked to him.

“Are you missing, Daddy, sweetie? It’s not only you who’s missing him, you know? Mommy too.”

She played all the voice recordings until the baby slept.

It just dawned on her.

Why in hell did Craig record his voice for his son?

She didn’t want to think of his reasons.

——*****——

The missile came out of nowhere.
He didn’t see it get launched from the ground. Maybe it got fired from the sky?

He didn’t want to even think that. There can only be one player capable of doing that and he didn’t think Russia would be audacious enough to nip the US in the ass in the middle of the Syrian Civil War. Not that it would be beyond them.
 

Hypersonic missiles were so advanced. They can evade radars until it was too close and then it would be too late to shake them off as they had gathered speed as fast as a jet’s or even faster. They can go as fast as Mach 10. These weapons were being developed by the US, Russia, China and all the other big players in world domination but nobody had actually used one in any war yet. First, they were too expensive and second, if used extensively, it would definitely decimate the entire planet in no time. Even the ones at the highest seats of power didn’t want that kind of war, where nobody would gain.
 

This bitch behind him was fast, cruising steadily at Mach 1.5. It was locked on him and wouldn’t let go. Could it be hypersonic? He hoped not. His plane can only fly at Mach 2.5 max. As it was, he had already kicked in the afterburners.

He had no choice but to leave his men to finish the mission, shoot away from Raqqa, hoping to wear out the missile’s airspeed and lure it out of its radar control range.

Fat chance.
 

He went above the clouds, doing
 
a combination of loops and rolls that tested his resilience against G-force, but it was still on him even at 35-thousand feet.

Fuck, missiles that can go this high? He’d never encountered one.

This was bad. VERY bad.

“Any Rogue in the area, this is
 
Greco One. Uncategorized SAM on my tail. Most probably Hyper. Can’t shake it off. Need assistance ASAP. Over.”

“Rogue Five here, 25 miles. Send data, over.”

He was relieved to hear a Raptor pilot respond immediately.

“Rogue Five, no can do. Uncategorized. SAM cruising at Mach 1.8. Can’t shake it off, over.”

“Tracking you, Greco One. Maintain airspeed. Coming your way, over.”

Sweat trickled down his forehead.

He was flying faster than a bullet but everything seemed so slow.

He was in serious trouble. He knew it.

How long can his fuel last when the afterburners were wasting it fast?

Not long.
 

A few minutes.

Was that enough time for the Raptor to get to him before the missile accelerated and overtook him? The Raptor was not hypersonic but its cruise control ability at its maximum speed could cover distances in less time far more than the Eagle could.
 

He gave a quick glance at his family. Andi and Richard in one frame. Bella and the twins on the other. If these would be his last minutes alive, their faces would be the last images in his fading mind and disintegrating body.

“Greco One, Rogue Five at your 3 o’clock. I got joy on the SAM. My deets say Hyper. Chinese.”

Chinese? What the fuck…?! What were the fucking Chinese doing in the skies of Syria? They had no business here. “What do we do, brother? It’s too fast. Tried everything. Won’t leave me alone.”

“I’ve locked on it. You just need to get out of the way fast enough before I fire. No time to waste, brother.”

His hands were clammy now. “Can I get away fast enough?”

“You have no choice. Fucker’s accelerating now. Shit, you have to do it now! Firing in ten seconds!”

“Up or down?!”

“Down! Release decoys as you go!”

He slammed on a button on top of the throttle to release his countermeasures as he pulled the plane on a vertical nose dive, spinning at almost maximum speed. This was a maneuver he’d done a few times while evading SAMs but not at Mach 2. His universe exploded with the shock of G-force unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.

Lord God, help me. I wanna see my son again. Wanna hold my woman again. Wanna live. Please, Go——od!!!

He was barely aware of Rogue Five shouting “Firing now!”

A breath later,
 
he felt the impact of the missile exploding just 100 meters away. The plane felt like it got caught in a twister of fire. But he was still in one piece, not a confetti of flesh and bones.
 

His brain seemed to be imploding as he struggled to right the plane. He didn’t evade getting fried by a hypersonic missile only to crash out of control to the ground. He was a thousand feet from doing exactly that. Roughly ten seconds. Or less.

This baby was 30 fucking million dollars! He won’t eject until the last second!

Fool! Eject now now now!

He shouted, manhandling the throttle until the plane was horizontal.

He was flying parallel to the ground now, albeit upside down, 200 feet from death or 3 seconds.

“You okay, Greco one?” he heard Rogue Five inquire.

He had never been happier to be alive.
 
He flipped the plane on its belly again. “Tango, Rogue Five. I owe you, brother.”

Then he saw his fuel level. Almost zero.

His plane was dropping, after all. But he won’t crash it, at least. It might sustain some damage but it can be salvaged.

He looked for a landing site. No problem. It was all fucking sand for miles on end.

After calling mayday and relaying his location coordinates to Rogue Five, he managed to land the Eagle as gently as he could.

But these parts of Syria were no place for any American to be in. Especially an American soldier.

Ten minutes later, a score of men brandishing Kalashnikovs surrounded him. The now famous black flag with white Arabic texts billowed ominously above them.

Best example of irony if he ever heard one.

His plane might have landed safely in one piece.

He had not and might just become a YouTube sensation tomorrow. In two pieces.

CHAPTER
16