The Lucifer Crusade (38 page)

He knew immediately that they would have to perform what had to be the most difficult maneuver in warfare: landing on a carrier that was under attack.

Soon they could see the carrier off in the distance and sure enough a fight was going full tilt. The Soviet Hind helicopters - more than three dozen of them -were buzzing around the carrier like bees. A wall of defensive fire was being thrown up at them by the Spanish Rocketeers, the French Catling team, and the AA crews on the Norwegian frigates. Hunter knew that, somehow, they would have to

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dodge all that fire and lead and set their airplanes down.

The five jets roared into the middle of the battle, surprising the attacking Hinds. A melee broke out, with the Hinds dropping down to a lower attack level, and the jets following them. Hunter dispatched two of the choppers instantly courtesy of his two remaining Sidewinders. One of the Viggens blasted another Hind with a cannon burst. The scattering choppers made easier targets for the Rocketeers and the Phalanx crews. Several more enemy choppers were downed.

But still there were at least twenty-five more Hinds pressing the attack.

Hunter could see more than a few fires burning on the carrier, and one of the frigates was burning out of control. The Moroccan troopship, docked on the eastern side of the waterway, was also burning.

Hunter shot down another Hind, but now there were buzzers and lights going off all over his cockpit control panel. He wasn't just" low on fuel -he was running out. He radioed the four airplanes to check on their fuel supply. He determined that the two Tornados would have to go in first, then the 16. The Viggens could stay up just a little longer and give them covering fire.

The first Tornado landed without much trouble - concentrated fire from the Rocketeers held off the Hinds long enough for the British jet to set down. But the second jet ran into trouble immediately.

As the plane was making its final approach, a Hind shot an air-to-surface missile at one of the frigates. The missile crossed right in front of the slow-moving jet, clipping its nose and forcing the pilot to abort the landing.

Its nose smoking, the pilot had trouble controlling the airplane. As Hunter 379

watched, the jet shot straight up, its engine straining. An opportunistic Hind laced the plane with a burst of cannon fire. The pilot ejected. Seconds later the airplane exploded. "Damn!" Hunter seethed. "There goes another one!"

Now it was his turn to land. He made his way through the buzzing Hinds and the smoke, rockets' glare, and AA fire and set the 16 down. The deck was a scene of mass confusion. The deck hands were struggling to get the first Tornado onto the carrier elevator to get it safely to the hangar area.

In the meantime, the Spanish rocketmen were launching missile after antiaircraft missile at the attacking helicopters. The French-manned Phalanx super-machine guns were going off with businesslike regularity. Even the Moroccan troops on the eastern side and the Aussie-Gurkha force on the western side were getting into the act. They were launching Stinger missiles and firing at the Hinds with their rifles. The action was as intense as anything Hunter had ever seen. Yet, despite all the danger, the BBC crew was rushing about the deck, recording all the action on video.

Two deck monkeys rushed up to Hunter. "No time to take it down," he yelled to them. "Fuel me up right here! And load up the cannons! Hurry! Those Viggens got about ten minutes of fuel left and then they're coming in!"

The two monkeys were joined by five others and together they broke the record for servicing the F-16. Within five minutes he had a full tank and about eighty percent ammo for his Six Pack. Then he and the monkeys literally pushed the 16 to the catapult and hooked it up.

All the while the confusion of the battle swirled around them.

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"You got a bad fuel leak on your starboard, major!" one of the monkeys yelled to him.

"I know," Hunter yelled back, climbing back into the cockpit. "But I don't have time to worry about it now!"

He strapped in and immediately fired up the engine. His instruments went "hot" in forty-five seconds and he was ready to go. The deck officer, ducking the debris from a near-miss explosion, gave Hunter the go sign. The next thing he knew, he was , thrown back against the seat of the 16 as it rocketed ' off the deck.

*

He immediately found himself on the tail of two Hinds as they swooped in to attack one of the frigates. He twisted once, then sent a long stream of cannon fire into one of the tail rotors. The chopper immediately broke up, spun out to the right, and smashed into its partner. The midair collision caused a spectacular explosion. As one, the two burning choppers fell into the water.

Then Hunter saw one of the Viggens get it. Three Hinds had ganged up on the slow-moving Swedish fighter as it was coming in for a landing. The airplane was simply obliterated by a concentration of cannon fire. Hunter immediately started pumping cannon fire back at the trio of Hinds, scattering them and allowing the remaining Viggen to set down.

Finally, the Hinds started to back off. Hunter got two more as they were fleeing off to the south, and a Moroccan Stinger team took down two more. Just in time too, as it turned out, for seven aircraft from the second attack force, plus the two Jags, were now returning to land on the carrier.

These pilots had bad news. Not only had three of their jets-two Viggens and a Tornado-been

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downed. They also reported that a large combined land and sea force was moving toward the carrier.

"Three battleships are just twenty miles away, coming on fast," one of the pilots told Hunter as he orbited above the carrier. "Also, there are at least ten divisions coming up on the eastern side. Lucifer landed a bunch of his troops and they got transport."

Ten divisions. That meant more than 150,000 men. If they were on trucks, they'd be in the area soon. So would the approaching battleships.

And Hunter knew, in his gut, that Lucifer was on one of those battleships . .

.

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The Moroccan troop commander looked out over the trench line and saw a nightmare.

Focusing his electronic binoculars, he at first thought the vision was a mirage. But as it became clearer he realized that what lay before him wasn't a trick of the sun. "Allah have mercy on us," he whispered.

There were more than 100,000 foot soldiers heading right for his line. He knew by reports from the carrier planes that there were 50,000 more troops somewhere behind those he saw. He looked at his own troops -all 7500 of them.

They had battled the Hinds fiercely -now they would battle this approaching enemy with the same tenacity.

"Troop, attention!" the commander yelled. His soldiers all the way down the lines were suddenly bolt upright. The commander then stood up, a sword in hand, and yelled: "Troop, forward!"

Hunter had seen the approaching troops of Lucifer's army too, through binoculars from the very top

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of the carrier's conning tower.

He had been forced to land shortly after the Hinds departed the battle area, as the fuel leak in his wing had grown worse. Now, he was having the quickest patch job on record being done on the fighter. He had told the monkeys to forget about the nicks and dings on the 16's nose and canopy and the fact that more than half his avionics was not working. "Just get it in flying condition," he had told them.

The carrier was in rough shape, he knew it. A quick conversation with Yaz confirmed it. "All our work," Yaz had said, "half of it went down the drain when the Hinds attacked."

Many sailors had been killed or wounded in the attack. Heath had taken a cannon shell directly on his shoulder and was now wearing bandages rivaling those of Sir Neil. To his credit, Sir Neil had stayed on the bridge throughout the attack, directing the carrier's defenses, an effort that brought down more than half of the attacking Soviet choppers.

But the Saratoga itself had paid dearly. The catapult was just barely working, as it had taken several direct rocket hits from the Hinds. The carrier's communications room was in a shambles, and O'Brien was having trouble just keeping the controls working in case the carrier should have to move quickly.

Power was again intermittent, and they were running out of ammunition of all kinds.

One question that Yaz posed to Hunter was why the Hinds didn't attack the oiler or the supertanker filled with volatile jet fuel. Hunter knew why.

"Because the Hinds were under Soviet command," he told him. "Their orders were to attack the carrier and the frigates and that's what they did. There's no freedom of thought in the Soviet military. Just

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follow orders, even though, in a military sense, a well-placed rocket into the supertanker would have blown us all sky high. And they would have been rid of us. But they are too rigid, too robotic."

Now, as Hunter watched the Moroccan troops, he felt another kind of military strategy take over. That of self-sacrifice . . .

Although he couldn't believe it at first, he watched the Moroccans climb out of their trenches and, with bayonets on their rifles, walk out on the desert and toward the approaching multitude of enemy troops. ,

"Christ . . ." Hunter said in awe of the Moroc^ cans. He knew the advance was suicide, but there was nothing to be done. No airplanes from the carrier could take off in time to help them. Not that . it would have done much, so overwhelming were the odds against the brave desert fighters. He knew the Moroccans believed strongly in freedom. They were the most vocal anti-Lucifer element in the flotilla. Now they were sacrificing themselves in order to sting the madman's Legion:

" 'Into the jaws of Hell . . .' " Hunter whispered. As he watched, the Moroccans slowly walked into the cloud of dust being raised by the approaching enemy troops. Soon the air crackled with the sound of gunfire. He could see explosions rising up as the two forces clashed. He could almost hear the cacophony of shouts that usually accompanies fierce hand-to-hand combat.

It was over in a matter of thirty minutes. He saw the Moroccans had stopped the Legion advance, at least temporarily. But he was also sure there were no Moroccan survivors.

Things got worse. Now there was a new threat on the horizon. He could see the smokestack trails of four major ships sailing up the Canal. These were 385

the battleships. Above them flew an escort of at least two dozen Hinds.

"Fuck it," Hunter said, climbing down from his perch. He was going to get airborne whether the 16 was ready or not.

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One by one the aircraft launched off the Saratoga. Many of the pilots knew it was for the last time/ Hunter had assigned half the remaining jets to bomb and strafe the approaching Legion troops, the other half-his F-16 included -would take on the Hinds and the battleships.

The battle lasted for more than two hours. The swirling dogfight between the slow but maneuverable Hinds and the supersonic jet fighters was both incredible and bizarre. The missile-firing Soviet choppers got the worst of it, "to be sure. But it had turned into another numbers game. Despite the best efforts of the fighter pilots, there were so many Hinds that some inevitably got through and were able to deliver devastating blows to the Saratoga and the frigates. Luckily, by this time the supertanker and the oiler had withdrawn further up the Canal.

Hunter was in the thick of it, blasting endless waves of choppers. When the opportunity presented itself, he strafed the lead battleship for good measure.

The jets attacking the Legion ground troops had succeeded in mauling the soldiers to such a point they temporarily retreated. Now these planes joined the air battle above and around the carrier. But then, as if on cue, more Hinds appeared.

Hunter felt a chill run through him. There were

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just too many Hinds and they were attacking with suicidal ferocity.

Suddenly his radio crackled. "Flight Ops to F-16," the caller said. Hunter instantly recognized it as Sir Neil.

"Go ahead, Flight Ops."

"Hunter, we are really taking a beating here," the British Commander began. "I can't risk any more lives in this . . ."

Hunter then waited for the words he thought he'd never hear from Sir Neil.

"I'm giving the order to abandon ship," the Brit said slowly. Even through the impersonal radio speaker, the pain was evident in the man's voice.

Hunter was stunned. He knew that, in the strictest military sense, the time to withdraw was long ago. But this was not a true battle in the strictest military sense. Wasn't this a crusade? With a sense of purpose? How can one retreat from that?

But Hunter knew that Sir Neil was giving the order simply to stop the bloodshed. The Canal was now so blocked up with wreckage, both around Ismailia and at its southern entrance, that it would be a slow process indeed to move Lucifer's huge fleet up and out of the waterway. The Saratoga's mission was thus complete. Perhaps if The Modern Knights arrived on time, they would meet Lucifer's ground forces just as they reached the northern end of the Canal, or even before that. Hunter knew the battle that would take place then would make this "holding action" look like a squirt-gun fight.

Sir Neil continued the transmission: "Can you hold them off until we get most of the people ashore, Hunter?"

"You can count on it," Hunter replied.

So this is how it ends, the pilot thought, watching the sea battle continue in the narrow confines of the Canal. So typically British. Magnificence in defeat

The word was passed on the carrier to evacuate. Now Heath's job was to get everyone off. And quick. Emma, Clara, and the high-class call girls were the first to go, transported in life rafts to the western side of the waterway, where they were put under the protection of the combined Aussie-Gurkha force.

The ship's many wounded went next, then the surviving Italian, French and Spanish mercenaries, and then Yaz's sailors.

/-•

Back in the air, Hunter knew his pilots were running low on fuel and ammo. In addition, the Legion troops had been reinforced, and now they had reached the area of the Canal opposite where the big ship lay. They began mortaring the carrier, despite two of the frigates blasting them with their deck guns.