True Valor (27 page)

“For now, no. What really bothers me is the fact the news-paper is five days old. Has the problem abated? grown worse? Syria isn’t going to let experts come in to check unless it’s to their political advantage.”

“What we understand about Syria could be sketched on a napkin.” Not for the first time she wondered what Wolf and the SEALs had been doing in Syria last year. Something was brewing in there, and it looked more and more likely it would be her problem before it was over.

Thirty

* * *

EASTERN TURKEY

The mountain range that sliced through eastern Turkey and northern Iraq was jagged peaks and deep ravines, the echoes on radar making Gracie cautious if not nervous. It was the type of terrain where a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile could leap toward her with no warning. Her thumb moved on the stick to rest on the weapons select switch.

She kept her eyes scanning the terrain as they crossed through the mountain pass at eighteen thousand feet and felt relief as the ground ahead flattened. She hated mountains. They hid dangers, made the weather unpredictable, and gave no place to execute an emergency landing.

The navigation markers lit, and she changed course south, following the markers she had preset, staying tucked in tight beside Thunder. They would be out of the mountains of eastern Turkey and over the deserts of Iraq in minutes.

On the radar she could see the distinctive V of three blips and the return codes of the interrogating IFF transponders. Two Pave Hawks and a Pave Low III helicopter flew close to the ground. They were heading across the valley to the southwest. A rescue mission. “Go, boys, go,” Gracie whispered, watching the blips. “I wish you every success.”

She wondered briefly what had happened, for there had been no emergency calls over the radio channels she monitored, and the absence of Turkish fighter cover in the area suggested it was not a pilot in trouble. Rebels were active in these districts of Turkey—maybe another bombing.

Gracie followed the helicopters on radar until they dis-appeared back into the ground clutter. She toggled radar back to the look-down feed she was receiving from the high altitude AWACs. The best defense was to see trouble coming a long time before it arrived.

OPERATION NORTHERN WATCH

I
RAQ

Grace preferred the desert. It was sand and heat and visibility for miles. Within one flight the geography changed from mountains in Turkey to desert in western Iraq back to mountains in northeast Iraq. Her back was sore from the long flight and she flexed her hands often to deal with the stiffness. Hours of flying had gone according to plan.

“Viper 02, bandits bluebird plus 10, angels 2,” Peter called.

“Viper 01, contact,” Grace confirmed. Two MiG-29s from an airfield west of Baghdad were heading north toward the no-fly zone. With a flick of her finger on the stick she switched weapons to air-to-air missiles. It was the first time MiG-29s had come up to challenge in fourteen days. The number of skirmishes had so far been games of chicken, but there was always the day it changed.

“Viper 01, illuminate?” she asked. They had already worked out their game plan for this situation.

“Viper 02. Roger.”

Gracie wouldn’t like to be in the seat of the MiG pilots at the instant she hit the switch on her long tactical radar; the cockpits would be a symphony of warning alarms and red lights as their threat radar suddenly screamed missile lock. In her own helmet she could hear the low-pitched buzz that was the missile under the Hornet’s wing quivering to be released so it could go after the radar beam it now had locked into its guidance system.

The MiGs had been warned.

Gracie’s hands grew sweaty as the MiGs kept coming toward the demarcation line for the no-fly zone.
Come on, turn.

At literally the last second, the MiGs turned sharply to fly the line rather than cross over.

Gracie felt the tense muscles in her back unlock and the moisture in her palms disappear. Playing chicken with live missiles was an interesting way to spend the day.

She hated the tactical situation she and Thunder were in. They were now less than a mile from the apex of their flight plan, but looping around to return back to Turkey would put their backs to the MiGs and the heat-seeking missiles they carried—not a good idea.

She switched the sweep area of the radar and saw the flight of four Tomcats over the mountains in northern Iraq changing course. They were coming to assist. “Viper 01, aircap.”

“Viper 02. Roger.”

As soon as help arrived, she and Thunder would be free to break off and cross back into Turkey.

Two more images appeared on the scope. Gracie grimaced. “Viper 01, bandits bluebird plus 20, angels 3.” Two more MiGs were launching. Its ability to use rough field airstrips was one of the things she both admired and hated about the Russian plane. What were they doing?

“Viper flight. Snap zero eight zero!”

The trigger word from the AWACs controller had her slamming her F/A-18 Hornet into a crushing g-force turn. A streak of white raced by. What
was
that? The AWACs controller had just saved her life.

She groaned against the g’s as she climbed at the performance edge of what the plane could do. She got altitude, put the sun behind her, then leveled out to seek a look-down shot if it came to that.

The Tomcats vectoring to join them were still a minute away from being able to help.

Thunder came alongside. “Viper 02, angels 28.”

“Viper 01. Roger.”

She leveled out at twenty-eight thousand feet. The second set of MiGs were climbing to match them and were closing in on the no-fly zone with no indication they were going to turn as the others had. The rules of engagement were simple: don’t fire first. A horrible rule when the first rule of air combat was he who fired first won. A shoulder-fired SAM from the ground should count.

Gracie heard the tension in the voices of the AWACs controllers as they started calling in more assets. Since there was nothing Gracie could tell them that they didn’t already see on their own powerful look-down radar, she ignored the radio traffic. She was busy at the moment.

Getting out of the fight was the plan. But it wasn’t going to be easy.

The MiG-29s now racing for the no-fly zone were coming straight toward them. This was going to be a free-for-all. And there was no way to safely disengage without getting a missile in their backs.

Were they really going to restart this shooting war today over a piece of sky? She had no choice but to wait it out as the MiGs closed to the thirty-sixth parallel. A sense of calm settled deep inside. It wasn’t her decision. If they started the fight, she and Thunder would end it.

The lead MiG broke the line in the air and immediately fired. She saw a white streak leap from under its wing and the MiG jerk as the weight of his craft shifted. The incoming missile had locked on to Thunder and he dove to evade, firing chaff to confuse the missile lock.

Gracie fired back. Thunder was no more than diving away when she flipped her finger to select the humming AMRAAM, locked on the crosshairs, and pulled the trigger. The missile leaped from the rail directly beside the fuselage under her left wing heading for the lead MiG. As soon as she had tone that the missile was clear, she focused on the second closing MiG, maneuvered to get a lock, and immediately fired her second AMRAAM.

“Viper 02. Fox one. Fox one,” she tersely told the controlling AWACs indicating which missiles she had fired.

The MiGs blacked out radar emissions and dove to avoid her missiles. The missile tracking in on Thunder lost its direction lock and spiraled away.

It was a temporary reprieve. The other MiGs were joining. Four on two. Gracie grimaced at the odds and rolled her Hornet to dive and rejoin Thunder. They were running out of airspace to work with, and this was not a dogfight to have over Iran.

Her neck began to ache at the constant pivoting to see the world around her. Below her, sand was turning to rocks. The fight was spilling north toward the mountains of eastern Turkey, and it was an uncomfortable place to fly, let alone have a dogfight.

A powerful sense of dread hit. A MiG had turned in behind her. She jinked the Hornet around the air to keep breaking the missile lock, her body taking a pounding with every maneuver.

“Viper 02, snap zero six zero.”

She immediately did so and could almost read the markings on the missile Thunder shot at the MiG closing on her.

The MiG exploded.

The shock wave buffeted her plane, and for a moment it threatened to snuff out one of her engines. She fought back for control, got it, and swiveled around to reorient the world. A MiG was screaming up from below to angle a shot at Thunder. “Viper 01, snap roll!”

His Hornet went from level flight to a steep roll in an instant. There was nothing she could do. The missile the MiG fired at him was there, and the chaff Thunder fired didn’t have time to disperse. The missile hit the left wing of his Hornet. She saw the ejection charges fire and propel him away as his plane engulfed in flames.

Thunder.
Oh,
God, keep him alive.

“Birddog, Viper 01, White water!” she radioed to the AWACs controller, hoping like crazy those PJs were still close by. Thunder needed help—fast.

The pressure on her body made it hard to breathe as she slammed the F/A-18 Hornet into a twenty-degree-per-second turn, reversing course. Afterburners pushed up her speed. She was going to hold this airspace at any cost until help arrived for Thunder.

“Viper 02, Cowboy 01. Inbound.” The flight of four Tomcats made their presence felt. Her radar warning system suddenly went white. The MiGs were going to get their electronics fried if they stayed to fight.

“Viper 02, Cowboy 01. Break vector 20.”

Gracie didn’t want to leave Thunder, but her presence would only complicate the aircap. She was down to one air-to-air missile. Before replying, she adjusted her radar to scan low to the ground, sorted out the clutter, and saw with relief a V far to the west but coming in their direction. Thunder had help coming. She wished she could get a secure emergency radio transmission with him to confirm he was okay, but she couldn’t risk the contact.

“Cowboy 01, Viper 02, vectoring camel plus 20.” With a hard left on the stick and a forward move on the throttle, she broke away from the fight and turned toward the mountains of eastern Turkey. The Tomcats closed to provide a wall of protection behind her to prevent the MiGs from taking advantage of the situation.

Her first fight, and she’d lost it. She would take time to feel the anger later.

For the first time since the firefight had begun, she took a moment to scan all the red warnings on her panels. Her plane was flying but it was protesting. The shock wave and shrapnel that had threatened to snuff out an engine had done lasting damage. As the adrenaline faded, she forced her hand to unlock its white-knuckle grip on the stick so she could reach forward to the right DDI panel and start troubleshooting the problems. “Birddog, Viper 02, declaring snowbird,” she radioed the controlling AWACs, warning she was flying a crippled bird.

Between her and safety were thirty nautical miles of airspace of very unpleasant terrain. The fight had pushed her far into northern Iraq. She was determined not to have to bail out. Bruce would say don’t push it, get out of the plane, but she couldn’t yet, not unless there was no other choice. She was not going to have on her record for eternity—first woman pilot shot down behind enemy lines.

BIRECIK DAM, TURKEY

“Where did he go down?” Bruce shouted to be heard above the noise as Dasher spun up the Pave Hawk helicopter. There were missile exchanges going on in Iraq while they were sitting around a conference table talking water depths and temperature. What a mess in priorities. He leaned back to let Victor and Frank take the bench seats.

“Ten kilometers in, north of the bend in what used to be the Zab River. The Twenty-seventh is already inbound,” Rich yelled back as he whirled his finger and Dasher nodded, lifting off. “The fight is spilling north; we’ve got four Tomcats and three MiGs still tangling. One Hornet is coming north with shrapnel damage.”

“Where do they want us?”

“For now, heading to the border. This skirmish is going to be over soon one way or the other. The question is, will the fighting spread? Syria and Turkey are both sending up planes.”

“Oh, joy.”

Thirty-One

* * *

“Striker. Radio traffic.”

The grim tone in Dasher’s voice and the fact the pilot turned to look back warned him. Bruce reached over and flipped the switch so he could listen to the same radio traffic his friend was.

“Viper 02, Birddog. Say your state.”

“Viper 02, angels 9, 3.8.”

It was Gracie’s voice.

Lord, not this. Not Grace.

“She’s flying the Hornet that took the shrapnel damage,” Dasher said quietly over the radio traffic.

“Is she hurt?”

“Unknown. She’s got stabilizer damage and hydraulic problems.”

“Where is she?”

Rich unfolded a terrain map. He’d been computing coordinates from the radio traffic. “About here.”

Bruce winced. “Can she make it through the mountain passes?” he asked Dasher.

“She sounds determined to try. She’s got maybe ten minutes at the rate the plane is dying around her before controls become totally unresponsive. That’s enough time to clear the pass and make an emergency landing at Colemerik.”

“Tight.”

“Very. Anything else goes wrong, she won’t have the resources left to react.”

Bruce looked toward Rich.

“Ammo is loaded, medical supplies have been replenished. We’re ready,” his partner replied.