Asian Front

aircraft.

But for all of Aussie’s patter, they knew it was more bravado than certainty. The “old CT” or MC-13 °Combat Talon wouldn’t be over them in a jiff, and the best hope they had now was the low-flying F-15 Eagles coming in in fluid four formation, screaming low overhead to avoid radar, the first pair closer together than the second pair, the wingman further apart, all four releasing four packs from their hard points.

As quickly as they had appeared over the Mongolian desert, the Eagles were gone in a screaming U-turn, with the high Hentiyn Nuruu as a backdrop. Only when the Mongolian herdsmen from the ghers had retrieved the four drum-size packages and like excited schoolchildren were feeling the silk canopy of the bundles did Brentwood think they might have a chance. Problem was, you didn’t even get a chance to practice a FUST it was considered so dangerous — it was only ever used as a last resort. The best they could do in training was to use dummies to show you how it should be done.

“Go check the helium tanks!” Brentwood called out to Choir amid the excited chatter of the Mongolians as they gathered around to see what was inside the cylindrical-shaped helium canisters. One canister was already open, a FUST harness spilling out. Afraid that some of the FUST tackle might get tangled in the herdsmen’s excitement, Brentwood asked the old man to call his herdsmen off. It took one command, the headman smacking the butt of his slung rifle for emphasis, and they were gone, leaving only Aussie and Brentwood, still on the camels, as Choir checked the packs.

“Bloody lovely in’t it?” Aussie complained. “Bloody lovely. There they are, opening the packs, and I’m stuck up ere having my ass reamed out by this bloody great beast while Sal’s inside having a cuppa!”

“Looks like you got a bum rap!” Brentwood jousted.

“Oh, very droll. Very fucking amusing I’m sure. Let’s see what your ass looks like after—” He stopped as Salvini burst from the gher to tell them the fighter-escorted Talon would be there in twenty minutes.

“You beaut!” Aussie said, slapping the camel’s rump in his excitement, the animal immediately taking off, throwing Aussie two feet in the air before he came crashing down and saw three specks coming out of the eastern sky: Spets helicopters, one of them probably the one that had previously passed overhead. The enemy helos looked to be losing altitude, coming straight for the ghers.

“Only one chance,” Aussie said, calling out to Brentwood, who had just spotted the approaching helos.

Within minutes Aussie and Brentwood, devoid of the dels, showing only their light SAS/D camouflage drill uniforms, were tied together as the headman waved at the three helos. One helo peeled off, the other two fanning out toward other settlements some miles to the south of Nalayh. As the helo came down, blowing up dust of such intensity it was as if the whole settlement had been momentarily obliterated, Aussie could barely see the black rotor spin of the Hind.

The headman holding on to the rope that was tied to Aussie and Brentwood waved up again at the Spets pilot, who saluted back and who could see several of the other herdsmen now jeering at the two Americans, one of the herdsmen throwing patties of camel dung at the two bound SAS/D men.

As the high whine of the Spets chopper’s two 2,200 SHP turboshafts decreased, making a chunky sound in the gritty sand cloud, Aussie could hear the rear door opening where the eight-man assault squad would be soon filing out to take aboard their prisoners and setting loose the dogs. As the door was opened, the head herdsman, in a swift movement that belied his age, shot the pilot point blank with his range rifle, while Brentwood and Aussie, with one pull on the bowline knot that bound them, quickly tossed six stun grenades into the rear cabin. The explosion was loud, yet the sounds of the dogs and men screaming and dying was muffled as if inside a great boiler.

The rotors began to cough to life, but not before the headman had also taken out the copilot, the undernose 12.7mm multibarrel rotary machine gun immobilized by a maneuver that would have done any American rodeo proud, as ropes from two camels, one pulling hard left, the other hard right, prevented it from moving, even if the operator above was still functional enough to try for a traverse. Aussie, David, and Choir went inside the cabin, where four of the Spets were already dead from the concussion, the others in such a state that they fell quickly beneath the enfilade of small-arms fire.

“Bloody waste!” Aussie said, reloading the Parabellum mag, then grabbing a fire extinguisher to put out a small electrical fire that had started up forward. “And a bloody shame none of us can drive one of these friggin’ things.” It was a singular deficiency that none of them had ever thought much about before. They were men who had been trained to survive in the harshest environments in the world, wherever they were dropped, and it was a matter of no small pride that at least one of them could get by in the local language, but piloting a chopper had not yet been added to the course, and for a moment they all felt less for it. But if that was the case, they would soon have ample opportunity to show what they were made of should the Combat Talon and its fighter escort appear.

Already Salvini had received a burst message that ChiCom fighter units were being scrambled to intercept the incoming American F-15 Eagles. And it was only now that Aussie Lewis and the others realized what an extraordinary sacrifice the Mongolians had made for them and how it answered Freeman’s question about whether or not the Mongolians would stand in his way if Freeman drove south. Everything the SAS/D team had seen showed clearly that the Mongolians had no intention of trying to stop the Americans from reaching Mongolia’s hated Chinese neighbors.

* * *

For Freeman, however, this might not be that much help after all, for he could not move south with any confidence so long as the missiles in the Turpan depression in western China were still intact. The British Labour party was playing blackmail with the Tories: We’ll support an overflight if you will agree to higher capital gains tax. It was a question of who would give in. Meanwhile Frank Shirer was being summoned to the wing commander’s hut at Lakenheath. Here a Captain Fowler-Jones, from the British navy air arm, was accompanied and introduced by a Captain Moore of the USAF. Fowler-Jones did most of the talking.

“So you’re not satisfied?”

Frank was taken aback — wasn’t the British officer corps supposed to be known for its polite reserve?

“Haven’t time to waste, old boy,” Fowler-Jones pressed. “You’re not satisfied flying the big jobs?” Fowler- Jones indicated the nine B-52s on the rain-slick tarmac.

“Well,” Shirer began tentatively. “I’d rather be flying Cats.”

“He means Tomcats,” Captain Moore put in.

“Yes, yes, I know. F-14s. Good plane, but we have all the fighter pilots we need, at least for that caliber weapons platform.”

There was a long pause.

“Shot down, weren’t you?” Wing Commander Fowler-Jones said bluntly, opening a file and studying it. “Twice.”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked up at Shirer. “Learn anything?”

Shirer shrugged. “A MiG-29’s a lot better than we thought it was. In the stall slide it can—”

“Yes, quite, but your nerves, and I want gospel on this. Up to snuff?”

“Yes, sir — I believe so.”

“Believe so? Know so?”

“Know so.”

“Well then,” Fowler-Jones said to the U.S. captain. “That’s that.”

“May I ask—” Shirer began.

“Harriers!” Fowler-Jones said. “We’re very short of men on Harriers. Vertical takeoff and landing. Old carrier pilots like yourself often get quite good at it in a short time. Short takeoff and landing, that is. You game?”

“Yes — yes, sir.”

“You sound hesitant!”

“No, sir, I’m just—”

“Yes, yes, I know. You just expected a top-of-the-line combat fighter. Well I’ll tell you this, Shirer, we need good Harrier men right now. Can’t go into all the whys and wherefores at this time. Need to know. Follow me?”

“Yes, sir,” Shirer lied. The man talked like a telex machine.