four F-16s of Garnet flight led by Captain Gunther, call sign “Dish,” were breaking off, swinging wide to come in on the target from a different compass point. His own Diamond flight would come straight in from the south.
Tony followed them with his eyes for a second while the altimeter unwound and then looked back behind him. Right on schedule, the second pair in his flight had split off and were settling in two miles astern. Viceroy and his new wingman, Saber, would cover the two lead Falcons while they made their run, and then Tony and Hooter would return the favor. Each aircraft would make only one pass, unloading six cluster bombs on the target and then getting out. Making a second pass on a now-alerted enemy was a good way to get splashed.
They were at their attack height. Cruising at one hundred feet down an undulating, rock-walled valley. Tony checked the time. They were early, by one minute. Tony flashed his formation lights and turned left, starting a lazy, time-consuming circle. He looked behind to make sure that everyone had gotten the word. Dropping even lower, he watched the navigation system’s prompts and the planned approach route. As the INS time reached zero, Tony hit the throttle for full military power. The others followed him.
Even fully loaded the Falcons accelerated from three hundred to six hundred knots in seconds. As they reached full speed, the valley ended, opening up into a rolling, tree-covered plain.
The HARTs were dead ahead with flak guns on top of the bunkers and nearby hillsides. And as soon as the screening valley walls fell away, Tony’s radar warning receiver lit up. The sky was filled with tracers and puffs of black smoke. The flak had been firing at the reconnaissance aircraft. Tony could see two plane-shaped black specks pulling away quickly, then he turned and gave his full attention to the formation’s target.
The recon photos of the area had shown its being guarded by twin 23mm cannon, single-barreled 37mms, and one battery of 57mm cannon. This last group was Diamond flight’s target. He turned onto final bearing, with the battery firing a few miles ahead.
Tony felt an urge to drop down, but he fought it. The Rockeyes had a minimum safe release height. If he flew any lower, he might collect a few fragments himself. He glanced right and saw that Hooter had moved from behind and beside him to a position just abreast and about a hundred feet away.
The F-16 bucked and he was suddenly glad he wasn’t flying any lower. The air was rough this close to the ground. Keeping one eye on the altimeter, he checked the release settings on his Rockeye weapons. The computer would drop them in sequence, timed so that they formed a line over the target and the bomblets sprayed uniformly over the entire area.
The North Korean 57mm guns were laid out in a circle, with a still-turning dish radar in the middle. Tony lined up on the near side of the circle, just to the left of center. He focused his attention on the closest flak gun, lining it up in the center reticle of his HUD. The bomb “pipper” was a small circle now at the bottom of his windscreen, creeping slowly upward. Tony moved his thumb to the weapons release. This wasn’t going to be a lob-toss attack. Just a straight, old-fashioned, and effective bomb drop.
Two miles out, then one mile. At six hundred knots the ground was a blur. Everything was lining up, except that the turbulence kept wanting to throw him off. A black puff appeared off to port. The battery had noticed the incoming attack, but it was too late. As the bomb “pipper” crossed the gun barrel, he pressed the bomb release on his stick. There were six small shudders as the weapons left the racks. He spared a glance to his right and saw the fifth and sixth Rockeyes tumbling down from Hooter’s plane.
As the two planes sped off, the casings opened and small one-pound bomblets sprayed out. Each weapon could cover an area a hundred and fifty feet wide and three hundred feet long. With the preset release pattern, and the route flown by the two planes, the areas overlapped. Each casing had two hundred and fifty bomblets in it.
Looking over his shoulder, Tony saw the ground being kicked up by thousands of small explosions. Like lethal firecrackers, the bombs would explode on impact, damaging or destroying equipment and killing anyone they hit. In addition, the bomblets sent out fragments that could slice through armor plate, much less guns or nearby personnel. Smoke covered his target. Yeah, that was one flak battery that wouldn’t give the Phantoms any grief.
Tony pulled away from the target. He had an urge to climb, to claw up into the air and away from the dangerous ground just beneath him. He fought it because the first aircraft to show itself at altitude would attract the attention of every gun in the area. The idea was to hit them from different directions, and to split the defenses by staying so low they couldn’t all see you.
He banked right and throttled back a little, with Hooter dropping back and falling into trail. That way Tony could maneuver suddenly without having to check on his wingman’s location. He looked for Viceroy and Saber and saw them starting their run.
They were going for a group of ZU-23s, large-bore, twin-barreled machine guns. ZU-23s didn’t have radar, and there were so many of them that they were normally not worth the ordnance expended to kill them. These, though, were right on the exit route for the main strike group.
The two jets flashed over the ground, and Tony saw cluster bombs fall from their wings just before the area erupted in dust and smoke. As the F-16s turned away, a smoke trail came from off to Tony’s right and streaked toward Saber’s aircraft.
“Saber, SAM, break right!” Tony called, and increased his own right bank. He fought against the sudden extra weight on his chest, looking for the source of missiles. There it was. A wheeled vehicle with a boxy shape on top — that had to be the launcher. He hit a button on his stick and saw CANNON appear on the Falcon’s HUD.
“Hooter, I’m going for the launcher.”
“Rog.”
Christ, a mobile SAM launcher. It hadn’t been there in the prestrike photos. There might be others. Hooter would follow him in and make sure that there weren’t any other surprises waiting for them.
Tony locked his radar on the vehicle and a small square immediately appeared on his HUD, centered on the launcher. A circle also appeared, showing where the computer thought his bullets would hit. He came left a little and pulled up slightly.
As he closed, the aspect of the launcher on top of the vehicle changed, and he realized it was pointing at him.
The aiming circle moved over the box and he fired, just as a puff of smoke appeared in the launcher box, followed by a streak of flame, heading straight toward him. The F-16 shuddered as its cannon fired, and Tony saw the launcher obscured by dust and smoke. He rolled violently, popping a string of flares, extremely conscious of the ground just below him.
He looked back and Hooter was gone.
There he was. Off to the right and back, Hooter had seen another launcher. He was firing, a plume of white smoke streaming back from the nose of the plane. Hooter’s bullets didn’t kick up smoke and dust. Instead, the vehicle fireballed. Tony pulled in behind his wingman and told him to take the lead.
“All units, this is Bookmark. Rebound, out.”
That was it. The main group was going in to make its run on the HARTs. Tony called, “Diamonds, join on me.”
They would take station on the edge of the area and fend off any fighters until the strike group got away. He switched his radio to the Phantoms’ frequency, so that he could monitor the progress of the raid. The instant the Phantoms cleared, his Falcons would be out.
“All units, this is Stingray. Multiple bogies bearing three zero zero Bull’s-Eye twenty miles, level fifty, out.”
Goddamnit. The AWACS had spotted incoming NK aircraft. It looked like Diamond flight wouldn’t get time to form up. “Bull’s-Eye” was a map reference that allowed them to radio locations in the clear without revealing their own position. “Multiple” meant more than four, and “level fifty” meant five thousand feet. Twenty miles meant they had to move fast.
Tony gave a new order. “Diamonds, engage by pairs, out.” He snapped on his radar and selected a missile. The first job was to “sort” the enemy fighters — find them, figure out how many there were, and what they were up to.
As Tony and Hooter swung their F-16s around to the right bearing, their radar scopes lit up with contacts. Tony did a fast count and then made a radio call. “Bookmark, Diamond Lead. Twelve inbound, I’ll keep them off you.”
“This is Bookmark. Roger out.” The South Korean sounded unperturbed. Tough guy.
Tony’s HUD had selected a target rapidly coming into range. He slid out from directly behind Hooter but
