defense command center at Gia Lam Airfield. Seconds later, the Party headquarters went up. Other targets went up as well. The thermal power plant took two GBU-27/Bs into the foundation of the turbine room, throwing the delicate mechanisms out of alignment, tearing them apart like lunatic pinwheels from hell. In all, ten targets in the Hanoi area went up in a matter of just three minutes. Meanwhile, two additional F-117s took out the 'Dragon's Jaw' Bridge at Thanh Hoa and the hardened Vietnamese II Corps command post at Hue. As the city went dark and panic erupted among the junior officers and bureaucrats left behind to supervise the functions of the government, the real targets of tonight's strike began to pay the price for their arrogance.
The rule was that nothing would go into the caves that could not be hand-carried to the entrance on a narrow footpath. Six champion athletes of the People's Army had the honor of carrying the 300 kg./660 lb. steel blast door almost 10 miles/16.3 km. from the nearest road. The engineers calculated that it would withstand the overpressure from any conceivable near-miss by a conventional weapon, and it was located far enough down a twisting passage that any guided weapon would have to be as agile as a Habu to negotiate the two right-angle turns. The Sergeant of the Guards at the entrance to the blast door was startled when he turned and saw the Defense Minister, General Truong Le, standing before him. 'Comrade General, you cannot go outside.'
'Comrade Sergeant, they won't let me smoke down there. I appeal to your fraternal revolutionary spirit. Take pity on an old man who is dying for a cigarette.'
The general had been a recruit in Giap's army at Dien Bien Phu. He had led a battalion in the bitter street fighting in Hue during Tet. He had commanded a division during the final liberation of the South in 1975, then a corps on the Chinese border during the 1979 war with their hated Chinese neighbors. He might be Chief of Staff for the People's Army of Vietnam, but he was still close to his peasant roots. A big man by Vietnamese standards, he lived simply, and had refused to use political influence to get his sons cushy jobs in the Party. The soldiers loved him. His request was a breach of discipline, but the general and the sergeant stepped outside the cave entrance together into the cool night air for a smoke, carefully closing the blast door behind them. This ensured that they would be the only survivors of what was about to happen.
The two RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft were working with a C-130 Hercules equipped with a Senior Scout clip-on SIGINT system to isolate the final locations of what were now being called 'the leadership caves' from the minute emissions of the French-supplied cellular phone equipment used for their communications. The idea had come to Major Goldberg when he remembered a small notice he had seen on an Internet newsgroup several months before about a French firm in Toulon selling several million francs' worth of satellite cellular equipment to the Vietnamese government. He talked the situation over with the newly arrived French liaison officer, sent ahead to scout for the squadron of Rafale fighters that was due to arrive in three days. A phone call was made to the electronics firm and the company controlling the satellite cellular service contract for the Vietnamese. After finding out that the service had been almost unused until a few days earlier, and exactly what frequencies the phones transmitted on, it was a simple matter to have one of the NSA SIGINT satellites identify a rough location for the cellular activity.
The three aircraft refined their positions, then handed them off, via their own MILSTAR satellite links, to an inbound strike force of 366th Wing aircraft. The Vietnamese leadership was in the 366th's sight, and the gun was cocked.
General Perry was flying this one himself in his own F-15E Strike Eagle, known as Wing King. Tonight's mission had it flying at 16,000 feet/4,876.8 meters, loaded with four GBU-24/B penetrating 2,000lb./ 909.1 kg. bombs. He had ordered a maximum effort for this evening's mission, and the maintenance chiefs had done themselves proud, getting sixteen of the complex birds into the air. The real kudos, though, had to go to the enlisted ordies from the bomb shops, who had switched plans for the evening and managed to build up the necessary LGBs to arm the dark grays, as well as getting the necessary mines into the B-1Bs for their last night of mining.
'Final update coming in over the MILSTAR link, sir,' said Captain Asi 'Ahab' Ontra, the general's personal WSO, over the intercom. The general smiled in his oxygen mask at the report. Ontra was one of the growing number of Moslems making a career for themselves in the U.S. military. Born in the Detroit area, with its large population of Lebanese immigrants, he may have been a bit too 'dry' on Friday nights at the officers' club, but a better operator of the LANTIRN system was not to be found in the 366th. Now they were on their way to kill a government.
'How many of the caves have they identified?' asked the wing commander.
'Nineteen so far, sir. Major Goldberg seems to feel that may be all of them, sir,' replied the young WSO.
'Have they told us what our target for tonight is?' the general inquired.
'They're not sure, sir… maybe some kind of military command center,' the young man speculated.
'Okay. How long to target?' the general asked.
'Two minutes, sir. Your steering cue is up!' came the curt reply. It was all business now.
The Defense Minister shared a Camel with the young sergeant and sucked in the smoke and night air. Any other time, it would have been a beautiful night. Now his country was at war again, fighting for its pride… its self- respect… its identity… though he himself was beginning to question all of that. He looked over at the young soldier sharing a smoke with him and wondered what kind of nation he and the rest of the Party Leadership Council were going to hand over to this brave man.
'Target in sight, sir. Ten seconds to drop,' Ahab called to General Perry, the green glow from the FLIR image on the Multi-Function Display lighting his face as he worked the two hand controllers to set up the LGB delivery.
'Roger, Master Arm on. Your pickle is hot. Stand by!' called General Perry over the intercom. As he did, the AAQ-14 LANTIRN targeting pod fired a short laser burst at the top of the karst to establish the range to target. This done, the time-to-drop clock counted down to zero. Then the four GBU-24/Bs dropped in rapid succession. They fell quickly, speeding up to over 900 fps./274.3 mps. When they were fifteen seconds from impact, Captain Ontra fired the laser again at the top of the limestone mountain, painting it with laser light. Again, a countdown clock in his FLIR MFD counted down to zero.
It was the memory of a younger man that saved him at that moment. There was only time for General Truong Le to yell,
He was still standing when the young sergeant asked, 'Shouldn't we report this to someone, Comrade General?'
The old man thanked the darkness for not showing his embarrassment to the young soldier. Then he replied as the last of the rolling thunder of the bombs died away, 'Yes. And Sergeant, thank you for reminding me of my duty. Would you care to accompany me, please?' With that, they headed down the trail, back to the road, and hopefully, to Yen Bai Airfield some 20 km./12 miles away.
The Party Military Committee's study of the 1991 Gulf War had derived one important lesson about air power:
