The UH-1 helicopter bore the red-white-blue-white-red roundel of the Royal That Air Force on its tail boom, but only the pilot was That, a disaffected officer who had been promised more money than he could expect to make in a lifetime of service to the government. Most of the officers involved in the coup had joined the rebellion because they were angered by what they perceived as inaction and stupidity on the part of the government in its handling of the Communist insurrection in the north. Very few'of those mutinous officers, however, could have been induced to attack the American carrier. Ironically, both sides in the conflict still regarded the Americans as powerful and important allies, and a surprise attack on their nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Sattahip Bay would not exactly endear the new regime to Washington.
But Lieutenant Thran Silatharudah would do anything for money. He'd first met Colonel Kriangsak when he'd been up for a court martial. The Royal That Air Force took a dim view of enterprising pilots using military aircraft to smuggle raw opium across the boarder from Laos. Kriangsak had gotten him off by conveniently misplacing some crucial evidence… then had recruited him for Sheng li.
The co-pilot, Thran knew, was Chinese, one of the battalion of trained pilots Hsiao Kuoping had brought first to Burma, then to Thailand as part of Sheng li. Thran had no idea what his reasons for being here were, but it didn't much matter. Sheng li had brought a number of wildly disparate elements together, but the plan itself seemed to be working well.
Lieutenant Thran eased the stick forward and let the Huey drift closer to the ground. The helo, Number 163, was an early UH-B transferred to Thailand at the end of the Vietnam War. Mounted on either side of the hull were two weapon pods, each carrying twenty-four 7-cm unguided rockets.
Below, the town and port area of Sattahip were blacked out, but he could see the spark and flare of small arms fire to the north where coup forces were engaging the base's loyal defenders. Ahead, out in the bay, the Jefferson was a splendid sight, aglow with lights from stem to stern.
'Arm rockets,' he said.
'Rockets armed,' the co-pilot replied.
The 7-cm rockets might be unguided, but they were accurate enough over a range of a mile or two, and an aircraft carrier was a very large target.
Thran's briefing, however, had stressed that he was not to simply dump his load of forty-eight rockets at random. Kriangsak's orders had emphasized that foreign national helicopters ought to be able to approach to within a few hundred meters of the ship, and at that range he should have a good shot at a most inviting target… the open elevator bay door leading to the carrier's hangar bay. He could see the open bay doors now, two of them on the ship's starboard side, one ahead of the island, the other behind. Yellow light spilled from both flat, oval openings in the carrier's hull. He concentrated on the one toward the Jefferson's stern. Off to his left, the second Huey paced him.
Thran's finger caressed the firing trigger on the stick. If he could just get close enough ? say, less than half a mile ? some of his rockets were certain to enter the carrier's hull through the open elevator doors.
And the hangar deck, he'd been told, would be crowded with aircraft, with fuel, with explosives…
That man-made steel mountain ahead would look spectacular when it exploded.
It was the skipper's bird, but Lieutenant 'Nightmare' Marinaro had drawn Tomcat 201 for his evening stint on CAP when his own F-14 had shown an electrical fault during the preflight. He was cruising at fifteen thousand feet fifty miles southwest of Sattahip when his RIO, Lieutenant Mike 'Sunny' Crampton, called him over the ICS.
'Hey, Nightmare? Sounds like the shit's hitting the fan back on the bird farm. They've just sounded General Quarters.'
'They what?' He'd had his radio input off but he snapped it back on now.
His earphones picked up the buzz and murmur of voices.
'Cowboy, this is Victor Kilo One-one,' a new voice called. 'Come in, Cowboy.'
Cowboy was the call sign for Marinaro's CAP, while VK-11 was the Hawkeye currently coordinating air activities over the battle group. 'Victor Kilo, this is Cowboy. Go ahead.'
'Cowboy, we have two bogies closing with Homeplate.' A rattle-off string of numbers, coordinates and bearings, followed. 'Contacts may be hostile.
Intercept and identify. Over.'
'Rog.' Marinaro brought the stick over and kicked the Tomcat's afterburners. 'We're moving.'
Thunder rolled across the gulf, trailing unheard behind the plane as the Tomcat broke the sound barrier. Hurtling northeast at better than Mach 1.5, it would take less than three minutes to close the range to the Jefferson's unknown attackers.
The American ship swelled rapidly to fill the Huey's forward cockpit windshield. The targeting reticle held steady on the after elevator door, now so close that Thran thought he could make out the shadowy silhouettes of men against the yellow glare of the hangar bay. As he watched, the hangar bay light began to contract, and he realized that the massive sliding doors of the elevator openings in the ship were closing.
'Range two thousand meters,' the pilot said.
It was close enough, and if he waited any longer the elevator doors would be completely shut. He squeezed the firing trigger, and balls of orange flame flashed past the Huey's cockpit on either side, a rapid-fire spray of rockets in quick succession called ripple fire.
Thran was dead on target.
Captain Fitzgerald strode onto the bridge, still pulling on his life-jacket. 'Situation, Commander Marusko.'
'Two bogies, sir, identified as That air force helicopters, inbound off the aft starboard quarter.' He gestured with the phone, still open to CIC.
'They've been warned off but are still approaching. I… we just had a call from Commander Magruder, sir.'
'Tombstone?'
'Yes, sir. At the American embassy. He said that the coup leaders were planning to attack Jefferson with helicopters. On the basis of his warning, I put the boat on GQ, but-'
'They're firing!' The warning from the starboard lookout was echoed by the call from the CIC officer over the telephone in his hand. Marusko turned and saw the rapid-fire, stuttering flashes in the night, the flares of tiny rocket engines streaking like tracer bullets toward the carrier.
'I've got the bridge, Mr. Marusko,' Fitzgerald said in a voice as calm as death. He took the phone from CAG's hand and brought it to his ear. 'CIC, this is the Captain. We are under attack. You may commence fire.'
Private First Class Vince Kennedy swung the muzzle of his machine gun toward the approaching threat. He could not make out the helicopters well without lights, but he could see the flashes as they ripple-fired their deadly pods of 2.5-inch rockets.
He heard movement behind him, the high-pitched whine of automated machinery. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that the squat, white-painted fire-hydrant shape of Jefferson's aft Phalanx CIWS had taken on a life of its own. The six-barreled snout of the 20-mm Gatling gun swung to bear on the attackers, then shifted left, right, up, down in tiny increments as its pulse-doppler radar locked on.
Realizing that he was perilously close to the weapon's line of fire, Kennedy dropped flat on the deck. The Phalanx cannon fired an instant later with a buzzsaw shriek, spitting out fifty depleted uranium bullets each second. The radar tracked both target and rounds, adjusting the gun slightly to bring the two into perfect alignment.
Like a string of firecrackers, the incoming rockets began exploding between the ship and the incoming Hueys.
Unfortunately, the range was too close, the rockets too fast for a one hundred percent sweep. An instant later, the first 2.5 inch rockets began slamming into the Jefferson.
