Lieutenant Thran saw the flash of blossoming explosions. A hit! Another… but then another, much nearer flash caught his eye. Turning in his seat, he saw Helicopter 179 burst into flame and hurtling debris, even as missiles continued to arrow from its weapons pods.
Instinctively, Thran pulled in on the stick and applied foot pressure to the tail rotor controls on the deck, swinging the Huey away from the fiery eruption to starboard. He was not sure what had happened but suspected that the American ship must have launched a missile of some kind. The night sky around him was filled with falling sea spray, and something heavy slammed into the Huey's tail boom somewhere aft.
Dimly, he was aware that the Chinese beside him was screaming wildly.
Eight rockets from that first volley slammed into the Jefferson one after another, tearing metal, hurling shrapnel and debris into the sky.
At Elevator Number Three, starboard side aft of the island, the massive steel doors which had begun sliding shut moments after general quarters had sounded were almost closed. One rocket struck the outer door close beside the door frame, buckling steel plate and causing the door mechanism to grind to a halt with the shriek of tortured metal. Had the doors been all the way open when the rocket arrowed in out of the night, the damage might well have been catastrophic.
One rocket made itself felt through sheer bad luck. Coming in blindly, it struck a KA-6D tanker parked just aft of the island. The explosion sent a sheet of flame searing across the deck as crewmen scattered, trying to protect their heads and faces from the sudden heat. An EA-6B Prowler parked within inches of the tanker caught fire and exploded with a hammer-blow concussion, knocking sailors to the deck. Above the roar of flames, alarms shrilled endlessly.
Fire erupted into the night above the U.S.S. Jefferson.
His Chinese co-pilot was dead. A depleted uranium slug had passed through the Huey's deck, taken off the man's leg, then passed through the bulkhead aft, and Thran had not even felt the shock. Ahead, the night was ablaze as aircraft on the carrier's aft deck burned.
After breaking off his approach, he'd dropped until his landing skids were within a meter of the water. Thran didn't know whether it was his wave-hopping or a lucky hit from one of the rockets, but the Americans had stopped firing at him.
And he still had twenty rockets remaining in his pods. His first thought was to break for shore, his mission accomplished… but Thran was close enough to the American carrier now to see that the damage looked worse than it probably was in fact.
If he could finish the job, the reward might be very rich indeed.
Marinaro's Tomcat roared low across the waters of Sattahip Bay. He'd seen the flash of rockets firing, the strobing of explosions, and the dazzling stab of high-speed gunfire from an aft Phalanx mount. One of the attacking helos had folded up like crumpled aluminum foil as depleted uranium rounds smashed through its hull, then erupted in a blazing explosion as avgas ignited.
Then the aft deck of the carrier had fireballed. Damn!
And the second helo had jinked low and circled to the south, apparently lining up for another shot.
There was no time to coordinate with the Jefferson. They might have a lock on the enemy aircraft… or the damage inflicted by those first rockets might have knocked out the carrier's defense system. Marinaro knew that he didn't even have time to get a missile lock on the enemy himself. In seconds he would be past the target… and another volley of missiles would have been launched.
But there was something else he could do.
He was less than eight hundred meters from the American carrier, which rose in front of his Huey like a gray steel cliff. He could see the aft elevator door, wedged partway open. A full volley into that vital spot might yet cause the fireworks Hsiao had hoped to raise. His finger closed on the trigger…
And then a shock wrenched him violently against his seat harness, and the Huey was spinning wildly as a roar like thunder deafened him. He had a split-second's glimpse of afterburners shining like twin suns, of a cascade of water blasted into the sky by the shock-wave of a supersonic jet.
Thran died as the Huey slammed into the water, still trying to bring his stricken ship under control.
CHAPTER 20
Tombstone leaned against the back of the pilot's seat, stooping so that he could look ahead through the helo's canopy. He wore a life jacket and cranial, which made his movements clumsy in the tight confines of the Huey.
He'd been shaken awake by Gunnery Sergeant Johnson at zero-dark-thirty that morning. A small mob armed with rocks and miscellaneous weapons had stormed the front gates of the embassy sometime in the wee hours and had been driven off when the Marines on the perimeter fired warning shots over their heads. One of the rioters had fired back and caught a Marine in the chest with a burst from an AK. Another had caught a bullet fragment in the shoulder. Both were strapped to stretchers in the back of the helo now, two Navy corpsmen in attendance.
And Tombstone, eager to get back to the Jefferson, was on the flight as well. He still hurt where his clothing rubbed the burns on his body, but he felt somewhat better for the more than six hours of sleep he'd had on the embassy floor. A battle had been fought outside the front door, and he'd not even heard it.
'This is Hardwire Eight-four-seven requesting clearance for final approach,' the pilot said into his helmet microphone. 'Jefferson, Hardwire Eight-four-seven. We have casualties on board. Please respond.'
The Marine helo pilot glanced back at Tombstone after a moment. 'We just got clearance, sir,' the pilot said. 'We'll put you down by the island.'
Early morning sunlight gleamed from the surface of the ocean. Tombstone could see the carrier two miles ahead. The vessel was heading south, away from the helicopter, and its wake spread out from its stern like a pale blue arrowhead on the sea. The fires he'd heard about appeared to be extinguished, but there was a very great deal of smoke, a black, greasy stain against the sky above the carrier.
'They're making twelve knots,' the copilot said. 'Look at that smoke!
What the hell happened down there anyhow?'
'Embassy told me a rocket attack,' Tombstone said. 'I gather they upped-anchor in a hell of a hurry.'
And I thought we had it bad at the embassy,' the pilot said. 'Okay, sir, hang onto your cookies.'
Moments later, the Huey settled to the carrier's mid-deck, and Tombstone stepped aboard. A sharp wind across Jefferson's bow kept the smoke clear of the flight deck. The 5-MC was blaring, 'Now hear this, now hear this.
Commence FOD walkdown.' FOD stood for Foreign Object Damage, and the walkdown was an evaluation by all flight-deck personnel carried out routinely aboard Navy carriers. He could see the long line of sailors in dungarees or colored jerseys aft, stretched across the flight deck and walking slowly forward side by side, as each man searched for bits of metal, bolts, screws, or anything else which might be sucked into an aircraft's intakes with destructive result.
They would be looking for bits of debris left from the explosions and fire the night before, a prerequisite to any air operations planned for the day.
