the city ? but it meant that the government knew of his part in the coup.
A pair of helicopters roared low overhead, and Kriangsak looked up nervously. It was still too dark to see their markings, but they were flying with lights on. That spoke of arrogance… an arrogance born of power.
Suddenly, Colonel Kriangsak felt less confident.
Master Sergeant Phillip Loomis, U.S.M.C., crouched on the rooftop of a service station with the handful of That Special Forces men. In front of them was a rugged-looking box with lenses and what looked like a telescopic sight, directed over the low wall which surrounded the flat roof area and toward a section of the road some three hundred yards to the east. It was still dark, but the sky was growing rapidly lighter.
It wouldn't be long now.
'Target area's clear,' the That lieutenant at his side noted, lowering his starlight scope. This was a relatively open part of the city, some three miles east of downtown Bangkok. The buildings were low and widely spaced, almost like a suburban neighborhood back home, Loomis thought. South of the highway was a strip of shops, temples, and patches of trees running between the highway and the straight-line slash of Kiong Sen Seb.
New Phetchaburi Road was a fairly major artery. Even this early in the morning it was usually clogged with the beginnings of Bangkok's business day rush hour.
But the street was deserted now. Many residents had fled the area during the fighting the day before. Loyal That soldiers had evacuated others, knowing that the fighting would be worse today. The street was still lined with parked vehicles, but Loomis could see no movement.
He heard them first, the clash-clank of tracks on pavement, the rumble of diesels. The lead tank came into view a moment later, first in a long line of trucks and armored vehicles.
Loomis pressed his eye to the telescope sight, centering it on the lead vehicle. He flicked a switch from standby to active, and a bright spot of light appeared on the target, near the top of the Stingray's turret.
'Firefly, Firefly, this is Zulu Three Kilo,' he said. The pencil mike in front of his lips picked up the words and transmitted them to a base station a few yards away on the rooftop. The station relayed the message skyward. 'The lamp is lit. I say again, the lamp is lit.'
'Roger that, Zulu Three Kilo,' a voice said in his ear. 'We see the light. Firefly on the way.'
The lieutenant at his side was speaking rapidly in That into his own microphone, warning friendly forces to keep their heads down. The show was about to begin.
Loomis had been in the Marines for twenty-five years. As a lance corporal, he'd ridden out Tet and fought his way through the shattered streets of Hue. Three months ago he'd been on the beach at Wonsan, working with the Beachmaster to off-load AAFV 'tuna boats' as rocket and mortar fire dug holes in the sand and Tomcats shrieked overhead. This was the first time he'd ever fought a battle with what was in effect little more than a high-tech flashlight.
The Ground Laser Designator, or GLD, produced a beam of infrared light, invisible to the unaided eye but crystal clear to the proper optics or instrumentation. That intense spot of red light on the Stingray could not be seen by its crew, but somewhere in the night sky, colder, more efficient eyes were already locking onto the light, hunting it… and closing in. Elsewhere in the city, he knew, there were other small teams of men, Marine 'technical advisors' working with loyalist That counterparts, sealing off the city from the rebel attacks they knew must come.
It was, Loomis reflected, one hell of a way to fight a war.
'Victor Bravo Three, this is Firefly One.' Commander Steve Murcheson nudged the stick of his A-6 to adjust his course slightly, watching the terrain unfold on his Visual Display Indicator. 'We have contact with Zulu Three Kilo and the lamp is lit. Commencing run, over.'
'Firefly One, this is Victor Bravo,' the voice of a Hawkeye air traffic controller replied. 'We have a flight of Marine helos in your area, bearing three-three-niner at forty five hundred, range two-zero. You are clear for your approach, over.'
'Roger that. TRAM running and the pickle is hot.' The TRAM turret under the Intruder's nose registered the modulated laser light reflected from the target some twenty miles to the east. The Target Recognition and Attack Multi-sensor fed tracking data to the long, sleek weapon slung from the attack aircraft's starboard inboard weapons station. The bomb was already active, its robot eye following that same distant point of light.
Lieutenant Commander Simms, Firefly One's Bombardier/ Navigator, studied the view of his own VDI, watching a computer graphic image of what the TRAM was seeing, then switching to FLIR to give him an infrared view of the terrain ahead. The A-6's own TRAM could illuminate a target with a laser, but this particular target was in the middle of a city where the slightest error could kill hundreds of noncombatants. It was safer using a Marine spotter on the ground. He locked in the target. 'Positive ID,' the BN said. 'Skipper powered up, release on auto. We're go.'
'Rog,' Murcheson said. He switched to the tactical frequency. 'Firefly Lead, all go and in the game!'
Sunrise was less than an hour off, and the predawn sky was brightening rapidly. Murcheson could see the buildings of central Bangkok rising before him, beyond the silvery curve of the Chao Phraya River. They were approaching from the west, descending now to less than three thousand feet. Off the right wing, the waters of the Gulf of Thailand were a misty blue-violet band touching the sky.
The intruder's on-board computer continued to monitor the aircraft's course, speed, altitude, the location of the laser-illuminated target, and the input from the BN's console which set its operational parameters. Murcheson kept the Intruder flying on a dead-level course, making minute changes in course as directed by the computer.
'We're getting close,' Simms said. 'Any moment n-'
The computer's release signal caught them both by surprise. The Skipper II laser-guided air-to-ground missile was fourteen feet long and weighed over twelve hundred pounds, and as the AGM kicked free, the Intruder bucked skyward. 'Breakaway!' Murcheson snapped. He opened the air-to-ground channel again. 'Zulu Three Kilo, this is Firefly! Package on the way!'
Murcheson brought the Intruder's stick left and skimmed north across the city. Buildings flashed past, canyons of concrete and steel. This close to the ground, the sensation of speed was breathtaking. 'Wheeeoh!' he cried over the open mike. 'Just like Star Wars! Firefly Lead, out of the hunt!'
The missile flashed out of the near darkness, a point of light on the unreeling white line of a contrail. First introduced in 1985, Skipper II had been created by the Naval Weapons Center from off-the-shelf components, the solid-fuel motor of the outdated Shrike missile mated to the warhead of a Mark 83 one-thousand-pound bomb. Its seeker head kept the spot of infrared laser light centered in its field of view, adjusting the rocket's fins as the target moved.
At a range of less than six miles, it had a targeting accuracy measured in inches.
Colonel Kriangsak propped himself up in the commander's hatch, his eyes fixed on the line of tanks ahead. With less than three miles to go before they reached the government building complex, he'd expected more resistance from the loyalists, some show of force at least.
There was a thump, as though the tank he was riding in had hit a pothole, and the predawn semidarkness turned a dazzling white. There was no sound that he was aware of, but there was a gut-wrenching sensation of falling… then blackness.
'My God, will you look at that!' Even at better than three hundred yards, the blast had rocked the service station where Loomis and the Thais were hiding. Windows shattered, and night turned to day as an orange fireball crawled into the sky on a column of flame-shot smoke.
Loomis used the laser target scope to survey the damage. The lead tank was gone… gone, along with part of the highway. He couldn't see anything left of the vehicle save for scraps which might have been anything. The second tank in line had dipped nose-first into the crater scooped out of the pavement by the blast and tumbled onto its back. Smoke and flame poured from the wreckage. Tanks three and four lay upended thirty yards from the pit, like discarded toys.
