Bright Star

Chapter 17

The Soviet Ilyushin 76 airborne warning aircraft continued to inch its way to the coast. Ordered to monitor the activities of the American warships and their aircraft in the Red Sea, the Ilyushin 76 left its normal patrol pattern. As it began its surveillance, the Ilyushin became the target of several American electronic warfare aircraft. Determined to blind the Ilyushin with jamming and interference, one of the American EW aircraft was operating to the north, coming out of Egypt. The other apparently was operating from the American carrier in the Red Sea. Unable to maintain his cover in western Sudan and accomplish its new mission, the commander of the Ilyushin found himself moving eastward. Dutifully he reported that he could no longer cover the area around Al Fasher and Port Sudan simultaneously. He asked for clarification as to which area had priority. There was a pause on the radio; he then was told to wait for further orders. It took twenty minutes before someone on the ground in Africa, or Moscow, made a decision. The orders — to monitor the American fleet — were relayed through the Soviet embassy in Khartoum, Sudan.

Even before he received those orders, the senior officer on board the Ilyushin had initiated steps to work through the jamming. The operators sitting at their consoles in the body of the Ilyushin 76 waged a silent war with American electronic warfare aircraft to the north and east. Using frequency hopping, increases in power, multiple assets aimed at a single source, and other techniques, the crew of the Ilyushin worked to gather intelligence on the Americans. The shifting of the aircraft to the east made their task easier.

A quick analysis by the senior officer on board the Ilyushin showed moves and deployments that normally preceded an amphibious assault. He and his crew had seen it all before. They had studied it and had had an opportunity to observe it during NATO and 6th Fleet exercises in the Mediterranean. Therefore, determining what was happening was easy. It was the why and where that puzzled everyone. In Moscow, intelligence officers searched for an answer. To put troops ashore in Sudan, ostensibly a friendly country, made no sense. There was no way that U.S. possession of that port would be able to interfere with the airlift further west. Perhaps, one naval officer suggested, the Americans were trying to secure the southern flank of Egypt. Perhaps, another suggested, they were conducting a feint against Port Sudan, that the real target was in Ethiopia.

There was little time to pinpoint intended point of attack. There was even less time to devote to the why. With so few assets in the area, orders had to be given soon. What forces they had needed to be massed in order to counteract, and perhaps even prevent, the Americans' operation. Until the decision was made as to what to do, the Ilyushin operating east of Atbara, Sudan, and another over the Red Sea flying out of Gondar, Ethiopia, would continue to watch and report.

Anticipation began to build, gradually replacing the dull monotony of the approach flight. Mennzinger could feel his heart rate slowly increase as they began to close on the target. The checkpoints were more numerous now, their turns more frequent and their altitude lower. They were well within range of the Soviet SA-9 surface-to-air defense missiles. So far they had been lucky. Their radar warning receivers hadn't picked up any Soviet radar signals bouncing off them. Mennzinger hoped their luck would hold for another ten minutes. Even if it didn't, however, they were committed. There would be no backing out. At this point the only thing staying undetected by the Soviets for as long as possible did was to increase their chances of surprise and, equally important, their chances of survival.

Mennzinger looked at the map in his lap, checking their progress, and looking at what lay ahead. As he did so, he pressed down with the toe of his right foot on the intercom transmit switch. "Next checkpoint is forty-three. It'll be a road junction with a wide ditch to the south of it and a stand of trees to the north. We'll be able to see them as soon as you clear that next rise. When we get there, hover to the north of the trees. We need to allow the rest of the company to close up before we move into battle position COBRA."

Mennzinger's pilot acknowledged with a simple "Check." Flying mere feet above the ground at 100 knots plus required his undivided attention. Putting his map back into its stowage box, Mennzinger began to prepare the Apache's fire control system. Starting with the fire control panel, he checked each switch setting and each laser code input, arming the laser as he went along. Satisfied, he checked the controls and display on his optical relay tube, starting with the heads-out view screen, then the heads-down display. He fine-tuned the images until they were as sharp and clear as possible. He was still fiddling with his fire controls when they reached checkpoint 43.

Shegayev felt, more than heard, the beating of helicopter blades out in the darkness. He sat up and looked down the ditch. The men on either side had heard the same thing. With his hand and a whispered command, he instructed them to pass the word to stay down and be quiet. Moving to the edge of the ditch, he slowly raised his head just as a dark shadow zipped overhead. The sudden burst of noise and the pressure of air forced down by powerful rotor blades caused Shegayev to pull his head down and seek safety at the bottom of the ditch.

Mennzinger was still busy when the Apaches suddenly made a violent banking maneuver to the right. Without bothering to key the intercom, he yelled out. "Jesus, Andy! Next time you want to stand this helicopter on its side, at least give me a warning."

Over the intercom the pilot replied, a little sheepishly, "Sorry, boss — I almost missed the checkpoint. Didn't want to overshoot the trees."

Looking out into the night, Mennzinger could make out the image of the trees they were now slowly approaching. "Okay. Almost time to go to work. Maintain a position on the north side of the trees, Andy, while I gather in the flock." Moving his left foot to the radio transmit switch, Mennzinger pressed his toe down, keying the radio net for the first time since leaving Cairo.

Using the company's "Bandit" call sign instead of the official call signs of letters and numbers randomly generated by a computer, Mennzinger put out a net call. "Bandits, Bandits. This is Bandit 6. Rally at checkpoint 43 and report. Bandit 6 out."

As he waited for his company to close up on him, Mennzinger continued with the check of the fire control system that the pilot's turn had so suddenly disrupted.

Recovering his composure, Shegayev crawled back to the wall of the ditch and slowly, carefully began to raise his head. There was a ringing in his right ear, which probably accounted for his not hearing the slow approach of the next helicopter. When he finally became aware of its presence, it was practically on top of him.

Shegayev froze in place. To his immediate front, less than twenty meters from where he sat, a large, black apparition appeared before him. It hung there as if suspended by an invisible string. Then it began to rotate toward him. Common sense told him to pull his head down and seek the safety of the ditch. Curiosity kept him watching. When the apparition reached a point in its turn where they were facing each other, it paused for a second. Shegayev found himself looking at the black, sinister form of the Apache attack helicopter head on, silhouetted against the dark sky, with most of its features and details obscured. He imagined he was facing a huge black insect. Its low, swept-back wings were heavily ladened with ordnance. The whirling rotors beat the night air, holding it in place like an insect preparing to strike. Like a poisonous stinger, a single large-caliber gun protruded from its chin. And its one large, shiny eye twisted and turned, probing the darkness for prey.

Just before they came eye to eye, Shegayev dropped down. Turning and placing his back against the wall, he fought to regain his composure. Despite the cold, sweat was running down his face in rivulets. He was hyperventilating, gasping for his breath. The only external sensation he felt was the beating of the blades over him. All other senses were paralyzed, unable to deal with the image burned in his mind of the huge black bug about to attack him.

The last Apache to report into Mennzinger was Bandit 5, George Katzenberg, the Cat. When he did, he informed Mennzinger that Bandit 3, crewed by First Lieutenant Tommy Hightower and Warrant Officer One Ed Franks, had made an emergency landing. Cat reported that he had circled and recorded the grid where Bandit 3 had set down. There was silence on the radio net for a moment as Mennzinger recalled what task Hightower had been given and who could best take it. Based on Cat's location, Mennzinger ordered Cat to take Hightower's tasks as well as his own. When Katzenberg acknowledged, Mennzinger ordered the company to follow him and occupy battle position COBRA.

"Comrade Lieutenant, they're leaving."

Shegayev heard his sergeant but didn't make any immediate effort to move. He was still struggling to pull himself together. For an instant he considered himself lucky. They were going. Good! They would soon be someone else's problem. But his duty wasn't finished. He had to do something. Even if it was only counting and reporting the helicopters, he had to do something.

Turning back to the front of the ditch, Shegayev carefully stuck his head over the lip of the ditch. He was in time to see the last of the Apaches leave the cover of the trees and head off to the west, toward the airfield. When he was sure they were gone, Shegayev asked the sergeant how many there had been. Four was the answer. Only four.

Shegayev was able to think rationally for the first time since seeing the helicopters. He called to the radioman, who came scampering down the ditch, bouncing from wall to wall. He found Shegayev and reported. "Aliyev — contact battalion — quickly," Shegayev said. "We must wam them."

Aliyev was a good radioman, the son of a coal miner, but at times a little slow. "What is it that you want me to report?"

When he heard the helicopters passing overhead, Kinsly paused and looked up. Seeing them thundering in toward the target gave him both satisfaction and relief — satisfaction that he and his men had been able to play a part in setting up the attack that was about to go down, relief that his role was finished. The fight belonged to the chopper jockeys and zoomies. He and his men were out of there.

Looking back down the ditch, he could see the rest of his team had also paused to look. With a low "Pssst" he got the attention of the man behind him, signaling to him to start moving again and pass the word to the rest.

Turning back to the east, Kinsly began to move along the ditch. The road junction and clump of trees where they would wait for pickup was only another two hundred meters down the ditch.

As the rest of his company moved into place, Mennzinger ordered Andy to hang back. To his far right Cat moved up, hovered, then found a position from which he could spot the maintenance sheds and then the runway. Between Cat and Mennzinger Bandit 4 moved into a position from where he would spot the ammo dump for the incoming F-111s. Set on the right, Mennzinger traversed the target acquisition and designation sight, TADS for short. Through its green thermal eye he could see Bandit 1 was already in position and waiting to designate the far fuel tanks with his laser.

Satisfied that all was ready, he laid his TADS onto his target. To his front, at a range of eleven hundred meters, was a field full of fuel blivets. Unlike the ones back at their own refuel point, these blivets held five thousand gallons of fuel each. Between them a maze of pipes connected them into a system that allowed the Soviets to feed the steady stream of aircraft coming in and out of Libya. Satisfied that he had the target, Mennzinger ordered Andy to move forward slowly to a point behind a slight rise in the ground. As Andy eased the Apache forward, Mennzinger continued to watch the point he had selected for a spot. The idea was to get into the best-covered and — concealed position possible and still be able to designate the target.

They were still easing into that position when the UHF radio cracked to life. "Bandit Six, Bandit Six. This is Lone Star One. Daytona now." "Lone Star" was the call sign of the F-111s; Lone Star 1 was the flight leader — from his nickname and his drawl, it wasn't hard to tell where that zoomie came from. "Daytona" was the name given the initiation point, or IP. It was at that point that the F-111s would begin their bomb run.

Mennzinger switched his radio to the HF band to acknowledge the call. "Lone Star One, this is Bandit Six. Set and ready to spot."

The response was quick from the F-111s. "Lone Star One copies."

Switching to the battalion net, Mennzinger contacted the battalion commander. "Eagle Six, this is Bandit Six — Lone Star in contact and passed Daytona. Bandit set — we have not been picked up by search or acquisition radar — over."

"Roger, Bandit. Corsair Six, commence your attack — over."

Corsair 6—the call sign for the C company commander— acknowledged. That acknowledgment was followed by a volley of rockets from the battle position where C Company had been set and waiting. Mennzinger looked at his watch. It was 0300 hours local.

In the 2nd Corps operations center there was silence. All eyes were on the clock with local time as the sweep hand raced up to the 12. When it hit, it was as if everyone's heart skipped a beat. General Horn turned to his chief of staff. "Well, they're in. Now it's all theirs."

General Darruznak picked up his fourth cup of coffee, then turned to Horn. "A bullet or a brevet?"

Horn chuckled. "Yeah, something like that. Only we're not the ones who'll get the bullet."

In his frustration, Shegayev pounded the radio with his fist. "Can't you get this damned thing to work?"

Aliyev bent over to look at the radio and check the settings and connections. Finished, he looked up at Shegayev. "Comrade Lieutenant, the radio is functioning properly. It must be the other station, or perhaps jamming."

Shegayev, totally frustrated, was about to yell when the sky to the west was lit up by a series of flashes. Standing upright in the ditch, Shegayev looked in the direction of the flashes. The sound of the rockets firing, then impacting took several seconds to reach him. He had been too late. He had failed to warn his commander of the impending danger. He stood there for a second as the horror of his failure began to sink in. As he did, the rest of his patrol began to pop their heads up and look to the west at the wild light show that was beginning to grow in intensity.

Kinsly paused and turned to look back at the airfield. Satisfied that they had done their job, he turned and was about to duck down and continue through the ditch when he saw something. Dropping until his eyes were level with the rim of the ditch, Kinsly could clearly make out the image of a man standing waist high in the same ditch not thirty meters to his front. The flashes also betrayed the round forms of helmets that seemed to keep popping up around him.

Dropping down, he gave the signal to hold up. Quickly he evaluated his options. He had twelve men against an ambush patrol. On past nights the Russian ambush patrols consisted of no more than ten men. He therefore didn't have any real superiority in manpower. The Russians would have at least one PK machine gun. Kinsly had none, only rifles. But he did have one advantage: surprise. He knew the Russians were there, and they didn't know he had seen them. Guessing that the Russians would be making a beeline to the airfield, Kinsly prepared to ambush the ambush patrol.

"Lone Star One — thirty seconds."

The lead F-111 was thirty seconds out. Ignoring the flashes and explosions rocking the airfield as C Company continued to smash air defense emplacements, Mennzinger prepared to spot for the F-111. With his head down on his sight, he laid the cued line of sight reticle on a point in the center of the fuel blivets. Satisfied, he hit the laser button with the middle finger of his right hand and the radio transmit switch with his left toe. "Bandit Six — laser on."

There was a pause. The F-111 was already climbing slightly, ready to lob its bombs. Then it came back. "Lone Star One — spot." Another pause. The PAVE TACK laser acquisition system had found the reflected laser light from Mennzinger's laser beam. Automatically the F-111 's PAVE TACK target designator locked onto the spot and began to provide the F-Ill's navigation/attack computer with the data it would need for bomb release. The F-111 pilot acknowledged that the spot had been detected. "Lone Star One — lock — bombs away."

Watching, Mennzinger thought that he saw the cluster bombs break up and the shower of bomblets that followed. There was no doubt when they began to land on and between the blivets. His sight turned from images of black and green to pure black as the bomblets exploded, splitting the blivets and igniting the fuel. Pulling his head back, Mennzinger watched the spectacle as the entire fuel dump appeared to rise up in the sky in a huge fireball. In his ear he heard the attack sequence being repeated as Lone Star 2 contacted Bandit 1. Mennzinger watched and listened as, like clockwork, each F-111 in its turn hit the IP and began its run in.

After releasing his finger from the laser button, Mennzinger depressed the radio transmit switch with his left toe. "Bandit Six — laser off."

The fireball rising in the sky caught Shegayev by surprise. He stopped running and looked up. As he did so, the soldier behind him plowed into him. Shegayev didn't even notice the collision. The spectacle to his front was, all at once, mesmerizing and appalling. Neither did Shegayev, or any of the men behind him, notice half a dozen grenades come rolling into the ditch.

As soon as the grenades began to explode, Kinsly and Sergeant Lou Washington were up and running forward in the ditch, side by side, to where the Russians were. With their weapons at their hips, they fired as they went. Right behind them two more men from his team followed, lobbing grenades further down the ditch. Like a World War I trench raid, Kinsly took on the Russians. Outside the ditch, to their flank, Kinsly's Sudanese soldiers lay waiting, rifles leveled at the rim of the ditch. If the Russians realized what was happening and tried to get out of the ditch, they would be picked off by Sudanese.

They didn't have long to wait. Two Russians in the rear had survived the first grenade attack. Quickly realizing that the enemy was coming from the front, they stood and prepared to run back. The Sudanese sergeant told his men to hold fire for a moment. The Russians, not making fast enough progress, climbed out of the ditch and began to run for the clump of trees across the road. When they were in the center of the road, the Sudanese sergeant told his men to fire. In a hail of bullets, the two survivors were cut down.

Kinsly and his raiding party didn't stop until they had passed the last dead Russian and had gone twenty meters further down the trench. He yelled to his men to hold up. The four men dropped down and caught their breath. They were all sweating despite a cold breeze that was beginning to pick up. Turning to Washington, Kinsly asked if he thought they had gotten all the Russians. Washington was about to stick his head up and look but stopped when he remembered that the Sudanese were still out there, waiting. "Captain, we'd better call off our people before we check out the commies. Hate to end the night gettin' nailed by our own."

As spectacular and complete as their surprise was, the Russians at the airfield weren't totally paralyzed. As Lone Star 6, the last F-111, rolled in, a Russian paratrooper let go an SA-7 surface-to-air missile. Lone Star 6 had just released his load of bombs when the SA-7 exploded, damaging the right engine. In a single, terrible moment Mennzinger watched as the F-111 dipped to the right slightly and made a sharp descent. As it did so, its right wing tip scraped the runway, trailing a shower of sparks. Then the plane nosed down and flipped to the right, standing on its nose in the process. It had almost finished a full cartwheel when it exploded in the center of the runway. As if the crash of the F-111 were the grand finale at the end of an act, the runway cratering bombs began to explode around the remains of the stricken F-111.

There was a moment of silence before Mennzinger switched his radio back to the UHF frequency that the F-111s were on. He hit the transmit switch. "Lone Star One — this is Bandit Six — Lone Star Six went in — over."

There was a pause. "This is Lone Star One — anyone eject — over."

"Bandit Six — negative — SA-Seven up the tail — too low — too fast — over."

"Bandit Six — this is Lone One — thanks, good buddy — good luck and good hunting — over." The voice of Lone Star 1 was no longer that of the cocky Texan, ready to conquer the world. For a moment Mennzinger pitied him. In a few hours he would be knocking on a door in Britain. A woman who didn't know that she was a widow would answer it. She'd probably still be in a bathrobe. On her doorstep would be an Air Force colonel who went by the call sign Lone Star 1. He'd still be in his flight suit. With him there would be a major in class-A uniform and a chaplain. She would know them all. And they wouldn't have to say a word.

"Good luck and safe journey to you, Lone Star — this is Bandit Six out."

Switching back to the frequency his company was on, Mennzinger gave the order to move to battle position COTTON MOUTH and to begin to engage enemy aircraft parked in their revetments. He and his men still had a long fight ahead of them.

The attack on the airfield was clearly visible to the crew and the lone passenger of the Blackhawk headed into the pickup zone at the road junction. From where he sat, facing out the open door, Cerro could see everything — the rocket fire and Hellfire missiles launched from the Apaches and the resulting explosions on the airfield. It was spectacular. Over his headphones Cerro listened to the reports and orders of the attacking Apaches. Their radio traffic was minimal but informative. The Apaches that had spotted for the F-111s had shifted to their next battle position and were in the process of engaging Soviet transports and helicopters on the south side of the field. The company that had taken out the air defense at the beginning of the attack was finishing up the destruction of the fighters on the ground and was shifting its attention to a vehicle park. All seemed in order and going well. Even the loss of one F-111 and one Apache on the run in didn't seem to bother anyone or spoil the success of the attack.

"There they are." With that as his only warning, the pilot jerked the helicopter to the left and began to descend. Cerro looked to see what the pilot had seen, but was unable to. In a minute they'd be on the ground.

The pain shot through Shegayev's body like an electric shock. Though he had no idea what had happened, he knew he was hurt bad, perhaps even dying. Slowly he began to sort out his sensations and his pains in order to determine just where he was hurt and what, if anything, he could do.

As the first wave of pain subsided, he determined that he was lying face down in a pool of liquid. His efforts to lift his head brought a surge of crippling pain. He let out an involuntary groan as his head dropped back into the pool. Some of the liquid splashed into his mouth: the taste was salty and somewhat bitter. And it was warm. The liquid was blood, probably his own. For a second he rested, attempting to catch his breath. Even that was difficult and painful. When he was ready for his second attempt to lift himself, he tried to move his arms and push himself up. It was then that he discovered that he had no feeling in or response from his left arm.

Frustrated, he moved his right hand under his chest and pushed up. Though burning pain racked his body, almost causing him to pass out, Shegayev held on to consciousness and pushed. Like a drunk, he found that movements in one direction were not automatically compensated for by his body. Instead of bringing him up to his knees, the final effort to right himself almost caused him to topple over backwards. That in itself caused a new wave of pain. Still conscious, Shegayev struggled to gain his balance, his right arm flapping and his head gyrating wildly.

It worked. After a moment he settled into his new position. He was now on his knees, buttocks resting on his calves. With his good arm, he felt his left arm to determine how badly it was damaged. At first he thought he was running his fingers through the tattered remains of his blood-soaked field jacket. Still numb from the grenade attack, he froze in horror when the fingers of his right hand came in contact with the upper bone of his left arm. Slowly looking down, Shegayev watched as he withdrew his hand from the mass of loose skin and muscle that hung from his shredded left arm.

The sudden scream of a low-flying helicopter passing overhead drew his attention away from his arm. Looking up, he saw the black whalelike body of a helicopter slow, then settle down. They were back. The raid was over and they were returning. He had to do something. Though he didn't know what he could do, he couldn't simply lie down and die without doing something. He was a soldier, an officer. He had to avenge himself and his dead comrades. Wildly Shegayev began to look about the ditch, not knowing what he was looking for until his eyes fell upon the PK machine gun.

The wheels hadn't even touched down before Cerro had unbuckled his seat belt and crouched at the door. A figure ran from the ditch and began to move toward him. Even in the dark Cerro knew who owned the large frame that was lumbering toward him. Over the roar of the Blackhawk's engines Cerro yelled. "HEY! DID SOMEONE HERE ORDER A PIZZA?"

Kinsly picked up his pace. "Hal, is that you?"

"Yeah, who the hell else would make a delivery in a neighborhood like this?" With that, Cerro was out and running to embrace a man who was more than a brother to him.

Twice Shegayev collapsed from the pain as he dragged himself and the machine gun over to the wall of the ditch. Breathing was getting harder. He had to make an effort to draw in each breath, and each time he did there was a flash of pain. Once he reached the wall, Shegayev set the machine gun up against it, then pulled himself up until his head and chest were over the lip. Leaning his chest against the wall, he reached down with his right arm and pulled the machine gun up and over the lip of the ditch. Carefully he steadied the gun and put himself behind it, pulling the stock up to his right shoulder.

As he sighted down the barrel, he noticed his field of vision was narrowing. For a moment he thought his eyes were playing a trick on him. It seemed to him that he was looking down a long, dark tunnel. Only a small circular vision in the center of the tunnel was clear, visible. As he looked at the figure exiting the lead helicopter, he realized that he was dying. Slowly he was bleeding to death. The dark fringe that narrowed his field of vision was death's shroud closing over him.

In a last, desperate effort, driven by a determination to die fighting, Shegayev put his cheek to the stock of the machine gun. He made one final adjustment of his aim. The figure that had left the helicopter was stopped. It stood, arms held open in the PK's sight as Shegayev began to squeeze the trigger.

The figure racing toward the stationary one wasn't in Shegayev's field of vision.

Arms out, ready to embrace his long-lost friend, Cerro watched Kinsly's face suddenly contort and change. Instead of a wide smile, his eyes bulged out, his mouth gaping as if to let out a yelp of surprise. The chatter of machine-gun fire reached Cerro's ears as Kinsly stumbled forward one last step and collapsed into Cerro's arms. The weight of the big man pulled them both to their knees. As they went down, Kinsly's head came down onto Cerro's shoulder, allowing Cerro to see the flashes of a machine gun firing from the ditch.

"EVERYONE HIT IT! WE'RE UNDER FIRE! HIT IT!" Cerro's warning couldn't be heard by the door gunner in the Blackhawk. But that wasn't necessary: seeing the flashes, the door gunner laid his weapon onto them and let go a burst. The first was overline. With a slight move of his wrists, he moved the gun down and began to lean on the trigger, walking the tracers into the target.

Shegayev didn't understand what had happened. Just before he fired, the figure appeared to split in two. He paused for a moment to resight his weapon. His field of vision was narrower. His breathing was becoming harder, more painful. Little time. He knew he had little time. He was almost gone, dead.

There was no time for small targets — too hard to find and aim at. Turning the gun to the helicopter, he didn't notice the first wild burst fired by the door gunner. The second burst landed short initially, throwing up rock fragments and sand in front of Shegayev. The shower of fragments surprised Shegayev, causing him to jerk the machine gun's trigger. He was firing wildly when the stream of bullets coming from the helicopter found their mark. Hit square in the face, Shegayev was knocked over backwards into the ditch. His finger remained frozen on the trigger as he pulled the gun down with him.

"HE'S HIT! MEDIC! MEDIC! I'VE GOT A WOUNDED MAN HERE!" Cerro held on to Kinsly, holding him against his chest. He was afraid to let go, as if his holding him were the only thing that was keeping him alive. The helicopter's crew chief and Sergeant Washington reached the two captains at the same time. Washington took his captain and gently laid him face down onto the ground. The crew chief held Cerro by his shoulders for a moment to steady him, then went around to assist Washington.

Cerro remained sitting there on his knees, watching the two NCOs frantically working on his friend. As the rest of Kinsly's men closed up on the group, the crew chief yelled to them to lend a hand and get the body into the helicopter. Half a dozen pairs of hands surrounded Kinsly and lifted him before Cerro's eyes. Then they were gone.

For a moment Cerro remained there, still on his knees, looking where Kinsly had been. The crew chief put his hand on Cerro's shoulder again. Putting his mouth next to Cerro's ear, he told him that it was time to go.

Scanning to his right, Mennzinger looked for more targets. Acquisition was becoming difficult. The shattered remains of aircraft, large and small, were burning brightly. Here and there rivers of burning fuel ran down the runway and along drainage ditches. Checking his stores, he saw that they still had four rockets and nine hundred rounds of 30mm left. But there was nothing to fire it at. He was about to order Andy to slide over to the left, into another position, when Eagle 6 gave the order to break off and move back to their company rally points.

Mennzinger looked at his watch. It was 0320 hours local: right on time. "Okay, Andy. The boss man has decided we've had too much fun for one night. Let's ease on out of here and go back to checkpoint forty-three." Letting up on the intercom toe switch and depressing the radio toe switch, Mennzinger gave the order to his company to break off and move back to the rally point. He ordered Cat in Bandit 5 to bring up the rear.

By the time he had finished the order, Andy already had backed off of the battle position, swung the Apache about, and was zooming back to the rally point. With a conflagration consuming the airfield behind them and the attack complete, Mennzinger eased back into his seat. He felt drained. With the tension and pressure momentarily removed, there was a feeling of letdown, as if he were going through withdrawal. Looking out of the canopy, he let his mind go blank. In another hour it would be all over. Someone else would fly their Apaches back to Egypt.

Andy keyed the intercom and brought Mennzinger back from his wandering thoughts. "Looks like the Blackhawks are late getting the Special Forces guys out."

Reaching out and grasping the grips on either side of the optical relay tube, Mennzinger pulled himself forward and looked into the sight to see what Andy was talking about. Two hundred meters to their front, at checkpoint 43, two Blackhawks were just lifting off. Mennzinger considered the problem for a moment, then decided it wasn't a problem. Though they should have been gone five minutes ago, they were going now. Whatever it was that delayed them wouldn't interfere with his company. Keying the intercom, he told Andy not to worry about the Blackhawks. They were going. Instead, he wanted Andy to go back to where they had been before the attack and wait for everyone to join them.

Washington and the crew chief worked desperately, fighting a battle both knew they couldn't win. The captain lying on the floor before them had been hit five, maybe six times. At least one lung was punctured, probably both. There was the possibility that his spine was severed. And there was internal bleeding. Blood flowed from his nose and came up in clumps every time he coughed. He needed blood, which they didn't have. He needed surgery, which they, or the people at the refuel point, couldn't do. In the end, what he needed in order to live was a miracle — something that just wasn't going to happen.

Cerro sat on the floor beside Kinsly, holding Kinsly's big black hand in his lap. Cerro's eyes were blurred by tears that would not fall. He kept his thoughts to himself as Washington and the crew chief continued to work.

It was cold. For a moment Kinsly couldn't imagine why it was so cold in the house. He knew he had turned the heat up before he went to bed. He wanted it to be warm when they went down to unwrap the presents. He considered getting up and checking the thermostat but decided against it. He was tired, so terribly tired. He always got that way whenever he stayed up and put his daughter's toys together. Like his father before him, he always waited until the night before Christmas to put the toys together — and like his father, he cursed and vowed never to do it again. But he never changed. Every year was the same. And somehow the smile on his daughter's face when she saw the tree and the presents under it made it all worthwhile. Tomorrow would be no different.

It would be morning soon. He needed to get some rest. Christmas day was always a long one in the Kinsly house. Squeezing his wife's hand, he let himself drift off to sleep.

Washington paused and looked at the crew chief. Picking up Kinsly's free hand, Washington felt for a pulse. There was none. Putting the hand down, Washington felt for a pulse under Kinsly's chin. None. Cerro silently watched as he did so. Sitting up on his knees, Washington leaned over Kinsly's body toward Cerro. Washington wanted to whisper, to tell Cerro as gently as possible; but he had to shout in order to be heard over the noise of the helicopter's engine. "I'm sorry, sir, but he's dead. There's nothing we could do for him."

Cerro looked up, tears running down his cheeks, his chest heaving. "I know. I know."