Viper Strike

CHAPTER 25

The That UH-1 Hueys touched down in a clearing less than fifteen kilometers from U Feng, as troops of the 1st Special Forces (Airborne) leaped from the landing skids and dispersed across the landing zone. Smoke plumes drifted with the wind, defining the LZ, a scar in the forest left by a recent logging operation. Super Stallions and twin-rotored Sea Knights bearing the squadron numerals and markings of the U.S. Marines and the 6th Marine Expeditionary Unit were also present, settling to the ground as soldiers unloaded heavy equipment, weapons, and vehicles from their holds. From one grounded Sea Stallion, a line of men with paint-blackened faces and camo fatigues quietly filed down the rear ramp and fell into formation. They wore floppy boonie hats like their That counterparts, and carried a variety of weapons, ranging from M-16s to Israeli Uzis to Soviet-made AKMs.

They were Marine Recon, members of the Force Recon company assigned to MEU-6. Their specialty was landing in advance of the main body of Marines during an amphibious operation in order to gain pre-landing intelligence. If Marines considered themselves the best, Marine Recon considered its people the best of the best, an elite commando unit as capable as ― they themselves would have said more capable than ― SEALS, the SAS, or Delta Force. All had been through two years of special training, making them qualified as combat swimmers, at HALO insertions, and at combat operations deep behind enemy lines. They'd been assigned to the U Feng operation because of their experience as forward air controllers, and several of them shouldered the heavy, square cases which held GLD equipment.

But their training also made them ideal for another type of mission.

"Listen up, people," the officer in command of the unit said. Lieutenant Francis Nolan Miller spoke softly but with absolute authority. "Team assignments stay the same. So do the operational orders. The only thing different is the initial objective. Once we have located and freed any American hostages in the target area, original mission directives are in force. Our first concern, however, is the safety of Americans being held in that camp. Questions?"

"Yeah, LT," someone said. "Whose screw-up was it this time?"

Miller allowed himself a tight grin. Last-minute changes to operations such as this one were detested by the troops. They never failed to make things more complicated… and more likely to go wrong. Inevitably there was always someone who didn't get the word. "It's ours now, Wojtascek," he said.

"It's in our laps so it's our problem. Right? Move out."

The Marines began separating into the four-man units favored by Recon.

Miller searched the LZ until he saw a That general standing with several of his staff officers nearby. He walked up to the men and saluted. "General Vinjit?"

"Yes, Lieutenant," the general said in accented English. He was dressed, like the others, in camouflage fatigues. Only the star on his baseball cap showed that he was a brigade-level commander. "Your men are ready?"

"Yes, sir. I just wanted to make sure we're straight on the plan.

You'll keep your forces back and out of sight until you hear from us."

The general's mouth twitched impatiently. "I and my men know our duties, Lieutenant. You see to yours." He turned away and continued discussing the map with his staff.

"Yes, sir." Miller returned to where his own team was waiting.

"Trouble, Lieutenant?" Gunnery Hunnicker asked.

"Nah." He glanced back at the That officers. "Language barrier."

Miller had an unpleasant feeling about this last-second change in plans.

Originally, the Recon Marines were to move in close to the U Feng perimeter and serve as forward observers, first for the Hornets designated as Chickenhawk, then for the Intruders designated Thunderbird. The Marines would then step aside while Vinjit's men took the camp back from whoever had survived the air attack.

Now, though, the presence of American hostages in U Feng had changed things. The air strike was to be delayed until either the Americans were rescued, or until Lieutenant Miller reported that rescue was impossible.

Either way, the bombers would not go in until after they'd heard from the Marines.

There was so much which could go wrong. The enemy had to know that several thousand That troops were in the vicinity. If the Thais were discovered, getting those Americans out of U Feng might be impossible, and Lieutenant Miller and his men would be left dangling.

If everything went according to plan…

Of course, Miller knew better than to expect that. The only question was just what would go wrong… and when.

Hsiao knew the Thais were coming, of course. It was impossible to miss them. Their aircraft, milling about north of Chiang Mai, stood out clearly on radar, and his scouts had reported That airmobile forces gathering several kilometers to the southeast.

How best to answer the threat? Hsiao had expected the enemy to begin with a massive air strike. Once certain that the Thais were committed, he would have ordered his own interceptors airborne, sending them off to the north as if in retreat. When the RTAF pursued, they would cross the Taeng River Valley west of U Feng where he'd arrayed the majority of his hidden SAM batteries. The J-7s would then turn and fall upon the survivors. Meanwhile, his ground-attack aircraft, still based safely across the border at Mong-koi, would stoop on the ground troops, destroying their trucks, their helicopters, their weapons positions, leaving the troops easy marks for his own soldiers.

But the operation already was not going according to plan. For some reason, the That air elements had stopped short of U Feng and were circling uselessly some fifty kilometers to the south.

Did that mean they were launching a ground assault first? Possibly the That Special Forces were planning a sneak raid aimed at destroying the J-7s on the ground. That was a chilling thought. The same strategy he'd already applied against the RTAF might be turned against him.

Hsiao had heard the American adage "Use it or lose it" and knew its meaning. The aphorism was appropriate here. He picked up a telephone.

"Get me Colonel Wu," he said. A moment passed. "Colonel? This is Hsiao. We are through waiting. Launch your aircraft."

Seconds later, a siren began wailing across the compound. If the Thais did not come to him, he would go to the Thais… and Sheng li would be complete.

The first of the silver-gray Shenyang J-7s screamed into the morning sky three minutes later.

"Eagle Leader, this is Victor Four Delta." The voice of the Hawkeye CIC officer circling over Bangkok crackled in Tombstone's ears. "We have multiple bogies at U Feng, your bearing three-five-zero. Do you copy, over?"

"Got 'em, Mr. Magruder," Dixie reported from the backseat. "I make it eight bogies… correction. Make that ten bogies. Looks like they're taking off two by two."

"Victor Four Delta, this is Eagle Leader. We have your bogies."

"Eagle, be advised that Thunderbird is closing with bogies.

"Copy, Victor Four. We're tailing."

The That aircraft, some sixteen of them, were already peeling out of the wheel of aircraft above Chiang Mai and streaking toward the north. Someone, Tombstone thought, should teach them some patience. Or some discipline…

But then, this was their country, invaded by an unknown enemy. Yeah, he'd be impatient too.

"Eagle Leader to Eagles," he radioed. "Let's go, but keep the throttles light. Follow them in." He didn't know what those MiG drivers had planned, but it couldn't be good.

"Ninety-nine aircraft, Victor Four Delta," the Hawkeye controller called.

"Bogies appear to be withdrawing, bearing three-three-zero. Estimate two-zero bogies, now making for the green line."

Withdrawing? Without a fight? Tombstone considered the possibilities and grimaced beneath his helmet visor. His hours as General Hsiao's guest in Kiong Toey had taught him a thing or two about the man. He was utterly ruthless, and he was methodical. Smuggling MiGs to a captured air base, mounting a complex operation in both northern Thailand and in Bangkok…

Hsiao would have foreseen this assault on his position, and he would have planned for it.

"Eagle Leader to all units," Tombstone snapped. "The people we're up against are tricky. Watch for snakes." He was thinking of the vehicle-mounted SAMs Batman had reported seeing at U Feng… SA-6 Gainfuls.

Hsiao had certainly had time to bring in a number of those monsters from Burma or elsewhere. Those tracks Batman had seen suggested Hsiao had run them south along the riverbank and across the border into Thailand. The jungle below was probably crawling with men sporting shoulder-launched anti-air missiles too.

Tombstone eased the stick forward, letting the F-14 descend to eight thousand feet. Jungle-carpeted hills flowed beneath the keel of his aircraft.

Dixie reported that the That formation was still pursuing the fleeing bogies and was now approaching U Feng. He gave the other aircraft of Eagle a quick check, looking left and right. The Vipers of VF-95 numbered ten F-14s, but only six had been assigned to the alpha strike. The others were destroyed or under repair, back on the Jefferson's hangar deck.

"Hey, Tombstone?" Dixie called over the ICS. "We're picking up some new radar. Have a listen."

Dixie piped the radar tone to Tombstone's headset. He heard it, a mournful thrum like a plucked cello string. "Long Track," he said." Batman's Gainfuls."

"Long Track" was NATO's code name for the radar used for early warning and to acquire preliminary target data for the SA-6. Guidance during lock-on and boost was called "Straight Flush."

Tombstone opened a new radio channel. "Snow White, Snow White, this is Eagle Leader. Do you read me, over?"

"Eagle, Snow White. Loud and clear. Go ahead."

"Snow White, we have a Long Track paint. Time to sing them your song."

"Copy that, Eagle Leader. You guys prefer blues or the hard stuff?"

"Sing 'em the blues, Snow White."

"Snow White's jamming, Tombstone," Dixie said. Somewhere miles to the south, an EA-6B Prowler of VAQ-143 designated Snow White circled at altitude, transmitting on frequencies designed to jam enemy radar. The jamming would break down at close range, but it would shield the alpha strike from long-ranged attacks and keep the enemy guessing about That and American numbers and intentions.

"Chickenhawk, Chickenhawk, this is Eagle Leader," Tombstone called.

"Where are you, Smiley?"

"Eagle, Chickenhawk Lead," Lieutenant Commander John 'Smilin' Jack" Van Dore replied. The former XO of VFA-161 had moved into the skipper's slot after the tragic death of Marty French at Wonsan. "We're one hundred fifty miles out and catching up."

"Chickenhawk, Gainfuls are confirmed. You guys are going to be busy."

"Roger that, Eagle. Warm 'em up a little for us, will you?"

"We'll see what we can do."

"Tombstone!" Dixie shouted. "Trapdoor is under fire!"

"Right," Tombstone snapped. "What's going down?"

"I'm getting missile indicators." Dixie paused, reading his scope. "SAM launch, Tombstone! SAMs!"

And Tombstone knew that Hsiao had sprung his trap.

Lieutenant Colonel Vasti Nithanivituk pulled back on his Falcon's stick and kicked in the afterburner. Green-clad mountains wheeled past his canopy as he stood the nimble aircraft on its tail and boosted for altitude. A veteran of six months in the United States training on F-16s at Nevis AFB, he was proud of his aircraft, fiercely proud of what he could make it do. The Falcon shrieked into the sky, inverting as it twisted out to an Immelmann.

The red warning light for a SAM lock still flashed on his console, next to the glowing computer symbols of his HUD. Upside down now, pressed into his ejection seat by the G-force of his loop, he looked "up" through the canopy, searching the greenery and valley folds overhead.

There!

He'd seen films at Nevis, but never the real thing. Just as the American pilots always described the thing, the SAM did look like a telephone pole as it rose from the jungle, balanced on a tongue of white flame. "Trapdoor!

Trapdoor!" he shouted in That. "Launch! I have a launch! Nam Mae Taeng Valley, sector three!" The missile was accelerating rapidly, arrowing toward him.

Lieutenant Colonel Vasti was the leader of Trapdoor, the That force assigned to secure air superiority over U Feng. He'd flown over twelve hundred hours in modern interceptors and was widely regarded as the best of Thailand's elite fighter pilot corps.

He was scared now. The SAM was less than a mile off now, still accelerating as its radar held its lock on his ship. This was the worst part of evading a SAM launch, as his American instructors had warned him, those long, long seconds when he had to keep his aircraft flying straight and level until the SAM was committed. He kept his eye on the missile, now visible only as a bright pinpoint of light, a flare in the sky rapidly growing brighter.

Now! Vasti stabbed at the chaff button and rolled his aircraft into a hard right turn. The idea was to twist out of the way before the missile could react and change course. Once its solid fuel motor burned out, it would pursue a ballistic trajectory into the ground and explode.

The skin on his face stretched back from his eyes and mouths with the force of his 7-G turn. He kept hitting the chaff dispenser, spewing packets of metallic foil along the Falcon's path in a cloud which would distract the SAM's radar and let him slip away.

Recovering from the break, he chanced a look back over his right shoulder. The enemy missile should…

He had only a second's glimpse of the missile as it arrowed up toward his plane. Twenty feet long and over a foot thick, the Gainful had an eighty-kilogram warhead which could explode on impact or by proximity fuse.

The missile exploded less than five meters from the Falcon, sending jagged chunks of metal tearing through the fighter's thin skin like rocks through tissue. The concussion slammed Vasti's helmeted head against the left side of his canopy. His instrument panel lit up with warning and failure lights. A harsh buzz and a brightly pulsing red light warned of a fire in his starboard engine. Numbly, he struggled to adjust the Falcon's trim.

No good. He was losing it. "Trapdoor, Trapdoor, this is Trapdoor Leader! I'm hit! I'm hit! Major Kraisri, take command!"

"Eject, Colonel!" He heard Major Kraisri's voice say. "Eject!"

He was reaching for the ejection handle when his stabilizer tore free with a jolt that felt like a second explosion, and Vasti was slammed into the right side of the cockpit. Stunned, he tried to focus on the view forward through his windscreen, a swirl of green rushing up to meet him.

Spinning wildly, the Falcon slammed into the side of a mountain. The explosion tore a fifty-foot gap in the jungle and sent a fireball uncoiling into the morning sky.

Then the sky seemed to catch fire as more SAMs rose from hiding.

"Victor Four Delta, this is Eagle Leader," Tombstone radioed. "From here it looks like Trapdoor is falling apart. Can you confirm the situation, over?"

"Ah, roger, Eagle Leader," the Hawkeye CIC officer replied. "Looks to us like they've stepped in a snake's nest."

It took less than two seconds for Tombstone to arrive at a decision. The revised plan called for all aircraft, That and American, to hold at Point Lima until Victor Four Delta gave them the go-ahead. But Trapdoor had gone in alone, chasing the bogies which had appeared over the captured airfield.

Operation Bright Lightning's whole reason for being was to support the Thais. He couldn't stand back and watch the less experienced That pilots get cut to pieces by whatever it was that Hsiao had waiting for them up there.

"Let's hit it." He keyed the tactical frequency. "Eagle Leader to Eagles. Let's give our That friends some help. Lead in."

"Eagle Two," Batman echoed. "We're in."

One by one the other Eagles called in.

"Eagle Three, in." Army Garrison in Tomcat 204.

"Eagle Four, us too." Price Taggart in 203.

"Five, yo!" Shooter Rostenkowski in 248.

"Eagle Six, count us in." Nightmare Marinaro in 244.

Six pale gray arrowheads, wings swept back against their flanks, streaked toward the north.

As they closed, Tombstone's RIO described the trap's closing as it unfolded on his Tactical Information Display. "Looks like a heavy SAM concentration in the Taeng Valley," Dixie said. "Trapdoor is reporting casualties… at least three planes down. And the bogies are turning."

"How many bogies you got, Dixie?"

"Hard to tell, Tombstone." Distance and friendly jamming would be confusing the picture. "At least twenty… maybe more."

"Okay." He keyed his mike to squadron tactical. "Eagle Leader to Eagles. We'll go in low over the airstrip. If you catch any MiGs, on the ground or taking off, nail them." It would be easier to whittle down the odds if they could hit the enemy planes before they were airborne. Not as sporting, perhaps… but despite the popular concept of winged warriors and man-to-man combat, there was little room for chivalry in war. "Stick together for the fast pass," he continued. "Tight deuce."

While the Navy's loose-deuce tactics provided the greatest flexibility in air combat maneuvers, Tombstone wanted the formation to stay close together until they knew for sure what they were up against. There would be so many planes in the air over U Feng that it would be easy for the American Eagles to bee widely scattered, unable to support one another.

"I'm counting twenty-two bogies now, Tombstone," Dixie reported. "Looks like they just splashed another Trapdoor."

"Rog." The odds were not good. Trapdoor had gone in with sixteen aircraft. Four, so far, had been shot down. Eagle numbered six. The Hornets of VFA-161 numbered eight more, but they were still a long way off and dedicated to SAM suppression, though they would take on the fighter role once again after they'd dropped their ordnance. The Intruders of Thunderbird didn't count since they were strictly ground-attack aircraft and mounted neither machine guns nor air-to-air missiles.

So that made it eighteen friendlies against twenty-two hostiles…

twenty-two known hostiles, Tombstone added to himself.

And a hell of a lot worse than that if the That formation fell apart.

Tombstone didn't like relying on the unknown quality of the That pilots. He didn't know how they would stand up to the killing stress of ACM. He knew how his people would react… but the Thais were untested, hence unreliable.

They might prove themselves yet, but Tombstone couldn't count on them until they did.

So until the Hornets of Chickenhawk arrived on the scene, Tombstone could count on six Tomcats against no less than twenty-two MiGs.

"We're closing, Tombstone," Dixie said. "Closing fast. Bogies now inbound, bearing three-one-zero, range five miles. They're closing on Trapdoor, coming fast."

"This is Eagle Leader," Tombstone said. "Let's go down on the deck." He nosed the Tomcat over, dropping toward the jungle. The tactic was called terrain masking, hiding the aircraft in the ground clutter of ridges and hills. It might give them some precious time before someone started loosing SA-6s at them.

Of course it also put them within range of the small and highly portable SA-7s, like the one that had nailed Batman.

Trees and ground flashed past the cockpit of his aircraft, a green blur.

With startling suddenness, jungle gave way to a broad, open clearing littered with buildings and the dark-gray slash of an airstrip. U Feng! The runway appeared clear. Perhaps all of the MiGs were airborne.

As quickly as it had appeared, U Feng vanished behind the hurtling aircraft. Sunlight flashed from the surface of a river dead ahead… in the Taeng Valley.

"Watch it now, people," Tombstone said. "Watch for snakes in the grass."

"Looks like they're turning and burning with the Thais," Price Taggart said. "We've got some major ACM up there."

"Bandits!" Tombstone's RIO called. "Six… correction, eight bandits, inbound, range three miles! Bearing three-four-zero!"

"Tally ho!" Batman called. "I've got visual on the bandits."

MiG-21s. The sky over the Taeng Valley appeared to be filled with aircraft, That F-5s and MiGs, turning and burning in a twisting, far-flung dogfight.

"Two-four-four confirms," Nightmare added. "We're picking up Jay Bird here."

Jay Bird was the code name for the MiG-21 J-band radar used to illuminate targets for the Atoll AA.M.

"Arm missiles!" Tombstone brought the Tomcat up, turning to meet the new threat. "Here we go!"

Hsiao held the radio microphone to his mouth. Before him on the table was a map, vectors and sighting tracks plotted on it in grease pencil.

"Area four-seven," he said. "Fifteen kilometers southeast of U Feng. A number of enemy radar tracks converge there, and we believe it may be a helicopter staging area for a airmobile assault, almost certainly. Get the Q-5s airborne at once."

"They are armed, fueled, and ready to go, General, the voice on the radio replied. "But what of the enemy fighters?"

"Colonel Wu has them at bay, Group Commander. You should have a clear run to the target."

"We go." He could hear Dao Zhu Qingtong's confident grin over the radio link. "Sheng li!"

"Victory, Group Commander Dao!" Hsiao repeated. "U Feng out!"

Hsiao had been holding Dao's ten Nanchang Q-5 ground attack planes in reserve at Mong-koi, the final part of his trap for the That forces.

Launching from the Burmese air base now, they could be over the That assembly point within five minutes.