With Hostile Intent

Chapter Thirteen Basra

Wearing his starched khakis, Babcock strode to the podium and adjusted the microphone. He fixed a steely-eyed gaze at the flight-suited aviators filling the room.

“I just got off the line with the President,” he said, letting the weight of the title settle over his audience. “He has given the go-ahead for a retaliatory strike against the Iraqi emplacements that downed our fighter yesterday.”

Babcock paused and struck a pose that, everyone guessed, was intended to summon an image of Douglas MacArthur. Or Theodore Roosevelt. Or, some supposed, Michael Douglas.

“This is a historic moment, ladies and gentlemen. Today it will be your privilege to strike a blow on behalf of civilized nations around the globe. The world will be watching. The President has faith in you, and so do I.”

Babcock stood there for a moment, waiting for a reaction from his audience. No one applauded. The pilots stared back at Whitney Babcock in total silence.

After a few seconds, he rallied and said in a booming voice, “Good hunting!” He gave them a Hollywood salute and left the ready room.

An awkward silence fell over the group. CAG Boyce rose and walked to the podium. He glanced at the door, making sure Babcock was gone.

“Okay, none of what I’m gonna say is to be repeated outside this room.” Boyce paused and looked over at Admiral Mellon, sitting in the front row. Mellon gave him a barely perceptible nod.

Boyce went on. “Despite what you just heard, this ain’t Desert Storm. It’s not even a concerted military strike. It’s a simple, one-shot, pissant punitive raid. A little message that our president wants to send to their president. Saddam is being told he better mind his manners, or we’ll take out what’s left of his crummy infrastructure.

“But I want everybody to get this. These are not high-priority targets. I don’t intend to lose jets or pilots taking out one of those worthless bridges or chicken coops at Basra. I want you to keep it high, stay away from the hot spots, come home in one piece. I’d better see every one of your ugly faces back in here this afternoon for the debrief.”

Boyce shoved a half-gnawed cigar into his mouth and returned to his seat.

Spook Morse, the intelligence officer, came forward to give the latest target data. He talked about tankers, weather over the target area, transponder squawks, collateral damage avoidance, and all the nuances of a coordinated raid.

As Boyce listened to Morse go on about SAM site updates, target area weather, he looked at his strike pilots. Some looked better than others. They had been yanked out of a full scale liberty session in Dubai. He knew for a fact that some of them had world class hangovers.

He also knew it wouldn’t do any good to tell the most afflicted to take themselves off the flight schedule. He sure as hell wouldn’t, and neither would they. This was combat, and no self-respecting fighter pilot was going to stay behind if he could help it.

Thank God, he thought, for resilient bodies and young reflexes.

Devo Davis, perhaps the most hungover, sat in his usual place in the second row. He had only the vaguest recollection of how he left the hotel. Someone — Leroi Jones or Undra Cheever or some other JO — must have rolled him out of his room and shepherded him onto the liberty boat.

Devo was on his third cup of gut-burning black coffee. He could tell by the ache in his skull that life was returning to his body. All he wanted was to get through this goddamned mission.

Davis remained in his seat until the ready room had emptied. He was about to leave when Maxwell came up.

“You okay, Devo?”

“Superb. Haven’t felt so fucking terrific since I had scarlet fever. I want to thank you for sticking me on a HARM station.”

“Wasn’t me. The skipper made the assignments.”

“With Spam Parker of all people. A nugget on her first combat sortie. What am I, the designated spear catcher?”

“Want me to try and change it?’

Davis shook his head. “Can’t do that. If I’m gonna take over this squadron someday, I gotta be willing to fly with anybody.” He glanced around to make sure they were alone. “Even aliens.”

“We’ll rendezvous overhead at seventeen thousand,” said Devo in the briefing booth.

“Why?” demanded Spam Parker. “Why don’t we just join up on a tacan radial away from the ship?”

Devo took a deep breath. “Because,” he said patiently, “that’s what the air wing tactical procedures require — an overhead rendezvous. Now, after the rendezvous, we switch —”

“I still think it would be better if we joined on a tacan radial.”

Devo felt his headache worsening. He told himself to stay cool. “Fine, Spam. Nice that you have an opinion. But today we’re gonna do it my way.”

“Why? I mean, it just sounds so… pedantic.”

Devo couldn’t believe this shit. “Here’s a reason,” he said, his voice rising an octave. “I’m the flight leader, you’re the wingman. Here’s another. I’m a commander, you’re a lieutenant. Or try this one: I’m a three-tour strike fighter pilot, you’re a nugget. We’re gonna do it my way. Understand?”

Spam started to protest again, but she caught the look on Devo’s face. She crossed her arms and sat tapping her boot on the deck.

Devo went on with his briefing. After their rendezvous, they would proceed to their battle station, where they would orbit, ready to fire their radar-seeking HARM missiles at any enemy SAM site that was tracking the strike group.

Devo knew their chances of seeing action were almost nil. And he knew too that someone — DeLancey probably — was violating protocol by assigning the executive officer such a minor role in the strike.

But Devo wasn’t arguing about it. Not this time. He still wasn’t back to a hundred percent of his old self, and he had this freaking headache.

Devo had no illusions about his ability. He was an average aviator who, on a good day, could turn in an above average performance. But lately the good days had been far between.

Devo knew that he had lost something. Even though he was the squadron executive officer, the second-in-command, he no longer had credibility with the other officers. They neither feared nor respected him, as junior officers were supposed to do. He could sense it in the way they talked to him — that condescending, too-familiar manner. Devo Davis was no longer a force to be reckoned with.

Well, he’d fix that problem. Today all he wanted was to get through this strike. Fly the mission, shoot the HARMs if necessary, get back aboard the ship.

Plus, keep this mouthy nugget from killing them both.

Devo finished the briefing. “Maintain a combat spread. Stay in position, out where I can see you.”

Spam seemed bored. He couldn’t tell whether she was listening or not. “Any questions?” Devo asked.

She shook her head.

“See you on deck,” said Devo.

Christ, it’s hot. Devo thought he would melt in the cockpit of his F/A-18. The Hornet’s air conditioner was good, but not effective in the hundred-degree heat of the flight deck.

He emptied the water bottle that he had planned to drink en route to his battle station. He was desperate to get off the oven-like flight deck and into the cooler sky.

What he needed was a shot of vodka. His head was pounding like a drum. In fact, he thought, he’d trade his gonads for a bloody Mary right now. Why the hell weren’t they getting this launch off?

The carrier’s nose swung slowly into the wind. The jet blast deflector rose in front of Devo’s jet, and he saw the Hornet on catapult one go into tension. The thunder of its engines shook Devo’s jet. Devo grimaced inside his oxygen mask.

The catapult fired with a bang, flinging the combat-loaded jet into the hazy sky over the Persian Gulf. Devo winced as a searing pain coursed through his head. Even the flow of pure oxygen through his mask wasn’t helping.

The deflector came down. It was Devo’s turn.

Following the yellow-shirt’s directions, he taxied up to the cat track, then lowered the launch bar fixed to the nose gear. Slowly, carefully, he eased forward, felt the clunk as the launch bar engaged the catapult shuttle. Obeying the cat officer’s signals, he released the brakes and throttled up to full power. He wiped out the flight controls, scanned the engine instruments, then looked at the cat officer.

It was Dog Balls, the new shooter the pilots liked to pick on. Be gentle, brother. Dog Balls was peering back at him, waiting for Devo’s salute.

Devo saluted. He tensed for the cat shot.

WHAM! The catapult fired.

The Hornet hurtled down the track. Devo felt himself slammed back against the seat. The pain of his hangover became a white-hot spear somewhere behind his eyes.

The heavy fighter cleared the deck and began to climb. The pain in Devo’s skull receded to a dull throb.

He could see the bomb bursts as the strikers hit their targets in the Basra delta complex. They were in their assigned orbit at 28,000 feet, 30 miles southeast of the target area. The strike seemed to be going as briefed.

Devo scanned his HARM display. He had seen no sign of electronic activity from inside Iraq. No SAM sites, no gun tracking radar. The Iraqis were laying low. They had been through this before. All they had to do was stay hunkered down until the bombs quit falling. Within a couple of months they’d have their sites back up and running. It was part of the game.

Devo was feeling better. The pure oxygen helped, even if he still had that dull throb in his skull. He was thirsty as hell. It helped that things were quiet on the electronic warfare front.

He turned onto the inbound leg, pointing back toward Basra. He saw columns of smoke rising from the three main target areas. There were no new bomb bursts. The last striker called off target.

Devo looked over at his wingman. Spam was out of position. Anyone else he would order to dress it up, and it would be done. With Spam, it would be a goddamn airborne debate. She’d insist she wasn’t really out of position.

It wasn’t worth it. His head ached too much for an argument and —

He saw a missile.

One of Spam’s HARMs was streaking from beneath her wing toward Basra. Devo watched in disbelief as the anti-radiation missile arced away in a smooth flight path.

“Magnum, magnum,” came Spam’s voice over the strike common frequency. “Nail 42, magnum — Burner 3, Basra.”

She was announcing that she had launched a radar-seeking missile against a SAM threat.

For a moment the strike frequency was silent. Then bedlam. Everyone wanted to know what the hell was going on.

“Say type and direction of threat!”

“Who’s being targeted?”

“Burner three where? Anyone got a visual?”

Devo was checking his own HARM display. It was blank. No indication of an enemy radar. He reset the RF gains and looked again. Nothing. He was getting a bad feeling.

On the back radio he said, “Spam, tell me what kind of threat you saw.”

“I had an SA-3 on the HARM display,” she answered. “The box was there and it showed active tracking. So I took the shot. They were probably tracking the last of the strike group.”

“What do you mean, a box? An SA-3 displays as a triangle. What the hell did you shoot at?”

Her voice became more insistent. “I just told you, an SA-3 site near Basra. Box, triangle, who cares? I know very well what I shot at.”

Devo’s headache came back. He had seen the way the HARM left Spam’s Hornet. It was flying in a smooth arc, not the jerky, snakelike path a HARM took when it was locked on to a radar-emitting target. It wasn’t tracking.

Fucking beautiful, he thought. When they returned to the carrier, it would be his job to explain why he let his knuckleheaded wingman pickle off a half-million-dollar missile. At nothing.

It had been a milk run. They were en route back to the Reagan. Except for Spam’s HARM, they had expended no weapons.

Then, a hundred-fifty miles out, they received a call from Surface Watch aboard the Reagan: “Nail Forty-one, this is Alpha Sierra. We need you to check out a surface contact that is approaching the battle group.”

Alpha Sierra gave Devo the range ad bearing of the unknown vessel.

Devo groaned to himself. “Nail Forty-one copies,” he said. “Descending to have a look.”

Devo reduced power and lowered the Hornet’s nose. SPAM was late following. She floated high, then had to use full speed brakes to keep from shooting out in front.

Devo leveled off at 1,000 feet above the water, flying at a comfortable 300 knots. “Fly abeam, slightly high. Keep at least a mile separation and watch for small boats and gunfire.”

“Roger.”

Devo’s radar was painting the surface contact straight ahead. “Alpha Sierra, Nail Forty-one flight has the contact on the nose twenty miles, stand by for ID.”

Half a minute later, he could see the profile of the ship on the horizon. “Tally ho on the nose,” he called to Spam. “I’ll take it up the vessel’s starboard side and arc around to the left. Stay a mile abeam my right wing and hold your altitude.”

“Roger that.”

She still was out of position — too high, and closer than a mile abeam. But she wasn’t in a position to hurt anything, It was the best he could expect for now.

“Devo’s descending out of a thousand. Keep me in sight at all times.”

“Roger.”

He eased down to 100 feet. He could see white caps and the varied colorations of the sea below him. Salt spray was peppering the windscreen. At this altitude, there was no room for error. With only a second’s inattention, he would be fish food.

As he streaked over the stern of the ship, Devo saw that it was a merchant vessel. He could see the ensign of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but he couldn’t pick out the vessel’s name painted on the stern.

He would have to come back for another pass.

Devo started to pull up and turn back. It was then he saw a blur over his right shoulder.

Spam’s Hornet! The belly of the jet was coming at him.

Shit! She had lost sight of him.

Devo jabbed the stick forward, punching the jet’s nose down. Instinctively he hunched down in his seat. He saw — and felt — the roaring mass of Spam’s Hornet slide over his canopy.

Somehow they missed.

Devo’s heart resumed beating. It was close, too damned close. He’d missed a collision by inches and —

“Altitude! Altitude!” It was the synthesized voice of “Bitchin’ Betty,” the Hornet’s aural warning system.

Devo yanked back on the stick. He glimpsed the digital altitude indicator counting to zero.