Executive orders - Tom Clancy [606]
Yes, sir, the Army spec-5 told him. The soldier said something into his own microphone. Okay, that went up to the satellite, sir.
Good one, Tom, the track commander said, lighting up a cigarette. Come here. I'll show you how this IVIS thing works and- He stopped, holding his helmet with his hand to hear what was coming over the radio. Start 'er up, Stanley, he told the driver. It's showtime.
HE LET THEM come in. The man commanding the Wolfpack's reconnaissance screen was a criminal-defense attorney by profession who'd actually graduated from West Point but later decided on a civilian career. He'd never quite lost the bug, as he thought of it, though he didn't quite know why. Age forty-five now, he'd been in uniformed service of one sort or another for almost thirty years of drills and exhausting exercise and mind-numbing routine which took away from his time and his family. Now, in the front line of his recon force, he knew why.
The lead scout vehicles were two miles to his front. He estimated two platoons that he could see, a total often vehicles spread across three miles, moving three or four at a time in the darkness. Maybe they had low-light gear. He wasn't sure of that, but had to assume that they did. On his thermal systems he could make them out as BRDM-2 scout cars, four-wheeled, equipped with a heavy machine gun or antitank missiles. He saw both versions, but he was especially looking for the one with four radio antennas. That would be the platoon or company commander's vehicle
Antenna track direct front, a Bradley commander called from four hundred meters to the colonel's right. Range two-kay meters, moving in now.
The lawyer-officer lifted his head above the abbreviated ridge and scanned the field with his thermal viewer. Now was as good a time as any.
HOOTOWL, this is SIX, party in ten, I say again, party in ten seconds. Four-Three, stand by.
FOUR-THREE is standing by, SIX. That Bradley would take the first shot in 2nd of KKMC. The gunner selected high-explosive incendiary tracer. A BRDM wasn't tough enough to need the armor-piercing rounds he had in the dual-feed magazine of his Bushmaster cannon. He centered the target in his pipper, and the on-board computer adjusted for the range.
Eat shit and die, the gunner said into the interphones.
HOOTOWL, SIX, commence firing, commence firing.
Fire! the track commander told the gunner. The spec-4 on the 25mm gun depressed the triggers for a three-round burst. All three tracers made a line across the desert, and all three hit. The command BRDM erupted into a fireball as the vehicle's gas tank-strangely for a Russian-made vehicle, it was not diesel-powered-exploded. Target! the commander said instantly, confirming that the gunner had destroyed it. Traverse left, target burdum.
Identified! the gunner said when he was locked on.
Fire! A second later: Target! Cease fire, traverse right! Target burdum, two o'clock, range fifteen hundred! The Bradley's gun turret rotated the other way as the enemy vehicles started to react.
Identified!
Fire! And the third one was dead, ten seconds after the first.
Within a minute, all the BRDMs the screen commander had seen were burning. The brilliant white light made him cringe to see. Then other flashes appeared left and right of his position. Then: Move out, run 'em down!
Across ten miles of desert, twenty Bradleys darted from behind their hiding places, going forward, not backward, their turrets traversing and their gunners hunting for enemy scout vehicles. A short, vicious, running gunfight began, lasting ten minutes and three klicks, with the BRDMs trying to pull back but unable to shoot back effectively. Two Sagger antitank missiles were launched, but both fell short and exploded in the sand when their launch vehicles were killed by Bushmaster fire. Their heavy machine guns weren't powerful enough to punch through the Bradleys' frontal armor. The enemy screen, comprising a total of thirty vehicles, was exterminated by the end of it, and Hootowl owned this part of the