Executive orders - Tom Clancy [620]
DAMN, LOOK AT all those SAM tracks, a Kiowa observer said over the radio, from eight klicks north. His pilot made the call while the observer did a count.
MARAUDER-LEAD, this is MASCOT-THREE. I think we have the enchilada.
THREE, LEAD, go, was the terse reply.
Six bimps, ten trucks, five SAM tracks, two RADAR tracks, and three ZSU-23s in a wadi. Recommend approach from the west, say again, approach from the west. It was far too much defensive firepower to be much of anything other than the Army of God's mobile command section. The SAM launchers were all French Crotales, and those little fuckers were scary, MASCOT-THREE knew. But they should have picked a different spot. This was one of those situations where you were better in the open, or even on high ground, so that your SAM RADARs could see better.
THREE, LEAD, can you illuminate?
Affirmative. Tell us when. RADAR tracks first.
The Apache leader, a captain, was hugging 'the ground to the west, creeping forward at thirty knots now, coming up on what he thought was a ridgeline that would tip over into the wadi. Slowly, slowly, letting his own mast sensor do the looking. The pilot flew the airplane like a kid learning to parallel-park, while the gunner manned the sensors.
Hold it right there, sir, the gunner advised from his front seat.
THREE, LEAD, start the music, the pilot called.
The Kiowa lit up its laser-illuminator, an invisible infrared beam that aimed first at the far RADAR track. It was actually a wheeled vehicle, but nobody was being particular. On notification that the target was lit up, the Apache tilted its nose up and loosed first one Hellfire, then another five seconds later.
THE GENERAL HEARD the shouted warning from a thousand meters away. Only one of the RADAR vehicles was actually transmitting, and that intermittently as an electronic-security measure. It was radiating now, and caught the inbound missile. One of the launcher trucks rotated its four-tube mount and fired, but the Crotale lost lock when the Hellfire angled down and went harmlessly ballistic. The RADAR vehicle blew apart a moment later, and the second one six seconds after that. The commanding general of the Army of God stopped talking then, and ignored the incoming conversation from Tehran. There was quite literally nothing for him to do but crouch down, which his bodyguards made him do.
ALL FOUR APACHES of the troop were hovering in a semicircle now, waiting for their troop commander to ripple off his Hellfires. This he did, about five seconds apart, letting the Kiowa guide them in, switching from target to target. Next came the SAM-launcher vehicles, followed by the Russian-made gun tracks. Then there was nothing left to protect the BMP command tracks.
IT WAS UTTERLY heartless, the general saw. Men tried shooting back, but at first there was nothing to shoot at. Some people looked. Others pointed. Only a few ran. Most stayed and tried to fight. The missiles seemed to come from the west. He could see the yellow-white glow of rocket motors racing through the darkness like fireflies, but he couldn't see anything shooting them, and one after another the air defense vehicles were destroyed, then the BMPs, then the trucks. It took less than two minutes, and only then did the helicopters begin to appear. The security detachment for his mobile command post was a company of picked infantrymen. They fought back with heavy machine-gun fire and shoulder-launched rockets, but the ghostly shapes of the helicopters were too far away. The man-portable missiles couldn't seem to find