Satan's Tail d-7 Read online

  He swiveled his head back and forth as he took stock of the situation. More gunfire erupted to his right; three members of his team, all Marines, were engaged with someone at the very edge of the cliff.

  "Grenade!" someone yelled.

  It could have been a warning or a suggestion; in any event, nothing exploded. Two muzzles flashed from the direction of the sea to Danny's extreme left; more terrorists coming up to the defense. The gunfire was answered by someone behind him.

  Men were still coming off the Osprey, easy targets.

  "Get the machine guns up!" yelled Danny. "Get the bastards on the cliff down! Go!"

  More pirates came up the cliff and began to fire, bullets blazing everywhere. Something exploded behind him; as he turned to look, he saw the right wing of the Osprey break apart, struck by a mortar shell that had the incredibly bad luck to land on the engine housing and detonate. The aircraft veered sideways, spun forward, then sailed toward the water.

  "Son of a bitch!" yelled Boston into his open mike.

  Danny threw one of his grenades toward the cliff where he'd

  seen the muzzle flashes. Someone else had the same idea, and their grenade exploded first, followed quickly by Danny's. Jumping to his feet, Danny ran forward, emptying the MP5 before diving flat on the ground, next to a Marine. He slapped a new magazine into his weapon and fired a few rounds. There was no return fire, but just to be sure, he threw another grenade.

  "Come on, Marine, come on!" he yelled, jumping to his feet after it exploded. As Danny took a step, a fresh burst of automatic rifle fire stoked up from the right and he threw himself back down. He didn't fire back; he had people in that direction and in the scramble now couldn't be positive who was where. He tried crawling forward but the ground began percolating with gunfire.

  "Let's get that machine gun over here!" Danny yelled at the Marine he'd just left. The man lay a few feet behind him, still hugging the ground. "Yo, Marine, come on," said Danny pushing back toward him. He grabbed for the man's shoulder; it came without resistance. It was only then that he realized the man had been killed.

  Aboard the Wisconsin

  2350

  Zen stared at the Osprey as it flew over the cliff, unsure exactly what was going on for a moment. Then he realized that the wing and engine had broken off and the aircraft was going down. The left rotor tried valiantly to hold the doomed MV-22 upright, but within a second or so the fuselage sagged to the right. The Osprey veered backward and then into a wide arc, slinging down toward the water. A fireball erupted from the aircraft, spitting in the direction of the terrorist village, as if the Osprey had spit at its enemy, a final insult before diving into the grave.

  The screen flared as the rest of the MV-22 caught fire. It hit the water a moment later, debris, fire, and steam erupting as if from a volcano. Zen had already started to bring Hawk Two over the area; he pressed the throttle against its stop, trying to accelerate.

  "We have a downed aircraft," he said. "Osprey. Bad. No chance of survivors."

  "Acknowledged," said Dog.

  "I'm bringing Hawk Two overhead and then will provide fire support for the landing team," said Zen. "Where the hell are those Werewolves?"

  "Werewolves are still three minutes out," said Dog. "They're doing their best, Zen."

  "They're going to have to do better."

  Aboard the Abner Read

  2351

  Storm stood over the newly installed Werewolf console in the Tactical Warfare Center. "Let's move it, let's move it," he told Ensign Young.

  "I'm doing the best I can, sir."

  Best wasn't good enough, Storm realized.

  "Dreamland," he said, turning to Jennifer Gleason. "Can you do anything with this or not?"

  "Damn straight, if you let me," she told him.

  "Well do it. Go. Go, do it."

  She moved toward the console. The ensign hesitated, glancing back at Storm, then quickly jumped up.

  * * *

  "Werewolf Control Computer, override established programming, authorization JenJen4356," said Jennifer, pulling on the headset.

  She got a tone and instructions on the main screen:

  Override.

  Designate new orders.

  W1&W2 will continue on present course until new orders entered.

  "Auto designate mode, full pilot command, disregard safety protocols, authorization JenJen4356. Disregard tactical encyclopedia, authorization JenJen4356."

  As soon as the computer acknowledged, Jennifer punched the function key to designate targets. The computer didn't beep for some reason, failing to accept the command.

  "Free-form mode," she told the computer. "Sitrep on main screen," she added, asking for a bird's-eye view of the aircraft and the battlefield.

  The sitrep failed to come up.

  All right, she told herself, you're not thinking clearly because your adrenaline is blasting. Take a deep breath and go back to the beginning.

  She took two breaths, neither as deep and slow as she wanted, then called for the sitrep again. Again the image failed to come up. She was sure she'd done it right; there must be a glitch in the connection with the Dreamland circuit.

  There wasn't any time to figure out where the problem was; the Werewolves were almost at their target and would begin firing on their own as soon as they arrived.

  "Manual Command," she said. "Complete override. Authorization JenJen4356."

  Manual Command.

  "Trial mode. W1 is lead."

  Trial Mode. W1 is lead.

  "Good computer," she said.

  Unknown command.

  Jennifer reached to the pad of function keys on the left-hand side of the console, hitting key 3 for a video image. It was dark and the image was blurry, but she could see enough to make out the approaching cliffside.

  "Werewolf to Whiplash commander, what's the important target?" Jennifer asked.

  "The buildings," said Storm.

  "I'm not asking you, I want Danny… Danny — Whiplash commander, where do you want the Werewolves?" The reply came back garbled.

  "Jen, they're pinned down on the ridge by mortar fire from below," said Dog over the Dreamland circuit. "Zen is en route."

  "I'm there — give me the location. There's a glitch in the system and I can't get the data through you directly. I don't have time to figure it out, but I can gun it manually."

  "McNamara will guide you in. I'm not even going to ask what's going on over there," added Dog.

  "Talk to you later," she said. "Kevin?"

  "This is McNamara," said Dog's copilot. "Jen?"

  "I have the Werewolves. Give me a rough idea where that mortar is so I can erase it."

  "Stand by."

  Northern Somalia,

  on the ground

  2355

  Danny took the Marine's machine gun. The plastic box that contained the belt of 5.56mm slugs remained full; the Marine had two more boxes at his belt. A mortar round landed nearby; Danny grabbed the boxes and dragged the gun with him as he looked for better cover.

  "Captain Freah, this is Werewolf."

  "Jennifer?"

  "I'm going to take out the mortars. They're firing from down near the beach."

  "Go for it," said Danny, skidding into a shallow gully. He could just barely hear the roar of the Werewolves somewhere below, launching their rockets at the pirates on the beach.

  He flipped the smart helmet's screen into a sitrep mode, which should have shown him the location of his men. But the screen was blank; either something aboard the Wisconsin or in his unit had gone offline.

  "Yo, Boston, where are you?" Danny asked over the short-range team radio channel.

  "We're about twenty meters from the lip of the canyon," said the sergeant. "There's a set of spider holes or maybe tunnels behind some of the rocks to the left. That's where the ragheads are coming from. We've been trying to get some grenades down it but we haven't made it. And they have a pretty good line of fire."

  "Do you
have a good location?"

  "I can get pretty damn close."

  "All right. Stand by."

  Danny switched into the Dreamland circuit. "Jen? I have a hole that needs to be filled. If we use the laser designator to mark it out, can you hit it with the Hellfires after you get the mortars?"

  "Do it."

  "Boston, move back and lase it. I'll get the Werewolves in." "Working on it, Cap."

  "Whiplash leader, this is Werewolf. Tell your people to duck."

  There was a roar below as one of the Werewolves began chewing up the beach area with its chain guns. Then the ridge exploded with a barrage of Hellfires raining down on the spot Boston had designated with the laser. The AGM-114C was not the optimum weapon for the attack against the foxholes, but the roughly eighteen pounds worth of explosives in its nose did a more than adequate landscaping job anyway, permanently rearranging the geography of the cliffside.

  "Boston, you OK?" Danny asked as the smoke cleared.

  "Oh yeah, we're cool. We're moving up."

  "Pretty Boy, you on the line?" asked Danny, trying to sort out where everyone was now that the biggest threat had been dealt with.

  "I'm your left flank, Cap," Sergeant Jack Floyd replied. "We're moving to the ridge."

  "Bison?"

  The sergeant didn't answer. He would have been one of the last men out of the Osprey.

  "Everybody, take the ridge," Danny yelled. He cradled the M249 under his arm and began running for it himself.

  Aboard the Abner Read

  2351

  Jennifer pulled Werewolf One to the west, glancing quickly at the window in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, which showed the aircraft's vital signs. Everything was in the green.

  "Werewolf, keep to the south," said Zen. "I'm taking a run at the patrol boat off to the east. Remember, they're still shelling the hulks in the harbor."

  "Negative, Flighthawk leader," said Eyes, cutting in. "We're targeting the patrol craft with Harpoons."

  "Roger that, I see them inbound. This boat isn't targeted."

  "We don't have it."

  "Watch where I go and you will."

  "Standing by."

  As Jennifer cleared out from below the cliff, she saw a group of shadows down by the water. She pushed the stick in their direction but was moving too fast to get a shot without the computer's automated targeting system, which she'd had to take offline to gain control. She tried to flip Werewolf Two out of its automated trail mode but couldn't manage it quickly enough to get a shot with that aircraft either.

  And it was a good thing. She saw that the men were moving toward the shore, not away from it. It was the second landing party coming in to try and cut off retreat. She took a deep breath and went back to work.

  * * *

  Storm turned toward the holographic display as the words cut through the cacophony around him:

  "Submarine is out of the pen — moving at twelve or fifteen knots to the east, to get away from the breakwaters and barriers," said Eyes.

  Don't let the bastards get away. Don't let the bastards get away!

  "Weapons, target the submarine," he said.

  "We don't have it on the targeting system. The sound is being obscured by the channel and the battle," Eyes interrupted. "We have the location from the Dreamland people and we're keeping track."

  "What's the status of the bombardment?" Storm asked.

  "Another few minutes."

  "As soon as it's complete, move east with the submarine so he doesn't get away," said Storm. "I want that son of a bitch."

  Aboard Baker-Baker Two

  2359

  Starship found it difficult to concentrate with the chatter on the Dreamland circuit, but he didn't want to completely turn it off. They were flying just outside the territorial limits of Yemen. The usual assortment of ground radars were working, but at the moment they had the skies to themselves.

  Flipping back and forth between two aircraft wasn't as easy as Zen made it seem. Starship found it too easy to confuse which one he was in, since there were no visual cues on the main screen. Granted, part of the problem was that he was flying at night, and there were pretty much no visual cues period, just distant lights and the looming shadow of the Megafortress. But it couldn't take all that much to program in a line indicating which flight you were looking at, a color-coded bar or number at the top of the screen, say.

  "Hawk Three, this is Baker-Baker Two" said Breanna. "We have a flight from the Ark Royal coming south. The Brits are running a bit ahead of schedule."

  Starship glanced at the sitrep map. The aircraft carrier was at the very far end of the screen, as were two Harrier aircraft flying patrol nearby. The Harriers were versatile aircraft, though not much of a match for front-line fighters or the tiny Flighthawks, which were invisible to their radar except at very close range.

  "We've advised them an operation is in progress," Bre-anna added. "Their course will take them through the center of the gulf, as we were briefed. Closest point of contact with the operation should be about seventy nautical miles in an hour or so. I'm advising the rest of the task force."

  "Roger that," said Starship.

  He leaned back in his seat. Commander Delaford was working the Piranha controls next to him. He was in his own world, literally miles away.

  "I have two MiGs, coming off Aden," said Spiderman, referring to an airfield in southern Yemen. "They may be interested in the Ark Royal."

  "Let them know," said Breanna.

  "Doing so."

  The two MiGs were identified as MiG-29UBs, an export model of the front-line Russian lightweight fighter. They were about two hundred miles away from Baker-Baker Two.

  "Another pair right behind them," added Spiderman.

  "Must be putting on quite a show for the British," said Starship, turning Hawk Three back toward the Megafortress.

  "Hawk Three, be advised that first flight of MiGs is changing course," said Spiderman a minute later. "I may be paranoid, but they look like they're on a direct vector toward the assault area. And they're moving"

  White House

  Situation Room

  1600

  Jed folded his arms tightly against his chest, staring at the sitrep screen from the Wisconsin. It showed the assault team on the ground, moving down the slopes — the positions of the Whiplash team members were marked with green triangles — as well as the locations of the aircraft and ships involved in the operation, all superimposed on a satellite photo of the area. The downed Osprey was marked by the computer with a black rectangle.

  "Damn it, what the hell is going on down there?" said Balboa.

  "The Osprey was struck from the ground," said Jed.

  "I meant that rhetorically," said Balboa. "Storm should have asked for more support. He's a good officer, but he goes off half-cocked."

  Jed stared at the screen, trying very hard not to point out that this was a textbook example of the pot calling the kettle black.

  "It sounds confused there," said the Secretary of State. "Yes, sir. It is a bit," said Jed.

  "This isn't going as well as I'd hoped," muttered Hartman. "It's not over yet," said Jed, unsure what else to say.

  Northern Somalia,

  on the ground

  11 November 1997

  0002

  Danny reached the cliffside just as Boston went down. A pair of automatic rifles popped below, but he couldn't see where the enemy was. A Werewolf screamed along the beach area to the right but didn't fire.

  Danny saw a knot of soldiers working their way down above the beach area. He knew the hulking shadow in the middle was Boston, but the friend-or-foe identifier system wasn't placing an upside triangle on the screen to indicate Friend, as it should have.

  "Whiplash team, this is Whiplash commander," he said. "I have a malfunction with the friend-or-foe identifier. It may be common to everyone. Use extreme caution."

  "Hey, Cap, think I have the same problem," said Boston, " 'cause I'm looking bac
k up at you and can't see your triangle."

  "Our set's working," said Sergeant Liu. "We'll use caution, however. We have some of the pirates pinned down."

  As Danny ended his transmission, gunfire stoked up from his direction. He craned his neck upward but couldn't see anything.

  "Werewolves, this is Whiplash leader," said Danny. "We're having trouble with the friend-or-foe."

  "I heard," said Jennifer. "There's no time to sort it out now. Use the laser designator for targets and I'll have the Werewolves attack only at designated targets."

  "Good," said Danny. "Wisconsin?"

  "Yeah, we're copying," said Dog. "We see your team going down the face of the cliff. There's some sort of glitch in the programming. My bet is the interface with Xray Pop."

  "Good guess," said Jennifer.

  "Heads up!" yelled Boston.

  Almost simultaneously a series of explosions rocked the base of the cliff. Danny fell on his butt and began sliding down the hillside, knocking into one of the Marines. An AK-47 began firing directly below, quickly answered by M16s and M4s. By the time Danny got to his knees the gunfire had stopped.

  "Couple of caves there, Cap," said Boston. "Mo-fo's are holed up in them."

  Mo-fo was Boston's abbreviation for a none-too-polite street term.

  "Can you lase the cave?" Danny asked.

  "Yeah, I'm going to try."

  "Jen?"

  "On it, Whiplash."

  As the Werewolves spun out from over the ocean, one of the ships in the water began firing at it. The arc of gunfire provided just enough light for Danny to see the black streak of a Harpoon missile as it approached. Or at least he thought he saw it — in the next moment the space where the ship had been flashed white and the ocean erupted. The Werewolves, meanwhile, stuttered in the air as their cannons sprayed lead on the caves. Danny got up, grabbing hold of the Marine nearby and tugging him along; within a few seconds they had found a path and were able to clamber down to a ledge where three other members of the team were huddled. Something flashed to the left.