Operation Southern Cross - 02 (17 page)

The problem was what happened after the airplane was hit. High-speed aircraft struck by SAM missiles don’t usually blow apart on impact. More likely, a wing or tail section is destroyed by the SAM’s proximity fuse, allowing the stricken jet to maintain forward momentum for up to a half minute before finally falling to Earth. A cloud of burning, jagged wreckage could cover a lot of ground in those thirty seconds.

So, having an airplane deliver a bomb to a place like CaracCo was one thing. Having one
crash
into the facility after being shot down by a SAM was another. A bomb or guided weapon would do a fair amount of damage. But a mortally wounded jet? That damage could be catastrophic.

That’s why the ring of SAM sites surrounding CaracCo were more for show than anything else. Something for the American spy planes to take pictures of. The policy was clear: the missiles would be fired, but only if the threat to the refinery was deemed very grave and the president decided that using the SAMs was indeed the last option.

A better defense was for the VAF interceptors flying out of nearby Simon Bolivar Airport to spot an intruder coming in and shoot it down before it got anywhere near the oil refinery. For this the VAF was fairly well prepared. There was a twelve-plane squadron at the international airport always on alert, two planes always airborne and a half dozen more on the runway, engines running.

Also flying in the area was an ancient French-built STV-1 liaison aircraft which had been converted into a bargain-basement AWACs plane. It carried two simple but powerful radars that could project seventy miles or more. In theory, they would pick up any attacking aircraft while it was still fifteen minutes out from the target. The interceptors would be directed toward the attackers and a dogfight would ensue. End of problem…maybe.

Even though the people in charge of defending the oil refinery stuck to this plan like religion, the concept was flawed in two ways. It completely discounted the possibility of a cruise-missile strike, the most likely means for attacking a target like CaracCo.

It also wasn’t equipped to handle an attack by helicopters.

IT WASN’T THE AWACS WHO FIRST SPOTTED MUNGO’S
Killer Egg. It was a radar hot-linked to a second ring of SAM sites being built around the massive oil facility.

Located fifteen miles out from the first ring, the new radar set was being tested and just happened to be pointing east when it picked up the blip. At first, the operators thought something was wrong with the new equipment. But when their lieutenant looked at the screen, he saw a profile he was familiar with: a fast-moving, low-flying helicopter. Make that
very
fast and
very
low. It was only a fluke that they’d seen it at all.

It was past them in a blink, and by the time the under-construction SAM site reported the intruder, it was already too close to the refinery for VAF jet fighters to prevent it from penetrating the facility’s airspace. But because the helicopter was flying so low, it was something the SAM platoons could handle.

Word flashed to the inner ring of SAMs that the intruder was heading their way, and that it was probably an American aircraft. But again, here was the problem: To shoot at the intruder, they first had to get the OK from the presidential palace. And that meant a phone call. Possibly a long phone call.

Sitting in the unimpressive, one-window, multi-screen control center, the officer in charge of the refinery’s air defense brigade—known to all as the SAM CO—barked out orders to the two dozen SBI technicians in the bunker with him. He ordered one section to lock onto the incoming blip, and another to warn the other SAM sites along the ring. Their message was clear: Someone would soon be inside the wire.

Then the SAM CO called the Presidential Palace.

MUNGO HAD BEEN THROUGH SOMETHING LIKE THIS
before.

Back during XBat’s North Korean adventure, the unit was called on at the last minute to attack a heavily guarded North Korean army base found protecting the entrance to a huge hollowed-out mountain where the Doomsday Bomb was being kept. They did this by first fooling the North Koreans that their radar system was experiencing a glitch, and then attacking an isolated part of their AA defense ring. While every NK soldier was looking one way, the rest of XBat attacked from the other, and the base was knocked out in about a minute’s time.

If only Mungo had a similar, well thought out plan now.

His mission was to attract attention, get people nervous—to put in the minds of the Venezuelans that this place, like all their other refineries, could be attacked, at will. Trouble was, this time the rest of XBat wasn’t waiting for him just over the hill. He was on his own, as usual. And from what he could see, the CaracCo facility was bristling with SAMs.

In fact, he was astonished at how clearly he could see the inner SAM ring surrounding the place. Even flying as fast and as low as he could, the missile emplacements were very visible; many were bathed in powerful searchlights. But again, that was the whole point: The Venezuelans had purposely put the SAM sites in well-lit highly visible positions to
deter
an attack, not to actually fend one off.

But Mungo didn’t know that, and that’s why he was so baffled. He’d expected a SAM or two to come up at him when he was still two miles out from the place. But nothing came. One mile in—still nothing. Just as quickly, the refinery was in front of him. Lit up by tens of thousands of halogen bulbs, it looked as bright as daytime inside. Half a mile away—hell, he figured he would have been blown out of the sky by this time. Yet he was still in one piece.

One thousand feet out. Then five hundred. Then two fifty…

Still, no one was shooting at him.

Why?

He suddenly found himself amongst the towers of the refinery. In a strange way it looked like an amusement park. The waves of halogen light, as viewed through his night-vision goggles, gave everything a ghostly burn. Anytime Mungo would sweep by a bank of the bright yellow lights, it blurred itself right onto his eyeballs. After passing a few of these, Mungo’s equilibrium became distorted. He was traveling at 160 mph, yet it seemed like everything was in slow motion, like he was flying through water. It was a very curious sensation.

He had exactly twenty-two cannon shells left in the Killer Egg’s nose cannon. Part of his act would be to fire these off to make a lot of noise but not try to hit anything important. But this too was an order that sounded easier said than done. This strange world of Nightvision and halogen light distorted everything to the point where it all looked the same. In conditions like these, how could he shoot at a target that wouldn’t send the whole place up in flames?

And why wasn’t anyone shooting at him?

DOWN IN THE CENTRAL CONTROL STATION FOR THE
air defense ring, the SAM CO was having a heated phone conversation with a low-ranking political officer at the Presidential Palace, about forty miles away.

The SAM CO was trying to explain to the PO that there was an American attack helicopter flying over the CaracCo oil refinery, probably one of the same machines that had been attacking military facilities all over Venezuela in the past day or so. This was an emergency of the highest order. They needed the OK to fire their SAM weapons.

Yet the political officer kept putting the SAM CO on hold, telling him to wait, that the president was busy, and couldn’t come to the phone. The SAM CO was furious. He would scream at the political officer whenever the man would come back on the line, telling him that his soldiers were not only equipped with large SAMs but also handheld Stingerlike missiles. They could blast this one copter out of the sky and would probably incur relatively little damage to the facility. But once again, he was put on hold.

It was at that moment that the copter went screaming past his command hut’s only window. The SAM CO saw the cannon on the front of the copter come alive, firing at something on the edge of the big facility.

He yelled into the phone: “The intruder is attacking! He’s firing as we speak!”

“Please—hold on…”

The SAM CO was ready to go right through the phone—but then he heard a click on the other end of the line. And then the political officer came back on.

“Do not fire your weapons at him,” the PO told him.

“
Why not?
” the SAM CO raged back.

“Because our interceptors are just arriving over your location,” he said. “And they will deal with the American…”

Area 14

They came out of the night silently, as they always did. Over the trees, over the crushed-rock road that separated the launch platforms from the jungle palace. If anyone on the ground was paying attention, the six copters might have seemed like night-flying beasts, something that lived in the haunted jungle not too far from here.

Making no more noise than a light breeze, they emerged from the murk and lined up in two staggered rows a hundred yards from the missile site, hovering more like giant insects now than mythical-winged dragons. It was a moonless night with lots of stars. Under the camouflaged net covering the six missile launchers, the hasty refueling operation was nearing an end. The two dozen SBI missile techs had no idea what was about to happen.

There were two ways that U.S. helicopter forces trained to conduct aerial assaults: The Marines used their copters to swoop in on a target, much the way a fighter jet would. The Army preferred to array their gunships in a standing hover, like an aerial firing squad, and have them let loose from a stationary position.

It was a quality versus quantity thing. A Marine copter swooping in on its target might put its ordnance on the money the first time—or maybe the second, or the third. On the other hand, a lineup of Army birds could let loose all at once and chances were good that nothing would be left of the target. Of course, remaining stationary in a combat situation was dangerous. Standing still in the air while firing made you a perfect target for someone firing back at you.

The five Black Hawks and one Chinook tasked with taking out the missile site were going to do it the Army way. They’d all engaged in swoop-and-bomb tactics before; they could be out there all night, swooping and bombing the hidden missile platforms and not hit a thing, still incurring the wrath of the VAF. This was not a time to attempt precision bombing, not with so few missiles to play with. As it was, the dozen Hellfires were probably not enough to do the job. So, they had to take the blunderbuss approach and hope their short-lived barrage would hit something big, something important, that would blow up and do the most of the work for them.

And if that something was a nuclear warhead?

Well, then at least XBat’s last mission would be a successful one.

THEY TOOK UP THEIR AERIAL POSITIONS ABOUT THREE
hundred feet out from the covered-over missile base. A flurry of radio calls made sure everyone was in the right spot. Then, with little fanfare, they opened up.

The initial fusillade was frightening. The combined copter force had twelve Hellfires plus several dozen smaller, 2.75 rockets at its disposal. The smaller rockets went first; the combined effect of shooting all of them at once was blinding. The ordnance hit the camouflage netting like a wave of fire, perforating the top layer in an instant. SBI guards and technicians could be seen below, stunned at first but then fleeing in full panic as the copters poured it on. There was no return fire—not at first anyway.

With a hole opened in the camo cover, the copters began unleashing their second barrage, firing all the Hellfires and the rest of their unguided munitions. In a flash, this ordnance started finding targets of real value. Translation: Things started blowing up.

One SS-71 missile was cut in half immediately; it fell onto its platform and obliterated itself. Its fuel tanks were not full, though, so the blast was not large enough to take out anything else around it. Another missile took a direct hit from a Hellfire, its nose cone catching on fire—this caused the copter pilots to just hold on and wait for the nuclear blast. But it didn’t happen. The missile stayed upright and simply burned itself to death. A third and fourth missile were also perforated on the spot. They actually fell into each other, producing a bright red fireball—but not a mushroom cloud. And not the sizable explosion the copter men were hoping for.

More Hellfires, mixed in with nose-cannon fire, slammed into the fifth missile. A lot of flames and smoke engulfed the SS-71, and it even appeared to be melting. But still there was no megablast…and twenty seconds into the attack, everything just stopped.

The copters had run out of ammunition.

The resulting silence was unnerving. Many parts of the missile complex were on fire, and much damage had been done. But the place had not been destroyed—and that had been the mission.

Just as the people in the helicopters were coming to grips with this, their troubles suddenly increased by a factor of a hundred or so. There was one SS-71 missile still standing. Suddenly, flames began shooting out of its bottom. Flames, yes—but this thing was not on fire. It was in one piece, as was its launch-support systems. The flames spewing out of it were coming from its own engines.

It wasn’t blowing up.

It was taking off.

AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME THE SIX COPTERS WERE
gathering to attack the missile platforms, Autry was a quarter mile from Area 14, approaching the palace support building from the west. Chinook 2 was right behind him. Both copters had their rear ramps open.

Like Autry’s copter, Chinook 2 also was carrying XBat’s version of a mini-MOAB bomb—four fuel tanks, filled with aviation fuel, strapped together with rope and wire. The pair of big copters was coming in so low, the tops of the trees were breaking off beneath their stationary wheels. They were flying without lights, and almost without sound.