Soar (32 page)

R
ITZIK WATCHED, SO
infuriated he was shaking, as WeiLiu picked her way around the vegetation, descending carefully toward the ravine floor. “Workmanlike attitude, Mike. Workmanlike attitude.” He repeated the mantra half a dozen times aloud, hoping it would calm him down.

Sure, perhaps he’d overstated the case. But not by much. The core of what he’d said was sadly true. Between the demands for politically correct, zero-defect missions and the realities of the twenty-four-hour Internet and television news cycle, there was very little a Special Operations unit could accomplish without being scrutinized, second-guessed, and micromanaged by a laundry list of individuals, organizations, government agencies, and chain-of-command factotums.

Christ, in Afghanistan some IWS—idiot wearing stars—from Tampa had seen a digital picture in a postaction report and was so outraged by how native the Special Forces operators had gone that he ordered all the SF troops in Afghanistan to shave their beards and cut their hair so they’d look more “military.” The asshole didn’t care that his order caused hundreds of shooters, who’d worked like hell
to blend in with their Afghan surroundings, to become Obvious American Targets. But that was par for the course. In fact, these days, the formal postaction mission analyses that were invariably conducted by SOCOM’s by-the-numbers staff to ensure that “proper doctrine” had been followed were closer in gestalt to colonoscopies than they were to any sort of previously established military procedures.

Which was why the current acronym around the Combat Applications Group for a SOCOM staff review was BO-HICA, which stood for Bend Over, Here It Comes Again. And you didn’t want them finding any polyps, either. Polyps—even benign ones—could prove terminal to your career.

During the Second World War, they hadn’t second-guessed Henry Mucci and his Sixth Ranger Battalion. Mucci’s bosses had simply turned him loose and told him to get the job done any way he could. An order put like that, Ritzik knew, gave a commander flexibility, the freedom to lead from the front, and the luxury of occasional failure on the way to victory. It allowed an officer to employ individualism, initiative, and audacity. Today, those character traits were likely to get you a letter of reprimand. Of course, Mucci didn’t have CNN war tarts, Fox News Scud studs, Sunday-talk-show second-guessers, or al-Jazeera to worry about either. Or for that matter, an Army chief of staff who thought buying new berets was more important than buying bullets.

But then, this was the new Army. The Army of One (although precisely one
what
was manifestly unclear). This was the Army in which three soldiers who were lured across the Macedonian border, and who surrendered to Serb irregulars without firing a shot, were actually awarded three medals each—citations for giving up without a fight. Colonel Mucci must have been spinning in his grave over that one.

And a few years later, Johnny Vandervoort, CENT-COM’s commander, had led—if you could actually call it leading—the campaign in Afghanistan from the manicured safety and four-star comfort of MacDill Air Force Base, half a world away. It was another sorry military first for the Army of Washington, Grant, Patton, Merrill, and Beckwith: war by speakerphone.

While Ritzik and his people had been freezing their asses off in the mountains, COMCENT and his staff worked regular hours. Somehow, the guys with stars on their collars managed to get in their eighteen holes on MacDill’s PGA-grade golf course. Somehow, their aides always roused them in time for an early set of tennis before the daily conference call to Bagram Air Base. And while Ritzik and the rest of his team ate roasted horse anus and grilled sheep’s brain, the generals went off to dinner at Bern’s steak house, where the wine list ran thirty or so pages of fine print.

Ritzik wasn’t resentful about the disparity of lifestyle. Rank, after all, has its privileges. And he’d actually grown perversely fond of roasted horse anus after the first month or so. What he took exception to was the vacuum of leadership and loyalty demonstrated by his Florida hibernation. COMCENT was remote, aloof, and distant—both literally and figuratively. To those who actually prosecuted the war he was far more an abstract concept than a flesh-and-blood combatant commander.

The problem was compounded further because Johnny Vandervoort was not in his heart or soul a man o’ warsman, but a manager of war’s men. Oh, he was a talented manager; a decent if stiff and standoffish peacetime general well-versed in flowcharts, PowerPoint presentations, and systems analysis. He even had a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Pennsylvania. But he was absolutely the wrong man in the job of war fighter. Because
this new kind of warfare, Ritzik understood, needed a Grant—a doer—motivated to succeed by private demons, not a McClellan—a ponderer—who preferred even-keel, slow-paced stability to the uncomfortable, rushed tumult of warfare.

0801.
“Workmanlike attitude, Mike. Workmanlike attitude.” Ritzik climbed the crest of the ravine, took a few seconds to appreciate the brilliantly blue sky, then faced west. He looked longingly at the mountain range in the distance, frustrated by the way things were going. If there were two choppers in the area, there’d be more. But from where were they coming? And how many?

He pulled the retaining flap from the radio on his vest, reached down, and for the eighth time in two hours switched frequencies to try to contact Almaty. “TOC, Loner.”

He was amazed to hear Dodger’s voice reverb into his earpiece. “Loner, this is the TOC.”

Ritzik excitedly pulled a marker and a notebook out of his cargo pocket. “Sit-rep, TOC. We’ve been running in circles out here with no eyes, no ears, and a bunch of hostiles chasing our behinds.”

Dodger’s voice came back five-by-five. “You can think that if you like, Loner, but from what we saw, we suggest you change your call sign.”

“To what?”

“Tommy.”

“Come again?” Ritzik didn’t have time for this nonsense.

“Tommy.”

“Come again?”

“Tommy. Because for a bunch of deaf, dumb, and blind guys, you sure play a mean pinball.”

“Compliment accepted. Now stop kissing my ass and
give us what the hell we need before the damn comms screw up again.”

0802.
Sam Phillips climbed into the HIP’s cockpit and plunked himself down next to Mickey D. “Hi. I’m Sam. Rowdy Yates says you actually fly these things.”

“That’s why he’s a sergeant major. He’s always right.”

Sam said, “You ever fly one like this? A HIP?”

“Once,” the warrant officer said. “During a training course on former Soviet equipment. About three years ago.”

“No kidding.”

“Flew an MI-24P gunship, and a HIP. Except it wasn’t this model. This is a HIP-H—a hot-and-high. It’s a second-generation aircraft, configured for high altitude and hot climate. I flew the C version. First generation. A lot more basic.”

“All HIPs look alike to me,” Sam said. “How do you tell?”

“First-generation HIPs had their tail rotors on the starboard side,” Mickey D said. “These newer ones have theirs to port.”

“I’ll remember that,” Sam said, impressed. “Use it when I play Trivial Pursuit.” He toyed with the cyclical handle.

“You ever want to fly choppers?”

“Moi?
No way. I hate flying. Besides, helicopters are far too complicated. Y’know, kinda like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. I could never do that. But I drove a T-72 tank, once.”

Mickey D turned toward the spook. “Why? Were you in the Russian Army?”

Sam gave the pilot a bemused look until he realized his leg was being pulled. “A guy I knew ran a mechanized infantry battalion,” Sam said. He pointed toward the snowcapped mountains to the west. “About a hundred miles that
way. In Tajikistan. A lieutenant colonel. He let me drive one of his tanks for a couple of hours.”

“Sounds cool.”

“It was better than cool. I got to crush two cars driving on the training course. It was like being in a
Die Hard
movie.” Sam scratched his chin. “Funny thing: in the late eighties, I spent about eighteen months and about half a million tax dollars trying to convince a certain … group of people to let me photograph the inside of a T-72. It never happened. And then, all of a sudden, when I least expected it, I got an invitation to drive one.”

“You get your pictures?”

“All I wanted,” Sam said. “Of course, when I sent them off to Langley, no one was interested anymore.” He paused. “But that didn’t matter. Because you know what it cost me? Three bottles of vodka. Ten bucks’ worth of booze—and a two-day hangover.” He looked at the instrument panel and tapped the radio. “Hey, this thing work?”

“Dunno,” Mickey D answered. “I don’t do Chinese—neither does anybody on the team. So I didn’t bother to check.”

“I do a little Chinese,” Sam said. He saw the dubious expression on Mickey D’s face. “Well, enough to read a menu, anyway.”

“Read a menu, huh?” Mickey D examined the instrument console. “Wow—nothing but steam gauges,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Everything in this cockpit is analog. The chopper I usually fly is all glass.”

Sam tapped the wraparound windshield. “This looks like glass to me.”

“I’m talking display,” Mickey D said. “At the SOAR, our MH-47Es have TV screens—four of them. Everything is digital—attitude indicators, hover page, radar altitude hold.

You can even upload data from a laptop—flight plan, navigation, comms—and it’s all in front of your nose instantaneously.”

“You’re speaking a language I don’t understand,” Sam said.

“Not like Chinese, huh?” Mickey D flipped a trio of switches. Sam watched as a series of lights flickered to life on the instrument panel. The pilot took a headset from the deck between the seats, wiped the blood and brain matter off on his anorak, and pointed the big plug at a jack on the console. “R-842 high-freq radio,” he said, smacking the plug home. “Two-to-eight megahertz. Range is about a thousand kliks in good weather and no mountains.”

“Take a listen.” The pilot handed the bulky apparatus to Sam. He pointed. “That’s the transmit button. If you understand enough to read a menu maybe you could order us some takeout.”

0806.
“Rowdy—Loner. Meet me at the truck.” Ritzik scampered down to the ravine floor. He saw Sam Phillips through the HIP’s windshield and waved at him to join them. He watched as the CIA officer’s index finger pointed straight up, indicating “wait a second.”

Sam pulled the headset off. “Thanks.”

“No prob.” Mickey D watched as the spook sidled out of the cockpit. “So, what’s on the menu?”

“Trouble.” Sam jumped out of the hatch and jogged to where Ritzik stood. He jerked his thumb toward the HIP. “You’re about to have company,” he said.

“I know.”

“How?”

“I finally reached the TOC in Almaty. They have satellite imagery.”

Sam nodded. “What’s the story?”

“Chinese are coming out of Kashgar. Two aircraft: a HIP and a gunship. According to what Dodger told me, the original flight was three transports and two gunships—run by some Special Forces general out of Beijing. Obviously he’s holding one of the gunships back.”

“From the chatter, they’re making good time,” Sam said. “They’re not holding anything back.”

“You heard them?”

“On the radio. Mick got it working.”

“What are they saying?”

“You gotta understand I pick up about every third word,” Sam said. “But the gist of it—at least I think so—was they think two of their choppers were attacked by a large terrorist element. They’re going to use the first two choppers to draw the enemy out, and use the second HIND to flank the tango position and attack from the rear.”

“I think—” Ritzik pressed his right hand against his earpiece. “Come again?” He listened intently. “Roger that, Shep.

“We’ve got more company than expected,” he said. He looked at Sam. “Your IMU pal Mr. Mustache is coming back, too.”

All the color drained from Sam’s face. For an instant his eyes went dead—the face of a serial killer. And then he looked at Ritzik, smiling as cold a smile as Ritzik had ever seen, and said, “It’s my natural charm. He can’t stay away.”

Ritzik frowned, momentarily knocked off course. Then he fiddled with the radio. “TOC, Loner—” There was a momentary pause. “TOC, we’re gonna stay on the air until further notice. I need play-by-play tactical overhead.” He paused. “Roger that.”

Ritzik saw Rowdy Yates jump off the tailgate of the big truck. He put two fingers to his lips, whistled shrilly to get the sergeant major’s attention, and beckoned him over.

“How’s she coming?”

“She’s got the damn thing opened up.” Rowdy stroked his Fu Manchu mustache. “I wish we had an exhaust fan. The battery fumes are pretty damn strong.”

Ritzik said, “Why not just pull the canvas off the frame?”

“I asked. Steel grommets. Steel frame. She’s worried about static electricity.”

“From canvas?”

“From everything,” Yates said. “The HE
²²
is sweating. That is one nervous woman, boss.”

“With reason.” Ritzik flicked a pebble with the toe of his boot. “Tell Bill to slice the canvas so she has some light.”

“Gotcha.” The sergeant major wiped a big hand over his bald head. “I gotta tell you—if it had been me working on that thing, we’d all be vaporized by now.”

Abruptly, Ritzik said, “Rowdy, we need to buy her some time. You set an ambush—hit the sons of bitches three, four miles down the road.”

Yates blinked. “Who? Where?”

Ritzik pointed east. “Satellite says three trucks, four pickups. The TOC estimates we have about forty minutes—maybe as much as an hour.”

“That’s not a lot of time.” The sergeant major’s face grew grim. He jerked his thumb toward the truck. “She needs more than that.”

“I understand.”

“Not a lot of alternatives either.” “Huh?”

“We used up the claymores, Mike. We have Semtex, and a couple of boxes of grenades, and maybe a dozen RPG rounds—and that’s all, except small arms.”