Wraith (25 page)

“Any radio, any radio, this is Wraith Zero One,” Nick called into his emergency radio, straining to hear any semblance of a response over the whip of the wind in his ears. There was nothing. He looked down at the small green box and decided he'd better unsnap the flexible antenna secured to the side. The thin plastic band fluttered and bent in the wind, occasionally smacking him in the back of the neck, but it would still improve his chances. He tried the secure frequency again. “Any radio, any radio, this is Wraith Zero One.”

There was a long pause and then the radio crackled. A faint voice replied, “Wraith One, this is Sandy One. I read you loud and clear. Authenticate blue, two six.”

Thank God.
Nick had not realized how elated he would feel to hear the traditional A-10 search and rescue call sign. He fought through his emotion to remember the day's authentication tables; the wrong code would end the rescue right here if the A-10 pilot suspected an enemy trap. “Wraith has gold, seven one. Come back with silver, niner seven,” he said, praying that he was correct.

The voice responded immediately. “Sandy has red, one zero. I show that you're clean, Wraith.”

“Good to hear your voice, Sandy,” said Nick, although, with the interference of the wind, he could still barely hear the speaker.

“Wraith, what is your status and location?”

“No major injuries. I'm headed south toward the rendezvous point. Stand by for more.”

Nick put away his radio and focused on the road. He would head south for another few miles before leaving the asphalt. If he was lucky, the Jeep would handle the desert terrain and he could head straight for the pickup zone.

Home free.

No sooner had Nick finished the thought than he felt a flutter in the gas pedal. The engine sputtered. The gas needle bounced against empty. Soon the engine coughed again and then finally quit altogether.

Nick shifted into neutral and let the Jeep coast to the side of the road. He hopped out to get the spare fuel canister from the back, but when he reached it, he saw that the plastic had been shot full of holes in the gunfight. There was no fuel left.

Without another thought, Nick grabbed the square jug of water that was under the Jeep's rear seat and headed off the road into the desert. He found a small hill that provided some cover from the road and pulled out his evasion chart and a GPS unit.
Thank goodness for GPS,
thought Nick. The days of triangulating a position were long gone. The old way of finding your location on a map required high ground and significant terrain features, and both were in short supply in the flat, featureless desert.

The unit locked in several satellites shortly after he switched it on. In less than two minutes, it gave him a set of coordinates that was accurate to within ten feet.

Nick charted his position on the map and let out a dismayed sigh. He was still eleven miles short of the safe zone, not a bad hike in the Missouri springtime, but in the Iraqi desert, with the Republican Guard on his tail, it may as well have been a hundred miles. There was no sense in fretting about it; all he could do was start jogging and hope for the best. His GPS could only determine a heading once it was in motion, so Nick pulled the real compass out of his vest, determined the heading to the safe zone, and began to trot. After a few steps the GPS unit established a track and he put the compass away. Now it was just a matter of following the little arrow on the screen until he reached the pickup area. He pulled out his radio and prepared to give the rescuers the bad news.

“Sandy One, this is Wraith One. Over.”

“Wraith, this is Sandy One. I read you loud and clear,” the radio crackled back.

Nick didn't respond. Now that he wasn't driving in an open Jeep, he heard the voice much clearer, and the familiarity was unmistakable. That had to be Oso on the other side. He wondered for a moment if Oso recognized his voice and then remembered that he didn't have to, he would have his picture from the ISOPREP. That meant that Oso had known all along.

Nick wanted to say something to indicate his recognition, but professionalism prevented it. He'd have to wait until they were back in friendly territory to catch up with his old friend and wipe clean the grudges of the past. For the moment, they both had a more pressing matter to attend to.

“Wraith, do you copy?” Oso repeated.

“Uh, yeah, Wraith reads you loud and clear as well. I'm on foot, eleven miles from the safe area. Stand by to copy my coordinates.”

There was a long pause. Nick could almost hear the wheels turning in Oso's mind, trying to figure out why his survivor was still so far from the safe zone, even though he'd crashed almost two hours before.

“Sandy is ready; go ahead with your coordinates.”

Nick gave Oso his latitude and longitude and then continued to jog, knowing that each second narrowed the gap between safety and capture. On the other end of the radio, Oso would be moving the rescue force forward. They didn't have the fuel to wait for him to get to the safe zone. They'd have to meet him on the run. Still, the force would have to move at the slower pace of the choppers. This deep into enemy territory, they needed the cover of the A-10s.

Suddenly the hair on the back of Nick's neck stood up. Something in the air made him uneasy. He slowed to a walk and allowed his senses to take in the surroundings. The sun was climbing in the eastern sky and the temperature was rising, but it wasn't the heat that caused the change. He looked around, but he could see nothing but sand from his position. He breathed deeply. The hint of dust was heavier than before. He listened. On the edge of the quiet, he thought he could just make out a low rumble.

Leaving the jug of water in the sand, Nick ran to the top of a small dune and looked north. What he saw confirmed his worst fears.

Still far away but moving closer, a cloud of dust rose from the desert highway. A single vehicle on the asphalt road would not have created such a disturbance, nor would its noise be loud enough to reach him. Only a large force traveling at a good clip would cause these signs. The situation was becoming critical.

In a few seconds, Nick was headed south again, this time sprinting over the sand with the radio to his ear. “Sandy, this is Wraith. Over.”

“Go ahead, Wraith.”

“I'm about to have company.”

“How so?”

“There's a large force to the north, headed for my position. I'm going to make an educated guess that it's a battalion of Republican Guard.”

“That's quite a guess. What led you to that conclusion?”

Nick winced. “I kind of had a run-in with some Iraquis last night and one of them called for backup.”

“They're probably on the main road. Just head west and put some distance between you and the highway, then lie low until we get to you.”

“No good. I stole one of their Jeeps and it ran out of gas on the road. When they find it, they'll be able to track me west until they catch up.”

“You're not helping me, Wraith,” said Oso bitterly. “Okay, keep heading south and I'll get back to you . . . And, Wraith . . .”

“Yeah?”

“We're going to get you out of there.”

Oso had a bad feeling. The whole reason for keeping the rescue zone this far south was to avoid the Iraqi air defenses. Now a battalion of Republican Guard was headed his way and they would probably have some embedded air defenses of their own, including one or two mobile SAM units and some triple-A. He couldn't send in the helicopters with that kind of threat looming. Unless the A-10s could stop the movement of the battalion before they got to Nick, any chance of rescue would be lost.

Oso switched frequencies. “Jolly One, this is Sandy One.”

“Go ahead, Sandy,” replied the Pave Hawk pilot.

“Stop your forward movement and set up a holding pattern ten miles north of Point Charlie.”

“What's up, Lead?” interrupted Tank.

“I'll have to get back to you with the details, Three. For now, just stay with Jolly as ‘rescort' and wait for my word.”

Tank summarized the order. “Copy that. Sandy Three and Four will remain in the hold with Jolly.”

“Jolly One copies all,” the lead chopper pilot added. “We're setting up the hold now.”

Oso needed to get a firsthand look at the opposition to get a better handle on the situation, but he couldn't risk alerting them to the rescue force's presence. At this point, surprise might be his only advantage. He looked at his map, scanning the topography around Nick's position for the right feature, and quickly found what he needed. He keyed his radio. “Wraith, this is Sandy. Do you have any binoculars on you?”

“Uh . . . yeah, Sandy One. I have a good set.” Nick sounded wary.

“Good. I'm going to need you to be my eyes for a while.”

“I'll do my best. How much pain is this going to cost me?”

“Not too much,” Oso lied. “Look to your southeast. About half a mile away there is a high ridge. It should be obvious; it's the most dominant terrain feature for several miles in all directions.”

“Roger, I see it,” Nick replied.

“Good, I need you to get to the top of that ridge. From there, you'll be able to get me a good description of the force we're facing. I don't need to tell you that time is of the essence. You'll have to sprint.” Oso knew that what he asked was both harsh and dangerous. On another day, with another survivor, he might worry that the man would refuse, but this was Nick. Despite their troubled parting, he knew he could count on the younger pilot's guts in the face of a challenge.

*   *   *

Nick stopped jogging and set down his water jug. He stared at the radio.

Oso's plan would move him south as he expected, but it would also move him closer to the road rather than farther away. Also, the sandy terrain leading up to the ridge would make progress slow and difficult—to the point that the Republican Guard might be nearly on top of him before he summited. He would have to leave his water jug behind to have any chance of making it in time.

Nick knew he should be saving his strength and water for a potential run for his life if the rescue failed. This plan to crest the ridge could seriously narrow his options. It occurred to him that Oso's tactical decisions had cost him dearly on their last mission together. Could he really trust his old weapons officer now?

After another moment's hesitation, Nick gritted his teeth and raised the radio to his lips. He took a leap of faith. “Roger that, Sandy One. I'm on my way.”

“Sandy Three, this is Sandy One,” Oso called into his radio.

“Go ahead,” Tank replied.

“It looks like the survivor decided that a simple rescue was too easy for us. There's a battalion of Republican Guard on the way and they know he's on the ground.”

“So you're telling me we'll have a ‘target-rich environment' down there,” said Tank. “That's good. I mean, we wouldn't want this to be
boring
, would we?”

“My thoughts exactly. That's why we're going to take the fight to them. Do you see the ridge on your map running north to south, just north of Point Echo?”

“Tally.”

“Good. For lack of a better name let's call that ridge Tango and set up a hold just to the west of it. Set your altitude to one hundred feet. I don't want them to get wind of us too early.”

“Going in low and dirty. I like it.”

Oso turned toward the ridge and felt the rush of speed as he dropped to one hundred feet, watching the sand fly by at three hundred knots. The ridge, Tango, loomed up ahead. It looked menacing, promising a tough fight before the end of the day. He hoped that Sidearm was up to it. “How's it going, Two?” he asked.

“Not bad for my first combat action,” replied the wingman. “I'm just glad that you're not grading me on this one.”

The irony of the moment was not lost on Oso. The first student he'd given an ounce of leeway to was now his wingman in a real combat environment. He was leading the rookie toward a battalion of real enemy troops and he knew that somewhere ahead he would have to make a decision. At some point, he would have to put Sidearm in harm's way, and both the rookie's and Nick's lives would hang in the balance.

“Sandy Three is established just west of the south end of Tango,” Tank reported.

“Sandy One copies. We're holding west of the north end. Stand by for further instructions.”

*   *   *

Nick put the water jug to his lips and took a long last draft. Then he set the jug in the sand, took a deep breath, and began his race to the hill. He had been a long-distance runner in high school and college. Now he realized that all the track meets, all the ribbons, all the races of his younger days were merely training for this moment. This one event held so much more in jeopardy than a strip of blue cloth.

The terrain in front of Nick varied between pockets of deep sand and solid ground, forcing him to run a serpentine path to capitalize on the firm terrain. He focused on the movement of his legs and arms, the posture of his body, his next stable footing. His throat started to burn as he tried to siphon oxygen from the parched desert air. Every time Nick looked up to see his objective, it seemed no closer than before, and he wondered if his fate was already sealed. Then, suddenly, the desert began to rise beneath him.

The last hundred yards were brutal. He had to leave the solid ground behind and climb through the soft, shifting sand that had gathered against the ridge. He channeled power from his core into his quadriceps, pumping them like pistons to get him up the hill. The burning in his throat quickly paled next to the agonizing pain in his legs.

When he finally crested the beast, he collapsed onto the sand. “I'm here,” he gasped into the radio. “That's a new desert-survival-half-mile record.” He tore open the last of his water pouches and placed it to his dry, cracked lips. The water was warm but it felt smooth. He held it in his mouth for a few seconds before letting it slip down his throat, savoring it because he knew it was the last drink he would get for quite a while.

Nick looked to the west of his hill. The familiar sight of A-10s orbiting low in the distance gave him new hope and strength. The cavalry had arrived. Looking to the northeast through his binoculars, he could clearly see vehicles amid the dust. The enemy battalion was already getting too close. There were five covered troop carriers in the center of the convoy, led by a pair of tracked general-purpose vehicles driving side by side. One of them supported a twenty-three-millimeter antiaircraft gun; bad news, but nothing too worrisome for the Hogs. Then, between the lead vehicles and the transports, Nick saw something far worse, an SA-6 mobile SAM unit. Its distinctive feature was a three-pack of large missiles that pilots often referred to as the Three Fingers of Death.

Nick frowned. The twenty-three-millimeter gun was something to be respected, but the SA-6 was something to be feared. Its defeat would require careful planning and flawless execution. He had no idea if Oso was up to the task.

Putting his misgivings aside, Nick moved his binoculars along the column. He saw the normal support vehicles that could be expected with this type of unit, but then he saw something else that made his heart sink. Another SA-6 vehicle brought up the rear of the column, its three missiles set low on the horizon, pointed ominously in Nick's direction. He knew that the missiles were probably set that way in travel mode, but the fact that they were pointed at him still gave him the creeps. He crouched lower.

“Sandy One, this is Wraith. Over,” Nick said into the radio.

“Go ahead, Wraith.”

“The battalion appears to be less than a couple of miles from my Jeep. It's packing some serious heat, with at least one twenty-three-millimeter and two, I repeat,
two
SA-6 mobile launchers—one at the front of the column and the other at the rear. The twenty-three-millimeter piece is in the lead, just in front of the forward SAM.”

*   *   *

“Sandy One copies all.” Oso pictured the enemy convoy in his mind. This was going to be harder than he'd hoped. A single SA-6 was a real challenge, but two were nearly impossible. In addition, he had no time to waste; the convoy would be at Nick's Jeep within minutes. Then they would track overland until they were too close for him to mount a defense. Oso had to do something and he had to do it fast.

Each A-10 carried six Maverick missiles, fourteen rockets, and four cluster bombs in addition to an eleven-hundred-rounds of combat mix—a devastating blend of armor-piercing and incendiary bullets. The cluster bombs would be no good until the SAMs were taken care of, and for that, Oso would have to use the Mavericks and the guns.

He used a grease pencil to mark the convoy's projected position on his map and then formulated a plan. The first half of the Irish Cross attack might be ideal if there was only one SA-6, but the additional missile launcher threw a wrench in the works. His only hope was that both SAMs might behave the same in response to the Irish Cross. Then the Hogs could pull off the attack and destroy one, narrowing the odds. At least the modified attack would keep the two wingmen safely out of the missiles' range. In a pinch, it was the best he could do.

“Sandy Flight, this is Sandy One,” Oso transmitted. “We are faced with a column containing at least one triple-A piece and two SA-6 vehicles.”

“Okay, boss, what's the plan?” asked Tank.

“We'll try the first half of an Irish Cross,” Oso replied. “We have to count on both launchers behaving the same. First, let's all get on the same freq with our survivor—he's going to act as our tactical air controller. Sandy Flight, push to the rescue frequency.”

Once the rest of his flight was on the same frequency with Nick, Oso continued his briefing. “Sandy Flight, stand by for an Irish Cross. One and Three will be the shooters with Maverick and gun. Two and Four will act as cover—gun only. Focus your attack on the front of the convoy. There will be no follow-up. Egress and regroup after Sandy One destroys the first SAM. Is that clear?”

The flight members replied in the affirmative. “Wraith copies all,” Nick added.

“Good,” said Oso. “Execute on my mark in three . . . two . . . one . . . mark!”