Ashes of Victory, page 7
Not for long, he thought as he watched an Embraer Legacy 650 business jet taxiing up to his Citation. Not while he still controlled the military, as well as the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, the group of nine men who made all decisions of national significance. Modern times or not, China was still controlled by its communist party, which the PSC ruled with an iron grip, and that included the appointment of members to the National People’s Congress, which in turn elected the president.
Of all the people to disappoint him, Deng never expected it to be the son of Liko Jiechi, the pilot burned alive by the same bastards who continued to defy Beijing’s rule.
After all, it was Deng who had become like a father to Xi, tending to the boy’s every need in the wake of that terrible day.
It was Deng who had sent him to the finest schools in England, before clearing his way into China’s provincial politics and guiding him through the turbulent waters.
It was Deng who had helped Xi Jiechi become governor in Fujian Province, then party secretary in neighboring Zhejiang Province before he’d joined the Politburo Standing Committee six years ago.
And it was Deng who had influenced the PSC to steer the National People’s Congress into appointing Jiechi as vice president two years ago and elected him to the position of China’s “Paramount Leader” six months ago.
Paramount, my ass, Deng thought as the Embraer came to a complete stop and its twin turbines spooled down. Now his protégé had started making his own moves to forge new alliances with the United States, the very nation who had sent—and continued to send—its carrier strike groups to the Taiwan Strait to protect the renegade island. And in doing so, Jiechi had spat on his father’s memory.
The last communiqué from Deng’s spies inside the PSC told him that the young president continued to work his way through the politburo in hopes of retiring the men loyal to Deng and replacing them with his own allies.
Perhaps I taught him too well.
But perhaps I still have something left to teach him.
In spite of their differences, he still loved the man he considered his only son. And that reminded him of another one of his father’s proverbs: It is easier to govern a country than a son.
Deng sighed.
The Embraer’s door finally swung down and Prince Omar Al Saud stepped out, followed by his aides.
Well educated, well mannered, and always dressed in Western clothes—no keffiyeh or thawbs, the traditional Arab robes—Al Saud and his lieutenants could easily pass for junior executives of a multinational corporation. And it was this unorthodox approach to terrorism, circumventing the traditional values to which so many of his colleagues desperately clung, that had first attracted Deng’s attention during a gathering in Dubai two years before.
Unlike other extremists, Al Saud had discarded the notion of roaming the strife-worn crossroads of the Middle East with an entourage of dirty, uneducated extortionists and murderers bent on forcing others to their ways.
To the contrary, Al Saud had carefully crafted the persona of a nonreligious, no-nonsense business executive with a charming smile. His slim nose, high cheekbones, chiseled chin, and neatly trimmed beard would sometimes cause him to be mistaken for the actor so famous for his pirate movies. In stark contrast to fundamentalist black-hooded terrorists hanging from the backs of pickup trucks, Al Saud almost always had beautiful women surrounding him, like the two ladies deplaning after his men. He often flew to Paris or London for lavish shopping sprees and nights of clubbing more often expected from teen rock stars than businessmen. The tabloids always covered the elaborate excursions, often suggesting that one of the women was soon to be his fiancée, despite Al Saud’s perfect portrayal of the playboy billionaire.
Always impeccably attired, he maintained penthouses in places like London, Paris, New York, and Sydney.
And right here in lovely Portugal, Deng thought as the Saudi approached him smiling his billion-dollar smile.
When he wasn’t enriching Harrods in London and Cartier in Paris, Al Saud dined with business titans and selective royalty, played golf with heads of state and presidents, and entertained Hollywood’s elite on one of his impressive yachts. He had sponsored private economic summits with the most powerful men and women in business and political circles, none of whom suspected his involvement with international terrorism.
And that made him an ideal partner to fulfill the promise Deng had made over those watery graves long ago.
“Hello, my friend,” Al Saud said, extending a manicured hand.
“Welcome,” Deng replied, shaking his hand, before pulling him closer and whispering, “and congratulations on Norfolk.”
The smile faded, and for an instant Deng saw the eyes of the terrorist glinting in Al Saud’s dark stare as he whispered back, “With your intelligence and my . . . worldwide resources, that small test is just the beginning. Just the beginning.”
A short and slightly overweight man in a far less well-tailored suit stepped up behind Al Saud. Mostly bald, with a wispy mustache and round glasses, he didn’t look the type that normally traveled in Al Saud’s circles.
“This is Dr. Ayman al-Rouby,” said Al Saud. “He will be performing the inspection.”
Deng barely acknowledged the man before sweeping an open hand toward the motorcade of black Mercedes-Benz SUVs. “Come,” he said. “Our Russian associates are waiting by the docks.”
— 7 —
GULF OF OMAN, NEAR THE COAST OF IRAN
AN ENDLESS BLANKET OF stars filled the skies of southern Asia from horizon to horizon, as Lt. Amanda Diamante followed Lt. Cmdr. Juan Ricardo approaching the coast. They were skimming the ocean, making their ingress at a shoreline entry point that gave them terrain masking from Iranian radar. Their airspeed remained well below the speed of sound to conserve fuel, avoid supersonic booms that would alert the enemy of their presence, and also because the ordnance carried externally was not designed for supersonic flight.
The suspected ammunition-storage complex on the outskirts of Zahedan, a city in Iran 150 miles inland, doubled as a terrorist training site for recruits from the United States and Europe. It sat at the southern tip of the Zahedan International Airport, where the Iranian government also maintained a large military base.
The naval aviator had read enough to know the “self-radicalizing” nature of the people she was about to hit. Generally disaffected teens and young men, angry at the governments and societies of their home nations, many of whom had begun their road to extremism online, following websites and Twitter feeds from known terrorist groups. Some had been recruited in mosques and Islamic “cultural centers,” quietly taken aside when their extremist feelings were demonstrated too publicly and offered the chance to express them in other ways.
Destroying a training camp known to include citizens from the US, UK, France, and other allied nations would have a high political cost, but the president had made his intentions clear.
There would not be any exceptions.
Space-based assets and unmanned aerial vehicles had confirmed the nature of the threat at the secluded compound.
Ricardo and Amanda rapidly approached the coastline with their exterior lights extinguished, flying a low-altitude profile.
Deedle, deedle.
Amanda frowned and glanced down at the flight control system (FCS) caution light, which indicated an error in the fly-by-wire system. Advanced jets typically used a computer to convey the pilot’s flight control inputs to the corresponding flight control surfaces. In the case of the F/A-18E, it was called the flight control system, and a caution light could indicate a possible malfunction—meaning the computer may not convey the correct fight-control commands.
Stabbing it with a gloved index finger, she reset it, and the light vanished just as the Super Hornet rushed inland from the south, fast and menacing, before turning northeast, skimming the rising terrain. They would attack the compound from the west, popping up at the last second to deliver their weapons from a low-angle dive. Off the target, they would egress in a southerly direction, remaining low level until reaching international waters to avoid Iranian SAMs, then climb to meet up with the KC-135 tankers en route back to Vinson before the sun came up.
That’s the plan, anyway, she thought as they followed the desolate topography and she inched her control column to the right, following Ricardo’s northeasterly turn before adjusting it back to place the Super Hornet in a shallow climb to clear the mountain range.
Maintaining radio silence, they loosened their formation while arming their Joint Direct Attack Munitions. JDAM technology converted unguided bombs, in this case standard MK 82s, into smart munitions called GBU-38 JDAMs—meaning they could place the five hundred pounders on the ground with ridiculous accuracy.
Amanda had just taken her hand off the Master Arm switch when she heard the familiar deedle, deedle again.
“Perfect fucking timing,” she deadpanned to herself.
After checking for other problems with her jet, Amanda quickly reset it again, and the caution light once more went out.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she shifted her gaze back to the tail of her flight leader as he—
Deedle, deedle.
“This can’t be happening!”
Hesitant to break radio silence as they approached their target, now less than forty miles away, Amanda again reset the FCS. The light went out, and everything seemed to go back to normal.
Glaring at the FCS caution light as if it were a rattlesnake, she started to thumb the radio switch and then stopped. We’ll be off the target in another few minutes. Suck it up, Miss Iowa.
Hugging the terrain twenty miles south of the compound, she shadowed Ricardo’s turn to their run-in heading, flying perfect formation and praying the flight controls would cooperate for the next few minutes.
When Ricardo’s aircraft began the pull to initiate their pop-up maneuver seven miles out, Amanda followed and began edging away from her flight leader to avoid a midair collision should her questionable fly-by-wire system decide to act up again. She could not wait to pull off target and head for mother Vinson.
When the F/A-18Es were almost vertical, Ricardo began his roll into the target roughly a mile west of the airport, and Amanda began her roll behind—
Deedle, deedle.
“C’mon!” she screamed, but continued to roll the aircraft, attempting to reset the FCS while momentarily losing sight of her flight leader. She eased the throttles back to maintain separation.
Seconds from bomb release, she saw the glow from Ricardo’s twin engines. Safely behind him, she concentrated on delivering her bombs on target, taking solace in watching the GBU-38s drop from her underside pylons.
But as she began a high-g pullout, bottoming out close to the ground, her fighter began an un-commanded roll to the left.
Deedle, deedle.
“For the love of—”
Amanda cocked the stick full right, but the aircraft continued to roll to the left. She instinctively pressed on the right rudder as the plane passed 110 degrees of bank.
But as she started to reach for the ejection seat handle, the jet began to respond. Sucking in a lungful of oxygen, she wrestled with the flight controls, frantically trying another reset.
No luck.
The nose of the fighter jet continued to rise higher as Amanda used the trim switch to bring it down to the horizon. The “trim” was basically a set of small control surfaces hinged to the end of the ailerons and elevators that could be used to partially counter the erroneous FCS commands.
“Ricky, I’m in trouble,” she said, finally breaking radio silence.
“Diamond, say posit.”
“I’m headed eastbound. FCS failure.”
“I’m heading your way, ease your power.”
“Easing the power,” she replied in a strained voice. “I’ve got a soup-sandwich going on in this fucking Rhino. Total FUBAR.”
“Hang in like you-know-who,” he said.
As hard as she tried to get the aircraft to turn right, it continued to roll left and yawed in uncoordinated flight, and the trim mechanism didn’t have enough play to counter it fully.
Amanda decided to try a shallow turn to the left and continue 270 degrees until the erratic jet pointed due south.
“I’m trying a two-seventy to the left.”
“COPY THAT,” RICARDO REPLIED, knowing that Amanda was in serious trouble, but all he could do was follow her and hope that they were able to make it back to the ship.
He made a large heading change to where he thought her jet would be. “Diamond, flash your lights.”
“Roger.”
He searched the sky for her.
“Do you have a visual, Ricky?”
“Negative,” he replied in a worried voice.
AMANDA CONTINUED TO MUSCLE the plane in an awkward turn to the left. “I’m headed north and coming around to the west.”
“Copy, let’s have the lights, Diamond.”
She left them on for six seconds. “Do you have me?”
“Negative. Say altitude.”
Keeping a level turn, she watched her flight instruments. “I’m at six hundred feet passing through west looking for a southern heading.”
“Copy that,” Ricardo replied. “I’m leveling at seven hundred feet.”
“Roger,” she replied, breathing hard, considering turning on her AN/APG-79 AESA radar, capable of tracking air targets, to locate her flight leader. But they were over Iranian territory and doing so would paint a big X on her back for the Sayyad-3 SAM stations that the intelligence briefing indicated were guarding the airport. She considered contacting one of the E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes airborne early warning and control planes overseeing all of the sorties, but their flight had taken them just north of the radar range of the nearest E-2D circling over the Arabian Sea. “This is a nightmare.”
“Hang in there. We’ll get you home.”
Amanda could now see flames from the target they’d destroyed. Two secondary explosions confirmed ammunition had been stored in one of the buildings. By the time she nursed her malfunctioning Super Hornet around to a southerly heading, she would be very near the bombed terrorist compound.
Breathing in gasps, Amanda keyed her radio. “I’m passing near the target, almost ready to roll out,” she said in a tight voice.
“Lights,” Ricardo replied.
She flashed her exterior lights.
“No joy. I’ll flash mine.”
“Oh no!” Amanda cried out, frantically shoving the nose of her Super Hornet down to avoid slamming into her flight leader. “You went right over me. Directly over me!”
“Shit! Turn straight south. I’ll find you after we’re out of Dodge.”
She tried to get the nose up, bottoming out at two hundred feet above the ground, but as the jet began to climb a few feet, it violently rolled to the left.
Amanda reached for the Martin-Baker Series-14 ejection seat’s handle and froze as the aircraft passed the inverted position. Punching out inverted at low altitude would be fatal.
Panic-stricken, Amanda paused as the aircraft rolled upright. She yanked the throttles to idle and extended the speed brake, slowing the Super Hornet to just over three hundred knots. “Losing control. Ejecting! Ejecting!”
Amanda pulled the firing handle on the side of her seat and immediately felt the flight harness retraction unit hugging her like a bear.
A series of bolts filled with an explosive charge detonated, jettisoning the canopy from the fuselage just as small rocket thrusters attached on its forward lip pushed it out of the ejection path, vanishing in the slipstream.
The wind noise roared inside the open cockpit, hammering her eardrums even under the helmet. A series of mechanical operations took place in under a second as the Mk14 seat moved into position up the rail and the system released the top latch. An instant later, the cables attached to her boots yanked her feet back, hard.
An emergency beacon started broadcasting even before the underseat rockets fired, blasting her into the darkness.
Amanda gasped as she accelerated like a missile. More than fifteen g-forces piled up on her in a second, compressing her vertebrae. The windblast took her breath away.
She felt like she was riding a roller coaster on steroids as someone punched and tugged on her from every angle. Amanda tried to get her bearings, but she had tunnel vision because of the extreme g-forces.
Then her seat kicked her in the back like a mule. Her head flew backward as she was shot forward by the drogue parachute’s firing from the back of the seat.
And that was the first time her sight cleared enough to see the ejection seat falling away, as the main parachute snapped and blossomed above her, violently yanking her skyward and upright with a powerful jolt against her shoulders.
Jesus!
She barely had time to reorient herself before her Super Hornet crashed five seconds later in a blazing fireball that spread across the ground and shot up into the night sky.
Amanda watched in shock and denial, then it hit her that the burning wreckage sat less than a mile from the terrorist compound, just beyond a dirt road snaking its way through a series of shallow and rocky hills toward the airport and the military base. She could actually see the beacon from Zahedan International Airport roughly three miles away.
She drifted for about a minute, but regretfully the prevailing winds carried her to the foot of a rocky hill between the remains of her bird and the compound she’d just hit. Secondary explosions rumbled in the distance as fires propagated across the base, reaching weapons, explosives, and fuel depots.
The terrain rushed up to meet her, and she rolled the instant her boots hit the ground with a resounding thud, just as she had drilled, ending on her side nearly out of breath, the parachute fluttering behind her.
The sporadic splashes of red, yellow, and gold from the compound, as well as from the burning jet, lit up the darkness around her.
Get up.
