Viper Strike c-2, page 25
part #2 of Carrier Series
The Stingray light tank was one of six traveling in column toward the cluster of government buildings and royal residences which comprised the heart of the capital. Following the tanks were twenty trucks and over three hundred soldiers loyal to him. Their target was nothing less than the seat of government itself.
Seize the capital. Force the King to see the futility of continued bloodshed within the sacred precincts of Krung Thep. Prove to the armed forces of all Thailand that the army was strong, strong enough to stand against the communists and their Burmese hosts.
And with the American battle group gone, it was possible now. Kriangsak regretted his earlier doubts. General Hsiao had been right. The American carrier was vulnerable. Kriangsak had been on the shore at Sattahip two nights before, had seen the rocket attack and the volcanic pillar of fire rising from the Jefferson's flight deck. He'd watched as the stricken carrier, still burning, had ignominiously slipped her anchor chain and limped from the harbor, heading south.
The latest reports placed the Jefferson almost fifty miles southwest of Sattahip now, still moving away at slow speed. That news would shake the King, and all those who still hoped that American support would come. And it would cheer the CPT revolutionary front now bracing for a That army attack at U Feng. At least it would hold them together until the coup could unite the army… under the leadership of Kriangsak Vajiravudh.
Everything was unfolding precisely as Hsiao had promised. Kriangsak could only shake his head in wonder.
The tank's radioman tugged at Kriangsak's pants leg, demanding attention.
He ducked inside the hatch and accepted the radio headset. "Kriangsak here," he said.
"Colonel! This is Captain Priya!" The voice was rough with static, and nearly lost in the racket from the tank column. "Headquarters has been captured!"
"What? Speak up!"
"I said headquarters has been captured. Special Forces broke into the Americana forty minutes ago!"
The news shook Kriangsak. It was not a fatal blow ― there were other arms and supply caches in and near the city ― but it meant that the government knew of his part in the coup.
A pair of helicopters roared low overhead, and Kriangsak looked up nervously. It was still too dark to see their markings, but they were flying with lights on. That spoke of arrogance… an arrogance born of power.
Suddenly, Colonel Kriangsak felt less confident.
0521 hours, 21 January
New Phetchaburi Road, Bangkok
Master Sergeant Phillip Loomis, U.S.M.C., crouched on the rooftop of a service station with the handful of That Special Forces men. In front of them was a rugged-looking box with lenses and what looked like a telescopic sight, directed over the low wall which surrounded the flat roof area and toward a section of the road some three hundred yards to the east. It was still dark, but the sky was growing rapidly lighter.
It wouldn't be long now.
"Target area's clear," the That lieutenant at his side noted, lowering his starlight scope. This was a relatively open part of the city, some three miles east of downtown Bangkok. The buildings were low and widely spaced, almost like a suburban neighborhood back home, Loomis thought. South of the highway was a strip of shops, temples, and patches of trees running between the highway and the straight-line slash of Kiong Sen Seb.
New Phetchaburi Road was a fairly major artery. Even this early in the morning it was usually clogged with the beginnings of Bangkok's business day rush hour.
But the street was deserted now. Many residents had fled the area during the fighting the day before. Loyal That soldiers had evacuated others, knowing that the fighting would be worse today. The street was still lined with parked vehicles, but Loomis could see no movement.
He heard them first, the clash-clank of tracks on pavement, the rumble of diesels. The lead tank came into view a moment later, first in a long line of trucks and armored vehicles.
Loomis pressed his eye to the telescope sight, centering it on the lead vehicle. He flicked a switch from standby to active, and a bright spot of light appeared on the target, near the top of the Stingray's turret.
"Firefly, Firefly, this is Zulu Three Kilo," he said. The pencil mike in front of his lips picked up the words and transmitted them to a base station a few yards away on the rooftop. The station relayed the message skyward. "The lamp is lit. I say again, the lamp is lit."
"Roger that, Zulu Three Kilo," a voice said in his ear. "We see the light. Firefly on the way."
The lieutenant at his side was speaking rapidly in That into his own microphone, warning friendly forces to keep their heads down. The show was about to begin.
Loomis had been in the Marines for twenty-five years. As a lance corporal, he'd ridden out Tet and fought his way through the shattered streets of Hue. Three months ago he'd been on the beach at Wonsan, working with the Beachmaster to off-load AAFV "tuna boats" as rocket and mortar fire dug holes in the sand and Tomcats shrieked overhead. This was the first time he'd ever fought a battle with what was in effect little more than a high-tech flashlight.
The Ground Laser Designator, or GLD, produced a beam of infrared light, invisible to the unaided eye but crystal clear to the proper optics or instrumentation. That intense spot of red light on the Stingray could not be seen by its crew, but somewhere in the night sky, colder, more efficient eyes were already locking onto the light, hunting it… and closing in. Elsewhere in the city, he knew, there were other small teams of men, Marine "technical advisors" working with loyalist That counterparts, sealing off the city from the rebel attacks they knew must come.
It was, Loomis reflected, one hell of a way to fight a war.
0521 hours, 21 January
Firefly One, twenty miles west of Bangkok
"Victor Bravo Three, this is Firefly One." Commander Steve Murcheson nudged the stick of his A-6 to adjust his course slightly, watching the terrain unfold on his Visual Display Indicator. "We have contact with Zulu Three Kilo and the lamp is lit. Commencing run, over."
"Firefly One, this is Victor Bravo," the voice of a Hawkeye air traffic controller replied. "We have a flight of Marine helos in your area, bearing three-three-niner at forty five hundred, range two-zero. You are clear for your approach, over."
"Roger that. TRAM running and the pickle is hot." The TRAM turret under the Intruder's nose registered the modulated laser light reflected from the target some twenty miles to the east. The Target Recognition and Attack Multi-sensor fed tracking data to the long, sleek weapon slung from the attack aircraft's starboard inboard weapons station. The bomb was already active, its robot eye following that same distant point of light.
Lieutenant Commander Simms, Firefly One's Bombardier/ Navigator, studied the view of his own VDI, watching a computer graphic image of what the TRAM was seeing, then switching to FLIR to give him an infrared view of the terrain ahead. The A-6's own TRAM could illuminate a target with a laser, but this particular target was in the middle of a city where the slightest error could kill hundreds of noncombatants. It was safer using a Marine spotter on the ground. He locked in the target. "Positive ID," the BN said. "Skipper powered up, release on auto. We're go."
"Rog," Murcheson said. He switched to the tactical frequency. "Firefly Lead, all go and in the game!"
Sunrise was less than an hour off, and the predawn sky was brightening rapidly. Murcheson could see the buildings of central Bangkok rising before him, beyond the silvery curve of the Chao Phraya River. They were approaching from the west, descending now to less than three thousand feet. Off the right wing, the waters of the Gulf of Thailand were a misty blue-violet band touching the sky.
The intruder's on-board computer continued to monitor the aircraft's course, speed, altitude, the location of the laser-illuminated target, and the input from the BN's console which set its operational parameters. Murcheson kept the Intruder flying on a dead-level course, making minute changes in course as directed by the computer.
"We're getting close," Simms said. "Any moment n-"
The computer's release signal caught them both by surprise. The Skipper II laser-guided air-to-ground missile was fourteen feet long and weighed over twelve hundred pounds, and as the AGM kicked free, the Intruder bucked skyward. "Breakaway!" Murcheson snapped. He opened the air-to-ground channel again. "Zulu Three Kilo, this is Firefly! Package on the way!"
Murcheson brought the Intruder's stick left and skimmed north across the city. Buildings flashed past, canyons of concrete and steel. This close to the ground, the sensation of speed was breathtaking. "Wheeeoh!" he cried over the open mike. "Just like Star Wars! Firefly Lead, out of the hunt!"
The missile flashed out of the near darkness, a point of light on the unreeling white line of a contrail. First introduced in 1985, Skipper II had been created by the Naval Weapons Center from off-the-shelf components, the solid-fuel motor of the outdated Shrike missile mated to the warhead of a Mark 83 one-thousand-pound bomb. Its seeker head kept the spot of infrared laser light centered in its field of view, adjusting the rocket's fins as the target moved.
At a range of less than six miles, it had a targeting accuracy measured in inches.
0522 hours, 21 January
New Phetchaburi Road, Bangkok
Colonel Kriangsak propped himself up in the commander's hatch, his eyes fixed on the line of tanks ahead. With less than three miles to go before they reached the government building complex, he'd expected more resistance from the loyalists, some show of force at least.
There was a thump, as though the tank he was riding in had hit a pothole, and the predawn semidarkness turned a dazzling white. There was no sound that he was aware of, but there was a gut-wrenching sensation of falling… then blackness.
0522 hours, 21 January
New Phetchaburi Road, Bangkok
"My God, will you look at that!" Even at better than three hundred yards, the blast had rocked the service station where Loomis and the Thais were hiding. Windows shattered, and night turned to day as an orange fireball crawled into the sky on a column of flame-shot smoke.
Loomis used the laser target scope to survey the damage. The lead tank was gone… gone, along with part of the highway. He couldn't see anything left of the vehicle save for scraps which might have been anything. The second tank in line had dipped nose-first into the crater scooped out of the pavement by the blast and tumbled onto its back. Smoke and flame poured from the wreckage. Tanks three and four lay upended thirty yards from the pit, like discarded toys.
Beyond that, his vision was obscured by the smoke, but he could see at least one truck burning, and make out the shapes of men staggering about on the road or lying motionless on the ground.
"Okay, Lieutenant," he said to the That officer at his side. "Looks like we stopped 'em. Now it's up to you."
The lieutenant was already giving orders to his men over the radio.
0528 hours, 21 January
New Phetchaburi Road, Bangkok
Kriangsak opened his eyes. He was lying on his back, his ears ringing painfully, his body bruised and sore. Experimenting gently, he found that he could move, could sit up painfully and look around. Nothing was broken.
He'd been riding in the fourth Stingray in line. At first, he was so disoriented he couldn't find the vehicle. Then he saw it, twenty meters away and lying on its side. He decided he must have been flung clear by the explosion. Several still, broken bodies in army uniforms lay on the street.
Blind chance had saved Kriangsak's life. The Stingray's turret had protected him from the worst of the blast, but he'd been thrown clear from the hatch instead of smashed against the interior hull.
Two of the tanks were still intact, but they were motionless, their crews killed or knocked unconscious by the shock wave. Everywhere, soldiers stood or sat or stumbled through the smoky darkness as though drunk. Most wore masks of blood from nosebleeds. Some writhed in agony on the ground and appeared to be screaming, though there was no sound. Only gradually did Kriangsak realize that he was deaf.
He looked up. The weapon which had shattered the column had to have been an air-launched weapon, but there was no sign of aircraft, no hint of where the bolt had come from. Striking a target with such accuracy from so far away that the attacker could not be seen… the RTAF didn't have that kind of technology, but Kriangsak knew who did. He had an uncomfortable feeling that the Americans were back in the game.
Shaking his head to clear it, he started moving back toward the line of trucks. Through the high-pitched shrilling in his ears, he could make out the far-off, muffled roar of fires, the screams of wounded men. His hearing was returning.
Several trucks were burning. Others had swerved off the highway and smashed into trees or gone nose-down in a ditch. The trucks toward the end of the column, however, were untouched, though none of the vehicles were moving.
Kriangsak had seen the crater in the road ahead. The convoy would not get any further in that direction.
And the That loyalists would be closing in at any moment to mop up.
Kriangsak knew he had to choose a new target and choose it quickly. Turning, he surveyed the city skyline across the canal toward the southwest. The pyramid-shaped, ultramodern architecture of one of Bangkok's more modern and luxurious hotels rose beyond the trees of Siam Square, half a mile away.
Perfect.
He reached out and grabbed the sleeve of a soldier nearby, turning him around and getting him moving toward the klong. He found another… and another. Within five minutes, Kriangsak had rounded up a small army of fifty armed men and had set them moving across the Wit Thaya Road bridge which spanned Klong Sen Seb. Scattered gunshots and shouted demands for surrender sounded behind them as army troops closed in on the dazed and stumbling survivors of the column. His fifty men had managed to get clear in the smoky confusion and dim light, though, before the loyalist net closed around them.
The Americans had done this. So be it. If the Americans had seen fit to intervene in the coup, then it would be the Americans who would have to accept the consequences.
Colonel Kriangsak knew he might still be able to bargain from a position of strength.
CHAPTER 23
0610 hours, 21 January
Tomcat 201, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
Tombstone dropped into his ejection seat and accepted his helmet from Chief Smith. The plane captain grinned at him as he went through the motions of strapping on his airplane, and gave him a jaunty thumbs up. "How about bagging another six kills, Commander? For us."
"I'll see what I can do, Chief," Tombstone said, laughing. He settled the helmet over his head and adjusted the lip mike. "I'll see what I can do."
He finished pulling the arming pins for the ejection seat and checking the other necessary preflight details ― leg restraints, oxygen and G-suit hoses connected and locked, radio cord snapped into his helmet.
Smith gave his helmet a friendly pat. "Luck! Canopy coming down."
Tombstone could hear Dixie's harsh breathing over the Tomcat's ICS as the RIO went through his own checklist. "Firing up," Tombstone said, and he switched on the powerful Pratt & Whitney turbofans.
"All set back here, Tombstone," Dixie told him.
Outside, the plane captain gave the Tomcat a final quick visual inspection, then signaled his approval. A small army of green shirts began breaking down the aircraft, removing the chocks and chains which had kept it pinned in place on the starboard side of the carrier, just forward of the island. A man in yellow jersey and cranial backed ahead of the F-14, signaling with his hands. Tombstone released the brakes and set the aircraft trundling slowly forward after him.
The launch for the alpha strike code-named Operation Bright Lightning was well under way. Jefferson had been hurling aircraft into the sky for the past hour, beginning with the VA-84's A-6 Intruders and VFA-176's Hornets for close support missions over Bangkok.
But the real show today would be in the far north of Thailand, over the airfield at U Feng.
"Eagle Leader, this is Homeplate," a voice crackled in his helmet phones.
"Eagle" was the call sign for VF-95 on this strike.
"Homeplate, this is Eagle Leader," Tombstone replied. "I copy. Go ahead."
"Stoney? This is CAG. How are you feeling?"
Tombstone was surprised. CAG did not normally chat with pilots during a launch… and he never asked after their health.
Still, he understood. CAG had gone to bat for him with the senior medical officer. Marusko had put his own neck on the line, so that Tombstone could risk his.
"Livin' on the edge, CAG," he said. "No problem."
"Take care of yourself, Stoney. Oh… and the admiral says, 'Good flying.""
This last was even more surprising. Admiral Magruder was usually scrupulously careful not to show favoritism for his aviator nephew. A personal message from the CO of the battle group broadcast over the tactical com net could hardly be kept secret.
But Tombstone didn't mind, not anymore. And a little last-second nervousness from CAG over his decision to intervene with the doctors was justifiable, Tombstone decided.
Had he made the right decision? Strange. Tombstone hadn't thought much about it. The hours since his escape had been a mix of frantic activity and exhausted sleep. Was he the same man, with the same reflexes, the same edge?
He shook his head, pushing the question aside.
More than anything else in the world right now, he wanted, needed to strike back at the man who had kidnapped and tortured him, who had threatened Pamela Drake, who had mutilated and killed three of his shipmates and attacked the Jefferson herself, all for the sake of some unknown, twisted power game of his own. For now, that was all that mattered, that and the fact that he was again at the controls of an F14, ready to ride the cat shuttle into the sky.
Next in line. The water-cooled plate of the Jet Blast Deflector behind Cat One rose in front of him, protecting his aircraft from the engine exhaust of the plane ahead. The color-coded deck crew performed their ritual movements and dances, checking the KA-6D tanker, readying it for launch. The other tanker was already up. Jefferson's Air Ops would have a fine time juggling those two planes today, keeping them aloft with enough fuel to service the entire wing. Later, perhaps, some aircraft could land and refuel at various That bases, but that wouldn't be until their safety on the ground could be assured. In the meantime, fuel would be a carefully hoarded resource.
