Shadows of War Read online

  SHADOWS OF WAR

  by

  Robert Gandt

  What they’re saying about Robert Gandt’s novels . . .

  “Gandt has a way with words that will send the reader soaring.”

  —News Chief

  “Gandt understands not only airplanes but the people who fly them.”

  —Air & Space magazine

  “Gandt's combat scenes are excellent.”

  —Dale Brown, bestselling author, Flight of the Old Dog

  “Reading a Gandt flying tale is the next best thing to being in the cockpit. This guy is good.”

  —Stephen Coonts, bestselling author, Flight of the Intruder

  “Robert Gandt is a former Pan Am pilot who also happens to have the pen of a poet.”

  —Christian Science Monitor

  SHADOWS OF WAR

  Robert Gandt

  Copyright 2013 Robert Gandt

  Smashwords Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

  Visit his site at www.gandt.com

  For Phast Phil,

  little brother, best buddy

  Also by Robert Gandt

  Nonfiction

  SEASON OF STORMS

  The Siege of Hongkong, 1941

  CHINA CLIPPER

  The Age of the Great Flying Boats

  SKYGODS

  The Fall of Pan Am

  BOGEYS AND BANDITS

  The Making of a Fighter Pilot

  FLY LOW, FLY FAST

  Inside the Reno Air Races

  INTREPID

  The Epic Story of America’s Most Famous Warship

  THE TWILIGHT WARRIORS

  The Deadliest Naval Battle of WWII and the Men Who Fought It

  Fiction by Robert Gandt

  WITH HOSTILE INTENT

  ACTS OF VENGEANCE

  BLACK STAR

  THE KILLING SKY

  BLACK STAR RISING

  THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL SEND THE HORNET AMONG THEM UNTIL THOSE WHO ARE LEFT, WHO HIDE THEMSELVES FROM YOU, ARE DESTROYED.

  —Deuteronomy 7:20

  I ALWAYS KNEW THAT IF I WAS IN TROUBLE YOU’D COME FOR ME.

  —William Tecumseh Sherman to Ulysses S. Grant

  THE ONLY CHANCE OF LIFE LIES IN GIVING UP ALL HOPE OF IT.

  —Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  Contents

  Prologue: The Man Who Didn’t Exist

  Chapter 1—Foxbat

  Chapter 2 — Dreams of a Distant Land

  Chapter 3 — Incident Over Iran

  Chapter 4 — A Place Called Babylon

  Chapter 5 — Rumors

  Chapter 6 — Working Smarter

  Chapter 7 — Bahrain

  Chapter 8 — Recall

  Chapter 9 — Provocation

  Chapter 10 — Terrible Swift Sword

  Chapter 11 — Strike

  Chapter 12 — Tomcats

  Chapter 13 — Ace

  Chapter 14 — The Prize

  Chapter 15 — The Sweetness of Life

  Chapter 16 — Payback Time

  Chapter 17 — The Prize

  Chapter 18 — The Gift

  Chapter 19 — Informer

  Chapter 20 — The Squeeze

  Chapter 21 — The Exchange

  Chapter 22 — In Country

  Chapter 23 — Revelations

  Chapter 24 — Hunches

  Chapter 25 — Maverick

  Chapter 26 — Recovery

  Chapter 27 — Debrief

  Chapter 28 — The Captain

  About the Author

  An excerpt from THE KILLING SKY

  Prologue

  The Man Who Didn’t Exist

  I am writing this as fast as I can. In the passageway outside my cell I hear the sound of boots. They are coming to interrogate me again.

  Though I officially died on 17 January, 1991, the body of the man known as Raz Rasmussen continues to breathe air and perform physical and mental functions. One of those functions is to write in this book. Keeping a journal is the only thing that distinguishes me from an insect or a rat.

  It is unlikely that anyone except my captors will ever read this journal. It no longer matters to me. The only purpose of writing in the book is that it forces me to think about what I did each day.

  I was interrogated yesterday. They wanted to know about the mission control computer of the F/A-18. I told them everything I knew. It is a joke, after this much time. Memory is one of the things I have lost in captivity, like teeth, hair, eyesight. Torture does not refresh memory. It kills it.

  They say they are being kind by allowing me to have this journal. And in a way, they are. Of course, they take it away from me every day to see what I have written. It must amuse them to read my notes about life in prison. I learned early in my captivity to be careful what I write. My captors are paranoid. If I write something unflattering, they drag me back to the interrogation room.

  If I believed in heaven or hell, I would have to assume that I have been sent to hell. If so, it’s not all that terrifying. Torture is an overrated method for extracting information. The truth is, pain eventually loses its power to terrify. I have learned to detach from my physical self. Since I am already a dead man, they can’t hurt me.

  This knowledge gives me an immense advantage over my captors and, for that matter, over everyone else in the world. I have nothing to hope for. Nothing to lose. Nothing to fear.

  I hear them coming now. They will ask the same old questions, and I will give the same old answers. They waste their time. I remember nothing of value. The only part of my life I recall with perfect clarity is the night I died.

  Chapter 1 — Foxbat

  Southern Iraq, 31,000 feet

  0145, 17 January, 1991

  “Contact! Zero-four-zero, thirty-five miles, angels thirty, hot.”

  The call cut like a scythe through the radio chatter. Raz Rasmussen’s scan snapped back inside the cockpit. He squinted at the greenish radar display. Where? Zero-four-zero from whom? Is it a MiG?

  “Foxbat!” he heard someone call. “Twelve o’clock, twenty-five miles.” Someone was getting an EID—electronic identification—on the contact.

  Rasmussen’s heart rate accelerated another twenty beats. A Foxbat was a Russian-built MiG-25. He had it tagged in his own radar now, and, yeah, damn right it was a Foxbat. Nearly level, coming at them nose on. His hands began to sweat inside the flight gloves.

  “Anvil Four-one has the bogey, nose hot, twenty miles. Request clearance to fire.”

  Rasmussen recognized the voice of his flight leader, Lt. Cmdr. Gracie Allen, in the F/A-18 Hornet two miles to the left.

  “Which Anvil?” answered the AWACS controller in the E-3 Sentry, on station over Saudi Arabia. There was a total of sixteen Hornets with the call sign “Anvil.” “Who’s requesting clearance to fire? What bogey?”

  “Anvil Four-one. I’ve got a bogey on my nose at twenty miles. I need clearance to—” Bleep. Another radio transmission cut him off.

  “Anvil , do you have positive ID? State your—”

  Bleep.

  Radio discipline was going to hell. No one could complete a call before somebody cut him out.

  The Foxbat was in range of the strike group.

  It was Night One of Operation Desert Storm, the largest American air combat operation since Vietnam. Coalition warplanes filled the night sky over Iraq. Everyone was hyp
ed, and the adrenaline was crackling like electricity.

  Lt. Cmdr. Raz Rasmussen—call sign Anvil Four-three—was the second element leader of the four-ship flight. Anvil Flight’s job was to shoot HARMs—high-speed anti-radiation missiles intended to kill Iraq’s air defense radars. The mission was critical because the inbound strike aircraft — other F/A-18s, F-15s, F-111s, B-52s—depended on the HARM shooters to take out the barrage of radar-directed anti-aircraft guns and surface-to-air missile batteries.

  To Rasmussen’s right was his wingman, Anvil Four-four, a cocky second-tour lieutenant named John DeLancey. To his left was the lead element—Lt. Cmdr. Gracie Allen and his wingman, Lt. Brick Maxwell.

  Rasmussen could see Baghdad glimmering in the distance. Tiny flashes pulsed like heat lightning just above the horizon. Tracers were arcing into the sky over the city. Tomahawk missiles and F 117 Stinkbugs were already hitting the target area.

  Then Rasmussen saw something in the radar that made his blood run cold. He waited two more sweeps to be sure. Another bogey.

  Not one but two goddamn Foxbats out there. No question about it. Two targets at twelve o’clock, fifteen miles, closing fast.

  But he couldn’t shoot. Not until he’d gotten clearance. He silently cursed the idiotic Rules of Engagement. An electronic ID with the Hornet’s onboard radar was not considered accurate enough to tag a bogey as a hostile fighter. There were too many allied warplanes in the same tiny airspace.

  The tactical frequency was clogged. The AWACS controller wasn’t getting through.

  Twelve miles. The Foxbats were close enough to shoot their own—

  “Anvil Four-two is spiked!”

  Rasmussen recognized Maxwell’s voice. He was reporting that he was targeted by the MiGs’ radar. In the next instant, Rasmussen saw a tiny flash of light in the dark sky in front of him.

  A missile in the air.

  < >

  Grunting against the seven-G break turn, Maxwell felt the perspiration pour from inside his helmet.

  He knew the hard turn was taking him directly beneath the three other members of Anvil Flight. He hoped they maintained altitude so that he would pass under them a couple thousand feet.

  His RWR was warbling like a deranged parrot. Damn! A radar-guided missile—an AA-6 Acrid —and it had him locked. How did we let the MiG take the first shot?

  He hit the chaff dispenser, releasing a trail of aluminum confetti to confuse the Acrid’s radar guidance unit. Maxwell had a nagging doubt that the stuff really worked. Even Russian radars weren’t that stupid.

  Maxwell felt like a blind man. He couldn’t see the Foxbat, and he couldn’t see any of the Hornets in his flight. It was like knife-fighting in a blackened closet. With zero visual reference, he was completely on instruments.

  This Foxbat pilot was no amateur. He’d taken his shot at Maxwell, out at the far left of the six-mile wide formation. Now, if he was smart, he would try to sweep around behind the rest of the formation.

  Over his shoulder, Maxwell got a glimpse of the missile. A white torch, arcing toward him.

  Pull! Hard right and down. Beat the missile. Put the spike at your nine o’clock.

  The good news was that the AA-6 was perhaps the least maneuverable air-to-air missile the Soviets made. The bad news was it had the largest warhead.

  He rolled wings level and stabbed the chaff dispenser again.

  Brick Maxwell was a nugget—a new fighter pilot on his first squadron tour. He’d been in the squadron three months when they sailed for the Persian Gulf. This was his first combat mission.

  “Just stay cool, pal,” his best friend in the squadron, Raz Rasmussen, had told him before the mission. They were walking across the darkened flight deck toward their jets. “Stick with ol’ Raz. This is gonna be a walk in park.”

  Some walk in the park. Maxwell felt like he was getting mugged. If he lived through this, he’d tell Raz he was full of shit.

  The warbling in the RWR changed pitch, then ceased altogether. Over his shoulder Maxwell saw the white torch of the Acrid. It was veering to the left, behind him. Going for the chaff. Hey, the stuff worked! Thank you, God.

  Where was the rest of Anvil Flight? Above him somewhere. Close. Where?

  He saw the flash of another missile launch.

  < >

  Screw the Rules of Engagement.

  The AWACS had still not identified the bogey as a bandit. By definition, a bogey was an unidentified target. A bogey didn’t become a bandit until he was identified as a bona fide hostile aircraft.

  Rasmussen wasn’t waiting any longer. He didn’t need any more identification. One of the bogeys had just taken a shot at Maxwell. That made him a bona fide, no shit bandit that needed killing

  His AIM-7 Sparrow missile leaped from its rail like a runaway freight train and went scorching into the night sky.

  He keyed the microphone to transmit a “Fox One,” call, signaling the launch of a radar-guided missile.

  Bleep. He was cut out again.

  The radio chatter was overwhelming. Hornet pilots were calling bogeys, yelling for clearance to fire, blocking each other’s transmissions. It sounded like feeding time in the monkey cage.

  Then he caught a flash of light in his peripheral vision. Another missile launch. Who?

  “Anvil Four-four, Fox One.” He recognized the voice of DeLancey, his wingman.

  Rasmussen saw DeLancey’s missile arcing off into the sky, in the trail of his own Sparrow missile.

  Two seconds later, Rasmussen saw an orange blob appear at his eleven o’clock position, slightly low. The blob pulsed like an amorphous creature, then turned into a trail of fire.

  His Sparrow missile had killed the Foxbat.

  Then another explosion. A white flash ignited briefly inside the flames of the destroyed Foxbat. DeLancey’s missile had targeted the same MiG.

  Before he could key his microphone, he heard DeLancey’s triumphant voice. “Anvil Four-four, Splash One!”

  A flash of anger swept over Rasmussen. DeLancey was taking credit for a MiG he didn’t kill. When they got back to the ship he would—

  Something else was out there. A bright blue torch where the Foxbat had been.

  The second Foxbat. He was seeing the bright afterburner plumes of two Tumansky afterburners. The Foxbat had just seen his partner get hosed and he was getting out of Dodge.

  Or was he?

  The plumes vanished. Where did he go?

  Rasmussen was still searching with his radar, scanning the empty sky for the missing Foxbat when he heard the sudden screaming of his own RWR. A wave of fear swept over him.

  He knew where the Foxbat had gone.

  < >

  Captain Tariq Jabbar shoved the throttles of his MiG-25 up to the afterburner detent. The extra thrust of the big Tumansky engines felt like the kick of a mule.

  He hated giving away his presence with the glow of the burner plumes, but he needed to close the distance between him and the oncoming Americans. Speed was his only defense. Speed was life.

  The enemy fighters had just obliterated his friend and squadron commander, Lt. Col. Tawfiq Al-Rashid, with a radar-guided missile. The fireball had nearly blinded Jabbar, causing him to hunker in his seat, waiting for the next missile. The one that would kill him.

  Instead, the second missile followed the first. Both had struck Al-Rashid’s MiG-25.

  “Make your peace with Allah,” Al-Rashid had told him back at Al-Taqqadum air base before they took off. “We will be joining him tonight.”

  Jabbar had just nodded. He had no illusions about his longevity as a fighter pilot in the Iraqi Air Force. The war with America was about to begin, and his life expectancy could be measured in minutes.

  Soon after take off he had been shocked to see on his radar the armada of aircraft sweeping northward toward Baghdad. As it turned out, Al-Rashid was the first to join Allah.

  As Jabbar flashed past the oncoming American fighters, he pulled the throttles out of the afterbu
rner detent and hauled the nose of the MiG-25 up and around in a hard turn, back toward their tails.

  The silence of his Sirena radar warning receiver told him that he was not targeted. They had lost him, at least momentarily. In their own confusion, they were not yet aware that he was behind them. Perhaps his own appointment with Allah would be postponed. The trick was to not lock any of them up until he was ready to fire his missile. Shoot quickly and run. There. He saw it in his radar—an enemy blip in the middle of the spread out formation. If the geometry of his turn had been correct, it would be the same one who killed Al-Rashid.

  Which was appropriate. An eye for an eye, an American for an Iraqi. Let one of them join Al-Rashid in eternity.

  He commanded the radar to lock, then squeezed the trigger. The airframe of the aging Russian-built fighter rumbled as the Acrid missile roared off its rail and streaked away like a fire-tailed comet.

  He waited, watching the missile vanish in the darkness. His own Sirena continued its silence.

  They still didn’t know he was there.

  < >

  Maxwell saw it first. “Anvil flight, missile in the air!” he called. “Six o’clock!”

  It had to be another Acrid. The flash came from beneath and behind him. The missile was targeting one of the Hornets up ahead.