TWENTY MILES FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
Muhammad Mourad was no military genius, but he wasn’t nearly the fool the Americans believed him to be. His air forces were quite powerful. Yet the Mahdi understood no winged force in the world was a match for those he faced. His MiGs and Mirages performed well during the initial advance into Egypt. In days, they’d gained a modicum of control in the skies over North Africa. He realized, however, that they couldn’t hold on to their delicate domination against the accomplished Americans. So the moment the Allied planes arrived, he withdrew his five hundred fighters to wait for precisely the right moment.
His overly confident opponent had been lulled by the Pan-Arabs’ failure to provide any heaven-based opposition. There’d been significant losses of American aircraft to ground-based missiles, but the threat to the pilots and ships from an airborne enemy was presumed to be nearly nonexistent. This was exactly what Mourad wanted them to believe. The moment he’d been searching for had arrived. To return to his primary task of throwing everything he had into seizing Cairo, he had to destroy the impudent American Marines who’d brazenly landed behind his lines. To do so, he needed to eliminate his adversary’s air superiority.
Without air support, his dogged opponent would stand no chance against his massive army. He’d wipe them from the face of the earth as easily as one would dispatch an irritating insect. And with the Marines no longer biting at his backside, Cairo would be his by sundown tomorrow.
The time had come to spring the trap. In a surprise assault, he’d launch every fighter he had against the carrier-borne aircraft. Once the Super Hornets were engaged and pulled away from their ships, he’d fire scores of cruise missiles, each with a thousand-pound warhead, at the naval fleet. Sink an aircraft carrier and the American military might struggle to recover. Sink both carriers, and he would gain air superiority over North Africa for at least a week. And with eleven thousand infidel bodies floating in the Mediterranean, he might gain far more than control of the skies. With such casualties, a stunned America could lose the taste for war.
The Iraqis and Iranians would undertake a similar air assault against Saudi Arabia. There was no way either country’s air forces could penetrate the Patriot missile defenses or buzzing fighter aircraft. But that was never their goal. Their attack would be a well-timed ploy to tie down the land-based aircraft in Saudi Arabia and carrier-based aircraft in the Arabian Sea. With those forces engaged, the two carriers hovering off the Egyptian coast would be isolated.
It was a gamble. Mourad was rolling the dice. He was risking his air armada in a bold strike designed to destroy the Americans’ ability to stop him in Egypt. He knew his skyward forces would suffer heavy losses against his opponent’s planes and pilots. Yet it was a risk worth taking. From Algeria and Libya, hundreds of French-made Mirages and Russian-made MiG-25s and SU-24s rose from their runways on a sweltering fall afternoon. The American surveillance satellites spotted them the instant they left the ground.
At the moment of Mourad’s surprise attack, there were twenty-four Super Hornets in the far-flung heavens over northern Egypt. Those twenty-four would have to defend the fleet until help appeared in the skies behind them.
“All aircraft, say again, all aircraft. This is Echo Control. Pan-Arabs have launched a massive fighter attack. Approximately five hundred bandits are headed east at a high rate of speed. Eisenhower and Lincoln will launch all fighters immediately. First groups are to hold the enemy until reinforcements arrive.”
The carrier battle group had nearly one hundred and eighty planes that had so far survived the intense combat. Of those, eighty-eight were top-of-the-line F/A-18Es and F/A-18Fs. Those eighty-eight would bear the brunt of the Chosen One’s invasion.
Blackjack Section would limp into the air battle with half its cannon shells expended and a single heat-seeking Sidewinder on each of its pilots’ wing tips. Mitchell would’ve felt much better about engaging the enemy with two AIM-132 and four AIM-120 missiles also nestled under his wings. But there was nothing he could do to change that reality. For the moment, there was no time to return to the Lincoln to reload. The Americans didn’t have a minute to spare, and the thirty minutes Blackjack Section needed to land and rearm couldn’t be considered.
* * *
—
From his field headquarters beneath the lengthening shadow of the Great Pyramid, the Mahdi waited. The moment his hemmed-in foe took the bait and sent their aircraft to battle his MiGs, he’d initiate the second part of his plan.
One hundred Tomahawk cruise missiles were sitting on the coast of Libya waiting to be fired. Their targets would be the Lincoln and Eisenhower.
A smile came to the Chosen One’s weathered face. The unbelievers were about to feel the full power of Allah’s wrath.
* * *
—
The Marines were all but forgotten as the fighters rushed west.
With only the Cobras and drones to aid them, on the shifting sands of Egypt the confounded defenders were on their own.
22
4:17 P.M., OCTOBER 18
3RD PLATOON, BRAVO COMPANY, 2ND RECONNAISSANCE BATTALION, 2ND MARINE DIVISION
THE CAIRO–ALEXANDRIA HIGHWAY
A Cobra fired another of its air-to-air missiles at an overmatched Hind-D. The streaking shadow ripped through the low heavens at incredible speed. The Sidewinder rushed headlong toward the intense heat being produced by the Hind’s engine. There’d be no chance of escaping the fiery death soaring through the macabre skies to seize the Pan-Arab crew. The older-model Russian helicopter exploded. It fell in flaming pieces upon the grappling lines of the Chosen One’s foot soldiers running across the weighty sands.
The harrowing helicopter clash had started minutes earlier, with twenty-four Hinds facing nine Cobras. With the American helicopter’s latest kill, the numbers had dropped to sixteen against seven. At the present rate, it wouldn’t take but another quarter hour for the Marine pilots to sweep their overmatched opponent from the battle zone. The surviving Cobras would then turn their attention toward cleaning up what remained of Mourad’s forces after the Hornets were through annihilating their ground-based foe.
In a completely unanticipated move, in the center of the swirling battle, a Hind boldly rushed past the fierce Cobras. The instant it breached the darting defenders, the Pan-Arab helicopter dove for the protection of the desert floor. The Hind bobbed and weaved at over one hundred and eighty miles per hour. With its engine running full out, it sped toward the Marine battalion.
A smile came to the roaring pilot’s face. He was almost there. Over the next rise their abhorred opponent awaited his vengeful wrath. His machine guns and rockets would soon be ripping the first line of outclassed defenders apart. As he raced past his own lines, the Hind cleared the last of the barren dunes separating him from his saintly purpose. The Americans were right in front of him. His glorious moment had arrived. Uncontrollable joy swept over him.
His surging elation would, however, be short-lived. The firing tone went off, ringing in James Fife’s ears. He squeezed the trigger. The Stinger rocketed off his shoulder. Straight as
an arrow, the scant missile roared toward the hurrying Hind.
The helicopter’s radar screamed for its pilot to take evasive action. But the determined Stinger was so near he’d almost no time to react. The mindless killer was closing at ten times the Hind’s speed. In an instant, the pilot’s euphoria was replaced by the stark terror of his impending defeat. His only chance was to turn skyward while dropping strings of white-hot flares in a desperate attempt to fool the unsophisticated little heat-seeker streaking across the skies to destroy him. Maybe, just maybe, a scalding flare would confuse the Stinger and cause it to chase a false target. It was a long shot at best. And with so short a distance between attacker and prey, there was scarcely any possibility of success. Still, a slim chance was better than none at all.
The hell-bent assassin was nearly there. The panicked pilot raced into the hazy firmament while clawing at his flare release. But his frantic efforts would do little good. Before the first shielding flare could free itself, the relentless executioner was upon him. The Stinger’s death-tipped nose flew into the Hind’s engine. Another numbing blast shattered the horrific world above the battlefield.
On the ground, the gunnery sergeant paid scant attention to his victory. There’d be no revelry on Fife’s part. With the first of the rampaging Pan-Arab armor and infantry cresting the final rise, there was no time for that. The enemy was scarcely two hundred yards away. Both sides opened fire. From every corner, the horrendous battle exploded with relishing fury.
While a solid curtain of rifle fire stung the intemperate desert, the platoon’s senior sergeant placed the empty missile tube on the ground and started disassembling the firing mechanism. With the spent tube discarded, he reached for a replacement missile. In less than a minute another Stinger would be attached, ready to leap from the wily Marine’s shoulder once more.