Hellfire Page 7

  What to do?

  The Apache was due in AAC service in 2003, which technically gave me time to deploy with the SAS and still left time to apply for Apache selection. The latter, not surprisingly, had become the hottest ticket in the Air Corps. Every pilot with half an eye on the top rung of the ladder would put his name down for a place on the conversion course. To ensure I got there, I knew I’d need to be way ahead of the curve.

  Fortunately, I had a plan.

  BOMBING FREDDIE MERCURY

  11 SEPTEMBER 2000

  British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS), Alberta, Canada

  My Gazelle was parked in the middle of the Canadian prairie. The sun was high and the sky was clear blue. Somewhere above me I could hear a lone bird calling. Lying on my back, I scanned the heavens, trying in vain to locate it. No matter. I popped another piece of straw between my teeth, closed my eyes and tried to doze, but I was out of luck there too.

  Fuck me, I thought, didn’t these Pathfinders ever put a sock in it?

  Next to me was a Special Forces Land Rover filled with three lads from the Pathfinder Platoon-a small unit designed and trained to fight behind enemy lines; 16 Air Assault Brigade’s equivalent of the SAS.

  They were swapping stories about how they’d have solved the previous year’s Kosovo conflict. It was full of harmless machismo-but it went on endlessly. Two of the guys favoured covertly parachuting behind the lines; the third was adamant that an ‘infil’ by land was better. Both ended with a bloody assault on Slobodan Milosevic’s heavily armed Belgrade headquarters. The outcome, needless to say, was a foregone conclusion: Brits one, Serbs nil.

  I was in 3 Regiment now, on a two-month exercise fighting a tank battalion, day in day out to get ourselves onto a war footing.

  My flight commander, co-pilot and co-ABFAC, Dom, groaned beside me. ‘Can’t they just shut the fuck up for a moment? Some of us didn’t get much sleep last night.’

  ‘Paras,’ I told him. ‘A gobbier breed you couldn’t hope to meet. I used to be one.’

  ‘Don’t I know it, Staff?’ Dom said. ‘And your gob is going to get us into trouble one of these days.’ He rolled over and blocked his ears.

  Dom was a captain and I was a staff sergeant, the 2i/c of our flight. Dom was public school, vertically challenged and took no shit from anyone, not even me. He was a soldiers’ officer and always considered his men before himself. He wasn’t the most gifted pilot, but he more than made up for that in the brains department.

  We were having a break from kicking tanky arse and were concentrating instead on the fine art of Forward Air Controlling-FACing, as it was politely known in the trade. The Pathfinders were FACs-Forward Air Controllers. Dom and I were Airborne FACs or ABFACs. We did exactly what they did, but from the comfort of our Gazelles. The Pathfinders thought we were a couple of soft pussies, but I’d done the stripped-down Land Rover routine before my accident and knew where I’d rather be.

  The radio sparked into life. ‘Any callsign, any callsign, this is Starburst Two Four. How do you read?’ The accent was Canadian. The ‘how’ came out sounding like ‘hoe’.

  The Pathfinders’ game of Belgrade-or-bust ground to a halt before they could inflict further damage on any other rogue states.

  ‘Okay, who’s up first?’ one of them yelled in our direction.

  I offered it to them. In a six-month period, a FAC needed to control a certain number of jets and hit the target to remain qualified. In the past two months alone, I’d notched up more than twenty ‘controls’-easily enough to remain in business. It was only polite to let them have a go.

  Dom and I listened as they contacted Starburst Two Four and brought it in for a practice bombing run. Aiming for the only man-made edifice on a plain the size of Kent was hardly Krypton Factor material. The second Pathfinder directed a further T-33 at a tank hulk approximately 200 hundred metres from the building.

  Dom started to snigger.

  One of the Pathfinders, a little lad with a Freddie Mercury moustache, asked us what was so fucking amusing.

  ‘Nothing, mate,’ Dom said. ‘Really. Excellent work. Bravo.’ He gave him a slow handclap.

  Freddie dropped over the side of the vehicle and looked like he wanted to do to Dom and me what he and his mates had talked about doing to Slobodan Milosevic. I jumped to my feet. Dom, the chicken, retreated behind me.

  ‘Looks like you guys need to get some more “controls” under your belt,’ I said, trying to sound helpful.

  Well done, Macy; that came out beautifully.

  ‘Funny guy,’ Freddie said. ‘Dodge, put this arsehole out of his misery will you?’

  His mate picked up the handset. ‘Your target,’ he said to the inbound jet, ‘is a helicopter…’

  ‘He’d have to be half blind to miss my little green sports car on the top of this hill,’ I said.

  The T-33 was built under licence by the Canadians and renamed the CT-133 Silver Star but the name never stuck. It looked like something from Thunderbirds as it flew in towards us. The big, cigar-shaped body and huge fuel tanks perched on the tips of two thin wings lined up on the hill. We heard a beep over the radio as it roared overhead-the sound that indicated he’d pickled off a simulated bomb.

  The Pathfinder grinned as he spoke to the T-33 pilot. ‘Roger. That’s a Delta Hotel. The chopper is a goner. I’ll be sure to tell its proud owner.’

  ‘Delta Hotel’ meant direct hit.

  They all rolled around laughing and high-fiving.

  ‘Playtime’s over,’ I said. ‘You’ve got twenty minutes to hide. Then I’m coming for you.’

  Silence returned to the prairie.

  ‘Fuck off,’ Freddie said. ‘You…?’

  ‘I bet you tossers a night out in Medicine Hat that I can hit you and you won’t even know where I am,’ I told him. ‘If you can find me and send an accurate grid reference to me before I bomb you, you win. Otherwise you buy the beers.’

  ‘Game on, crap-hat.’ This was intended as the ultimate insult; they knew I was an ex-Para.

  They mounted up and prepared to set off. The next jet was due in twenty minutes. I put my hands over my eyes and started to count, hide-and-seek style: ‘One, two, three…’

  ‘Hey,’ one of them shouted, ‘we’re not ready yet!’

  ‘…seven, eight, nine…’

  They roared off in a cloud of dust.

  As promised, I gave them a twenty-minute start. Then I took off and headed south. It wasn’t long before I spotted their dust trail. I followed them with my optics from a decent stand-off range of about eight kilometres, until I saw them stop on the edge of a depression. It was a good position, but I knew they would move the minute I sent their coordinates to the T-33; we were sharing the same frequency. As soon as I opened my mouth they’d be off like rats up an aqueduct, and it’d turn into a rolling goat-fuck trying to hit the bastards on the move.

  It was time to get sneaky.

  FACing is a finer art than most people think. A low level jet couldn’t find its own targets. When you were a few hundred feet over enemy territory approaching Mach 1, it was nearly impossible to tell the location of the enemy and, even more importantly, of your own forces. That’s when you needed a FAC, or, as they were sometimes also referred to in-theatre, a ‘Jaytac’-a Joint Terminal Attack Controller (the same thing but theatre specific). FACs and JTACs did the same thing.

  As fast jet pilots generally didn’t have any time or inclination to loiter over hostile territory in the low level environment, the FAC’s job was to identify the target, ‘buy’ the bomb and deliver it on-target as quickly as possible.

  We popped up to their south and held the Gazelle in a hover so the Pathfinders could see us. Once I was sure they had us registered I dropped behind cover and got Dom to pop up every few minutes in a different position, always to the south of them to draw their eyes away from my intended OP. Our little game of cat and mouse was on…

  ‘If they guess our next position, you’re going
halfers on the night out.’

  The colour drained from Dom’s face. The Pathfinders were known for putting it away.

  A few minutes later, two fresh jets turned up and checked onto the FAC frequency.

  ‘Any callsign, this is Starburst Two One and Two Two. How do you read?’

  I was quick to get back to him. ‘Starburst Two One, this is Spindle Eight Zero. If you work with me on this frequency and get Two Two to go onto the spare frequency, another callsign will control him later.’

  ‘Starburst Two One, copied.’

  ‘Starburst Two Two, copied and changing freq.’

  I called Starburst Two One and he confirmed that they were Lockheed T-33 Shooting Stars too, jets older than my father, but good enough for my purposes. I told him that his target was an SF Land Rover, but that I was struggling to find it.

  I told Dom to get behind cover then move round the range to the north-west as fast as he could so the Pathfinders wouldn’t know where we were.

  They would be looking for us in the south and after that call they’d assume I couldn’t see them and hopefully sit still.

  I switched to the spare frequency so the Pathfinders couldn’t hear us and contacted Starburst Two Two.

  Freddie fucking Mercury would be listening out on the other frequency for me to send his coordinates to Starburst Two One, not having a clue I was actually working both jets.

  ‘Starburst Two Two, this is Spindle Eight Zero.’ I gave him Freddie’s coordinates first. North five-zero, three-five, zero-five, decimal six-six. West one-one-zero, four-eight, four-five, decimal niner-zero.’ Then his height: ‘Seven-six-zero metres.’

  I told him the target was a Special Forces Land Rover.

  I’d get the T-33 to attack from over the ridge behind them. If I did it right, they wouldn’t even see it coming.

  I continued into the microphone: ‘Mandatory attack heading, two-one-zero degrees magnetic. Friendly helicopter, four point three kilometres north-west.’ He now knew where I was and, after all, we didn’t want a blue-on-blue, a friendly fire incident…

  I couldn’t use my laser on the target for fear of blinding them, so called ‘Negative Lima’, which signalled as much to the T-33 pilot.

  ‘Readback,’ I said. He read the attack back perfectly. I pictured him turning onto this attack run.

  ‘Call when ready,’ I said.

  A moment later, he signalled he was.

  I flipped frequency back to the one the Pathfinders were on for a few seconds to put them off the scent that I was working Starburst Two Two on another frequency. I called Starburst Two One, letting him know that I had found the Land Rover to my north, but needed a few more minutes to get the exact coordinates. Without the correct coordinates they’d be too cool to run just yet.

  I flipped the frequency back.

  All being well, the Pathfinders would still be looking south just as we were arriving in the north-west.

  ‘Starburst Two Two, running in…’

  Dom pulled us into our new OP. I could see the Land Rover to the east-south-east of us-4.3 klicks away. Perfect.

  A quick glance to the left and I saw the T-33 a couple of hundred feet off the deck. It could do 570 but had throttled back to about 400 knots-which still looked fast.

  ‘Your target is an SF Land Rover,’ I said. ‘Twelve o’clock, four miles is a depression, a wadi, running right-left. Call when visual.’

  A momentary pause, then: ‘My target is a Land Rover. Visual with wadi, sir.’

  I kept talking. ‘Short of the wadi is a scar on the ground. Long of the wadi is a track running away from it.’

  ‘I have a white scar short and can see an online track dropping into the wadi,’ Starburst Two Two said. He was homing in nicely. The Pathfinders, meanwhile, would still be waiting for me to give their coordinates to Starburst Two One on the other frequency.

  I continued the talk-on, drawing the pilot’s eyes ever closer to the target. ‘Twelve o’clock, two miles, track. Target Land Rover is on that track, blind to you. Your side of the wadi. Caution late acquisition.’ I was warning him that he would acquire the Land Rover late because it would be blind to him on a reverse slope.

  ‘Got the track dropping into the wadi, possible late acquisition,’ he acknowledged.

  ‘The target Land Rover has started moving south-west.’

  The Pathfinders had cottoned on and were making a break for it. They must have heard the aircraft.

  The T-33 began to climb.

  I gave Starburst Two Two another steer. ‘Twelve o’clock, one mile, dust trail.’

  He replied almost instantly. ‘Tally target, one vehicle heading south-west.’

  He had the target and began to dive directly at it.

  The final confirmation I needed was unique and swift: ‘Target crossing the bridge now.’

  I waited until I was 100 per cent sure he was pointing at the Pathfinders. ‘Starburst Two Two, you are clear dry on that target.’ ‘Dry’ was the command to practise a bomb-drop but not to release any actual munitions.

  ‘Clear dry, sir.’

  As he passed over the top we heard the distinctive beep of him simulating a bomb drop off the rails.

  ‘Starburst Two Two, this is Spindle Eight Zero. That’s a Delta Hotel. You are cleared back onto the original frequency.’

  ‘Starburst Two Two, good control, changing freq…’

  I took over the controls of the Gazelle, changed back onto the original frequency and flew directly at the Pathfinders. I keyed the microphone. ‘See you guys in Medicine Hat. Looks like you’re buying…’

  They gave me the two-fingered salute as we passed overhead.

  FACING TOMMO

  I only had one place left to look. I told Andy that the tanks had to be hiding behind the small hillock in the dry wadi bed.

  ‘Easier said than done…’

  Andy wasn’t wrong. We’d been up here training with Striker armoured fighting vehicles a couple of days before and the terrain was distinctly unfriendly: a network of narrow valleys cutting through steep-sided hills. The Strikers had fired their wire-guided anti-tank missiles from the ridgelines as we brought in fast jets. It was like a giant game of splat-the-rat. If we got pinged, we’d have to come to a hover, spot turn and fly back the way we’d come.

  ‘If we get caught here, the tanks will kill us. Keep it low and slow and use the pedals to boot us round if you see anything.’

  ‘Pedals? While we’re still flying?’

  I’d forgotten Andy Wawn was a brand spanking new pilot.

  ‘I’ll follow you through on the controls and take over if we get caught with our pants down. If I shout “I have control” I want you to cut away faster than lightning because we won’t have time to hand over properly.’

  I made a mental note to teach him how pedals could assist a turn. It was a tricky manoeuvre that wasn’t officially in the manual-and with good reason. The nose drops and tail rotor authority teeters on out-of-control; get it wrong and the tail breaks away. You’d end up spinning out of control and smashing into terra firma.

  Andy flew us up the valley, just below the skyline, fifty feet off the deck and high enough to spin us round and drop the nose without crashing. I held the controls lightly; the light wind from behind us made them slightly sloppy and unresponsive. We both looked anxiously at the bend 500 metres ahead.

  We were both expecting the worst. The enemy tanks could be just behind the bend. We’d be so bloody sharp that the boss had refused to come in with us. He was waiting at the mouth of the valley to bring in artillery and fast jets should we get zapped. We’d know if we’d been shot down because the BATUS Asset Tracking System (BATS) box in the back would register a hit and we’d have to land.

  With 400 metres to go I craned my neck to the right to see that extra foot around the bend.

  I caught a splinter of light to my left, at the periphery of my vision. No sooner had I picked it up than it was gone again.

  With 300 metres
to go I heard a very light swishing sound. I glanced at Andy. He made more weird noises through his microphone than Darth Vader; it was one of his party tricks.

  He glanced back. ‘What?’

  ‘Look where you’re goi—’

  Before I had time to finish the swishing sound turned into a high-pitched screech. By the time I’d turned to see what it was, it had become a blood-curdling banshee wail. I could hear it over the sound of the Gazelle’s whining gearbox and engine, and my helmet’s hearing protection. Whatever it was, it was less than a foot away from me. It was as if the devil himself was running his fingernails down the world’s biggest blackboard…

  ‘I HAVE CONTROL,’ I yelled, and flicked my head forward again, fast enough to rattle my eyeballs.

  I knew then that what was trying to kill us had us so firmly in its grasp that there really was no escape.

  We were at thirty knots, with the valley walls pressing in on both sides. The ground was strewn with boulders fifty feet below.

  Hundreds of white strands were suspended in the air in front of us, and more were joining them with every passing nanosecond. We were caught in a giant web. The homing aerials on the Gazelle’s nose had been bent back until they were touching the windscreen.

  ‘SWINGFIRE WIRE,’ I bellowed.

  The Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) on the ridge must have fired a wire-guided missile. As these things shoot down range they spew out a thin but incredibly strong metal wire; this one had been left draped across the valley in front of us. Our blades had picked it up and spun it around the Gazelle, winching us in towards the hillside.

  I flicked on the radio. ‘Mayday…Mayday…Mayday…’

  As I fought to cut back our speed the screeching intensified then was punctuated by a series of high-pitched pings as the tension in the wire increased. I prayed we wouldn’t lose control of the main rotor.