Hellfire. Ed Macy

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ