‘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.
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