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“Worm, we’ve no more time! Fire your last 132.”
“My system’s not ready.”
“Neither is mine, but it no longer matters. Fire now!”
Both released their final radar-guided missile.
Both hurried shots missed . . .
Each aircraft pulled well away, out of the line of fire. They would have front-row seats for the final breaths of the life-and-death struggle.
The antiaircraft guns erupted in a continuous spray. Computers, radar, guns, and missiles, working as one, the anxious ships fought on. Four miles to go. Eight unrelenting murderers skimmed across the blinding waters. At three miles, chaff and decoys sailed skyward to fool the Chosen One’s cold-blooded butchers. Two missiles heading for the Lincoln swerved off course, chasing the false images north toward the open sea. Somewhere far out in the Mediterranean, they’d sputter into a watery grave.
Six cruise missiles . . . Just six out of one hundred had escaped the Americans’ grasp. Yet if placed just right, six might be enough to sink both carriers.
The last half dozen came on. Two were headed for the Lincoln. Four for the Eisenhower. One short mile before the end arrived. A handful of ticks was all that remained. It was too late for any of the ships’ missiles to activate in time to stop them.
The fleet was down to its final level of defense. Spewing thousands of rounds per minute, all eight destroyers’ and both carriers’ Phalanx and Vulcan gun systems sprang into action. Broad streams of tracers spewed toward the setting sun, searching for the elusive enemy.
A cruise missile headed for the Lincoln was destroyed in a hail of gunfire. The final five came on. Their steadfast journey was near its end. Six hundred yards remained before the target would be reached. They had to be stopped. The guns went on without letup.
Four hundred yards and closing much too fast. The watchful crews could see the unearthly silhouettes skimming across the shimmering ocean to claim them.
Three hundred yards . . . Another, the final missile aimed at the Lincoln, exploded and dropped into the ocean’s depths. Mourad was down to a final quartet. The last four were headed for the Eisenhower. Two hundred yards . . . The guns raged. One hundred yards . . .
Every weapon the Americans had was focused on the rolling waves. Given enough time, they’d get them all. But time was a gift the defenders no longer had. The fleeting seconds of a merciless clock ran out.
It was the Eisenhower that would suffer the effects of their failure. The initial one-thousand-pound warhead struck near the rear of the floating city. Twenty feet below the flight deck a massive explosion staggered the carrier. It found one of the multitudes of self-contained ammunition storage areas. A fraction of a second later, the three remaining hangmen hit a handful of feet from the first. Four nearly simultaneous explosions rocked the early evening. They obliterated that portion of the floating giant. The ammunition stores erupted, ravishing the last third of the aging carrier. Goring flames roared high into the air, singeing the clouds a mile above the crippled vessel.
Hundreds perished in the immense explosions. The death toll mounted. Despite the ship’s sophisticated suppression systems and the crew’s actions, the raging blaze was soon out of control. Fierce fires tore through the crippled aircraft carrier, consuming everything in its path. Within hours it would become apparent the Eisenhower was finished.
Circling high above the blackening heavens, Blackjack Section watched the horror unfolding. Silence filled both cockpits. A sickening feeling overcame the astounded pilots. Both understood that if they’d locked on to a single additional cruise missile the ship might have withstood the smaller assault. It was possible that even though the mighty ship would have been significantly damaged, a major part of the tragedy might have been averted and the Eisenhower saved. Innumerable lives had been lost because of the failure of each pilot to kill one more Tomahawk.
Many distant families would soon face a hideous reality.
Deep down, the somber pilots realized they’d done their best. Yet at this moment, as they witnessed the beginnings of the anguished drama to follow, such was of little solace.
* * *
—
To make room for the dying carrier’s F/A-18s the Lincoln would send away most of its nonfighter aircraft. Each flew to air bases in eastern Egypt, Israel, or Saudi Arabia. With its less critical planes and helicopters gone, the surviving Super Hornets would find a home on the final carrier’s crammed decks. For days, the Eisenhower’s fires would burn. Despite everything its dejected crew attempted, the howling flames couldn’t be contained. In the end the fiery metropolis, home to over five thousand, would have to be abandoned. At the conclusion of a tortured week, the listing ship would sink. The Eisenhower would settle into a watery grave two thousand feet below the ocean’s crest. Eleven hundred bodies would be carried into the depths with it. Millions of disbelieving Americans would sit watching their televisions as the once-invincible ship disappeared.
The Mahdi’s goals had been temporarily met. He’d destroyed one of the carriers. He’d shaken an American populace that had to this point viewed the war as little more than detached entertainment to be brought into their homes each evening.
In the end, however, Mourad’s grand plan didn’t succeed. He wanted a day’s control of the skies to eliminate the Marines. He wanted a week to crush Cairo and lead his tanks onto Jerusalem’s timeless streets. But he wouldn’t receive more than a few confusing hours of tentative mastery of the heavens. During the short window available, there was nothing he could do to capitalize on his advantage. His battered planes and demoralized fliers had suffered severe losses in the afternoon clash and were in no condition to press on toward victory. And after what had happened, the American pilots were out for blood. They were ever more determined to command the skies. If necessary, they’d fly missions around the clock to avenge the loss.
Within hours of the shocking attack, the great country took bold steps to remedy the situation. The planet’s most powerful nation dispatched its newest aircraft carriers from Virginia. By the Eisenhower’s final gasp, the Gerald Ford and the John F. Kennedy would arrive to take the defeated ship’s place. Ninety-six new American fighters would join the Lincoln’s air armada. From this point on, the Super Hornets would dominate North Africa. For as long as the war continued, the Marines would have the air cover needed to maintain their tenacious foothold.
The die had been forever cast. The Chosen One had given it his best. Yet his victory was incomplete. If he was going to conquer Egypt, he’d have to do so without mastery of the skies. If he was planning on crossing the Sinai to smite the Israelites, he’d have to contend with the swarming Americans overhead. In the days and weeks that followed, his forces were bound to suffer countless casualties as they chased their dream of world domination.
Yet none of that mattered for Muhammad Mourad. With the help of the Iraqis and Iranians, his prophetic struggle to subjugate the planet would go on.
26
2:08 A.M., OCTOBER 19
4TH PLATOON, ALPHA TROOP, 1ST BATTALION, 5TH CAVALRY REGIMENT, 1ST HEAVY BRIGADE COMBAT
(IRONHORSE), 1ST CAVALRY DIVISION
OUTSIDE SAKAKAH, SAUDI ARABIA
Standing in the open commander’s hatch of his Bradley Fighting Vehicle, Army Staff Sergeant Darren Walton pointed his flare gun toward the heavens. He pulled the stubby gun’s trigger. A phosphorus flare arched into a star-strewn sky. Directly over the killing field, the soaring flare exploded.
In the expansive desert in front of the cavalry battalion’s positions, the shimmering image shined down upon the unseeing eyes of thousands of disjointed Iraqi and Iranian bodies. In places on the gruesome battleground, mutilated corpses were stacked three high. In the distance, the ravaged remains of countless Iraqi tanks littered the sands.
The Iraqis and Iranians made no effort to remove their dead. Even the injured, no ma
tter how extensive their wounds, had been left to fend for themselves.
Those who could, crawled back to their own lines. Those who couldn’t, remained where they fell. With razor-sharp pieces of shattered limbs piercing their pliant skin, or holes in their anguished bellies so large their ruptured intestines spilled onto the blowing sands, the wounded beseeched Allah for mercy. In wails and whimpers, in plaintive pleas and pious prayers, the grievously injured begged for the end to come. The horrifying cries of the dying carried across the distant field upon the strong winds. They came to rest upon the Americans’ ears. For days without end, the living nightmare of the abandoned beings had gone on without letup. Even after a week, the pitiful sounds of unbridled suffering were something none of the men of the cavalry battalion had learned to tolerate.
