Kevin Miller - Raven One

The Anvils made an easy left turn on a westerly course. Wilson led them down the backside of the Omani range to the sea as he increased his groundspeed for the next leg, which led into the Persian Gulf. He noted that the cultural lighting from Dubai dominated the southwest horizon and bounced off a high overcast that bathed everything in a greenish NVG glow. Numerous lights from shipping and oil platforms dotted the Gulf ahead of them.

He checked the clock… Inside 30 minutes to go.

Losses are acceptable . He remembered CAG’s words and the punch they sent to his stomach. Air Wing Four was going to take no chances. The strikers were loaded with laser-guided bombs each pilot would manually guide into their assigned aimpoint with a laser beam… all while flying formation and monitoring the threat. Because they still didn’t know why the Raven division had NO GPS indications over Bandar Abbas, the strikers needed a weapon that didn’t depend on GPS guidance. Laser deliveries, however, required clear line-of-sight, so if a cloud deck got in the way over the target, the Anvils and Sledges would be forced to get underneath it. That would mean exposing themselves to the threat to a much greater degree deep inside a hostile country. Looking in the direction of Yaz Kernoum, Wilson couldn’t see any weather. They were on time and Wilson’s fuel was as planned. Things were looking good.

Now on the water, Wilson took them down as low as he dared, his obedient wingmen still in loose cruise as the eastern sky began to lighten behind them. He looked under his goggles to assess the ambient light and decided to keep them on as long as he could before the rising sun compelled him to remove them.

Wilson reached down to find the fuel dump switch and held it for a second before he secured it. He then switched on his radar. The others saw a shot of fuel burst from Wilson’s fuel dump masts: a welcome sight, their briefed signal to energize their own emitters. Now led by the radar, it was as if they had been blind and could suddenly see. Each of the pilots immediately devoured the tactical information the electronic eye provided them about the surface and the air contacts ahead. They avoided the islands in the Gulf, some Iranian and some Arab, as they continued west just above the tranquil waters. Wilson was struck by the lack of tanker traffic — there wasn’t any.

A new voice filled his radio headset. “ Thor , picture clean.”

Wilson transmitted, “Anvil” to answer the AWACS controller orbiting high over the Gulf in an E-3 Sentry , the Air Force aircraft providing early warning and tactical control for the strike package with an aircrew he had communicated the strike plan to the day prior. In succession, he heard the others.

“ Sledge. ”

“ Tron. ”

All were up strike common and another potential disconnect appeared to be solved. Thor responded with “Houseboat,” the code-word to continue. No last-minute reprieve from Washington; the strike was going to go.

Wilson got to the end of the navigation leg and turned northwest on the established route. When he could see Weed’s helmet next to him with his unaided eye, he decided it was time for his goggles to come off. The first warm rays of sunlight creeped up from the eastern horizon and silhouetted the sharp shadows of Hornets next to him. The formation sped closer to a remote area of the Iranian coastline where they would enter the Islamic Republic to begin their final run-in for Yaz Kernoum.

In his alert facility bed, Reza Hariri had finally gone to sleep after another restless night of waiting in vain for the Americans to come to him. It had been a long and frustrating two nights at the Shiraz alert strip, his armed and fueled MiG-35 parked in a shelter off the end of the runway, just beyond the wall of his small sleeping area. The setup allowed him and the other alert pilots to be in their aircraft and taxiing for takeoff within minutes.

The action around Hormuz had been disappointing, with IRIAF fighters recording no kills and maintaining CAPs far from the American strike groups in an effort to distract them and lure them away from the targeted areas — and into the teeth of the defenses. To Hariri it was all foolishness. No, idiocy . Iran possessed dozens of modern fighters with beyond visual range weapons, including the MiG-35!

Let me get down there, at night, and every one of my missiles will have a target, he thought, railing against the Iranian leadership that kept the MiGs here on strip alert, hundreds of miles from the action — while his F-14s and Phantoms were given worthless CAPs well inland. It was like a bullfighter waving a red cape at a charging bull from the safety of the grandstands. No, we need to get down there, take some losses, but bloody their nose — much more than we did two nights ago.

One (one! ) Hornet had been shot down by antiaircraft guns over Bandar Abbas. He was surprised the Americans even continued their strikes after that loss, so risk averse and pampered a people. The intelligence collectors said the dead pilot was the commander of Wilson’s squadron, and Hariri reflected that Wilson may have been inspired by the example of this man, a commander who led from the front . Pity that more in the IRIAF did not lead that way. They were worried, instead, about currying favor in Tehran!

Wilson . Surely he was involved with the actions to the south, and Hariri chafed to get another shot at him. He realized, though, it would be most coincidental if fate put them together again. He was certain he would have at least gotten a chance last night, the reason he spent the night here, hoping for a scramble in his fully fueled monster that would have covered the distance to Hormuz in minutes at Mach 2. But the Klaxon had never sounded, and his excited junior pilots had returned hours ago with their weapons still attached to their aircraft and bogus stories of “standing up to the Americans.” Knowing the pilots had been safe on CAP stations miles away from the Hornets while the enemy attacked his homeland with impunity, the stories had filled Hariri with contempt. At least the Pasdaran, and even the Islamic Republic Navy, was willing to shed blood against the Great Satan. Hariri would have sacrificed himself, and a squadron of his pilots, to down just one American fighter last night.

Indications were that the Americans had accomplished whatever goal they had after two nights of limited retaliatory strikes along the coast: an example of their clumsy and predictable military-stick-followed-by-diplomatic-carrot approach. Exhausted and unable to believe he and the IRIAF had missed the opportunity of a lifetime, he fell into his alert bed with his boots on, thinking of fat generals in Tehran, and fighting a TOPGUN, and squeezing the trigger one last time.

Vehicle headlights moved east on a desolate stretch of the two-lane coastal road — just as the Anvils approached from the south at low level. “Damn!” Wilson muttered to himself. Too late to avoid them, he led the Hornets feet dry into Iran as the vehicles passed underneath. Wilson imagined their startled drivers reaching for their cell phones to warn authorities of a sudden roar of jets crossing the beach in the twilight. He rolled up on a wing for a second to ascertain the vehicle types, which looked like sedans in the early morning murk. Wilson whispered more than transmitted, “ Fly ball ,” on strike common. The code word commanded the strikers to arm up and signified to Thor they were feet dry, a fact that was soon transmitted to eager staff officers monitoring their progress at command centers in the region, in Tampa, and in Washington.