Kevin Miller - Declared Hostile

In the far distance, as one of the Blocker missiles found its mark, Wilson saw a flash followed by a jagged and descending trail of fire. Another distant explosion to the southwest produced excited cries from the Blockers. “ Splash two! ” they transmitted as another curling trail of light fell earthward. The Blockers had knocked down the bandits. They had done their job.

Now, approaching the initial point, Wilson and the Slashes had to do theirs.

With high altitude winds at their backs, they were now over 600 knots of ground speed and would be at their roll-in point in minutes. Wilson’s senses were becoming overloaded. His Radar Homing and Warning gear was booping and deedling in his headset which meant enemy radars were watching him, illuminating him . To his left, he saw the fiery trails of HARMs fired by the Lances arc high overhead. Their purpose was to home in and silence the enemy emissions as the Volts jammed them. Disconcerting, however, was another cloud.

It was a stationary thunder cell, one they could avoid by going around or over. The problem was it was parked at the point in space from which Wilson needed to lead the Slashes to attack on San Ramón’s runways. The plan was offset left, roll-in right, but, with two minutes to go, the cloud was right there . Wilson watched it on the radar, hoping for rather than sensing any motion, knowing he needed to make a call— soon. “ Come on! ” he muttered. Wilson knew the others could see the same electronic blob on their cockpit radars. This was a contingency they hadn’t briefed, and Wilson had to make up a play and hope everyone understood. You do a buttonhook. You go long.

“ Slashes , we need to go mirror image, offset right, roll-in left. Repeat; offset right , roll-in left . Come off northeast, and get feet wet ASAP!”

His eleven wingmen, in order, acknowledged the transmission as they set themselves up on Wilson’s right side, all of them breathing deep as adrenalin pumped through their bodies. The long chute of jets would roll into a steep dive, one by one, and line up on their aimpoints — just like the dive-bombers and attack jets of yore. The 20 th-century weapon delivery would send a political message to a 21 st-century adversary in a new and undeclared conflict that, one week ago, was on no one’s radar. Wilson and the eleven jets next to him would do this for Washington. It was their job, their oath, and they followed orders, even stupid ones to cut the frickin’ runways. And, if required, they would come back to recut them. Venezuela needed to be taught a lesson, and if they dishonored some damn diplomat — never mind the societies they destroyed by the poison they mass-produced — they would get theirs.

None of that mattered in the twelve Slash cockpits. To them, the reason they were there was the last thing on their minds. They were now in tactical formation over dark and hostile territory, watching their FLIR displays build and sweetening their aiming diamonds as the briefed landmarks and reference points came into view. The Blockers were off right, at the moment heading north toward Río Salta, and the Lances were lobbing HARMs into the boiling kettle of San Ramón’s defenses. They saw lightning to the southwest, AAA bursts in front and below. The bright booster rocket of a SAM burst from its launching pad. When Wilson heard cries on the radio that one of the Slashes was spiked and breaking formation to evade, he continued to count down the range, count down the seconds, check wingmen positions, and watch AAA shells rise single file into the sky. Despite another lightning flash to the left, everything was silent in the Slash cockpits — except for clipped radio transmissions, the hum of electronics, and their own deep breaths and elevated heartbeats.

Ready.

Wilson picked his aimpoint, the western end of the north parallel runway. The four aircraft of his division had that runway, the Slash 21 jets had the other runway, and the Rhinos in Slash 31 had the taxiway. There was no easy way to deconflict twelve diving strike fighters into twelve separate aimpoints in an area of less than two miles wide. The Slash 31 division was going to take the worst of the AAA as the last down. The nugget pilot assigned to Slash 34 had watched Wilson with wide-eyed attention from the back of the ready room four hours ago, a pilot who now would be Tail-End-Charlie on this strike. Wilson had seen him around the ship but didn’t know his name. He found it on his kneeboard card. Kid . His call sign was Kid, and he looked the part. This was his first time at sea away from the familiar Virginia Capes operating area. The VACAPES, an area mariners called The Graveyard of the Atlantic, was home for Wilson — and Kid.

On timeline almost to the second, Wilson flew his Hornet tangent to the imaginary cone he would intercept to begin his dive. After he went, Dusty would follow, then DCAG, then Stretch, each with three heavy bombs to drop in a stick with exact spacing, to penetrate the concrete and then explode a huge crater, rendering the runway inoperable. They would be followed by two more divisions of strikers to cover all available concrete. None of the aviators wanted to come back here, and they would work hard to identify their aimpoint and not screw it up. They had to get the bombs off. Pulling off target still lugging an extra two tons of deadweight was not career enhancing, and they would be easy prey for the gunners. If the gunners could see them… the aviators were lights-out on their NVGs, enjoying almost daytime situational awareness. Did the gunners have goggles, too? Or did they rely on radar to aim their fire — or the rumbling noise of 24 jet engines — to put a barrage of lead into the sky and hope one of the Americans ran into them.

At thirty seconds to first impact, and with flashes from lightning and AAA off his left wing, Wilson transmitted, “ Slash one-one’s in.” He pulled his jet hard left, then overbanked down as he banged out some chaff and craned his neck to pick up his aiming diamond through the HUD. Stabilized in a dive, he rolled out and pulled his nose onto runway 28R of the Venezuelan fighter base at San Ramón.

Like his attack against the yacht, in what seemed a lifetime ago, Wilson was again hitting a target under a thunderstorm.

The storm was now south of the field, and, with the Slash formations attacking from the northeast, there was a ledge in the clouds they could get under to visually acquire their separate aimpoints. Wilson rolled out and, by instinct, checked Dusty in position before returning attention to his displays. On his FLIR, Wilson designated his aimpoint, right on the runway centerline tire marks, and, on his HUD, aligned his jet with the steering cues for release. He was in a steep, high dive, airspeed building and San Ramón growing larger through his windscreen. Fiery balls of 57mm rose up to him and then rocketed past as he plunged toward earth. Wilson fought to ignore them — they were close but missing above him — and returned his concentration to the FLIR. His eyes flew from the HUD altitude box to the steering to the FLIR display as he kept his scan going the same way he had trained for years. He fought to ignore the distracting lights of AAA that zipped by in his periphery. The release cue was dropping down, fast, and Wilson put his thumb on the pickle for release.

Without warning, his cockpit went dark. What the fuck!