The Fourth War by Chris Stewart

Author:Chris Stewart [Stewart, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9781429909259
Google: yL5bb5fSToQC
Amazon: B003J4VEMM
Barnesnoble: B003J4VEMM
Goodreads: 442618
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2005-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

22

Kill 31

Over the Mediterranean Sea

The Stealth climbed, leveling at sixty-two thousand feet. Bradley took the controls, wanting to feel the jet. It was stable and smooth. So far as he could tell, there was no damage done. Tia turned to the avionics and weapons systems, running them through their self-checks. It was growing dark quickly as evening came on. Cyprus passed under the aircraft, a nondescript piece of landmass more than ten miles below, then the coastline of Syria began to come into view under the light of the stars, the shoreline shimmering in the dim moonlight. Tia shot an update with the radar to update the Internal Navigational System, taking a fix off a road intersection along the coastline.

“How do the weapons systems look?” Bradley asked.

“They check perfectly. The most difficult part of this mission is going to be identifying the target among all those caves, and we can still do that.”

“If we have damage to our RAM, we might get lit up by radar.”

“I don’t think it will matter. The damage is along the top side, where it can only be detected by a fighter, not a ground-based missile. And neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan has any fighters that could hurt us this high. The only time we’ll be vulnerable is during the bomb run, when we have to descend to fighter altitude.”

“All right then. Let’s go to war.”

Tia flipped the master cockpit control mode switch to the “Go to War” mode. The rudder/brakes, which were normally open five degrees to provide better control response, immediately closed, thus eliminating their radar reflection. Differential engine thrust, a highly classified element of the B-2, would now provide directional control.

The crewmembers continued their combat checklist. Twenty miles from the coast, they were ready to go. By then it was dark. The B-2 crossed Syria and Iraq without being detected. Their route then took them almost directly over Tehran. The city lights shined unnaturally bright, seemingly close enough to touch them, even from sixty-two thousand feet. It was surreal to be flying over a hostile country’s capital without any fear. The Caspian Sea shimmered off to their left. The mountains in the east loomed nearer, deep shadows against the darkening night. Bradley watched them, then noticed the brown moon on the horizon.

“Take a look on the radar,” he instructed Tia. “It looks like there might be dust storms building along the Garagum Desert.”

Sandstorms over the desert kicked up frequently, generated by the powerful winds sweeping down from the mountains. These storms carried tons of sand and debris in a billowing wall that sometimes reached up to seventy thousand feet. And the air force had learned from experience during the first attacks on Afghanistan that the dust would play havoc on the delicate skin of the fragile B-2. Bradley studied the brown clouds against the moonlit horizon. “We can’t afford to divert around any sandstorms,” he said. “We don’t have the time, and we don’t have the gas.”

Tia worked the radar, selecting weather mode. Her heart skipped a beat.

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