Apache

It was like the B1 had dropped a nuclear bomb. The trees were stripped of their branches and star-shaped scorch marks covered the earth. There wasn’t a single crater. The living quarters on the southern edge of the target and the L-shaped building had totally disappeared. Not a single brick remained. The B1 Lancer had set all the fuses to super-quick. The bombs had blown apart the buildings – and everyone inside them – before they’d even landed. Not surprisingly, I couldn’t see any runners, but one long single-storey affair remained standing by the edge of the canal.

‘Knight Rider Five Six, Ugly Five One. I have one building still intact. It’s on the southern side of the target. Confirm you want it destroyed.’

‘Ugly Five One, that’s an A-ffirmative. Engage all remaining target buildings with Hellfire. Leave nothing standing.’

Carl banked hard right, taking us back the way we had come. There was enough heat from the place to indicate it was still inhabited but too much around it to allow me to lock it up. I’d need a straight line of sight to it all the way in.

‘Ugly Five One. Running in from the west with Hellfire.’

I flicked the weapons select switch with my left thumb; right for missiles. On my right MPD I lined up the crosshairs on the middle of the target’s front wall. My left MPD told me that a missile on the right wing had spun up and was ready to go. The dog was well and truly ready; it just needed a glimpse of the rabbit.

‘Confirm we’re on the correct side, Carl.’

It was imperative that the missile didn’t pass in front of the camera lens on launch as its heat haze would have destroyed my line of sight on my FLIR image. If it did, I would lose the target and have to keep searching for it whilst the Hellfire sped on, in search of my laser beam. Carl eased down his foot pedal, moving the aircraft’s nose a fraction to the right. Perfect.

‘I’ve stepped on it, Ed. Clear to engage.’

I flipped the guard and pulled the laser trigger with my right index finger whilst maintaining enough thumb pressure to keep the crosshairs on the centre of the building. My left index finger also flipped its guard.

At 2,000 metres, I pulled the weapons trigger, ‘Engaging with Hellfire.’

A one second pause. No bang, judder or jolt – just a rush of jet propulsion as it slipped gracefully off the right rail.

‘Missile off the rail and it’s away.’ Carl treated us to the usual pilot’s running commentary.

MSL LAUNCH flashed up on my TV screen.

‘Missile climbing, Ed.’

My entire focus shot to the thumb cursor on my right grip. The helicopter swayed slightly, but I had to keep pointing the laser beam bang in the middle of the building. For those seven seconds, it was the only thing that mattered in the whole world.

Two seconds later, MSL LAUNCH was replaced by the Hellfire’s Time of Flight countdown in seconds:

TF 5…

‘Missile levelling off now. Missile coming down.’

TF 4…

Shit. As we closed on it, I saw a cool ridge running through the middle of the target, front and top – two buildings, joined together.

TF3…

To do the most damage, I needed to hit each section individually.

TF2…

I adjusted the crosshairs to the right side of the building.

TF1…

As I centred them on the apex of the walls the missile struck, smack on the laser beam. A flash, followed by a billowing cloud of dust as the roof lifted. The dust cleared to reveal a huge chunk missing from two-thirds up the front of the building. The right-hand and back walls had collapsed, bringing down the roof. The left-hand side of the building still stood firm.

‘Good hit, mate.’

‘Take us back out for another run-in.’

‘I’ve got the second sentry hiding behind a tree near the remains of the northern accommodation block,’ the Boss reported. ‘I need to get in close.’

‘We’re clear,’ Carl called.

‘Engaging with cannon.’

I swung the TADS across in time to see the earth and a low wall erupt beside the base of a bare tree fifty metres south-west of the mosque. As Carl banked us back in to the target I saw the lone heat source drop to the ground from behind the trunk. Trigger was in his element. My adrenalin was pumping like a piston engine too.

Carl pushed Billy north to give us a clear shot. I put a second Hellfire into the cooler stripe where the roof met the interconnecting wall. Two minutes and twenty-one seconds after the first Hellfire impacted, the building was in ruins, but I caught a glimpse on the left of my screen of a small guardhouse still standing twenty metres to its north-east. We were just 1,000 metres off now; could I get it on the same run?

‘Hold it steady, Carl. Going for one more.’

‘No, Ed. There’s not time left for–’

‘Firing Hellfire!’ The third missile streaked off the rail to my right, between two skeletal trees. It never had time to climb, or even to count me down; it just slammed straight into the middle of the six-foot by six-foot building, reducing it to rubble.

The Boss came on again, cool as a cucumber.

‘Ugly Five Zero has got a leaker, running east. Stand by…’