The Main Enemy Milton Bearden (read full novel .txt) 📖

begin the procedures,” Ghaffar told his gunners as he shouldered his own weapon. The other fighters took their positions, two of them shouldering their Stingers and preparing for the launch sequence on the order from Ghaffar.

“Knock off your front covers and pop up your sights!”

“Cover off! Sight up!” two voices answered in quick succession.

“Hold your battery cooling units until I give you the order to screw them into the wells!” Ghaffar instructed, excitement building in his voice.

“Altitude one thousand meters, range twenty-five hundred,” one of Ghaffar’s men called out, giving the others the range of the approaching aircraft.

“Engage BCUs!” Ghaffar shouted, and screwed his battery cooling unit into the well.

“BCU engaged!”

“BCU engaged!”

“Begin tracking!” All three gunners flipped the thumb switch in unison. The sound of the gyro motors gained strength as the Stinger trackers picked up the heat from the approaching helicopters, each gunner sighting in on a prearranged section of the helicopters’ formation to avoid wasting a precious missile. By now all three gunners were getting a strong cheek-to-bone vibration, indicating that they had acquired their targets. The IFF signals kicked in, filling the air with a shrill, piercing sound that seemed only to increase the excitement of the team. The gunships had dropped to about one thousand feet as they made their final approach to the Jalalabad airfield.

“Uncage!” Ghaffar ordered. The acknowledgments came almost instantly as the other two gunners hit the rubberized rectangular buttons, fully arming their Stinger missiles.

At this point, each gunner was on his own, relying only on the training he had received at Ojhri camp as he followed the pinpoint of light behind the white sheet. In less than two seconds, the three gunners had superelevated their missile tubes and fired. The first Stinger shot out of Ghaffar’s tube, traveled the prescribed six meters on its launch charge, and then failed to ignite. The missile fell to the ground, clattering among the rocks until its momentum was spent. A dud!

But before the impact of that failed launch set in, the second and third gunners had fired their missiles, and the slender arrows shot toward their targets at twice the speed of sound, leaving widening white trails arching across the blue skies above Jalalabad. Ghaffar had reloaded his grip stock with a second tube when the first missile struck its target. The first helicopter exploded in midair and fell like a rock off the end of the runway just as the second missile found its target, sending the second MI-24D into a wild spiral caused by the loss of two of its rotor blades in the explosion. By the time the second gunship hit the ground about six hundred yards from the burning wreckage of the first kill, Ghaffar had reloaded and acquired his second target, zeroing in on one of the five remaining choppers now taking wild evasive actions to avoid whatever was stalking them.

Ghaffar picked his second target carefully. He wanted to kill the lead helicopter in the flight and already had solid cheek-to-bone vibration signaling target acquisition when his target turned toward him and came screaming directly at his position. Ghaffar superelevated his Stinger and fired his second shot of the day while holding his target in the sight. The missile shot out of its tube, ignited its rocket motor instantly, and flew true and straight toward the lead MI-24D as the chopper lay over almost on its side and began dropping right toward him. As the gap closed to less than a thousand meters, Ghaffar saw bright flashes coming from the 23 mm Gatling gun slung under the Hind. The cannon rounds flew wide of their target, kicking up rock as they hit and exploded. The missile closed the remaining gap and exploded on contact with the hot turbine engine.

“Allah hu Akhbar!” came the cries of the fighters all around him. The explosion of the fuel tanks tore the helicopter apart in midair, showering the area with debris. Ghaffar saw the fighter whose job was to videotape the attack jumping up and down with the others, calling out, “God is great!” the red recording light of the Sony still burning and the lens pointing straight at the ground. Ghaffar only hoped that something had been captured on tape before the cameraman was overcome by the excitement of the kills. I would later view the video and see both the confirmed kills and the wild shots of ground, dusty sandals, and sky as the cameraman jumped about.

“Gather up the equipment and be ready to move out in two minutes!” Ghaffar shouted to his fighters, the excitement now out of his voice, having resumed his authority. Turning to his cameraman, he said, “Move as close to the wreckage as you can and get some pictures.” Then to another of his team: “Destroy the Stinger that misfired. Pound the center of the missile with a large rock. Be careful not to strike the warhead!”

The standing order had been clear: Functioning Stingers were under no circumstances to fall into enemy hands. Ghaffar made a decision on the spot to destroy the electronic circuitry of the dud missile rather than try to bring it home, fearing its warhead might explode on the way. Within minutes, Ghaffar and his team had cleared the area and were on their way to motorized transportation waiting for them ten kilometers away. They would travel home to Pakistan that evening to report their success. Ghaffar took the frequency hopper radio from one of his fighters’ packs and broke radio silence for the first time since he had deployed one week before.

“Three confirmed kills at southeast end of the target airfield,” he reported. “Four missiles fired. One missile failure.” The secure transmission from Ghaffar’s radio flashed to ISI receivers high in the mountains across zero line in Pakistan, sending the electrifying news of the first major victory against the Soviet helicopter fleet.

Islamabad, 2030 Hours, September 25, 1986

An urgent call had come in from Colonel Riaz, aide to General Akhtar, on the