yet. Repeat, no confirmed identification on the bogey. Nothing on radio
and no IFF signal. Before we take further action, we need a positive
visual ID. Until we do, we’re calling it a possible hostile. Over.”
“Ah, roger that, Dog House,” Batman replied. “With stress on the
possible, right?”
“That’s affirmative, Watch Dog. You’ve got weapons free, but stick to
the ROES. Get a positive visual identification before you do anything.
The last thing we need is a friendly fire incident to lead the news
stories today.”
“Understood,” Batman said. “We’re on it, Dog House. Bird Dog clear.”
He paused. “Dixie, you still with me?”
“Bird Dog Two, roger,” Mason answered.
“You hear all that? We’ve got weapons free, but mark your targets.”
“That’s a roger.” Cat heard him pause. “Uh, Skipper? You think this
one’s for real?”
“Hell, that’s what we’re here to find out. You keep your eyes peeled up
there, or I’ll have you in for another session of sensitivity training.”
“Oh, no, not that, Skipper,” Mason said, his tone mock-serious.
“Anything but that!”
Cat laughed. The politically correct crowd back in Washington had been
leaning hard on the Navy to provide sensitivity training to teach
tolerance, understanding, and acceptable behavior toward women and
minorities both. It was thoroughly loathed by all concerned and didn’t
seem to do very much good, though the people issuing the directives
seemed less concerned with results than with the actual issuing of the
directives.
It was a strange world, sometimes.
“Don’t worry, Dixie,” she said over the ICS. “Even if this run turns up
dry, I’m sure we’ll see action pretty soon. Up at North Cape and the
Kola, it was one damned crisis after another. I’m beginning to think the
old Jeff just kind of draws trouble like a magnet.”
“Just my luck if everything goes quiet as soon as I get in the game,”
Mason told her. She could hear just a trace of bitterness in his voice.
“You train every day of your life for something that never comes. ..
know what I mean?”
“Hey, don’t forget who you’re talking to back here. Of course I know
what you mean. And believe me, if women can get a piece of the action
out here, your turn’s bound to come up!”
0928 hours (Zulu +3)
UN Flight 27 UN No-Fly Zone, Republic of Georgia Cole had never
particularly liked low-altitude flying in rough terrain, and today was
no exception. But the Hip with its VIP passengers up ahead was flying
NOE so that they could get a good look at the terrain below as they
passed, and Cole knew better than to argue with the brass. Especially
when most of the brass belonged to self-important UN twits who tended to
retreat behind language problems anytime they didn’t want to understand
a complaint or a protest.
“Keep your eyes on the road, L-T,” Dombrowski said. “That’s about the
only way to tell we’re on course.”
“Yeah. Right.” The road, in this case, was a track that might have been
paved once, but which had deteriorated under harsh weather, hard use,
and lack of maintenance. According to the map, it followed this valley
all the way up to Chaisi, up among those ice-capped peaks ahead.
He saw something up ahead, a squat vehicle parked alongside the road. He
touched Dombrowski’s arm and pointed. “Shit, Ski, that looks like a Zoo
down there.”
“Got news for you, man. It is a Zoo.” Dombrowski grinned at him. “One of
our freedom fighter buddies told me about ’em last night. His people
have a few of them, compliments of the Reds when they pulled out. It
knows we’re coming, and it won’t fire. Probably.”
Cole muttered a curse. “You might tell a guy, you know. The altitude
we’re pulling now, we’d be dead meat before I could get us high enough
to dodge those suckers.”
The “Zoo”–slang for the ZSU-23-4–was a deadly air defense weapon that
was one of the most dangerous pieces of equipment in the ex-Soviet
arsenal. A self-propelled tracked vehicle mounting quad AZP-23 cannons,
it fired 23mm shells directed by the B-76 radar code-named Gun Dish by
the U.S. military. A Zoo could wreak havoc with any low-flying aircraft