Command Authority Read Online Free Page B

Catherine . . . there seems to be some sort of a pod above the main rotor.”
    “A what?”
    “A pod, sir.”
    Upon hearing the last transmission, Lapranov dropped down into the commander’s compartment and looked at his own Catherine long-range monitor. He could see the helo better now. Yes. There was a round device on top of the main rotor shaft of the little aircraft.
    “What the hell is—”
    The cigarette fell from his mouth.
    Oh, shit.
    Lapranov had studied the silhouette of every aircraft flown by every NATO force. Softly, he said, “That’s . . . that’s an OH-58.”
    The driver in Storm Zero One came over the net. “Negative, sir. The Estonians don’t have—”
    Lapranov shouted into his mike now as he launched upward, frantically grabbing at the hatch handle so he could pull his turret hatch shut. “It’s the
fucking
Americans!”
    —
    C hief Warrant Officer Two, Eric Conway, U.S. Army, Bravo Troop, 2nd Squad, 17th Cavalry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, glanced down at his multifunction display and looked at the thermal image of Russian tanks in the trees more than two miles away. Then he returned his attention to his blades above. The tips of the four main rotor blades of the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior spun perilously close to the walls of buildings on either side of the street. If he did not hold his cyclic perfectly steady he would strike one of the buildings and send his helo spinning and crashing, and his own poor flying would kill him and his copilot even before the Russian tanks got their chance.
    Satisfied he was steady, he blew out a long breath to calm himself, then spoke through his intercom. “You ready, dude?”
    His copilot, CW2 Andre Page, replied calmly, “’Bout as ready as I’m gonna get.”
    Conway nodded, then said, “Lase target.”
    “Roger. Spot on.”
    Quickly Conway keyed his mike to broadcast on the fires net. “Blue Max Six Six, Black Wolf Two Six. Target lased.”
    —
    F our full miles beyond the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, hidden behind the relative safety of a forested hill, two massive Apache Longbow attack helicopters hovered low over a pasture just north of the village of Aarna. The flight leader, Blue Max Six Six, received the transmission from the scout helo at the same time his copilot/gunner, seated in front of and below him, saw the laser spot tracker on his multifunction display indicating a laser fix on the first target, several miles away.
    “Roger, Black Wolf Two Six. Good laser. Stand by for remote Hellfire mission.”
    —
    T he Kiowa Warrior scout helo hovering over the town of Põlva was not heavily armed. But its power was not in its onboard stores; rather, its power came from its ability to find and fix targets for the big Apache gunships behind it. This was VCAS, very close air support, and CW2 Conway and his copilot had taxed their skills to the limit by, essentially, driving their helo through the village to stay off enemy radar so they could get into position to scout for the Apaches.
    “Roger, Blue Max Six Six. We’re gonna need to hurry this up. We are out in the open.”
    —
    I n the tree line, the commander of the tank on the northern flank of Lapranov’s squadron shouted into his microphone: “Storm Zero One, this is Storm Zero Six. Laser warning!”
    “Shit!” Lapranov muttered into his headset. The little helicopter in the distance may not have been armed with missiles of its own, but it was, apparently, designating targets for some unseen aircraft.
    “Arena systems on!” he commanded.
    The T-90’s Arena countermeasure system used Doppler radar to detect an inbound threat to the tank. As soon as the attacking projectile was within range, the Arena-equipped tank would fire a defensive rocket designed to close to within two meters of the missile before exploding, destroying the threat.
    Lapranov next said, “This helo is spotting for Apaches or jets. Where is my air cover?”
    The commander of Storm Zero Five answered back: