PROLOGUE

There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending. – Abraham Lincoln

1054L, 25 FEB 1991, 29° 23'N, 47 39'E, Kuwait

The scene before the aircraft was an attack pilot's wet dream. The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing A-6E Intruders had been flying as a division, two two-ships of the attack planes, when the massive column was identified. Eight Marines, four pilots and four naval flight officers, listened for the exchange between their lead and the controllers. The mission lead, Major Lee "Chunky" Fletcher, immediately keyed the radio setting for the Coalition ground control.

"Hazard Control, this is Honor Zero-1. Holding hands with dash-two through four. Eyeball approximately one-zero-zero-zero vehicles transiting north along Highway 80. Break. Request hostile declaration, ID Iraqi armor in the column."

"Honor Zero-1, Hazard, confirm PID Iraqi forces." The request was understandable. The U.S. controller did not wish to see aircraft under his control strike the column if it was full of Kuwaiti civilians. Chunky confirmed his initial sighting report. One thousand vehicles, give or take, were moving north along Highway 80 out of Kuwait City toward Iraq. Armored personnel carriers, tanks, and infantry fighting vehicles formed a percentage of the convoy. The three tails with him, Honor Zero-2, 3, and 4, could hear the exchange between their flight lead and the controller. They waited, impatient but silent. They knew the request was transiting up the chain of command. Just as the initial contact report had. The first report came from intelligence assets. Soon thereafter, an Air Force E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or JSTARS, identified the large contingent of vehicles. Honor flight sortied with the intention of gaining exactly what they had, an ID of the three-mile convoy. The vehicles had shown on the displays of their Norden AN/APQ-156 multi-mode radar well before they were visible by the human eye.

"Honor Zero-1, column declared hostile. Close the doors, cleared hot."

"Copy, Hazard. Hostile declaration, cleared hot. Out." The Air Force controller accepted their response and ceased speaking. She knew enough to know that at this point and at her range from the engagement zone, she would be no use to the pilots. The Marine pilot was grateful for her silence and switched to the inter-flight network. Unlike the long-range communications, on the internal net they used personal callsigns.

"Gentlemen, we're closing the gate. Hooter, Rabbit, close the back door. Tracer, with me on the front. Mark 20s, cleared hot." The three pilots, two captains and a first lieutenant acknowledged, and the four-ship split into two groups. The Iraqi column had no air support, and they could identify no ground-based air defense either. All the flight crews returned to the coalition net on their radios. The two sections had reached their positions and waited for Major Fletcher's command.

"Hazard, Honor turning hot. Initiating bump." As a group, the four aircraft made the ninety degree turns to orient themselves perpendicular to the Iraqi column. They rose to fifteen thousand feet to prepare for the attack run. After thirty seconds, they were in the final stage of their approach. The weapons officers had prepared the Mk 20 Rockeye II cluster bombs. The pilots reached for the triggers.

"Honor Zero-1, Fox four." The statement was echoed by each of the other pilots. Then they all stated it again. Eight of the CBU-100 bombs, each with two hundred and forty-seven bomblets cascaded through the air toward the front and back of the column. Less than a second later, thunderclaps of explosions rose into the air as the ordnance initiated what would become known as the Highway of Death. Already on the net Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, the Warthogs, and the A-6E Intruders of VA-155 from the U.S.S. Ranger were in route to the boxed-in column. The Marine pilots knew that the planes of VA-155 would return without any ordnance, they had lost one of their planes the month before to ground fire. God help the sons of bitches on the road, thought Fletcher as his four-ship turned south to return to base. The doors were closed, there would be no escape.

1106L, 25 FEB 1991, Forty-five miles southeast of 29° 23'N, 47 39'E, Kuwait

Ensign Percy "Atlantis" Jackson looked at the beacon on his navigation screen. It was the navigator's responsibility to keep up with their location via the AN/ASN-92 inertial navigation system and CAINS, the Carrier Aircraft Inertial Navigation System standard on all A-6Es. But Percy was a careful creature. It showed their target within forty-five miles and closing. At their four hundred and fifty knot cruising speed they would be over the target in five minutes. Beside the navigation screen was a photograph of sixteen individuals in various stages of sunburn and all near equal states of inebriation. They were the eight Intruder flight crews who had received an unexpected week off while training at Naval Air Station Key West and hopped a flight to Atlantis Resort in Nassau. Percy's late-night escapades with alcohol and the flight attendants of an Air Italia flight had earned him "Atlantis." The man who came up with the callsign was dead. Thirty-eight days before, Michael "Golem" Yew and Kenny "G" Langston had been shot down on a mining sortie over Um Qasr Naval Base. Their bodies had been recovered from the Gulf. The next day, in unplanned revenge, Atlantis had shot down a MIG-21 Fishbed and a Mi-24 both from a range fifteen miles.

"Silver flight, we are cleared to engage." The voice of Commander Abrams was calm. He was the executive officer of Attack Squadron 155, VA-155. Twenty minutes behind his division of A-6Es, the squadron commanding officer led another four planes. "Execute the bump." Abrams rose to fifteen thousand feet, five seconds later Silver Zero-2 matched his section lead. While Air Force F-15s provided air domination cover, the Navy Intruders carried only air-to-surface weapons. Three carried fourteen Mk 82 500-pound general purpose bombs and fourteen Mk20 Rockeye IIs. The final tail, flown by the most junior pilot, carried just twenty Rockeye IIs and then two LAU-10 5-inch rocket pods with four projectiles each. All were equipped with the AN/AAS-33 Target Recognition Attack Multi-Sensor, but none of their aircraft had been selected for the upgrades to the A-6E System/Weapons Improvement Project. The squadron had already been informed that within the next two to three years the squadron would be retired as the attack squadrons disappeared and the new fighter/attack squadrons flying the multi-role McDonnell-Douglas and Northrup F/A-18 Hornet.

While the Marine aircraft had attacked the column perpendicularly, the Navy aircraft traveled the exact route of the convoy. With Silver Zero-1 and Zero-2 at their lead, the four Intruders swept the three-mile length of the Iraqi disposition releasing ordnance. General purpose bombs and cluster bombs ripped through the military and civilian vehicles as Iraqi soldiers sprinted for whatever cover they could find. It would do them no good, between the flights of Navy attack aircraft Air Force A-10s were stacked in preparation for their attack runs. Ten minutes later, all the ordnance carried by the Navy flyers was gone. They were making an arc around the column and toward their carrier when they turned to see two Iraqi tanks sprinting across the desert.

"Four-Eyes, this is Atlantis. Eyeball hostile tanks breaking into the desert." Jackson had utilized the internal communications net. Beside him the Navigator/Bombardier was already inputting the target into the targeting computer. He had begun the process before Percy had even asked.

"All Silver tails Dakota, Atlantis." The division lead was relaying that all planes had expended all their air-to-ground ammo. Well, all but Silver Zero-2.

"Request permission to prosecute with rockets." The senior officer waited a few seconds, but granted the request. The weapon was unguided and the probability of the five-inch rockets actually killing the two fleeing T-55s was slim at best. Percy pulled the stuck back to the left and his Intruder eased up and over. Beside him Lieutenant junior grade, LTJG Charles "N'awlins" Beckendorf mentally began the calculations that he simultaneously input to the targeting system.

"N'awlins" had been a year ahead of Percy at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. While those who did not know the story probably assumed the callsign was due to the color of his skin, it was actually because his fiancée was the definition of a Creole queen. Silena Beauregard possessed the long drawl of a Southern belle, and the patience of an oyster. It had taken Percy two years to convince Charles that any woman who had her choice of men at Clemson University yet continued to write letters and make trips to see him, might be interested in more than being friends.

"Targets are running at thirty miles an hour, rough terrain so they aren't level." Percy had slowed the plane to just one hundred and fifteen knots. They were still closing rapidly on the Iraqi armor, but he bought targeting time.

"I've got 'em," responded Percy, four years in Annapolis and one and a half in Pensacola and Texas not enough to hide the New Yorker in his accent. His targeting display settled on the rear tank. From six miles out, Percy pulled the trigger to fire the first pod of rockets. The four Mk 32 High-Explosive Anti-Tank rockets exited their launcher at nearly a thousand miles an hour. Two exploded in the sand, the other two detonated first on the left tread and then the top of turret.

The resulting explosion threw the turret nearly two hundred feet into the air as the inside of the crew compartment hit peak overpressure as the round caused the tank's own ammunition to detonate. Jack in the box, thought Beckendorf. Percy corrected the miscalculation of his attack angle as they closed on the second target. All four rounds struck the T-55 and it nearly ceased to exist. Charles could only shake his head at the near perfection of the strike. Their radio crackled with CDR Abrams' voice.

"Well boys, I think new callsigns are in order. Hammer and Anvil, good kills. Time to go home."

Three days later the squadron flew their final sorties. In forty-three days, VA-155 had flown over 1,300 hours in over 650 sorties. Over 2.2 million pounds of ordnance had left the deck of the U.S.S. Ranger carried by the squadron's aircraft and been delivered upon Iraqi military targets. Both of the squadron's air-to-air kills belonged to the ensign from New York City. On the sail back to the United States, ENS Percy "Atlantis" Jackson promoted and his new callsign became official. When he called his mother in New York City upon returning to Naval Air Station, NAS, Whidbey Island, Sally Blofis was speaking to LTJG Percy "The Hammer" Jackson.