Actually, a team on the ground uses a laser designator to "paint" the target, and an F/A-18 Hornet drops a laser-guided bomb. The team targets the truck because they wanted everybody to think it was a car bomb, and not a bomb dropped by a U.S. Navy F/A-18. Jack Ryan and Felix Cortez both figure out what really happened, but that deception was kind of a big part of the movie.