The Warbirds (44 page)

C.J., the bald-headed major, agreed. “They’ll be ex
pecting us when the moon is up. We ought to hit them right at the end of evening twilight, just after it gets dark and before the moon rises. We need to do something different on this one.”

“Mostly, we need to get them looking where we ain’t,” Jack said. Jack didn’t like having his targets picked for him. It felt too much like a setup.

As for Waters, his training and experience told him to press the attack, hit the enemy when he was hurting. Sure…except some gut instinct told him to scrub the mission, quit while they were ahead. But the USAF didn’t pay him to go by his gut instincts…

Jack let Thunder do most of the planning, pulled up a chair in front of the big area map on the wall and stared at it. “Hey, come here a minute,” he said. “That damn trawler is back on station and Reza doesn’t have another oil tanker to run interference for us again. It’ll warn the PSI when we take off, like before. Besides, they’re expecting us now, which makes hitting the targets pretty damn risky…But how about if we
let
the trawler know when we’ve launched? The first flight will get high enough so the trawler can paint them on its radar. Instead of flying welded wing, the two birds will move, say, two thousand feet apart. We make it look like two strike elements on their radar, hope they’ll think we’re flying our normal close formation and assume they’re seeing four aircraft. Keep low so they’ll have a rough time tracking but high enough to divert their attention away from the six birds we’ll launch right after the first two. Those six will be going after the real targets, and they’ll have to get down in the weeds to avoid radar detection. They’ll fly together and go right over Basra again, only this time they will be on an easterly heading, inbound to the target. Since it’s at night the friendlies’ll be at weapons-tight over Basra. Besides, they should be looking to the east and we’ll surprise them as much as the Gomers. Once clear of Basra they head directly for their targets, but instead of turning south to escape, they head north before turning westbound and getting out of enemy territory. It’ll be a long low-level and that means we’ve got to have a KC-135 waiting for inflight refueling once we’re in friendly airspace over Iraq. At the
same time the first flight draws all the attention to itself, hits the closest target we can pick and beats feet home, providing the diversion we need to get the other six in.”

Carroll said, “It could work for the six, questionable for the two who serve as a diversion.”

A quick look at Thunder told Jack that his pitter was willing. “C.J., you game to be a volunteer?” Jack asked.

“Why not? It’s the kind of ride Stan-the-man likes. We’ll join you. Now we need to sell it to the Old Man.”

Waters listened to Jack’s latest plan for launching Wolf Flight and had to admit the pilot was creative in devising new ways to deceive and attack the enemy. But he was the one who had to decide whether to launch or cancel. He wanted time to think, not be forced into committing the lives of his men so fast. Except time was what he didn’t have.

He made his decision. “If we can get an airborne tanker it’s a go,” he said, and quickly left the room. All the elation he felt from the morning’s successful raid was overwhelmed by the possible consequences of his “go” decision.

The telltale flickers of the trawler’s search radar lighted Thunder’s warning gear immediately after takeoff. Jack dropped low to the water while C.J. moved up, letting the radar positively identify him. They used the warning gear as cues, porpoising up and down, making sure the trawler could periodically paint them on radar as they flew down-track. Jack could barely see the soft green formation lights on C.J.’s bird in the growing haze and darkness when he violently rocked his wings, signaling C.J. to collapse into a tight formation. The major slid his fighter onto Jack’s wing and they dropped down to the surface of the water, changing course trying to elude search radars.

Unexpectedly C.J. slowed down to below 300 knots, too slow for the area they were in, then broke silence with a short transmission. “Aborting, engine failure, frozen.” The major’s number two engine had lost its oil pressure and frozen, the compressor blades not turning and consequently creating a ferocious drag for the remaining engine to overcome.

Jack started to turn with him and return to base before realizing that he
had
to continue the mission. He jerked the Phantom back onto course and headed into the night alone. “No choice,” he said to Thunder. “We’ve got to hit the target to keep the MiGs looking for us.”

“New heading three-two-nine degrees in thirty seconds,” Thunder replied, navigating to the target. Then: “Contact, IP,” Thunder told him. Jack saw the crosshairs on his scope move out and freeze on an indecipherable glob while the bearing pointer on the Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI) swung and pointed to the IP. Jack cut the corner and headed straight for the Initial Point, wanting to drop his bombs and run for home. But without the protection that C.J. offered him from SAMs, he felt naked. “Contact, target,” Thunder said, and again the radar crosshairs moved over a bright return on the scope.

This time, Jack did not cut the corner and flew over the IP, giving Thunder time to refine the placement of his bombing cursor. The visibility improved as they started their bomb run. Jack selected visual mode for the delivery when he saw the outline of trucks and buildings on the near horizon in front of them. His thumb depressed the pickle button when the target-pipper on his sight was centered on the buildings, and six bombs rippled off, walking across the farm buildings the PSI had recently turned into a fuel dump. The impact on the ground was instantaneous as the fuel exploded, lighting the sky and silhouetting the lone Phantom against the night. Jack jinked hard, going as fast as he could without lighting his afterburners and giving the enemy a beacon to find him. He was just turning south when an explosion rocked the Phantom, almost twisting the stick from his grasp.

Neither he nor Thunder saw the SA-9 that was homing on the heat-signature of their tail pipes. The turn south had rotated their hot exhaust away from the missile’s infrared guidance head. The guidance program then tried to follow the Phantom through the turn by feeding cutoff into the missile’s trajectory. The guidance-head lost the heat signature halfway through the turn but went into a memory mode and speared Jack’s bird on the lower left side, below the cockpits. Most, not all, of the small warhead’s
charge was absorbed by the variable ramp that led into the air duct of number one engine and the bulkheads surrounding the cockpit. The J-79 engine, damaged when it sucked in debris from the explosion, did continue to operate, sending out signals that it was hurt.

The pain was a lion to be tamed, but Jack had never dealt with a lion before. The lion walked through him, clawing and ripping. “Thunder, talk to me, babe…” Silence. He wanted to twist in his seat to check on his friend, except the lion wouldn’t let him as it came on him, bringing a fog that threatened his consciousness. Jack fought it, fought the lion trying to drag him into the encroaching fog…“Okay, check. Fly the goddamn airplane,” he ordered himself, going through the routines he had practiced so often to analyze and handle such an emergency. “Thunder,
talk to me
.” He wasn’t sure if he had said it aloud so he repeated it, and again still no answer. He could feel the fog now, numbing, confusing him—the lion snarled and the searing pain brought him awake as two thoughts battered at him: fly the bird; help Thunder…

He labored to quiet the lion. What’s the matter with me? Fly the jet. He checked his instruments, started to navigate home. The engine instruments were normal; no, the oil pressure on his number one was a little low, but still within limits. Concentrate on basics: breathing, bleeding, bones—the three Bs of first aid. Where had he learned that? Fly the airplane. His internal monologue continued as his hands went through their assigned tasks. Forcing his eyes down, he checked his feet, directing his flashlight at the floor. Nausea came over him when he saw his feet soaked with blood.

Where’s that damn lion when I need him? Shock is there, has to be. Stop the bleeding, be quick about it. With his left hand he ripped the first-aid kit out of its pouch on his survival vest, shook it apart into his lap, unwrapped the large compress bandage. He patted his right side with his left hand. Nothing. Switching hands on the stick, he patted his left side. Just below his hip he felt the warm, sticky wet. He was near the leak.
“Fix the leak.”
A simple problem of maintenance…

The lion came again from nowhere, challenging him
with pain. He had reduced the problem to basics. He looked at his left hip. A flow of blood was coming out of his upper left thigh, not pulsing or heavy, which would have meant an artery had been severed. Why couldn’t he feel it? Shock? He grabbed the bandage and stuffed it into the flow of blood. The lion snarled as he tightened the bandage around his wound, stopping the flow of blood.

Again he scanned the instruments, checked his fuel, calculated the course home. Looking outside, he searched for a recognizable landmark, anything to point the way back to Rats Ass. Automatically he scanned the instrument panel yet again, an ingrained part of his flying routine. He noticed the bearing pointer on the HSI was pointing at his one o’clock position. How had he missed that? He recycled the select switch on his HSI to the navigation computer mode and watched the bearing pointer slew back to the same position and the mileage indicator roll to 128 nautical miles. “Thunder, baby, I love you,” he said. In his last few seconds of consciousness Thunder had punched the coordinates for Ras Assanya into the navigation computer, showing his pilot the way home.

“All right now, Thunder, baby, what’s the matter with you?” He reached up to his right and twisted the far right rearview mirror on his canopy bow, adjusting it to see into the backseat. He could only make out the top of Thunder’s helmet in the dim glow of the light given off by the instruments. Gently he rolled the F-4 onto its back and started a climb. The maneuver straightened Thunder out and forced his inert body into a sitting position. While still climbing he rolled the Phantom upright and leveled off. He directed the beam of his flashlight into the rear cockpit and could now see Thunder clearly in his rearview mirror. Thunder’s helmet visor was busted and splattered on the inside with blood, and his shoulders were bloody. Please, God, not a head wound…but he knew one was likely. A cold determination came over Jack to recover the big fighter. With Thunder unconscious and with a head wound, an ejection would be fatal.

The only defense Jack had against the fighters no doubt searching for him was the ground, and so he dropped the Phantom down to the deck, skimming the flat marshlands
that bordered the coast. The mileage indicator clicked to 112 miles as he saw the faint outline of a bay in the dark. He knew where he was and changed heading slightly to the east, heading in a direction away from the base. He could only hope the MiGs were being deployed as a blocking force directly between the target they had struck and Ras Assanya.

The glowing Master Caution Light caught his attention. How long had that been on? He punched it off and checked the warning panel on his right. The “Check Utility” pressure light was illuminated and the Utility Hydraulic Pressure gauge read zero; he had lost his primary hydraulic system. He ran over the systems he had lost and what he would have to do; no brakes, no gear lowering, no flaps. He went over the emergency procedures that he had spent hours drilling into his memory: blow the gear down, blow the flaps down, lower the hook, take the arresting cable stretched across the approach end of the runway. Hell of a time to have to act like a Navy carrier pilot…

Eighty-five miles out from Ras Assanya the oil pressure on his number one engine fell to zero and he had to shut it down before it froze up and created the same intolerable drag C.J. had encountered. Without a choice, he started to climb, gaining the altitude he needed to fly the disabled aircraft—the telltale buzz of a strong search radar came through his earphones, the enemy had found him.

“Well, I’ve done this one before,” he said to his unconscious wizzo. Of course, if Thunder were okay, he’d jettison the bird, but he wasn’t, so get on with it. He remembered the emergency landing that he and Landis had made at Stonewood when they had lost an engine and their Emergency Hydraulic pressure. The conditions had been perfect for an emergency landing that time and Tom Gomez had still told them to eject. Now the option wasn’t available when he wanted it the most. He keyed his radio, calling the tower at Ras Assanya. “Rats Tower, Wolf Zero-Nine, Mayday, Mayday.” For the first time, he was aware of the loud wind noise in the cockpit.

“Roger, Wolf Zero-Nine,” the tower responded. “You are weak and barely readable. Say position and emergency,” the tower controller answered, and at the same
time hit the alarm button to the crash trucks and hospital clinic…

Lieutenant Colonel Steve Farrell, waiting out the recovery of Wolf Flight in the tower, did not hesitate when Jack told him about their battle damage and the condition of the Phantom. “Wolf Zero-Nine,” he radioed, “recommend controlled ejection. Overfly the base and point that pig out to sea. Eject when you are over the runway, we’ll catch you and the bird will glide for two miles before it crashes, well clear of us.”

“Negative,” Jack replied. “Thunder can’t take an ejection. I’m taking the approach end barrier.”

Farrell acknowledged Jack’s decision and keyed the crash radio, telling the crash truck, clinic and Waters about the emergency.

“Boss,” Farrell said to Waters, “if he prangs on the runway he’ll close us down. The rest of Wolf Flight is still airborne and we have to recover them—”

“They’ve got a tanker and can go someplace else. If they have to land here for an emergency or for fuel we’ll bulldoze Jack’s bird off the runway.”

“What if the crew is still in the plane?”

The knot of decision grew tighter for Waters. “They go with the jet if they’re still in it.” Waters ran for his truck, wanting to be on hand to do what he could…