Wraith (20 page)

No one spoke.

The colonel nodded. “In that case, gentlemen, that's all I have. I'll see you on the other side.”

Ahmed Al Jaber Air Base, Kuwait

19 March 2003

Oso dropped his three large duffel bags in the sand next to a tan, prefabricated building—something akin to a double-wide trailer home. As the top pick for the deployment, he'd had the honor of flying one of the Hogs over from Arizona and he had just finished the last leg of the three-day journey. He had flown through the night from the Mediterranean. Even though the sun was still climbing, all he wanted to do was find his tent and go to sleep. Instead, he'd been ordered to report to his detachment's operational headquarters, which, even for a pre-combat deployment, was unusual.

Tank met him at the door. The big pilot had arrived the day before on a C-17 Globemaster with the main thrust of the deployment. “Hey, there, buddy. You look just about as happy as I was when I got here.”

Oso looked up at him with tired eyes. “I'd like to go to sleep now.”

“No can do. Things are getting mighty hot around here”—Tank grinned—“no pun intended. Word came down to get cracking. Something's definitely up.” He inclined his head toward the back of the room. “Come on. You're with me.”

Tank led him through the temporary headquarters. There was a chest-high counter that served as the operations desk and eighteen cubicles formed by shoulder-high partitions. Several pilots and enlisted personnel were busily setting up computers and laying out equipment. As Oso squeezed down the aisle between them, he wondered whether the beige walls and furnishings were someone's deliberate choice—as if the interior absolutely had to be desert-colored as well—or if it was simply the cheapest color offered by the contractor.

“Right here,” said Tank, indicating the back left cubicle and then stepping into the space across the aisle.

Blessedly, there was a high-backed rolling chair waiting in Oso's spot. He eased his body down into it and laid his head back. “I'm just going to close my eyes for a second.”

“Room, tench-hut!”

Oso instinctively stood up again, wobbling just a bit. Heads popped out of the other cubicles like prairie dogs. When his eyes adjusted to the light shining through the door behind the newcomer, they widened in surprise.

Torch.

Torch must have noticed Oso's expression. “What's the matter?” he asked, looking straight at him. “Didn't anyone tell you I was coming? You know I couldn't let you come out here without adult supervision.” Everyone chuckled. Oso laughed with them, but he wondered if they understood how much more there was to the statement than a simple joke.

“They put me on the C-17 as a last-minute change,” said Torch. “Lieutenant Colonel Keys showed up for the deployment sick. The flight doc grounded her, so I'll be your detachment commander for the duration.”

“Great,” said Oso dryly.

Torch raised his voice. “All of you, listen up. We've got to be up and running tonight, with crews ready to go.”

The pilots exchanged questioning glances.

“The order to get our search and rescue crews on alert ASAP came down from on high. I don't know about you, but that tells me we're on the brink. On top of that, I saw a pair of Nighthawks on the other side of the runway loading weapons. I think they're going to take a potshot at Saddam
tonight
. If something goes wrong, it'll be our job to go in and pull out the survivors.”

Torch moved over to the operations desk and slapped a paper down on the laminate surface. “This is the rotation. The first two crews need to hit the racks right now to get some sleep. The rest of you, get to work.”

Oso gathered with the rest to hover over the crew schedule. At first he couldn't see with all of the bobbing heads in his way. Then a path cleared and he found his name. He and Tank were the leads for the second rotation. He blinked as he read the names of their wingmen. He read them again, just to be sure, then bolted after Torch.

Oso caught up to the commander on a concrete path that cut through the sand between the row of double-wides. “Sir, have you seen the list?”

The commander kept walking so that Oso had to stutter-step to fall in beside him. “You got a problem, Major?”

“Our wingmen are crossovers from the Bulldogs. One of them is Sidearm. I gave that kid his checkride barely a week ago.”

“Did you sign him off?”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Did you sign the kid off on his checkride?”

“Yeah, but—”

Torch stopped and turned to stare him down. “But nothing. We're stretched thin, here. You handed Sidearm off to the Bulldogs. They rushed him through combat qual and brought him along. Now he's yours again.”

The commander stepped closer and lowered his voice to a growl. “I thought we settled this, Oso. Are you telling me that you changed your mind; that you're not ready to fly into combat with a kid like Sidearm? Because I can put you on a rotator headed for the States
within the hour.
”

Nick struggled violently with the controls as Dream Catcher spun toward the earth. The feeling of vertigo was overpowering, but he fought through his dizziness and shouted into his transmitter, “Hazard, this is Wraith. I've lost control and I'm going down.”

“Wraith, this is Hazard. Come in.” Danny's tone told Nick that he hadn't heard his call. Dream Catcher's transmitter must have failed.

The spiral continued, but the desert floor still seemed miles below. Nick tried again. “Hazard, do you copy? I'm out of control. I repeat . . . I am going down.”

“Wraith, this is Hazard. Can you hear me?”

His screen went black and Nick began to panic as the crushing darkness closed in around him. “I'm going down, Hazard,” he yelled into the radio, continuing to fight with the stick and throttle. There was still no response. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Wraith Zero One is going down. Position: bullseye two six zero for twenty-eight miles. Ejecting in three . . . two . . .”

“Nick, wake up!”

Nick's eyes shot open. His face was moist with sweat, his hands shaking. As he fought through the fogginess of waking and reached for his transmitter, he realized that his right hand had been resting on the ejection lever. “Uh . . . Hazard, did you say something?” he asked the darkness.

“
Did I say something
? I've been trying to raise you for the last fifteen minutes.”

“Sorry.” Nick yawned. “I dozed off there for a bit and my helmet got out of position.”

“Don't make me do that again. You know what a stickler Walker is for radio discipline.”

“Where are we, anyway?”

“We're past the last refueling, almost to the launch point. Why do you think I've been trying to raise you? I need you to run your prelaunch checklist.”

“Once again, you mean the one that tells me not to do anything?”

“Well, it should say, ‘The pilot must wake up and get his butt in gear.' You're lucky I can't control the shock system from up here.”

Nick heard Drake shouting in the background. Danny must've switched to hot mic while trying to raise him. “We're at the launch point,” yelled the B-2 pilot. “Are you guys ready or what?”

“I've got him,” Danny yelled back. “Hazard and Wraith are ready. Initiating launch in three . . . two . . . one . . . mark!”

DEPLOYMENT SEQUENCE INITIATED . . .

The familiar words appeared on Nick's screen. He heard the rush of air as the bomb bay doors swung open.

But this time something was different.

There was a pulsing sound under the wind rush, a repeating pattern like the whir of an electric motor, ending each time in a metallic
thud
.

Suddenly Drake's voice invaded the connection again. “Abort! Abort the launch! One of the doors is stuck!”

Nick heard the clicking sound of a toggle being switched back and forth, slowly at first, then rapidly over and over. He heard panic in Danny's voice. “I can't stop it. It won't abort!”

“Go to manual!” shouted Drake. “Close the doors. Close 'em now!”

More frantic clicking.

“I can't! They're jammed! Wraith, you've got to—”

Danny's words were cut off as the umbilical connection released and Dream Catcher dropped away. For a split second Nick felt the expected weightlessness of free fall, then Dream Catcher slammed into the half-open bomb bay door. The little aircraft tilted hard to one side and pitched forward violently. Nick felt like he was trapped on a demented carnival ride. There was a horrible grinding noise followed by another deafening crash.

Then all was twirling, tumbling silence.

Nick gripped the sides of the cockpit and tried to keep his stomach out of his throat. Script started rolling up his screen. Dream Catcher had finally decided that something was wrong.

DEPLOYMENT FAILURE

SEQUENCE ABORT

AUTO FLIGHT CONTROLS . . .

FAIL

AUTO IGNITION . . .

FAIL

AUTO LEVEL DISENGAGED

AWAITING COMMAND . . .

“Well, this sucks,” he grunted, staring at the flashing cursor. He had to get Dream Catcher under control, and to do that, he had to get the engine started. He tried canceling the launch mode. That brought everything that was automatic offline. As he fought with his systems, his subconscious noted the feeling that the aircraft was stabilizing in a dive and picking up speed. Several thoughts passed through his mind. How long before Danny decided to hit the red panic button, the one that remotely detonated the explosive cord that lined his cocoon? How long could he fight this before finally having to eject to save his own skin? He was still on the outskirts of hostile territory. If he ejected now, the search and rescue team might easily recover him.

Nick pushed all extraneous thoughts to the back of his mind and continued trying to start the engine. He switched the ignition to manual mode, allowing the air rushing through the intake to spin the turbine blades. Then he shoved the throttle to maximum, sending a burst of fuel to the igniters.

The response was immediate. The engine spun to life and was soon at full throttle.

Too soon.

This isn't helping my high-speed dive.
Nick yanked the throttle back to idle.

With the additional electric power provided by the engine, the flight instrument overlay appeared on his screen. He could see his altitude spinning down and his pitch ladders told him that his nose was seventy degrees below the horizon. That made sense, but something still didn't feel right. His body was pressed against the ceiling. He focused on the pitch ladders and realized that the ends were pointing down instead of up.

Dream Catcher was inverted.

Nick fought the aircraft to an upright attitude and pulled gently on the stick, fearing that a stronger pull might rip her into a million pieces. He checked his altitude; the numbers passed through five thousand feet, rapidly counting down.
How high is the terrain around here?

“Come on, baby.”

Dream Catcher responded to his coaxing. The artificial horizon showed the nose beginning to rise and Nick checked his altitude again—twelve hundred feet. He pulled harder, leveling out at three hundred feet above sea level before starting to climb again. Then he realized that he was flying blind, on the instruments alone. Nick hadn't hit the ground yet, but he could be headed straight for a tall dune or a ridgeline. He pushed his throttle to its forward stop, pulled Dream Catcher into a steep climb, and then flipped on the external display. To his relief, he saw nothing but sky.

Next he fought with his communications panel, trying to establish a link with the bomber. He could see that Dream Catcher was passing data to Danny, but he couldn't raise the intelligence officer on voice. Then another, more pressing concern dawned on him. What if Dream Catcher had a panel hanging open? What if the formerly stealthy craft had become a big radar target? He called up his RF display and scanned the desert in front of him for activity.

There was nothing. If the Iraqis had seen him, they weren't showing their cards yet.

While Drake turned the bomber to avoid penetrating the enemy radar fence, Danny fought his systems to reestablish a connection with Dream Catcher. When he finally got a data feed, it wasn't good news: the little craft was heading straight for the ground in an inverted dive. He cautiously flipped up the red cover and placed his hand on the remote-detonation switch. “Wraith, this is Hazard. Are you there?” he said into the radio.

There was no answer.

“Wraith, this is Hazard. My finger is on the big red button, buddy. I need a response.”

The altitude on Danny's display counted down so fast that the tens and hundreds places were just a blur; he would have to destroy the aircraft before the ground impact damaged the remote receiver and made it impossible. “Come on, Nick, give me a sign,” he whispered.

Then, as if on cue, Dream Catcher rolled to an upright attitude and began to pull out of the dive. Danny let out a sigh, took his finger away from the switch, and closed the cover. The data on his screen showed the aircraft level out and enter a climb.

“He's with us,” Danny said to Drake over the intercom. “He's got control and it looks like he's still heading toward the target, but I'm unable to raise him on comms.”

“Then find a way!” Drake ordered. “We need him to turn around. He might have a gaping hole in his jet that's setting off all sorts of alarms down there!”

“Stand by. He's bringing more systems online. Yep, he's got his RF running. It looks clear.”

“I don't care what it looks like,” Drake shot back. “This mission is toast. It's over. We've got to get him back and get out of here.”

Danny returned to his efforts to restore communications with Nick. Nothing worked, so he went back through the data feed history to look for the source of the problem. What he saw there made him smile.

RF COMMAND RECVD

RF COMMAND REJCTD

RF COMMAND RECVD

RF COMMAND REJCTD

“Genius,” he said out loud. Nick must have remembered that he could type commands into Dream Catcher's RF computer. The computer had a limited vocabulary of numbers and terms. If Nick typed his own words into the prompt, it would ignore them as nonsense, but it would also report the nonsense to Danny as rejected commands. It was a brilliant method of makeshift texting.

But how was he supposed to respond?

Danny glanced at the display repeater to check Nick's RF screen for active radars, and then a solution dawned on him. He could remotely control Nick's displays. He moved the RF screen to Nick's center display, then back to the right. Then he waited a few seconds and did it again. The data feed continued to scroll. He filtered out the command lines in his mind.

It was working. Danny did as Nick asked. “I've got comms,” he reported. “Sort of.”

“What do you mean, ‘sort of'?” asked Drake.

“He can send me text messages through the data feed and I can answer yes or no with display switches. It's cumbersome, but it works.”

“Tell him to turn back.”

“I can't. I told you, he can text me, but I can only respond with blinking displays.”

Danny responded by switching the RF display to Nick's right side.

“Tell me about it,” muttered the intelligence officer.

Danny switched the display to center and then back to the right.

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

Danny leaned back in his chair and gave a low whistle. “Uh . . . Drake? I've got something.”

“Go ahead.”

“He's continuing the mission—says he'll get the coordinates and relay them to us using the method we've established. Walker can launch the Nighthawks to complete the strike. Then Nick plans to ditch. You have to admit, the guy's got some guts.”

Drake was not impressed. “There's a fine line between guts and stupidity.” The B-2 pilot turned to look back at Danny. “This is above my pay grade—yours, too. Get in touch with Colonel Walker on SATCOM and get his input.”

Danny sent the colonel a long message, detailing the events of the mission. He envisioned one oversized vein in the colonel's forehead popping out as he read his SATCOM display.

Less than a minute later, Danny's SATCOM chimed, alerting him that there was a reply.

TOO RISKY

GET HIM BACK

START DITCH OPS NOW

RETURN TO TANKER

DO NOT CONTINUE

“The colonel says no,” Danny reported to Drake.

“Good. At least someone around here has some common sense.”

At that moment, Danny got another message from Nick. He mentally filtered out the extraneous data.

Danny flipped Nick's display to the center and then back to the right to give him a
No
response. Then he waited. After a few seconds, another message appeared.

That was odd. It had been working fine before. Danny tried his
No
again.

Danny slammed his fist down on the panel. What had changed? What else had failed? He scanned the data feed again but found nothing. He gave it one more try. This time, Nick's response came immediately after he switched the displays.

A smile broke over Danny's face as he realized what his new friend was doing. “Godspeed, Nick,” he whispered at the screen, and then he keyed the intercom. “It looks like that's it, Drake. My response system isn't working anymore. He's going to continue in the absence of a definite negative.”

Drake lowered his chin to his chest in exasperation. “Then
you
get to tell the colonel the bad news via SATCOM.”

The smile fell from Danny's lips. “Oh . . . right. The colonel.”