Wraith (4 page)

Nick led Bug past rolling hills covered in the rusty hues of autumn. He stuck to the valleys as much as possible, picking his way south and east. When Wizard Flight arrived in the training area a few minutes earlier, Oso had split them up, sending Nick and Bug south toward their briefed holding point.

Nick found the ridge that formed the line of scrimmage between the simulated friendly and enemy territories, then followed it until he spotted the small microwave tower that marked their holding point. He checked the point against a satellite picture on his kneeboard. Just as the photograph showed, an access road ran north from the tower facility, then made a gentle turn to the east and climbed through a saddle in the ridgeline. “Wizard Three is established at X-ray,” he called.

“Wizard One is established as well.” Oso's voice sounded distant over the UHF radio. “Snake One Five, Snake One Five, this is Wizard Zero One. How do you copy?”

“Wizard Zero One, Snake One Five reads you loud and clear,” Second Lieutenant Joe Forester replied. “Call ready for my position and your first target.”

“Stand by, Snake,” said Oso. “Wizard Flight, move to position one.”

Nick led Bug through the saddle to the forward side of the ridgeline, where both pilots could get a clear view of the target area. Beyond the saddle, the terrain rapidly fell away, exposing the flat expanse of the Rhine River valley. The orange and red foliage gave way to tan and brown fields separating a few small Rhineland towns; among them the target area, Böchingen, several kilometers past the ridge. Both pilots made sure to stay low—well below the terrain behind them—so that a civilian in Böchingen might not see the Hogs even if he looked directly at them. “Wizard Three is in position,” Nick transmitted.

“Copy that. Go ahead, Snake,” said Oso.

The lieutenant described his position to the A-10 drivers and Oso confirmed that they all had visual contact with the Humvee just east of the town. From that point forward Joe described the targets in relation to his own location. “Do you see the soccer field west of my position?” he asked, using the field as a reference that would give the pilots an easy way to visualize distances on the ground.

“Affirmative,” Oso responded.

“Using the length of the soccer field as one unit, look two units northwest and describe what you see.”

“Looks like a grouping of twenty vehicles or so, mostly gray and white, on the southeast side of an L-shaped building.”

“That's correct. We'll call that parking lot an enemy staging area; the vehicles are your targets. Snake One Five is taking simulated mortar fire from that position. Destroy it immediately.”

“Wizard Flight, we'll use strike pattern one with Mavericks,” said Oso. “Wizard One element has the north side of the target. Wizard Three, your element has the south side. Return to your hold point after the strike. Start your ingress at one minute from the hack. Three, sound off when you're ready.”

Nick looked over at Bug, who gave a rock of his wings to signal that he was ready for the attack. “Three's ready,” he reported.

“Here we go, then. Three . . . two . . . one . . . execute!”

Looking north, Nick strained to see Oso turn his Hog toward the target. He mentally reviewed the strike pattern, remembering that he had to wait an additional sixty seconds past Oso's start time before he could lead Bug in. The timing would keep him out of the first element's imaginary fragmentation pattern, but that was only part of the equation. In his mind's eye Nick could see Oso, standing in the briefing room, drawing a line on the map along an east-west road running through the target area. To separate their flight paths and avoid a midair collision, Nick had to keep his element south of that road.

He picked up Oso's Hog driving across the flatland. He knew his flight lead would climb and then bank in and point at the target, simulating a Maverick missile attack. Brent should follow shortly thereafter and do the same. But Nick couldn't see the rookie. Where was he?

“The kid's lagging the fight,” he muttered to himself. He hit the record switch on his heads-up display video and made an audio note. “Three October, Wizard Zero Three, first attack, this is Nick. Briefed attack is pattern one with Mavericks; Wizard Two is at least a mile late. I'll have to delay my attack to avoid his frag.”

Nick maneuvered his element to account for the extra time. When he was ready to attack he gave Bug a wing flash and turned toward the target area. Bug followed suit and the two A-10s swept low across the rural German landscape. A patchwork of fields passed beneath them in a blur of brown and green. Eight miles from the target Nick angled his aircraft slightly away, making the space that would allow him to pop up and roll in for the strike.

“Wizard One, rifle two.” Oso launched his imaginary missiles.

Nick checked his distance from the target. It looked like his adjustment for Brent's delay had worked.

“Wizard Two, rifle two.” The kid had finally taken his shot.

Nick counted a few more seconds, giving Brent's pretend missiles time to find their targets, and then pulled the nose of his Hog toward heaven, knowing that—in a real fight—this was the most exposed he'd be to enemy fire. While still climbing, he banked hard to the left and pulled, cutting an arc through the horizon to point back at the earth. Then, after he rolled out and settled on the attack axis, he commanded his missile to open its infrared eye.

The green-tinted screen showed the target parking lot as a jumble of muddled shapes and shadows. He placed his crosshairs on the southwest side and zoomed in, picking out a vehicle that was glowing nicely on the display.
Someone just arrived,
he thought.
The engine's still warm.
He commanded the missile seeker to lock, cross-checked his heads-up display, and pressed hard on the pickle button.

The Maverick screen went blank, simulating a successful launch. The missile on his wing, however, stayed where it was. It had no rocket and was hard-bolted to the station for training. Nick held the aircraft steady and patiently waited for the seeker to reset, as if a second missile had opened its eye. When the image of the parking lot returned he locked up another target and fired the second imaginary weapon.

The entire process, from settling his jet on the attack axis to launching his second Maverick, took Nick less than seven seconds. “Wizard Three, rifle two,” he called into the radio. He rolled the Hog on its side and pulled hard, turning it to avoid being fragged by his own weapons. Once clear of the fragmentation pattern, he turned his attention to Bug. He stayed low and arced around the target, ready to provide covering fire.

“Wizard Four, rifle two,” said Bug.

Nick watched his wingman turn away from the target. When Bug's nose pointed his way, he flashed his wings to make himself more visible. “Four, Three is at your twelve. Follow me back to X-ray.”

“Wizard Four is visual, Three. Wilco,” Bug replied, letting Nick know that he saw him and would follow him across the ridge to the hold point.

“Wizard, call ready for next target,” Joe prompted again.

“Wizard Zero One, ready.”

Nick listened intently to the next description. On this attack they were to practice finding the target on the fly, meaning that Nick was not permitted to take his element to the other side of the ridge and watch during Joe's description as he'd done the first time. They'd have to stay low and out of sight, memorize the description of the target, and then locate it once they pressed in for the attack. This also gave them less time to gain visual contact with each other. Each member of the formation depended on the rest to get the timing right.

“Your new target is an enemy command post consisting of three adjacent buildings running east to west,” said Joe. “Using the same soccer field as one unit, look half a unit southeast of your previous target. The group of target buildings is separated from all the other buildings by at least fifty yards on each side. They are wooden structures with white paint and they're the only buildings in the area with blue-shingled roofs.”

Nick painted the picture in his mind, trying to remember what the area surrounding the parking lot looked like. Then Oso threw a wrench in the works. “Wizards,” he commanded, “this will be strike pattern three, with guns, Mavericks, and bombs. On this attack we'll simulate a twenty-three-millimeter gun protecting the target area. Wizard Three, your element has the western two buildings. My element will take out the threat and the eastern building. Call ready.”

Nick paused to absorb the new information, looked to Bug for a ready signal, and then responded. “Three's ready.”

“Wizards, three . . . two . . . one . . . execute!”

What're you doing, Oso?
thought Nick as he started his clock. For this mission strike pattern three was the Irish Cross and Oso had just combined it with a blind attack. That was pushing the envelope for a fully qualified Hog driver, let alone a struggling new guy like Brent.

There was not time to worry about it. Nick flashed his wings at Bug and then drove low toward the saddle, as if he intended to scrape his jet along the road passing through it. As the trees flashed by on either side, his radar altimeter read ninety feet off the ground. Then the rushing terrain once again became blue sky and he rolled his aircraft on its back, pulling it down the east side of the ridge.

The Irish Cross was arguably the most complex maneuver in the Warthog tactics manual. It involved four aircraft employing multiple weapon types on multiple targets and, most importantly, it involved a direct attack on a heavy threat like antiaircraft artillery or a surface-air-missile system. The maneuver was named for the pattern it formed, a cross overlaid with a circle, similar to a symbol once adopted by Saint Patrick. It began with two pairs of A-10s heading toward the target from widely divergent directions.

As Nick leveled out over the plain, he checked his six and saw Bug sliding into perfect position. “Wizard Three, execute,” he said. With that command he turned slightly away from Bug and headed east, searching the ground for references that would help him approximate the circle of the antiaircraft gun's range. Bug continued toward the threat. By this time the imaginary enemy would have picked up Bug on his radar and hopefully started turning his gun barrels to meet the incoming A-10.

In the ideal Irish Cross, Three and Four went in first. Four was to fly directly toward the enemy, baiting the SAM or triple-A operator to turn his barrels. Just before reaching the threat's lethal range, Four would turn away, spoiling the enemy's shot, and that was exactly what Bug did.

Right on schedule, Bug turned away, staying outside of the imaginary threat's envelope. Then Nick, Number Three, turned in to become the decoy himself. He pulled the nose of his A-10 up and rolled in to point his gun at the threat. At a distance that promised very little damage but enough fireworks to get the enemy's attention, he squeezed the trigger, lobbing a volley of imaginary thirty-millimeter at the enemy gun. “Wizard Three, guns, guns, guns,” Nick said into the radio, alerting the others that he had fired his simulated rounds.

If all went according to plan, the enemy would take the bait, turning his gun toward Number Three and sealing his fate. One hundred and eighty degrees away, on the opposite side of the circle, Number One would penetrate the unsuspecting enemy's lethal range, lock up the target with a Maverick missile, and turn it into a pile of burning wreckage.

Nick pulled away to get out of the gun's range, searching for the other Hogs. He found Oso right where he should be, directly across the circle, about to fire a Maverick and put the simulated antiaircraft gun out of its misery. But, for the second time that day, he couldn't find Brent.

The second half of the Irish Cross was even more dangerous than the first. While One made his attack, Two, Three, and Four arced in a slow circle around the target area. In sequence, the aircraft would turn inward from the points of the cross and bomb the other ground targets. Such a maneuver—flying from opposing headings to attack a small area—could easily result in a midair collision. Timing was everything.

“Wizard One, rifle,” Oso said as he released his imaginary weapon. The threat was now a twisted mass of molten metal.

With the threat gone and Oso clearing out, Nick was ready to move in. But he still hadn't found Brent. He shook his head in frustration. He couldn't turn toward the target without getting a visual on the wingman. Then, finally, Nick found him, well north of where he should be. Brent was late again—way late. If both of them continued with the strike, they would risk a midair collision.

Oso saw it, too. “Wizard Two, withhold, withhold, withhold!” he shouted over the radio, calling Brent off the attack. “Turn west immediately and follow me to the hold point.”

“Wizard T-Two . . . off dry,” Brent stammered in reply.

Nick watched as the kid rolled his wings and pulled the Hog away from the attack run.

He was turning the wrong way.

“Look out, One. Two is going east instead.” It wasn't a very professional call, but Nick was fed up with the younger pilot's mistakes.
Not important
, he thought.
As long as he's out of my way.

Nick banked his Hog toward the target and checked his systems one more time. At the center of his heads-up display was the bombsight, which looked like an upside-down lollypop with a little dot in the middle. The dot, known as the death dot, showed exactly where Nick's bombs would impact if he hit the pickle button at that moment.

He rolled out on his final attack heading and made a minor adjustment so that the blue-roofed building was centered at the top of the upside-down lollypop's stick. Then, as he closed the distance to the target, the building slowly tracked down the stick until it fell beneath the dot.