Call to Duty (51 page)

Kamigami saw the helicopter clear the edge and disappear below the rim as the man in front of him fired his Grail. His head twisted around as he followed the deadly missile streaking after the helicopter. But it went ballistic, its seeker head not able to find the heat signature of the MH-53 that had now disappeared below the rim of the plateau. He jammed another grenade into the launcher and fired on the run.

“Rascal’s airborne,” Gillespie radioed.

“SAM! SAM!” Gillespie’s rear gunner yelled, carrying over the pilot’s hot mike and going out over the radio. “Six o’clock! Coming from the LZ!”

“Roger,” the Beezer said, drawing out the word. The top of the plateau exploded as he raked the plateau with high-explosive twenty-millimeter fire from the AC-130’s two gatling guns.

“We ain’t gonna make it,” Gillespie’s copilot rasped as they lost altitude. They were still too heavy and dropping slowly onto the heavy jungle canopy below them.

“Jettison anything you can,” Gillespie shouted over the intercom He could feel the men move about through the controls as they raced to throw what was left of their personal equipment overboard. “Dump fuel,” he ordered. The copilot did not hesitate and hit the fuel dump switches on center con
sole. Fuel streamed out the fuel dump tubes near the helicopter’s tail.

“Sweet Jesus,” the flight engineer gasped as their rate of descent slowed, “we’re gonna do it.” The three men could not wrench their eyes free of the altimeter as it stabilized with maddening slowness.

“Stop dumping fuel,” Gillespie ordered when he was sure they could maintain their altitude. They were barely two hundred feet above the thick treetops. “We need to find a place to put her down,” he said.

“Make it quick, Captain,” the flight engineer told him. “The fuel gauges are showing empty.”

Gillespie keyed his radio and relayed their situation to Hammer. “We’re close to flameout,” he told the command ship.

“Turn on your IFF,” E-Squared said.

“Roger,” Gillespie said. They had forgotten to turn on their radar transponder. At least the MC-130 could get a fix on them. Not that he had much hope of them surviving a crash landing into the trees. “At least they’ll know where to look for the bodies,” he told his copilot and flight engineer.

“We got to be flying on fumes,” the flight engineer said.

“Everyone strap in and prepare for a crash landing,” Gillespie ordered as he locked the inertial reel controlling his shoulder straps. All he could see below him was an unbroken expanse of treetops. Just great, he thought.

“Gotcha in sight,” E-Squared radioed.

“What the…” Gillespie gasped. The MC-130 had dropped out of the heavy overcast above them and was joining on their right. “What the fuck you doing?” he radioed. E-Squared should not have chased them down when they were so close to the ground. He had put his crew and the command element on board at risk. Gillespie knew the answer when he saw Mallard’s familiar face studying him from the left side cockpit window as E-Squared flew past and jockeyed the MC-130 into a refueling position ahead and slightly above him. The big Hercules had its flaps full down and landing gear extended so it could match the helicopter’s slow airspeed. The refueling line played out from the tank on the left pylon and the basket drifted toward the helicopter. Now Gillespie had to maneuver to hook up.

The copilot glanced at their radar before he turned it to standby while they refueled. He saw a bright ground return three miles ahead of them that formed the point of a dark triangle on the upper part of the screen. The top of the triangle was pointed at them. The bright radar return was the near side of a mountain that was bounding the radar beam back to the helicopter. The deep shadow behind it meant the radar was not “seeing” over the mountain. They were flying directly into the side of a mountain. “Rascal’s painting high terrain ahead,” the copilot radioed.

Gillespie’s left hand gently pressured the collective, sensing if he could get more lift. It wasn’t there. “No way can we climb,” he transmitted.

“Our radar,” E-Squared radioed, “shows a break in the terrain to the left. We’ll head for that. Make the hookup.”

Gillespie concentrated on the visual reference points he had picked out on the Hercules during countless air-to-air refuelings as he closed on the drogue. The two aircraft moved in formation as they flew in and out of heavy mist and rain. The MC-130 would momentarily fade before popping back out into full view. His problem was compounded as E-Squared gently arced to the left, heading for the break in the high terrain ahead of them. Gillespie’s hands and feet did not move as he maneuvered. His commands to the flight controls were little more than slight variances in pressure, a gentle contraction of his grip, a tensing of muscles. His breathing slowed as he concentrated on the drogue. He was balancing on a pinpoint, making the unstable helicopter respond to his will. The refueling probe eased into the basket on the first attempt.

“Contact,” Gillespie radioed. “We can’t take much,” he said as fuel started to flow into their empty tanks.

“So we pump a little and you draft a little,” E-Squared answered. He was playing with the throttles and had discovered that he could drag the helicopter along in his draft, or was he pulling it with the refueling drogue? Slowly, the two aircraft gained five knots of airspeed and fifty feet of altitude as they entered the high terrain and E-Squared’s navigator guided them through a low canyon.

Mackay came forward and plugged his headset into the extension cord the flight engineer handed him. “Well done, Captain,” he said. “Let me talk to Hammer.” His face was
impassive as he spoke rate the boom mike and they headed out of Burma.

The White House, Washington, D.C.

Only Pontowski’s fingers revealed his emotions, slowly contracting and then relaxing, only to clamp down again, as he listened to the voice on the telephone. He glanced at the clocks on the far wall of the Situation Room as he listened—9:14
P.M.
local time, 0314 GMT, Greenwich mean time. How long had the mission been going on? One part of his mind calculated the answer—over thirty-seven hours—while he listened to Dr. Smithson. “Mr. President, your wife is failing very rapidly. I think your presence is needed…” His voice trailed off, choked with emotion.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Pontowski said. “I’ll be there shortly.” He returned the phone to its cradle and sank back into his chair. God, I’m tired, he thought. But not as tired as the men out there. That thought rallied him and he shook off his fatigue, making his body respond to his will once more. Again, he split his attention, concentrating on the problem at hand while thinking about Tosh. You’re tougher than they know, he told himself. You’ll wait for me.

The big monitor screen beeped and flashed a
WAIT—MESSAGE COMING
signal to the occupants in the room. A jolt of anticipation flashed through Pontowski—every instinct shouted this was it, success or failure. “Where’s Mazie?” he asked.

Cox looked up from the stack of papers he was working. “Getting something to eat, Mr. President. And probably freshening up. She’s been here since the mission started.”

The big monitor screen flashed and a message scrolled up.

OPERATION JERICHO SITREP
RASCAL ONE AIRBORNE FROM BLUE FOUR AT 0308Z
.

Smiles and congratulations from the men washed over him as he read the second part of the message that now flashed on the screen. Then it was finished. “Please find Miss Kamigami,” he said. “I’ll tell her.”

Three minutes later, Mazie was ushered in through the
door. Fatigue etched her round face and her short dumpy body shook with each breath. The President of the United States was alone in the room. And she knew. Slowly, Pontowski came to his feet and took a step toward her. “Mazie,” he began. “Your father…thanks to him the mission was a success. But there’s bad news.” He took a breath, studying the young woman who had served him so well. Whatever gave me the right to demand so much of these people? he asked himself. “Your father is missing in action. He fought off an attacking force and followed the helicopter to take off…. He was the rear guard.”

Mazie slumped into a chair, her knees too weak to support her. She looked up, her eyes dry. At first the words wouldn’t come. “That’s the way he would have wanted it,” she whispered. Then, more strongly: “Thank you for telling me, sir. I know…”

Pontowski reached out and touched her cheek. “I’m sorry.”

“Sir, your wife…”

The President nodded and left the room, hurrying for the waiting helicopter that would take him to Tosh.

1944
Amiens, France

The flight had been a welcome return to sanity for Generalmajor Adolf Galland and for the first time in months, he was reaffirming his credo that a leader, above all else, be first in combat. It was not a virtue practiced among the high command of the Luftwaffe and Goering had forbidden him to fly in combat. But the chance to actually take off in one of Kurt Tank’s Focke-Wulf 190s with Josef “Fips” Priller, the Kommodore of Jagdgeschwader 26, on his wing had been too much of a temptation for the thirty-two-year-old general to turn down.

The two men had launched on a routine patrol and Galland had easily fallen back into the routine of flying in a
rotte
, a two-plane formation. For a few brief minutes, he stopped thinking about his chief adversary and counterpart across the Channel, Major General James H. Doolittle, the commander of the Eighth U.S. Army Air Force. Galland knew that as
soon as the abysmal, winter weather broke, an aluminum cloud of aircraft would launch out of England to rain a hail of explosive death on his country, and that unless he could employ his own fighters properly, he could not stop it. Galland’s problem was compounded because Doolittle knew how to use fighter aircraft in combat and his superiors had the intelligence and resolve to let Doolittle do it. How many times had he raged in fruitless anger for Goering to let him do the same and let his pilots seek out and destroy enemy fighters before going after the bombers? But his superiors dithered in their incompetence and tied his hands, ordering him to go only after the bombers and ignore the fighters. It was an order that ensured the ultimate destruction of his Luftwaffe.

The flight with JG-26, his old suit, better known as “the boys from Abbeville,” breathed life back into Galland and he felt the old, very familiar, adrenaline rush when their controller vectored them into an engagement with marauding Mosquitoes in the vicinity of Amiens. It was the first time Galland had flown against the Mosquito, which had caused so much trouble. He had a few scores to settle. Fips Priller had stacked high into the sun as they approached Amiens and saw the Mosquito first. The two Focke-Wulfs swooped down on the Mosquito, using the dive to generate speed they would need to engage the Mosquito. Since Fips had the first sighting on the fighter-bomber, he led the attack and skidded unseen into a firing position behind the Mosquito. With the skill born out of a hundred aerial victories, Fips gunned
F for Freddie
out of the air. The Focke-Wulf 190 had earned its nickname, Wurger, Butcher Bird, for a good reason.

Galland had not lost any of his skills during his prolonged battles with the deskbound warriors at higher headquarters and had been checking their six o’clock while Fips engaged the Mosquito. Luckily, he was looking to the right, the side with his good eye, when he saw the second Mosquito turning on them. “Fips!” he radioed. “Pitch back to your right. Moskito.” Galland turned hard to the left to meet the Mosquito head-on. He was astounded by the speed of the Mosquito as it closed on them and impressed by the courage of the pilot in taking on two Focke-Wulfs.

“They’re good,” Zack grunted as he turned into the Focke-
Wulf on his right: Fips Priller, The Merlins screamed in agony as the two aircraft merged, guns firing. Ruffy’s head twisted to the right as they came off, trying to follow the Focke-Wulf as Zack zoomed into the sun and rolled, looking for the other Focke-Wulf that he assumed would be going for a sandwich on him.

But Galland had lost sight of
K for King
in the sun and had reasoned it was a hit-and-run attack. When he heard Fips radio, “I’m shaking apart—shutting the engine down,” he broke off his counterturn on the Mosquito and flew cover for his old friend. His head twisted back and forth as he strained to see if the Mosquito would return. Nothing. “I’m heading for that field,” Fips radioed as his prop feathered. Galland circled above Fips as he dropped the Focke-Wulf onto the snow-covered field and skidded to a halt in a shower of snow. The crash landing banged Fips unmercifully about the cockpit and he ripped open his right thigh. Later on he would discover that a single bullet had shattered the tip of a blade and threw the propeller out of balance, setting up a hellish vibration. The Focke-Wulf would be repaired and flying two days later.

“Where are they?” Zack rasped as he turned back toward the west and cut off the flow of nitrous oxide to the engines. The Merlins ceased their heart-cracking wail.

“I’ve lost them,” Ruffy said, wishing Zack would break off the engagement. He had never seen the American so possessed.

“We’ll find them,” Zack growled. He checked his engine instruments and, satisfied that the Merlins were still in one piece, jammed the throttles forward as he dove toward the ground. If he was going to reengage two Focke-Wulfs, he wanted it to be on his terms where the Mosquito excelled.

They circled for three minutes. “Tallyho!” Zack shouted when he saw Fips’s Focke-Wulf kick up a shower of snow as he crash-landed. He headed for the downed German and climbed to five hundred feet, the killing rage still on him. “Gotcha, you bastard!” He could see the German pilot limping away from the downed Focke-Wulf. He lined up for a strafing pass. The pilot fell on the ground, obviously hurt.

“No!” Ruffy shouted when he realized that Zack was going after the German pilot. Zack ignored him as he concentrated on the lighted ring on his gunsight. He saw the other Focke-
Wulf coming to his six o’clock and snorted. The years of flying in combat had honed the pilot’s situational awareness to a fine edge and he flushed with elation, knowing the attacker was still too far out of position. Thanks to the speed of the Mosquito, he could make the strafing pass and then outrun the other German—if he wanted to.