Final Storm (24 page)

“What’s the real scoop on this mission, General?” Hunter asked him squarely, moving closer to the briefing table. “Why a fighter sweep?”

“Like I told all of you before, Captain,” Jones started blandly, “we have to draw out the enemy’s reserves. Make him put everything in the air and bleed him dry.”

Hunter knew he was about to cross a line between rank and friendship, a privilege that was his only because Jones and his father had been tight.

“But a fighter sweep is going to cost us a lot of airplanes, sir,” he pressed. “And the Soviets have more of them left then we do. Not to mention pilots.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Jones snapped. “You think I don’t know that I’ve only got about fifteen hundred airworthy fighters to put up against probably three or four thousand of the enemy’s? You think I relish the thought of playing a game of attrition when the other guy’s got more pieces to give away?
You think I like sending men up there to die?
”

He stopped abruptly. The two men just stared at each other. Hunter had never seen the man lose it as he had just now.

“I’m sorry, Hawk,” the older man said softly, “But there’s just no other choice …”

The anguish showed on Jones’s face as he turned away from the young pilot.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Hell, I guess I can tell you a little more about it. Damn it, if you get shot down, it means the Sovs have a Wingman of their own; then we might as well hang it up anyway.”

Hunter appreciated at the compliment, but he was more curious about the plan, edging up to glance at the maps and charts that Jones hauled back out.

Jones looked down at the cluttered table, hands holding down the folded edges of the maps.

“The supply situation is critical, Hawk,” he began. “NATO command estimates one week of the basic supplies—
maximum.
One goddamn week and most of that is going to have to go to support the paratroop units they’re assembling right now at a very secret location. We just haven’t gotten the airlift, the materiel, or the manpower to keep the air bridge open twenty-four hours a day and the sea supply just isn’t going to come together in time.

“So we’ve got to break their backs
now,
in the next couple of days, or else the Soviets are going to roll right down through France and kick our sorry asses into the next millennium. The question is: how to do it?”

“Do what we’re doing now, bomb their supply lines to kingdom come,” Hunter said, catching the strategic drift.

“Correct, Jones said. “But you and I both know that we can’t do that with fighters alone. Not with the current state of affairs. It has to be one, big massive blow.

“That’s where Rolling Thunder enters the picture …”

“We’re not going nuclear, are we, General?” Hunter asked, his eyes widening.

“No, Hawk,” said Jones. “But maybe the Soviets will wish we had when he sees the treatment we
do
have for him.”

Spreading out the maps, the two men studied them until it was almost time to leave for the flight line and begin the first sortie of the last battle of World War Three.

I
T WAS NOT THE
same Hawk Hunter who climbed into the cockpit of his replacement F-16 on that gray afternoon.

He barely noticed that the jet was inexplicably painted all white, a sharp contrast to the blue-gray color scheme of the other fighters of the 16th TFW. He did his pre-flight checklist in grim silence, mechanically preparing his plane for the impending combat. Four Sidewinders and a noseful of cannon ammo, he thought ruefully. It hardly seemed like enough to take on the entire Soviet air force. But then again, he wouldn’t be alone in the skies above France.

All along the flightline in Rota, every NATO interceptor that could get airborne was being prepared for the first wave of Jones’s fighter sweep. A ragtag fugitive fleet of aircraft—the refugees of a hundred forward NATO air bases—was clustered on the Spanish tarmac.

Besides Hunter and the other fourteen surviving F-16s of the 16th TFW, the American planes included thirty or so F-15 Eagles, the kick-ass air-superiority fighters that carried four big medium range air-to-air missiles as well as another four Sidewinders, plus a rotary 20mm cannon in the starboard wing. Hunter knew Jones wished he had more.

A couple of squadrons of F-4G Phantom IIs were lining up to join the fray. Thrown together from the remnants of half a dozen squadrons whose bases had fallen to the Soviet advance, some of the fierce-looking fighters had been fitted with AN/APR-38 electronic warfare pods to enable the old workhorses to carry up to three Sparrow AIM-7 radar-guided missiles as well as four Sidewinders.

The rest had already been configured as “Wild Weasel” SAM-killers, armed with the new AGM-88 HARMs (High-speed Anti-Radar Missiles), bundles of chaff, special decoy flares, and electronic jamming gear. Jones had wanted to provide the fighter sweep some protection from the Soviet anti-aircraft missiles sure to be packed in close to the fighting front, and the “Weasels” fit the bill.

Just as Jones had predicted, several Air National Guard units had been ferried over to Europe. Already stripped of their frontline planes—F-16s, F-4s, A-10s and F-15s—by the initial call-up, the only fighters the strapped ANG groups could muster were a handful of F-106 Delta Darts, a dozen vintage F-105 Thunder-chiefs, and even some creaking F-101 Voodoos.

Hunter knew Jones didn’t spend much time thinking about what would happen to the vintage interceptors if a flight of new-generation Soviet fighters, like the MiG-29 Fulcrums, fell in on the aging National Guard planes. It didn’t matter whether he worried about it or not—he needed every fighter he could get.

The real “flying circus” atmosphere on the base was brought on not by the USAF planes, diverse as they were; but by the incredible assortment of NATO aircraft assembled at Rota for the final push. Almost every member nation’s planes were represented on the field, and some of the southern flank countries had transferred their
entire
air forces of Jones’s direct command at Rota.

The remainder of the Spanish Air Force was now there: Some US-built F-5s, and a dozen older F-4 Phantom IIs, as well as some stripped-down French Mirage IIIs and its later F-1 derivative. Even more basic was the tiny Portuguese contingent, flying an odd combination of subsonic A-7 Corsair IIs and stubby G-91s, a 1960s lightweight fighter of Italian design.

The Italians themselves had a few planes at Rota, although most of their air forces were still based in Northern Italy or deployed in the Med. About twenty of the diminutive G-91s, two squadrons of F-104G Starfighters, and several dozen F-104S versions, built by the Italians themselves, were sent to help with the fighter sweep. Their pointed fuselages and very short, thin wings, combined with a higher than average accident rate, had earned the Starfighter the nickname “Manned Missile.”

Unfortunately for Jones, the Italians had already lost most of their Tornado interceptors over Germany, and had insisted on keeping the remaining squadron for the defense of Rome.

The Greeks, in an unusual show of cooperation with NATO, had seen fit to send most of their surviving planes. Much of their frontline air strength had been lost during a clash near the Bulgarian border. But there were still more Starfighters, some A-7 Corsair strike planes, two full squadrons of F-5 Tigers, and a handful of Mirage F-Is. Jones, knowing his history lessons well, had wisely separated the Greek pilots from the Turks, who also sent a contingent.

Turkey had the dubious distinction of the oldest aircraft on the flightline at Rota, a collection of ancient F-100 Super Sabres. These North American swept-wing jets were the first mass-produced interceptors to go supersonic, but they dated back to the early 1950s. At least the rest of the Turks’ planes were somewhat newer: two squadrons of F-5s, some more mature F-4Cs, and whatever Starfighters hadn’t already been shot down by the faster MiG-23s and -21s of the Soviet’s southern air defense division.

Of all the NATO partners, it had been the Germans who had taken the brunt of the Soviet air assault, both on the ground and in the treacherous skies over Germany.

Dueling with the speedy Fulcrums and Flankers of the Soviet’s front line squadrons, the pilots of the Luftwaffe had used their Tornado GR.3s, F-4 Phantom IIs, and even the aging F-104G Starfighters with skill against the newer Russian jets, holding their own in dogfights and on strike missions.

But the overwhelming numerical superiority of the enemy was too much to handle, and, for the second time in the century, the Luftwaffe had been whittled away to a shell of its former self. Most of the Tornados that remained after the airfields were overrun had been ferried to England; only a handful of German F-4s and Starfighters were now on the field at Rota.

The French had the biggest contingent of modern aircraft, next to the US planes. The advancing Soviet forces were within striking distance of most of their home bases from the fighting front in Belgium, so most of the
Armee de la Air
jet fighters had been split up. Half were sent to Rota in the south, the other half to the NATO air base at Lakenheath in southern England.

At Rota, there was a full squadron of the new Mirage 2000s; as well as almost a full wing of Mirage F-1s; some older Mirage IIIs; and a handful of British-built Jaguar GR.1 interceptors.

Although the French forces weren’t under Jones’s direct command, their Air Force Chief of Staff had agreed to participate in the Chain Lightning fighter sweep, and Jones was glad for the help. Rather predictably, the French had come in late to the war. But as soon as they saw the Red Army’s murderous advance through Germany, they had thrown the full weight of their ground forces into the battle.

The rest of the assembled airplanes at Rota were the scraps and loose ends left from the hundreds of missions flown during the first days of ferocious fighting that had taken place on the continent. Here was a group of sturdy British Buccaneer low-level interceptors that had run out of fuel over France and been abruptly reassigned to Rota; there were some British Jaguars from the Gibraltar base. A Dutch Starfighter. A Canadian F-18. Four French Super-Entendard fighters stranded when their carrier went down in the Med. A pair of Danish Saab Viggens from God-knows-where.

And all of them were gassing and arming up for the big fighter sweep.

It truly
is
a flying circus, thought Hunter as he sat in the cockpit of his all-white replacement F-16, watching the various aircraft take off from Rota’s six active runways. “A Goddamn
three-ring
circus.”

The question was, could NATO keep it flying long enough to do any good?

Several hundred of the NATO aircraft were already airborne and widely circling the base. By Hunter’s count, there was one airplane taking off every 12 seconds from each of the six runways. At that rate, and barring the ever-present danger of mid-air collision, it would take close to an hour to get all 800 airplanes in the air.

Per plan, the 16th TFW was scheduled to take off toward the end of the massive launch. Yet Hunter wondered if the Rota ground crews would make it that far. Already the strain on them was past the breaking point. In the past 24 hours, they had been called on to service the 800 allied fighters that had crowded Rota’s hangars, shops, and runways. Aircraft from ten nations’ air forces, in various states of repair, with different fuel, ammunition, and maintenance requirements. And there were not nearly enough trained mechanics to do the job.

Hunter was sure it was similar in other places as well. Rota was just one of four NATO bases—two others were in England, the third in Holland—where aircraft participating in Chain Lightning were based.

It was strangely ironic, Hunter thought as he continued the preflight activities, that after all the specialized training and practice and general screwing around, it would all come down to this: one last cavalry charge in the air. Almost 2000 NATO aircraft in the sky at one time, trying to draw out the enemy.

But Hunter knew the most important question of all: Would the Soviets take the bait?

His thoughts were broken by the appearance of his ground crew chief and real-life guardian angel, Blue.

“Good luck up yonder, Captain,” the southerner drawled, “and let’s try to bring this one back in one piece, OK?”

“It’s a deal,” Hunter said, shaking hands with the man.

Then suddenly, almost as an afterthought, the flight mechanic asked: “Do you think we have a chance, sir?”

From all the activity at the field, everyone from the pilots to the cooks knew that some kind of final push was on.

Yet the question almost stunned Hunter, not so much that Blue had asked it, but more in
how
he asked it. The pilot was silent for a moment, studying the crowded clusters of gauges and readouts on his cockpit console, yet not really seeing them. He was thinking about how he had asked the very same question of Jones earlier in the day during their discussion about Chain Lightning and Operation Rolling Thunder. That talk had been between two people who would participate in the upcoming battle and who would know whether it was a success or a failure almost immediately. The question from Hunter had actually been an inquiry about the logistics, the tactics, the
basics
of the upcoming mission.

But Blue’s question was different. He, and the other base support personnel, had no other choice than to stay behind and await the outcome. It would be an agonizing long vigil. And in that moment, it seemed to Hunter that the totally-unassuming Blue suddenly represented freedom-loving peoples everywhere. What will happen? Will the plan work?
Do you think we have a chance?

Hunter gave an answer in a measured, yet determined voice.

“Blue, take it from a betting man: this plan has about a one in a thousand chance of coming off,” he said. “It’s a long shot. The
longest
…. But somehow, we’ll make it work …”

Blue’s face fairly drained of all color. He wasn’t expecting such a frank reply from the pilot.

“But don’t worry, friend,” Hunter continued. “I promise you, my wheels will be down and locked when I come back this time. Save the happy foam for the Frenchies, OK?”