The Warbirds (38 page)

“Roger, Zero-One. No more inbounds at this time,” the tower confirmed.

Waters threw the mike back into the pickup. “Three missing…”

Sooner’s voice came over the radio. “Good afternoon, Rats Tower. Declaring an emergency at this time, I’ll be taking the barrier.”

Jack caught the cool detached tone. Sooner playing the macho fighter pilot in charge of the situation.

“State your emergency,” the tower replied.

“Rog tower. Smoke and fumes in the cockpit, rear canopy jettisoned. Utility hydraulic pressure out, left-hand generator out, bus tie open, numerous holes in the aircraft, loud complaints from the wizzo.”

Jack noted that Waters was not reassured by Sooner’s black humor. He picked up his mike, mashed the transit button. “Sooner, this is Zero-One, recommend ejection.”

“All the same to you, Boss, I’ll give this one back to Maintenance.” It was the reply Jack would have made. “Blowing gear down, now.”

“Sooner, your right main gear did not come down,” the wingman radioed.

“Rog, no big deal, I was taking the barrier away.”

Waters ran his mental checklist of what systems Sooner had lost; no anti-skid, no nose-gear steering, no after
burner ignition.
It was too much.
“Sooner, this is Waters, deep six that puppy, we don’t need it.”

“No sweat, Boss,” Sooner said, starting his approach.

They watched as the Phantom touched down, a perfect five hundred feet short of the arresting cable, holding the right wing up. Sooner lowered the nose gear onto the runway short of the cable, just as the emergency procedures for the F-4 called for. And they watched in horror as the nose gear collapsed, knowing what would happen next. The Phantom bounced onto its nose and ground-looped into the right wing, skidding over the cable toward the edge of the runway. The crash trucks were already moving with Doc Landis in the ambulance close behind. The aircraft’s nose buried itself in the dirt and the fighter pitched onto its back, kicking up a shower of dirt as it skidded to a halt.

Waters swung his binoculars onto the cockpit of the upside-down plane. He saw no smoke or flames. A silver-suited crash-and-rescue fireman ran up to the rear cockpit, which was missing its canopy, and threw himself on the ground, reaching in, unstrapping the wizzo. Flames started to engulf the aircraft as he pulled the backseater out and dragged him to Doc Landis. Another fireman was trying to break through the front canopy.

The crash truck pushed against a wing tip in an attempt to raise the bird off its back so the fireman could pop the front canopy and release Sooner, directing its water cannon onto the fuselage, trying to extinguish the building flames. Another crash truck arrived and directed its water cannon onto the fireman but had to play back to the other truck to cool it. They could see Sooner trying to break through the canopy with a canopy knife as the flames mushroomed over the two trucks, and engulfed the fighter. Waters watched the trucks back away, cannons spraying, as the lone fireman ran out of the flames.

Waters smashed his fist into the pickup’s door. “Overconfidence, damn overconfidence…”

And a sickening feeling of responsibility ate at Jack as Sooner burned…Was he the one who had taught Sooner overconfidence…?

The C-141’s engines were still spinning down when the forward hatch opened and Brigadier General John Shaw jumped down onto the ramp at Ras Assanya, somehow managing to shake Waters’ hand, shove his flight cap on and return the salute. “Welcome to Rats Ass, John,” Waters said, glad to see his old friend. “How’s Beth?” The two spent a few moments trading more small talk, postponing the reason for the general’s visit.

“Beth’s fine, enjoying the auld sod. Got a letter for you from Sara. That what you’re calling this place, Rats Ass?”

“One of our wizzos in his cups came up with it at the O’ Club and it sort of stuck,” Waters said, tucking the letter in a pocket for reading later when he could savor it in private.

“You’ve got an Officers’ Club here with booze?” the general asked. “I thought the Saudis wouldn’t permit any alcoholic beverages in the country.”

“They ignore it. We’re just across the border from Kuwait and pretty much isolated. The Kuwaitis and Saudis contracted with an English firm to build the base for the Rapid Deployment Force, but neither of them wanted it in their own country. The Kuwaitis didn’t because they’re worried about having more foreigners in Kuwait. They’ve been outnumbered by foreign workers for years and are sensitive about it. The Saudis wanted it in Kuwait to keep foreign influence and ideas out of their country. Of course, foreign arms are another thing. They compromised by ignoring the border. The Saudi border post is located on the coast road south of the base, and the Kuwaiti post ten miles north of us. We’re sort of like a no man’s land.”

“Sounds like an Arab-type solution, all right,” Shaw said, and turned to the reason for his visit. “This has to be fast. MAC’s holding the C-141 for me and I’ve got to get to JUSMAG in Dhahran for a conference about the wing’s stand-down from flying combat missions. But I wanted to talk to you first and see the place for myself.”

Waters bundled the general into his pickup and gave him a quick tour of the base as they drove to the COIC. Shaw waited until they were inside the COIC before going into the stand-down. “Cunningham called yesterday about the President ordering a stand-down from combat. Con
gress is putting him under a lot of pressure to withdraw from the Gulf area and wants to implement the Emergency War Powers Act if we hang around. They also like to believe the Iran-Iraq war is really over. Sure, like Israel and the PLO are ready to kiss and make up. There has also been a strong reaction in the press because of your losses. Some are claiming we’re getting our butts kicked…”

“We’ve taken some hard hits on these targets.” Waters was leaning over a map, pointing out the targets they had hit. “But look at the results. Intel says the pressure is off the UAC and that the PSI is forced to regroup. And supposedly the Soviets aren’t coming through with the resupply the PSI is crying for.” Waters spread in front of the general the reccy photos that chronicled the destruction of the convoy. “We only got half our birds on target before we had to cut and run when MiGs jumped us. We still managed to pulverize the first half of the convoy and broke up any attempt to reinforce the Strait of Hormuz…And check this out.” Waters handed him the photos confirming the BDA of the mission Jack had planned. “Those six targets were totally destroyed. That mission took the pressure off Basra. John, we’re doing what we came to do.”

“But the
cost
, Muddy. We can’t sustain that. Ten aircraft in two weeks. That’s an overall attrition rate of over five percent. And the rate is increasing. And you’ve lost thirteen men. That generates too much heat for the politicians to take—”

“Like the Marines in Beirut,” Waters broke in, bitterness in his voice. “A suicide terrorist blows up their barracks and kills almost two hundred and fifty Marines and the U.S. bails out. Their sacrifice is for nothing.” Waters was standing over the table, leaning on his arms, head bowed. “These casualties hurt.” He looked up, masking his deeper feelings. “John, can you get a waiver on the restriction against wing commanders flying in combat? I can’t keep asking my men to do something I’m not allowed to do.”

Shaw nodded, understanding Waters’ dilemma.

“If we can get a dedicated CAP or even fly our own CAP,” Waters added, “we can cut our loss rate and do what we were sent here for.”

“Muddy, there’s no way the UAC is going to let you fly your own CAP. You know that. They claim that’s the purpose of
their
Air Force. There’s a lot of Arab ego tied into that decision…What’s wrong with the CAP they’re flying?”

“They’re airborne, but they won’t go into SAM envelopes or escort us in. If we can get the Floggers off our back we can suppress the SAMs and Triple A. Jack Locke has worked out a way to hit the Gomers without a CAP and avoid getting plastered. We need to change the way we’re fragged though. Interested?”

“Locke, huh? Okay, let’s talk to your tiger and see what he has.”

“What abut the C-141? I thought it had to get going,” Waters asked.

“One of the nice things about being a general, Muddy, is that the plane will wait.”

Jack, Thunder and Carroll clustered around the flight-planning table briefing Shaw on Jack’s idea for a Wolf Flight. “General, I’m proposing we launch sorties at night to hit targets not heavily defended. We run against them in flights of two at low level and beat feet if the threat gets too hot. That’s it.”

Shaw was surprised at the simplicity of Jack’s plan. “How do you know which targets aren’t defended?”

Carroll picked it up. “We get reconnaissance photos of the area every afternoon. We can pinpoint the latest location of the SAMs and Triple A. The PSI only has so many SAMs and can’t cover every target. We pick a target they aren’t defending and plan a low-level to it around the known defenses. The RHAW gear on the F-4s can warn our crews if unexpected defenses start to pop up and we abort the mission.”

“I see you let their last defense posture determine which targets you pick—at the last minute.” The general thought for a moment about Waters wanting to change the way they were ordered into combat. “You need a list of approved targets to pick from, not a detailed frag order.”

“There’s another reason,” Carroll said. “They were waiting for us at the convoy. I don’t know how they knew.
maybe dumb luck. They might have psyched out our method of selecting targets—we’ve been going after big stuff. I don’t know, maybe an intelligence leak. Also, no matter how we try to keep our communications down, that Soviet trawler offshore can monitor us as we load out and broadcast early warnings. We know it radios our launch times. As long as it’s in International Waters, we can’t do a damn thing.”

“So you do surprise launches any time during the night.” Shaw was almost sold. “What about the MiGs?” Jack allowed a grin. “The PSI has piss-poor GCI coverage. They’ll never find us rooting around in the mud at night. Besides, I don’t think your average PSI Flogger driver has the
cajones
to come down into the weeds at night and mix it up with a Phantom. General, Thunder claims we can do the low levels. I think we deserve a chance to nail the bastards.”

“So do I, Jack. You three get packed, you’re coming with me to a conference at JUSMAG. We’ve got some convincing to do…Muddy, Chief Pullman is going crazy at Stonewood with nothing to do. Mind if I use him until you get back?”

Waters agreed, knowing well that inactivity was the one thing Pullman could not handle.

Shaw pulled a memo out of his briefcase while they waited for the men to return. “I’ve got a nitpicker from Third Air Force for you.” The general, it seemed, had come to Ras Assanya for another reason. As director of personnel for Third Air Force he was carefully appraising Waters, looking for signs of physical exhaustion and, more importantly, emotional fatigue. “Plans and Intel claims your use of tactical call signs is giving away too much info. They’ve ordered you to stop them and use the variable call signs assigned in the frag order.” He waited to see how Waters would react.

Annoyance and amusement flashed in Waters’ brown eyes. “Tell Blevins we tried that and can’t make it work. We’ll do it if someone will come out here, fly a few combat missions and show us how it’s done. Maybe Blevins would like to volunteer. What we’re doing works well and I can’t see fixing something that isn’t broke. But like I say,
I’m always amenable to someone leading a combat sortie and showing us a better way.”

“I’ll be pleased to relay that message, Muddy.” Shaw smiled. Both loathed Blevins. “Who do you want to replace Tom?” he asked, easing into a more touchy subject, still evaluating Waters’ reactions.

Waters kept his emotions under tight rein. “Steve Farrell, the 377th squadron commander. I want to give C. J. Conlan the 377th.”

In spite of the man’s fatigue, Shaw decided, Colonel Waters was firmly in control of himself and his wing. But Shaw also knew the intense pressure and burden of responsibility for leading a wing in combat would eventually take its toll, and his friend Muddy would inevitably start to make mistakes. Once a wing was committed to combat, it turned into a machine that consumed people for its fuel. Its commander became the driving force behind it, pumping his people into the maw of war, in large part determining who survived. It was a hellish burden that few sane men could carry for long.

17 July: 2245 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 2245 hours. Over the Atlantic Ocean

Most of the passengers of this flight back to Washington were asleep on the Boeing C-137B, the version of the 707 the Air Force used for hauling VIPs. Cunningham sat alone in the rear compartment, enjoying the solitude and the comfort of the big leather armchair. Smoke filled the air as he puffed on one of the fine cigars that Ruth had found for him in London. Probably a Havana with its label removed. Just like Ruth, she does spoil me. He checked the sleeping compartment to see if she was sleeping comfortably. His wife had never been able to rest on protocol trips like the one they were returning from and he worried about her health. He watched her sleep, curled up in the middle of the bed, quietly closed the door and returned to the armchair.

As he turned his attention to the rough draft of a proposal John Shaw had given him in London, he thought of an ambassador’s daughter, Abigail, who had cornered him
at an embassy reception in London and asked if he knew a Lieutenant Jack Locke, an F-4 pilot. The young lady, more out of her dress than in it, though within the limits set by the latest style, had more than a passing interest in the pilot. He told her he did know the lieutenant, who was currently with the 45th Tactical Fighter Wing at Ras Assanya on the Persian Gulf. She was impressed with
him
that he knew about a lieutenant and told him so, and a fleeting image of what the young lady might look like without clothes brushed his consciousness, a diversion he didn’t much indulge in these days. Well, fighter pilots will be fighter pilots, he told himself, remembering his days in F-86s when the world…never mind the world…when he was young.