Target: Point Zero (36 page)

The crew of
Black Eyes
began broadcasting a Mayday call back to Da Nang immediately—but this was just procedure, a quick emergency call to give last position and location before disaster hit. They were still two hundred fifty miles from the mainland. There was no way the C-5 could outrun the long-range “smart” missile or attempt any radical maneuvering to throw it off course. There were four enormous engines burning bright under the monsterous cargo plane’s wings and the MSAAM was a heat-seeker. The chances were very good that it would search for the big plane all over the sky, and when found, it would kill it.

But Crunch couldn’t let that happen.

So he, too, made a very hasty report back to Da Nang, men switched over to a local frequency and called down to the
Black Eyes.

“Get down to the deck and stay there, no matter what,” he told the pilots.

With that, he turned his RF-4X around and began heading right for the oncoming missile.

The crew of
Black Eyes
obeyed Crunch’s order immediately.

No sooner had the Phantom pilot signed off when the pilot of the huge radar ship pushed his steering column practically down to the floor and put the big plane into a heartstopping dive.

Down they went, nearly straight down, through thirty-five thousand feet, thirty. Twenty-seven. Twenty-five.

Their evasion maneuver was so sharp and so steep, the crew inside the C-5 became momentarily weightless—just like on the old astronaut-training airplanes known as Vomit Comets. Only after the big cargo plane went down past twelve thousand feet did the pilots begin trying to get it back. With hundreds of tons of plummeting airplane on their hands, it took all their strength to pull the Galaxy out of its murderous dive. They did finally level her off around eight hundred fifty feet. They’d been going close to three hundred twenty knots on the way down—another few seconds and they would have plowed into the sea.

But no sooner did they straighten out when they realized they had stumbled into yet another precarious position, one that quickly became much more dangerous than the pursuing antiaircraft missile.

Incredibly, they had come down practically on top of a formation of airplanes that had so far escaped their detection, but who were obviously heading for the same rendezvous point as the oncoming fighters and paradrop planes.

This third formation was made up of six C-123 “Providers,” two-engine cargo planes from the first Vietnam era. Looking like a smaller brother to the more famous, four-engine C-130 Hercules, these six particular Providers were not in the business of carrying cargo. They’d been reconditioned into gunships, the latest fad among many former cargo-fliers these days. Each airplane had three Vulcan cannons sticking out of the left-wing side, with a swing gun poking out of its right.

It was obvious that these airplanes had been listening in on the attempted attack of the C-5. In fact, they’d been waiting down here just a few feet above the sea for it to appear.

Now that it had, they pounced. Two of the gunships banked inward and positioned themselves about fifty feet off the C-5’s right wing. Immediately both planes opened up with cannon fire—six individual streams of tracers leapt out at the radar plane, scoring many direct hits in the blink of an eye. The C-5 crew frantically began rocking its wings—but at this low altitude the big airplane had no power for any evasive maneuvering. After having lost all its energy in the maddening dive, the C-5 was just barely crawling along now, lucky to be making one hundred fifty knots. This was perfect for the relatively-speedy, stripped-down C-123s. Boldly, their guns still blazing, they moved in even closer to the flailing C-5. Now more than half their rounds were tearing into the side of the big plane.

Then two more Providers moved in off
Black Eyes’
left wing. Though they were only able to fire their single right-side swing gun, these two were slightly above and slightly ahead of the struggling Galaxy, directing their cannons down onto of the C-5’s flight deck itself.

Now the two remaining gunships decided to join the action. They took up positions below and behind the Galaxy’s left tail and began pouring fire into the big plane’s starboard engines.

Throughout all this, a kind of controlled panic was taking place inside the G-5. Those crewmen not already dead or wounded were hastily shutting down all unnecessary systems even as barrage after barrage of cannon fire ripped through the airplane’s hull. Many were climbing into survival suits and grabbing their parachutes, though they knew bailing out was hardly an option. They were so close to the top of the water now, there was no way they could expect a parachute to open quickly enough to save them.

In the end, they had no more choices, other than to cover themselves and await the end.

So onward the C-5 flew, not two hundred fifty feet above the sea, the six airplanes surrounding it, guns blazing, and slowly but surely moving in for the kill.

Meanwhile, Crunch had doubled back and was now tracking the oncoming antiaircraft missile with his long-range optical weapons detection system.

Having no way of knowing whether the C-5 had managed to get down to the bottom fast enough to lose the deadly MSAAM, he had to assume that they hadn’t.

This meant he would have to try and destroy the missile himself.

Trying to shoot a missile out of the air was not an exacting science. But Crunch had learned a few tricks in his years of air combat. He knew that the MSAAM, while sophisticated, was nevertheless no better than its “smart” guidance system and its heat-seeker. To wit, any kind of warm target would do, whether it be the hot engines on a C-5 or on a Phantom.

He picked up the missile visually at about ten miles out. It was clipping along at two hundred fifty knots, its nose wavering a bit as it flew, as if it were trying to sniff out the big C-5. Crunch immediately put his Phantom into a steep dive, crossing in front of the missile’s path at about five miles out. The MSAAM’s warhead reacted exactly as he’d hoped—it abandoned the scent for the C-5 and locked onto his own engine exhaust instead.

Crunch kept diving. Every warning light in his cockpit went off at once, screaming that he had a deadly missile on his tail. He hastily made it down to eleven thousand feet where he pushed the control column to the left and twisted his air truck off at a very sharp angle.

The missile turned with him, but lost about half its energy doing so, again just as he’d hoped. The MSAAM was still in hot pursuit, still hungry for a kill—but doing so at half speed.

Crunch turned over again and put the Phantom into an all-out power climb, twisting a half dozen times as he zoomed back up through twenty-five angels. The missile adjusted and climbed with him, but it was now down to forty percent power. Still deadly, it was also fading fast.

Crunch reached thirty-two thousand, then tipped the big Phantom over for a third time. The MSAAM adjusted at around twenty-nine, but by this time, it was almost out of gas. Crunch simply went flaps-down, drastically slowing his speed and ripping seven gs throughout his body. He blacked out—but only momentarily. When he came to, the MSAAM was about two thousand yards off his nose, and barely making sixty knots.

Calmly, coolly, Crunch let go one of his four Sidewinders. The missile caught the last residues of the MSAAM’s expended engine heat, zeroed in on it and hit it. There was a quick explosion—and then nothing but a ball of flame and smoke. When that cleared, all that remained was the microscopic debris of both missiles.

But Crunch would not have even a moment to celebrate. For no sooner had his missile destroyed the MSAAM when the Phantom’s cockpit warning lights began blinking again. He twisted around in his seat to see that two of the oncoming Tornados had pulled ahead of the main group and were now bearing down on him. Suddenly the sky was filled with long orange streaks of cannon fire. Crunch felt the rear of his big Phantom shudder once, twice, three times—reactions to long-range but direct cannon hits. He quickly began losing fuel and electrical power. A few seconds later, the Phantom became very hard to steer. He turned again to see the speedy Tornados pulling to within a mile of his suddenly crippled plane.

That’s when Crunch felt his heart sink to his boots.

Unlike the MSAAM, he knew it would impossible to lose these two guys.

Twenty-five thousand feet below and fifteen miles to the west, the C-5 named
Black Eyes
was still being battered by the C-123 gunships.

The radar plane’s starboard outer engine was now on fire; the inner right one was smoking heavily. The C-5’s cockpit was in a state of total confusion as many instruments had sparked out, causing acrid fumes to fill the compartment. Three crewmen were already dead, seven more were seriously injured. Most of the remaining crew was now huddled just below the flight deck, watching as barrage after barrage of heavy-duty rounds tore into their high tech airplane, and grimly awaiting the end. The ruthless attack was like trying to kill a whale with shotguns—it might take a long time, but eventually something vital would be hit and the airplane would crash into the sea.

Throughout all this, the pilots were madly sending out SOS calls to anyone in the area who could help them—but they knew any kind of assistance was just too far away. The C-5 was still struggling at around one hundred forty knots, having neither the power nor the altitude to break away from its attackers. If anything, the gunships became bolder, flying even closer to the dying giant, each one foolishly greedy in its effort to deliver the killing blow.

One particularly accurate barrage suddenly ripped through the cockpit, killing the copilot and the flight engineer. Now one of the C-123s was riding just above the nose of the C-5, tipped to the left and firing its three side guns directly into the flight deck. The C-5 shook once, lost about fifty feet in altitude in three seconds and began scraping its rear end along the top of the water. Only through herculian effort was the pilot able to pull the giant airplane back up to a relatively safe seventy-five feet.

But that’s when the inner left-side engine suddenly blew up, causing a deathly tremor to ring throughout the airplane. The gunships were closing in for the
coup de grace
now. The smoke was so thick inside the cockpit, those still alive could barely see anything out the windows.

In that moment, all of them believed a dark, violent, watery death was just seconds away.

How odd it was for them when all the firing stopped. The next thing the pilot knew, he was yanking the huge airplane to the left in order to avoid colliding with one of the C-123 gunships which was suddenly going down in front of them, totally engulfed in flames. The quick reaction from the C-5 pilot saved them from a midair collision. The C-123 hit the water so hard an instant later, it simply disintegrated on impact.

What happened?
No one on the C-5 knew. One moment the gunship was pounding them from above—the next it was on fire and plummeting into the sea. Not a second later, another of the gunships went into the water about five hundred feet off their starboard; it, too, was in flames. Then another exploded in midair just off their smoking right wing. It was so noisy inside the battered C-5 now it was almost impossible for those onboard to realize that no one was firing at them anymore.

Those who were able, dragged themselves up to the cockpit windows and tried looking out. But all they could see was smoke, water—and a fourth gunship going down in flames just below them.

“Jessuzz, what’s going on?” someone shouted as yet another gunship exploded close by, splattering them with thick, oily debris and further clouding their vision. Smartly, the pilot had pushed forward on all working throttles and the C-5 was able to gain another one hundred feet of precious altitude. Those looking out the windows saw the last C-123 trying to dash off to the east, its tail and right wing smoking wildly. It was suddenly engulfed in a cloud of red streaks—hundreds of points of tracer fire were perforating every square inch of its airframe. Then it, too, just blew up.

When the smoke from this cleared, there was hardly any wreckage of any size to fall into the water. The last gunship had been simply vaporized; only a few wisps of smoke remained.

Still flying practically blind, still dealing with massive damage to its fuselage, wings, engines and control systems, the C-5 nevertheless was able to gain another one hundred fifty feet and level itself out. No one onboard had any idea what happened—it had all gone by that quickly. But at least for the first time in nearly two hellish minutes, no one was trying to shoot them down.

Struggling for more altitude in the empty sky, they found themselves suddenly alone. Someone had shot down the six gunships—and it was certainly not Crunch’s Phantom.

So who was it then?

It would still be some time before they found out the answer to that question.

Crunch was dying.

The cockpit of his beloved RF-4X was shattered. Nearly all his controls had been shot away, and those that were still working were blinking out one at a time. His radios were kaput, his oxygen supply was gone, his electrical power was draining away. The control surfaces on his left wing had been torn to pieces; his starboard engine had long ago flamed out. There was a hole the size of a fist in his canopy; the cannon shell that had created it was now lodged in Crunch’s right shoulder. There was blood everywhere. He was numb on the entire right side of his body.

He’d been tangling with the pair of Tornados for nearly five minutes now, probably four-and-a-half minutes longer than it should have taken for them to shoot him down. They were, in effect, playing with him. Like cats taunting a mouse before finally killing it, the Tornados were making long sweeping passes at him, firing off short bursts from their massive nose cannons, picking off the important parts of his airplane, one at a time.

Crunch had tried every evasive maneuver in the book for the first couple of minutes—climbing, diving, twisting, turning. But in the end, none of them made any difference. The Tornados were generations ahead of the venerable Phantom. With their powerful engines, and their high tech, variable sweep wings, they could literally fly circles around the old Rhino. Crunch had somewhat pathetically fired off his three remaining Sidewinders at them; he actually saw one of the pilots laugh at him as he streaked by after nimbly avoiding one of the failed missiles.