The Last Phoenix (20 page)

Over the Philippine Sea,

Wednesday, September 29

This isn’t as easy as it used to be,
Pontowski thought as he crawled into the seat next to the boomer in the refueling capsule of the KC-10. Jet lag was taking a fearsome toll, and he wasn’t sleeping well. He slipped on the headset and settled into the comfortable seat next to the boom operator. The three seats were a far cry from the narrow pit where the boom operator lay in the older KC-135 for refueling. The protective shield over the view port was open, and he could see eight Warthogs, four on each side, flying in a loose formation. Far below him puffy clouds dotted the blue Pacific. “How’s it going?” he asked.

“Not bad,” the boomer replied. “The KC-135 from Okinawa was on station as planned. Mindanao coming under the nose in a few minutes.” Pontowski felt the tension ease a bit. The one KC-10 and three KC-135s escorting his twenty A-10s did not carry quite enough fuel to refuel the Hogs for the entire leg, and they had to make a midocean rendezvous with an additional tanker. While it sounded simple, it was anything but. Pontowski dozed.

On the face of it the deployment from Kelly Field in Texas had gone smoothly enough. Pontowski and eighty others had boarded the KC-10 the Air Force had laid on to
serve as a mother ship for the deployment and launched with the Hogs on Sunday morning. They rendezvoused with four more tankers and flew to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, a flight of eight and a half hours.

On Monday morning the twenty Hogs and the KC-10 had taken off from Hickam, again rendezvoused with four KC-135s, and flown nine and a half hours to Guam. But thanks to crossing the International Dateline, they had landed on Tuesday. Now they were on the last leg, an eight-hour hop to Malaysia. On its own, the KC-10 could have made it in much less time, but the Warthogs did nothing fast.

The boomer’s voice brought him back to life. “Steamer One, you’re cleared to precontact.” Steamer One was the call sign for Bag, the flight lead for Steamer flight, the formation on the right. Bag slid into close trail. The boomer cleared Bag into position, and he moved smoothly under the KC-10’s tail. The boomer guided the flying boom and hooked up on the first try. Bag’s Hog never moved as he took on five thousand pounds of fuel. “Very nice,” the boomer said over the intercom.

Indeed it is,
Pontowski thought.
How old is Bag now? Forty?
He couldn’t remember.
He’s changed since Africa.
The pilot had been a captain on the peacekeeping mission to Africa, full of life and dedicated to the pursuit of women and the search for the perfect beer. During a stopover on that deployment, he and six other Hog pilots had set a new record on the island of Saint Helena for beer consumption and had been arrested by the local constabulary. The governor of the island had ordered the police to make sure they departed the next day, never to return. But four lovely young ladies had come to see them off with flowers and tears.

Pontowski hit the transmit button. “Bag, how did it go last night?” He expected to hear a tale of debauchery and consumption to rival the Saint Helena episode. Whether it was true or not didn’t matter—it was the image that counted.

“Hit the sack early,” Bag replied.

“Hair not on fire?” Pontowski asked.

Another voice answered. “Naw. He burnt it off years ago.”

“Flying for the airlines does that to you,” a second voice said.

The years tame us all,
Pontowski thought. Maturity had its own demands, and the airlines paid much better. Like most of the pilots, Bag hadn’t flown an A-10 in over two years. But no fighter jock really wanted to be an airline pilot, and after four flights and hitting the books for a few days, he was back in the groove, more than ready to ferry a Hog across the Pacific. Steamer flight cycled smoothly on and off the boom, proof positive that they hadn’t lost the old skills.

Maggot’s four aircraft, Bruiser flight, were next. “Clear Waldo on first,” Maggot radioed. “Higher fuel consumption.”

Pontowski watched as Waldo moved into the precontact position. “He’s not trimmed up,” the boomer said.

It was true; the A-10 appeared to be in a skid. “Waldo,” Pontowski said over the radio, “say problem.”

“This Hog’s a real pig. It’s out of rig.”

A voice that sounded suspiciously like Bag said, “You pranged it, you fly it.”

Waldo was flying the jet he had dumped on the runway, and the other pilots were not about to let him forget it. “Hey, meathead,” Waldo shot back, “I got it down.”

“One of your better landings,” another pilot observed.

“Landing, hell,” another voice said. “That was supposed to be a touch-and-go.”

Pontowski grinned.
Some things never change.
There was no doubt in his mind that the AVG was going to do just fine.
Thanks for making it happen, Maggot. I can’t do this without you. But who would have ever thought it would be you?
How many times had he seen it happen when a young and superb pilot—but all stick and balls, no forehead—matured into a leader men would follow into combat? Was this the same Maggot who bet that he could eat an oyster without its touching his lips or tongue and then won the wager by sniffing the oyster up his nose? Or during a flyby at a football game really took it low, thrilling the crowd?
You drove me crazy! How ironic. I did the same to Jack Locke.
But when
the battle was joined and the odds overwhelming, Maggot was always there, ready to do what he did best—fly and fight.
You saved my ass in China, and now I’m going to risk yours. What gives me the right?
He would never find a satisfactory answer to that question.

“General Pontowski,” the KC-10 pilot called over the intercom, “we’ve got an incoming for you.” The KC-10 had recently been upgraded with a sophisticated communications suite that not only handled routine radio traffic over a broad bandwidth but also allowed encrypted message traffic, weather reports, and maps to be sent and received through an onboard computer and then printed out.

Pontowski heaved himself from his seat and worked his way forward, past the pallets of cargo and sleeping men. It hadn’t been the pilots who were partying on Guam. He stopped at the galley in the area aft of the flight deck. Rockne was standing by a window deep in thought. “How’s it going, Chief?”

“Problems. I talked to Colonel Clark on the phone while we were at Guam. She’s worried about security when the A-10s land. I’ve only got thirty cops with us. I’ve been promised a mobility team of four flights plus a headquarters element—max of a hundred eighty-nine people—with an officer in charge. But I haven’t got a clue when they’ll arrive.”

Pontowski thought for a moment. “We’ll have to use maintenance troops until they get here.”

Rockne was appalled. “Give a wrench bender a weapon and he’ll shoot his foot off.”

“You’ve got fifty or so bodies on board you can use,” Pontowski told him. “We land in four hours. Make something happen.” Rockne jerked his head yes. It was exactly the type of challenge he loved.

Pontowski went forward to the flight deck, and the copilot handed him the hard copy of the message addressed to him. It was from the NMCC and very short. When the American Volunteer Group crossed 125 degrees east longitude, they were chopped (change in command) to South East Asia Treaty Organization. However, as the commander of the
MAAG, Pontowski was to maintain operational control of the aircraft at all times.

He scratched his head.
How in the hell am I supposed to make that happen?

Camp Alpha

Wednesday, September 29

Janice Clark was waiting on the parking ramp when Pontowski climbed down from the KC-10. She made a mental note to get boarding stairs; one more item in the long list of what they needed to make the base more efficient. “Missy Colonel,” her driver said, “he is a general.” The man had simply confirmed what she already knew—Pontowski looked like a general. His jungle fatigues fitted his lanky frame perfectly. He jammed a dark green beret with SEAC’s badge over his close-cropped hair as he walked toward her. His slight limp added to the image.

It’s a good thing I’m happily married,
Clark thought. She walked out to meet him. Much to her surprise, her driver trailed along. She snapped a salute. “Welcome to Alpha,” she said. Her driver was also trying to salute, his hand against his forehead in the British way, his mouth open.

Pontowski waved a salute back. “Glad to be here.” He checked his watch. “The jets are right behind us. We came on ahead after the last refueling to get the crew chiefs on the ground and let a KC-135 bring them in.” He pointed to the west. “There they are.” A KC-135 flew by at twenty-five hundred feet and turned away, its mission complete. Two miles behind, the first flight of four A-10s flew down final, level at fifteen hundred feet. They smoothly echeloned to the left, each slightly behind the other. Farther to the south, four more A-10s came into view. “Got all twenty,” Pontowski told her.

The three stood there as the flight crossed the approach end of the runway. “In the break…” Pontowski murmured. “Now.” On cue the flight lead pitched out to the right and
circled to land. At exactly five-second intervals his flight pitched out in order. Clark glanced at Pontowski and caught the satisfied look on his face as the fighters lowered their gear and flaps to land at three-thousand-foot intervals. It was a classic overhead recovery, the way fighters recovered from combat. She smiled at her driver, who was transfixed by the sight. All around them the ramp was alive with activity, crew chiefs hurrying to marshal their charges in and a crew offloading the KC-10. The first four jets cleared the runway as the second flight of four approached for an overhead recovery.

“What a sight,” Clark said. The third flight came into view. “They do look good.”

“Good enough,” Pontowski allowed. His eyes narrowed in recognition of the first aircraft as it taxied in.
That’s Bag. Maggot should have landed first.
He shrugged it off. One of Bag’s flights was probably low on fuel, and Maggot had changed the landing order. No big deal.

“It’s too bad no one’s here to see this,” Clark told him. Now the fourth flight was in sight.

It doesn’t matter,
Pontowski thought.
The jocks know.
Suddenly the tension was back as the fifth flight came into view. There were only two aircraft. “I need to talk to the tower,” Pontowski said, his voice calm.

Clark turned to her driver to tell him to get the minivan with its radio. But he was already running for the van. She shook her head. “He’s never moved that fast before.” In less than a minute he drove up and handed Pontowski the mike, its cord stretched out the window.

“Tower,” Pontowski radioed, “this is Bossman. Say status of last flight.” His eyes were fixed on the horizon, looking for the two missing aircraft.

“Bossman,” the tower answered, “Bruiser Three and Four are in the pattern now. One and Two are five minutes out.” Bruiser Three and Four were the second element in Maggot’s flight. Maggot was Bruiser One, and Waldo was Bruiser Two. “Bruiser Two reports partial hydraulic failure,” the tower reported.

“It figures,” Pontowski said to himself. He keyed the radio. “Have they declared an emergency?”

“Negative,” the tower replied. “Precautionary landing only.”

Now they had to wait. Clark saw the two aircraft first. “There,” she said. One of the aircraft was trailing smoke.

“That’s Waldo,” Pontowski muttered.

Clark took the mike. “Tower, scramble the crash trucks. I want to use this as practice.” She handed the mike to the driver. “We’ve got a new crash-response team from Singapore. I hope they’re better.”

“Better than what?” Pontowski asked. He walked toward the runway.

“What was here before,” she answered. Two crash trucks and an ambulance roared out of the trees, lights flashing, and stopped short of the runway. “Much better,” she announced.

Pontowski walked with measured steps back to Clark’s minivan, his eyes locked on the landing aircraft. As expected, Waldo landed first as Maggot flew a loose formation, escorting him down. Pontowski opened the van door, ready to jump in. The driver, sensing the emergency, was already behind the wheel and starting the engine. Waldo made a smooth touchdown and rolled out. He turned off at midfield and taxied into the trees. “Let’s go howdy the man,” Pontowski said, meaning he wanted to find out what had happened. Clark jumped in, and they raced down the access road.

They reached the taxiway where Waldo was stopped and got out of the van. Waldo was still sitting in the cockpit, the canopy raised, talking to a crew chief who had climbed up the boarding steps. When Waldo saw Pontowski and Clark, he climbed down. When he reached the pavement, he dropped his helmet and spread his arms. “I have arrived. You may start the war.”

Pontowski shook his head. “You need a new line, Waldo,” he called.

Bonn, Germany

Wednesday, September 29

The dark gray Mercedes sedan drove through the Wednesday-evening traffic. In the backseat Mazie sat with her hands folded while Butler read a highly confidential dossier that should never have left the confines of the State Department. He was still getting up to speed on the situation. “Have you met von Lubeck before?” he asked.

“A few times,” she murmured, not willing to say more. She had dealt with Herbert von Lubeck numerous times and was apprehensive. Von Lubeck was a tall, handsome man in his early fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and penetrating blue eyes. On the face of it he was a minor functionary in the German government, the first secretary to the deputy minister for economic research and trapped in the old Cold War capital while the political action swirled in Berlin. But in reality he was a plenipotentiary with wide-ranging powers and influence in the German government. Von Lubeck preferred to remain in the shadows, but the knowledgeable knew that he was the man to see on truly important issues involving the German government. Supposedly only four people in the U.S. government knew who he really was, and Mazie was one of them. However, a fifth person now knew—Bernie Butler. But he would deny it with his last breath.