The Warbirds (17 page)

Landis fumbled with the switch on the small radio he
was carrying. “Check out the groups nearest you,” he told his medics. “Pass the word to bend their knees and wiggle their toes. Watch for signs of vertigo. Sweating is okay but get anyone to an aid station if they look dry and flushed; that’s heat stroke.” He walked around the block of men and women nearest him, chanting, “Bend them knees, wiggle them toes.”

When the order was given for the wing to pass in review, Landis keyed his radio, “We should be okay when they start moving.”

One by one the squadrons marched out in order, struggling through the first three turns. By the time they passed the reviewing stand most had managed to align their ranks, but it was still a pathetic demonstration. Morris’ temper built. After the last squadron had marched by, the new commander turned to the officers on the reviewing stand and ordered them to report to the O’ Club at 1800 hours.

Doc Landis keyed his radio, telling Goldman the parade was over. “Our troops did good. Only six casualties and not one case of heat stroke. Keep the faith; Colonel Shaw may be in luck. He won’t have to put up with Morris.”

Later that day slightly more than four hundred officers crowded into the Officers’ Club, answering the summons of their new commander. Doc Landis found a seat at the front of the room next to Mike Fairly and Jack Locke and introduced himself.

“Arrived two days ago,” Landis said. “I think I’m the flight surgeon for the 379th. Isn’t that your squadron?” Fairly nodded. “I’m looking forward to flying with you. I’ve never flown in a fighter before.”

Jack studied the flight surgeon, noting his new uniform and rank. An odd-looking duck, he thought. The doctor’s body was almost pear-shaped. His soft face, large brown eyes and gently curling brown hair made him look like a misshapen doll. The lieutenant doubted Landis would fly much beyond the minimum flight surgeons were required to fly.

“Seats, please, ladies and gentlemen,” Colonel Morris commanded as he entered and mounted the stage. “I’ve called you together so there will be no misunderstandings
about my policies. As your new commander I’m going to require that each of you lives up to the standards of professionalism the Air Force expects of its officers. What I saw yesterday and today does not impress me. We’ve got a long way to go. The 45th Tactical Fighter Wing may be basically sound, but it is unpolished. We are going to change that, starting now. For example, the standards of military dress and bearing on this base are the pits. You’ve all read Air Force Manual 35-10 on dress and appearance. Make your troops conform. I know tomorrow is Sunday, but I want this base to shine when we come to work on Monday. This base will be a home we can be proud of. The march-by this afternoon was the sloppiest I’ve ever seen. We are going to practice marching. Every Friday evening we’ll have a retreat ceremony in front of wing headquarters. The hospital tells me six airmen passed out on the ramp during the parade. That was due to poor physical conditioning. Get your people in shape. Questions?”

Landis looked around, decided to speak up. “Excuse me, sir, I’m Doc Landis, one of your flight surgeons. The reason those six airmen passed out on the ramp was heat prostration, not poor physical conditioning. Five of them are new to the base and not used to the heat, the other one has high blood pressure.”

Morris looked at the doctor, voice tight. “First, you are Lieutenant Colonel Landis, not ‘Doc’ You are not in a MASH outfit. Let’s cut the bullshit camaraderie. Second, I don’t argue with my officers.”

Landis kept his voice under control. “Sir, the sun and heat would argue with you,” and sat down. Jack decided that he’d misjudged the new doctor.

“Doctor,” Morris said, “I admire your concern for the men and women of this base. I share that concern. I also have a long memory.” He signaled his protocol officer to call the room to attention as he exited.

Fairly held out his hand to Landis. “Welcome to Alex South,
Doc
. I hope we can get a chance to see you around the squadron and get you hooked up on some flights.” They shook hands. “What do you think of our new commander?”

“Mike,” the doctor said, “if I were a shrink I’d say he
is scary, egotistical and ambitious. To use military jargon, I think you’d call him a ‘they.’ First one I’ve met…”

The next day Fairly and Locke were ordered to report to the wing commander’s office at 1400 hours. When they arrived they found a line waiting to see Morris, including Colonel Hawkins, the deputy for Operations and their immediate superior, who joined them as they entered Morris’s office.

“Let’s make this quick,” Morris said. “I’ve read the after-action report on the Grain King incident. It is not my intention to discuss the wisdom of engaging the MiGs. Too late for that. But one thing stands out. Stinger flight penetrated the Libyan border, which means one thing: you were lost. That is unacceptable and we are going to take corrective action. Lieutenant Locke, you were flight lead at the time of the penetration, so the responsibility falls on you and your WSO. Colonel Hawkins, what is the current flying status of Lieutenant Locke and Captain Bryant?” Spoken as if Jack wasn’t in the room.

“Locke has been checked out as a flight lead, and Bryant is an instructor WSO and the chief of the life-support section,” the DO answered, his lined and weathered face not revealing his inner rage at what Morris was doing.

“I see. For corrective action Lieutenant Locke is reduced to wingman status and is not a flight lead. He will reenter the checkout program to be upgraded to lead status,” Morris said, still ignoring Jack’s presence in the room. “Remove Bryant from instructor status and as chief of life support. Replace him with an officer capable of being both a WSO and in charge of a section.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Jack said. “Thunder…Captain Bryant…is an outstanding wizzo. The best I’ve ever flown with. He doesn’t deserve that. He was doing other things besides navigating during the engagement with the MiG—”

“Lieutenant Locke, I’ll excuse your lack of courtesy because of your rank. I will not excuse Captain Bryant’s poor airmanship. He was lost. I want pros on my team.”

“Sir, where I came from a pro is a whore.”

Morris looked directly at Jack, then dismissed him. Af
ter Jack had gone, Morris leaned back in his chair and stared at the two standing men. “I would suggest you instill more respect in your men. You get my meaning.”

Fairly said, “Sir, may I ask you to reconsider your corrective actions?”

“Why?”

“Because it sends the message to every pilot and wizzo in the wing that the fight is not the most important thing, even after they’ve been cleared to engage. Sir, they’ve got to want to tangle, to meet the threat head-on. True, they’ve got to worry about fuel, navigation and survival. But most important, they’ve got to want to blow the other guy away. Otherwise they’re not fighter pilots—”

“Colonel Fairly, what you do not understand is that an aircrew is responsible for
all
its actions. Everything they do must be deliberate and considered. My decision stands.”

Hawkins stopped Fairly in the hall just outside his own offices. “Tell your troops to go low profile. I’ll run cover as much as I can but I can’t do a damn thing for them if they’re setting off fireworks. I’ll tell the other two squadrons.”

“I guess I didn’t handle that very well,” Fairly said. “I feel like I let Jack and Thunder down. My job is training my pilots and wizzos to be tigers, willing to take on all comers. Now I’ve got to teach them to turn it off.”

“You’ve got that right,” Hawkins said. “You’ve also got to teach them one more thing: survival.” He turned and entered his office.

Lieutenant Colonel Fairly walked back to his squadron, trying to decide what to say to Jack and Thunder. He hoped the two would understand his position,
their
position, and go low profile the way Hawkins had advised. He decided to speak to them together and be as open and honest as he could. At least Thunder would understand, he thought, as he entered the squadron, glad to escape the heat after the long walk. The duty officer handed him a note, asking him to call Chief Pullman ASAP. What now? The chief answered on the first ring.

“Brace yourself, Colonel,” Pullman said. “Colonel
Morris has just finished talking to the Judge Advocate. He wants to court-martial Lieutenant Locke for insubordination and disrespect toward a superior officer. At least the lawyers want to look into it before they commit. But that still means an Article Thirty-two pre-trial investigation. My best guess is they’d rather represent Locke. But they can do just so much…”

“Chief, I appreciate the call. I owe you.” Fairly paused before committing himself. Goddamn, it was time to choose up sides. “It seems it’s going to be us against him. Thanks again, Chief.”

20 August: 1800 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 1400 hours, Washington, D.C.

Stacks of computer printouts and reports were arranged in Waters’ office against the walls. But the two maps that Bill and Sara had tacked up were the most important documents in the office. Bill had created his scenario on a map of the Persian Gulf, sketching in the order of battle of force threatening Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Sara had tried to re-create the geography of Bill’s scenario on her map of Europe. “We substitute the North Sea for the Persian Gulf, East Anglia in England for Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and the continent for Iran. The distances are almost identical and both have overwater approaches.”

“The weather’s different,” Bill said. “The Gulf has almost unlimited ceilings and good visibility. The flying weather in Europe is cruddy. The continent has less than fifteen-hundred-foot ceilings and five-mile forward visibility about thirty percent of the time.”

“True,” Waters said, “but if a fighter puke can’t handle the weather he’s not going to do well when surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery are hosing him down. The distances are much more critical. With a base in East Anglia we can run raids against NATO’s Tactical Leadership Program at Jever Air Base in Germany and they can retaliate against us. The Luftwaffe should love it—World War Two all over again.”

Waters stretched out in a dilapidated overstuffed chair
he had rescued from a back room and plotted how he would use the Tactical Leadership Program, the TLP, in a training program. The possibilities excited him as he developed one training scenario after another. TLP was NATO’s counterpart to the United States Red Flag and strongly supported by the German Luftwaffe and the RAF. U.S. pilots who had been through both programs gave TLP a slight edge over Red Flag…Waters broke off his brainstorming and returned to the immediate reality of finding a new home for the 45th.

“The computer boffins,” he said, affecting his best, or worst, British accent, “assure me these stacks of printouts contain data on every base available to us in NATO. Supposedly everything is in here, including which toilets leak and the age of the grass. Let’s find the base we want.”

Six hours later Carroll drew a heavy red circle on the map around a base seventy miles northeast of London in East Anglia—RAF Stonewood. “That’s it,” he announced. “I don’t think we’ll find anything better.”

Sara stood up in the middle of the clutter littering the floor and announced she was hungry. “It’s eight o’clock on a Friday night. If either of you are interested, it’s spaghetti at my place.” Waters and Carroll looked at each other, tore the maps down from the wall, locked them and the other classified documents in a safe and were right out the door after her.

Waters had asked Sara to a Van Cliburn concert over dinner when a lull drew their attention to Sara’s background music—a classical piano piece.

“I’m just a farm boy from a place near Lyndon, Kansas,” he had said, “but I’m a music nut—especially classical. Go figure it, but there it is.”

A man of parts, no question, Sara had thought. A complex man she wanted to know more about. Much, much more. From that day at Alexandria South when he had asked her what Blevins would do, the growing attraction she felt for this older man had tugged at her. And now she sensed the attraction was mutual…

She carefully dressed for the evening, choosing a sleeveless black dress her mother had made for her. By
most standards it would be considered modest, even simple, with a modest neckline that formed a vee in the back just low enough to suggest she was not wearing a bra. A woven belt of the same material snared her small waist, and the full skirt ended below her knees. The dress was discreetly but emphatically sexy. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and her jewelry was small gold earrings and a matching necklace.

She answered the knock at the door.

“Well, what do I call you? Colonel Waters seems a bit formal.”

My God, he thought, he barely recognized her. In mufti she was all woman…“Muddy, I guess, like everyone else. I’ve been cursed with that name for so long that it seems natural now. Hell of a thing to call a grown man. I can’t even remember when I picked the name up, sort of goes with Waters, I guess.”

“Okay, then, how about Anthony?”

“Whatever you say,” he said, and meant it.

Sara loved the concert. Cliburn’s virtuosity created its own magic with the audience and flowed over her. Afterward she suggested, brazenly, she supposed, but to hell with it, that they go back to her apartment for coffee.

While she made coffee Waters rummaged through her tape collection, selecting an artist he had never heard of. “Who’s Liona Boyd?”

“A classical guitarist. Put it on, I think you’ll like her,” Sara said, bringing the coffee. She looked around the room…the lights were not too dim or distractingly bright. The neighbors were quiet and they did have the right music. She settled onto the couch, close but not touching him, and curled her legs up under her full skirt. “What happened to the Shaws after they left Alexandria South?” she asked, rather abruptly steering the conversation in the way she wanted, into his past.

“What? Oh…he’s assigned to Headquarters TAC at Langley in charge of Operational Requirements. Beth likes Norfolk and the Virginia countryside. They may retire there.”