The Warbirds (40 page)

Waters found Jack and Thunder looking at one of the reccy photos after their debrief with Intel. Thunder was using a magnifying glass to pinpoint the tower they had barely missed. “You can hardly see it,” Thunder said. “Our charts need some serious updating.”

“I’m sorry, I blew it and yelled at you.” Jack looked at his friend, taking the blame. His backseater happened to be his closest friend.

“What the hell.” The wizzo smiled. “Like they say in the movies, ‘cheated death again.’”

“Maintenance tells me you had some battle damage,” Waters said.

“Not battle damage,” Jack told him. “I clipped a radio tower’s guy-wire. After we came off C.J.’s target things were quiet. I decided to make a straight dash for feet wet. That’s when I snagged the tower. There was no reason for deviating from our planned route. My fault.”

“Okay, Jack, you learned something—like when
not
to improvise. Don’t worry about it. We’ve got lots of wing tips. Wolf Flight worked as advertised. Let’s keep it up.”

The man’s going to make it, Waters decided. He’d seen in Jack that rare combination of flying skill, intelligence and charisma that could lead. And now Jack was really growing up, recognizing and owning up to his mistakes.

21 July: 1130 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 0730 hours, Washington, D.C.

Cunningham was experiencing a rare feeling: contentment. It had started with a phone call from the National Security Adviser telling him the President was favorably considering his request for deploying a squadron of F-15s to Ras Assanya and wanted to discuss it with the general. The colonel conducting the early morning command briefing did not recognize the look on Sundown’s face as the results of the first Wolf mission were flashed on the screen. The man thought he was in serious trouble and was dismayed when Cunningham only grunted a curt, “Thank you.”

The next briefer was a colonel that Cunningham did not recognize. “Good morning, sir. I’m Colonel Charles Bradford, Office of International Affairs. The government of Iran has filed a complaint with the International Red Cross. They claim that we employed a secret terrorist weapon on civilians in violation of the Geneva Convention. At this point it appears that two of the Wolf Flight overflew an Iranian village at an extremely high rate of speed and very low. The location and time of the complaint match up with the egress of Wolf Zero-Nine and Wolf One-One. Reliable sources report the jet-wash damaged some structures, collapsed a radio tower and thoroughly roused the local population. There were also some minor injuries.” The colonel seemed to be enjoying the briefing.

“What’s so goddamn funny, Colonel?”

“This is the first known classification of jet fuel as a secret terrorist weapon, sir. We think it’s in line with all Air Force policies on cost effectiveness,” Bradford said with a straight face.

Cunningham, not especially amused, dismissed him and got to business. “Okay. I want max publicity on Wolf Flight, get the press looking at them while I try to get the President to come on line with a squadron of F-15s to fly CAP for the 45th. Emphasize the losses we’ve taken and make the Wolves look like heroes. The valiant band of brothers and so forth. Tell the JUSMAG to concentrate on
selecting targets for the Wolves and keep them flying every night. And get an F-15 squadron at Langley ready to deploy.” The general left then, optimistic about his chances of getting F-15s into Ras Assanya within a few days. Of course he was also running the risk of escalating the war, but you always did that when you started shooting.

He motioned for his aide to join him. “Stevens, send a ‘well done’ to the 45th. Also check out a Colonel Charles Bradford of International Affairs. Tell him I want a briefing on the international reaction to our involvement in the Persian Gulf this afternoon.” Another candidate for Cunningham’s inner circle was about to be tested by the general.

28 July: 1800 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 2100 hours. Ras Assanya, Saudi Arabia

The “well done” letter reached Waters’ desk one week later. The wing commander carried it into the Wolves nightly mission briefing and read it to the assembled crews. “Not bad. You’re starting to get people’s attention. But don’t let down, don’t get complacent. Tonight is your ninth mission and we’re hurting them. Keep at it.” Waters sat down to listen to the briefing. The familiar routine washed over him and he missed the details, thinking of how he was starting to sound like a football coach, pumping his men up at half time. He supposed it was necessary, but he’d damn sight rather be flying than sitting on the sidelines.

29 July: 0928 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 1228 hours. The Saudi Arabian Desert

Five more to go, Mashur thought as he passed the three-hundred-kilometer marker on the highway leading deep into the desert south of Dhahran. Even in the air-conditioned comfort of his BMW, sweat laced his back and the palms of his hands. The same silver Mercedes was waiting for him at the kilometer mark, and the rear door swung open as soon as he stopped. With a supreme effort
he covered his fears with a characteristic put-on of bravado.

“We want the daily frag order for Wolf Flight,” the man demanded, not hiding his meaning behind the intricate grammar of the Arabic language. “They have flown nine times against us and are like pinpricks that go deeper with every thrust.” The man did not reveal the full impact of the 45th’s Wolf operations. At first the PSI had discounted the attacks. But night after night they came back, never at the same time, always hitting a significant target. The total effect of the raids was cutting into the muscle of the PSI. “You will give us what we need to destroy them.”

“There is no daily frag order for Wolf Flight, only a long list of targets. I have not seen the list; to ask for it would be dangerous,” Mashur told him, hoping for a reprieve. “I am useful to you only as long as I am trusted—”

“Get it.”
The man turned his head and looked straight ahead, his eyes invisible behind dark sunglasses. Mashur’s panic swelled, almost choking him as he moved slowly back to his car, his strutting gone.

30 July: 1600 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 1900 hours. Ras Assanya, Saudi Arabia

The excitement Bill Carroll felt was contagious. “This is the best target the spooks have found. My God, it’s a targets officer’s dream come true.” He kept pointing to a building on one of the reccy photos that had been delivered that afternoon. “It’s a major headquarters near Basra. It’s the best target we’ve run against. Everything correlates, communications, location, personnel, the works. Hitting a headquarters is like ripping their brain out.”

Carroll would never learn the source of his intelligence or the complex Stealth reconnaissance program that had been ranging with growing confidence over the entire Middle East…A reccy flight would recover at al-Ubaylah in the early afternoon from a mission over Iran and taxi into an underground hangar. The entire camera package would be removed from an equipment bay and rushed to an underground Intelligence complex where its film would be removed and processed for evaluation by a
team of photo interpreters. At Cunningham’s direction the same RC-135 that Waters had commanded would land at al-Ubaylah for a crew change. The latest intelligence from the RC-135 would be rushed to the Intelligence complex and correlated with what the photo interpreters were discovering. Another team would sanitize the information and photos by removing any hint of sources and by deliberately degrading the quality of the photos. By late afternoon, an unmarked courier, a small business jet, would land at Ras Assanya delivering the latest information in time for Wolf Flight to select its targets…

Waters studied the target now, trying to solve his dilemma. A message had come in the day before giving him permission to fly on combat missions and he wanted to do it before some general changed his mind again. But he did not want to preempt one of the crews and possibly damage the skyrocketing morale of Wolf Flight. Wolf Flight was proving so successful that Weasels would only fly as a wingman when a target was heavily defended. The E-model’s own RHAW gear was more than adequate to warn a Wolf to abort a mission, jettison his load and return to base. Of the thirty-six sorties launched over a period of nine nights only three had been aborted. The trawler was broadcasting attack warnings when the Wolves launched, and MiG-23 Floggers had been scrambled. But the PSI did not have the GCI coverage or a ground observer tracking net that could react in time to direct the Floggers onto the Wolves. Not too shabby, Waters thought.

“If any of you troops want a night off,” Waters said, “I know of an old man that would like to go along as a wingy.” Cheers greeted his announcement; they had all heard about the message.

“Whoever heard of a Wolf-Zero-One being a wingman?” one irreverent voice asked.

“Some people will do
anything
to fly,” another put in.

Waters bent his head in mock shame.

Thunder whispered to Jack. “He wants to go bad but he’s leaving it up to you.”

Jack gave him a puzzled look.

“Wolf Flight is your baby and he won’t take it away from you,” Thunder said.

Jack nodded…“I think Doc Landis wants to ground me for a while while he cures me of the clap.” Jack said it with a straight face. Now everyone started to volunteer their slot for Waters, and one wizzo suggested they should make the wing commander a WSO so he could get a night off.

“Colonel, if you want to lead a flight, I’ll be your wingy,” Jack offered, and within a few minutes it was arranged with Stan-the-Man flying in Waters’ pit.

The mission that Waters laid out for them was significantly different from the previous sorties. The wing commander pointed out that an identified headquarters merited much more attention and that both Phantoms would split at the IP and both would hit it. He would go first, using a new version of the Maverick they had received—the Maverick had been designed as an electro-guided anti-tank missile. The wizzo’s radar scope became a TV screen that repeated what the seeker head was imaging. The wizzo drove the scope’s target cursors over a high-contrast part of the target and locked on. The seeker head memorized the contrast, and when the pilot hit the pickle button the Maverick launched and homed in. The new Mavericks the 45th had received used a double-infrared seeker head that was very sensitive to heat signatures created by buildings, vehicles and people. Waters calculated that a headquarters would be very “hot” indeed at night.

At the prearranged time eight Phantoms of Wolf Flight hit their start buttons. But the number-two engine of Wolf One-Nine would not ignite when the RPM wound past fifteen percent. The wingman tried again, and still no ignition. It was an automatic abort for the pair of One-Nine and One-Eight. The remaining six birds fast-taxied for the runway. Waters and Jack were the last to take off since they had the closest target. Instead of hugging the water at two hundred feet, as Jack would have preferred, he lifted them up to four hundred feet, explaining that an old man’s reflexes weren’t that good. Waters reasoned that the trawler would send a launch warning no matter what altitude they ingressed at. But he was wrong; it was the PSI’s coastal watch team that was sending the warnings. The trawler
crew was apparently being lazy and not too concerned about detecting launches; it just monitored the watch team’s frequency and repeated their warning over another frequency.

Waters used the higher altitude and pushed his throttles up, increasing his indicated airspeed to 480 knots over water. Stan kept grousing about the lousy RHAW gear in the pit of the F-4E but seemed satisfied that no search radars had found them. At the IP, Waters called, “Split,” slight pause,
“now.”
He punched his clock, starting the second hand as the two fighters moved off on separate headings, losing contact with each other in the night. It was a new tactic for the Wolves and one that would make a rejoin very difficult.

Stan was concentrating on the image on his radar scope as Waters ran for his pop point. “A great picture, I think I’ve got the heat signature. It’s glowing like a bonfire.”

Waters grunted in acknowledgment, concentrating on wiring his speed at 520 knots and maintaining his compass heading as the clock ran down the seconds. He would pop at exactly one minute, eight-and-a-half miles in from the IP. He was using basic dead reckoning. As the second hand flicked onto sixty seconds Waters pulled the nose up, trusting Stan to get an early lock-on. Their RHAW gear came alive with chirps and barks of audio warning as air-defense radars found them.

“Locked on. Cleared to pickle,” Stan said as he punched the chaff buttons on his left console. He did not, though, hit the flare button, knowing flares would draw attention to their part of the sky and might distract Jack, who should be rolling in right behind them. Stan would use flares and more chaff once he sighted a missile plume.

Waters rolled his Phantom one hundred thirty-five degrees and pulled its nose to the target, apexing at nineteen hundred feet, a tight pop. His finger flicked twice on the pickle button, sending two Mavericks on their way. Their sensitive seeker heads had pinpointed the target and homed in, allowing Waters to launch and leave. The explosions would serve as marker beacons for Jack to drop his load of Mark-82s on, which would do the real damage.

Waters keyed his radio, “Zero-One off hot.” He had to
tell Jack that he was clear of the target and the Mavericks were on the way. “SAM launch, eight o’clock,” he warned Stan. The SAMs’ rocket plumes were easily seen in the dark.

“Rog, Boss,” Sam acknowledged. “Tallyho. No radar activity, probably an SA-9. Break—
now
.” Waters wrenched the Phantom’s nose into the oncoming missiles, turning his tail away from their IR-guided seeker heads as Stan punched his flare button. Four flares shot out behind the F-4 and exploded, capturing the missiles’ guidance head and sending them clear of the F-4. Six Mark-82s flashed in the night, and Jack was off the target. “Come right to one-three-five degrees,” Stan directed. Waters envied his calm. “Thunder’s found us with his radar. That interceptor symbol on the RHAW gear is from an F-4 radar.”