Brown, Dale - Independent 04 (9 page)

 
          
“Roger,
SD, WAO has the intercept,” the senior Weapons Assignment Officer replied. He
made an entry in his checklist log, then turned to the WAT, or weapons
assignment technician, seated next to him. “Active alert scramble,
Fresno
, hold for confirmation. Put WCT One on this
one.”

           
“Copy, sir,” the WAT replied. He
checked the status readout of the four Weapons Control Teams (WCT) on his panel
to be sure the team the Assignment Officer wanted was free and were ready to go
to work. The WCT, consisting of one Weapons Director and a Weapons Technician,
would be the persons in contact with the interceptor throughout its mission.
WCT One was the most experienced of the young shift on that night. The WAT
clicked open his intercom after seeing that all four WCTs were ready to go:
“WCT One, your target ID is seven-delta-four- zero-four, a Special-9 covert
intercept, repeat, Special-9 covert intercept. Clear for active air scramble
Fresno
.” “WCT One copies all,” the Weapons
Director of Control Team One responded. “We have the intercept. All stations,
this is WCT One, stand by for active alert scramble
Fresno
, target ID seven-delta-four-zero-four.”

 
          
The
weapons technician opened his checklist to the proper page, cleared his throat,
then ran his hand along a row of switches guarded by clear plastic covers,
selected the one marked
fresno
,
opened the cover, and stopped. “Sir, I have
Fresno
, active alert scramble. Ready.”

 
          
The
Weapons Director checked to be sure that the technician had his finger on the
right button, then tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the button, and
the communications technician pressed the button. Silently, he said,
Sorry to get you up like this, boys,
apologizing to the crews up in
Fresno
for what he knew was going to be a rude
awakening.

 
          
Interceptor Alert Facility, 94th Fighter
Squadron (
California
Air National Guard)
Fresno
Air Terminal,
California

           
The Navy called it “channel fever,”
describing the excitement of the last full night at sea before pulling into
port.

           
Back in the days of the Strategic
Air Command, when most alert units changed over on Thursdays, it was called
“Woody Wednesday,” describing the almost unbearable anticipation most crewmen
felt about going home and greeting the wife or girlfriend after seven days on
’round-the-clock alert. Whatever it was called, the feeling was the same—you
were so excited about getting off alert and going home that you stayed up late,
ate every piece of food in sight, watched every movie available, played poker
all night, and generally burned yourself out.

 
          
Major
Linda McKenzie, one of the two F-16A ADF (Air Defense Fighter) pilots on duty
at Fresno Air Terminal in central California, pushed herself away from the
all-night poker game table at ten-thirty
p.m.
Channel fever was not too bad here at Fresno—alert was only three days, and
families spent a lot of time with the crews at the alert facility. The
anticipation was still real, however, and it usually manifested itself as an
all-night poker game, attended by every available crewman at the facility.
McKenzie had been playing for the past five hours, and she had finally gotten
to the point where the need for sleep was numbing the excitement of getting off
alert. “I’m out,” she said after the last hand had finished. She steeled
herself for the simultaneous moans of disappointment from the crew chiefs and
security guards around the table, gave everyone a tired and slightly irritated
smile, then reached out to scoop up the small pile of coins and dollar bills on
the table before her.

 
          
“C’mon,
Linda, one more hand,” her flight leader, Lieutenant Colonel A1 “Rattler” Vincenti,
pleaded. But even he could not stifle a yawn. Vincenti was a longtime veteran
of air defense, flying with the 194th Fighter Squadron “Black Griffins” since
1978. He was a veteran command pilot with over seven thousand hours’ flying
time, all in tactical fighters.

 
          
“Hey,
I’m on a three-hop to
Seattle
in thirteen hours. You get to sleep in. Don’t give me this bull.” Like
many Air National Guard pilots, McKenzie was an airline pilot, a first officer
with American Airlines based out of
San Francisco
. Because of monthly flight duty day
restrictions, the airlines gave each Guardsman plenty of time to spend on UTA,
unit training assembly.

 
          
“Is
this the same person who threatened to emasculate us all if we got up and left
the game last week?” one of the crew chiefs asked. “Little bit different if
you’re winning, isn’t it, Linda?”

 
          
“Damn
right it is,” McKenzie said. “I’m outta here. See you clowns in the morning.”
She traded in coins for bills, stuffed her winning into her left breast pocket,
and headed for her quarters.

 
          
Once
there, Linda McKenzie got undressed, taking the unusual risk of piling her
clothes and survival gear in a heap rather than laying it out so she could
easily find it all and dress quickly. The last scramble exercise was early that
morning, which meant the odds of getting another one in the middle of the night
on the night before changeover were slim, so she decided to risk a quick
shower. No luxuriating in the shower while on alert—get in, get clean, and get
out—but she was relaxed as she did so, confident that there would be no
interruptions. Her shower took less than five minutes.

 
          
Perfect
timing.

 
          
She
heard voices in the hallway, then the door next to hers open. Wrapping a towel
around herself, she peeked out her door just as A1 Vincenti was closing his.
“Al? Come here a second.” He stepped over to her, and when he was in range she
grasped the front of his flight suit and pulled him into her room.

 
          
“Linda,
what in hell are you—” But he was interrupted as she wrapped her arms around
him and gave him a kiss. He resisted at first, then relented. That only spurred
her on, and she held him in her grasp even longer. She finally released him,
but began kissing his neck and unzipping his flight suit. “Linda, it’s late.”

 
          
“Nobody
will hear us, Al. The game will go on for another hour at least, and the crew
chiefs all like to sleep in front of the TV.”

 
          
“Linda,
I’m not going to do anything with you,” he said. His flight suit zipper was
down to the top of his G-suit waistband, and she was reaching for the zippers
on the sides of the device. He was not helping her, but he was not stopping her
either. “Linda ...”

 
          
“You
don’t have to do anything,” McKenzie said in a whisper. “I’m doing the driving
on this trip.” She stepped back from him, removed her towel, grasped his hands,
and brought them to her breasts.

 
          
“Linda,
this isn’t a good idea.”

 
          
“I
won’t argue with that,” McKenzie said with a teasing smile, “but I should tell
you, Colonel, that you have more animal sex appeal in your little finger than
most guys half your age have in their entire bodies.”

 
          
“That
include your husband Carl?”

 
          
“I’m
referring
to my husband Carl.”
McKenzie laughed, running her hands inside his flight suit against his chest.

 
          
“You
think just because I made a stupid mistake by screwing you at SENTRY EAGLE in
Klamath Falls
last summer that I think this is right or
justified? I’m not going to sleep with you, Linda.”

 
          
Suddenly,
the PA system blared,
“For the alert
force, for the alert force, active air scramble, active air scramble! All crews
report to your combat stations! ”
and an impossibly loud klaxon split the
late-night quiet. Vincenti was zipped and out the door in seconds, leaving
McKenzie cursing as she hurried to get into her flight suit and G-suit.

 
          
Al
Vincenti had a fleeting vision of McKenzie’s flowing, wet red hair and big,
round, firm breasts floating in his mind’s eye as he made the dash to his
plane, but the thought quickly disappeared as he automatically ran down the
alert scramble checklists and procedures in his head. She was nothing more than
a wingman to him now, his backup, someone to watch his rear quadrant as they
hunted down whatever was out there. Vincenti sprinted for the alert hangar. His
crew chief, who had just come around a corner, had no chance to catch up.
Vincenti reached the hangar first.

 
          
On
the wall to the right of the small entry door were two large handles. Vincenti
yelled, “Hangar doors coming open!” and pulled both handles down. The handles
unlocked two sets of huge counterweights, whose weight began swinging both the
front and rear hangar doors open. His backpack parachute was in a rack near the
hangar door handles. Vincenti stepped into the parachute harness and fastened
the crotch and chest clips, leaving the straps loose so he could run up the
ladder and into his F-16 ADF Fighting Falcon fighter jet. Gloves went on,
sleeves rolled down, zippers zipped, and collars turned up as Vincenti trotted
toward his fighter.

 
          
Six
steps up the ladder and a quick leap into the cockpit, and Lieutenant Colonel
Al Vincenti was in his office and ready for work.

 
          
As
soon as his helmet was on and fastened, he flipped the
main pwr
switch to
batt,
the
jfs
(Jet Fuel Starter) switch to
start
1, cracked the throttle on the
left side of the cockpit from its cutoff detent forward a bit to give the
engine a good shot of gas, then moved it back into idle when the rpms reached
15 percent.

 
          
Sixty
seconds later, the engine was at idle power and his crew chief had his seat
belt, parachute, and G-suit hoses connected and tightened. The GPS system was
feeding navigation information to the inertial navigation set, and he performed
a flight control system and emergency power system check. He made a quick
flight control check by moving the control stick in a circle, or “stirring the
pot,” and his crew chief was standing in front of the hangar, ready to marshal
him forward. He saw Major Linda McKenzie running past his open hangar door,
carrying her boots and wearing nothing on her feet but white athletic socks,
still zipping her G-suit zippers. She flashed her middle finger at him as she
sprinted by.

           
“Should’ve showed me your tits
after
you put your gear on, Linda,”
Vincenti said, chuckling. He completed his checklists, flipping through the
radios as he waited for McKenzie to start engines and check in. His VHF radio,
secondary UHF radio, and HF radios were set to the GUARD emergency frequencies,
but there was dead silence. The silence meant that this was going to be a
covert intercept—they were going to try to approach the unidentified aircraft
without being detected.

 
          
Vincenti
unstowed a canvas box from behind his ejection seat, opened it, and checked the
contents. It was a set of AN/NVG-11 night-vision goggles which clipped onto his
flight helmet and would provide near daytime-like vision with just a few ground
lights, moonlight, or even starlight.

 
          
Vincenti
saw McKenzie’s crew chief trot out to his marshaling position outside the
hangar, and a second later he saw her fighter’s taxi light flash on and off, so
he clicked on the microphone of his primary radio: “Foxtrot Romeo flight,
check.”

 
          
“Two,”
McKenzie replied breathlessly from exertion and excitement. “Foxtrot Romeo” was
their unit call sign for their three-day tour; interceptor call signs were
always a combination of two letters and a two-digit number, changed regularly
by North American Air Defense Command.