Force of Eagles (53 page)

Now Stansell had to fight down his own panic. A 40mm-round in the ammo storage racks cooked off and he glanced at the cockpit windows—no help there. He looked up and saw the emergency escape hatch in the ceiling but doubted he could manhandle Thunder’s 235 pounds through it. He managed to drag him down to the crew-entrance door, the way he had come in, and shoved his head through the gap below the TV camera. Blood was running over Stansell’s hands as he pushed, but Thunder was wedged between the door and the camera. Then someone was pulling at Thunder from outside. Gregory and a Ranger. The two men pulled Thunder free, and Stansell squeezed through. Together they half-dragged, half-carried Thunder to Kowalski’s C-130 as the gunship flared into an inferno.

*

The F-15 started a curvilinear approach, running in on the tank that was maneuvering past its burning leader, and headed for the Rangers blocking the road at the prison. Jack ran through the procedure he had practiced in the weapons simulator trainer for calling up a Maverick and launching it from the front cockpit: air-to-ground master mode selected; master arm on; move the Castle switch on the stick to the right; nose gear steering-button depress and release; move the crosshair with the target designation control switch on the left throttle. By the book—except the crosshair wouldn’t move—battle damage from the mortar attack and the frag that had nicked the wiring bundle.

“Byers,” Jack said, “you got to do some work back there.” A skeptical grunt answered him. “On one of your scopes, you’ve got a TV picture with crosshairs down at the bottom. Grab the hand controller on the right side, move the crosshairs with the left button top. Yeah, that’s it. Now position the crosshairs over the tank you see.” The crosshairs moved over the image of the tank that was coming through the seeker-head of the Maverick Jack had called up. “You got it. Now pull the trigger. Right. You just locked that sucker up.”

Jack was jinking back and forth, dodging the 23mm rounds that he knew were coming at him from the ZSU moving with the tanks. His TEWS was chirping, warning him of an SA-8 lock-on. He saw the two missiles launch and jerked the Eagle’s nose up, waited for the missiles to commit on him, then turned hard into them and dove. The TEWS did the rest and the missiles flashed by. “Wait your turn,” he said, and sent his Maverick on its way. He pulled off to the left, still jinking hard, and repositioned for another run.

“Okay, Byers, you got the hang of it now. We’re going after the SA-8 that just shot at us. It looks like an armored car with six wheels. Get it locked up as soon as you can.” Again, he rolled in and could see the burning hulk of his last target. A T-72 tank could shake off round after round from 105mm cannons and Dragon anti-tank missiles, but it was no match for the warhead of a Maverick. This time Buyers got an early lock-on, and Locke mashed the pickle button at max range, broke off and turned away.

“ZSU is next,” he said. “Hold on. We got other things to do.” Jack had just seen another threat on his TEWS…

*

“He got him!” Baulck cheered as the first Maverick killed the tank two hundred meters in front of them. The two sergeants were very much surprised to find themselves still alive as the last tank broke off and retreated into the smoke it had been laying down. Ratso One was accelerating from behind the prison wall, coming straight at them, its two M-60s blasting at the tank. Soldiers on foot were moving out from the smoke and running toward them. The jeep skidded to a stop and they piled in. The gunner in the front seat held on to the straps of Wade’s LBE as the loaded jeep raced for the airfield. All the while the gunner in the rear was spraying the area behind them.

*

Stansell was on the flight deck behind Lydia Kowalski, who waited for the order to take off. The jeep teams had all come in except Ratso One and Nine, and the Rangers had set up three firing teams as a close-in perimeter defense. The jeeps had all been driven together and Gregory had ordered them stripped of weapons and destroyed.

The Air Force sergeant leading the combat control team had crawled into the emergency escape hatch on top of the flight deck and was scanning the area with binoculars. Now he dropped down to the deck and pointed to the north. “There’s some big guy coming in. He’s carrying someone. I mean that guy is
big!
”

Stansell grabbed the binoculars and climbed into the hatch. It was Kamigami. He waved at Gregory, who was still on the ground, pointed at the slowly jogging sergeant and gave a thumbs-up. Gregory spoke into his radio, and two Rangers from a firing team sprinted out to help their sergeant major. In the distance Stansell saw two smoke trails etching the sky and followed them to their source—two Iranian F-4s. He dropped down to the deck and grabbed a headset, transmitting over the UHF radio. “Stormy! Two bandits to the northeast, coming our way.”

“I got ’em,” came Jack’s flat reply. “There’s two more behind ’em fifty miles out.” He did not have to tell Stansell that the airfield would soon be under attack.

Stansell ordered the sergeant back into the hatch and told him to fire a red flare, the signal to board immediately for takeoff. The Rangers came running for the C-130. Gregory climbed up onto the flight deck and pointed at the road leading to the prison. A jeep was kicking up a cloud of dust. “That’s Ratso One,” Gregory said. “Kamigami and Jamison are on board. Ratso Nine bought it.” He looked at Stansell, waiting for the decision.

“We can’t wait for Ratso One,” Stansell said, hating the words.

Jack’s F-15 slashed by, two hundred feet off the deck. “Let’s see if he can discourage those assholes first,” Kowalski told them, waving at the first two F-4s. “The other two are still five, six minutes out.” She was the aircraft commander and the silence on the flight deck indicated that she had made the decision. She ran the engines up, ready to release the brakes and roll if the F-4s got through.

*

Byers hands were braced against the instrumental panel as the F-15 jerked and bounced two hundred feet above the ground. He knew enough about the digital readouts on the screens in front of him to realize they were traveling at 500 knots and he was scared…the ground rush…the noise…

“Come on, baby…” Jack was breathing hard and talking to himself. Byers wished Furry’s helmet fit tighter. Even a little slop became a major rub when Jack pulled two Gs. At four Gs it was pain and at six…Jack punched the air-to-air master mode, called up one of his AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, locked onto the lead F-4 and mashed the trigger. The missile leaped off its rail on the left wing and traced the path of a sidewinder rattlesnake through the sky. Jack then pulled into the vertical and rolled, ready to bring the nose of the F-15 back into the fight. The Sidewinder hit the left intake of the lead F-4 and the Iranian fireballed. His wingman broke hard to the left and ran to the east.

Now Jack dove for the ground and headed for the next two F-4s. He could hear Byers puking in the back seat.

*

Ratso One slammed to a halt under the tail of the C-130 and the six men scrambled up the ramp. Kowalski promptly released the brakes and the cargo plane started to move, slowly at first, then with greater speed. The ramp was up and the door coming down when the nose gear lifted into the air, then the main gear came unglued, and the Hercules leaped into sky.

*

Eastern Turkey

“Cowboy, this is Delray Five-One.” The AWACS fighter controller’s voice was precise and measured. Snake Houseman acknowledged the call for his flight of four F-15s still in trail with a KC-135 tanker orbiting thirty-five miles from the Turkish-Iranian border. “Six bandits are being scrambled from Tabriz onto Scamp One-Five. Scamp One-Five is one-two-zero degrees at one-one-five nautical miles from your position. Standby…” The controller in the AWACS paused, evaluating the lastest information that he had received. “The bandits are now airborne and being vectored into Scamp One-Five. Fly heading one-one-zero degrees. KILL. Repeat. KILL.”

Snake again acknowledged for his flight, and the four F-15s split into flights of two, crossing the border into Iran…

*

Kermanshah, Iran

The closure rate for the three planes was over a thousand miles per hour. Jack’s air-to-air radar display had the second pair of Iranian F-4s at twenty miles and 5,000 feet above him. He did not have a tallyho yet. Even though he had no qualms taking on two F-4s with his Eagle, he had to remain on the offensive and use everything he had that gave him an advantage. And speed was his number-one advantage. He rotated the selective-jettison knob to the first detent to shed the five bombs and three Mavericks he had left to reduce the drag that slowed him down. But before he hit the red button in the center of the knob he reconsidered and turned the knob back to off. He had a use for them.

A tactic used by Willie Driscoll, a famous Navy jock, came back—“Turn to kill, not to engage.” Now he had the F-4s visually in his HUD. They were still flying straight and level, in echelon, not maneuvering, coming straight at him, still high, holding their altitude. “Hold on, Byers.” He turned forty-five degrees to the left and dropped still lower. Just before the two F-4s came by him on his right he reefed the F-15 into a hard right turn and pulled up and into them. It was a stern-conversion and the bandits had not yet seen him. With his thumb he toggled the weapons-select switch on his throttles to the rear and selected his 20mm cannon. He surged into the bandits’ right rear quarter, still below them, and sent a short burst of high-explosive shells into the lead F-4 on the right. Two puffs of smoke trailed from the Iranian F-4 and a tongue of flame licked out from under its belly. Then it pitched nose down, tumbled, and exploded.

Jack pulled back to the left and up, again using the vertical to reposition for a reattack or to disengage, whichever looked better when he was on top with energy to maneuver and choose his options. The other F-4 had buried its nose and was reversing course, running away. Jack let him live and headed for the prison, and mentally went through the switchology that would allow him to call up a Maverick missile…

*

Northwestern Iran

“Cowboy,” the fighter controller’s voice was more rapid and high pitched now. He had never directed fighters into an actual engagement before. “Bandits at zero-niner-zero degrees, seventy nautical miles.”

“Burners, now,” Snake ordered. His three flight members shoved their throttles forward into the fourth-, then fifth-stage afterburner, and the F-15s accelerated straight ahead. He had worked out a mental map of the C-130’s position and the converging bandits. He had to hurry to get between them.

“Multiple hits, zero-eight-zero, sixty-five miles,” his wingman sang out. He had a radar contact on the bandits. The F-15s started to sort them out, deciding who would engage who. But above all, Snake was determined to keep the bandits off the C-130. He had learned his lesson.

*

Kermanshah, Iran

Jack flew past the prison, monitoring his TEWS. It was quiet. The Iranian tanks had reached the airfield. “Byers, put the crosshairs for the Maverick smack in the middle of the admin building. Got it?” Byers asked if the admin building was the one with the smouldering fire that had been hit by a bomb. “That’s it, we’re in. “Jack rolled the F-15 up onto its left wing and rolled out into a shallow dive. Byers had the knack now and drove the crosshairs onto the admin building and locked on. Jack hit the pickle button and launched the first Maverick. He called up another Maverick. “Lock on again.” Byers did, and it was sent on its way…

Mokhtari was in the first-floor office of the main cell block trying to reconnect the telephone a Ranger had ripped out of its connection when he heard the F-15. Instinctively he dived for cover under the desk and threw his arms over his head. The blast from the two Mavericks momentarily deafened him. Then a hard look of satisfaction spread over his face when he realized the attacking plane had hit the wrong building…

Jack came off the target and repositioned. He selected bombs, ripple and started his second run, placing his target reticle on the edge of the prison. He would walk his five remaining bombs across the main cell block and into the admin building…

The sound of the returning F-15 pounded at Mokhtari. Fear was numbing. At first he had an overpowering urge to urinate, then panic drove him from the office. He ran down the short flight of stairs and out the main door heading for the reinforced concrete tunnel that served as the prison’s entrance…

Jack saw the lone figure running across the exercise yard. “I hope to hell that’s
you
,” he said aloud, designating with the pickle button. His right foot feathered the rudder pedal. skidding the F-15 onto a new path.

Terror had replaced hate as Mokhtari realized the F-15 was pointed directly at him, freezing him in his !tacks. He lost control of his bladder when he saw the five bombs separate cleanly from the aircraft. He raised his head and watched the F-15 pull off. And watched as the first bomb exploded only fifteen feet in front of him…

*

Northwestern Iran

“Cowboy, Defray,” the AWACS transmitted. “Bandits are now at zero-two-zero degrees, twenty miles.”

“Rog, Delray,” Snake replied, “Judy.” With the Judy-call he told the AWACS they were taking over the intercept. As flight lead, Snake was still working on how best to engage the six bandits they were closing on. He and his wingman were going to attack the lead aircraft while his other F-15s, the second element of F-15s, were going to attack the rear aircraft. He had to keep the bandits off the C-130, but his weapons could only be fired forward. So he had to have his nose pointed at the enemy to be a fighter. Otherwise he could easily become a target. Even the most advanced fighter was at a disadvantage against an old, obsolete jet that had maneuvered to the six o’clock position and was firing.

Snake updated his three-dimensional image of the relative position of the bandits. The F-15s were dosing from the bandits’ front-left quarter and the C-130 was behind him. He was in time.