Force of Eagles (55 page)

“My guy ran away,” Byers told him. “What happened?”

“We got one,” Jack said as he flew past Kowalski. “You did good, Byers. Rule number one is always check six. You did that. That guy died because he forgot rule number two.”

“What’s that?”

“Never forget rule number one—”

“Bandits,” Kowalski called over the UHF, “ten o’clock high.”

A welcome voice came over the radio. “Snake and Jake on the way.” Snake Houserman and his wingman were now off the refueling tanker and headed into Iran.

“Hurry, Snake,” Jack answered. “Multi-bogies on us.” He checked his armament-control set. Two AIM-9 missiles and 450 rounds of 20mm showing on the rounds-counter were left. In a hurry, Jack missed that he still had one Maverick left hanging under the right wing and creating drag. He turned toward the four Floggers that had their noses on him…

*

Eastern Turkey

“Rustler Four-Two,” the fighter controller on the AWACS radioed, “four miles to the fence.”

“Roger,” Rustler Four-Two answered, his voice strained. “I can hold it until then.”

The situation on the tactical displays aboard the AWACS told its story: Rustler flight had shot down one of the four MiGs that were attacking Duck Mallard’s C-130. The other three had been driven off, and one of the F-15s, Rustler Four-Two, had taken a hit by an Aphid, the Soviet-made dogfight missile hung under a Flogger. The F-15 was still flying, leaving a trail of smoke and hydraulic fluid behind it, trying to make it across the border before the pilot ejected. Two F-15s of Rustler flight were still escorting Mallard, ten minutes away from the border, and one was escorting Rustler Four-Two.

“Crossing the fence now,” the AWACS transmitted.

“I’ll hold it for another minute to clear the border,” Rustler Four-Two said. It was a matter of waiting now. Then: “Ejecting now.”

“He’s got a good chute,” the pilot escorting Rustler Four-Two transmitted, hoping for but not counting on a happy landing…

*

Western Iran

Jack stroked his afterburners, going for another head-on pass. If he and Byers were going to survive he had to hit-and-split, but he couldn’t split too far or the MiGs would be onto Kowalski. He planned a series of rapid reattacks, using the F-15’s ability to turn rapidly and maintain its airspeed at the same time. Jack did not warn Byers he was about to pass out…

He selected a Sidewinder and waited for the growl to come through his headset that told him the missile’s seeker-head was locked on and tracking. The Lock-Shoot Lights on the top of the canopy bow flashed, showing him that a shoot cue was generated. The MiGs saw him and started to split just as he fired the missile. He headed straight into the pack, chasing his own missile, taking a snap-shot with his cannon when another MiG passed in front of him. Then he was clear, pulled back on the stick and pushed the right rudder. He could hear the double-rate beeper of the overload warning system as he loaded the F-15 with nine Gs and pitched-back to the right, reentering the fight. He could see a M1G spiralling into the ground and a parachute blossoming above it.

The F-15 slashed through the area where the MiGs had been, but they were disengaging. A reprieve.

“What the…” came from the back seat.

“You passed out when we pulled six Gs,” Jack told the sergeant. “You need a G-suit.”

He rejoined on Kowalski and checked his radar-display and TEWS. “Snake, say position.”

“Six minutes out, coming in from the north.”

“I’m still getting a lot of attention. I now count five bandits in the area.” Jack checked his fuel. Getting low, but still okay. He thanked the fast-pack tanks strapped onto the side of his E model as well as that fuel truck on the ground at Kermanshah. He called up the systems-display on his left video for another weapons check. One AIM-9 and 250 rounds of 20mm. Damn, go easy on the trigger, he told himself, shorter bursts. Then he finally noticed he had one Maverick left. He reached for the jettison knob so he could clear that station. What the hell, he rationalized, anything when your ass is all hung out…

“Cap’n, behind us,” Byers warned. He had not forgotten rule number two. A stream of four aircraft were coming at them. “Four bandits, six o’clock, on us,” Jack radioed. Kowalski started jinking the C-130. She’s getting the hang of it, Jack noted. Actually, Stansell was standing behind her on the flight deck, giving the pilot a crash course in defensive maneuvers. The colonel had ordered Hank Petrovich to raise the cargo door under the tail and to call out anytime he saw a MiG come to their six o’clock.

Jack turned hard now into the oncoming fighters, wondering how much longer his luck would hold. “Your tactics may suck,” he grumbled, “but you are persistent suckers…” Now it became a wild scrap. Jack would twist and turn, always bringing the nose of his F-15 onto a MiG, taking a snapshot, then disengaging. Once he had a good self-track during a head-on pass and fired a Sidewinder. It streaked past two Floggers and caused them to break off and momentarily run from the fight. But it missed, probably from being too close. Byers kept checking their six; it was the only thing he knew to do. And when he would warn Jack of a bandit at their six, Jack would wrack the F-15 around, dropping a flare every two seconds by mashing the trim button on his stick. In every one of these break turns Jack was loading the F-15 with anywhere from six to nine Gs and Byers would pass out. When Jack unloaded, Byers would start to regain consciousness, checking six as soon as his head cleared.

At one point Jack had let his airspeed decay to 250 knots as a MiG closed on him. He pulled into the vertical, doing a slow loop, and the MiG shot by below him. He then snapped the throttles into afterburner and taxied into a guns-firing position behind the Flogger, whose wings were starting to sweep forward as it slowed down. He fired the last of his 20mm rounds into the MiG, tearing it apart. And now he was dry. Again he pointed at a MiG in a head-on pass, wondering how long before they cottoned to the fact he was defenseless.

“Tallyho the fox,” came over the UHF, and Snake hooked into the fight from below, his wingman in an offensive fighting-wing position. Jack turned back to the C-130. It was gone. He had lost sight of it in the fight…

*

“A MiG’s behind us!” Petrovich yelled over the intercom. Kowalski sawed back and forth on the rudder pedals and yoke, skidding and jerking the Hercules, trying to break any tracking solution the Flogger might work out. Stansell was holding on to the back of her seat with both hands.

“Oh Christ!” from Petrovich. “Break left!” The MiG was fixing its 23mm Gatling gun. Kowalski stood the C-130 on its left wing and tried to pull back into the fighter, as Stansell had told her. But it wasn’t enough. A string of shells tore into the right wing, ripping, tearing it. The prop on the number four engine on the right outboard flew off, separating from the aircraft. One of the fuel tanks in the wing was punctured and sent a stream of fuel into the slip-stream. The number-three engine’s turbine froze when two high-explosive shells tore into it. Pieces of skin and paneling shredded away and part of the anti-icing boot on the forward edge of the wing peeled back, still flapping over the wing.

Kowalski fought for control while the MiG repositioned.

“Did you
see
that fucker,” Wade yelled at Baulck. Baulck had twisted around in his seat and was staring at the right wing. “Wish we had a tail gunner like a B-52,” Wade shouted. The two buck sergeants looked at each other, unstrapped, grabbed two SAW light-machine guns and ran for the rear of the plane. They threw themselves onto the ramp, which was in the up-position, and stuck their weapons out under the door that Petrovich had raised so he could look out behind the Hercules.

They could see the MiG start another run and both fired into the blue, sending bullets toward the MiG. The MiG pilot saw the flashes coming from behind the C-130 and broke off his attack to reposition. This time he would attack from above and behind, avoiding any gunfire from under the tail of the C-130.

But he forgot rule number two.

*

Jack climbed and used his radar to find the Hercules C-130. He accelerated after it in time to see the MiG break off its second attack and zoom for altitude. “What the hell do I do now?” he muttered. “Ram him?” He headed for the MiG as it repositioned. “Byers, the Maverick…the crosshairs . put ’em over the MiG and lock on.” Jack had called up his one remaining weapon.

Jack had never thought about using the Maverick as an air-to-air weapon and he sweetened the shot as best he could by closing to inside three miles. “Not too close,” he warned himself. He checked the ready-light on the armament-control set and mashed the pickle button. The anti-tank missile leaped off its rail and streaked toward the MiG that was almost in position to gun Kowalski’s C-130 out of the sky. The Maverick’s 125-pound shaped-charge warhead that was designed to penetrate heavy armor and kill fifty-ton tanks speared the MiG. The plane disappeared in its own fiery cloud.

Jack checked his fuel, joined on Kowalski, and the Eagle and its Hercules headed for home.

Chapter 53: H Plus 17

Incirlik, Turkey

Chief Pullman was waiting with a crew van when Jack taxied into the chocks and shut the engines down. The chief waited impatiently while the pilot and then Byers climbed down the boarding ladder. “What the hell…” he muttered. Byers was a mess. The front of his shirt was streaked and it seemed he may have wet himself. The crew chief lay down on the ground and moaned. His neck hurt and his body ached.

Jack got down beside him. “You gonna be okay?”

“Fuckin’ A…heroes never die…oh, God…”

“Captain,” the chief said, “they want you in Intel for a debrief.”

“It can wait,” Jack told him. “Kowalski’s twenty minutes out.” Pullman nodded, reached into the van and handed Jack a plastic water bottle. He drained about half and poured the rest over his head, splashing his face.

“Captain Bryant’s hurt bad,” Pullman said, looking at the four ambulances that were waiting.

“Yeah. I know.” And now they had to endure the agony of waiting for the C-130 to land.

*

“Turbine inlet temps against the peg,” MacIntyre said.

Kowalski acknowledged the flight engineer. “Sue, how we doing on fuel?” she asked the navigator.

“Going to be close…” The C-130 was flying on its left two engines, and because of the drag created by the damaged right wing, the turbine inlet temperatures were in the red and fuel consumption was high. Kowalski had to keep pushing the throttles up to maintain altitude and control. Every time she backed the throttles off, the right wing came down—it was all but dead.

“Pilot, this is the loadmaster.” The formality in Petrovich’s voice struck at the flight crew. Something was up.

“Roger, loadmaster, go ahead.”

“Be advised that Captain Bryant has died.”

Silence. Then…“Please have everyone strap in. We’re starting our approach into Incirlik.”

*

“There,” Jack half-pointed, half-nodded at the approaching C-130. The ramp was unusually silent as activity came to a halt. A huge crash truck rumbled down the taxiway followed by an ambulance, finally stopping near the approach end of the runway. Another crash truck was off to the side, halfway down the runway. Jack could hear the motors of the ambulances idling in the background as he watched the right wing of the approaching Hercules drop while the plane descended. “Up, get it
up
,” he muttered to himself. The wing dropped lower.

“
Come
on
…” Now he was shouting. He glanced at Pullman. The big sergeant’s left arm was bent at the elbow and his palm was up, making a slight upward pushing motion. Further down the ramp a sergeant was standing beside a small tug, leaning to the right. Jack realized both he and Pullman were also leaning, trying to will the right wing of the C-130 to lift.

Slowly, slowly, the wing came up as Kowalski increased her air-speed. Then, finally, she touched down and rolled to a halt. And Jack could feel the tension drain.

The pain would come later.

*

The Pentagon

“Your attention please.” The major was making her last announcement to the command center. “Scamp One-One has safely recovered. Operation WARLORD is now terminated.” The reaction on the floor was more subdued this time as people congratulated each other on what “they” had done.

Cunningham was certain that most of them had been more than willing to write off Task Force Alpha once the POWs were safe. He stood up and looked at the major. She was still sitting, gathering her code books and getting ready to leave. She nodded at him and turned back to her work. Cunningham glanced at the Command and Authority room. The President was standing, accepting congratulations from his staff. The two men stared at each other for a moment.

Cunningham turned away. “Miss Rahimi, thank you.” He jammed a fresh cigar into his mouth. “Dick,” he snapped to his aide, “what the hell’s on the agenda?” And then he was out of there.

Epilogue

Holloman AFB, New Mexico

Colonel Rafe Thompson, Holloman’s wing commander, sat behind his desk glaring at the staff sergeant standing at attention in front of him. The colonel was, for perhaps the first time in his career, at a loss for words. The sergeant’s eyes kept darting from the colonel to the canvas bag sitting on the desk. It looked like his scrounge bag, but it couldn’t be. He had left it behind at Kermanshah.

“Goddamn it, Byers…” The colonel stood up and started to pace. “I don’t know what to do with you.” He was building momentum now. Byers braced for the rush. “Captain Jack Locke has been credited with five confirmed kills and one probable…Which makes him an ace. A certified card-carrying aerial assassin.”