Red Phoenix (62 page)

Tony had a lot of things going for him, though. He was uninjured, could set his airplane up at the optimum altitude and speed, and would have time to brace himself for the ejection shock.

He looked at the gauge and saw the temperature still rising. Not as quickly, but things would start to fail soon. He put his visor down and tightened the knob as hard as he could, then tightened the chin strap on his helmet. Next, the bayonet clips that attached the oxygen mask to his helmet. A lot of pilots had their masks ripped off, and he needed it to protect his face from the slipstream.

The throttle was still set for cruise speed, about five hundred knots. He pulled it back, reducing the thrust almost to idle. This wouldn’t cover ground as quickly, but reducing the speed from five hundred to one hundred knots would make the ejection a much less brutal process.

As the airspeed fell, his climb slowed, then he started to lose altitude. To compensate he pulled up more and more until his speed stabilized and the nose was angled thirty degrees in the air.

Tony felt intensely vulnerable. Slow, power fading, over enemy territory—all he could do was hope nobody noticed them. Hooter was taking a risk,
too. If they were bounced by more than two aircraft, John would have his work cut out for him, both defending Tony and covering his own behind.

Settling into his seat, he pressed his spine tight against the seat back and made sure his feet were set squarely on the rudder pedals.

Almost throwing his head back, he jammed it against the headrest, then settled it in, making sure that he was facing straight ahead and wasn’t offset to either side.

About two steps away from punching out, Tony used his peripheral vision to look at the temperature gauge. Still climbing, but not there yet. Was there a funny sound in the roar of the jet behind him?

Screw the head position. He checked Hooter and saw him still flying above and ahead, probably wishing he had a towing hook. Feeling a little more desperate, he looked over the ground below. Ridges and valleys alternated, with lakes and occasional groups of trees occupying what flat land there was.

In a way he was glad. Air Force instructors said that if you were behind enemy lines, you should try to bail out over rough country. It would slow the progress of enemy units trying to reach you, and give you lots of places to hide, but it was not supposed to be a problem for a rescue chopper.

Well, what if the chopper can’t get to you? He’d have to make it out on his own. He looked at the temperature gauge and immediately snapped his head back against the headrest.

“Hooter, it’s almost showtime.”

“Rog, Saint. Can I do anything for you?”

“Mark my position and then get the hell out of here. A circling jet will only attract attention. I’ll try and work south so the rescue people can get to me.”

“Roger, copy.”

“And tell Anne.”

Tony heard two clicks. There was definitely a new note to the roar of his engine, but he stayed with the aircraft. Every second in the air brought him closer to recovery. The gauge was now past the red line, but the number was meaningless. Essentially, any moment parts of the engine would decide to take a separate vacation.

He felt a shudder and had to correct to bring the wings level. No point in risking a clean ejection. He said, “Punching,” and snapped his elbows back against the seat. His hands fell down onto the yellow-and-black-striped loop between his legs. He grabbed it hard, took a breath, and pulled.

Nothing. Shit! The hit must have taken out part of the circuitry. Time for Plan B.

He kept his right hand on the loop, still pulling. Moving his left arm only from the elbow down, he moved his hand over to the side of the cockpit, just under the canopy rail. He knew where the switch was by touch and did not even risk turning his head to find it with his eyes.

His fingers found the cover and flipped it up. There was a simple toggle switch underneath. This was normally used on the ground only, to raise the canopy. He flipped it up.

He heard a motor behind his head start to whine and snapped his left hand back to the loop. He saw the canopy frame start to move, and then daylight appeared under the front. The whistling sound increased to a roar.

The slipstream suddenly caught the raised edge of the clear bubble. The mechanism was designed to hold the hundred-pound canopy up against gravity, not down against thousands of pounds of pressure. The linkage pulled apart, the hinges at the back sheared off, and the canopy tore away from the airplane.

Tony was exposed to the hundred-knot wind for only a few thousandths of a second. Two short lanyards led from the canopy to the ballistic charges under the ejection seat. Unlike the primary circuit, with its torn wiring, these worked. The lanyards went taut.

Tony felt the seat move beneath him. Used to seven or nine gravities during violent maneuvering, the seat threw him out of the fighter with an acceleration of thirty-three g’s.

The force of the blast shocked him and distorted his time sense. He felt the single shock of the explosive start to fade, but suddenly it was augmented by the rocket motor on the base of the seat. This only fired for a few tenths of a second, but the straps in front tightened as it pulled him back as well as up, slowing his forward speed. He saw the cockpit sides pull away from him and was suddenly surrounded by open sky.

He watched his aircraft as it fell away from him. The cockpit looked odd and empty without the canopy, and the ejection rail stuck out well above the line of the fuselage. It was in a slow left roll, preventing him from seeing the damage to his ship.

He was disappointed and desperately wanted to confirm that the damage to the Falcon was fatal, that there was no way he could have made it back to base. The fighter was desperately needed, almost as much as the pilot who flew it, and its loss would make everyone’s job that much harder.

The slipstream was still buffeting him, but it no longer felt like a wild animal tearing at him. Tony felt a motion behind him and realized the seat was falling away, having done its job. There was a rustling sound, and he looked up in time to see his chute deploy in apparent slow motion.

He didn’t believe it. The damn thing actually worked! The circular canopy was half green, with orange and white quarters filling out the circle. Tony gazed at it, admiring the way they had spaced the colored sections, the way it looked in the light from the setting sun.…

The setting sun. Night. On the ground! Tony snapped out of his daze and looked down. The rocky hillside was rushing up at him. He took a few moments to look around, to try and get the lay of the land.

It was a snow-covered slope, patches and streaks of brown showing through where the ground was especially rough. And there were pine trees dotting the slopes, with a large patch right under him.

He pulled on a pair of red handles, and a vent opened on the back of his chute. He might be able to steer clear. He looked at the setting sun, trying to mark the western direction against a prominent landmark.

The land sloped down to a river. If the ground wasn’t so rocky, it would be a pleasant valley to farm. The river ran roughly north-south and would serve as a good guide for his travel.

He heard a roar and saw Hooter’s Falcon fly past. The jet was close enough for Tony to see Hooter’s thumbs-up gesture, and Tony was sure he could see Tony’s wave and clasped hands over his head. Hooter would carry his location and the fact that he ejected safely back to the squadron.

The fighter flew off down the valley, leaving Tony alone. He missed the freedom of flight, the feeling of control over his destiny. He looked down, watching the ground rush up. His control would be much more limited, for the time being.

KUNSAN AIRBASE

He had taken the time to clean up and change after the debrief. Walking into Anne’s office wearing a flight suit was a little too melodramatic for his taste. Hooter knew where to find Anne. He and Tony had visited her twice during mornings off from flying.

In spite of the hour the building was lit up and busy, with people coming and going. From the outside it looked like any of the office buildings on base, but someone had nailed a hand-lettered sign that said
LOGISTICS
over the original
AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE RECORDS.
Under the board with the single word painted on it, someone had added another sign:
HELP WANTED, APPLY WITHIN.

Anne’s receptionist, Gloria, said that she was in a meeting, but after seeing John’s expression she went to call her. John had carried bad news before, worse news than this, but it was never easy. He put on an expressionless mask that he saved for occasions like this and waited.

Anne came out of a hallway door, dressed in blue jeans and a sweater. She looked tired, with a fresh layer of concern about whatever had called her from the meeting. She saw Hooter and almost stopped in midstride, but she caught herself.

Walking toward him, she asked, “Where’s Tony?” but she knew the answer when he didn’t answer immediately. In the last few strides her expression changed, as she tried to maintain control, and realized how hard that could be.

Hooter waited until she came closer, then said, “Let’s go to your office.”

“But what’s happened? What about Tony?”

“Please, Anne, let’s talk in your office.”

Her face became a mask even more expressionless than John’s.

They walked around a corner, down a short hall. Stepping into a small office, John let her go in first, then gently closed the door behind him.

She watched him closely, and after waiting half a moment, she said, “Tony’s plane was hit.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes. But I saw him bail out. As far as I know, he’s healthy.”

She took a deep breath. “Thank God. When I saw you, I was so afraid it was something else.” Even now she couldn’t say that Tony might have been dead.

Hooter sketched out the mission, how Tony had been hit, and the ejection. Her initial relief was worn away as Hooter described the location: rough country, well behind the lines, and in winter. He was also out of rescue helicopter range.

John tried to talk about smaller things: Tony’s work at the squadron, standard rescue procedures, the progress of the air war in general.

She followed his lead and they chatted for about five minutes. Finally, when there didn’t seem to be any more point to it, she mentioned her meeting and he excused himself.

Anne didn’t return to the meeting. After Hooter left, she sat at her desk and tried to understand what she felt. She knew she was tired. The stress of her job, the importance of her task, had kept her working twenty-hour days. One of the bright spots in these two days had been the visits by Tony. Seeing someone outside of her job, outside of the war, was something she had cherished.

Tony would show up in the morning, sometime after breakfast. They would talk for a while, and then he would have to go back to the squadron. With the two buildings on the same base, he was never gone long. Besides, everyone in the squadron knew where to find him.

They had talked about their interests, past experiences, their beliefs and goals. She had learned more about him in those few short chats than in all the dates they had gone out on.

Now she would have to make it without his help, and she didn’t know if she could. There were things she hadn’t said, on the road to Kunsan or here in her office. Next time she saw him, they would have something new to talk about.

JANUARY 6—WEST OF P’OCHON, SOUTH KOREA

Tony marched and tried to figure out if he was lucky or unlucky. On the
unlucky side, he’d lost his $16-million fighter, had to bail out in the middle of an enemy-occupied area, and now had to walk across frozen hillsides until he could reach his own lines.

On the plus side, he was healthy, except for a sore arm from that damned tree he’d crashed into on landing. He was south of the DMZ by at least twenty miles. That meant he was in friendly, if occupied, territory, and presumably the locals wouldn’t come after him with a pitchfork.

That about did it for the plus side. He remembered a few more on the minus side, though. It was dark, and he didn’t have the faintest idea of where he was.

In the immediate sense he knew his location. He’d been marching along the side of this godforsaken hill for about three hours and was reasonably sure he was heading south.

In larger terms, he didn’t know where to head for. He still had his map, but it was impossible to read until he had some light.

He probably should stop anyway, he thought. He had survived the ejection process relatively intact, but he knew it had taken a lot out of him. He felt a little light-headed and had to stop frequently to rest. Only a desire to get clear of his wrecked aircraft had kept him moving.

It took him another half hour of moving south before he found a likely spot to hide. A small stream had undercut its bank, providing a spot just big enough for a man to lie down.

Tony used his survival knife in his off hand to hack off some pine boughs. Even in his fatigued state he was careful to take them from several trees, and to stay on bare ground as much as possible.

He enjoyed hacking at trees. That damn pine tree had snagged his chute, slamming his right arm against the trunk hard enough to give it a really good bruise. He was sure it wasn’t broken, but it was very, very sore.

And he’d been left dangling twenty feet off the ground. He’d looked a little ridiculous hanging there, with an inflatable raft hanging just off the ground, and his survival kit actually resting on the snow.

Luckily the Air Force included fifty feet of nylon line in the parachute pack for just such eventualities. It had loops and buckles that allowed a pilot to lower himself to the ground. Of course, it was a little harder in the dark with a sore arm, but he’d made it down after about ten minutes. And then it had taken him another twenty minutes to deflate and hide the raft, shred and bury his code card, and pack up his chute and survival kit.

Now every move made his arm ache, and grabbing tree limbs involved a lot of moving.