by Ward Carroll
“Titan shows that group as your bogeys.”
“Can I shoot?” Fuzzy asked Smoke over the discrete frequency.
“Shoot! Shoot!” Smoke cried in return.
A few seconds later, a Phoenix missile came off Fuzzy’s jet with a burst of flame followed by a thick smoke trail as the weapon climbed with the enthusiasm of a blood hound latched to a scent in the breeze. Turtle marveled at the sight, watching the deadly rocket scream higher and higher until it reached its apex and started back downhill. Just as it seemed the missile might hang forever in the sky, it hit its mark and transformed itself and the better part of the lead Foxbat into a ball of fragments and flame. No chute emerged from the falling wreckage.
“Splash One! Splash One!” Fuzzy called. The Hornets sorted around the fireball and each fired an AMRAAM. The missiles came off more aggressively than the graceful Phoenix, and they flew a faster, straighter line to their targets. The hapless Iraqi wingmen had attempted to turn their Fox-bats away from the attack after their lead exploded before their eyes, but no amount of expendables or Doppler shift was going to defeat the AMRAAMs now. The two missiles hit almost simultaneously and twin fireballs bracketed the dissipating remnants of the first explosion. Like the Phoenix, each AMRAAM had aimed for the centroid of the radar return instead of the MiG’s heat source, and both destroyed their prey as unmercifully.
“You guys stay level,” Smoke commanded as he pulled into the vertical. “Dash Four is mine.” Smoke climbed to slightly higher than thirty thousand feet, then rolled the jet onto its back and pulled the nose to the horizon. “I still don’t have a tally, Gucci. What’s the range to this guy?”
“Twelve miles. Look slightly left and five degrees low. He’s fast as hell. I’m showing 1,300 knots of closure.”
“That’s not going to matter,” the pilot assured. “We’ll convert this altitude advantage into speed and angles.” Smoke kept the jet inverted for a few seconds and scoured the sky against the sandy backdrop beneath them. “I’m tally. He’s merging with our wingmen.”
“Mark the bandit down my right wing,” Fuzzy reported. “It’s a Foxbat. Do you have him, Smoke?”
“That’s a roger. I’m overhead pulling for a shot,” Smoke returned. “Stay offensive on him, but give me a few seconds . . .”
Smoke came through 90 degrees nose low and tracked in phase with the MiG as he closed for the kill. He selected Sidewinder and listened for the distinctive tone the weapon gave off when it had acquired a heat source. He guessed the Foxbat had to be in full afterburner, with the pilot now fully immersed in the attempt to run away, and he anticipated the Sidewinder would have no trouble acquiring the MiG’s red-hot engines.
But the missile was silent. “Two miles, Smoke,” Gucci prodded from the backseat. “Take the shot.”
“I can’t get a tone,” Smoke replied. “There’s no way he’s in afterburner.”
And then the Foxbat’s pilot did the most unlikely thing. He pulled hard into Smoke and Gucci, and in the blink of an eye, Diamond One overshot the bogey’s flight path. “This guy’s no idiot,” Smoke commented to Gucci through the G forces as he worked to get the Tomcat’s nose headed the other direction. “He had us in sight the entire time, lured us into the overshoot.”
As soon as he saw Smoke fly beyond the MiG, the lead Hornet pilot, who’d maintained an offensive position in the rear quarter of the Foxbat, pulled for a shot of his own. Brick’s missile tone was suspect, but he knew he’d probably never get another opportunity like this. Once Diamond One cleared his windscreen, he pulled the trigger. The Sidewinder came off with a roar and immediately corkscrewed in the wrong direction. He winced behind his mask and visor and feebly uttered, “Heads up . . .” over the radio.
Smoke continued to bring his nose to bear on the Iraqi and was surprised to see a missile sail a few hundred feet in front of him. “Cease fire back there, goddam it,” he screamed over the discrete frequency. “I’m engaged!” He pulled the stick into his lap and, before looking back to his left at the Foxbat, shot a quick glance inside the cockpit to make sure he hadn’t pegged the angle of attack. The Tomcat didn’t fly for very long that way, and the airframe didn’t give the pilot any seat-of-the-pants indication when it was about to depart controlled flight. One second the pilot had absolute dominion over his killing machine, and the next he was no more than a passenger on a roller coaster taking the big plunge—and a falling roller coaster could easily be shot by opposing pilots still in control of their aircraft.
The engagement quickly became a slow-speed affair, which surprised Smoke because he’d always been briefed that the Foxbat was not capable of fighting at slow speeds. The Iraqi maneuvered with aplomb, and the two pilots matched each other in an airborne dance contest where the winner would be the guy who was able to stop his down-range travel better than his opponent. They floated relative to each other like two leaves in the autumn breeze, and from the rest of the Diamonds’ vantage points, the scene was ghostly still.
The MiG was making a respectable showing, and Smoke was reminded of the etiquette between the great aces of World War I following a well-fought engagement, of flowing scarves and salutes between cockpits, as he mirrored the nose-high attitude of the Foxbat with his jet and passed close enough several times during their fight to see the color of the other pilot’s white helmet. Smoke never feared he would lose, but he hoped winning would not come with the price of killing his adversary. He felt unjust in punishing a good pilot for his country’s aircraft procurement failings.
Finally, the MiG would fly no longer. Smoke saw the Foxbat shudder slightly, and then snap roll to the right and drop like a rock. The lieutenant commander anticipated the MiG’s fall from grace, and booted his rudder full in the direction of the enemy jet until the Foxbat filled the view through the front of his canopy. At that point, the lieutenant commander selected Guns, let the sight walk behind the Iraqi’s canopy, and pulled the trigger. The nose cannon cooked off a hundred rounds, every fifth bullet a tracer, and the American pilot watched with cold satisfaction as the bulk of the ammo hit the enemy jet on the left wing and fuselage. The dotted line of hits joined with a number of angry flashes, and flames quickly engulfed the rear half of the MiG. Smoke was pleased to see the ejection seat fire, and shortly after, a parachute open.
“Splash Four!” Smoke called to the AWACS. “Titan, call our picture.”
“Titan shows picture clear. No other air activity at this time.”
“Roger, we copy that. Diamond flight is out of gas and heading back to the Boat.”
“Good show, Diamond,” the controller returned. “Good show.”
The young enlisted man walked back into the Arrowslingers’ paraloft after eating lunch on the mess deck five stories below. “I don’t know about you, Smitty,” he sighed, “but I am really sick of corn dogs.”
“I know the feeling, son,” Parachute Rigger First Class Smith replied. “What’s that you’ve got there?”
The airman looked at the object in his right hand as if it surprised him. “Oh,” he said, “I stopped by the electronic repair shop to bullshit with my man MacAffee for a while, and he gave me back this radio that we’d given their shop last night for a routine inspection.” The sailor walked over to the squadron flight schedule and ran his finger along the list of pilots for the day. “I think it belongs to the skipper . . . where’s his name? Okay, here it is. He’s flying tonight. I’ll stick this back into his survival vest.”
“Don’t bother,” Smitty said to his junior co-worker with dismay. “The skipper’s airborne. He jumped into the second event at the last minute. In fact, he was a regular pain in the ass about it. He was so fired up about going flying, he accidentally shot his pistol in here.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No. It scared the fuck outta me. The gun fired, and officers were diving all over the place. The bullet bounced around a few times and lodged in one of the helmets.”
“Was anybody killed?”
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“You think you would’ve gone this long on this boat without hearing about somebody’s getting killed? You know that gouge hound MacAffee would’ve told you about it. No, nobody was killed.” The petty officer motioned to the worktable in front of him. “Just put the radio down here. We’ll replace it in the skipper’s gear when he gets back.”
“Do you think he’ll notice?” the youngster asked innocently enough.
The petty officer shook his head and responded dryly, “Only if he gets shot down . . .”
Commander Campbell hit the ground first, coming down in the western outskirts of the city of An Najaf. No locals were there to greet him, but he knew his descent had not gone un-noticed by the residents or the military authorities in the city. They were all certainly headed his way in good numbers. He unfastened the fittings to the risers, rolled his parachute into a ball, and stuffed it deep into the nearest thicket of brush. Once he was certain the bright orange-and-white cloth was concealed, he disconnected the seat pan from the lower straps of his harness and cracked it open. He quickly assessed what he might need and what he could discard, keeping the bag of water, the space blanket, the packet of hard candy, and the small first-aid kit. He then closed the seat pan back up and tossed it into the bush with the parachute. He looked back to the city and, seeing no activity, took off into the desert to the west.
Although he felt the desire to sprint, the skipper paced himself with an athletic jog, figuring he’d ultimately be able to go farther in less time at the more moderate pace. The commander was in good physical shape, and he ran for a while, stopping only occasionally to look over his shoulder back toward the town.
After covering two miles, he started to make out a line of camels on the western horizon ahead of him. Reasoning that the animals had nomads handling them and wanting to avoid human contact, he jumped into a nearby dry gully and waited for the train to pass. His breathing slowly quieted from the runner’s huff he’d maintained during the first part of his evasion, and, once it did, he was able to hear jets overhead. For the first time since he’d hit the ground, he thought to try and communicate his status over his survival radio.
The skipper reached for the right-hand pouch on his vest and pulled the zipper back. A wave of shock hit him when he discovered that the radio was not where it should have been. He reeled in the nylon security cord like an angler who feared he’d just been robbed of his prized lure and was hit with another burst of nauseating adrenaline once he reached the bitter end. The skipper maniacally slapped at himself hoping the radio might have been placed in another of the many pockets that adorned his flight gear, but he came up empty. He fell to the bottom of the gully in a heap of anger and frustration and punched and kicked the dirt, threw his helmet, and cursed at the top of his lungs. He screamed of conspiracy and envy and of the weak-minded sons of bitches surrounding him at every turn. He was the victim of professional negligence and there would be courts-martial upon his return—courts-martial and then public hangings.
The skipper continued his tirade until fatigue overwhelmed him. He flopped chest-down on the side of the gully and started to look to the eastern horizon but was instead greeted by a pair of legs just inches in front of him. The commander screamed in horror and recoiled back into the center of the gully.
He tripped as he fell and, after a backward somersault, wound up with his spine against the other side of the ditch. He threw his hands up in surrender, squinted through the cloud of dust to assess his captor, and was relieved to discover a lone boy looking down on him. The skipper laughed boldly and dropped his hands. “Go away,” the commander directed with several outward casts of his knuckles. “Shoo . . .”
The boy stood with the moderate breeze flapping his white robe and black vest, holding a shepherd’s staff nearly twice his height. “I said get out of here,” the skipper shouted. The boy remained frozen, but not because of fear. The little Arab’s eyes held no emotion as they continued to lock the downed American pilot. This kid can’t be alone, the skipper thought. He’s too calm.
The commander reached for his pistol and began to turn when the lights went out.
“Iron One, this is Iron Two RIO . . . How do you read? Iron One, this is Iron Two RIO . . . How do you read?” The transmission was barely audible to the crew in the F-14 leveled at ten thousand feet to avoid drawing any small arms or shoulder-fired SAM fire until it might become absolutely necessary to effect a rescue.
“Einstein . . . Einstein, is that you?” Spud asked in return. “Are you all right?” The aviators had lost sight of both chutes at some point in their descent, and had waited eagerly to hear from one or both of the crews on the ground.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” the RIO replied, again very quietly. “I see some vehicles coming toward me.”
“What’s your position?” Spud asked. “Give us a range and bearing from SAM Site Bravo.”
Einstein studied the hand-held global positioning system he’d fished out of his vest and fought a paralyzing sense of frustration. Goddam the skipper for being such an idiot. He wouldn’t listen, would he? And now look at the mess they were in. “I don’t have that information,” Einstein dejectedly passed into his radio. “I don’t know the lat and long for SAM Site Bravo. It was written on my kneeboard card but I lost it during the ejection.”
“All right. Hold on.” Spud keyed the intercom. “What do you think, Punk?”
“The SEALs can home in on his radio,” Punk replied. “Maybe we’ll just have to wait for them to show up in the helicopter.”
“I think they’re coming for me,” Einstein called, even quieter than before. “I see some trucks headed my direction.”
“Are you hidden?” Spud asked.
“I think so, but maybe not well enough. There’s really no good place to hide around here. They’re headed right for me now, about half a mile away, maybe less than that.”
“Stay low,” Spud commanded, “but try and see if there are any landmarks you could call out to us. We don’t see you or the trucks.”
Einstein scanned the entire horizon surrounding him. “Like I said, there’s nothing here but sand and rock and bushes, Spud. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Shoot a flare,” Spud ordered over the radio.
“That’ll give his position away,” Punk returned on the intercom.
“They already know where he is, but we don’t,” Spud explained before keying the distress frequency again. “Einstein, shoot a flare—now.”
Einstein dug through his vest and found a flare. He stepped a few feet from the two clumps of bushes he’d crawled between, held the flare away from his face, and fired. It took off with a resonant thump and arced brightly across the sky. Once sure the flare had worked, he jumped back under cover.
“I’ve got it,” Spud said. “Down the canopy rail at ten o’clock.”
“I’m tally, I’m tally,” Punk said. “Einstein, where are the trucks from you?”
The young RIO held his pocket compass at eye level and took a reading. “Zero-two-zero . . . They bear zero-two-zero from me . . . Half a mile away at the most.”
Punk spied a column of dust. “Spud, can you get the pod on them?”
“Can you read a book through a straw?” the lieutenant commander replied. “I’m trying. Bring ’em to the nose.”
Punk buried the nose and pointed the jet toward the column. “Look for the dust trail they’re kicking up . . .”
“There we go . . . got ’em,” Spud said. “I’m breaking out some trucks and some armored personnel carriers. It looks like four total.”
“Einstein, keep your head down,” Punk called as he put the jet into a climbing right-hand turn now that Spud had acquired the targets. The LANTIRN pod’s gimballed lens would now automatically track the target, regardless of the F-14’s heading, as long as Punk didn’t blank out the pod’s view with the fuselage, which, with the pod mounted under the right wing, was why Punk chose a right-hand turn.
He looked at his alt
imeter: eight thousand feet, lower than they should have been to remain out of the reach of anti-aircraft fire. He kept climbing. The pilot looked at his repeat of Spud’s display and saw they had a bead on one of the Iraqi vehicles. Punk depressed a button near his thumb on the stick, releasing one of the two thousand-pound bombs strapped to the Tomcat.
Spud waited until he felt the thump of the bomb clearing the airplane and then fired the laser while holding the crosshairs over one of the personnel carriers. He eagerly watched the display for impact. “This is either going to scare the shit out of the rest of them, or really piss them off.”
“I’m banking on the first option,” Punk replied.
The weapon hit and the resultant violence was vividly captured in their view through the LANTIRN pod. Spud decreased the magnification by one click, and the crew observed the remaining vehicles scatter in all directions.
“That was awesome, but close,” Einstein called over the radio. “Don’t drop anything west of your last hit or you’ll take me out, too.”
The vehicles continued to drive away from the flaming wreckage for a while, but eventually all turned back toward Einstein. “These guys don’t learn very quickly,” Punk commented as he rolled toward them for the second time.
“No, they don’t,” Spud agreed as he walked the pod’s crosshairs from a truck to the remaining personnel carrier. “Hopefully our bluff will stick with our last bomb.” With that, Punk punched off the final thousand-pound precision-guided bomb. Again, they concentrated on their screens as two guys plopped on their couches at home might concentrate on an exciting football game on TV
The personnel carrier swerved at the last instant, and the second bomb hit long. The explosion caused the vehicles to disperse as they had following the first hit, but again they weathered the attack and returned to their quest for Einstein.
