Cauldron

by Larry Bond

  Even as the instruments confirmed a valid launch, Tad thumbed the weapons selector button on his stick. Lettering on the lower left corner of his HUD changed from “AIM-7” to “AIM-9” and without waiting for a tone, he fired a Sidewinder. His radar was still guiding the Sparrow as it accelerated to almost Mach 4. It wouldn’t be long now.

  He climbed through the expanding trails of the two missiles, searching for the enemy fighters. The smoke billowed across his canopy, sometimes blocking the area in the sky enclosed by the HUD box. He concentrated on keeping it at the center of his windscreen, and risked a glance down at the radar. The two fighters were high, almost twelve thousand meters. Still, the Sparrow should be there in a few more seconds. Just a few more…

  The box disappeared. Maneuvers, jamming, chaff, it didn’t matter how the French fighter had shaken off his radar lock, but without it the chance of a Sparrow hit went way down. Tad shifted to boresight mode, centering the radar antenna and pouring radiation into the space in front of the F-15’s nose. Nothing. The Rafales had vanished. He peered into the windscreen. Where were they? Had they split up? If they’d moved too far to one side…

  The launch warning light on the threat display commanded his attention, and Tad craned his neck right. A white spear sped from his four o’clock straight for him. Shit!

  Banking hard left, Tad abandoned the Sparrow. Split seconds counted now. Breathing in pants to fight the g-forces, he put the incoming enemy missile at his eleven o’clock, triggered more chaff, and sent the Eagle into a corkscrew maneuver designed to eat up the missile’s energy in a series of last-minute course corrections.

  The world spun around Tad’s canopy, and the shifting g-forces pushed him around the cockpit. Out the corner of one eye, he saw two white lines drawn against the blue sky. One, his Sparrow from the size of the trail, went straight up until it faded from sight, but the other ended in a dirty-gray puff of smoke, with smaller trails extending downward from it.

  In the midst of his jinking, Tad smiled grimly. The Sparrow had missed, but the Sidewinder he’d fired had locked onto the Rafale’s engines when it maneuvered to avoid the first weapon.

  A shattering explosion rocked the Eagle, almost stunning him. Tad’s head rang, and a sharp pain behind his eyes made him afraid his neck had been broken. It sounded like someone was throwing rocks against the side of the plane. He’d been hit! Already violently maneuvering, the sudden shock threw his fighter out of controlled flight, tumbling toward the earth.

  Fighting to keep control of the aircraft, he felt it fall out of the right bank onto its back and start to spin. Desperately Tad throttled back and tried to right the plane, unsure if his controls even functioned. The cockpit was a mass of red lights and flickering numbers. His vision blurred, and the jarring ride sent flashes of pain into his head.

  Either by accident or as a result of his efforts, Tad found himself with the sky above and the ground beneath him. Quickly, lest the opportunity pass, he stomped hard on the right rudder pedal and pushed the stick forward, hoping he still had enough altitude to recover.

  Wincing at the pain, he craned his neck up and back, searching for the surviving Rafale. The sky seemed clear, and his threat display was empty. Maybe the Frenchman had a more pressing engagement elsewhere. Or more likely the enemy pilot had seen the Polish F-15 spinning out of control and assumed his missile hit was a kill.

  The horizon steadied, and Tad took a moment to find out where he was and where he was headed. He turned southeast, heading back for the airfield, now only twenty or so kilometers away. His Eagle’s response was unusual, though, with the bank almost turning into another spin. He had to apply positive pressure to hold the nose up and keep the plane from turning to port. He’d taken the blast on that side. Drag from damaged, fragment-torn skin was certainly pulling the aircraft in that direction.

  With the F-15 in moderately controlled flight, he quickly scanned his cockpit instruments. The nav system was out, as were the stores panel and the artificial horizon. Port engine rpm were down by over fifty percent, and the turbofan also had an elevated tailpipe temperature. Some of the warhead fragments must have sliced into that engine. He was lucky they hadn’t connected with one of the fans. Time to shut it down, he thought, no questions asked.

  As he pulled back on the port throttle with his left hand, he advanced the starboard engine power a little more. When he checked his fuel status, he saw that his port wing tank was empty. More holes.

  That was bad. Even though each had been only a few minutes long, those two earlier afterburner blasts had already taken a big bite out of his fuel supply. Losing what was left in the port tank wasn’t going to help. The gauge showed twelve hundred pounds remaining. If he could set the jet down fast, that should be enough. But getting the Eagle down fast might be a big if.

  Intending to request a straight-in approach, he called the Wroclaw tower.

  The base ground controller answered instead, using the tower frequency. “Zebra One, divert to Lask. We are under artillery barrage.” The controller’s rapid words, almost slurred in his haste, also carried fear. “We’ve already lost the tower, Zebra, and now our SAM batteries are being hit. Wroclaw is closed!”

  Tad felt panic rising inside, and controlled it only with effort. How had the enemy moved that close? A breakthrough? It didn’t matter — certainly not to him right now. Lask was 150 kilometers to the east. He couldn’t make it anywhere but the base. He was running out of both gas and airplane.

  “Negative divert, Ground.” He checked his instruments one more time, making sure. “Insufficient fuel and aircraft damage. I don’t know how much longer I can stay in the air. Is the runway clear?” Tad didn’t mention the pain in his head. He wasn’t bleeding, and seemed to be able to fly. Besides, he thought darkly, he’d probably be killed trying to put the half-wrecked F-15 down anyway.

  “Affirmative, Zebra. No damage yet. There’s no other traffic, and you are cleared for a straight-in approach. Good luck.”

  Tad clicked his microphone switch twice, then concentrated on flying the aircraft. He retrimmed it, since it was taking even more pressure to keep the nose up and straight.

  He scanned the countryside. Tad knew the Wroclaw region well, but he couldn’t see the airfield. A gray-brown haze hung over the whole area, and only long practice let him make a visual approach.

  Finally, at half the normal distance, he spotted the long, friendly ribbon of runway. He dropped his landing gear, and was pleasantly surprised to see three green lights on the panel. Gear down. He started to ease down the flaps, but the Eagle almost fell out of control to the left again. Something was jammed or damaged on the port side.

  There was no need to throttle back. With one engine and a port yaw, he was already at minimum flying speed.

  Although his attention was on the runway, Tad could see the rest of the base. Bustling, if battered, when he’d left just over an hour ago, it was now deserted, with no sign of human life or other aircraft. Standard procedure when an air base came under ground attack was to evacuate immediately. He’d even participated in drills where they’d moved the entire regiment. But this wasn’t a drill. The 11th Fighter Regiment was gone. He felt suddenly adrift.

  As he watched, two shells landed near the hangars. Earth fountained up, spilling away from bright orange balls of flame. The explosions were audible even over the noise of his jet engine.

  His lineup was good, and Tad nursed the damaged F-15 down gently. He had twice the runway he needed, so he took his time. He had a good descent rate. There was only a little crosswind. Nothing fancy, Tad thought, just plant this thing and taxi quickly under cover.

  The runway’s rough, gray surface appeared under his wheels, and he smoothly brought the Eagle down. He felt the first touch of the wheels as they kissed the concrete, then pulled up gently to flare and slow the airplane.

  A loud bang threw the Eagle off course, and Tad tried desperately to stop the sudden turn as his fighter spun to port. For an instant
, he thought an artillery shell had landed nearby, but then he realized that his left tire had blown. Damaged by missile fragments, it had shredded itself under stress, and the port landing gear was now nothing more than a steel pipe, dragging on the ground in a shower of sparks.

  Wojcik instinctively chopped the throttle and rode the right brake hard. In the half-second it had taken for him to understand what had happened, the crippled Eagle had already completed a full circle and was starting on another, with no perceptible loss in speed. A horrible scraping, grating sound fed his fear.

  The F-15’s main gear strut, abused and maybe damaged itself, gave way, tearing out of the wheel well and taking part of the mechanism with it. His port wing tip dropped to the ground, tipping the plane over. Praying hard, Tad reached for the ejection handle and then stopped. With the wing dragging on the ground, the aircraft was slowing more rapidly. He decided to ride it out.

  After another very bumpy half-circle, the Eagle finally stopped moving, surrounded in a cloud of what Tad hoped was dust and not smoke. He hit the canopy release, but it didn’t work. The backup release, driven by a battery, did.

  As the dust-streaked canopy bubble whined upward, he hurriedly disconnected his harness, g-suit, and microphone leads. He remembered to grab the maps and other papers in the cockpit, then squeezed out through the opening as it widened and dropped to the ground.

  Tad’s only thought was to get away from the still very flammable airplane, with its jet fuel and oxygen systems and missile warheads. He scrambled upright and started to run for the nearest shelter. Then he saw a GAZ jeep hurtling across the airfield, straight toward him.

  It braked just a few meters short of him, and a technical sergeant he recognized, one of the regiment’s maintenance staff, jumped out — grabbing a gasoline-filled jerrycan on the way. “You all right, sir?”

  When he nodded, still a little dizzy, the sergeant pointed him toward the jeep. “Hop in, quick.”

  Leaving Tad still standing in a daze, the maintenance tech ran toward the wrecked F-15. Pulling down the Eagle’s built-in access ladder, he used it to climb up to the cockpit, and opened the jerrycan. He sloshed gasoline over the seat and instrument panels, then splashed more onto the upper fuselage — as far as he could reach. Then he jumped down, still holding the open can.

  More shells hammered the far side of the field, setting several buildings ablaze. Tad watched the sergeant’s bizarre actions for about two seconds, uncomprehending. Then, as he realized what was happening, and where he was, he scrambled into the jeep, the pain in his head completely forgotten.

  The maintenance sergeant took one step under the F-15’s tilted wings, set the can down and deliberately tipped it over. Gasoline poured out, spreading across the runway beneath the plane.

  Satisfied, the sergeant trotted back to the jeep, slid behind the wheel, and backed up a little further, angling upwind.

  He drew and loaded a flare pistol.

  Tad looked at the broken Eagle, sitting just off the runway. It had probably been almost a loss anyway, but the only reason to burn a plane was to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. German and French tanks must be close.

  The sergeant’s flare drew a straight, bright line from the pistol’s muzzle to the fighter’s forward fuselage. As it burst, the gasoline, already partially in vapor form, ignited in an orange-red cloud with an explosive whooph.

  The maintenance tech already had the jeep turning and speeding away. “We’re evacuating, sir. All the flyable aircraft have already left. The rest of the regiment will be gone in a few hours. You’re 1st Squadron, right?”

  Tad nodded, then winced as his injured neck sent what felt like a red-hot nail stabbing into his skull.

  “They’re still here, over at the ops building.” Once away from the burning aircraft, the sergeant slowed the jeep from flat out to a merely breakneck pace. “So how did your mission go?”

  Among the artillery explosions in the background, a slower, deeper rumble ended in a boom. Tad looked back to see a ball of thick black smoke billow upward from his shattered aircraft.

  He sighed, remembering the burning trucks and supply vehicles he’d left behind him at the Cicha Woda bridge. “Good. Just not good enough.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Corridors

  JUNE 11 — THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Ross Huntington watched White House gardeners slowly working their way from flower bed to flower bed — weeding, trimming, and watering to restore and maintain beauty and order. The sight of so much peaceful labor seemed strange to him after spending so many hours following the war burning through Northern and Central Europe.

  Especially a war that America and her allies seemed to be losing.

  Poland’s armies were retreating again, driven out of Wroclaw by superior French and German numbers and firepower. The little Czech and Slovak republics, hard-pressed themselves, had not been able to provide more than token assistance to their northern ally. And Hungary’s soldiers had their hands full just fending off the relentless EurCon drive toward Budapest.

  They all needed help, and soon.

  Unfortunately neither the United States nor Great Britain could do much yet to meet those needs.

  Ever since the first French stealth missiles slammed into Polish soil, the President and Britain’s Prime Minister had been waging a campaign both in public and behind the scenes to broaden the coalition against EurCon and to win clear passage to the war zone. With decidedly mixed results, Huntington knew.

  The Netherlands, torn between its free trade principles and the looming Franco-German military presence on its borders, had reluctantly opted for a wary neutrality. That wasn’t likely to change — not with EurCon moving from victory to victory. Spain and Italy also seemed determined to stay on the sidelines, and he couldn’t blame them very much for that. Neither had much to gain and both had much to lose in any wider European war.

  To the north, the Danes had proved powerless to enforce neutrality in the skies over their own country. EurCon and allied jets had repeatedly clashed in Danish airspace without any challenge from Denmark’s tiny air force. Sweden seemed content to patrol its own borders and issue stern warnings that all belligerents should leave its shipping unmolested. So far those warnings had been heeded.

  Only Norway had sided with its traditional allies. And its decision came only after several days spent in futile efforts to mediate a peaceful settlement. Finally convinced that France and Germany could not be brought to their senses, the Norwegians had at last opened their airfields to U.S. and British warplanes. The first squadrons, F-15s and F-16s from the United States, were due to touch down in a matter of hours.

  “Of course I understand your position, Madam Prime Minister.” The faintest hint of carefully concealed exasperation tinged the President’s voice. “But surely you can understand our need to mount a fully coordinated air and sea campaign as soon as possible.”

  Huntington turned away from the Oval Office windows.

  Right now the President was on a secure channel with Norway’s Prime Minister, sorting out last-minute glitches over command authority. A State Department translator stood by on a separate extension, ready to interpret technical language. So far the young man’s services hadn’t been necessary. Brigitte Petersen spoke perfect English.

  Apparently her reply was satisfactory, because the tension in the President’s jaw eased slightly. His voice was considerably more cordial when he spoke again. “Yes, I see… that just might work. Very well, I’ll have my military people get in touch with your service chiefs and Defense Ministry to fill in the details. Thank you, Madam Prime Minister. Yes, good luck to us all.”

  When America’s chief executive hung up, he glanced at Huntington, shook his head, and showed his teeth in a brief, wry grin. “Jumping Jesus, Ross. Sometimes I think waging coalition warfare is a hell of a lot harder than going it alone would have been. At least then I’d only have to wrestle with the Joint Chiefs, the Congress, the
press, and my own staff.”

  “True. Churchill or Roosevelt would probably have said the same…” Something sparked in Huntington’s brain — the faint flickering of an idea. He fell silent, willing it to life.

  “Yeah?” The President looked up at his longtime friend and advisor. “C’mon, Ross, I’ve seen that look before. The last time I watched you draw four aces, as far as I remember.”

  Huntington shrugged. “Nothing so dramatic, I’m afraid. Just a sudden grasp of the obvious.”

  “Like what?”

  “That EurCon’s just as much a coalition effort as we are — maybe more so. But we’ve all been talking and thinking like it was a giant French- and German-controlled monolith.”

  The President stroked his jaw. “Sure seems to be.”

  “That’s the operative phrase, ’seems to be,’” Huntington argued. “But what do we really know about the decision-making process over there? Were the other, smaller member states consulted about going to war? Are they willing to commit their own troops to it? There’s still a lot we don’t know about how EurCon works — or doesn’t work.”

  “What’s your point, Ross?”

  “That there may be openings out there to exploit — political or military. Fracture lines we could find and pry open.”

  The President sat back in his big leather chair, absorbing that. Then he rocked forward and stabbed a finger at Huntington. “Okay, you’ve sold me.”

  “Then you’ll have the State Department — ”

  “Nope.” The President shook his head and smiled again — the trademark grin that made him look years younger than he really was. It had been a long time since Huntington had seen it. “We both know the Foggy Bottom boys have a real bad case of NIH syndrome, Ross.”

  Huntington nodded. “Not Invented Here” was a classic Washington problem. Sections of the federal government’s bloated bureaucracy routinely dismissed ideas, proposals, and solutions that came from outsiders — no matter how sensible, practical, or cost-effective they were. “Then who do you want to pull the answers together? The CIA? DOD?”