by Dale Brown
“I didn’t understand it when Luger first said it, and I don’t understand it now,” Macomber grumbled. “Just keep us from crashing or getting shot down, will ya?”
“Yes, sir. Thought you’d want to know. Strap in tight—this will get hairy.”
“Your passengers all buckled in?” David Luger asked.
“You just shut down those Turkish radars or I’ll come back and haunt you for all eternity, sir,” Whack radioed back.
“Hi, Whack. I’ll do my best. Charlie strapped in, too?”
“I’m ready to fly, David,” Charlie replied.
“Excellent, Charlie.”
Even faced with a dangerous ride ahead, Charlie turned and saw the amused smirk on Macomber’s face. “‘Excellent, Charlie,’” he mimicked. “‘Ready to fly, David.’ The general wants to be sure his lady love is safely tucked in. How cute.”
“Bite me, Whack,” she said, but she couldn’t help but smile.
“Ready, guys?”
“As ready as we’ll ever be,” the pilot said.
“Good. Descend right now to eleven thousand feet and fly heading one-five-zero.”
The pilot pushed his control wheel forward to begin the descent, but the copilot held out his hand to stop him. “The minimum descent altitude in this area is thirteen-four.”
“The high terrain in your sector is twelve o’clock, twenty-two miles. You’ll be above everything else…well, most everything else. I’ll steer you around the high stuff until your moving-map terrain readout starts showing you the terrain.” The pilot gulped again but pushed the controls forward to start the descent. The moment they descended through fourteen thousand feet, the computerized female voice in the Terrain Advisory and Warning System blared, “High terrain, pull up, pull up!” and the GPS moving-map display in the cockpit started flashing yellow, first ahead of them and then to their left side, where the terrain was the highest.
“Good going, guys,” Luger radioed. “On your moving map you should see a valley at your one o’clock position. The floor is nine-seven. Take that valley. Stay at eleven thousand for now.” The pilots saw a very narrow strip of dark surrounded by flashing yellow and now red boxes, the red indicating terrain that was above their altitude.
“What’s the width, sir?”
“It’s plenty wide for you. Just watch the turbulence.” At that exact moment the crew was bounced against their harnesses by wave after wave of turbulence. The pilot was struggling to maintain heading and altitude. “It’s…getting…worse,” the pilot grunted. “I don’t know if I can hold it.”
“That valley should be good until you reach the border in about eighteen minutes,” Luger radioed.
“Eighteen minutes! I can’t hold it for—”
“Climb!” Luger interrupted. “Full power, hard climb to thirteen, heading two-three-zero, now!”
The pilot shoved the throttles to full power and hauled back on the controls with all his might. “I can’t turn! The terrain—”
“Turn now! Hurry!” The pilots could do nothing else but turn, pull on the controls until the plane hung on the very edge of a stall…and pray. The flashing red blocks on the terrain warning display were touching the very tip of the plane’s icon…they were seconds from a crash…
…and then at that moment the red turned to yellow, signifying that they were within five hundred feet of the ground. “Oh Jesus, oh God, we made it…”
And at that instant a flash of fire streaked past the cockpit windows, less than a hundred yards in front of them. The cockpit was filled with an eerie yellow burst of light like the world’s largest flashbulb had just gone off right in front of them, and the pilots could even feel a burst of heat and pressure. “What was that?” the copilot screamed.
“Heading two-three-zero, eleven thousand feet,” Luger said. “Everyone okay? Acknowledge.”
“What was that?”
“Sorry, guys, but I had to do it,” Luger said.
“Do what?”
“I flew you into the engagement envelope of a Patriot missile battery.”
“What?”
“It’s the only way I could get the datalink frequency for the Patriot and between the Patriot and the F-16s,” Luger said.
“Holy crap…we almost got nailed by a Patriot missile…?”
“Yeah, but only one—they must be trying to conserve missiles,” Dave said. “They may have just launched it as a warning, or it might have been a decoy missile.”
“How about a little warning next time you put us in the gun sights, sir?” Macomber snapped.
“No time for chitchat, Whack. I’ve got the Patriot’s datalink frequency locked in, and I’m waiting for them to start talking to the F-16. As soon as they do, I can shut both of them down. But I need to keep you high, right on the edge of the Patriot’s engagement envelope. If I keep you too low, the F-16 might switch to his infrared sensor and not use the Patriot radar. That means I’m going to have to give him another good look at you. Fly heading one-nine-zero and climb to twelve thousand. You’re fifteen minutes to the Iraq border.”
“This is loco,” the 767 pilot murmured, flexing knots out of his hands and fingers. He began a shallow climb and a turn to—
“Okay, guys, the Patriot’s back up, and he’s got you, seven o’clock, twenty-nine miles,” Dave said a few moments later. “Still in sector scan mode…now he’s in target-tracking mode…c’mon, boys, what are you waiting for…?”
“If he’s verbally vectoring in the F-16, he can get him within range of his IR sensor without using the datalink, right?” the freighter pilot asked.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t think about that,” Luger said. “Fortunately most Patriot radar techs aren’t air traffic controllers; their job is to get the system to do its job. Okay, descend to eleven thousand, and let’s hope as you go down they’ll…” An instant later: “Got it! Datalink is active. Couple more seconds…c’mon, baby, c’mon…got it. Quick turn to heading one-six-five, keep going to eleven thousand. The F-16 is at your six o’clock, fifteen miles and closing, but he should be turning off to your right. The Iraqi border is at your eleven o’clock, about thirteen minutes.”
The picture was looking better and better. “Okay, guys, the F-16s closed to six miles but he’s way off to your right,” Luger said a few minutes later. “He’s chasing a target being sent to him by the Patriot battery. Descend to ten thousand.”
“What happens when he gets within his IR sensor range and we’re not there?” the freighter pilot asked.
“Hopefully he’ll think his sensor malfunctioned.”
“Scion Seven-Seven, this is Yukari One-One-Three flight of two, Republic of Turkey Air Force air defense fighter interceptors,” they heard on the UHF emergency GUARD frequency. “We are at your six o’clock position and have you in radar contact. You are ordered to climb to seventeen thousand feet, lower your landing gear, and turn right to a heading of two-nine-zero, direct to Diyarbakir.”
“Go ahead and answer him,” Dave said. “Maintain this heading. Your radar blip is going to comply with his orders.”
“Yukari, this is Scion Seven-Seven, we are turning and in a climb,” the freighter pilot radioed. “Safe your weapons. We’re unarmed.”
“Scion flight, Yukari One-One-Three leader will join on your left side,” the F-16 pilot radioed. “My wingman will remain at your six o’clock position. You will see our inspection light. Do not be alarmed. Continue your turn and your climb as ordered.”
“He’s within six miles of the ghost target,” Dave said. “Hang in there, guys. You’re eight minutes to the border.”
Another sixty seconds passed without any radio chatter until: “Scion flight, what is your altitude?”
“One-four thousand,” Dave Luger said.
“Scion Seven-Seven is passing one-four thousand for one-seven thousand,” the freighter pilot responded.
“Activate all of your exterior lights immediately!” the Turkish fighter pilot ordered. “All ligh
ts on!”
“Our lights are on, Yukari flight.”
“He’s within two miles of the false target,” Dave Luger said. “He’s probably got his inspection light on and is looking at nothing but…”
The freighter pilots waited, but heard nothing. “Scion base, this is Seven-Seven, how copy?” No response. “Scion base, Seven-Seven, how do you hear?”
The copilot’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Oh, shit, we lost the downlink with headquarters,” he breathed. “We’re dead meat.”
“Great. Perfect time for all this high-tech gear to go tits-up,” Whack complained. “Get us out of here, Gus!”
“We’re going direct Nahla,” the pilot said, shoving the throttles forward. “Hopefully those guys won’t shoot us down if we’re across the border.”
“Let’s try that terrain-masking stuff again,” the copilot suggested. The terrain depicted on the moving map display in the cockpit still showed some hills, but it was quickly smoothing out the farther south they went. “We can go down to nine-seven in a few miles, and in twenty miles we can go all the way to—”
At that instant the cockpit was filled with an intense white light coming in from the left side as hot and bright as noon. They tried to look at whoever it was, but they couldn’t look anywhere in that direction. “Holy shit!” the pilot screamed. “I’m flash-blinded, I can’t see—”
“Straighten up, Gus!”
“I said I can’t take the controls, I can’t see, dammit,” the pilot said. “Ben, take the wheel…!”
“Scion Seven-Seven, this is Yukari One-One-Three flight of two, we have you in sight,” the Turkish fighter pilot radioed. “You will immediately lower your landing gear and turn right to heading two-nine-zero. You are being tracked by Turkish surface-to-air missile batteries. Comply immediately. The use of deadly force has been authorized.”
“Your light has blinded the pilot!” the copilot radioed. “Don’t shine it in the cockpit! Turn that thing off!”
A moment later the light was extinguished…followed seconds later by a second-long burst of cannon fire from the Turkish F-16’s twenty-millimeter nose cannon. The muzzle flash was almost as brilliant as the inspection floodlight, and they could feel the fat supersonic shells beating the air around them, the shock waves reverberating off the Boeing 767’s cockpit windows just a few dozen yards away. “That was the final warning shot, Scion Seven-Seven,” the Turkish pilot said. “Follow my instructions or you will be shot down without further warning!”
“What the hell do we do now?” Whack asked. “We’re sunk.”
“We have no choice,” the copilot said. “I’m turning…”
“No, keep heading toward Nahla,” Charlie said. She reached over and switched her rotary transmit switch from “intercom” to “UHF-2.” “Yukari One-One-Three flight, this is Charlie Turlock, one of the passengers on Scion Seven-Seven,” she radioed.
“What the hell are you doing, Charlie?” Macomber asked.
“Playing the gender and sympathy cards, Whack—they’re the only ones we have left,” Charlie said cross-cockpit. On the radio, she went on, “Yukari flight, we are an American cargo aircraft on a peaceful and authorized flight to Iraq. We are not a warplane, we are not armed, and we have no hostile intent against our allies, the people of Turkey. There are nineteen souls on board this flight, including six women. Let us continue our flight in peace.”
“You will comply immediately. This is our final order.”
“We are not going to turn around,” Charlie said. “We are almost at the Iraqi border, and our transmissions on the international emergency GUARD channel are certainly being monitored by listening posts from Syria to Persia. We are an unarmed American cargo plane on an authorized overflight of Turkey. There are nineteen souls on board. If you shoot us down now, the bodies and the wreckage will land in Iraq, and the world will know what you’ve done. You may think you have valid orders or a good reason to open fire, but you will be held responsible for your own judgment. If you believe your leaders and wish to follow their orders to kill all of us, fine, but you must pull the trigger. Our lives are in your hands now.”
A moment later they saw, then felt a tongue of white-hot flame zip by their left cockpit windows—the single afterburner plume from an F-16 fighter. “He’s going around, maneuvering behind us,” the copilot said. “Shit; oh shit…!” They could sense the presence of the jets behind them, practically taste the adrenaline and sweat emanating from the Turkish pilots’ bodies as they swung around for the kill. Seconds passed…
…then more seconds, then a minute. No one breathed for what seemed like an eternity. Then they heard: “Scion Seven-Seven, this is Mosul Approach Control on GUARD frequency, we show you at your scheduled border crossing point. If you hear Mosul Approach, squawk modes three and C normal and contact me on two-four-three-point-seven. Acknowledge immediately.”
The copilot shakily responded, and everyone else let out a collective sigh of relief. “Man, I thought we were goners,” Macomber said. He reached up and patted Charlie on the shoulder. “You did it, darlin’. You sweet-talked our way out of it. Good job.”
Charlie turned to Macomber, smiled, nodded her thanks…and promptly vomited on the cockpit floor in front of him.
ALLIED AIR BASE NAHLA, IRAQ
A SHORT TIME LATER
“Are you eggheads insane?” Colonel Jack Wilhelm exploded as Wayne Macomber and Charlie Turlock led the other passengers and crew off the Boeing 767 freighter once it was parked at the base. “Don’t you realize what’s going on out there?”
“You must be Colonel Wilhelm,” Macomber said as he reached the bottom of the air stairs. “Thanks for the warm welcome to Iraq.”
“Who are you?”
“Wayne Macomber, chief of security for Scion Aviation International,” Wayne replied. He did not offer his hand to Wilhelm, a fact that made the regimental commander even angrier. The two men were about equal in height and weight, and they immediately started sizing each other up. “This is Charlie Turlock, my assistant.” Charlie rolled her eyes but said nothing. “I’m going to drain the dragon—and probably change my undies after that flight—and then I need to speak with the general and the head egghead, Jon Masters.”
“First of all, you’re not going anywhere until we inspect your papers and your cargo,” Wilhelm said. “You’re not even supposed to get off the damn plane before customs does an inspection.”
“Customs? This is an American flight sitting on an American base. We don’t do customs.”
“You’re a private aircraft sitting on an Iraqi base, so you need to be processed by customs.”
Macomber looked around Wilhelm. “I don’t see any Iraqis here, Colonel, just private security…and you.” He took a folder out of the pilot’s hands. “Here’s our paperwork, and here’s the pilot. He’ll do all the customs shit with you and whatever Iraqis want to tag along. We don’t have time for customs. Let us do our thing. You stay out of our way, and we’ll stay out of yours.”
“My orders are to inspect this plane, Macomber, and that’s what we’ll do,” Wilhelm said. “The crew stays on board until the inspection is completed. Thompson here and his men will do the inspection, and you’d better cooperate with them or I’ll put all of you in the brig. Clear?”
Macomber looked as if he was going to argue, but he gave Wilhelm a slight nod and smile and gave the paperwork packet back to the pilot. “Ben, go with Gus.” Wilhelm was going to argue, but Macomber said, “The pilot was hurt in the flight in. He needs help. Make it quick, boys,” and motioned for the others to follow him back up the air stairs. They were followed by two of Thompson’s security officers and a German shepherd on a leather leash. A group of Thompson’s security men began opening cargo doors and baggage compartment hatches to begin their inspections.
Inside the plane, one security officer began inspecting the cockpit while the other herded Macomber and the other passengers to their seats and inspected the inside of the plane
. The forward part of the Boeing 767 freighter’s interior behind the cockpit had a removable galley and lavatory on one side, and two fiberglass containers marked LIFE RAFTS with reinforced tape seals marked DEPT OF DEFENSE wrapped around them on the other beside the entry door. Behind them was the removable forward-facing passenger seat pallet, with seating for eighteen passengers. Behind them were eight semicircular cargo containers, four on each side of the plane, with narrow aisles between them, and behind them was a pallet with luggage covered by nylon netting and secured with nylon webbing.
The second security officer raised a radio to his lips: “I count eighteen crew and passengers, two life raft containers, galley and lavatory, and eight A1N cargo containers. The life raft inspection seals are secure.”
“Roger,” came the reply. “Passenger count checks. But the manifest only says six A1Ns.” The officer looked at the passengers suspiciously.
“No wonder it took so long to get here—we’re overloaded,” Macomber said. “Who brought the extra containers? Is that all your makeup back there, Charlie?”
“I thought it was your knitting, Whack,” Turlock replied.
“I’m going to pass down the aisle with the K-9,” the security officer said. “Don’t make any sudden movements.”
“Can I go pee first?” Macomber asked.
“After the lavatory has been inspected and the K-9 passes through the cabin,” the officer replied.
“How long will that be?”
“Just cooperate.” The guard began to walk the dog down the aisle, touching the seat pockets and motioning under and between the seats, indicating where he wanted the dog to sniff.
“Nice doggie,” Wayne said when the dog came to him.
“No talking to the K-9,” the officer said. Macomber smiled, then scowled in reply.
“Cockpit is clear,” the first security officer said. He began inspecting the galley and lavatory, finishing a few minutes later.
“C’mon, guy, I’m going to explode over here.”
“No talking,” the second officer said. It took another three minutes for the K-9 to finish. “You may get up and exit the plane,” the second officer announced. “You must proceed directly to the officer outside, who will match you up with your passports and identification papers. Leave all belongings on the plane.”
