The Warbirds

by Richard Herman

  “Okay, I’m a bastard. I know that…” Stansell’s self-appraisal caught Waters’ attention. It was probably the only thing the two men agreed on—Waters sure as hell didn’t like the bull-headed way Stansell ran the F-15s. True, both men had combat experience in Vietnam, yet both had come away with totally different reactions. For Waters it had demonstrated that most men want a leader who trusts them, leaves them to do their job and is capable of gutting out the hard decisions and never losing sight of the mission of tactical fighter aircraft. Mostly, Stansell had found that war was a means of demonstrating his control over people, which flattered his ego.

  “…and our tactics went wrong,” the F-15 pilot went on, fortunate he couldn’t read Waters’ thoughts. Waters motioned him to a seat, and rocked back in his chair, determined to give the man a chance. “I was told not to lose any birds. In fact, it’s my number-one marching order. But our job is to protect you by shooting the Gomers down. So far, you’ve managed to do that better than we have. That bunch of prima donnas that I sit on will start doing their own thing unless I find a way to use them. My own wingman wouldn’t talk during our own debrief. He told me that it was my show so I could debrief it any way I wanted. Do you know what else he said?” The hurt in Stansell’s voice was apparent, a condition Waters hadn’t thought the man capable of. “He told me to win engagements in the air, not in the debrief.”

  “And?” Waters said, still waiting.

  “We need to work out new CAP tactics with your people. What we did today obviously didn’t work.”

  Waters continued to stare at the man.

  “Okay, what I did today didn’t work. I screwed up big time.”

  “Join the club,” Waters said, standing up. The man was human, after all. Besides, he needed his F-15s. “I’ve canceled tonight’s Wolf strike. Get your most creative tactics man with Lieutenant Locke and put them to work. Once they’ve worked something out we’ll hear their plan. We only make necessary changes. Got it?”

  Stansell nodded quickly, then said: “Would you object if I worked with Lieutenant Locke?”

  “Okay, but don’t pull rank. You’re equals on this project and I’ll tell him so.” Again Stansell gave a sharp nod. “By the way, Locke pins on his captain’s bars next Wednesday. It is about time he made it. Listen to him, he’s good.”

  Stansell stood up, ready to leave. “Colonel Waters, please tell Major Morgan that we will stick around next time.” It was as close to an apology as he could come. “And relay my congratulations to Major Conlan for getting a MiG.” Stansell then left wing headquarters, looking for Jack Locke. His ego had taken a beating and his stomach was tying knots around his backbone. He felt a sense of shame, near-humiliation, that he had not experienced since he was a fourth classman at the Academy in 1966. Only one way to shed that awful feeling: do better, and fast.

  The stranglehold of tension that bound Waters’ existence did not fade as he paced his office, not sure if the feisty Stansell really meant what he said. No question, he had to cut his losses, and for the first time he seriously doubted that he could make it happen. He tried to push his thinking into more productive channels, putting his thoughts of Mike Fairly, Tom Gomez and the others into a hidden niche, walling them behind the detailed bricks of running his wing. But the number eleven would not be contained, and it kept flashing its defiance, challenging him: fifteen crewmen either dead or MIA, eleven aircraft lost, all because of orders he had given, decisions he had made.

  A vivid mental image of a brick wall materialized in front of him and collapsed, revealing Sara, her arms outstretched, offering him refuge. With an inner discipline he didn’t know he possessed, he forced away the image. God, now I’m hallucinating. I can’t run this wing or anything else if I’m coming apart at the seams. He picked up his phone, dialed, listening to each ring. Relief came over him when he heard the mild greeting. “Doc,” he said, “I need to talk…”

  The patient in Doc Landis’ office was handed on to another flight surgeon and the doctor hurried over to wing headquarters, concerned about his most important charge. The heat slowed him to a more sedate walk, giving him time to think about the burden Waters must be carrying, and how eventually it would wear him down.

  Somehow, Landis realized, he had to find the words to make Waters shed any exaggerated sense of moral responsibility for the men. There were certain words Landis could not use, words that would only reinforce the basic problem. The same strength that Waters gave to his command could not be used to help him. In spite of their losses the wing’s morale was high and seemed capable of absorbing the shock of seeing their comrades shot down. Yet everything the doctor had seen and sensed as he talked to the men and women of the wing confirmed his original impression: the mortar holding the 45th together was a deep-seated trust in one Anthony J. Waters. But telling him that would only fuel the fire that was already consuming him.

  The doctor found Waters sitting behind his desk, wading through a stack of paperwork. “Come on in, Doc, and shut the door.” Fatigue lines etched furrows around his eyes and mouth. A tautness had driven out the vestiges of his once relaxed nature. Every physical sign pointed to a man being driven by his own inner demands.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got the clap too,” Landis said straight-faced.

  The wing commander tried to force a grin that would not form. But it was the doctor’s first chip in the wall of stress.

  “Is that getting to be a problem?” Waters asked.

  “No, not really. It’s just about the only thing I seem to be treating these days, that and The Rats Ass Crude, our local variety of dysentery.”

  “Where’s the clap coming from?” A sparkle of amusement was trying to creep into the wing commander’s eyes.

  “Not sure yet. Maybe from our imported ladies. There are certainly enough of them, and a few of our more resourceful airmen have found a way to break through the language barrier and expand their services.” Indeed, over one hundred-fifty girls, mostly from Sri Lanka, had been contracted for to provide janitorial and maid services to the Americans. Waters nodded at the thought of the girls and how their small lithe bodies, large brown eyes, masses of dark hair and graceful movements as they went about their work cast an aura of grace and charm. He could understand why his men found them attractive and looked for a way around the chaperons that the contractors had provided to run the compound where the girls and other civilians lived.

  “Colonel, all things considered,” Landis went on, “I’m not surprised that they’ve managed to get their things together. At least money hasn’t exchanged hands—yet.” The grin that was more characteristic of Waters finally broke through. “East meets West, so to speak, with a bang. At least I haven’t had any requests to marry. These girls strike me as being so giving and gentle that some of our troops are bound to fall sooner or later. It’s the good old American way of war—marry the locals. But, that’s not what I wanted to talk about, Doc. I had an hallucination or something like one a few minutes ago.” And Waters proceeded to recount his images of walls and bricks as Jeff Landis sat in front of him, hunched over, elbows on his knees, clasping his hands as he listened, not wanting to say a word until the colonel was finished. As Waters talked the doctor’s worry began to recede and Waters was finding the sounding board he needed to break his tensions against. The old Waters, he felt, was pretty much in place by the time he stopped talking. “I’m keeping too much bottled up inside me, aren’t I, Doc?”

  “Probably. Human beings need to share each other’s burdens. That’s what those girls are doing, sharing their loneliness and sense of dislocation with someone else. And I don’t think you were hallucinating; your sense of reality is intact and you knew it wasn’t real. Your subconscious was simply sending you a strong visual image. It’s the price a sane man pays when he fights a war.”

  The doctor believed he had said enough and guided the conversation away from Waters and onto their current operations. When he left Waters’ office he was reasonabl
y sure that Waters was in control of himself and the wing. Not every commander was a Colonel Morris. Waters was made of sterner stuff.

  Stansell finally located Jack on the beach hidden between two low dunes, sitting under a canvas canopy he had rigged, pulling on a beer and staring out to sea.

  “You spend a lot of time here?” Stansell asked.

  Jack handed him a cold beer from the cooler and motioned him into the shade of the canvas canopy. Stansell accepted it as a peace offering and sat down. “It’s a good place to think. Not too many people swim out here even though the water is crystal clear. Doc Landis says there’s some pollution and I guess the shark net is out there for a reason, but I haven’t seen one yet.” Jack continued to look out to sea, not wanting to tell the man that he felt better when he could concentrate without distractions on the men who had killed his friends.

  “Colonel Waters asked me to get with you and work out some tactics,” Stansell said, waiting for the reaction. He was uncomfortable in the heat and crawled out of his Nomex flight suit, sitting in his shorts.

  “I’ve been thinking on it, Colonel. The main problem is that damn trawler. It’s giving the Gomers our launch times and their reaction time keeps getting shorter and shorter. Hell, they were scrambled and jumped you before you coasted in. That’s why Colonel Waters canceled tonight’s missions. He figures we’d be jumped too.”

  Jack was somewhat mistaken about the significance of the trawler; actually it only provided confirmation to the PSI that the frag order they had received from Mashur was being implemented. Without knowing the time and targets that were going to be attacked in advance, the PSI could not react in time to intercept them.

  “It’s no big deal on changing tactics,” Jack went on. “I think your idea of blowing through the Gomers is a good one, but I also think you got it back-asswards.”

  Stansell wanted to point out that an F-4 mud-mover couldn’t have a clue about how to employ an F-15, then remembered Waters’ words about listening to the pilot and strangled his reply.

  “The MiGs come at us in waves,” Jack said, “and I want to use that against them. Break your Eagles into three flights, about like you did last time. When your first flight of Eagles encounters MiGs, shoot them in the face with missiles just like last time. But instead of blowing on through and leaving the fight, stick around and fight. The F-15 can out-turn any Flogger built, it should be a turkey-shoot for you. Then the second flight of Eagles should blow on through, stuffing any bandit they can in the face. It’s the second flight’s contract to meet the second wave, the third flight’s to meet the third wave.”

  “What if there’s a fourth wave?”

  “We should be off-target by then and headed home. There’ll be enough F-15s in the area to confuse them and we can defend ourselves at that point.”

  Stansell thought it over. His inclination was to change things, make it more complicated, vary the way they would engage the MiGs. It upset him that he couldn’t think of anything better under the circumstances. Like most officers, especially action-oriented ones, he wasn’t an introspective person, rarely bothered to look at himself. Now for the first time in his career he realized someone else’s way of thinking was very probably better than his own…and it had taken a lieutenant to make him face up to it. Well, a lieutenant going on captain, he reminded himself, trying to find some consolation.

  No denying it, this Jack Locke had the potential to be a first-rate leader, maybe even a combat commander. “Jack, I’d be glad to be your sponsor if you want to transition to F-15s.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate your offer, but I’ll stick with Big Ugly for a while longer. At least until this is over.” And added quickly, “Besides, I’ve got to get Thunder home and married. It’s something Colonel Fairly trusted me to do.” Jack’s voice quieted. “He was my squadron commander and flight lead when Thunder and I got a Libyan MiG. He bought it on our second mission here.”

  Stansell heard him loud and clear—and the underlying need for revenge.

  Waters sat and listened to Jack’s proposed change in tactics for the Eagles and agreed with him about the early warning the trawler was giving the PSI. “We’ve got to slow down the reaction time of the Floggers or we’re dead in the water, pun intended.”

  “Let’s get the Navy to come in and blow it away,” Stansell suggested.

  Bill Carroll shook his head. “Maintaining the alleged neutrality of the Gulf is one of our major political objectives. The U.S. isn’t about to provoke a neutral, including the Soviet Union—at least they’re officially neutral so far. We need to jam the hell out of that trawler.”

  Jack was on his feet. “Okay…what if a big, unidentified neutral ship with one hell of a jammer happened to show up when we launch and parked next to it?”

  “Could work, but where are we going to find one of those puppies?” Waters asked.

  “I know where, but I’ll need to go to Riyadh and talk to an old…acquaintance.”

  Waters rocked back on the hindlegs of his chair, quickly running through what Jack had said, not wanting to delay his answer too long before the rivulets of doubt would form. “Why do I get the feeling that I don’t want to know any more?” he said, and smiled. “Take three days and see if you can get what you want. After that, get back here and lay it all out. You’ll probably scare the hell out of me but that’s what I get paid for.”

  Jack thought for a moment, then: “Can I take Carroll here with me? Might get some use out of his subtle tongue.”

  “Might as well. Bill needs a break. Now get going.”

  Waters waited until Jack and Carroll had left the room. “Well?” he said to Stansell.

  “You’re right. He is good. But aren’t you worried about what he’s trying to arrange in Riyadh?”

  “A lot,” Waters told him. “But…” He wanted to demonstrate to Stansell how he worked, believing the man could add more to the wing’s operation if he accepted his way of ordering and leading. “But I’ve got to take the calculated risk and trust him or word will get out that I’ve got the ‘disease of the colonels.’”

  “The disease of what?”

  “The main symptom of it is when you tell your troops to do something and then reject it after they’ve done it because it’s not what you wanted. Great for buying shoes but a lousy way to inspire trust and confidence.”

  Stansell was beginning to understand why the morale of the 45th, in spite of its losses, was so high, and why young and promising pilots like Locke were more than willing to stay with the wing…Waters was one hell of an officer.

  6 August: 1415 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 1715 hours, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  Jack and Carroll were shocked at the prices of the modest hotel they had found in Riyadh. After a hurried consultation they decided they could afford the cheapest double room for one night; then they’d have to find another, much less expensive hotel if they had to stay a second. Once in the room, Bill flopped onto one of the narrow, hard beds and dialed the number Jack had given him. His fluent Arabic proved to be the key, and Jack soon found himself listening to the cultured Oxford accent of Prince Reza Ibn Abdul Turika. Within an hour they had checked out of the hotel, been driven to the prince’s residence and ushered into separate, wondrously plush bedrooms.

  A discreet knock on the door announced the prince. “Jack, my friend, I am pleased to see you.” Reza extended his hand. His soft leather loafers, slacks, and open-necked silk shirt were Côte d’Azure and not Arabian. “Please introduce me to your friend. My servants are impressed by his Arabic. It is rare for an American to have such mastery of our language as your Captain Carroll.” He led the two men into a large well-appointed lounge and indicated seats for them on divans around an ornate coffee table.

  A servant wheeled out a covered trolley that proved to be a portable bar and proceeded to mix a dry martini for Reza. “You Americans have developed a most civilized drink with good English gin. It may be one of your more important contributions to the world’s
culture.”

  Carroll understood what the prince’s martini implied—he was Arab. Outside his residence Reza would act like a Saudi; only in the privacy of his home or abroad would he be the modern man. A slim, remarkably beautiful woman in tight jeans and a tailored shirt joined them and was introduced by Reza as his wife. Carroll wondered how in hell Jack had met this Saudi prince.

  “You no longer, how do you say, have your hair on fire?” Reza said, smiling at Jack. His wife had asked to be excused, aware that her husband was turning to the purpose of the men’s visit.

  “I guess the war can make even a flyboy grow up fast,” Jack said.

  “And how is your black friend…Thunder?”

  “Well, matter of fact, he’s busy planning our next mission. Otherwise he would have come along with us.”

  “Ah, yes, your Wolf Flight is famous. Your American newspapers seem to believe you to be a new Lawrence of Arabia while they condemn our small war of survival. I suspected Thunder was a force behind your successful night missions. It’s too bad that all the resources of the 45th can’t be used against the People’s Soldiers.”

  “Well, we figure we could do more if a Soviet trawler monitoring our launches was somehow stopped from warning the PSI that we’re coming. The trawler gives them time to scramble against us before we hit our targets.”

  Okay, there it was…out on the table.

  “Yes, Jack, I understand your problem. But as long as the trawler stays in international waters there is little that can be done about it. You understand we cannot compromise the status of the Gulf…it must not become a battleground. It has been an old problem with the Iranians and Iraqis, we dare not enlarge it…”

  “Maybe if we could borrow an oil tanker to act like an iron curtain around the trawler, something might be done about it,” Jack said, and then, speaking quietly, he laid out what he had in mind.