Firebreak

by Richard Herman

  The phone rang. She grabbed a towel and hurried to answer it. It was Mana. He had just returned from Kirkuk, was still at the airport, and wanted to see her immediately. She told him to hurry for she did miss him.

  She hung up, sat down, and cried, hating what she had become.

  The squadron self-help project was finished and Matt was basking in compliments from his fellow pilots and wizzos. Even Locke seemed pleased. Charlie Ferguson, being a grizzled old master sergeant, took it all in stride and only saw it as business as usual. For Matt, it had been a lesson in accomplishment and he took pride in what he had done. Then his name appeared on the schedule for a “ride” in the simulator to refresh his emergency procedures. He was going back on the flying schedule and he saw an end to his troubles.

  Afraid he had grown rusty, Matt hit the books, reviewing every procedure, rule, and regulation that applied to F-15s. Then he turned to weapons employment, refreshing his memory on delivery parameters and techniques. Contrary to popular opinion, flying fighters is more than strapping on a jet and taking off for a few fun-filled minutes roaring around the sky. It takes hours of constant study, review, and planning on the ground, and as long as Matt flew high-performance fighters, it would never stop.

  After the session in the simulator, he flew a requalification flight with Locke in the backseat before he was teamed with his old WSO, Mike Haney. Locke noted with satisfaction that Matt had his attitude on straight, was going by the rules, and had all the promise of being an outstanding fighter jock. He decided that Matt had finally earned his captain’s bars.

  Early one morning, when Matt was sleeping in after a night flight with Haney, an Inspector General team hit the base for an unannounced Operational Readiness Inspection—an ORI—the make-or-break test of a peacetime unit. For four days, the IG team would throw a series of wartime tasks at the wing, demanding they demonstrate their proficiency in everything from mass casualty exercises to emergency buildup of weapons to flying planned wartime sortie rates and simulated combat missions.

  Matt’s first indication that the ORI was under way came when a pounding on his BOQ door woke him. A voice told him to report to the squadron ASAP, that an IG team was on base, and that a “recall” was under way. Like everyone else, he did not shave, brush his teeth, or wash because the IG team would want to see a “sense of urgency.” A freshly shaved face during a recall said somebody did not have the proper sense of urgency. But the team that had hit Stonewood liked to play catch-22 games and zinged the wing for lacking in military appearance.

  Less than an hour after the start of the recall, the squadron was fully manned and configured for its wartime mission. The crews waited patiently in the squadron as Maintenance finished uploading live ordnance on their aircraft. Then a crew would run out to its assigned aircraft, perform a preflight, and check in on status with the command post, ready to launch. However, no aircraft would actually takeoff loaded with live ordnance. Matt and Haney were not assigned an aircraft and had to wait in the squadron building while the frenzied activity went on around them. Neither liked being a spectator. Because they were in the squadron and not in a bunker manning a jet, they were among the first to hear the rumor—the wing had already failed the inspection.

  Slowly, fact replaced the rumors. One of the inspectors had noted a mistake in the command post when the on-duty controller decoded the first alert message. The controller had sent the wing into a more advanced stage of readiness than the message called for. The IG team claimed the wing had automatically failed the ORI. The wing commander was arguing that merely jumping to a higher state of alert only meant the wing would be ready sooner to meet its wartime mission. A general from headquarters was called in to render a decision and the ORI was put on hold.

  Charlie Ferguson explained it all to Matt. “It was a legit hit,” the grizzled old sergeant said, “but not worth busting an ORI. Looks like we got a chickenshit team doing the inspection.”

  Later on, Matt complained to Locke about it, sensing a gross injustice. “What the hell does this have to do with hosing the bad guys down?”

  The squadron commander looked Matt square in the eye. “Not a thing, Captain. Not a single goddamn thing.” He handed Matt his captain’s bars, turned, and walked away.

  Headquarters United States Air Force in Europe sent Brigadier General Donald ‘Bull” Heath to RAF Stonewood to determine if Matt’s wing had indeed failed its Operational Readiness Inspection. General Heath was scathing in his rebuke of the Inspector General team chief when he reviewed the technicality the IG team had based its decision on. He lived up to his reputation and nickname when he told the unfortunate colonel heading the team that he had his head so far up his ass that he needed a Plexiglas window in his stomach to see where he was going. By the time Heath left the base five minutes later, a case of Plexiglas cleaner, commonly known as “whale sperm,” had magically appeared in the offices the IG team was occupying during the inspection. Master Sergeant Charlie Ferguson claimed to be totally innocent and that he had been in the area on legitimate business.

  The morale of the wing skyrocketed and the inspection was back in full swing. No matter where an inspector went, he or she was bound to see a bottle of “whale sperm.” On the last day of the inspection, the weather deteriorated and all of the low-level and gunnery-range missions had to be canceled. The IG team was still smarting from the constant sight of Plexiglas cleaner bottles and wanted to find a reason to bust the wing. Frustrated, they tasked the wing to fly an excessive number of high-altitude missions, hoping that Maintenance or Operations would screw up. But the wing met the challenge as the inspection ran out. Finally, the last mission was laid on Matt’s squadron. Jack Locke shook his head when he saw the last mission being grease-penciled up on the scheduling board. His squadron was tasked to fly a one-versus-one, basic fighter maneuvers (BFM) mission. He called his superior, the wing’s deputy for operations, to confirm what he saw. “Boss, is that chicken Colonel Roger ‘Ramjet’ Raider, the IG’s gift to the tactical fighter community, who’s going along for a ride in the backseat of number one?” he asked.

  “One and the same,” the deputy for operations told him.

  “Why my squadron? The guy’s a clueless wonder.”

  “It’s an unannounced check ride,” the DO told him. “The IG is still gunning for us and I want you to lead it. Keep it simple and put one of your best sticks in number two.” The DO) broke the connection as Roger “Ramjet” Raider walked into the squadron building. Locke puzzled for a few moments over whom he would tap to fly the second jet. A BFM mission was relatively undemanding but he wanted his best pilot. He told the scheduler to get Matt and Haney into the briefing room while he blew some hot air for Ramjet to suck on.

  The mission briefing Locke conducted was a masterpiece of standardization, starting with a time hack and continuing through every required item on the briefing checklist. Matt and Haney exchanged unbelieving looks when they noticed the colonel was making too many notes on his Mission Data Card. Ramjet was writing down information that he should have automatically memorized. A fighter jock’s number one tool is his brain and Ramjet wasn’t using his.

  The flight itself proved to be routine as Locke and Matt worked through a series of basic fighter maneuvers. Haney was bored silly in the pit of number two and had little to do. Matt was enjoying the mission. “Talk to me, babes,” he told Haney as they set up for their last engagement.

  “We’re the defender on this one, the Old Man is the attacker. He’ll convert to our six, do a quarter plane and zoom and fall in behind us. He’ll drive to lag and try to herd us around the sky.” Haney paused. Matt could tell from the tone in his voice he didn’t like being a target. “Before he does all that to us, why don’t you reef hard into him while he’s still converting to our six and force him into a scissors. That ought to get Ramjet’s attention.”

  “Aah, I don’t know,” Matt said. “Maybe we ought to keep it simple and let Locke eat our shorts.”

/>   “A scissors is a basic fighter maneuver, the boss briefed it, and he did say to do it if the situation was right.”

  “Sounds good,” Matt allowed. “Let’s do it if we can.”

  “Colonel Raider,” Locke said over the intercom in his jet, “I’m going to quarter plane and zoom on this engagement. But I’m going to make a deliberate mistake and give the defender just enough room to counterturn on me and enter into a scissors. But he’s got to be damn good to see it. So don’t be surprised if you see his nose pitch back into us when we’re still ninety degrees off his heading.” Locke was worried about the heavy breathing he could hear coming over the intercom. Come on, Ramjet, he thought, this is no biggy.

  As briefed on the ground, the two jets positioned and Locke slashed down onto Matt, rapidly closing to his six o’clock position and almost ninety degrees off Matt’s heading. To kill his high overtake speed, Locke pulled his nose up and traded his airspeed for altitude before rolling and pulling his nose back to Matt’s six o’clock. But Matt saw that Locke had given him enough room to counterturn and reefed his fighter into a hard upward turn, bringing his nose onto Locke. Now the two were climbing as they repeatedly turned nose-to-nose and overshot each other. Both pilots were decelerating as fast as possible, each trying to get his nose behind the other’s tail.

  “Shit hot!” Locke yelled over the intercom. “He caught it!” The heavy breathing coming from his rear cockpit grew more rapid as their airspeed fell below 200 knots and Locke pulled over thirty units of angle of attack. “Now watch this,” Locke said. “We’re going to get in the phone booth with him.” The veteran pilot closed to a thousand feet. “Damn, the boy’s good,” he muttered as Matt timed a rolling reversal perfectly and gained a slight advantage.

  “Too close!” Ramjet shouted.

  “Still a thousand feet separation,” Locke told him, trying to calm the colonel. “The regs say we can close to five hundred before knocking it off. Pontowski can handle it.” Locke hardened up the scissors, slowing down to 160 knots and bringing his nose up, increasing the angle of attack. “Screw the phone booth, time to get into the coin return.” He closed to inside six hundred feet.

  The angle of attack indicator was bouncing around thirty-five units and Ramjet lost sight of Matt’s aircraft under the nose. At the same time, he felt the onset of a slight buffet that would increase as they slowed the fight and increased the angle of attack. Ramjet saw it all and it hurt—he wasn’t used to flying in the pit of an F-15E and watching a close-in fight from that perspective.

  Locke was pleased with the way Matt handled the maneuver. He decided to disengage, eased off the stick to separate, and transmitted a cool “Knock if off” over the radio. He was smiling.

  But Ramjet panicked at that same instant. He desperately wanted to get a visual on the other aircraft and drowned Locke’s radio call with a shouted “Knock it off! Knock it off!” as the two F-15s joined together in a midair collision.

  The forces generated by the two aircraft, each weighing over twenty tons, when they smashed into each other were horrendous. The G meters in the cockpit spiked to the max and froze, unable to sense the full impact. Matt’s left wingtip slashed into the canopy of stretched acrylic on Locke’s F-15, killing both colonels instantly. Most of Matt’s left wing and horizontal stabilator were ripped off as his jet tried to shed the wreckage of Locke’s F-15. Fuel and hydraulic lines ruptured as the engines sucked debris into their turbofans. The delicately balanced blades came apart, becoming instant shrapnel, igniting the fuel the high-pressure pumps were still forcing toward the engines. The rear of Matt’s aircraft exploded.

  But the engineers and workers at McDonnell Aircraft Company had done their job well and the Eagle refused to die. The titanium bulkheads and the heat-bonded joints held and Matt and Haney were still alive after the initial impact. Haney pulled at both ejection handles on the side of his seat and started a dual, sequenced ejection. The canopy flew back into the slipstream and Haney’s seat went up the rails first. In less than half a second, the rocket sustainer under his seat kicked in, sending him well clear of the jet and directly into a piece of their left aileron that was fluttering to earth. It looked like the aileron lightly brushed the top of Haney’s seat, but again, the impact forces were horrendous. Haney’s seat lost stabilization and tumbled earthward, its parachute shredded.

  Haney separated manually from the seat and pulled his ripcord. But nothing happened. He was conscious for the full three minutes before he hit the ground.

  Thomas Fraser looked up from his seat and well-ordered desk and smiled at the two Air Force officers Melissa had escorted into his office. No look or word betrayed the frustration that was souring his day. “General Cox, good to see you again.” Fraser stood and extended his right hand, all his Irish good nature up front. Deep inside, he wanted to order Cox to leave the White House and never come back.

  “Mr. Fraser,” Cox began, “I’d like you to meet Lieutenant Colonel William Carroll. Bill’s our premier expert on the Middle East.”

  “So, you’re the man whose reports on what’s happening over there have gotten the President’s attention,” Fraser said as he shook Carroll’s hand. He waved the two officers to seats and settled into his own chair. “General Cox, is this the first time you’ve briefed the President?” Fraser was furious that he could not control all the information reaching the President and wanted to learn what the DIA was going to tell him in advance. It was a matter of damage control.

  Cox smiled. “I brought Bill along so he could brief the President directly. Straight from the horse’s mouth—so to speak.”

  “Most unusual, but then Admiral Scovill did tell the President you were producing some great work at the DIA.” Fraser made a mental promise to even the score with the crusty old admiral who chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff and never cleared what he was going to say with Fraser first. “Just what will you be reporting to the President this morning?”

  “Essentially, Bill will be presenting a detailed update of the summaries you’ve seen in the President’s Daily Brief. Should take sixteen minutes if there are no questions.”

  That’s not likely, Fraser thought. Pontowski always asks questions. Fraser did not like the way the President insisted on personally hearing opposing viewpoints on every major issue. He liked it even less that a young-looking, bright lieutenant colonel was briefing him. He felt his control slipping away. Michael Cagliari, the national security adviser to the President, walked into the office. “Okay, gentlemen,” Fraser beamed, “you’re up. Keep it short. The President has a full schedule today.” He escorted Cagliari and the two officers into the Oval Office and found a chair in the corner, his stomach churning in frustration.

  Cox introduced Carroll and let him do all the talking. Pontowski sat silently, taking it all in. Carroll’s message was a simple one: Iraq and Syria were patching up their longstanding feud and Carroll linked it with the Egyptian-Syrian mutual assistance treaty. “In short, Mr. President,” Carroll concluded, “we are seeing Egypt, Syria, and Iraq preparing to fight a war.”

  “And the target?” National Security Adviser Cagliari asked.

  “Israel,” Carroll answered.

  “I’m having trouble accepting Syria and Iraq finally getting in bed together after all the years they’ve been at each other throats,” Cagliari said.

  “Iraq has always been one of the hard-line confrontation states and regards itself as in a state of constant war with Israel,” Carroll explained. “But distance and short wars kept Iraq out of the fighting so far. By the time Iraq could get itself organized to logistically support participation in an Arab-Israeli shooting match, the war was over. The main points of disagreement between Iraq and Syria have been over Syria’s support of Iran during the Iran-Iraq war and of Kuwait in the 1991 conflict. Now the Syrians are reevaluating their position, trying to find an accommodation with Iraq.”

  “So you are convinced Iraq is now aligning with Syria militarily?” Pontowski sa
id.

  “Yes, sir, I am,” Carroll replied. His answer carried conviction. “Also, Iraq wants to settle a very real score with Israel.”

  Fraser’s head shot up; his face did all but shout, “What score!”

  Pontowski laughed at his chief of staff’s abrupt reaction. “Tom, Israel has been the primary support behind the Kurdish rebellion that has plagued Iraq for years. It’s a basic element of faith among Iraq’s leaders to punish Israel for keeping the Kurds stirred up. Cooler heads who argue for an accommodation with Israel disappear into the cellars of Al Mukhabaret.”

  “Al Mukhabaret?” Fraser asked. He had never heard that name.

  “The Iraqi intelligence service and secret police.” Pontowski liked to surprise his staff with what he knew. “Mike,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “put a team together to watch the situation and come up with some concrete proposals to back up Israel.”

  Fraser wanted to interrupt and say that there was no confirming evidence and that they should stay focused on the United States’ primary goal in the Middle East: to keep on the friendly side of the Arab oil interests and keep the oil flowing. After all, it was simply a matter of good politics—and business. He said nothing and a pain shot through his stomach.

  “Also,” Pontowski continued, “we need to develop a comprehensive plan now on how we are going to handle another Arab oil embargo like 1973. And get the word to the oil companies that we won’t tolerate the excessive profits they made during the last crisis.” He sat thinking for a moment. “Colonel Carroll, I’d like you to move over to Mr. Cagliari’s office and work for him.” He smiled at Cox. “I know. I’m stealing your top talent. But I want to stay on top of this. I hate being in a reactive mode.” He turned to Fraser. “Tom, make it all happen.”