Firebreak

by Richard Herman

  “Have Carroll there. This is what he gets paid for.” Pontowski cut the connection.

  There was no sign that Bill Carroll had been unprepared when he wound up his presentation on the Middle East. The first thing he did every morning when he came to work in the basement of the White House office building was to prepare an updated briefing. But he was nervous. It was the first time he had briefed Pontowski alone. “Finally, Mr. President,” he concluded, “we have monitored a joint command and control exercise between the Syrians and Egyptians. There is only one logical conclusion—they have now consolidated the command and control functions of their armed forces.”

  Pontowski leaned forward and looked at Fraser. “Then that part of the world is far from being quiet. Have the Soviets increased their support of Syria?”

  “No, sir,” Carroll answered. “Their level of support remains unchanged but they would like to increase it. Selling weapons to the Arabs is a good source of foreign credits, which they badly need. They did deliver some weapons to Iraq contracted for before the invasion of Kuwait—that was part of the deal that was cut with the Iraqi colonels who took over. That delivery gave Iraq an operational squadron of Su-Twenty-seven Flankers which are based at Mosul. It complements a squadron of MiG-Twenty-nines based at Kirkuk.”

  “Have the Syrians or Egyptians kissed and made up with Iraq?” This from National Security Adviser Cagliari. He had keyed on the President’s question and understood what he was getting at.

  “I believe they have,” Carroll replied.

  Bobby Burke, the director of central intelligence, snorted. “My people don’t subscribe to that at all. Besides,” he quipped, “the Arabs always have a hard time figuring out who’s the bride when they try to arrange a meeting.” Laughter worked around the table. “Mr. President,” he continued, “I know the mutual assistance pact between Syria and Egypt is strongly reminiscent of the relationship between Syria and Egypt before the Yom Kippur War in 1973. But things have changed.” He glanced at Fraser. “First, Egypt is at peace with the Israelis and in spite of many disagreements with them is still honoring the peace treaty. Second, the situation in the Kremlin has the Soviets totally preoccupied. Until the Russkies sort out who’s in charge, no one is going to start a shooting match in the Middle East. God only knows how the Soviets would react if Syria, their most important client state, was threatened. No sane person would chance that.”

  Pontowski didn’t comment on the saneness of the tribal politics of the Middle East. “Gentlemen, thank you for your time. Keep watching the situation in the Kremlin and I want no surprises coming out of the Middle East. That’s it until next week.” He rose and left the room with Fraser close in trail.

  “Tom, bring on the CEOs. We need to talk about a national energy policy. Be a good chance for a photo opportunity.”

  “Ah, Mr. President, could we slip that meeting five minutes. There are some papers I would like to have you sign.”

  Pontowski paused before he entered the Oval Office. “Tom, is B. J. Allison late?”

  Fraser nodded. “Sir, she is an old lady.… Maybe if we gave her a few more minutes?”

  “Bring ‘em in now.” The President smiled. “And I want you there. Please tell Melissa not to disturb us.”

  The sergeants who normally worked in the mission planning section of Intelligence had given up on Matt and tried to ignore him and the clutter around the room. The major who ran Intelligence yelled at them to get the place cleaned up in case one of the colonels with a well-developed anal compulsive complex dropped in and got bent out of shape over the mess around Matt. The sergeants relayed the message to Matt who ignored them. Caught between a rock and the Air Force belief that neat and tidy means good and efficient, they cornered Master Sergeant Charlie Ferguson and asked him to talk to Matt. Ferguson told them to lock the door to the mission planning room and put a sign up that restricted entrance to CNWDI security clearances.

  “What’s a CNWDI?” they asked, almost in unison.

  “A security clearance that allows access to Classified Nuclear Weapons Design Information.” Ferguson grinned. ‘You can’t believe the hassle that goes with it. Nobody wants one.” The sergeants did as they were told and Matt was left in peace to work on Gunslinger IV.

  Two days later, Ambler Furry saw the sign, gave a belly laugh, and opened the door.

  “What’s so goddamn funny?” Matt said when he saw his wizzo.

  “You trying to work.” He looked around the room. “This place is a disaster area.”

  “Yeah. I’Ve been living here trying to make something come together. What a can of worms.”

  Furry walked over to the wall chart Matt had been working on. “What’s the problem?”

  “It’s the operations order. We’re supposed to attack Ahlhorn Air Base in northern Germany.”

  “I’ve done that before,” Furry said. “Poor Ahlhorn, it always gets attacked ‘cause it’s smack in the middle of a low-fly area. We can really get down in the weeds and root around.”

  “Big deal,” Matt said. “The operations order says we got to attack from the northwest. We’ll all be sitting ducks running in from the same direction. You’d think the Air Force would’ve learned something from Vietnam and the raid on Libya in ‘86. If we put our attacking aircraft on the same route, we’re nothing but cannon fodder.”

  “Use corridor tactics,” Furry advised, still looking at the chart. “There is a difference between opening a corridor and flying the same route.”

  “We’ll be up to our ass in air defenders trying to hose us out of the sky. If we’re in a corridor, they’ll know right where to find us.”

  “If you’re up to your eyeballs in Gomers—you’re in combat,” Furry said.

  “Another one of your ‘rules'?” Matt asked. His frustration was building. “You got one for a goat screw like this one?”

  “Yeah. When in doubt, use industrial strength deterrence.”

  “On who?” Matt was now shouting, his frustration breaking through.

  “On the air defenders, who else?” Furry beat a hasty retreat out the door as Matt started throwing things at him, rearranging the litter in the room.

  “You realize I’m violating my number one ‘Rule for Survival,’ “ Furry said over the intercom. They were parked at the end of the runway getting a “quick check” before takeoff. Eleven other F-15Es stretched out behind them on the taxiway, all part of the strike package on Ahlhorn.

  “Never forget your aircraft was made by the lowest bidder?” Matt asked.

  “Nope. Never fly in the same cockpit with anyone braver than you are.”

  “You keep changing the order.”

  “Priorities are man-made, not God-made.”

  “Another rule?”

  “Yep, and common sense.”

  “Keep the faith, babes, this’ll work,” Matt reassured his backseater. The raid plan Matt had finally devised was based on one of the Rules of Engagement in the operations orders. The defenders had to honor any threat the attackers presented, take evasive action, and follow a formula for attrition. Then Matt developed a way to open up the corridor and at the same time vary the flight routes into the target area. When they were near the base, they would use standoff tactics and simulate tossing GBU-24s, two-thousand-pound, laser-guided smart bombs with great glide capabilities.

  The crew chiefs who were quick-checking the jets were finished and Matt called the tower for takeoff. Three minutes later, the strike force was airborne and headed out over the North Sea toward the Continent.

  The defender’s response to the attack developed much as Matt had predicted. The Dutch had scrambled six F-16s out of their base at Leeuwarden and established a combat air patrol, or CAP, over the North Sea. The Luftwaffe scrambled eight F-4s out of Jever into two CAPs, one high and one low, inside the low-flying area around Ahlhorn. It was going to be a tough day and the Eagles would have to fight their way in. But Matt had other ideas about getting out.

  The Eag
les were flying at two hundred feet above the dull gray waters of the North Sea. They were ingressing in elements of two. Each pair, or element, were in a combat-spread formation about two thousand feet apart and two miles in trail behind the element in front. From a high-flying bird’s point of view, it resembled a ladder. But this ladder had fangs and snaked its way over the ground.

  The Dutch CAP got the first surprise when Band Box, the call sign for the Dutch Military Radar Control Post, vectored the F-16s in pairs onto the low-flying F-15s. Like most singleseat fighter jocks, the Dutch pilots didn’t really believe the Eagle was a true dual-role fighter that could instantly switch from a ground attack, dropping-bombs-on-the-bad-guy fighter-bomber mode, to an air-to-air role. They laughingly referred to the Eagle as the Mud Hen, claiming that dropping iron bombs was strictly “moving mud.” The F-15 pilots thought the Fast Pack fuel tanks strapped to the sides of its fuselage gave the aircraft a slightly bloated appearance, earning it the nickname Beagle. But the Dutch pilots were about to discover it was no dog.

  Matt and his wingman were in the lead and split apart when their radars picked up the fighters coming at them. Each engaged a separate pair of F-16s, and both simulated a launch of two AIM-120s, the AMRAAM, when they were still miles apart. Four AMRAAMs coming their way was too potent a threat to be ignored and the Dutch F-16s broke off their attack, taking evasive maneuvers according to the ROE. While Matt and his wingman rejoined and continued on their way to the target, the Dutch contended with the AMRAAMs. When they did get their act together, the ROE had cut their numbers in half and two more simulated AMRAAMs were coming at them. These two missiles had been launched by the third element of F-15s that were now in range. The ballet repeated itself and two remaining F-16s decided enough was enough and that they would engage the F-15s on their way back. Besides, they needed some time to think about the new tactics the F-15s were using.

  Now the F-15s were coasting in, flying down the estuary of the Weser River. “I’ve seen this before,” Furry grunted from the pit, remembering when he had been on a similar mission in the past led by Jack Locke. How many years ago was that? he thought. Furry had been a second lieutenant, the wing’s basket case, barely able to scramble aboard the F-4 the 45th was flying then. And Locke had been an up-and-coming tiger, demonstrating his tactical skills on Ahlhorn. Ithad been the wing’s final exercise before they went to war in the Persian Gulf. Many of those warbirds had not returned.

  “Multiple hits, twelve o’clock at forty-five miles,” Matt’s wingman called over the UHF. He was painting the Luftwaffe CAP on his radar. But this time, Matt told the second and fourth element of F-15s following him to engage. Part of Matt’s plan was to hide pairs of F-15s in the strike package that were configured strictly for air-to-air. The Luftwaffe F-4s were waiting for the F-15s to penetrate the low-flying area and were surprised when they heard their radar controller radio that four Eagles were surging out of the attackers at them. Suddenly, the eight F-4s found their hands full of missile launch calls and F-15s. It wasn’t what they had expected and the F-4s lost interest in the strike package that sneaked past them on the deck. The TEWS in Matt’s bird came alive with a loud howl of chirps and squeaks warning them of radar ground threats near the base. “Mostly Hawks,” Furry said. He had a healthy respect for what the American-made surface-to-air missile could do and was glad they were using standoff tactics. Distance would offer them protection.

  When they were within ten miles of the base, Furry had his target, the command post bunker, identified on the targeting FLIR and called, “Designating.” Matt knew they were onto their target as his head twisted back and forth, looking for the Luftwaffe HICAP that was out there looking for them. “Shitfuckhate!” Furry yelled. He had a malfunction in the laser illuminator in the left LANTIRN pod. Now they had to use the Target FLIR for the primary delivery mode and not a highly accurate laser delivery. His fingers flew over the hand controllers and he drove the Forward Looking Infrared’s cross hairs over the bunker and tried to lock on. No luck. He needed a sharper contrast on the target to get the system to lock on for guidance. “No lock, no lock. Drive in closer.”

  “The Hawks …” Matt cautioned. Closer meant they would be well within the envelope of that missile when they tossed their bomb.

  “Damn it, closer!” Furry yelled. “We simulate turning on the TEWS and burn eyeballs out.” Another peacetime restriction kept them from turning on the active electronic countermeasures in the Tactical Electronic Warfare System to jam radars. On exercises like this aid on Ahlhorn, they could only use the TEWS to warn them about electronic threats. Matt continued to press the attack run. “Locked,” Furry announced, triumph in that simple word. “Cleared-to-pickle.”

  Matt lifted the jet to five hundred feet. The TEWS exploded in sound, warning them of multiple simulated SAM launches—all at them. “Bomb gone,” Matt said. In real life, they would have felt the bomb separate from the aircraft. Matt dropped back onto the deck and headed to the northwest while the other F-15s ran in from separate headings.

  The F-4s that had been scrambled into a HICAP to defend Ahlhorn were entering the engagement, trying to nail the F-15s as they left the target area. Matt had rejoined his wingman and both pilots configured their systems for an air-to-air engagement. The F-15s that had been delivering bombs a moment ago were now ready for an air-to-air engagement, and there was no better weapons system for killing other fighters than the Eagle.

  Matt’s instructions to the aircrews for getting out of the target area had been simple, “We’re not going there to defend anybody, so don’t stick around to fight. Pull your fangs in when a bandit bounces you. Sort ‘em out for one head-on missile attack and simulate a Fox One shot before the merge. Unload and stroke the throttles—blow on through ‘em and keep heading for home. The next element behind you has a contract to do the same thing. The Rules of Engagement say the bad guys have to honor our missile shots and take evasive action. They’re going to be up to their earholes and assholes just getting out of the way of our missiles while we get the hell out of Dodge.”

  And that’s what happened as pair after pair of F-15s came at the defenders. Tail-end Charlie was flown by Colonel Mike Martin, the wing’s new DO, the deputy commander for operations, a large and profane man with the personality of a gorilla in heat. He was upset because the Luftwaffe and Dutch had played by the Rules of Engagement and were making like dead men. More fighters were being scrambled out of both Jever and Leeuwarden, but they would be too late to engage the retreating F-15s. He snorted in frustration because he wanted to “kill” something or somebody. Then he gave a begrudging “Shit hot.” He was looking forward to the debrief of the mission because Matt’s plan had worked as advertised and violated Furry’s “rule” that a plan is only good for the first thirty seconds of combat.

  “Hey, Matt,” a voice shouted when he and Furry walked out of the mission debriefing in the squadron. “We really knocked their dicks in the dirt on this one!” A chorus of good-natured shouts and obscene comments rained down on diem. Another voice shouted, “The beer light’s on in the lounge!” and the crowd moved in that direction. Furry gave Matt a friendly push and told him to get busy with the important things: “Drinking and bullshitting with the troops.”

  Matt stood for a moment, realizing he was part of the squadron and that he had earned it on his own. No, he told himself, that’s not entirely true. He had earned it because Ambler Furry had encouraged him to keep trying and had kept faith in him when everyone else was dumping in his face. “Amb, why did you want to be my backseater?”

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Furry deadpanned at him, “I’m probably suffering from a bad case of the stupids.” Then he relented. “I guess I saw a lot of Jack Locke in you. I flew another attack on Ahlhorn that he had planned. This one was better.” He grinned at his pilot. “Come on, let’s get to the serious stuff.” He shoved Matt toward the lounge and the beer.

  11

  The wind gusted through the
cracks in the door and sent waves of dust across the floor. Shoshana had tried to stuff the cracks with rolled-up newspapers, but nothing seemed to block the relentless wind. “I hate the wind,” she told Avidar. The man only responded with a weak smile. “Where are you?” she mumbled to herself, wishing Habish would return. He had left them in the small one-room hovel on the outskirts of Kirkuk over twenty-four hours ago.

  “He’ll be back,” Avidar said. She sat on the floor next to him and felt his forehead. The fever was building again. The antibiotics Habish had found after they had reached Kirkuk had broken Avidar’s raging temperature but they needed more now. “Don’t even think about it,” Avidar cautioned. “No doctors.”

  “I know, I know,” Shoshana told him, her frustration building. “The risk is too great.” She bathed his forehead with a damp cloth and offered him water. “You saved Gad in Baghdad, you saved me at the roadblock, and now we can’t do anything for you. If I was a nurse, at least—”

  “But you’re not.” He squeezed her hand. “We all knew the risks before we started.”

  Shoshana tried to keep him warm as his fever surged and he slipped into unconsciousness. “Damn you, Habish!” she raged. “Where are you!” Tears streaked down her cheeks and she wanted to do something, anything to save this quiet man with the soft brown eyes. In her despair, she started to pray, something she hadn’t done for years. “I can’t even do that right,” she told herself.

  She sat with him until he died.

  The makeshift shroud Shoshana was sewing together was almost finished when Habish came through the door. “You’re too late,” she said, not taking her eyes from her work. He knelt beside Avidar’s body, no emotion on his face. “Well, say something, you bastard!” She was standing, shaking with anger.