Firebreak

by Richard Herman

  “Stupid,” the old man finished the sentence for her. Matt grinned at him. “What a schmuck. I had to tell you everything.” He climbed out of the van and walked away.

  The two looked at each other and laughed, the tension shredding. And both knew that love was there.

  “Shoshana …” Matt paused. “I’ve got to go.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  The lone F-16 entered the safe corridor leading to Ramon Air Base at its assigned altitude, flew the prescribed route, and squawked the correct IFF code. When Harkabi was certain the Hawk missile batteries surrounding the base had a positive ID on him and would not send one of the deadly missiles his way, he flew a short final to touchdown. Little puffs of smoke belched behind the main gear. Harkabi took the first high-speed turnoff and fast-taxied for his bunker. The doors rolled back as he approached and he taxied directly inside and raised his canopy. The ground crew swarmed over the jet, checking it for battle damage as they refueled and rearmed it at the same time. A crew chief hung a crew boarding ladder over the left canopy rail and waited for Harkabi to climb down. Another pilot was waiting to crawl into the cockpit for the next mission.

  Harkabi sat in the seat, too tired to move. He had drained the two plastic water bottles he carried in the leg pockets of his g suit and still felt a raging thirst. He flopped one hand over the edge of the cockpit and pulled the bayonet clip that released his oxygen mask from the side of his face with the other. Every motion was an effort. Despair ate at him—four wingmen lost in one day. At least one F-4 had also been lost on the last mission—probably two. And these were just the losses he had witnessed. He didn’t move.

  The crew chief called for help and another ladder was placed against the right side of the F-16. They had seen it before. Five combat missions meant over five hours of flying that took everything a pilot had. Total concentration, fighting four to eight g’s on every maneuver, dehydration, and stress took a ferocious toll. The two sergeants climbed the ladders, one on each side and reached in, unstrapping and disconnecting the pilot from the F-16. Then they gently lifted him out and passed him down to waiting hands. The waiting pilot scrambled up the left ladder and settled into the still-warm seat. His hands flew over the switches as he ran the before-engine-start checklist.

  A sergeant helped Harkabi to the side of the bunker where he could sit and wait for transportation. Both doors to the bunker cranked open as the fresh pilot brought the F-16 to life and taxied out. The combat turn had taken less than nine minutes.

  Harkabi staggered to his feet and managed to walk the short distance to a crew truck. He watched the F-16 pair up with its wingman and race for the runway. Which one will come back? he thought. How much more can we take?

  The war was less than ten hours old.

  16

  The corridor outside the National Military Command Center (NMCC) in the Pentagon was jammed with lieutenant colonels and full colonels wanting to get inside to witness firsthand the reports from the Middle East reaching the command levels of the Pentagon. Most were there because they were professional warriors with an intense interest in combat. But the rumor that the President was inside had spurred quite a few to think of a reason why they should be on the main floor. It was a golden opportunity to shine.

  The NMCC was the closest thing in the Pentagon to the popular conception of a “war room,” the inner sanctum from which a war was supposedly conducted. Bill Carroll shrugged his shoulders when he realized he would never work his way through the crush of bodies in the hall and was about to leave when he ran into General Cox, his old boss from the DIA.

  “Come on, Bill,” the general said, “let’s try the Watch Center. Not so much dust being kicked up by the high rollers.” They descended into the basement and found room at the rear of the main floor of the Watch Center where they had a clear view of the computer-generated situation boards. Both men felt much more at home in the Watch Center because it was essentially a fusion point that processed and evaluated incoming intelligence for forwarding to the National Military Command Center. Without the Watch Center, the higher levels of command would be inundated with irrelevant information.

  Cox and Carroll were in time to hear the latest situation update briefing on the outbreak of fighting in the Middle East. “This is going to be bigger than the Yom Kippur War of ‘73,” Carroll predicted as the latest intelligence reports were covered and their significance analyzed.

  “I don’t think so,” Cox replied. “So far it only looks like an attack by the Syrians, and the Arabs can’t take on Israel without Egypt.” He pointed out how the surprise attacks by the Syrian Air Force on selected Israeli targets had not knocked out the Israelis’ Air Force or command and control structure. The center board flashed and a new map appeared that showed the latest disposition of the three Syrian armored tank corps that had been positioned on the northern flank of Israel. All three had stopped their withdrawal back into Syria and were now moving southward, directly at the Israeli border. The Israeli Air Force had struck at the three columns but had taken heavy losses.

  “I don’t like it,” Carroll said. “The Syrians have got their sierra stacked in neat piles to pull that one off.”

  “What are you saying?” Cox asked.

  “Look what they’ve done. Stopping a withdrawal of that size and immediately reversing is a complicated maneuver for armor. They didn’t do it with one army corps but three, and it had to be coordinated with the Egyptian exercise in the Sinai. This was well planned and rehearsed. And we haven’t heard from the Iraqis yet.”

  “But the Egyptians are not fighting and the IDF can concentrate on the Syrians,” Cox argued.

  “General, right now the Egyptians have stopped maneuvers and are making nice friendly sounds to the Israelis. But they haven’t stood down. That exercise was planned to present a threat in the south that the Israelis had to honor. I’m willing to bet that the Egyptians will remain in place and the moment Israel withdraws the forces they had positioned to cover the exercise, the Egyptians will attack. That Egyptian exercise was meant to make the Israelis deploy part of their defenses in the Sinai to weaken the northern sector. You watch, the Sinai is going to be quiet while the Syrians try to crack open the northern part of Israel.”

  “The Israelis can handle it,” Cox predicted. “I think the Syrians are about to get their asses kicked in the next few days.”

  “Don’t bet on that,” Carroll said. “The Israelis have always planned for short, decisive wars. This one is going to turn into a slugfest with heavy attrition on both sides.”

  “I hope you’re wrong,” Cox said.

  “Me too.”

  The opening attack on Haifa had caught Furry in downtown Haifa. He had been playing tourist and taking pictures of Israel’s Day of Remembrance when the first MiGs dropped their bombs. He had snapped four pictures of the fighters before a policeman shoved him into a shelter. After the attack, he had returned to the hotel on the beach and tried, unsuccessfully, to contact Matt. Then he tried to phone the American embassy in Jerusalem but couldn’t get through. In frustration, he left a note for Matt and jumped in the car he had rented and drove to the air base at Ramon.

  The base was sealed tight and only after protesting vigorously and by getting himself arrested by the military police, one of whom recognized him, was he able to get onto the base. The squadron he and Matt had flown out of was a mass of activity and he was told to stay out of the way. He wandered into different rooms trying to get a handle on the action but the built-in Israeli penchant for secrecy worked against him and he found himself constantly shuffled around. Finally, he had gone to the personal equipment section, gathered up his and Matt’s flying gear and hooked a ride out to the bunker where their F-15 was sheltered. At least, he figured, I can get us ready to get the hell out of here when Matt shows up.

  Much to his surprise, he found their F-15 fully armed and two pilots doing a preflight inspection. “Just what the hell you think
you’re doing?” he yelled. They ignored him. There was no doubt in his mind that they were going to fly his jet and he scrambled up the crew ladder and jumped in the front seat. It was all he could think of to do.

  One of the pilots climbed up after him, drew his pistol, pulled the slide back chambering a round, and pointed it at Furry’s temple.

  The security guard at the entrance to the White House office building stopped Carroll and told him that he couldn’t enter because his security clearance had been temporarily pulled. Not knowing what to do, Carroll had called his old boss at the DIA, General Cox, to find out what was going on. But Cox was caught up in a series of conferences and meetings as the DIA tried to piece together what was happening in the Middle East. Out of frustration, he called Melissa Courtney-Smith.

  Melissa promised Carroll that she would try to get it all straightened out and his clearance reinstated. Until then, she urged him to go back to his old office at Arlington Hall. “Without a clearance, I can’t get in there either,” he told her. “Hell, I can’t do squat-all.” He hung up the phone and headed for the personnel office in the Pentagon. Maybe, he thought, I can get some action there.

  “Mr. Fraser,” Melissa said, stopping the President’s chief of staff as he left his office, “Lieutenant Colonel Carroll has had his security clearance pulled. We need to get it reinstated.”

  “I hadn’t heard. Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, “it would be best if we let the system work, not get involved until we learn more.” He rushed out, in a hurry, to a meeting with the President and the National Security Council. A slight smile cracked his mouth. Melissa watched him disappear and placed a call to Carroll’s home in Virginia. She needed to talk to him.

  The nineteen-year-old reservist who was driving Matt across the tarmac at Ramon kept up a constant wave of chatter, telling Matt about the two attacks they had beaten off and how his air defense battery had shot down at least one MiG and damaged another. They had to hold before crossing a taxipath as two F-16s taxied past. Overhead, he saw an F-16 and F-15 enter the recovery pattern. “What the …!” Matt shouted. “That’s my jet!” He jumped out of the jeep and ran for the bunker where he had last seen his F-15E.

  The pilot had to wait outside the buttoned-up bunker until the Eagle taxied in. Without the recognition code, the ground crew wouldn’t let him inside. When the blast doors winched open, Matt ran inside, only to be thrown to the ground by two sergeants. “Knock it off!” he yelled. “You guys know me.” They ignored him as the Eagle taxied inside and the doors closed. He was speechless when he saw Furry climb out of the backseat and scramble down the ladder.

  The wizzo had a grin from ear to ear when he saw Matt still spread-eagled on the ground. “We got two MiGs and blew the shit out of a mobile command post,” he announced. He squatted beside Matt. “Seems they’ve been checking out our jet while we’ve been rootin’ and scootin’ after the local talent in Haifa.” Matt wanted to protest that he hadn’t been skirt-chasing. “Anyway,” Furry continued, “I got here just as they were getting ready to launch on a mission …”

  “They can’t do that,” Matt yelled.

  “Well, they did,” Furry told him. “They need every airframe they’ve got. They’re even flying trainers on combat missions with kids barely out of pilot training. Anyway, I figured the best way to get the bird back in one pice was to have at least one person in the cockpit who had a clue—me. I can’t believe what I did.”

  “Probably got yourself a court-martial,” Matt told him, “is what you did.”

  “I don’t give a shit about that. Hell, I was on the receiving end of some bombs in Haifa and wanted to even the score. Can you believe I violated rule number one? I flew with someone a hell of a lot braver than me.”

  The pilot who had flown the Eagle joined them. “Your backseater is good, very good,” he told Matt. There were few better compliments in the Israeli Air Force. He extended his hand and pulled Matt to his feet.

  Fraser had no trouble following the discussion going around the conference table in the Cabinet Room of the White House. He sat at his usual place, against the wall and behind the President, slightly to his right, not part of the National Security Council, but handy if the President wanted him. Fraser felt the mood in the room was definitely on course and that the United States would not act in haste and throw all its support behind Israel without considering its other interests in that part of the world. B. J. Allison would be pleased if she could hear the secretary of state argue for a cautious and deliberate approach to the war. And he was more than pleased with the CIA’s intelligence summary that saw no immediate threat to Israel’s survival.

  What bothered Fraser was that he didn’t understand the motivation behind many of the men and women sitting around the table. To him, motivation was always a matter of the bottom line measured in dollars. Anything that reduced the size of the next quarterly return was, by definition, wrong and these people were reaching the right conclusions for the wrong reasons. His finely tuned intellectual skills had no trouble following their reasoning; he just didn’t understand where they were coming from. He relaxed into his chair, certain that not having Carroll’s input had helped keep everything on track. The Air Force lieutenant colonel had definitely been too pro-Israel.

  “When do you expect the main forces to engage?” Pontowski asked.

  “They may not,” the director of central intelligence answered. “This may be only a maneuver on Syria’s part to consolidate its position in Lebanon. Some of my analysts are predicting that those three Syrian armies will hit before they come in full contact and then enter into negotiations for their withdrawal.”

  “And what would they negotiate for?”

  The secretary of state answered the President’s question. “The Syrians agree to withdraw their forces from Jordan but take over most of Lebanon. That’s predictable since Lebanon is one of their historical objectives. They’ll also try for more autonomy for Palestinians on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”

  “Should we start to resupply Israel at this time?” Pontowski asked. “They are taking heavy aircraft losses.”

  Fraser leaned forward. They had come to a critical point. Discussion around the table was lively, about equally divided for and against. Michael Cagliari, the national security adviser, took a cautious approach. “At this time, it looks like the Israelis can handle the Syrian threat. True, they are taking some heavy losses, but they can absorb those. We need to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. And there is the Soviet reaction to consider—”

  “Which we must not underestimate,” the secretary of state interrupted. “We don’t know what’s going on in the Kremlin, and if the Politburo sees their clients getting waxed, the hardliners may prevail and throw more weight behind the Arabs. An easy Israeli victory followed up by an aggressive push into Arab territory could lead to a much wider war, becoming regional instead of local.”

  “And that’s a line we don’t want to cross,” Cagliari added. “Who knows how the Russians would react to that.”

  Fraser breathed easier when he saw Pontowski’s shoulders relax. “For now, we wait and see,” the President said. “Have our ambassador to the UN get a cease-fire proposal in front of the Security Council. Put MAC on alert and get ready to start a resupply. Stay on top of this.” He rose and motioned for Fraser to join him as he left the room.

  “Where was Colonel Carroll?” Pontowski asked as they walked back to the Oval Office.

  “I had to pull his security clearance,” Fraser answered. “There’s a hint of some impropriety and I want to check it out before he returns to work. He should be okay, but we don’t need to be blindsided by problems in the NSC when the Middle East is coming apart and the press is looking for a club to beat our administration with.”

  “Get someone to replace him until it gets sorted out,” Pontowski said, making a mental note to speak privately to Stan Abbott, the head of the Secret Service, about the matter.

  The combat mission Furry
had flown was the key and the two Americans found themselves accepted as trusted allies by the Israeli pilots. It didn’t surprise them when Dave Harkabi asked them to join a mission briefing for another attack on the First Syrian Army headquarters. Recent intelligence had traced the headquarters as it moved south after Harkabi’s attack. The one bomb the Israeli major had managed to get on target had convinced the Syrian generals that they should move closer to the front line.

  Matt listened intently, interested in how the Israelis would defeat the Gadfly SAM that was causing them so much trouble. The crew of the second F-4 that had been on Harkabi’s first mission was at the briefing. The pilot explained how they had taken heavy battle damage but had fought their way out and recovered safely. Their latest electronic countermeasures, the F-4 pilot explained, were not effective against the Gadfly.

  “Why don’t they go in under the Gadfly’s envelope?” Matt asked.

  “They do,” Furry answered. “But the Syrians use ZSU-23-4s for close-in defense.” Matt had read the reports on the ZSU-23 and understood how the 23-millimeter antiaircraft gun could track a low-flying fighter right down to the deck. The ZSU-23 and Gadfly protected each other and formed a tough defensive perimeter. “The Israelis use standoff weapons to stay outside the range of the ZSUs,” Furry continued, “but that means they’ve got to get above a hundred feet to acquire the target. That’s when the Gadfly gets ‘em. A no-win game; too close and a ZSU nails ‘em, too high and a Gadfly ruins their day.”

  A petite young woman who Matt gauged to be no more than twenty years old entered the room. The three silver bars on her epaulets identified her as a seren, a captain. “That’s the woman I want to be the mother of my children,” Furry said, sotto voice.

  “You’ve got a mother for your children,” Matt reminded him. But he understood Furry’s interest. The slender young woman was beautiful with dark hair framing a delicate face and high cheekbones. Her eyes reminded the pilot of Shoshana’s. The Israeli pilots fell silent and watched her update the big situation map at the front of the room.