Red Phoenix

by Larry Bond

  They pulled up outside a concrete-block building and hurried inside, eager to get out of the cold and see their new offices. The previous tenants were still packing, signs of a hurried departure everywhere.

  Anne started directing the setup. The chance of actually doing her job, helping to straighten out the supply situation, excited her. It was going to be a long, hard night, the third in a row. She had a list of things to do as long as her arm. But she had to make a phone call first.

  CHAPTER 37

  Technical Difficulties

  JANUARY 5 — OVER SIBYON, NORTH KOREA

  Tony knew it had been going too smoothly. Seeing Anne almost daily, reinforcements arriving, fewer fighters opposing them. Something had to go wrong.

  The afternoon mission was no pushover; airfields never were. This was not a standard package. To keep the element of surprise there would be no warning by reconnaissance or jammer aircraft. Hugging the sides of the valley, his Falcons would make one run, dropping their bombs and then escaping before the defenses were fully alerted. It sounded like a good plan, Tony thought. He had thought it up, briefed it, and was now leading it.

  Seeing the hillsides whizz by on either side didn’t leave much time for second thoughts, but he knew they were taking a risk. The only concession he had made was to have two F-16s stand by along their exit route. Armed for air-to-air combat, they would cover his group’s escape and maybe bushwhack any aircraft taking off with revenge on their minds.

  The inertial navigation system showed that the last waypoint was coming up. They had been heading generally north, skirting known defenses and using the valleys to stay below enemy radars. Watching the readout, he checked the map strapped to his knee and looked at the hills around him. There was a notch on the right, and he started a gentle turn toward it.

  Behind him were ten other Falcons, five pairs spaced at two-mile intervals. His was the easiest position, the lead. Normally he would have taken the rear position, but navigating to the target was also his responsibility, and that could be done only from the front.

  The war had been going well in the air. American fighters were doing their jobs, and Soviet-supplied aircraft couldn’t replace the pilots the North Koreans had lost. Tony had nineteen kills to his credit now, but hadn’t made one in two days. He didn’t expect to make one on this mission either. It was air to ground, all the way.

  Their target was an airfield close to the border. Intelligence said that a squadron of attack aircraft, among other things, was based there.

  With the number of enemy fighters reduced, UN airpower was being used to hit targets well behind the lines, enemy assets that helped keep their offensive rolling. These included road junctions, bridges, ammo dumps, and airfields. Especially airfields.

  This one was located on the floor of a valley where three mountain ridges came together and petered out. The aircraft were kept in hardened shelters dug into the side of one of the ridges. It was heavily defended, with gun and missile batteries sited near the runways and on the hills around.

  As tough as it was, it was better to attack them here than wait until they were in the air. The enemy would use these planes to reinforce attacks and exploit breakthroughs. In spite of friendly air defenses, the NK planes could do a lot of damage after they took off.

  It had been a long flight. There was a lot of turbulence, both from the wind off the mountains and the sun’s uneven heating of the ground. They would be attacking late in the day, when there was just enough light for the fighters to see their target, but less for the gun crews trying to pick them out of a darkening sky.

  He interrupted his musings to check the time, then the armament display. His HUD was set up for air-to-ground mode, and the two bombs were already armed. The thousand-pound weapons would be dropped in one fast pass, and besides the mandatory cannon and the Sidewinders, these were his only ordnance.

  The notch had widened out into its own valley, and Tony felt a roller-coaster sensation as he followed the rise and fall of the terrain. He waggled his wings and started down. From here to the target the map said the ground was flat. They would halve their altitude of two hundred feet, and Tony was going to do his best to stay below that.

  They reached the initial point, and Tony blinked his running lights on, then off. Turning slightly, Tony quickly lined up on the approach bearing to his particular target. He spared one glance over his shoulder and was rewarded by a glimpse of Hooter exactly where he should be, then he moved the throttle to full military power.

  The jet leaped forward, shooting out onto the valley floor like a projectile from a gun. Behind him, separated by ten-second intervals, pairs of fighters would be pouring out of the gap.

  His radar warning receiver lit up instantly. He set the countermeasures dispenser on AUTO. It would kick out chaff and flare cartridges according to a predetermined pattern until he turned it off or until it ran out. The gun and missile crews had their radars up, which was not unexpected. The question was, were the crews alert? Where were the directors pointed?

  Tony was busy trying to spot his target, a set of camouflaged doors carved in the eastern slope of a ridge. The long shadows from the setting sun should make them easier to spot, but it was hard to look for long in a jet moving at over six hundred knots. Especially one only a hundred feet off the ground.

  “Hooter, I see it. I’m coming left a squidge.” He heard two clicks in answer and hoped that his wingman saw his target as well.

  There were dark half-circles in the hill. The blast doors were inset a few feet, and the edges of the tunnel were throwing shadows onto them. Perfect. He swung the cursor up and locked his radar on the nearest opening.

  They had been over the airfield for ten seconds, and the receiver had grown brighter. A beep-beep filled his phones, joined instantly by Hooter’s call “SAM left! They’re going for the Two pair.”

  Hooter had spotted a smoke trail headed for one of the planes in the pair behind his. That was Dish and Ivan.

  Tony couldn’t do anything to help. He and Hooter were committed. Luminous symbols were crawling across his HUD, showing the target, the course to steer, everything else he needed to put a pair of bombs within five feet of where he wanted them. Ten seconds more and they would be on top.

  “Saint, I can see the launcher. It’s a Gecko at seven o’clock.”

  The SA-8 Gecko was a modern battlefield missile on a mobile launcher. It was a dangerous opponent, equipped with an optical backup in case its radar was jammed. Hooter’s voice rose in pitch. “Ivan’s hit!”

  Tony clicked twice in acknowledgment. He was too busy to talk. Five seconds to go. Flak bursts and tracers were starting to appear and were closer than usual. By this time in the war, the gun crews were getting experienced.

  And they were well placed. Someone had guessed how an attack would be made. The SAM launcher was well sited to engage aircraft as they entered, and the guns covered the part of the attack run where they would have to fly straight and level.

  There. The pipper had crawled down a line until it crossed the target. RELEASE appeared in the lower left corner and Tony pressed a button on the stick. At the same time he pushed the throttle all the way forward. The increased thrust pushed him into the seat just as he felt the two bombs leave the aircraft.

  Two BLU-109 bombs arced toward the target. Designed to penetrate reinforced concrete, they had thick, hard cases. If either one hit the twenty-foot-wide door, it would go right through and explode inside.

  He pulled up and to the right, hard, and watched the indicator run up from one g to seven times the force of gravity. He was grunting, tensing his muscles to fight the pull when a white smoke trail passed over and in front of his plane.

  The bastard almost had him. His first thought was the launcher that Hooter had called earlier, but this came from a different direction. Probably another unit from the same battery. They had launched optically to avoid warning their target. Waiting until the American aircraft finished their run, they fired
the SAM as he was turning and climbing, either too busy maneuvering to see the launch or too close to the edge of his envelope to do much about it.

  It was blind luck it had missed him. Hooter was still pulling out of his run, so he couldn’t have seen it either. Tony made a decision and instead of leveling out and then diving back down, he kept climbing. “Hooter, SAM launcher on the right. I’m taking it.”

  He heard the two clicks as he thumbed his stick and the CANNON prompt appeared on the HUD. Tony craned his neck overhead and followed the thinning smoke trail back. There. The wheeled launcher was parked on a level spot, “above” and to the right.

  He pulled hard and rolled right, swinging the sky and ground over to their customary positions. It was a steep shot, but he fired and saw hits. SAM launchers were never armored, and hitting the delicate electronics might keep it out of action for a little while, even if the vehicle wasn’t destroyed.

  He pulled out, higher than he would have liked, and turned to the exit heading. Looking left and back he could see smoke rising from the shelters. As he craned his neck back farther to see Hooter, black puffs appeared around Tony’s aircraft. The fighter shook, as if it had hit a bump, and suddenly rolled hard left. The right side of the cockpit starred in three places, and the air outside took on a whistling sound.

  “I’m hit! Tuba, take over.” Tuba was the alternate package commander, and he acknowledged Tony’s call.

  Tony automatically corrected and brought the wings level, but he paused a moment, afraid to look at the instruments. His limbs felt frozen. He knew he had been hit, but how bad?

  He gently tried the controls, first the ailerons, then the rudder. Both responded normally. Pushing his nose down, he headed south, which was the exit route anyway. Rule number one for a wounded bird was to get out of Indian Country.

  At six hundred knots he was quickly away from the airfield. The air defenses were concentrating on the aircraft now attacking, so Tony’s only problem was getting his damaged Falcon home. A quick scan of the instrument panel showed him one obvious concern. Oil pressure was falling.

  Throttling back to cruise power, he called his wingman. “Hooter, I’m hit, losing oil pressure. Look over my right side.”

  “Rog, Saint.” Hooter’s plane pulled up quickly until he was flying abreast of Tony’s fighter, fifty feet apart and two hundred feet off the ground.

  “You’ve got a couple of good-sized holes in the fuselage,” Hooter reported. “Come up a bit so I can check your belly.”

  Tony climbed fifty feet, and Hooter slid underneath and looked him over. “Yep, big black streak coming back from a hole. Something big hit you, maybe a five seven.”

  “Rog, Hooter, probably the oil pump.”

  Without oil pressure the engine would not get enough lubrication; the bearings would heat up and soon freeze. It wouldn’t happen immediately, but the chance of making a safe landing at base was almost nil.

  They could hear the rest of the raid making its attacks and breaking off as well. Tuba, the alternate commander, had led them out along the planned route, while Tony had taken another, so that if enemy fighters showed up, they would be drawn to the larger group and ignore Tony and Hooter.

  Normally they would call for combat rescue, but they were still too far north. He would have to fly south another fifteen minutes before he would be in range for a pickup.

  All Tony could do was nurse his crippled bird as far south as possible. His fighter was a valuable machine, and if he could make it to an airfield, it could fight again. Also, any landing, on a road or even a cowpath, was better than a wheels-up into a rice paddy or bailing out.

  And the longer he stayed in the plane, the closer to friendlies he was. Every minute in the air was worth a day of walking on the ground. In open country, that is. Most of Korea was mountains and valleys, and the time to work through the country below him would be measured in weeks, not days.

  Survival classes notwithstanding, Tony was determined to stay with the bird until the last possible second. He started a gentle climb, not wanting to throttle up but still milking every bit of altitude he could without losing speed.

  Consulting his map, he saw the closest airfield that could take him was Taejon. Of course he had to bypass Seoul and the front, but one thing at a time.

  He climbed above the valley walls and turned to the south. In a few minutes he would be across the old DMZ.

  According to the engine temperature, a few minutes might be all he had. He compared it with the earlier temperature and computed the rate of increase in his head. No way he would make it to base. Underneath the aircraft the terrain rose and fell like a stormy sea. Nowhere to even try a wheels-up. “Hooter, I’m losing the engine.”

  His wingman’s voice was both encouraging and desperate. “Hang in there, Saint. Don’t leave until the engine falls off.”

  “I won’t, buddy, but I’m setting up for an ejection, while I have the chance.” Tony heard two clicks in response.

  He looked over at Hooter’s aircraft. He was flying abreast and slightly above him, doing his best to look for threats and monitor Tony’s status. In the cockpit he saw his wingman give him a thumbs-up gesture.

  Okay, so he was leaving work a little early today. First he hit the switch that wiped out his IFF codes. If that black box survived a crash with the codes still loaded, the enemy would learn a lot. The only documents in the cockpit were a small code card and his map. He stuffed those in his pocket. He would shred the card and bury it after he landed.

  After he landed. Tony forced himself to think positively. The Aces II was a very smart seat and had gotten a real workout since the war began. If the pilot survived the initial hit and was able to pull the ring, the seat was certain to get him out of the aircraft.

  The problem was that in order to clear a fast-moving jet fighter, the seat had to move even faster. If not, the ejecting pilot would be struck by the tail of his own plane and certainly killed.

  About half the pilots that had ejected so far had suffered some sort of injury on ejection: compression fractures of vertebrae, dislocated shoulders, even concussions.

  At six hundred knots air was almost as solid as the ground. Something as nonaerodynamic as a man in a seat would be whipped by winds that made a hurricane look tame. Add little or no oxygen and freezing temperature to a parachute landing, and any pilot would be very reluctant to leave his nice, safe damaged fighter.

  Tony had a lot of things going for him, though. He was uninjured, could set his airplane up at the optimum altitude and speed, and would have time to brace himself for the ejection shock.

  He looked at the gauge and saw the temperature still rising. Not as quickly, but things would start to fail soon. He put his visor down and tightened the knob as hard as he could, then tightened the chin strap on his helmet. Next, the bayonet clips that attached the oxygen mask to his helmet. A lot of pilots had their masks ripped off, and he needed it to protect his face from the slipstream.

  The throttle was still set for cruise speed, about five hundred knots. He pulled it back, reducing the thrust almost to idle. This wouldn’t cover ground as quickly, but reducing the speed from five hundred to one hundred knots would make the ejection a much less brutal process.

  As the airspeed fell, his climb slowed, then he started to lose altitude. To compensate he pulled up more and more until his speed stabilized and the nose was angled thirty degrees in the air.

  Tony felt intensely vulnerable. Slow, power fading, over enemy territory — all he could do was hope nobody noticed them. Hooter was taking a risk, too. If they were bounced by more than two aircraft, John would have his work cut out for him, both defending Tony and covering his own behind.

  Settling into his seat, he pressed his spine tight against the seat back and made sure his feet were set squarely on the rudder pedals.

  Almost throwing his head back, he jammed it against the headrest, then settled it in, making sure that he was facing straight ahead and wasn’t offset
to either side.

  About two steps away from punching out, Tony used his peripheral vision to look at the temperature gauge. Still climbing, but not there yet. Was there a funny sound in the roar of the jet behind him?

  Screw the head position. He checked Hooter and saw him still flying above and ahead, probably wishing he had a towing hook. Feeling a little more desperate, he looked over the ground below. Ridges and valleys alternated, with lakes and occasional groups of trees occupying what flat land there was.

  In a way he was glad. Air Force instructors said that if you were behind enemy lines, you should try to bail out over rough country. It would slow the progress of enemy units trying to reach you, and give you lots of places to hide, but it was not supposed to be a problem for a rescue chopper.

  Well, what if the chopper can’t get to you? He’d have to make it out on his own. He looked at the temperature gauge and immediately snapped his head back against the headrest.

  “Hooter, it’s almost showtime.”

  “Rog, Saint. Can I do anything for you?”

  “Mark my position and then get the hell out of here. A circling jet will only attract attention. I’ll try and work south so the rescue people can get to me.”

  “Roger, copy.”

  “And tell Anne.”

  Tony heard two clicks. There was definitely a new note to the roar of his engine, but he stayed with the aircraft. Every second in the air brought him closer to recovery. The gauge was now past the red line, but the number was meaningless. Essentially, any moment parts of the engine would decide to take a separate vacation.

  He felt a shudder and had to correct to bring the wings level. No point in risking a clean ejection. He said, “Punching,” and snapped his elbows back against the seat. His hands fell down onto the yellow-and-black-striped loop between his legs. He grabbed it hard, took a breath, and pulled.

  Nothing. Shit! The hit must have taken out part of the circuitry. Time for Plan B.

  He kept his right hand on the loop, still pulling. Moving his left arm only from the elbow down, he moved his hand over to the side of the cockpit, just under the canopy rail. He knew where the switch was by touch and did not even risk turning his head to find it with his eyes.