Phantom Strike

by William H. Lovejoy

  “Yeah. Can I have the money now?”

  Kramer pushed the stack across the table to him, then stood up.

  “Goodbye, Arnie.”

  “See you in the morning.”

  “No, you won’t. You don’t work for us, anymore. Remember that far back?”

  He looked crestfallen.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  She turned and walked away from him.

  He called after her, “Well, hey! Do I get a letter of recommendation?”

  *

  The briefing again included all wing and squadron commanders as well as Colonel Ghazi who had come to Marada to observe Test Strike. He sat now at one side of the room with al-Qati, Major Shummari, Captain Rahman of the First Special Forces Company, and Lieutenant Hakim, the Strike Platoon commander.

  Ramad was appreciative of the deference he had been shown by Ghazi. The army commander had apparently been put in his place by Farouk Salmi and others close to the Leader.

  After reports by the meteorological officer in regard to conditions expected on the day of the attack and the maintenance officer as to the readiness of all aircraft consigned to the exercise, Ramad had reviewed in detail the elements of the planned strike. In flights of three aircraft, three squadrons of Su-24s would strike the three identified targets at five o’clock on the morning of August 2. Three squadrons of MiG-23s would fly combat air patrol (CAP) for the bombers and the personnel transports. After being transported to a secret staging base in the Sudan by C-130s, Shummari’s helicopters would insert the ground troops ten minutes after the initial bombardment. The villages were located in the province of Wallaga, near the border with Sudan. The troops would remain on the ground, establishing a defensive perimeter, for three hours, then be extracted. Three of the MiG-23 s in the combat air patrol would be equipped with reconnaissance cameras and would shoot videotape of the entire mission, to supplement the photographs taken from the helicopters and from cameramen on the ground. The Leader wanted a complete photographic history of the exercise, perhaps in the event that American satellites overlooked the escapade.

  “We will have at our disposal,” Ramad continued, “four aerial tankers. It is important to note that our targets are twenty-two hundred kilometres away. A successful strike at that distance will certainly raise eyebrows in the right defence departments.”

  Al-Qati asked, “Have we secured the permission of the Sudanese to overfly, and to land, in Sudan?”

  The man kept pestering over the most niggardly details. “Of course, Colonel al-Qati. They have approved a long-range training and refuelling operation.”

  The Sudanese had not approved landing, establishing a staging base, or carrying live weapons over their territory, but Ramad knew that his combat elements would be down, into Ethiopia, and then out before the Sudanese military suspected and/or could react.

  “We have promised to keep all aircraft well clear of Khartoum, which we will do,” Ramad added, to increase his credibility.

  Al-Qati sat back, but he did not appear particularly satisfied. Ramad would prefer to have him replaced, but part of the Leader’s approval had been based upon utilizing his elite troop, and that meant al-Qati.

  “At one o’clock on the morning of August second, I will release the appropriate chemical weapons to squadron commanders,” Ramad said. “Each squadron leader will be accountable for all weapons assigned to him, and must provide a detailed report on their deployment.”

  Those reports would subsequently be destroyed. There would be no written record of this mission.

  There would be only the photographs.

  Captain Gamal Harisah of the first squadron sat up and raised his hand.

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “What will the ordnance load consist of, Colonel?”

  “Two weapons per aircraft, six per target. We think that should be sufficient. Your wing commander will brief you before take-off on wind conditions at the target sites so that we can strive for the best possible dispersal of the agents.”

  After several more mundane and routine questions, Ramad turned toward Ghazi. “Colonel Ghazi, you wished to speak to the group?”

  “Yes, Colonel Ramad. Thank you.”

  Ghazi did not come to the podium, but rose from his chair and stood against the wall, careful to not get chalk from the blackboard on his uniform.

  “Libyan Intelligence,” he said, “has obtained information which, to be truthful, I rate as about twenty percent reliable. However, you should know that the potential exists for a strike against you, or this base, or the chemical plant, by clandestine aircraft.”

  Ramad cleared his throat. “Why was I not informed of this threat?”

  “I am informing you now, Colonel. It is the primary reason I am here.”

  “These are American airplanes?” Ramad asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And pilots?”

  “That is unknown. It seems certain that the aircraft were prepared in the United States, but the operators are unknown.”

  “What type of aircraft?” Ramad demanded.

  “The source says they are McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms. That alone suggests that the operators could be of any nationality.”

  “F-4 fighters?” Ramad said. “Do we know how many are involved?”

  “The source says six.”

  Ramad almost laughed aloud. “In its day, the F-4 was formidable. If this remote possibility proves itself out, Colonel, my MiG-23s will obliterate the threat quickly.”

  “Perhaps,” Ghazi said. “All I am suggesting is that, as part of your planning, you might prepare a defensive contingency plan.”

  It was ridiculous. Ghazi’s people spooked at the mere sight of a rumour on the horizon.

  Al-Qati stood up. “That seems sensible to me. It would be a shame to have the glory of Test Strike overcome by world media reports that an antiquated airplane shot down another of our aircraft, even if only one.

  The army man was playing with his pride of ownership of Test Strike, and Ramad was about to reject the game when he noted that his commanders were almost nodding in syncopation with al-Qati’s speech.

  “Very well,” he said. “Captain Harisah, would you prepare a scenario and a reaction plan for me.”

  “Right away, Colonel Ramad.”

  Ramad then decided that he was not being forced into anything. If Ghazi were pleased, then others at the top would also be pleased. And if Ghazi were crying wolf at the door, and the wolf did not show up, then that was Ghazi’s problem.

  *

  Wyatt sat in seven-seven, with the throttles at idle. The sweat was pouring from his forehead into his eyes, and he frequently used the back of his hand to sluice it to one side or the other.

  He looked down the line in time to see Cliff Jordan raise his hand above his cockpit in triumph. The start cart was quickly disconnected from his F-4 and trundled back aboard the C-130.

  Demion started turning the props on the Here, and all four of them came on line.

  Dennis Maal had taken off with the C-130F ten minutes before.

  Wyatt hit the transmit stud. “Yuccas.”

  One after the other, they all checked in.

  “Secure weapons,” he said.

  Again, they all checked in with affirmative responses. Wyatt made sure his own panel was secured. The safety pins were still inserted in the missiles and bombs, but it never hurt to be extra certain.

  He leaned to the right and looked back toward the fuel trailers. Formsby emerged from his tent with a duffel bag, a bedroll, and a three-gallon can of gasoline. He crossed to the stack of crates and decorative tape, doused it thoroughly with gasoline, then struck a match.

  The stack caught fire with a poof!

  Formsby ran for the Hercules in his off-gaited ramble, went up the ramp, and then waved at the Phantoms before the ramp closed.

  “Yucca, Wizard,” Demion said.

  “After you, Wizard.”

  The
transport rolled slowly away, the props raising a cloud of fine dust, and Wyatt closed his canopy. The heat was intense, and his air-conditioning wasn’t very effective at idle, on the ground.

  He called off the numbers, and the F-4s swung into line behind the Hercules. Wyatt went last.

  They got off the ground in better fashion than they had in landing, though it seemed to take longer even in afterburner. The take-off roll was rough, bouncy, and long with the full load of ordnance. He was relieved when he felt the lift take over, and he pulled in his landing gear less than twenty feet off the ground.

  He looked back once to see the bonfire raging next to the empty fuel tankers. If that fire got out of control, the fumes in those tanks would create a lot of shrapnel.

  Jacque’s fifty grand, resting on Formsby’s cot, would go up in green smoke.

  For Formsby’s reputation among the scum of the earth, Wyatt hoped the money didn’t burn.

  He settled the Phantom in at a steady rate of climb of 150-feet-per-minute, and the whole formation ascended to twenty thousand feet. Aboard the Hercules, Kriswell and Formsby would be monitoring the threat receivers, but it was unlikely that there was a hostile, or friendly, radar set within a hundred miles of them.

  Within twenty minutes, they caught up with Maal and the tanker. Wyatt eased the stick back, added power, and climbed to twenty-five thousand feet.

  Looking down, he was pleased with the way the F-4s and the tanker blended into the landscape. They were damned hard to see, and if he hadn’t known they were there, he would probably have missed them.

  By contrast, the transport stuck out like a hitchhiker’s thumb. The aluminium skin reflected the sun in piercing glints that hurt the eyes.

  “You’re pretty obvious, Wizard,” he said.

  “Not my fault,” Demion replied. “We could have used a water-based paint.”

  “Shall we go back and get some?” Barr cut in.

  “And miss the party?” Gettman asked.

  “Okay,” Wyatt interrupted. “I’m sorry I got this started. Let’s can the chatter.”

  Their transmissions were scrambled, but a listener who happened to catch their frequency while it was in use, though he wouldn’t understand the words, would certainly understand that there was something strange going on in the area.

  Drifting along at 370 miles per hour, to stay with the C-130s at cruise, it took them an hour and a half to reach the border with Niger.

  Formsby reported it. “That’s Niger down there, if you didn’t catch the change in landscape.”

  In fact, the government of Niger really needed to draw a big black line on its borders. The slowly undulating, barren scrub land didn’t change at all.

  “Yuccas,” Wyatt radioed, “I’m going to take a look ahead.”

  He eased his throttles forward and gradually pulled out of the formation. Fifteen minutes later, the formation was out of sight behind him.

  Wyatt used the NavStar Global Positioning System to establish his position, then checked it against the coordinates he had written in his notebook.

  He eased into a left turn, taking up a heading of eighty-four degrees.

  He also reduced the power setting and started a slow descent.

  He was over Chad.

  Directly south of him was the village of Wour. Farther south was the depressing and devastated area of the Bodele Depression.

  The earth ahead of him didn’t look all that grand, either. The vegetation was almost non-existent, and as far as he could tell, there wasn’t one solid landmark that he would rely on. As soon as he locked his eyes on what he considered a hilltop, it dissolved into flatness.

  He trusted to the readouts on his screen, and continued on course while he lost altitude. Libya, he was certain, was careful about patrolling its borders. The flights might be infrequent, but they would occur.

  As he came within twenty miles of the Libyan border, he was flying at three hundred feet AGL, hopefully below any airborne radar coverage.

  He almost missed it.

  Blinking his eyes against the sunset glare off the desert, he picked it up again.

  A single short airstrip.

  It had been built, then later abandoned, by the French, who often found themselves assisting Chad in putting down aggression by its neighbours. There were two buildings, old hangars, but their roofs had caved in.

  He flew low down the runway, noting the cracks in the asphalt and a few chuckholes along the right side. Midway down, there were a couple of gaping holes on the left side.

  Incongruously, the remnants of an old wind sock still fluttered from a pole at the corner of one hangar. It hung dead still.

  Wyatt leaned into a right turn.

  “Wizard, Yucca One.”

  “Go, One.”

  “We don’t have a welcoming committee; we don’t have anything worth noting. We’re in business.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Somewhat perilous. You’ll need to put down at oh-one-oh, and keep it tight to the left side of the strip. There’s a few holes on the right. Halfway down, veer slightly to the right, so you can miss the holes on the left side. Like the satellite snapshots told us, it’s short. We’ll be using the drag chutes.”

  “You mind if I take a look for myself, before I try it?” Demion asked.

  “Chicken,” Barr put in.

  “Don’t waste fuel,” Wyatt said.

  Formsby interrupted. “I happen to be on this bird, and I second your motion, James. That’s why I brought along a couple thousand extra gallons.”

  Thirteen

  Barr was the fourth one on final approach.

  Far ahead he could see Gettman turn off the runway, dragging his arresting chute behind him.

  With the sun low, the shadows were tricky. Black splotches on the earth, or on the runway, could be two inches deep or two feet deep.

  He touched rudder and stick lightly and danced to the left, lining up on the left side of the runway.

  Inched the throttles back and felt the fighter sag.

  Selected full flaps.

  The Phantom bounced upward with the added lift, but not excessively. She was carrying a full complement of weaponry, plus the drop tanks, and she was heavy. Under normal circumstances, the idea was to lose the bombs and missiles before landing.

  Barr remembered an extended exercise he had taken part in when he was still an active military pilot. His squadron of Phantoms had moved to a hastily assembled training base in Panama to practice working out of a forward area airfield. The strip was short, utilizing PSP — Pierced Steel Planking — for a surface, and the landings were arrested, taking advantage of the F-4’s arresting hook. They did it like the Navy boys did it, except that the runway didn’t shift directions unexpectedly or act like a yo-yo.

  On a day when they were using live ordnance — bombing a bunch of floating oil barrels chained together in the Pacific Ocean, he had a bomb hang-up. The nose of the bomb dropped, pulling the tethered cable, and allowing the small propeller on the nose to rotate and arm the bomb. The bomb’s rear hanger didn’t release from the pylon, however. His wingman told him the bomb was locked in place, with the nose at a forty-five-degree angle to the wing.

  He tried everything to shake it loose. Jiggling the plane, going into negative Gs, a barrel roll. It stayed right where it was.

  The wing commander got involved, telling him to ditch the plane, but Barr thought it was a pretty good airplane. He was offered one of the Army’s runways in the Canal Zone, but thought about having that bomb come loose and hit something populated. He took it into the short field which was at least isolated in the jungle.

  With gear, flaps, wing slats, and arresting hook down, he floated that Phantom in toward the three sets of arresting cables. It felt feather-light to him, floating, floating. He missed the first cable, caught the second, came to an abrupt and jarring halt, and slammed the airplane on the ground. He scrambled out of the cockpit, slid to the ground, and ran about a half-m
ile away.

  The bomb was still hanging on the pylon, but the Bomb Disposal Unit had only to lift the nose six inches to have the rear hanger release.

  It felt the same way this time.

  Barr floated the F-4 toward the darkening runway, felt the main gear touch down, then chopped the throttles.

  Punched out the drag chute.

  The chuckholes on the right side — black irregular ebony voids — whisked by in his peripheral vision.

  Nose gear down.

  There was sand and dirt and clods on the runway. The wheels kicked it up, and he heard the clunks against the skin of the fuselage and wings.

  Easing in the brakes.

  Halfway down the strip?

  Started slewing the nose to the right.

  The right brake pedal went soft.

  A black spot leapt out at him.

  Thunked into it.

  The airplane tried to leap to the left.

  Rocked sideways.

  Keep the right wing up.

  Easy now.

  What the hell?

  Blown left tire.

  Again moving to the right.

  The left gear back down on the ground.

  Screeching.

  Tearing up the wheel rim.

  Fighting the pull to the left.

  Slowing.

  The aircraft bucked and fought his control, then finally slid to a stop.

  “Yucca Two?” asked Wyatt from the sky above.

  “Blown tire,” Barr radioed back as he opened the canopy. “Hold everyone off until I see if I can get it off the runway.”

  “Roger, Two.”

  “Yucca Four, Two,” Barr radioed.

  “Four,” Gettman replied.

  “You want to get out of your bird and run over and drop a flare in that first pothole?”

  “Roger, Two. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Jockeying the throttles, Barr spun the plane to the left, dragging on the wheel rim. He figured all of the rubber of the tire had shredded off. He used three-quarter throttle on the left turbojet, and the Phantom edged its way forward, then off the runway. The wheel dug a deep rut in the earth and bogged down. The tail of the F-4 was still protruding over ten feet of the runway.

  He killed the engines.

  “Yucca One, Two.”