The Warbirds

by Richard Herman

  Jack Locke buffed at his boots with unusual ferocity, bringing them to a high shine.

  “I don’t think that’s going to save your butt this time,” the duty officer, Captain James “Thunder” Bryant, observed.

  Jack looked up at his friend and grunted before returning to his task.

  “Have you told Colonel Fairly yet? The boss doesn’t need any surprises this early in the morning.”

  “He isn’t in yet. He flew late last night with Johnny Nelson. He should be here in five minutes or so.” Locke’s dark blond hair flew back and forth to the beat of the brush strokes. He tried very hard not to sweat, even though he had reason to…Thunder picked up the rhythm and beat a tattoo on the desk, adding to Jack’s discomfort. “Knock it off,” he said, throwing the brush into its box. “I think I’ve really stepped on it this time.” He glanced out the window toward the empty spot reserved for the squadron commander’s car, biting his lower lip.

  A group of pilots and their backseaters straggled up to the duty officer’s station, a chest-high counter in front of a scheduling board, garnering Thunder’s attention. While Thunder gave the crews a last-minute update on the weather and field conditions, Jack focused his gaze on the concrete ramp in front of the building, studying an F-4 waiting on the expanse of concrete that reminded him of a beach without sand or water, with the hint of its purpose hidden over the near horizon and lost to his view. “God, I love that beast,” he muttered. “How the hell did I ever let last night happen?”

  Getting into the cockpit of a Phantom had been a long and tedious road for Locke. Now it was all in jeopardy. Jack’s turn in Egypt had been less than a success. Within a month, he had been thrown out of the Officers’ Club for practicing carrier landings on a beer-sloshed table; arrested for speeding on base in a dilapidated Ferrari he had recently bought from an Egyptian; and reprimanded for being too aggressive on the gunnery range while practicing dive bombing. He prayed everything would blow over in a few days. Other things in his life had…He had been washed out of the Air Force Academy because he flunked military science. He still couldn’t take the subject seriously. But he had learned from it, and pushed himself even harder at Arizona State, where he enrolled to finish college. It had been a walk-through after the discipline of the Academy. The Air Force’s ROTC program at Arizona had opened another path into pilot training. The advice of his ROTC instructor, an unrestrained fighter pilot, had proved good so far; “If you keep your boots shined and your hair cut short, you can screw off until you make captain. After that, you’ll have to play the game.”

  Locke had thrown himself into pilot training and finished at the top of his class, but when the assignments came down, all the choice F-15 and F-16 slots went to Academy graduates. Locke went on a drunk, in the privacy of his apartment, but didn’t give up.

  Another instructor, a cynical, overweight lieutenant, kept him on track. “Bide your time and use the F-4 to your advantage. It’s an old fighter but a good one. If those pricks that got the F-15s and 16s can’t fly, being a Zoomy isn’t going to help them. You can fly better than any student I’ve trained. Use the Phantom to prove how good you are and work into the F-16.”

  Upgrade training in the Phantom had come shortly after that, then an assignment to Alexandria South Air Base where he and Thunder, a big, affable black man, were teamed on the same crew. An immediate rapport sprang up between the two.

  Jack complained to Thunder, whose attention was free since the last of the crews left the squadron to fly. “All I want to do is fly. Why do we get hammered for what we do on our own time?”

  “There’s more to the Air Force than just flying and chasing around, man. Hey—Fairly just drove up. Catch him quick.”

  Locke darted out. Lieutenant Colonel Mike Fairly, squadron commander of the 379th Tactical Flying Squadron, listened to Jack’s story on the drive over and had also decided that was the reason behind the phone call, but it escaped him why the Old Man should be bent out of shape because some fighter jocks were whooping it up at a party. Everyone knew Shaw had raised hell in his time. But Fairly knew from personal experience what a discrete phone call from some general in a higher headquarters could do to a wing commander’s disposition.

  Fairly knocked on Shaw’s door. Colonel Shaw waved Fairly to a chair and handed him the incident report with a curt, “Read that.” Before the younger man had read half of the report, he could hardly control his grin. The Security Police had received a noise complaint from the BOQ (Bachelor Officers’ Quarters) at 0207 hours that morning. A team consisting of Technical Sergeant Robert Kincaid and Sergeant Irene Bush (the last name being underlined) had responded to the call and upon entering the BOQ, heard loud music and the sounds of a party. They found the door to Lieutenant Locke’s room fully opened (again, underlined) and the room occupied by approximately fifteen people. The people were shouting and clapping for a couple dancing on a table in the middle of the room. The woman was totally nude and the man was wearing a pair of shorts. The woman was taken into custody by Sergeant Irene Bush (again underlined).

  The two individuals were subsequently identified as Lieutenant Jackson D. Locke and a civilian, Miss Abigail Pearson. Miss Pearson’s father was called and picked up his daughter from the Law Enforcement Desk at 0513 hours. An initial investigation revealed that Miss Pearson had been attending a party given by Lieutenant Locke in honor of her eighteenth birthday.

  The squadron commander gave an expressive shrug of his shoulders as if to say, “Fighter pilots will be fighter pilots,” when he handed the report back to the colonel.

  “Obviously, Colonel Fairly, you are more amused than worried about this incident. Perhaps you’ll feel differently knowing a member of your squadron has been cavorting in the buff with the daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, the Honorable Frederick Pearson, and that the same Honorable Frederick Pearson was on my base this morning retrieving his daughter from our Security Police. A business that I knew nothing about. Still amused?”

  “Colonel, if you want, I’ll start checking on all the fornicators in my squadron and brief you every morning.”

  The color in Colonel Shaw’s face started to rise. “Good God, no! With that bunch you sit on, it would take all morning. Besides, I lost my yen for pornography about fifteen years ago. But we are going to have to do something. Tell me about Locke.”

  “Pretty much your standard-issue fighter pilot,” Fairly answered. “Twenty-four years old, came into the service right out of college AFROTC. He’s a bachelor and makes an impression with the ladies. Also with some of the young married lovelies, but he cools that. And, he’s the best pilot in my squadron. All he needs is seasoning.”

  “Is he such a big skirt-chaser that it’s going to influence his judgment?”

  “He’s OK, he only needs maturing. Like I said, he’s had some pretty obvious propositions. He’s always handled that well. My wife claims that I wouldn’t be half as restrained.” Fairly’s answer satisfied the colonel. Too many of the fighter jocks in his wing were getting caught up in the fighter pilot image and losing their way, finding sex, alcohol and general hell-raising more to their liking than the daily business of responsible flying. Locke looked worth saving.

  “OK, Mike, I’ll buy what you say. But I’m going to have to take some action. We need to put some salt on his tail and slow him down a bit. We’ve got to get his attention. Got any ideas?”

  “Well, sir, I’d recommend some strong words and putting him in the Barrel for a week. That would be the same as confining him to quarters and he’ll have to hang around the squadron without a chance to fly. He’ll get the message.”

  Shaw mulled over the suggestion for a few moments. His wing had a commitment to keep two aircrews on alert twenty-four hours a day. Two pilots and their wizzos, or more properly, Weapons Systems Officers (WSOs), had to be ready to man their aircraft within five minutes, ready to start engines. Because of the time requirement, the aircrews had to remain in the squadron or alert shack, a
nd while there were eating and sleeping facilities available, it was very confining. Normally, two pilots and their backseaters would only stay on alert for twenty-four hours before someone else would replace them and go into the “Barrel.” One of the three squadrons would “pull” alert for a week, then pass it on to the next squadron.

  The crews had never been able to figure out exactly why the wing had an alert commitment. Since Maintenance only kept the twenty-millimeter cannon loaded and the aircraft were never launched, they did not see much sense to it all. There was one point of common agreement: they hated it.

  The look on Shaw’s face warned Fairly that the colonel wasn’t convinced. “Sir, outside of flying, there is not a hell of a lot for my troops to do around here. Keeping them busy on the ground is a real headache. Take away the chance to fly, and you’re really punishing them.”

  Fairly had touched on Shaw’s biggest morale problem: how to keep his people occupied in their spare time. It distressed the wing commander that it was affecting his pilots and wizzos. “OK, that’s what we’ll do,” he decided. “Bring him in.”

  Fairly checked the outer office and found the young lieutenant talking to the secretary. Typical, Fairly thought, he practices charming any available female. Jack Locke marched into the office and reported with a sharp salute. The wing commander kept him standing at attention for a full thirty seconds before returning his salute. Shaw sized Locke up, noticing his properly trimmed hair, brightly shined boots, and flight suit that was properly adjusted, probably within the last few minutes. He fits the image of a fighter pilot, Shaw decided: just under six feet tall, a trim and athletic build, clear blue eyes.

  “Lieutenant Locke, your conduct last night was reported on the Security Police blotter. It goes without saying that such actions cannot be tolerated and are unbecoming to an officer. I will not have my officers dancing bare-assed with young ladies around the BOQ. Especially a young lady who happens to be the ambassador’s daughter. Lewd conduct such as this is punishable by court-martial or nonjudicial punishment under Article Fifteen of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Granted, there are mitigating circumstances in this case. Since this is the first time you have been in trouble, I have little desire to end any career you might find in the Air Force.”

  Shaw paused, partly for effect. “No doubt, you are aware that the presence of the U.S. Air Force in Egypt is new and we are having a difficult time convincing the Egyptians that we belong in the Middle East. We are here to help encourage the hotheads to leave their neighbors in peace. Any publicity resulting from such an escapade with the ambassador’s daughter will not help our position with the Egyptians.

  “Therefore, pending conversations with the ambassador, you are ordered to go low profile. It will depend on the ambassador’s reaction as to the final action I will take. To ensure your low profile, and as your squadron assumes alert tomorrow, you will be in the Barrel for the next seven days. Any questions?”

  Jack studied the colonel, knowing that any rebuttal would be wasted breath. Forget mentioning that it had been a private party and the cops should not have entered his rooms unannounced in the first place. “No, sir.”

  “One last thing, Lieutenant. If you ever again run around in public with your pecker hanging out, I’ll hang you up by it. Dismissed.” Fairly and Jack saluted the colonel and left the office.

  Outside, Fairly said, “You were lucky this time, Jack. I don’t think the ambassador is going to say a thing about it.”

  Jack glanced at his squadron commander. “Colonel Fairly, it was a private party. I don’t know who opened that door last night. Probably the same clown who made the complaint. For this I don’t get to fly for a week? A week?”

  1

  GRAIN KING

  16 July: 0200 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 0400 hours, Athens, Greece

  The changeover crew of the reconnaissance aircraft slowly gathered outside base operations in the soft, early-morning dark. Colonel Anthony J. Waters glanced out the window as he and the aircraft commander, Captain Kelly, went through the routine of debriefing the crew they were replacing, checking the weather, and filing a flight plan for the upcoming flight. “I haven’t seen Cruzak yet,” Waters said.

  “No sweat, Colonel,” the young captain beamed. “He won’t be late for a flight again. He’s already here doing loadmaster duties, helping the other crew clean the bird up before we take it. He’s going to be the highest flying janitor in the Air Force until he cleans his act up.”

  Waters glanced at Captain Kelly with a look of resignation. The colonel liked the captain and he was a good pilot who could fly the RC-135 with a smooth and cool hand. But Sergeant Stan Cruzak was only the latest in a string of problems that plagued his crew, and Waters doubted that making the joker an acting loadmaster would help the situation.

  Because of the highly sophisticated equipment in the rear of the aircraft, only personnel with a Top Secret Crypto clearance were allowed in the reconnaissance module aft of the flight deck. So when they were TDY (on Temporary Duty) away from their home base, only the crews that kept the aircraft constantly in the air had the necessary clearances to clean and service the cabin. The enlisted crew rotated the cleanup responsibilities, calling it “loadmaster duties,” hating every minute of it.

  Normally, pilots in charge of Air Force aircraft were the commanders of the crew regardless of rank, and the captain of this particular RC-135 insisted on maintaining every inch of his control over the radio specialists and translators that manned the module. But Waters was the module commander and in charge of their mission—intelligence gathering and monitoring communications. Supposedly, he didn’t have to concern himself with the more mundane problems of flying the airplane and looking after the crew. That fell to the aircraft commander, who took his orders from the module commander. So Waters felt like a highly paid passenger, something he chalked up to the Air Force’s having too many colonels and not enough jobs for them.

  First Lieutenant William G. Carroll was waiting for them when they walked out of Ops and headed toward the heavily guarded plane. Waters liked the young intelligence officer, who was also the best translator on the crew. Carroll was dark complected, slender, of medium height, and had an easy manner that hid a high intellect. “Anything new for us to be worried about on this go-round?” the colonel asked.

  “No, sir,” Carroll said. “All the crazies are quiet and nothing has changed since the last time we flew. Should be a quiet twelve hours. I’ll brief the flight crew after we take off.”

  The two security guards who would fly on this mission met the crew at the break in the rope that surrounded the RC-135. The Air Force had assigned a security team to maintain a constant guard on its latest and most valuable reconnaissance platform. The RC-135 never took off without two guards and a K-9 guard dog on board in case the aircraft had to divert into a civilian field for an emergency. Although the guards knew each of the crew, they carefully checked the restricted area badge of each person before allowing them past the barrier. Waters was the last through and paused, aware that once they launched, the guards would be restricted to the small compartment at the crew entrance door with the dog for the long flight. “Hell of a way to mess up your day,” Waters said.

  “No problem,” one replied, “if Cruzak will stop bothering the dog.”

  A ground power unit was roaring nearby, supplying power to the aircraft, and Waters could barely hear the angry barking and howling of the well-trained K-9 coming from inside the aircraft. “What the—” Waters strode quickly up the steps leading to the crew entrance door. He had never heard the dog bark before.

  He caught up with the pilot as they pushed through the knot of people standing and laughing in the entrance. Inside, Cruzak was crouched on the deck on all fours, barking furiously at the dog that was in its cage, ready for the flight. The dog responded in kind and the two were setting up a tremendous wail. Waters stifled a smile and brushed his dark, unruly hair back, shaking his head in amusement.
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  “Cruzak! What the hell are you doing?” Captain Kelly shouted, adding to the confusion.

  The sergeant twisted his head and looked at the pilot. He did not move from in front of the cage. “Sir! I’m the loadmaster on this United States Air Force aircraft, right?”

  The pilot nodded, dumbfounded.

  “I checked the regulations, sir! As loadmaster I am required to brief all passengers who are not regularly assigned crew members on safety procedures.” With that, he turned back to the dog and resumed his barking and growling.

  The pilot stepped forward, reaching for the collar of the young sergeant. Waters grabbed the captain’s shoulder and pulled him back before he touched Cruzak. “Get this beast into the air, Captain Kelly. I’ll sort this one out.” The young pilot looked at Waters, relieved that he had taken charge of the problem, and retreated into the cockpit. Waters motioned the rest of the crew into the module. “Hold on, Stan. We need to talk.”

  The dog quieted as the sergeant stood up. “What’s going, on Stan? You can do better than this.”

  “Aah, Colonel,” he shrugged, holding his head down in front of the tall colonel, “the captain just gets bent out of shape over the wrong things. If he were like you, there’d be no problem.”

  “Captain Kelly has to run the crew, you know that. You’ve got to help him or he can’t do his job.”

  “That’s the problem, Colonel. He won’t let us help him. He doesn’t tell us when to do our job, he tells us how to do it. And I know how to do my job better than anyone.”

  Cruzak was right. The problem was not the sergeant; it was Captain Kelly. “OK, cool it for now. We’ll talk later.”

  “Thanks, Colonel. I’ll do it right.” Cruzak hurried to his position, ready to work.

  Waters had known for a week that Kelly needed to be replaced, but he had hoped the captain would get the crew under control. He hated the thought of making a decision that would ruin Kelly’s career. But he decided to do what was necessary after the mission was over. It’s time to retire, he thought. You’re going nowhere, in command of nothing, and hurting people you like.