16 July: 0515 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 0715 hours, Alexandria, Egypt
The alert shack was an afterthought tacked onto Alexandria South Air Base. When the Americans had finally wrangled the Egyptians into letting them occupy the base built by the Russians during the early 1960s, they had found the buildings poorly constructed and in need of massive repairs. It would have been cheaper to tear most of them down and start over. But the Egyptian government would not allow any new construction on the base and the Americans were forced into a major renovation project using Egyptian labor.
After the wing had picked up the commitment to keep two Phantoms on alert, two trailers had been towed to a spot near the flight line for the crews to stay in. For some reason, that satisfied the Egyptians. The four crew chiefs that launched the alert aircraft occupied one trailer, and the pilots and WSOs the other. The sergeants had scrounged around and turned their trailer into a plush lounge where the air conditioner always worked. The officers’ trailer remained as it was delivered: barely livable. The two trailers’ official title, “Quick Response Alert Facility,” was quickly redubbed the “alert shack.”
Thunder Bryant rapped on the door of the bedroom where Jack was sleeping. “Yo’, Jack. Colonel Fairly has scheduled himself with Johnny Nelson in the backseat for the Barrel today. He’ll be out here in about twenty minutes.” That would get the pilot’s attention and stir him into action.
A groan came from behind the bedroom door. “Can you meet me in the chiefs’ trailer in a few minutes?”
A crew chief welcomed Thunder with a mug of fresh coffee before returning to the window overlooking the flight line. The captain joined him, waiting for Jack to come out from the officers’ trailer. A dark frown drew his eyes into a squint when he saw a pretty young girl come out of the trailer first. “That boy is thick. Will he ever learn?”
“She was here two nights ago,” the chief said to Thunder. “The ambassador’s daughter? Where does he find ’em around this hole?”
Bryant shook his head. “Who knows? One day, that boy…” Thunder was aware that sooner or later he would have to stop running interference for his pilot. But protecting people and blocking for them was his nature. After all, he’d worked his way out of the ghetto in South Central Los Angeles by being the best guard in the history of L.A. high school football.
A scholarship to UCLA was a natural fringe benefit. There, he learned how much a guard could hurt someone when he didn’t do his job. In his sophomore year, the team’s phenomenal quarterback had become his best friend and during a hard-fought game, Thunder missed a block that let two opponents swarm over his teammate. The quarterback’s wrist was broken in the pileup and never correctly healed, ending his career in football. And while no one blamed Thunder for the accident, he saddled himself with responsibility for it.
After that, the young black man lost his enthusiasm for football and turned to his studies. Eventually, he was cut from the team and lost his athletic scholarship. But the Air Force offered him another one in ROTC, and with student loans he was able to graduate. Once in the Air Force, less than perfect eyesight kept him out of pilot training and led him into navigator training. Thunder found flying and the Air Force deeply rewarding. He mounted a well-thought-out attack on navigator training and graduated at the top of his class, sweeping every honor the program had to offer. He was not surprised when he was assigned to F-4s, his first choice.
The young officer found a home in the fighter community and rapidly developed into the best WSO in his wing. When the Air Force asked for volunteers to open the base in Egypt, he jumped at the chance, instinctively aware of the opportunities that existed in a new unit. Three things happened to him at Alexandria South: he made captain, met Jack, and learned how to play. Out of desperation, Mike Fairly teamed Thunder with Jack, hoping the WSO could control the young lieutenant. It was a perfect match. Thunder was able to curb most of Jack’s impulsive behavior and Jack taught Thunder how to relax and have some fun.
Jack kissed the girl good-bye near the alert area’s parking lot and sprinted back to the chief’s trailer, bursting through the door. “Coffee, amigo?” he asked the crew chief.
“Later,” Thunder told him. “Maintenance is switching the alert birds. It’s preflight time. Tail number is 512.”
Jack faked a groan and headed out the door with the same enthusiasm as when he entered.
“Man, I’m teamed with a puppy,” Thunder grinned, picking up his flight gear and following Jack out to the bunker, where the Phantom sat.
The crew chief trailed after Jack during the preflight, proud of the conditioning of his bird and ready to question the pilot if he found anything wrong. “Take good care of her this time,” the sergeant told Jack. “OK? If you fly, don’t bring her back broke like last time.”
Jack nodded. 512 was the best-kept Phantom in the wing. It gleamed with the loving care the crew chief gave to an only child. Unfortunately, the chief’s personal hygiene did not meet the same standards. His fatigues were filthy and he needed a shower and shave.
“Hey, Chief, you want to stand downwind a bit?” The sergeant ignored Jack.
“Why are you back on alert?” Jack asked Thunder as they walked down from the preflight. He felt bad about his backseater pulling a second alert shift with him.
“Would you believe I got lonely?” Thunder changed the subject, not wanting to embarrass his friend. “Besides, we can lift some weights, maybe run some laps around the flight line.”
“What are you, a bloody drill sergeant?” Jack laughed.
16 July: 0930 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 0930 hours, a village in Niger, Africa
The navigator, Major David Belfort, was lying on the floor of the flight deck next to the copilot’s seat, studying the heat-cracked landscape through the lower quarter window at the copilot’s right foot. The desert village the C-130 Hercules was circling for the third time was eighteen hundred miles to the southwest of Alexandria, Egypt, and nestled against small hills that helped protect it from the fury of the Sahara’s harsh climate. Belfort was wearing his headset to muffle the noise of the turboprop engines and didn’t like hearing the pilot and copilot argue whether they should land.
“I think we ought to hotfoot it back to Kano before we have to divert into a field to the north,” Toni D’Angelo argued.
“Relax, Toni,” Sid Luna told her. “We’ve got plenty of time to land, offload the food and still make it back. Besides, these people are hungry. That’s what Grain King is all about.” The copilot did not reply, accepting the pilot’s decision. She nudged Dave with her foot and gave him a thumbs-down gesture, indicating they were going to land.
Belfort’s gut told him the copilot was right—they should heed the latest weather warning she’d received. An unexpectedly large sandstorm was descending on them. But he didn’t say anything. After all, she could hold her own in any argument. She was also an excellent pilot, which surprised her macho skeptics.
The pilot turned onto final approach, calling for her to read the landing checklist. “Sid,” Toni warned, “those people are crowding the right side of the runway. Shade it to the left.”
“I’ve got ’em. No sweat,” Luna replied. The pilots were not surprised to see the villagers crowding the narrow runway. They had seen it many times when they landed: starving, gaunt people, desperate for help.
Toni D’Angelo rechecked the landing gear and placed her left hand over Luna’s right hand, which controlled the throttles. It was a backup technique they had developed to prevent the pilot’s hand from bounding off the throttle quadrant on a hard landing. Sid flew the big cargo plane onto the exact point he wanted on the approach end of the runway. He planted the C-130 hard in a controlled crash, letting the main landing gear absorb the shock before slamming the nose onto the narrow dirt runway. He jerked the throttles back, throwing the four propellers into reverse to help brake their landing rollout.
The Hercules abruptly jerked and skidded to the right, running off
the packed dirt of the runway. Luna shouted over the interphone, “Differential thrust!” He fought for control of the Hercules as its props picked up dirt and gravel and threw it in front of them, seriously reducing his visibility.
One of the propellers on the left side had not gone into reverse, which let the props on the right create more drag, flinging them to the right. Both pilots’ hands bounced off the throttles. Luna fumbled for the controls as he fought to keep the Hercules from skidding further to the right. Finally, he found the levers and instinctively threw number four prop on the right out of reverse. On a normal runway, he would have returned all four to idle, but he needed braking action if he was to stop the heavily loaded cargo plane in the little space that remained.
With a prop on each side giving him even braking, Luna regained control of the big cargo plane as it hurtled straight for the crowd of scattering villagers.
16 July: 1100 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 0700 hours, Washington, D.C.
Colonel Eugene S. Blevins stalked into the Watch Center in his normally dismal early morning mood. If anything, his natural state of depression was more intense, for he had convinced himself that his career was in jeopardy. The brigadier general selection board was to meet soon and nothing spectacular had happened to him. And unless his sponsor could do something for him, Blevins was going to be just another “nobody” name for the board to consider.
A scan of the big situation boards did nothing to improve his disposition.
The on-duty watch commander, Tom Gomez, was sitting in the battle cab, the glassed-in balcony that overlooked the entire operation, and had seen Blevins studying the boards. When he caught Blevins’ eye, Gomez motioned him to come up the stairs for an update briefing and go through the motions of a change of command.
The Pentagon tried hard to promote the image of a formal, serious procedure, and Blevins believed that it should be one, given the responsibilities involved. But off-going Watch Commander Gomez was of an entirely different disposition and not concerned with formalities that he considered meaningless. His total disregard of established procedures infuriated Blevins, smacking as it did of unprofessionalism. But Gomez was a colonel and slightly senior to Blevins, so what could he do about it? Besides, the man was nothing but a broken-down fighter pilot on his last assignment before retirement. It irritated him that a pilot had been placed in such an important position only because he wore wings and had combat experience in Vietnam. Big deal. He, on the other hand, had done yeoman labor in Intelligence, working up through the field. He knew the subject inside and out; he was one of the people who knew how to make the system work. The other colonel was a Johnny-come-lately, and all because he wore wings on his chest.
The sergeant monitoring the entry control point into the battle cab had been watching Blevins since he stepped onto the main floor. Master Sergeant John Nesbit had worked many shifts with Blevins and knew what the colonel was thinking. He shuddered at the thought of spending a twelve-hour shift with a man full of self-pity.
Colonel Tom Gomez read the sergeant’s mind. “Hey, Sarge, he won’t hurt you. Might frighten the staff a bit if his coffee is cold, but he knows this business. He’s not a twenty-watter, that’s for damn sure.”
Blevins arrived at the door, awaiting entry. Nesbit pushed a button, unlocking the door. The sergeant gave an audible sigh, looking at the two colonels. Blevins resembled a field grade officer, slightly over six feet tall, carefully styled dark hair, with an immaculately tailored uniform. Tom Gomez was two inches shorter, stocky, cut his graying hair in a brush cut, and shambled about unconcerned with his uniform.
The Watch Center in the Pentagon was a pivotal fusion point between Intelligence, Communications, and Command and Control. During a crisis involving the military, it was the primary intelligence center for the War Room. When a crisis started to form, the colonel on duty recalled the three Air Force generals that made up the Watch Center’s battle staff. The generals gathered in the battle cab overlooking the main boards and decided what information should be upchanneled to the War Room. Their function was critical in preventing the higher echelons of command from being inundated with irrelevant information.
Also, the generals or the watch commander could initiate orders to certain Air Force operational units should a fast-breaking situation require an immediate response. Each colonel was aware of the visibility that went with the position; provided the right incident happened, a good performance could result in promotion. However, there was a risk. If the colonel produced an interpretation of events that ran counter to the preconceived notions of the generals on the battle staff, the watch commander was in for some rough handling.
Over the course of a year, Nesbit had seen both Blevins and Gomez in action during a number of crises, or “flaps.” Blevins had proven himself to be very adept at avoiding any controversy or producing his own estimate for the generals to scrutinize or criticize. He always had an intelligence analyst from the main floor available to analyze the situation and take any heat from the generals. Gomez was totally different and the junior officers still talked about the way he had handled the latest in a long series of incidents in the Persian Gulf.
General Lawrence Cunningham, the Air Force chief of staff, had put in an unexpected appearance in the battle cab shortly after an unidentified fighter had bombed a Kuwaiti oil refinery. He had permanently relieved the on-duty watch commander before Gomez reported in for not giving him the answers he wanted. As soon as the colonel had cleared the door, Cunningham had hit him with a barrage of questions, a few well-chosen expletives, and a very pointed comment about Gomez’s career expectations if some sense wasn’t made out of the situation.
Gomez had only said, “Excuse me for a moment, sir. I have to get my ducks lined up.” He had left the general to stew for three minutes while he reviewed the message traffic. After a brief scan of the situation boards, he was sure of the situation and had turned to Cunningham. “This was a hit-and-run raid by the Iranians. There won’t be any follow-up. Right now the only fires being lit are here, not in the Gulf.”
Cunningham’s reaction amazed everyone in the cab, most of whom had just put Gomez down as a candidate for castration. He nodded in agreement and left the battle cab. The Watch Center reverted to its normal routine, monitoring the military disposition, Order of Battle (OB), of potential enemies. The analysts liked to think of their job as guarding against the “Pearl Harbor option.”
Most information received by the Watch Center was already processed and evaluated. However, something happened to common sense when raw data moved through the system. Tom Gomez had learned a valuable lesson when one of the analysts correctly interpreted a series of events that had almost increased the nation’s DEFCON status. A large portion of the Soviets’ civil air fleet, Aeroflot, had been suddenly grounded after landing at the Red Army’s collection bases for deployment. The analyst, a female captain, had called it correctly when she pointed out that the aircraft had gone into the bases to pick up the annual replacements for the Red Army in Eastern Europe. They had not launched because the weather at their drop-off points in East Germany was below landing minimums. Further, she observed that the number of aircraft grounded in Russia was the same as that used every year for the redeployment of troops to Eastern Europe.
Gomez learned something else from that incident. He had concentrated on the analyst’s legs and not on what she was saying. He later realized that he had brought too many preconceived ideas about women over from his operational experiences in tactical fighter aircraft. It came as a shock to him that a woman could think and be pretty at the same time.
He never made that mistake again.
Master Sergeant Nesbit resigned himself to the next twelve hours as Blevins adjusted his controlled area badge, insuring its straight alignment. The sergeant groaned as Blevins marched up to Gomez who was sitting in the center captain’s chair at the main console. Blevins snapped a smart salute and reported in. “Morning, Colonel Gomez. Colonel Blev
ins reporting for duty.”
Nesbit groaned louder.
Tom Gomez waved a salute back to Blevins. “It’s all yours, Gene.” An intriguing thought tickled the back of Gomez’s mind. With a little effort, he could arrange to have a series of perfectly valid, yet totally insignificant facts funneled to the pompous colonel. If he did it right, the man would screw himself into the floor before he decided what to do. There were plenty of willing conspirators down on the main floor.
Erasing the thought, Gomez gave Blevins a quick rundown of the current situation. “Europe’s quiet. The Fourth Air Regiment in Romania has stopped its conversion to Flogger Gs. Not sure why yet. Captain Marshall thinks the aircraft are being diverted to Ashkhabad, near the Iranian border.”
Gomez began to type a series of commands into the computer, calling up different display maps on the situation boards. He paused over North Africa. “The Grain King food and relief flights for the UN are still going full bore in the southern Sahara. The buildup at Kano in Nigeria as a central staging base is working well. There are six C-130s operational down there today. But Sara is worried. She believes the Libyans are starting to get antsy again.
“Well, she’s wrong,” Blevins said. “The Libyans have bought into the UN food relief missions as a way to create some good will. That should be perfectly obvious to everyone in the Watch Center. They’ve even given the UN permission to use their airfields and airspace.”
What a shame, Gomez thought, that he doesn’t have the courage to argue with the generals this way when he knows he’s right. “Nothing has changed in the Mideast,” Gomez continued. “Iran is its usual mess, quiet for the moment. Most of the analysts think the fighting will start up again. They don’t have anything definite.”
The Warbirds Page 3