The Warbirds

by Richard Herman

  “What does the Air Force want?” she asked.

  “Official policy is that we’ll use rotating call signs and not tac call signs. When the brass at headquarters hear the tapes they’ll be all over us again to stop using tac call signs. They do get pretty bent out of shape over it.”

  “You don’t seem too worried about it.”

  Another voice broke into the conversation: “There’s not much anyone can do about it unless they want to fly themselves, and staff officers don’t like taking risks.”

  Sara turned, suspecting that he had been standing behind her for a few minutes. She did not like being watched, even when she was aware of it. The name tag on his flight suit belonged to “Lieutenant Jack Locke—Fighter Pilot.” She took him in: just under six feet, athletic and conditioned, an interesting face topped by darkish blond hair. She was glad he didn’t have a moustache like his backseater. Scars over his right eye and along his left jawline marred the symmetry of his features—but his dark blue eyes reached out to her, and like many beautiful women, Sara knew when to bring up her guard.

  “Well, Thunder, introduce me to your latest guest,” Jack said.

  Waters’ talk about wing commanders moved Blevins to action. He’d show what a good staff officer could do. He carefully read the file Shaw had given him but didn’t have the technical know-how to follow the arguments that went on between the wing and higher headquarters about missile loading and the tactical advantage missiles gave the Phantom. Now he handed the file over to Sara to keep in her office and turned his attention to wing Intelligence, reviewing Intel’s part in the Grain King incident. His years as a photo interpreter for SAC had given him expertise in photometrics and he poured over the reconnaissance photos of the MiG’s crash site. From the first he sensed that something was wrong. He stared hard—then it snapped into place…the crash site was in Libya.

  He overlapped the photos and measured from known reference points, established the border on the photos in relation to the crash site. No question…the MiG had been shot down in Libya, but the actual border markers on the ground placed the crash site well inside Egypt. Again his photo-interpretation experience helped him. He needed a geodetic survey of the area, found what he was looking for in the back files of Civil Engineering. The answer was right there: a huge magnetic anomaly in the area had thrown off the original boundary survey. When Eugene Blevins attended to what he knew instead of what he pretended to know, he was very good.

  Sara had read the thick file on the wing’s request to upload missiles, then turned it and the tapes the squadron had given her over to Waters. The colonel listened as she relayed what the aircrews had said. His hunch about them opening up to her had proved correct: they had given her not only a copy of the tape of the debrief but their gun-camera film, which was really a video tape, and a cassette tape recording that Thunder had made of everything said in his Phantom during the flight.

  “Sara, did they talk about missiles?” Waters asked.

  “Thunder, he’s Jack’s pitter,” she told him, “said the missile trailers arrived just as they were scrambled.”

  Waters grinned at her ready use of fighter lingo. “Okay, find out everything you can about the missiles. Read this file, if you haven’t already. Talk to Munitions and Shaw. Try to get a handle on what happened…”

  At ten she left. Waters spent the next two hours listening to and replaying Thunder’s tape. He called Chief Pullman, who delivered a TV set and VCR. “Chief,” Waters asked, “can you get me a copy of the radar tapes from Outpost?”

  The first sergeant hesitated. All intelligence-gathering units carefully guarded and controlled their information. Outpost used a small room in the 45th’s large walk-in Intelligence vault to store and process its material. Not only was the vault more secure than the radar site, it removed intelligence activity from Outpost and helped maintain its cover as a lonely GCI radar-control post. Well, Pullman knew how to back-door a copy out of the vault from a sergeant who owed him a favor. “How fast you need it, Colonel? I can have you one in twenty minutes, long as you forget where you got it. Otherwise I can get you one through official channels in about four days.”

  “Appreciate it, Chief,” Waters said, understanding the sergeant now held his marker. More important, the sergeant was trusting him.

  It turned into a long evening with the tapes. At two A.M. Waters knocked off.

  The next morning Waters walked into the 379th, asking to talk to Fairly and the other men on the scramble. They found an empty briefing room and for the next three hours went through an entirely different debrief with Waters.

  After he left, Jack shook his head. “Where did he come from?”

  “Calm down,” Thunder told him. “What did you learn?”

  “That we flew a shit hot mission, fucked up by the numbers, could have gotten two MiGs without half the hassle if we had done it another way, the Libyans are flying better, and we should be congratulated to hell and back again, big joke.”

  “Was he right?” Thunder asked.

  Before Jack could answer, Fairly broke in. “He’s right. We’ve been a flying club around here.”

  “He didn’t say that—”

  “No, I did But that was his message. I think it’s time we started to get our act together.”

  Waters gathered his team together in Sara’s small office and began by asking Sara what had happened with the missiles.

  “Up front,” she said, “it looks like the Pentagon simply denied the wing permission to upload missiles because the issue is very sensitive with the Egyptians. But it’s not all the Pentagon’s fault. The wing could have done more. They never practiced rapid upload of missiles even though Shaw had told them to start doing it. They could have built a missile-holding area right next to the alert birds. The Russians built weapons bunkers into every revetment. Modifying them would have been simple and cheap. And Colonel Blevins was right; they could have requested permission to upload once they were placed on alert.”

  Waters nodded. “And you, Gene?”

  Blevins fought to mask the triumph he felt as he told about his discovery of the true location of the crash site. Waters said he had suspected the fight had strayed into Libyan airspace when he reviewed the mission-debrief tape.

  “Colonel Waters,” Blevins persisted, “I know they were in hot pursuit, but they were lost and should not have penetrated the Libyan border without permission. They didn’t take the time to evaluate the situation. It’s a good thing they weren’t armed with missiles, that would have made it even more of a hostile act. This should be the major thrust of our report—”

  “Gene, it’s a minor point. How much more hostile could Lieutenant Locke have acted?”

  Blevins picked up his papers and left the office, angry at Waters’ refusal to focus the after-action report on the crash site. It seemed he was losing his chance to impress the generals on the brigadier general selection board.

  “Gene,” Waters’ quiet voice stopped the colonel, “this needs to be up-channeled right away. Can you get a message on the wires? And tell Shaw, he needs to know.”

  Blevins nodded, feeling somewhat better as he left.

  “What do you think he’s going to do?” Waters asked Sara.

  “He won’t co-sign the report, but he won’t dissent either. He’ll look for a loophole and pass it along to one of his buddies in the right office. Not to you. No matter what happens, he’s off the hook. His buddies have ammunition to fight the report, and you’re left holding the bag when the report looks bad.” Blevins was too much of a company man. She’d seen him burn his way through the Pentagon and land on his feet every time. She worried about Waters, wondered if he was a match for Blevins in the staff warfare that went on in a headquarters.

  “What kind of loopholes you think he’ll look for?”

  “I’m not sure. He did mention the aircrews not properly evaluating the situation.”

  “In a way he’s right…Well, I think we can start writing p
art of the report.”

  “I’ve been invited to go into Alexandria to see the marketplace this afternoon. Okay by you we start after that?”

  “Go ahead. I’ve got an idea for our other intrepid investigator. I think Colonel Blevins needs to go for a ride in an F-4 tomorrow to see how much time you get to ‘evaluate the situation.’”

  Jack could see Sara waiting behind the glass doors of the VOQ when he drove up in Thunder’s car. He watched her run down the steps, blond hair catching the sun. He was glad Thunder had lent him his bigger, air-conditioned car. As usual his Dino Ferrari was broken and he couldn’t find the parts he needed. Besides, the Dino would have overheated in downtown traffic.

  “I’m glad you could make it,” he said as she slid in beside him. “I was afraid the report would get in the way.”

  “I appreciate the offer. You sure it’s not too much trouble?”

  “Hardly. By the way, what do your bosses think of you spending time with one of the subjects of the report?”

  “They don’t know.”

  He liked that, made him feel like a co-conspirator. Close to her, which, of course, was the idea. At least in his head.

  The marketplace was just reopening after the heat of the day, full of the sounds and smells that had captivated Sara from the first. They wandered from quarter to quarter in the huge labyrinth, stopping to look at goldsmiths and copper merchants. Sara’s bargaining impressed Jack, who liked the merchants, especially the ones in the antique quarter. “My mother is an antique freak,” he told Sara.

  After the sun had set and the day’s heat broken, the market took on a quieter, softer hue as the stalls started to close and the crowds thinned. Jack had been concentrating on Sara, trying to figure the best approach after being turned aside more than once during the afternoon. Clearly she was onto his game.

  Down a side alley they came to a lighted circle under a street lamp where a one-legged beggar boy was dancing to the music of a flutelike instrument and a small drum. The music rose and fell as the boy twirled and dipped, smiling, occasionally chanting in time to the drum and throwing his head back and stretching out his arms. When the dance ended, his curly black hair glistened in the light. Jack reached into his pocket and handed the boy some pound notes, not bothering to count them.

  Sara broke the silence as they walked back to the car. “You really like the Egyptians, don’t you?” For the first time she was less sure about this man at her side.

  “Some of them. For me that kid is Egypt, crippled but full of life…Can I interest you in some dinner? We can go to the club or a fairly decent restaurant—”

  “I’d like something quiet if you don’t mind.”

  “Well, there’s omelets or spaghetti at my place.”

  “The omelet sounds fine.”

  “Good. My spaghetti is lousy.”

  She sat back on the couch in Jack’s apartment in the BOQ. The spicy omelets and wine had hit the spot, and to her relief, Jack had given up the game. She stretched and relaxed as he came out of the small kitchen after clearing up.

  “I’ve got a fresh pot of coffee brewed,” he said.

  She smiled, shook her head and raised her empty wine glass.

  He returned carrying the half-empty wine bottle and a mug of coffee for himself. “Hope you don’t mind my drinking coffee, I’ve got a flight to the range tomorrow.” He sat down beside her.

  “Sure. I’m just enjoying the peace and quiet.” The time with Jack had emphasized a loneliness that normally didn’t bother her. Probably it was because the afternoon had been so relaxing once he had given up trying to seduce her. Seduce…she liked the old-fashioned word. It had been months since she’d shared the company of a man who wasn’t just trying to get her into the sack. She studied his profile, remembering he was four years younger than she was, then tapped the cocktail table in front of them with her toe. “Is this the table of ambassador’s daughter fame?”

  “You’ve read the report. I wish you hadn’t seen that. I can do dumb things…”

  “Join the club…”

  Encouraged, he began to move closer, reached out to her…

  She gave a low laugh, realizing the game was on again. “Jack, I like you, but it’s late and I’ve really got to go.”

  She left his BOQ, wondering how much longer she’d be able to resist. She was, damn it, good at her job, proud of being accepted as a team member. But she was also a woman…

  Blevins listened to Lieutenant Jack Locke explain how the Martin-Baker Mark II ejection seat worked, annoyed that he’d been convinced by Waters to take this flight with Jack instead of writing his part of the report. At least Jack wasn’t using a lot of fighter pilot jargon, but he was upset to hear from the pilot that the Martin-Baker was made by an English company. “What’s a limey ejection seat doing in an American fighter?”

  Jack explained that the Martin-Baker was the best seat available when the F-4 came on line and still compared favorably with more modern seats like the ACE’s II in the F-15. Blevins was skeptical but said no more as Jack fitted him with a helmet, G-suit and parachute harness, then took him out to a nearby F-4 and went through the strapping-in routine. Before buckling the lap-and-shoulder harness he showed the colonel how to attach the eleven other buckles and plugs that fastened him into the seat and to the airplane, finally showing how to lower and raise the canopy.

  Instantly, a strong feeling of claustrophobia came over Blevins as the canopy descended into place. Only the lieutenant’s continued instructions over the intercom helped control his panic. “Colonel, we need to practice an emergency ground egress. We’ll simulate we’ve run off the runway and are on fire. When I say, ‘Egress over the right wing,’ you go through the actual routine of unstrapping and go out the correct side. Remember you’re sitting on an ejection seat. I’ve got it safety-pinned, but Murphy is still alive and well.”

  “Is this necessary, Lieutenant?” Blevins rasped through his oxygen mask, irritation growing as the sweat poured off his body.

  “Yes, sir, it is if you want to go for a ride in Big Ugly.” And, he added silently, if you can get your fat ass and belly over the canopy rails.

  Blevins dug at the itching under the parachute harness.

  “OK, you ready?” Without waiting for a reply, Jack shouted in a rapid staccato over the intercom: “This pig is on fire, egress over the right side.” The colonel started the ground-egress routine. Opening the canopy, he tried to stand up, only to be jerked back into the seat. Then he remembered to release his parachute riser-straps on his harness. Quickly he punched the clips on each shoulder and climbed out the left side. Locke yelled, “Your other right, Colonel.” But Blevins continued out over the left wing.

  “So how was that, Lieutenant?”

  “If this had been the real thing you would have burned to death. You went out the left.”

  Blevins had never before been criticized by a junior officer. “And how in the hell are you going to know the fire’s on the left and not the right, Lieutenant?”

  “By the fire lights, sir. There’s one for each engine. I’ll check them before we go out.”

  “Rat shit. How often does this happen anyway?”

  “It happened to me. You took over a minute. Too slow.”

  “How fast can you do it?”

  “My best time is eleven seconds,” he said as he turned and walked back into the squadron without waiting for the colonel.

  Once in the squadron Blevins endured the detailed mission prebrief. Every aspect of the coming flight was covered. He and Locke were to be Mike Fairly’s wingmen in a formation takeoff followed by a tactical split at two hundred feet. They would then fly a low-level route to the initial point (the IP) onto the gunnery range, where they would do another split for the run-in. At two miles from the target they were to do a pop maneuver and drop a practice bomb. After that he would enter the pattern, drop five more bombs and return to base.

  In the air-conditioned comfort of the briefing room it
didn’t sound that complicated, and while Blevins didn’t like the idea of flying with this lieutenant, he decided the experience probably would reinforce the point he wanted to make in the report.

  Twenty minutes later they were taxiing out to the runway. “What happened to the air conditioning?” Blevins growled, drenched in sweat. Jack explained that on the ground, the bleed air used for air conditioning was mostly directed to equipment that needed cooling. Human comfort was secondary.

  As they continued to taxi out, Jack said, “Remember, your mike is always hot. If I’m transmitting on the radio, anything you say will go out.”

  Fairly now called the tower for his takeoff clearance.

  “Roger, Poppa Two-One,” the tower responded. “Taxi into position and hold.”

  The two fighters moved onto the runway and lined up, their wing tips about fifteen feet apart.

  “Poppa Two-One, cleared for takeoff,” came over the radio.

  Fairly made a circular motion with his left forefinger, the sign for Jack to run up the engines. The noise was deafening as the big J-79 engines wound up, screaming their power. The lead snapped his head back against the headrest of his seat, then with an exaggerated forward nod, signaled Jack to release their brakes in unison. The planes started to roll when the pilots lit the afterburners. The sudden acceleration kicked Blevins back into his seat as the planes thundered down the runway. The angle of the F-4s rose as the nose gear came unglued from the ground at 140 knots. The colonel was breathing hard and his eyes were fixed on the lead aircraft. They seemed much too close. He was sure they were going to collide. But at 175 knots both aircraft lifted off together.