Silent Enemy

by Young, Tom

  She had no idea what kind of fighter it was, but she recognized the Venezuelan flag. So this wasn’t one of the friendly aircraft that so annoyed Parson. Something worse, then. Gold put on her headset to listen in.

  “Why didn’t they show up on TCAS?” Colman asked.

  “Because the bastards turned off their transponders,” Parson said. “I think you did have them on TCAS for a minute.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Gold noticed Parson and Colman were using the plural. Was there another one somewhere?

  Then an unfamiliar voice came over the radio: “American aircraft, Bolivar One-One on guard. You are violating Venezuelan airspace. Please come with us. We will land in Caracas.”

  “Bullshit,” Parson said on interphone. Then he keyed his mike and said, “Bolivar, this is Air Evac Eight-Four. We are a medevac aircraft, with a declared emergency, in international airspace. Check your navigation, sir.” When Parson released his mike switch, he added, “And you can take those Russian missiles off your wings and shove them up your ass.”

  “Negative, sir. We have extended our air defense zone because of Colombia’s hostile actions. Our intelligence facilities have monitored you in communication with a Colombian aircraft. You must come with us, sir.”

  The Venezuelan pilot spoke English with confidence, Gold noted. He was so fluent he was probably thinking in English. He sounded older, too. Maybe a full bird colonel or their equivalent. You wouldn’t send a new lieutenant to threaten an American airplane, she guessed.

  “Bolivar One-One,” Parson said, “I am an emergency aircraft with multiple malfunctions. I cannot descend now. And you are violating international law.”

  “You, sir, are violating international law if you are bringing weapons to Colombia. And why else would you coordinate with a Colombian aircraft?”

  Parson looked around at his crew and said, “Are you believing this shit?” Then he transmitted, “That was an Airbus, you dumbass. He gave me a radio relay because my HFs are inoperative. If you’re going to eavesdrop, at least pay attention.”

  Still not much of a diplomat, Gold thought.

  A long moment of silence passed, and the fighter turned hard to the left. It banked so steeply Gold could see clusters of ordnance under its wings. Where the wings met the fuselage, puffs of mist formed as the jet powered away. Gold wondered what aerodynamic phenomenon created that effect; she’d never seen it before.

  “Are they gone?” Dunne asked. He craned his neck to look.

  “I hope so,” Parson said. “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard.”

  “I don’t think the Venezuelans really want to tangle with the U.S.,” Colman said.

  “Me, neither,” Parson said. But then he added, “Hell, maybe they do. Get us and Cuba and Russia involved in their little dustup with Colombia.”

  “We have enough trouble as it is,” Dunne said.

  “You got that right,” Parson said. He checked his watch. “Our tanker ought to be here soon. Colman, are you too tired to do another plug or do you want me to take it?”

  “I can fly it, sir. Thank you.”

  The crew flew in silence for several minutes. After a time, Gold saw two specks in the distance. At first, she thought they were imperfections on the windscreen; they showed no relative motion from the C-5. But then they grew larger. They were coming head-on.

  The specks widened, took the form of fighter jets. They separated from each other at an altitude just above the C-5. The two aircraft swung out wide and flashed by either side with incomprehensible speed. For an instant, Gold could see the bubble canopies and the helmeted pilots.

  “What the hell was that?” Dunne asked.

  “The Flankers just came back,” Parson said.

  “What are they doing?” Colman asked.

  “They’re setting up for a stern conversion, that’s what they’re doing,” Parson said. “Pincer maneuver.”

  Gold had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like tactics. Combat tactics.

  “What can we do?” Colman said. He turned in his seat and scanned the sky, but the fighters had disappeared behind the C-5.

  “Not a fucking thing,” Parson said. “Maybe they’re bluffing.”

  No one spoke for a moment. Was it over? Just a high-speed middle finger from the Venezuelans, perhaps.

  An intermittent, staccato beep sounded in Gold’s headset. Then it became a steady tone.

  “Son of a bitch,” Parson said. “Missile lock.” He pointed to his instrument panel. A winglike symbol illuminated on a small screen labeled RADAR WARNING RECEIVER.

  “American aircraft, Bolivar One-One,” called a voice on the radio. “Please accompany us to Caracas. I really must insist.”

  “Bolivar One-One,” Parson called, “Air Evac Eight-Four. I have a terrorist bomb on board. Maybe your intel people should try watching the news. Go ahead and fire, asshole. With these winds, it’ll probably blow anthrax all over your third-rate banana republic, Cuba-wannabe country.”

  The radios remained silent for almost a full minute. Gold tried to imagine what the Venezuelans were thinking. Of all the responses they might have anticipated, they probably didn’t expect Parson to dare them to shoot.

  Finally, the squelch broke on the frequency. Gold heard a sigh, and then the Venezuelan flight leader said, “You give me no other choice.”

  Gold closed her eyes in unspoken prayer. She braced for the explosion, clawed her armrests.

  Seconds passed. Nothing happened.

  “What are you doing?” the Flanker pilot asked.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Parson transmitted.

  “I’m talking about your fire control radar.”

  “I don’t have that kind of radar, you dumb shit.”

  “But—” The Venezuelan released his PUSH TO TALK.

  “Look at that,” Parson said on interphone. He pointed to the radar warning receiver. It showed another symbol, one farther away judging from its orientation on the screen. Something other than the Flankers was getting ready to fire. And it seemed to be moving closer. Rapidly.

  “Switch your radar from weather to skin paint,” Parson told Colman.

  Colman turned some knobs, and his radar screen flickered. But it remained blank.

  “Hah,” Parson said. “No cross section. You can’t see it.” Then he pressed his TRANSMIT button. “Do you know what that is, jackass?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “It’s an F-22 Raptor, motherfucker. Why don’t you roll in on him?”

  No answer.

  “You better disarm weapons right now,” Parson said, “or that thing’s gonna scatter your commie ass all over the Caribbean.”

  The missile tone went silent.

  “No need for such rough language,” the Flanker pilot said. “We can conclude this matter as gentlemen.”

  “Go home, bitch,” Parson said.

  22

  The Flankers broke off from Parson’s six o’clock and turned for land. He watched them join up in tight formation, lead and wingman, as they fled. The two jets cut a diagonal path downward and away, and vanished as dust motes in the haze. Probably went supersonic, Parson thought. I’d light the afterburners, too, if a Raptor drew a bead on me.

  Two Raptors, actually. The pair of American fighters appeared at one o’clock high, gray ghosts spiriting along against a sky of blued steel.

  “Air Evac Eight-Four, Shadow Flight,” the lead called. “You doing okay?”

  “We’re all right at the moment, thanks to you guys,” Parson said. All right for a flying IED.

  The F-22s soared across the top of the C-5 and disappeared.

  “Tanker’s not far behind us,” the lead fighter said. “We’ll fly detached escort with you until you’re out of range for those bandits.”

  Parson had always considered fighter pilots overrated prima donnas, but he had to admit he felt safer now. Of all the dangers he’d faced in Afghanistan and Iraq—shoulder-fired missiles, small
-arms fire, RPGs—he’d never expected to need air cover to get Flankers off his tail.

  “What’s detached escort?” Colman asked.

  “They won’t always be in sight,” Parson said, “but they’ll stay within firing distance for their missiles.”

  “Good.”

  “Where’d you guys come from?” Parson asked.

  “Tyndall,” the Shadow leader answered.

  All the way from Florida? They must have taken a wide detour around the storm.

  “Long flight,” Parson transmitted.

  “Yeah, we tanked on the way, but we saved some gas for you.”

  Parson checked the radar screen and the TCAS. Both showed a return now, getting closer by the second. He looked out the cockpit windows, strained to see the dot that would become a KC-135. The air was getting clearer, making the ocean visible below and turning it into an expanse of sapphire. Surface winds must have been rough; Parson noted how the wind whitened the swells with streaks of foam. He still didn’t have visual contact with the tanker, but he saw its electronic signature moving nearer to him.

  While he waited, he decided to make conversation with the only fighter jocks for whom he’d ever had any use. “I’d like to have seen you guys dogfight those Flankers,” he said.

  “Wouldn’t have been much of a fight,” the Shadow flight leader said. “We had ’em dead to rights before they knew we were there.”

  “Sounded like it,” Parson said.

  “No kidding. I was about to shoot when they turned off their radar.”

  And it would have been justified, too, Parson thought. Targeting another aircraft with fire control radar was itself a hostile act. He wondered if the Flanker pilots knew how close they’d come to incineration. Now they were safe, but he and his crew and passengers remained at risk for a fiery death.

  “I got the plane for a while,” Parson told Colman. “I’ll give it back to you for the refuel.”

  “Yes, sir,” Colman said. “My radios.”

  Parson liked the way Colman verbalized the change in duties. Normally, one pilot flew the plane while the other pilot handled everything else, such as communication. If you traded jobs, you said so out loud to make sure there was no mix-up. Some guys neglected little details like that, but Colman flew by the book. Parson approved, as far that went. You flew by the book until conditions gave you a good reason not to.

  At the moment, he wanted to fly the plane just to stay awake. Parson punched off the autopilot and steered by hand. The use of fine motor skills gave him something to focus on other than his fatigue. No matter how much he tweaked the trim switches, he still had to keep some hand pressure on the yoke to hold the C-5 on a heading and altitude. The airplane had been a little bent to start with, but now it was worse. The turbulence and hailstones had done more than break off antennas. Apparently, the storms had torn up some control surfaces and maybe twisted the entire fuselage.

  Doesn’t matter, Parson thought. In the unlikely event this thing lands in one piece, it’ll probably never fly again.

  “Air Evac Eight-Four, Sunoco One-Five,” called a voice on the radio. “I think we have a visual on you. Do you see us off your two o’clock?”

  Parson squinted, adjusted his sunglasses. Colman saw the tanker first.

  “There he is,” Colman said. Then he pressed his TRANSMIT switch: “Sunoco One-Five, Air Evac Eight-Four. Tallyho.”

  “How do you want to join up?” the tanker pilot asked.

  “Tell him just to reverse course, and we’ll catch him with an en route rendezvous,” Parson said. This would be the last aerial refueling, and Parson felt glad it would at least take place during daylight. The KC-135 would give Parson and his crew enough fuel to reach Johnston Atoll, or the scene of the crash, whichever came first.

  Colman made the radio call as Parson ordered. The dark blemish in the windscreen turned, and as it banked it revealed the profile of its wings and nacelles. Then the Boeing leveled onto the new heading and became a mere dot again. That is, until it slowed to rendezvous speed. Then it grew larger against the glass and took the shape of an airplane once more, this time as viewed from behind.

  Dunne read through the checklists for aerial refueling, but it required little setup. The AR door actuator had broken the last time they used it, and the door had remained open ever since.

  “Ready to fly?” Parson asked Colman.

  “I have the aircraft,” Colman said.

  “My radios. Just keep your speed up until we’re a little closer.”

  As the distance narrowed, Parson saw that the tanker had lowered its refueling boom. The boom extended from the aircraft’s tail like an insect’s stinger. Parson could make out the four black circles of the tanker’s exhaust cones, and eventually the USAF painted on the underside of the left wing. From his perspective, the letters appeared inverted.

  He didn’t know the crew of that KC-135 ; none of their voices sounded familiar. Strangers had flown all this way to risk their asses refueling a flying bomb. Yeah, they did it because they’d been ordered to do it. But they could have found an excuse to abort, if they’d wanted to. Mainly they did it to save comrades-in-arms. They did it, Parson thought, because we all wear the same uniform. If we make it, he decided, I’ll get the tail numbers of all the tankers that gave us gas. Dunne will have the numbers in his paperwork. I’ll send Scotch to all the crew members, Parson noted. Better yet, I’ll take it to them.

  The yellow line along the KC-135’s belly loomed larger. Colman flew smoothly, and he nearly had the C-5 in the precontact position.

  “Good work,” Parson said. “Just keep that yellow stripe lined up with your inside leg.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Parson pointed at the tanker as he coached Colman. “Look at that black antenna on the underside,” he said. “When it forms a T against that crossways white stripe, you’re on a good thirty-degree approach.”

  “Got it.”

  As viewed through the C-5’s windscreen, the antenna met the white line in a perfect T. The join-up went well enough for the tanker’s boom operator to call them in closer.

  “Cleared to contact,” the boomer said.

  “Cleared to contact,” Parson acknowledged. Then he said to Colman, “You heard the man. Get us some gas.”

  Colman entered the contact position, mere feet from the tanker. Parson could see the boomer’s eyes. The boom latched into the receptacle, and the C-5 took its final load of jet fuel. Just before the boomer disconnected, he looked at Parson, gave a thumbs-up, and saluted. Parson returned the salute, then gave a casual wave.

  “Air Evac Eight-Four, Sunoco One-Five,” the boomer called. “Off-load complete. One hundred forty thousand pounds.”

  “Eight-Four copies,” Parson said.

  The boom unlatched and retracted, and the tanker pulled away. Parson and his crew voiced the terse calls and responses of the post air refueling checklist like some well-rehearsed catechism.

  Another voice called from the tanker, this time one of the pilots: “Eight-Four, we have a message to relay from Hilda.”

  “Go,” Parson said.

  “Hilda advises you have a diplomatic clearance to overfly Nicaragua, as long as you stay above flight level two-five-oh. Overflight only, no landing permission. Stand by for the clearance number.”

  Parson slid a pencil from one of the pen pockets on his left sleeve. He looked around for paper and settled for the back cover of a Chart Update Manual.

  “Ready to copy,” Parson said.

  The tanker pilot called out the clearance number. As Parson wrote it down, he was so tired his 5 came out more like a Z. He scratched it out and asked the tanker to repeat the number. Then the radios and interphone fell silent, and Parson’s ears filled with the song of wind and machine. Now a translucent scrim of cloud hung over the ocean below.

  Eventually, the isthmus between the Americas took form in the blue distance. Beyond it lay the Pacific, and the tasks Parson dreaded most.

&nbs
p; ON PARSON’S ORDERS, GOLD, SPENCER, and Justin began to gather tools and equipment. They took a half dozen oxygen cylinders from around the aircraft. By now Gold knew how to check the cylinders’ pressure; they all showed 300 psi. Full. Inside a storage cabinet in the aft flight deck she found two safety harnesses. The harnesses fitted over the wearer like a parachute rig, but instead of a canopy the straps connected to a lanyard made of heavy-duty webbing. Justin broke the copper safety wire on an emergency exit light and detached it from its receptacle. It contained its own batteries and could serve as a portable lamp. Spencer fitted a steel bit to a battery-powered drill.

  The preparations made Gold think of a platoon gearing up to close with the enemy—loading rifles, honing knives. But she’d never faced or even anticipated this kind of battle. The only thing she knew about IEDs was that you never screwed around with them if you weren’t trained for it. In this case, though, she knew they had to try. She also knew Parson would err toward action. He’d rather die doing the wrong thing than die doing nothing. For that matter, she thought, so would I.

  Gold and Justin placed the oxygen bottles, harnesses, and lamp in the troop compartment, next to the negative pressure valves. The stockpile of gear somehow made Gold feel just a little less vulnerable. We’re still fighting, she thought. Parson’s still thinking. His crew’s still flying.

  As she descended the troop compartment ladder on her way back to the flight deck, the overhead speakers crackled and hummed. She heard Parson make a PA announcement:

  “This is the aircraft commander speaking,” he said. “You all know what we’re up against. And I think you all know the odds. But we’ll do the best we can. We’re going to depressurize the aircraft one more time, and we’re going to try to jettison the bomb. If you have any protective gear, whether it’s a Kevlar helmet or a flak jacket or an exposure suit, I suggest you put it on. If you don’t have a seat belt, get a cargo strap.