Africa jtf-4

by David E. Meadows

  Abu Alhaul pulled his head from under his brother’s massive body and continued to watch. The remaining two missiles penetrated the jungle canopy and disappeared. Shouts from the direction of the four men drew his attention. One of the men whose missile had penetrated the canopy picked up the misfired canister and shook it, trying to dislodge whatever held the missile inside. The other two threw their empty canisters down and took off running, shouting as they broke through the bushes, putting as much distance between them and their comrade as they could.

  The explosion blinded Abu Alhaul, causing him to instinctively shut his eyes. He felt Abdo’s massive hand cover his face in the same instant that the heat and concussion from the explosion rolled over them.

  Seconds later, Abu Alhaul mumbled Abdo’s name, but no reply came. He opened his eyes, one eye was covered by his brother’s hand. Abu Alhaul struggled for a few moments to free himself and when he did, he reached up and moved Abdo’s hand. His brother’s eyes were shut and trickles of blood ran from his nose and ears. For a moment, Abu Alhaul believed Allah had extracted His retribution for the blasphemy, but then he felt his brother’s chest rise as he took a deep breath.

  Several others ran to the two of them and pulled Abu Alhaul from beneath Abdo. His brother’s back was covered in blood.

  Abu Alhaul looked up at the jungle canopy. A large hole where the first missile had exploded let a huge beam of sunlight enter the shadowy underworld of the jungle. He was unable to tell where the two missiles penetrated the canopy. The noise of his followers overrode the aircraft sounds and by the time he quieted them, there were no sounds of the American aircraft.

  The moan of his brother caught his attention, but to Abu Alhaul it mattered little whether Abdo survived or not. Allah had failed to answer Abu Alhaul’s faith. He had nothing to show that the missiles had hit the aircraft, while at least one more of his shrinking band of followers had died. The two who ran away were probably still running and he realized that the man who threw away the misfired canister was the one who stared so hard at him moments ago. Maybe Abdo was right in that his followers were beginning to realize that they might truly die in the service of Allah. Then why would they flee, for to die for Allah was to immediately enter into paradise? Who would not want such a thing?

  He squatted beside Abdo and laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder. He watched as the only soldier of the Islamic Front for Purification who had any medical knowledge cut the robe from Abdo. At that moment, Abu Alhaul knew they would leave Africa. He must regain Allah’s favor and discover what his God wanted of him. This flight was truly his Hadj and Allah would want him to atone for Abdo’s disbelief. It is a hard thing to take one’s kin to task, but what happens here on earth is but a test for the hereafter and here he had failed Allah.

  “He will live, Ya Sheik,” the medical person said. The robe lay opened, exposing the naked back of the huge man. From numerous small holes, blood flowed.

  “He will die,” Abu Alhaul said softly.

  “No, he will live,” the man responded, failing to realize that Abu Alhaul’s words were not a question.

  CHAPTER 5

  The aged Sa-7 Grail, a 1970’s weapon, broke through the leafy canopy like a baseball through a window. The second missile followed a few hundred feet farther west, before arching gracefully on path toward the descending EP-3E aircraft for a few seconds. Then, the rocket engine sputtered several times before igniting back to full power twice. The second full-power was too much for the old missile frame. One of the tail fins broke off, sending the missile into a right-handed spiral away from its target. The missile nose turned earthward, and miles from where it was launched, the runaway disappeared back through the canopy, sending leaves and limbs cascading into the air. The other missile — a small metallic spot in the sky with a huge corkscrew contrail marking its flight path — continued toward its target.

  * * *

  The pilot of the EP-3E reconnaissance aircraft, lieutenant Paul Gregory, had the yoke pressed forward slightly, watching the altimeter as he fought the rough air at this lower altitude. His primary gauge for altitude around this jungle was his eyes. The altimeter told him the altitude of the aircraft from the ground, but his eyes watched the approaching canopy of the jungle trees. During daylight, it wasn’t hard to do because you could see the trees. At night, he’d be damned if he would be doing this. No one, except maybe Crazy Harry, would bring the aircraft in this low. Of course, flying with Crazy Harry made you appreciate the safety consciousness of the other pilots, though it always surprised him that everyone wanted to fly with Crazy Harry. It still perplexed him how the man ever made commander, much less the commanding officer, and never had had an aircraft mishap. Gregory had his check-ride with Crazy Harry when he came into the squadron, and he was barely able to control his legs when they landed, the man so unnerved him. Not from the check-ride, but Crazy Harry decided he’d try one more time to break the altitude record for the EP-3E. The aircraft wasn’t designed to go higher than 28,300 feet, but Crazy Harry believed that was some desk jockey’s SWAG — Scientific Wild-Ass Guess. The commanding officer’s goal was to reach 40,000 feet. Problem was the engines tended to sputter and stop at about 35,000 feet, causing the aircraft to nose over, and the pilot to have to do a hot start as the plane raced toward mother earth. The EP-3E wasn’t the lightest aircraft in the Navy’s inventory. Lieutenant Paul Gregory’s mind turned away from Crazy Harry. At least he had control of the aircraft.

  He glanced at the altimeter. Two hundred feet. He’d level off at one hundred feet. He looked at the approaching jungle for a moment, glanced at Babs, his copilot, who was scanning the sky, and then Gregory looked over his shoulder at Pits Conar, who was strapped into the slightly higher seat than his and Babs’s. The senior chief flight engineer was watching the altimeter, his hands on both knees. Gregory turned to the scene filling the cockpit windows. Radar had no return on the leaves that weaved an unbroken blanket across the jungle of Africa, and the last thing he wanted was to share his seat with a tree limb. The image of a surprised monkey screaming and running around the cockpit caused him to smile.

  With his thumbs wrapped tightly on the yoke, he wiggled his fingers for a moment, the movement stretching the flight gloves so they fit snug on his fingers. His thoughts moved to another, more pleasant, arena. That of returning to Rota and the Spanish lass with whom he had developed such a fond affection. Deeply in “like” as his fellow aviators would say. “Great showpieces for your tour, but don’t get too involved,” his mentor from two squadrons ago had told him. “Once you’re hooked with a Spanish girl, you’re hooked for life, and you might as well buy yourself a house in Rota because she ain’t gonna live in the States.” Rosario was — what was the right word? Worldly? He shook his head. Thought, No, makes her sound as if she has her own street corner. European? Well, hell yes, that’d be the right word — she is European! No, they’d figure it out. An image of him marching a slew of Spanish children down the streets of Puerto Santa de Maria, wearing school uniforms, calling him papa, and not a word of English among the bunch was a convincing argument that being deployed might be in his best interests. Maybe Kilburn was right. He should just enjoy the fruits of a girl in every port — or a different girl for every tour of duty, then forget them and move on. He shook his head slightly. Life is really rough for a pilot.

  “What the hell!” Senior Chief Pits Conar shouted, reaching forward, slapping Gregory on the shoulder, and pointing to the right. Two contrails tracked back to torn portions of the carpet canopy.

  “Shit! Air-to-surface missiles!” the copilot shouted.

  “Surface-to-air!” Gregory corrected, instinctively jerking the yoke to the right, toward the missiles.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” Pits Conar shouted.

  “Trying to get under them,” he mumbled back. “Hit the alarm.”

  “Which one,” the young copilot asked.

  “Shit, sir!” Pits Conar shouted. “When you want m
otion, anything will do.” He reached up and hit the ditching alarm. A tattoo of rapid beeps filled the aircraft.

  The air was clear, almost movie-screen quality, Gregory thought as his eyes shifted from the controls to the two missiles. One of the missiles seemed in trouble. Bad luck for it, good luck for them. It tumbled end-over-end and disappeared from view, blocked by the left wing.

  The flight engineer started a steady recitation of the altitude. At one hundred feet, Gregory shouted. “Hard left turn!” He jerked the yoke to the left. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the missile change its direction slightly. Silently, he estimated a hundred yards — seconds — to impact, and in the time this thought registered, the missile closed the distance and exploded beneath the aircraft.

  “Fire, number-four engine!” Pits Conar shouted.

  The aircraft started vibrating, picking up in intensity. Gregory pulled back on the yoke, taking the aircraft up. The copilot leaned forward, pressed her face against the right window so she could see the burning engine.

  “We got flames coming out the back,” Babs said, referring to the exhaust of the number-four engine. “Shit!”

  Pits reached up, flipped open the protective Plexiglass cover, and flipped the engine switch. “Engine number-four secured.”

  “Fire extinguisher?” Gregory asked.

  “Number-one initiated. Passing one hundred feet.”

  Gregory glanced down. The airspeed seemed to be decreasing, but that was to be expected with the loss of an engine at this low of an altitude. The noise of the aircrew securing loose items and strapping themselves into their seats came through the half-opened curtains that separated the cockpit from the operational portion of the aircraft. He knew that in the very rear of the aircraft classified material was being dropped into the urinal where the water-soluble paper would turn to mush. If they had been over water, metal containers filled with classified material would be weighted down and dropped. Every operator would be securing their electronic gear to reduce chances of a fire. Shouts of alarm came from the rear as the aircrew became aware of the burning engine. Fire in flight meant a landing was imminent. The question was whether the pilot got to land it or the aircraft made the decision for you. For the first time, he thought of a bailout.

  “Radio says situation report sent. It’s in the air.”

  “Babs!” Gregory shouted to his copilot. “Get on the SAR frequency and broadcast our location.”

  “I thought our location was supposed to be kept secret,” she replied.

  “Ma’am, if our location was secret, we wouldn’t have been shot!” Pits Conar shouted, his hands above his head, flipping toggle switches to turn off unnecessary electrics.

  “Babs, get that mayday out. Senior Chief, the extinguisher?”

  “Dropping past forty percent! Engine still burning.”

  “Look, we’ve got one more extinguisher in that wing. If we haven’t put it out by the time we use that second extinguisher then we’re going to—”

  “Bail out.” Pits Conar finished.

  “Bail out.” Babs added.

  “Two extinguishers should be sufficient. Passing six hundred feet, Lieutenant,” Pits offered.

  “If the fire isn’t out when we’ve reached twelve thousand feet, then we’ll put the nose over. But, first we’ve got to get the aircraft to that altitude.”

  “If the second will last until we reach it,” Conar said, reaching up and tapping the extinguisher button. “If it’ll last that long,” he added softly.

  “If it doesn’t work, then we’ll dive it out. We’ll push Ranger over on its nose and let the wind-blast extinguish it as we head down.”

  “Will that work?” Babs asked.

  “Of course, it’ll work,” Gregory said, “At least, NATOPS says it should.”

  “And, it could,” Conar added.

  “And, if it don’t?”

  “Babs, how’s the wing?” Gregory asked. If doesn’t work, then the last thing we’ll see will be that fine carpet of green as the EP-3E rips through it.

  Gregory glanced at his copilot. Fear is a hard commodity to hide when it grips your insides — the heart rate increases, the bladder shouts at you to hit the bathroom, and the bowels join in hollering “me, too — me, too.” “Eyeball sweat” was the term Kilburn used when he told tales of MiG-23s chasing his aircraft to sea level, trying to shoot him down, but flaming out at the lower levels while the old Willy Victor Super Constellation moseyed along, swinging from side to side to confuse the fire-control radars. Kilburn’s experience couldn’t have been much different from the one Gregory was going through now.

  “First bottle gone. Activating second bottle.”

  “Babs, the engine.”

  She leaned to the right, putting her face against the window again. “Still burning. The flames are larger, and we’ve got a black smoke trail reaching miles behind us.”

  “Senior Chief, what are you doing with the fuel?”

  “Sir, I’m dumping it from the port wing. I’ve already started pumping the fuel from the starboard wing over to the port tanks. Fifteen minutes. Give me fifteen minutes, sir.”

  Good job, thought Gregory. Instinct is to dump the fuel from the burning side, but when you do that, the fire leaps onto the air trail of the fuel and can rush back up and ignite inside the tank. Fast way to lose a wing. NATOPS was the bible for aviation safety. Pilots and aircrew were expected to know the NATOPS for their aircraft cover-to-cover because in an emergency such as this, there wasn’t time to be looking up what to do. NATOPS says dump fuel on the unaffected wing, the fuel tank that ran across the top of the EP-3E, and then pump fuel from the area of the fire to other wing. Problem was they had been airborne less than four hours, so they still had a little over six hours of fuel in the three main fuel tanks. As long as the extinguisher lasted, the fire wouldn’t reach the starboard wing tank. Once the extinguisher was depleted, they had seconds to bailout before— He didn’t want to think about it.

  “Altitude?”

  “Passing two thousand feet and climbing. Speed increasing, sir.”

  “Babs, tighten my straps,” Gregory said. If he had to order bailout, he would be the last to go and, by then, he doubted the situation would give him time to check and make sure his parachute was ready. A set of flat pancakes would not go well with the hot Spanish tortilla waiting for him in Rota. For a fleeting moment, the image of her slapping them together and crying “Que pasa?” passed through his mind.

  The low vibration caused by the loss of engine number-four started increasing as they gained altitude, shaking the aircraft. Gregory’s coffee spilled over the rim of the cup, splattering the lukewarm coffee onto his flight-suit pants leg.

  The copilot leaned back into her seat. “Tight enough?”

  “Thanks,” Gregory muttered, his knuckles white from gripping the yoke. “Senior Chief, increase number-three, reduce power on number-one.” Maybe it would offset the pull to the left.

  “Extinguisher low, sir. I’ve got a temperature increasing in starboard fuel tank!” Pits Conar shouted. He reached up and slapped the red extinguisher knob.

  Gregory glanced at Babs and then the flight engineer before facing forward.

  “Lieutenant, I said the temperature is increasing in starboard fuel tank. It’s going to hit critical in the next minute or two unless—”

  “Senior Chief, I know!” Gregory snapped. Thought, What in the hell does he want me to do? Not a damn thing I can—

  “Passing six thousand feet, sir.”

  “Paul!”

  Gregory looked at his copilot. His eyes locked with Babs’s.

  “Paul, NATOPS says we bail out when the temperature—”

  He reached up and ran the back of his hand across his forehead.

  “Put on your helmets! We should have had—”

  “Lieutenant, we’re going to have to bail out, sir.”

  Gregory looked forward, glancing at the altimeter. Passing six thousand, four hundred. Still
climbing. The temperature will start backing down, he told himself. Just three thousand, four hundred more feet and then I’ll dive. That’ll cool the engine.

  “Extinguisher?” Gregory asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the copilot face forward. A slight sigh of relief escaped. He didn’t want to answer her and since she turned away he told himself he didn’t have to answer.

  “We have less than sixty to seventy seconds left before it empties. Lieutenant, when that happens the temperature is going to hit kaboom stage and the last thing we’re going to see is that tunnel with a light at the far end—”

  “Altitude, Senior Chief?” If it’s not her, then it’s him.

  “Sir! We’re passing seven thousand feet. Extinguisher has fifty seconds remaining.”

  “Paul, we’re going to have to bail out!” Babs shouted. “Jesus Christ, Paul! Give the goddamn order.”

  Gregory glanced at the altimeter. He looked forward at the slight cloudbank overhead. Thought, Clouds mark the ten-to-twelve thousand-feet-altitude area. If I can just make that.

  “Lieutenant, she’s right. The fire is still burning. First extinguisher is gone. Second nearly kaput. When it goes, we won’t have any way of putting out the fire. The time between empty canister and raining pieces of airplane will be seconds, not minutes.”

  Gregory took a deep breath and released it. Only a few more minutes and I could have done it. I could have saved the aircraft and brought everyone home safely. He reached up and hit the bailout alarm.

  Senior Chief Conar snatched up his checklist and started going down each item. The copilot shouted “check” at items under her cognizance and Gregory responded in kind when his turn. Behind the curtain that separated the cockpit from the operational section of the aircraft, crewmembers started waddling their way aft, maneuvering the bulky parachutes strapped to their backs and buttocks, toward the hatch where only four hours earlier they had boarded the aircraft.