Instinctively, he headed for the center’s communication building …
Hunter expected that most of the CENCOM’s personnel would be gone—either home with families or joining the celebration at the Officers’ Club. But as he approached the white stone building, he saw that it was a hive of activity.
His inner message was confirmed. Something was up.
It was now the height of dusk and every light in the place was on. He walked into the main administration area and it seemed like every telephone was ringing or buzzing at once. Both Air Force and NASA personnel were scrambling around in a dance of controlled confusion—so much so, not a one stopped to question who he was or what he was doing there.
He took a set of stairs two steps at a time and found himself in the CENCOM’s main control room, a facility that held no less than two hundred telephones, plus banks of telex and fax machines. Like downstairs, it seemed as if every one of these communications machines was going full-blast, knots of military types and civilians gathered around them, their faces screwed up with concern. In the cacophony of shrill ringing, insistent buzzing, and tense conversation that cascaded throughout the large room, Hunter was able to distinguish only two words: “Germany” and “casualties.”
In the midst of the chaos, his attention was drawn to a small television set in the corner, all but ignored in the din. Surrounded by half-empty paper cups of eggnog left over from what had been a small office party, the slightly beat-up TV was blaring out an animated Christmas program, oblivious to the desperation in the room. Struck by the incongruity of the cartoon’s carefree music in the frenzied atmosphere, Hunter’s eyes were instantly glued to the TV screen.
An instant later, the cartoon stopped, the screen flickered and then was filled with the words: “Emergency Broadcasting System.”
Suddenly everything stopped. The room was flooded with the nightmarish EBS tone everyone present had heard many times before. But now, for the first time, the dour-voiced announcer said: “This is not a test …”
Instead, he instructed viewers to change to another channel. One brave soul among the many in the room did so, only to find the same EBS graphic being broadcast, with the words “This is not a test,” blinking rapidly.
Hunter would never know just how long he stood there, an uninvited interloper who, like the others, stared in disbelief as some unknown announcer appeared on the screen and solemnly, nervously read the bulletin for Doomsday.
In his memory, Hunter could only recall swatches and bits of the first report:
Millions of West Europeans dead … Soviet chemical weapons strike … thousands of Soviet SCUD missiles launched against civilian and military targets … missiles carrying nerve gas…. Soviet invasion of Western Europe … No nuclear weapons used yet … the President is asking Congress to convene immediately … war will soon be declared.
Through it all, Hunter did remember the absolute silence in the room. Then, when the screen finally went to black, the men in the CENCOM, their faces pale beyond belief, simply went back to their telephones and telexes and resumed their tasks.
Hunter’s next recollection concerned his close friends from the Thunderbirds. Several days before he reported to Florida, three of them had “turned over.” That was, like himself, they had been reassigned after finishing their two-year stint with the Aerial Demonstration Team. General Seth Jones, Captain JT Toomey and Captain Ben Wa had relocated to a NATO F-16 base near Rota, Spain, where Jones had taken over the job of CINCUSAFE (Commander-in-Chief, US Air Forces-Europe). Hunter would have been with them if Jones hadn’t first recommended, then bullied through, Hunter’s appointment to the space shuttle pilot training.
Had they, three of his closest friends, escaped the deadly gas attack?
Then, after the shock, came anger. It welled up inside of him like a boiling tidal wave. So the Soviet bastards had finally done it…. Millions of innocents—women and children—had undoubtedly perished along with, he assumed, many of NATO’s troops.
And on Christmas Eve yet, when the civilized world celebrated a time of peace. How sinister that the Red Army’s war machine let loose its first deadly volley on this day.
Suddenly, as if on cue, one of the men in CENCOM approached him.
“Are you Captain Hunter?” the man asked, probably recognizing Hunter from the previous years’ gush of publicity.
“Yes, I am,” Hunter confirmed.
“We have a telex here, sir, that mentions you by name,” the man told him. “Formal orders, but, in light of this …”
The man’s voice trailed off, but his meaning was crystal clear. The announcement of World War III tended to put a dent in the formalities for the time being.
The man led him to a telex machine that was clicking furiously. Tearing off a portion of a message recently received, the man pointed to one, brief paragraph that started with Hunter’s name, rank, and serial number.
There were surprisingly detailed orders—in this time of crisis, some computer somewhere had tracked him down: He was immediately reassigned to the 16th Tactical Fighter Wing, as the Thunderbirds were officially listed on the Air Force’s active combat unit roster. He was to report to Langley Air Force base in Virginia at once. From there he would join a “tactical escort and resupply force” and transit to Europe.
In other words, Hunter was going to war.
Chapter 8
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE was a whirlwind of controlled chaos.
It seemed to Hunter that every military transport in the Air Force inventory was out on the tarmac. All around him, the cold morning was shattered by the scream of jet engines being pushed up to speed, intakes greedily sucking in the clean, crisp morning air igniting within their crucibles, driving the big turbines that in turn thrust out flaming exhausts in long fiery arrows.
At the same time, hundreds of big propellers churned, biting into the air and sluicing it behind them in a thousand rivers of wind that flowed across the airfield, whipping the collars and sleeves and trouser legs of the army of ground crews.
Forklifts, tanker trucks, and flatbeds roared across the vast expanse of concrete on hundreds of intersecting lines, crisscrossing under wings and between fuselages to deliver their loads of fuel, supplies, weapons, and ammunition, then to scurry back for more.
The scene didn’t look a bit like Christmas morning.
Every one of the airplanes being loaded at Langley that day were crucial components in the massive “air bridge” that was being strung from America to Europe to deal with the emergency. Long gone were the days when ships alone could carry the tools of war to the fighting front. This new war—declared by the President that morning—demanded more immediate delivery; measured in hours and days instead of weeks and months.
Only by this air route would the vital cargo of men, machines, and material reach the already-struggling NATO forces in time.
Hunter had caught a cargo plane up from Florida just before midnight and, on arrival, was immediately ordered by one of the Langley base doctors to get at least four hours sleep. He took the physician’s advice—even he needed sleep every once in a while. But now, with the dawn, he was up and anxious to fulfill his own orders. And they were to get the hell over to Europe.
Oddly though, there was very little news from the front. Other than the initial terrifying report, very little could be determined about the present situation. Communications in and around the battle area were either nonexistent or at the breaking point. All that was known was that the Soviets were about to advance into the areas devastated by the chemical attack and NATO was doing everything it could to stop them.
But most important, neither side had detonated a nuclear bomb … yet.
Now, as Hunter was being transported by jeep across the vast field to take his place in the massive air convoy, he noted its main players.
At one end of the base, supported on ramps and aprons of poured concrete many feet thick, towered the giant Lockheed C-5A Galaxy super-transports of the Air Force’s Mil
itary Airlift Command. With their huge nose sections yawning open to reveal the cavernous cargo bays within, and their tail ramps descended to provide access, they looked like giant dragon being stuffed with the machines of war.
Here one was being loaded with sixteen heavy trucks, being driven into the gaping maw formed by the up-tilted nose. There another was taking on a half-dozen Apache attack helicopters. Another would carry two M-1 Abrams main battle tanks, creaking on their platforms as the grinding winches reluctantly drew their 60-ton masses into the belly of the beast.
In all, the huge transports would each be loaded with more than 260,000 pounds of cargo. And when the flight was ready to begin, each one would roll ponderously to the flight line, its four giant engines ready to defy the gravity that hugged it to the earth.
Farther on were the newer, smaller but sleeker C-17 transports. These too swallowed up vast quantities of the cargo that was being fed by the steady stream of trucks. Beyond the looming, swept-back flat tails of the C-17s were the mainstays of the air bridge, the C-141 Starlifters. Hunter counted at least four dozen of them.
Beyond were the camouflage-painted C-130H Hercules, the workhorses of the Tactical Airlift Command. Their squat bodies trundled down the runways on sturdy tires and thick landing gear struts, designed to absorb the shock of short, bumpy, improvised airstrips, many of which would be close to the front. Their four big turboprop engines, supported by long, tapering wings studded with big flaps and spoilers, were designed to bring the seventy tons of plane and payload down and to a full stop in less than 3,000 feet.
And then came the KC-135 Stratotankers, and the big KC-10A Extenders, the airborne gas stations of the sky. These flying tankers would each carry tens of thousands of pounds of the precious fuel that all the airplanes in the convoy would hungrily consume—via in-flight refuelings—on their journey over the broad expanse of ocean.
On the opposite side of the flightline, Hunter saw dozens of civilian transport planes and airliners. Every major airline and air transport company’s aircraft markings were evident on the crowded runways. All around him were big overseas airliners—757s, 747s, DC-10s, and L-1011s that were also preparing for the takeoff.
He knew that the private commercial jets had all been commandeered “for the duration” by executive order. Everywhere he looked there were uniformed men milling about on runways, pouring into the airliners. These were the reservists boarding the big jets, waiting to join their comrades already in Europe.
Hunter’s driver expertly cut their jeep through the sea of men and machines that spilled out across the runways, dodging fuel trucks and airplanes alike, to reach the hangar far across the field where the fighters were being fueled and armed for the escort mission across the Atlantic.
Passing the last group of civilian transports, they approached one hangar where six planes of the 16th Tactical Fighter Wing sat poised on the runway, ground crews loading ordnance under wings and pumping JP-8 into fuel tanks. As the first few rays of sunlight broke through the cold Christmas morning mist, the F-16s appeared to be sparkling like deadly, silver daggers.
Hunter saw the F-16 that would, for an indeterminate amount of time, be his own. Unlike his Thunderbird version, this F-16 was “armed and dangerous”—a supersonic killing machine that was designed for the split-second kill-or-be-killed environment that the skies over the battlefields had become. His practiced eye ran over the lines of the beautiful airplane, its big air intake slung under the long tapered nose giving it the look of a hungry shark racing for its prey.
The F-16 was a relatively small airplane—this was one of its many advantages. The smaller the airplane, the smaller the blip on the enemy’s radar screen. To further reduce the plane’s already-small “signature,” radar absorbent materials lined the leading edge flaps of the wing, making the F-16 that much less a target for the enemy planes and missile crews who would be searching the skies above the battlefield with their electronic SAM dragnets, hoping to lock their deadly firepower on to the speeding fighter.
The F-16 would be a difficult target for them indeed. Screaming through the sky at more than twice the speed of sound, if the luckless enemy fighter or anti-aircraft battery failed to shoot it down in the first attempt, they would face a hail of firepower from their angry target.
Hunter jumped out of the jeep, thanked the driver and immediately began inspecting his new aircraft. Four AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles protruded from under the F-16’s wings, and two more capped the wingtips. These advanced air intercept missiles were tied into the F-16’s fire-control radar. When an enemy airplane was trapped in its electronic web, its pilot was as good as dead. A “fire-and-forget” heat-seeking missile, the reliable Sidewinder would take its target from the on-board “track-while-scan” computer, and leap off the F-16’s wing to close on the enemy at speeds in excess of 1,500 mph. As it neared the target aircraft, its own infra-red guidance system would lock on to the most intense heat source—usually the flaming jet engine exhaust—and the enemy plane would disintegrate in a fireball as the missile did its deadly work.
For closer-range engagements, the F-16 had a multi-barrel, 20-mm rapid-fire cannon and as Hunter watched, the ground crews carefully loaded the 20mm rounds into the big gun’s ammo chamber. Guaranteed to blast holes in any type of airborne armor, the cannon shells would pump out of the six barrels to form a lethal hailstorm of screaming lead that would slice the designated target to ribbons.
A multi-role tactical aircraft, the F-16 also possessed an excellent ground-attack capability. The ‘hard points’ on each wing and under the fuselage were designed to carry heavier ordnance—Rockeye cluster bombs, Mark 82 500-pounders, napalm, or incendiaries—enough for a respectable bomb load.
Bigger air-to-ground missiles—AGMs—could also be suspended under the wing. AGM-65 TV-guided Maverick missiles, their cold camera eyes relentlessly focusing on the target, could be counted to seek out and destroy fortified ground targets. AGM-88 HARMs—High-speed Anti-Radar Missiles—could home in on enemy radar signals to wipe out the SAM sites with pinpoint accuracy. Even if the launchers switched off their gun-control radars, the HARM’S onboard microelectronics processor would enable the missile to still find its mark.
And, while one set of sophisticated electronic systems sought out enemy targets and guided the weapon systems, another set was designed to protect the plane from becoming a target itself. The new AN/ALQ-165 system was installed—a defensive avionics system that was more often called the Airborne Self-Protection Jammer, or the ASPJ.
Designed to identify the frequencies of incoming threats, warn the pilot, and take electronic countermeasures, the ASPJ was just one of the hundreds of acronym-labeled offensive and defensive systems in the technological arsenal of the F-16’s array. IFF, TFR, LANTIRN, FLIR, TACAN, MIMIC, VHSIC, ASPJ, GPS, APG, PSP, AVLSI, ADF, AFCE, and so on. Each one was a complex, multi-unit sophisticated electronic subsystem that formed the innards of the F-16 war bird, connected by an equally complex nerve network of electronic cables, wires, and trunks that wove between the ribs and struts of the airplane’s steel and aluminum skeleton.
They were all silent now, lifeless, waiting for the spark that would bring them to consciousness once the big GE F-110 turbofan engine, the very heart of the airplane, began to throb once again.
Hunter climbed into the cockpit, reviewing the flight and weapon control systems that were now second nature to his experienced eye. He strapped the wide harnesses across his middle and over his shoulders, the belts that would keep him in his reclined seat even when the fighter was streaking across the sea at Mach 2. To other pilots they were chains that held them down, trapping them in the tiny cramped space that was separated from the world outside only by a thin canopy. To Hunter they were bonds of faith, part of his special union with the aircraft around him.
A few minutes of preparation passed, then finally, he got the signal from the ground crew chief.
“Fire it up!” the man yelled to him.
&n
bsp; Hunter answered with an OK hand gesture and pushed the required buttons.
The engine exploded in a wail of power and fury. Then the F-16’s other systems quickly rose to full power. This was a very special time for him—it was as if another part of him was coming to life. Hawk Hunter the man was receding, held in suspended animation as Hawk Hunter the pilot—“the best ever”—took over. His very essence surged into the airplane’s flight systems and washed back to him again. It was as if the little fighter jet was also undergoing a metamorphosis—becoming a living, breathing thing instead of an inanimate piece of steel, rubber, and plastic.
Suddenly the man seated in the cockpit became secondary—Hunter’s inner being had entered into a higher state of consciousness as it continually flowed from him into the F-16’s controls and back again. The onboard computer didn’t need manual inputs—Hunter’s brain provided the instant data it required. The rudder and stabilizers and wing surfaces didn’t have to depend on their electronic controls—they moved as Hunter’s limbs moved. And when the radar and radio systems crackled with life, it was as if they were Hunter’s eyes and ears and voice.
Once again that very special feeling entered him—the sensation that set him apart from common stick jockeys. He couldn’t describe the feeling to anyone—it would have been useless to try. It flowed through him every time he was in the cockpit of an airplane—any airplane.
But it was especially acute in the F-16 that he had grown to love.
Hunter took the next few minutes to go through the pre-flight checklist and to review his flight plan.
His immediate orders called for him to take the other five F-16s and fall in with the rest of the great air armada that would transit to the NATO airbase in Rota, Spain—ironically the same place where his friends Jones, Toomey, and Wa were stationed.
Soon enough, he would know their fate, and what would have been his, had he been with them….
His orders told him that the air convoy was forming up in three groups: The first was composed of the big boys, the C-5A Galaxies and the C-17s, laden with tons of heavy cargo. They would be guarded by two squadrons of F-15C Eagles, the kick-ass air-superiority fighters that, with its two powerful engines, were the fastest strike planes in the NATO inventory.
Final Storm Page 6