Final Storm

by Maloney, Mack;

  But then, he suddenly stopped.

  He had never quite felt the eerie sensation on the back of his neck before, but in a split-second he knew what it meant.

  Something was wrong with the F-16.

  He quickly scanned the gauges and displays in the cockpit, searching their mute, numbered faces for a clue to the nature of the problem. A blinking red LED light confirmed Hunter’s suspicion: his airplane was about to experience a major electrical system failure.

  While loss of power was a serious problem in any aircraft, it was especially critical in the fly-by-electrical-wire F-16. He had a redundant flight control system and back-up computer, but it would now require his full attention and strength to bring the plane back home.

  Jones pulled alongside Hunter’s cruising fighter, sensing Hunter’s problem. He looked at the young pilot through the canopy and keyed his microphone.

  “What’s the problem, Hawk?” The words were casual, but there was an underlying tension to the voice. Jones knew only too well the many of things that could bring a plane down.

  “Not certain, sir,” Hunter answered calmly. “I’m getting an electrical failure indication. I thought I felt some iron in my tail. Can you take a look?”

  Swooping low to scan the plane’s underside for damage, Jones immediately saw the source of the trouble.

  Indeed, the MiG had nailed Hunter’s airplane with at least one cannon round, blowing a large, jagged hole in the underside of his fuselage toward the tail. Jones let out an involuntary gasp, sucking in air through his oxygen mask, and glad his microphone was still not keyed.

  “Where did he get me?” Hunter asked.

  “Let me put it this way, Hawker, old boy,” Jones replied. “If your plane was a bird, it would never have chicks again….”

  With that, Jones relayed a damage report in full. The bottom line was that the aircraft was still intact, but the afterburner and the stabilizer controls were heavily damaged.

  “Lucky you didn’t punch in your AB,” Jones told Hunter. “You’d be flying a pair of angel wings instead of a ruptured duck.”

  Hunter closed his eyes and sent a big thanks out to the ethers, grateful that his own internal warning system had prevented him from lighting out full afterburner after the fleeing Soviet fighters.

  Meanwhile, Jones ordered JT and Wa to head back to Rota as quickly as possible. After initial protests, both pilots reluctantly agreed. Because of their extra mileage action before the Fulcrum dogfight, both were low on fuel. Escorting Hunter’s stricken fighter back, at such a slow speed and low altitude, would burn their reserves and possibly cause them to crash as well.

  Instead, Jones would stick by the damaged F-16.

  Hunter watched as the two F-16s roared off, their outlines growing smaller until they disappeared into high cloud cover toward the south. His own F-16 was acting very sluggish, plowing through the air instead of slicing it: he had to coax it to maintain altitude and level flight. Without stabilizers, every odd gust of wind threatened to buck the airplane over. He was lucky the stabilizers had been jammed in the straight position—if they were up or down, he would never have been able to control the airplane.

  And so the two F-16s flew on, Jones dropping altitude periodically to check the underside of Hunter’s plane, and Hunter wrestling with the heavy controls of his damaged fighter. The two pilots didn’t speak, except to exchange airspeed and altitude information, or indicate fuel status. It would be tight, but they would have enough to make it back to Rota.

  What was of more concern to Hunter was the landing gear controls.

  His cockpit instrument panel showed his landing gear as inoperative, and he didn’t dare test it while still en route. If by some miracle of electronics it did engage and lower his wheels, he might not be able to raise them again, and the plane couldn’t stand the extra drag with the critical fuel situation.

  Of course, if the landing gear couldn’t be lowered at all, … well, he’d worry about that when he got back to the base.

  If he got back to the base …

  Chapter 22

  AS WAS USUALLY THE CASE when a stricken airplane was coming in, activity at the airbase at Rota slowed to almost a standstill.

  Aircraft that could were diverted to other fields. Emergency vehicles—foam-spreading tankers and fire trucks—were lined up along the edge of the runway. All the other base aircraft were moved into their hardstands, or taxied to the opposite side of the field. No one liked to think about it, but they had to protect the remaining planes from any crash that might result from the damaged plane skidding out of control.

  Further behind were the ambulances, grimly dubbed “the meatwagons.” Their second-place status was a concession to fatalistic reality—pilots rarely survived unsuccessful crash landings. If a plane augured into the field and there was a fire, the best they could hope for was to remove the body parts after the flames were out.

  The rescue crews stood by nervously, waiting for the signal. The 16th’s ground crew chief, a Louisiana Cajun named Blue, was out on the tarmac also, clad in an asbestos fire suit and gloves. The heavy hood was pushed back to accommodate the binoculars he was using to search the deepening shadows in the northern sky.

  Somewhere up there was a pilot and an airplane in trouble—Blue had nightmares about such things.

  The long minutes of anxious waiting ended when they heard a low rumble vibrate across the field. A buzz rippled through the men clustered on the runway. Fingers pointed skyward. Voices rose. Two specks appeared on the horizon—one of them smoking heavily.

  The roar of the engines built steadily as the two outlines developed into a pair of F-16s that began a wide circle over the base. Jones was doing all the talking with the base’s air traffic controllers, as Hunter was busy trying to keep the plane aloft without benefit of the broad stabilizer flaps.

  He formally cleared his own landing with the tower and then turned his attention to the damaged plane.

  “Rota tower, this is Falcon leader. Confirm clearance and emergency landing prep on runway two-niner, over?” Jones’s voice was steady as he flew past the slender tower with the glass-enclosed cupola.

  The clearance was confirmed speedily, and the foam trucks quickly sprayed out a thick blanket of glistening white across the surface of the designated runway. The bubbly carpet was designed to prevent sparks in the event the aircraft had to make a wheels-up landing.

  Inside Hunter’s cockpit the temperature was hovering near the 100-degree mark. He had switched off the airplane’s cockpit air conditioner, along with almost every other auxiliary system, in order to save fuel, and he was paying the price as his flight suit was now soaked through with sweat.

  He circled the base two more times, using up the last of his fuel reserves. All the while Jones stayed right behind him, ready to tell him any change in his airplane’s condition.

  When Hunter saw that his fuel was down to the bare minimum, he knew the moment of truth had finally arrived.

  Now it was time to see if the landing gear would work …

  He pressed the undercarriage console button and crossed his fingers. A yellow light began to blink, telling him the gear could not be lowered. He quickly punched in a computer override command, but still the cursed yellow light continued to blink. One last try was the flip of the manual override switch above the blinking indicator light on his panel. He tried it a dozen times, but still the yellow light stayed on. That settled it: the landing gear was definitely no go.

  Jones and the tower confirmed the gear’s failure to lower, but Hunter had already resigned himself to landing the plane without the benefit of wheels. This was something they’d never practiced at Nellis. As he brought the fighter around for the final approach, Hunter heard Jones’s reassuring voice talking him through each step of the forced landing.

  He found himself mechanically performing the normal landing drill, trying not to concentrate on the thought that there would be nothing normal about this landing. Without the
stabilizer flaps to guide the F-16’s tail section, it would be harder than ever to bring the plane in gently enough to avoid disaster.

  And, he had only enough fuel for one attempt.

  “Okay, Hawk, ease back on the throttle a bit more,” Jones called to him. “That’s it … Okay, give it a little more wing flap … No, not that much … just a goose. That’s the ticket. Okay, a little less throttle … Watch the airspeed now … Bring her down a little bit more … Watch your drift. Steady … That’s it …”

  Jones was flying right beside Hunter now, over the runway, his own landing gear extended to slow his airspeed to match the crippled bird’s. Hunter was gradually decelerating the damaged airplane, reducing altitude by a few feet at a time, struggling with the now-balky control surfaces. Still Jones was beside him, coaching and watching.

  “Okay, Hawk, you’re almost there … A few more feet … Just try to stay on the foam …” At this point, Jones was forced to push his throttle forward and gain altitude as his plane threatened to stall out at the low altitude.

  Hunter was only ten feet above the runway now, perfectly level. A hundred feet forward was the foam path the crews had sprayed for him.

  “Miss that foam,” Hunter thought to himself, “and it’ll be a short funeral.”

  He breathed in sharply and let the plane drop a few more feet. Directly over the foam now, he edged the plane down until the ventral flaps were slicing through the whitecaps on the foam’s surface. A little lower, and they made contact with the runway itself, sending a grating vibration through the airframe as Hunter used the thin metal plates like curb feelers to guide the plane down. Now the big air intake below the fuselage was beneath the surface of the foam, sucking in the white froth to the engine’s flaming core and spewing the smoky vapor out the exhaust nozzle.

  Then came the scraping sound of metal on concrete as the intake’s underside made contact with the runway.

  The plane sluiced through the foam on its belly, wings rippling from one side to the other as Hunter struggled to keep its nose pointed straight forward. With no brakes to control his landing, he had to rely on full wing flaps, applied gradually as the plane lost speed.

  But it wasn’t enough … The end of the foam was approaching too quickly.

  He burst past the C02 blanket, sending a shower of sparks and metal fragments behind him as the scarred plane screeched down the bare asphalt runway. Suddenly he was spinning and his eyes were filled with lights. There were sprays of sparks—some bouncing off the canopy, others seemingly ricocheting inside the cockpit itself. Around and around he went, the sparks being as bright as flames from a welder’s torch. He was sucking on the oxygen mask like never before, as if the air would save him from the conflagration of sparks.

  At some point, he was thrown forward so violently that the crash helmet was yanked right off his head. Then he was thrown up and backward, a motion which caused him to crack his head against the top of the hard canopy glass.

  He lost consciousness at this point. It seemed as if he was out for an hour, but looking back on it, it was probably only a few seconds.

  Yet in that time, a very strange thing happened.

  He found himself in a state which he could only describe as a “wide-awake dream.” He was back in the States, standing on a huge pier. There were a few big gray Navy ships around, indicating the place was a military port. He felt older, bigger, more bulked up and his hair was nearly to his shoulders. He was wearing a black flight suit and carrying a battered flight helmet and talking to people he didn’t recognize about an upcoming flight.

  Yet, at some later point, he began to climb down into a submarine.

  Then a rather pleasant darkness began to settle in on him.

  Blue was first to reach the burning airplane.

  Breathing heavily in the cumbersome fire gear, he leaped onto the wing of the smoking fighter and heedless of the danger, fumbled inside the heavy gloves for the canopy release handle located on the fuselage on either side of the cockpit.

  Popping the emergency cover off, he yanked the handle out several feet to blast the clear canopy away from the tiny cockpit.

  It launched off the plane, landing with a clatter several feet away. Reaching into the narrow compartment, he tugged at Hunter’s restraining straps, trying to release the dazed pilot even as the clouds of black acrid smoke closed in.

  The fire crews had already rushed up to the burning airplane and were drenching it with chemical foam and C02 extinguishers in an effort to quell the fire. But they knew they were fighting a losing battle.

  Hunter was vaguely aware of the activity churning around the outside of his cockpit. His head felt light, and his feet seemed frozen to the rudder pedals. Everything had happened so fast, but now it seemed to be thrown into slow motion. The sparks were still in his eyes and he felt even hotter than before.

  It took him more than a split second to realize that he was surrounded by fire.

  Suddenly two massive hands reached down and literally yanked him out of the cockpit. Next thing he knew he was flat-out on the wing, his flight suit actually smoldering. Then he was yanked again, off the wing, to the ground and dragged for what seemed like a mile or two.

  Finally all the nonsense stopped and he was stationary again. Flat out on his back, facing the clear but cold Spanish sky.

  He tried to look at the crowd of faces around him, but the bright sun was in his eyes. Finally, he recognized Ben and Toomey, in the gaggle of people kneeling over him.

  “How’s the plane?” he asked thickly, his throat dry.

  Despite the tension, those around him couldn’t suppress a relieved laugh at Hunter’s question.

  Toomey and Ben gently raised him up by his shoulders and pointed him toward the runway.

  His eyes cleared enough to see a huge pile of blackened metal surrounded by a raging fire so intense even the fire crews had backed off.

  His head still spinning, he nevertheless began to realize that he had just come very close to being killed.

  “Who … who pulled me out?” he asked shakily.

  The crowd of people parted slightly to let a tall young man walk through and kneel beside him. It was Blue.

  Hunter opened his mouth but could not speak. Blue relieved him of the difficult moment by saying: “Just buy me a drink sometime, Captain.”

  “You’re on!” Hunter said, weakly shaking the man’s hand. “Your drinks are on me for the rest of your life!”

  Then he looked over at the charred mess that was once an F-16.

  “Can you fix it?” he asked, still woozy.

  Once again the crowd around him let out a laugh.

  “Fix it?” Blue asked. “Damn, Captain, I can heal the sick, but I can’t raise the dead. That there airplane is permanently Humpty-Dumpty city, my friend.”

  At that point, the medical people arrived. A doctor gave Hunter the quick once-over and determined that he had suffered no serious trauma, save for the nasty crack on his head.

  Nevertheless, the medic gave him a sedative injection before he was loaded onto a stretcher and into an ambulance.

  Within seconds, Hunter was asleep and dreaming once again about submarines.

  Chapter 23

  THE FLIGHTLINE WAS DESERTED.

  Hunter paced along its length, following his dim shadow being cast by the nearly full Spanish moon. It was close to midnight and an absolutely eerie calm had enveloped the air base.

  The place was so quiet in fact, that if it weren’t for the memories of the past two days, it would have been hard to guess that there was a war on.

  The sedative knocked him out for just four hours and once he woke, he had found it impossible to get back to sleep. He spent two hours of tossing before finally getting out of his cot. His back and neck were just a little stiff from the crash, but his nerves were working overtime and he knew he had to expend some of the energy. And the fresh air would be a welcome relief to the mechanically pumped oxygen it seemed he’d been breath
ing since arriving in Europe.

  He finally reached the spot where his F-16 had come to a flaming, screeching halt earlier that day. What debris was left of the fighter had already been hauled away—all that remained now was a blackened streak where he’d run past the anti-flame foam.

  In all his years of flying—both civilian and military airplanes—it was the closest he had come to buying the farm. Looking at the black, burnt scar on the runway, he felt a change come over him. Not a revelation or a religious experience. Just a very subtle shift in his psyche.

  He knew if he were a cat, he would only have six lives left. Pulling out of a crash like his in one piece wasn’t something he could expect to happen too often. In fact, he knew he might never be so lucky again. That is, unless he worked on it. So right then and there he decided he would do just that: use his special gift—his extraordinary sixth sense—to its fullest extent. Use it to stay alive. Never doubt it. Always trust it.

  And remember to buy Blue all the drinks he wanted for the rest of his life.

  He was on the verge of heading back to his quarters when he noticed a light burning in the base’s combat information center. After talking to the security guard, he walked into the CIC and found Jones there, analyzing reports from the previous day.

  The general rubbed his tired eyes and ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair as if to massage his weary brain.

  But he wasn’t surprised to see Hunter.

  “Couldn’t sleep, Captain?” he asked, knowing he too would have a hard time sleeping had he come as close to getting killed as Hunter had done.

  The young pilot just shrugged. “I’m a little restless, sir,” he said finally.

  “Well, the doc told me that except for a few bumps and bruises, you’re certified to fly,” the general said. “You dodged a pretty big bullet out there today.”

  Jones moved aside a pile of computer data and reached across the desk to retrieve two fairly clean coffee cups. Then he pulled out a fifth of premium Scotch from a file cabinet drawer nearby.