Dark Wing

by Richard Herman

  “I want to know where they’re going,” she snapped, pointing at the twelve tracks. She called the orbiting J-STARS on the secure radio to learn if they detected any unusual activity on the ground. J-STARS claimed that all was quiet on their monitors but they could not establish contact with their ground module at Nanning.

  LaGrange’s voice was hard. “The shit is hitting the fan and we haven’t got a fuckin’ clue what’s going on.”

  Friday, August 16

  Guilin, China

  Shoshana was sitting on the edge of his bed, smiling at him. Her hand reached out and her fingers extended to touch his lips. A warm feeling surged through Pontowski. Shoshana twisted around at the sound of three sharp raps at the door and pulled her hand back. Then she was gone.

  Three more quick knocks at the door dragged Pontowski out of his dream. “Boss,” Waters said from the other side, “wake up. We’ve got problems.”

  He jerked his body into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. The dream had been unbelievably real. “Coming,” he said as he pulled on his flight suit. He opened the door.

  “We got a phone call from combined headquarters,” she told him. “They said they were under heavy attack. Then the phone went dead. We’ve lost all contact with Nanning.”

  “Are you in contact with the First Regiment?” he asked.

  “Affirmative,” she answered. “Wuzhou is quiet.”

  “Damn,” he muttered. “It doesn’t make sense.” He looked at his watch. Four-thirty in the morning. “Where’s Leonard?”

  “On his way to the base.”

  Pontowski pulled on his boots, thinking. How could he make a decision based on this? Frank Hester’s words came back. “Do something—even if it’s wrong.”

  He made his decision. “I’m declaring Condition Red,” he told her. Condition Red meant an attack was expected within one hour. “You initiate a recall here. I’m headed for the base.”

  “Sir,” Waters said, “you need an armed escort. Don’t go alone.”

  He agreed and ran down the hall. His escort turned out to be the first of the pilots and maintenance troops to answer the recall. They all piled into a truck and raced out of the roundabout in front of the hotel. Eleven minutes later, they reached the airfield. Leonard was already inside and had ordered the base security detachment to full alert.

  “We’ve lost all communications with Nanning,” Leonard told Pontowski. “We’re in contact with the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon. They know less than we do. Damn! I wish we could talk to the AWACS directly.” Von Drexler had insisted all communications from the AWACS come through the J-STARS system to his staff at Nanning for dissemination. It was one way he controlled the flow of information.

  “Call their base on the sat corn telephone,” Pontowski ordered. “I think they’re at Shek Kong in Hong Kong. They’ve got to be in contact with the AWACS.”

  Leonard picked up the phone and jabbed at the buttons, calling Hong Kong information for the phone number to the old British base. “I hope this works,” he said.

  “Hester was right,” Pontowski mumbled. “Okay, here we go. Generate all aircraft with standard conventional loads to cockpit alert. I want two FACs airborne and over Nanning at first light and a flight of four Hogs ten minutes behind them. Get all personnel on base and hunker down for an attack.”

  Thirty minutes later Leonard was off the phone with their first hard information. But the AWACS duty officer had insisted on encoding the information, figuring if the phone call was a clever ruse, the caller would not be able to decode the message. It took Leonard another five minutes to decode it.

  “The AWACS,” Leonard said, “reports twelve hostile tracks launched from airfields near Canton. Two have landed at Nanning and the others are headed that way. All appear to be transports. The J-STARS reports no unusual activity.”

  “The war just got hot,” Pontowski said. “And we’re swinging at shadows.”

  The combat reports radioed in by the FACs gave Pontowski the key to what was happening. A large force of lightly armed soldiers had launched a surprise attack and overrun the airport at Nanning. Once the runway was secure, cargo aircraft started to land, bringing in reinforcements and heavy weapons. Judging from the numerous fires in Nanning and the loss of communications, the combined headquarters building and the large army base on the outskirts of town had also been hit.

  I underestimated the opposition, Pontowski told himself. We call them Squints, Fuckheads, and Gomers and they kick the hell out of us. Every preconception he had about the enemy died in the early morning hours as he ordered launch after launch. There was no doubt he was up against a formidable enemy.

  Pontowski turned his fierce intellect away from their failure and worked the problem in front of him. He needed to talk to one of his FACs. When Snake Bartlett radioed in that he was ten minutes out and was landing for a gas and go, Pontowski headed for the fuel pits and was waiting when the Warthog taxied in.

  Snake summarized the situation for him in a few short phrases. “It’s all fucked up,” he said. “We’re not talking to anyone on the ground and can’t tell the good guys from the bad. I find targets by trolling low and slow and call in a strike on anybody who shoots at me. Hell of a way to do business.”

  “What’s happening at the airport?” Pontowski asked.

  “Can’t get close to it. Too fuckin’ many SA-7s.” The SA-7 was a shoulder-held surface-to-air missile with a very limited range. “A strange thing,” Snake added, “there’s no Triple A.”

  A pattern was finally emerging. “All they’ve got is what they carried in on their backs,” Pontowski said, more to himself than to Snake.

  “And what’s coming in on those transports,” Snake added.

  “Damn,” Pontowski muttered. “Surprise was their best weapon.” A nasty grin split his face. “Now we’re going to surprise them. Snake, we’re going after those transports.” He beckoned for a maintenance line chief and told him to download the bombs off eight Warthogs and upload two external fuel tanks and four AIM-9 air-to-air Sidewinder missiles.

  He raced back to the squadron to brief the pilots. When he finished telling them they were to fly a CAP in the vicinity of the airport and engage any PLA aircraft, especially transports, shouts drowned out all coherent conversation. The pilots from Missouri were still fighter jocks who firmly believed that a “kill is a kill.” Two squared off in a violent argument about who was to fly the first go and Leonard had to separate them.

  “You’ll all get your chance,” Leonard promised. “And you can damn well bet some of you are going to be seeing MiG-19s. Chew on that, assholes!” He was thinking of Frank Hester.

  “Ripper,” Pontowski shouted over the noise, “Get me in contact with the First Regiment.”

  Waters hurried from the room, eager to do her part. She used the STU-III secure phone and the satellite communications phone system the Junkyard Dogs had scrounged up for the wing to make the connection. Four minutes later, Pontowski was recapping the situation to Kamigami.

  “I’ll get two battalions moving toward Nanning,” Kamigami promised. “That’s all I can spare. I doubt the PLA was able to sneak too much past us.” A long pause. “I’ll be leading them.”

  “Any idea how long before you get there?” Pontowski asked.

  “It’s over three hundred miles by road,” Kamigami answered. “Three days, max.” He hoped it wasn’t an idle boast.

  “Take your ASOC and ALOs,” Pontowski told him. They would need an air support operations center and the air liaison officers for coordination between the FACs and the troops on the ground. “We’ve hardly trained together and friendly fire can be a problem,” Pontowski explained. “We need some visual recognition signals so we won’t hit you.” Kamigami agreed and turned his end over to Trimler while Pontowski called for a FAC to work out the details.

  Pontowski waited until they were finished before he told Waters to connect him with the National Military Command Cent
er in the Pentagon. He dreaded that conversation. He spent the next two hours explaining the situation to a series of colonels and generals. Finally, he faked lost communications so he could get back to work. He passed Waters in the hall and called, “Are we having fun yet?” I can’t believe I said that, he thought.

  The big room the wing used for an operations center and command post was packed with pilots when he entered. Leonard was hunched over a radio by the mission status boards talking to a recovering Warthog. Maggot’s distinctive voice came over the squawk box. “Splash one Crate.” Crate was the NATO code name for the Ilyushin 14, an old, Soviet-built two-engine transport that resembled the slightly smaller C-47 Gooney Bird. Disparaging comments about Maggot gunning his own mother out of the sky to get a kill filled the room. Then, “Oh, I almost forgot,” Maggot transmitted. “And splash one J-5.” The room was absolutely silent. The J-5 was a Chinese copy of the MiG-17 Fresco, a formidable adversary for a Warthog. Pandemonium broke out as the pilots rushed Leonard to get a jet.

  Pontowski shared the feeling with his pilots. Maggot had done what every one of them wanted to do—to down an enemy fighter in combat. It was the ultimate macho mountain to climb and Pontowski had been there before. But he had to get the message to his pilots—the Chinese air force had finally shown up and it was going to get very dangerous out there. Can we do this? he asked himself. Then he corrected himself. Can I do this?

  Saturday, August 17

  Guilin, China

  The roar of two Warthogs taking off on the first mission woke Pontowski. He glanced at his watch. He had been asleep four hours on the couch in his office. He shook his head, trying to clear the fuzz, and headed for the latrine. He stuck his head under a tap and turned the water on full cold. The previous day had worn him out and he hadn’t flown a single mission. It wasn’t physical exhaustion, but mental, and he was certain this day would be a repeat.

  He came out of the latrine and the aroma of coffee and bacon and eggs drew him back to his office. Waters had a hot breakfast waiting for him. “Eat,” she said. Pontowski wolfed down the meal, surprised by his hunger. “I’ve got a fresh flight suit, your shaving kit, and a clean towel,” she told him. “The Dogs rigged a shower out back. Use it.” He nodded. “One of my jobs is to keep you healthy and going,” she told him.

  “What happened last night?” he asked. When he had stretched out for a catnap it was past midnight and the wing was in the midst of a regeneration, fueling and loading healthy jets and fixing the ones that were broken. Three of the Warthogs had taken battle damage, one seriously.

  “Maintenance got thirty-two turned. Jake Trisher’s bird won’t fly again.”

  Pontowski wasn’t surprised. “Jake was lucky to recover,” he said. “He took some heavy hits.” Two numbers, 49 and 32, flashed in his mind. He had 49 pilots and 32 aircraft available for combat. “Estimated time in commission for the other two Hogs?”

  “Later today,” Waters told him.

  The number 32 in his mind flashed to a 34. His wing was still healthy. He headed for the operations center. Leonard was collapsed behind the scheduling desk, exhausted. He had been up all night driving the regeneration and was in no shape to fly.

  Leonard dragged himself to his feet. “It went pretty good last night,” he said. “We kept two birds in a CAP near Nanning and as far as we can tell, no aircraft landed. So we still got ‘em isolated.” A tired grin crossed his face. “Maggot’s videotape when he stuffed the Fresco is in the VCR.” He turned the TV on.

  A picture of the horizon as seen through the HUD flashed on the screen and he could hear Maggot make a radio call. “Maggot’s got a bandit at eight o’clock. Engaged.” The horizon tilted crazily into the vertical as Maggot honked his Warthog around, into the threat. His breathing was heavy and rapid. Two aircraft appeared in the HUD, one a transport, the other much smaller, and both were coming head-on. At the same time, a loud growling noise drowned out Maggot’s breathing. The sound was generated by one of his AIM-9 missiles, telling Maggot the infrared seeker head was tracking a target.

  The picture jerked as Maggot lined up on the fighter. “Fox Two,” Maggot called over the radio. The distinctive smoke trail of the missile appeared as it flew at the fighter. The Fresco pitched over and disappeared off the lower part of TV screen as Maggot pulled up to reposition. There was no bright explosion. The tape had played for exactly twenty-eight seconds when Leonard hit the stop button.

  “Maggot’s missile was the golden BB,” Leonard said. “He was inside minimum range when he fired and the missile never armed. There was no detonation. It flew up the intake. He is one lucky son of a bitch, spearing the bastard like that.” Pontowski agreed with him. They played the rest of the tape.

  The video documented how Maggot had repositioned on the slow-moving transport. Again, Maggot’s voice could be heard as he identified the aircraft as a Crate and closed for a cannon shot. The transport came inside the two lines on the HUD that resembled a funnel—the low-aspect gunsight funnel. “That’s all she wrote, motherfucker,” Maggot growled. The Crate came apart as he walked a short burst of 30-millimeter rounds across the fuselage.

  In the hands of Maggot Stuart, the ugly, ungainly, and slow A-10 became a deadly aerial killer.

  “Get some rest,” Pontowski told Leonard. “I’ll need you tonight.”

  Waters moved through the operations center with her journal, making notes. She noted the time-1200 hours local—and the number of sorties flown that day—fifty-two. She had decided to keep a war diary and document the squadron’s combat record. This is turning into a bean count, she decided. She walked out onto the flight line and listened to Skid Malone, one of the FACs, debrief intelligence as his Warthog was refueled and rearmed for the next mission.

  Malone told of confusion on the ground and a lack of targets but claimed the defenses around the airfield were weakening. He confirmed the CAPs had stopped all airborne resupply of the attackers. She followed the intelligence debriefer from revetment to revetment as he talked to more pilots. All told the same story. She walked into the maintenance hangars and noted the number of aircraft the wrench benders were repairing.

  Then she found Charlie Marchioni and rode with him in his pickup truck. He was waiting for every A-10 when it landed to quiz the pilot on the status of LASTE. Occasionally, he would rip open a panel, jerk out a black box, and slap a new one in. “Humidity,” he kept mumbling to himself. Then he would race for the shop, where two technicians would work on the box. “Drying out and realignment works most of the time,” he told her.

  All the grumbling and complaining she had heard the last few weeks had died away and everywhere she went, men and women were hustling and yelling at each other. But it was all for a purpose. Then she saw it. Many of them were wearing their old 303rd caps. True, they all had AVG patches sewn on their uniforms, but she was seeing the old 303rd from Whiteman Air Force Base. They hadn’t forgotten who they were and where they came from.

  Marchioni dropped her off at the squadron and she went inside with a different perspective. It’s Pontowski, she concluded. He’s the glue. He keeps us on track. Now she studied her commander and made more notes.

  She was with Pontowski when Skid Malone was returning from his last mission and radioed in his combat report while still airborne. His voice was strained. “Groundhog,” he transmitted, “Skid. Battle damage.” The room went silent. “Right engine out, no hydraulics and in manual reversion.” A long pause. “We were jumped by Farmers in the target area. Buns took a missile and ejected. I saw a chute and heard his beacon. I saw another Hog fireball. I think it was Willie. Aircraft now landing at Nanning.”

  Pontowski’s face went granite hard. Rod “Buns” Cox was the youngest pilot in the AVG, and “Willie” Sutton was among the most experienced. He had lost two more pilots and the 49 he carried in his head flashed to 47. “Tell the pilots to monitor Guard,” he ordered. “Buns may come up talking on his PRC-90.”

  He concentrated on his mo
re immediate problem. Skid’s Warthog had taken major damage and was flying without hydraulic controls. He had little rudder authority. He was in a backup mode designed to get the pilot to a safe area where he could eject. Pontowski keyed his radio. “Skid, Bossman. I got lots of Hogs, only one you. Recommend you overfly the base and eject.” He didn’t want to make the number a 46.

  “I’ll do this one gear up,” Skid replied.

  Waters saw the anguish on Pontowski’s face as he answered. “Roger that.” His voice didn’t betray what was written on his face. He turned to Waters. “Let’s go see him do it.” She followed him out to his waiting pickup.

  They parked on the taxiway well back from the runway and watched Skid come down final. The lower half of the tires of the main gear on the Warthog do not fully retract into the wheel well pods under the wings and hang out in the breeze. They watched as Skid settled the Warthog onto the runway and puffs of smoke belched from the main gear. He held the nose up as the A-10 slowed. Finally, the nose came down in a shower of sparks, smoke, and dust. At the last moment, Skid gunned his one good engine and skidded the big jet off the runway onto the grass, clearing the runway.

  “A thing of beauty,” Pontowski muttered under his breath.

  Waters sensed the tension drain away and studied his face. Then she saw his eyes. For a moment it was all there—his doubts, his anguish, and his humanity. Did Muddy suffer like this? she thought. Why do they do this to themselves?

  Sunday, August 18

  Guilin, China

  The ramp was alive with activity as the early morning sun cut the mist that drifted across the runway. The first Warthog taxied out of its revetment and headed for the runway. Soon, it was joined by three others, all loaded with external fuel tanks, four air-to-air missiles, and CBU-58s—cluster bomb units.

  Pontowski’s face was haggard and drawn as he stood at the end of the runway and watched the four jets go through a last quick check and arming. Crew chiefs darted under the A-10s and ran out in front, holding up bundles of safety pins with red streamers for the pilots to see. The four birds taxied onto the Active and took off single-ship at twenty-second intervals. They lifted through the haze and headed south. How many today? he thought.