Dark Wing

by Richard Herman

  Leonard didn’t have to look at his weapons status panel to check his armament. He only had his cannon and one AIM-9 Sidewinder left. “I’ll call for a second strike,” he radioed.

  “It had better be damned quick,” Kamigami answered.

  “Roger that,” Leonard said. He dialed in the frequency for Gopher Hole and talked to Maggot, explaining the situation.

  “We can have two on station in fifteen minutes,” Maggot told him.

  Did Kamigami have fifteen minutes? Leonard wondered. Probably not. But he still had a gun that could kill those tanks on the bridge. This time, he dropped down into the gorge, twisting and turning as he followed the river to the bridge. “Make ‘em shoot down,” he growled. He wasn’t even aware he was talking to himself. Ahead of him the gorge narrowed and he rolled into a ninety-degree bank to knife-edge through. He rolled out in time to look up and see the underside of the bridge.

  Then it came to him. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I can do this.” Rather than climb to strafe the tanks on top, he stayed low. He squeezed off a long burst of mixed high-explosive incendiary and armor-piercing incendiary into the underside of the bridge. He tapped the rudder pedals and for a brief second, moved the pipper over the concrete footing that had been weakened by his earlier bomb. Then he had to straighten out or hit the wall of the gorge. But it was long enough to send fifty rounds into the footing, cutting and ripping into the steel girders that supported the bridge.

  Leonard flew under the bridge as it started to collapse. The Warthog shuddered as a long burst of twenty-three-millimeter antiaircraft rounds tore into its left side. The leading edge of the left wing shredded, peeling back like a banana skin, exposing hydraulic lines. At least twelve rounds bounced off the titanium tub that surrounded the cockpit. But the titanium held and saved Leonard’s life. The gunner still had the hapless Warthog in his sights and sent a second burst into the jet. Over fifty rounds punctured the fuel tanks but the reticulated, fire-suppressant foam lining the tanks kept them from exploding. Six rounds hit the left engine and it chewed itself apart. The left rudder simply disappeared. And the Warthog was still flying.

  * * *

  Maggot looked at Pontowski in disbelief. “Tango says he’s got hydraulics, one good engine, and the gear’s down. He’s gonna land it.”

  Pontowski pushed back from his console in the Gopher Hole and stood up. “We can bulldoze it off the runway if he crumps,” he said. “Tell him to come on in.” He looked at Sara Waters and gave her a gentle nudge. “I’m going outside. Want to come along?” She nodded and followed him.

  They sat in his pickup and listened to the radio as Leonard brought the stricken Warthog down final. “He makes it look routine,” Pontowski said, trying to break the tension that held the woman. They were silent as Leonard touched down. She gasped when the left main gear collapsed and the jet skidded to the left, leaving the runway. It kicked up a shower of dirt and mud as it spun around two times. The right wing lifted dangerously high into the air as the A-10 tried to flip onto its back. The wing came down and Waters breathed again.

  Pontowski gunned the engine and raced for the jet, which was lying in the mud. Suddenly, the canopy blew back and up. Tango was a blur of motion as he climbed out of the cockpit, slid down the fuselage, and ran for safety. Pontowski slammed the truck to a stop just as he reached the runway. “What happened?” he yelled. “Canopy jammed?”

  “Naw,” Tango answered. “I’ve always wanted to do that.” Waters was out of the pickup and in his arms, crying.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “I thought I’d lost you.” He held her tight, not saying a word. Then, “Why did you

  come back?”

  “When I got to Cam Ranh Bay, I knew I couldn’t leave you.” She pulled back. “John Leonard, I love you.”

  There was much he wanted to say, but it would have to keep until later. “Check out the Bossman,” he said.

  Pontowski was standing beside the truck, facing to the east, his gaze fixed on the horizon. His profile was lean and drawn and his hawklike nose, the trademark of the Pontowskis, forged the profile of a raptor, a bird of prey. He was going to fly one more mission.

  CHAPTER 24

  Saturday, October 19

  The White House, Washington, D.C.

  I’m getting too old for this, Bill Carroll decided. His leg hurt and he could feel the twinges of a toothache at work in the back of his jaw. He ignored it and picked up a report from the CIA. It was a psychologist’s analysis of the Von Drexler videotape. He flipped through the thin document, surprised the doctor had used layman’s terms. Certain passages caught his attention:

  “All acts were consensual. The male subject, identified as a Mark Von Drexler, and the two unidentified women were willing participants …

  “At no time was duress of any type observed…

  “The scene in which the male subject inserted his fists in the vaginas of the two women is referred to as ‘fisting’ and occurred when he was dominating the two female subjects …

  “The episode in which the older of the two women inserted her fist in the male subject’s anus while the younger female pierced the male’s tongue and inserted a golden pin occurred when he was being dominated and not in control …

  “The last scene was most unusual because of the use of the Ping-Pong ball. The male subject clenched the ball in his left hand while the women spread his legs and tacked his scrotum to the floor with at least eight tacks. The scrotum was spread to its maximum extent and bled profusely. The scene ends with the women taking turns licking his blood. It is assumed the male subject drops the Ping-Pong ball as a signal to stop should the pain become intolerable …”

  The intercom on his desk buzzed.

  “Mrs. Nevers is on your private line,” his secretary said.

  Well, well, he thought, here it is almost five o’clock Saturday afternoon and Piccard’s ploy to distract Nevers is working. Then he reminded himself that the woman on the other end of the line had the power of the U.S. Congress behind her. But she was the one who had made a martyr out of a very disturbed, very sick, ego-driven man and tried to use his suicide as a club to gain her reelection. She didn’t care what damage she caused as long as she continued in office. “I’ll take the call,” he said, picking up the phone.

  “Who do you think you are?” Nevers snapped when she came on the line. She paused, expecting an answer.

  “How can I help you?” Carroll answered.

  “For your information,” she continued, apparently satisfied with that answer, “I was elected by the people of the State of California to govern this country. You,” she accused, “could not be elected dogcatcher.” She paused, her case made.

  “I’m confused. Are you urging me to run for dogcatcher?”

  “Don’t play silly-ass word games with me. You know what I mean.”

  “Please, Mrs. Nevers, what is the purpose of this call?”

  “You know damn well what it’s all about. It’s about that goddamn fucking tape. The media has heard about it and is pressing me for a comment. If they see it …”

  Carroll listened as Nevers ran through her working vocabulary of profanity. Grudgingly, he gave her an A plus for some of her more creative combinations. He let her blow. But instead of subsiding, her invective crescendoed to a startling climax that would have impressed the most grizzled gunny sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. Her conclusion was a snarling, but much more decorous, “Call off your dogs or I’ll cut your fucking pecker off!”

  He knew he should stall and try to calm the woman. “Didn’t you say I couldn’t even be elected dogcatcher?”

  She banged her phone on the table, almost breaking his eardrum. “You’re not listening, you cock-bite!” she screamed.

  “Is that a sexist remark?” he calmly interrupted. More profanity from Nevers split the air. He waited for her to take a breath. “Have you seen the tape?” he asked.

  Her answer was a high-pitched shriek. “Everyone’s seen it!
”

  Carroll couldn’t help himself. “He never dropped the ball, did he?” She slammed the phone down, hanging up. Does Piccard need a copy of this conversation? he wondered. Then he decided against it. He looked at the clock on his desk. It was 5:01 P.M. He made a quick time zone conversion. It’s dawn in China, he thought. The beginning of a new day there. But not here.

  Sunday, October 20

  The Dragon’s Teeth, near Guilin, China

  An early morning mist hung over the fields and hid the verdant green of the rice paddies under a gossamer veil. A faint rumble in the west shattered the ghostly silence and grew into a gust of thunder as eight low-flying Warthogs passed over. Behind them, their jet wash cut long streaks of clear air in the mist and marked their path. Most of the visual checkpoints that Pontowski had come to rely on were obscured, but the few landmarks that he could see were enough. The land below him was an old friend.

  Automatically, Pontowski’s eyes scanned his instruments looking for the unusual, the telltale signs of trouble. Nothing to worry about. He scanned the horizon, looking for bandits. He knew they were out there. Pontowski twisted to his left and checked his formation. Again, all was well—his four jets were in a perfect box formation. Off to his right he could make out Maggot’s flight of four flying above the early morning mist.

  “Dragon’s Teeth on the nose,” Maggot called.

  Maggot’s got good eyeballs, Pontowski thought. Now he could just make out the beginnings of the karst buttes. It still amazed him how much the Dragon’s Teeth did look like a string of huge fangs emerging from the earth. Ahead of him, he could see where the Luoqing River gushed out of the Gullet, the river gorge formed by the mountains to the west and the Dragon’s Teeth to the east. As planned, Pontowski led his formation up the Luoqing River as Maggot’s four jets fell into trail. “Entering the Gullet now,” Pontowski transmitted as they entered the river valley. For six minutes, the Warthogs would twist and turn as they used the Dragon’s Teeth for terrain masking.

  The Luoqing flowed rapidly through the valley and the air was smooth and clear. This has got to be one of the most beautiful pieces of real estate on God’s green earth, Pontowski thought. I wish Shoshana could’ve seen this. The old hurt flared. Stifle that, he warned himself, attend to business, don’t get distracted.

  A crisp radio call from Moose Penko demanded his full attention. “Bossman, Phoenix. Bandits zero-nine-zero at eighty, eighteen thousand.” Established in orbit at thirty-two thousand feet, the AWACS could easily paint the bandits at eighteen thousand feet. Pontowski mentally ran the geometry—to the east of his position at eighty miles placed the bandits between him and Kang’s headquarters. With Phoenix giving them vectors, they should be able to avoid them. That’s a good thing, Pontowski decided, since the bandits had the sun advantage.

  “Say number,” Pontowski transmitted.

  “Two-zero,” Moose replied.

  Twenty of them this fine morning, Pontowski thought.

  “Correction,” Moose transmitted. “Make that two-two. Two other bandits are in a race track pattern above the main formation at forty thousand feet.”

  Pontowski checked his RHAW gear for signs of hostile radar activity. Nothing. What the hell are those two doing up there? he thought. Are they the Chinese version of “eye-in-the-sky”? They’re way too high to see anything. No threat, he decided.

  Sunday, October 20

  The Sino-Vietnamese border, China

  “Colonel Sung,” the communications operator shouted, “aircraft reported. Observation post sixteen reports an aircraft heading north.” The operator paused, copying information down on his chalkboard while the plotter marked the reported location of the aircraft on the tracking chart tacked to the wall. The plotter then circled observation post sixteen, which was hidden on the Vietnamese side of the border.

  “Is it the AWACS?” Sung asked. He immediately berated himself for interfering. His men were well-trained to identify aircraft and they knew why they were there.

  “Yes, sir,” the operator answered. “Altitude approximately ten thousand meters, heading due north.”

  Sung felt his body tense. The AWACS! And it was coming directly at them! He couldn’t believe his good luck. He forced himself to remain quiet as his men plotted the course of the E-3 Sentry.

  “I want you to destroy that aircraft,” he told the on-duty captain. Then he added an ominous, “If you can.”

  Observation post twelve reported the aircraft. It was now in range but reversing course, quickly moving back out of range. “I’m sorry, Colonel Sung,” the captain said. The relief in his voice was evident. He would not have to commit their last missile and suffer Sung’s wrath if it missed.

  More reports filtered in. “Sir,” the captain’s voice was almost a whisper, “the AWACS returns.”

  “What do you make of this?” Sung asked.

  “I believe the AWACS is in a new orbit very close to the border,” the captain answered. He was a very unhappy man. Why did this have to happen when he was on duty?

  For the next few minutes, the men plotted the path of the AWACS. It was definitely established in a new orbit with its northernmost turn inside twenty miles—in range at that altitude. Sergeant Lu in the cupola reported a positive visual sighting through his powerful optical tracking tube, which was now fully extended and resembled a double-ended periscope laid on its side with the cupola in the middle.

  Sung couldn’t stand it any longer. This was his chance. “Initiate prelaunch,” he ordered.

  Sunday, October 20

  The Dragon’s Teeth, near Guilin, China

  Pontowski hit the UHF transmit button on the throttle quadrant as they flew out of the Dragon’s Teeth. “Ops check.” The seven other pilots checked in with their remaining fuel. All but Maggot were within a hundred pounds of his own. The jet Maggot was flying had always been a hungry Hog. Fuel was the one constant that all fighter pilots lived with—they never had enough of it. And that includes those bandits in front of us, Pontowski reasoned. What to do about them?

  Moose Penko’s voice came over the UHF. “Bandits have been airborne thirty-three minutes.” Pontowski grunted in satisfaction. Moose might have been trained as a weapons controller, but he thought like a fighter pilot and had keyed on the fuel check, giving Pontowski one more piece of information he needed.

  “Boss,” Maggot said over the secure radio, “if I use Bravo-North for an IP, your flight can use Alpha-North. No problem on separation then.” It was a good suggestion. During the planning for the mission, Maggot had ringed the target with IPs, initial points, so they could alter their attack heading depending on circumstances. By altering course to the north and attacking from the northern initial points, they could continue their end run around the bandits. And Maggot was right about separation. His four Warthogs would take ninety seconds longer to reach their initial point, Bravo-North, before starting their attack run. They needed that time separation to stay clear of Pontowski’s jets and the frag pattern from the first bombs.

  Pontowski’s decision was not a rational, easily reconstructed textbook process, but rather an instinctual weighing of the factors that determine success or failure for a fighter pilot, and in the extreme, life and death. The main objective was to get his bombs on target and then safely escape. Pontowski factored in fuel and distance, enemy defenses, the Warthog’s capability, and finally, the men themselves. Were they as tired as he was? How could he compound the problem for the bandits? The answer was simple—avoid them and make them burn fuel. With a little luck, the bandits wouldn’t have enough fuel remaining to search for them as they came off target. Don’t count on it, he warned himself.

  He made his decision and keyed the secure radio. “Phoenix, we’re going north. Keep us clear of the bandits.”

  “A heading of zero-three-five,” Moose radioed, “will take you twenty miles north of bandits.” The noses of the eight Warthogs came around together as they headed into the mountainous terrain north of
Kang’s headquarters.

  Damn! Pontowski thought. Maggot’s IP will be a bitch for him to find. But on the other hand, no one’s gonna find us rootin’ around in the mountains. His fingers flew over the INS panel on the right console, punching in the coordinates of his flight’s IP.

  “Fence check,” he told his flight. It was a hard reminder for his pilots to double-check all their switches to be sure their bombs were armed and they were configured for combat. Like him, they had all armed their cannons and AIM-9s shortly after takeoff. And like them, Pontowski rechecked all his switches. He punched up the station select buttons for stations three and nine and the green release/ready lights blinked on. He rotated a wafer switch and fused his six Mark-82 AIRs for nose/tail, high drag. He double-checked the ripple intervolometer—already set as planned to walk the six five-hundred-pound bombs across Kang’s headquarters. He visually checked the master arm switch on the armament control panel for the third time, making sure it was in the up position. He was ready to pickle. Slow down, Pontowski told himself. Conserve fuel, use terrain masking—we’re in no hurry. Avoid the bad guys.

  Four minutes out of the IP, he split up his formation. As planned, his wingman, Buns Cox, was still off his left wing, slightly in trail. Ahead of him he could see his IP, a distinctive bend in the river.

  “Six bandits, four o’clock, high,” Maggot radioed. Pontowski twisted to his right but couldn’t see them. “Say range,” he demanded.

  “Ten plus,” came the answer.

  Pontowski still couldn’t see them. Maggot and his cosmic eyeballs, he concluded. But they were out there. The IP came under his nose. “Press,” he transmitted, “bandits no factor. IP now.” He firewalled the throttles.

  Sunday, October 20

  The Sino-Vietnamese border, China

  The captain paled when Sung ordered him to start the sequence of actions that could lead to an actual missile launch. He looked sick as he sent out the first order to prepare the Guideline missile. Men sprang into action and ripped the camouflage away from the Guideline while two technicians fueled the missile’s liquid propellant sustainer rocket as it swung up on its erector and its turntable slewed to the south.