Scorpion Strike

by Nance, John J. ;

  Wait! Westerman willed himself to stop. What if I’m wrong? They could lose the airplane while trying to go around.

  His hand gripped the portable radio with indecision as the C-141’s descent flattened slightly around one hundred feet above the threshold. Collinwood had changed back-pressure for some reason, or something had happened—the C-141 was too high for the cushion of air known as ground effect to be altering their pitch attitude.

  As soon as it had pitched up, the nose of the C-141 began pitching back down in the direction of the proper pitch angle—back down toward the previous attitude.

  Good! Good! Too late to change things now. He’ll have to ride it in. I should have figured this out before.

  But something was wrong.

  The pitch-down had not stopped. As the airplane passed over the end of the runway, the nose of the Starlifter continued a slow push-over and the rate of descent increased perceptibly as the cargo jet began to dive at the surface.

  They were fifty feet in the air and coming down dangerously fast now. Will felt the words “Pull up!” form in his mouth, but the radio cut him short as one of the pilots unconsciously triggered a microphone switch, his disgusted, amazed words running like an Arctic chill down Will’s back.

  “The stick’s dead! I’ve got it full back!”

  The words hung there as the nose of the Starlifter dove through the last fifty feet with a suicidal vengeance and impacted nose-wheel first, the fuselage bending upward instantly as the main gear slammed into the concrete and the gear struts exploded up through the top of the landing gear pods. The wingtips of the Starlifter slapped the ground before springing back up, flinging the right outboard engine completely off the wing.

  The jet was skidding down the centerline now, nearing a point abeam Will’s position on the taxiway, the severed number-four engine bouncing and bounding right off to the side and right at Will’s van, the sounds of its various impacts with the ground bone-jarring.

  Will’s hand clawed unsuccessfully for the ignition key. The disintegrating TF-33 turbojet engine, dragging what remained of its pylon, almost filled his windscreen now with malevolent energy. Time had dilated, and he could see with fatal clarity that it was going to tumble head-on into the lightweight, Japanese-made van he was occupying and obliterate it. The prospect of being crushed was not a fear, it was a fact.

  His hand flailed for the key, his eyes watching the final split seconds as the engine filled the windscreen and dug into the sand one final time before disappearing from view.

  The sound of something huge passed overhead as the mechanical apparition leapfrogged cleanly over the top of the van, leaving Will unscathed, small parts raining down on the roof as the body of the huge engine thudded harmlessly into the desert behind him.

  Thoroughly adrenalized, Will simply accepted the fact that he was alive. There was no time to analyze the point. That was that.

  His hand finally gripped the keys. He started the engine and jammed the automatic transmission in drive, accelerating to the right, following the wrenching progress of the broken C-141, which was now sliding sideways, parts separating in all directions as it went, the left wing taking the brunt of the impact as the disintegrating wingtip slid along the tarmac, the truncated fuselage now aimed forty-five degrees to the right of the runway, showers of sparks marking the friction between tortured aluminum skin and runway surface, the wings flexing and drooping. Two-forty had touched down at over 130 miles per hour, but it was now down to sixty knots or so, the wreckage beginning to grind to a halt, the orange flicker of fire suddenly mushrooming to a huge blaze as the remains of the left wing ignited.

  The sounds! He had been unaware of how much horrific noise the crash landing was causing until it stopped. Suddenly, there was quiet, flame, and a towering column of dust now mixed with smoke. The wreckage was four thousand feet distant, and Will accelerated toward it, barking orders into the ALCE hand-held radio as he saw the red beacons of the fire trucks converging on the scene as well.

  “We’re going to need ambulances. There are five crew members on the plane. Five!”

  In the macabre combination of flashing red lights and the hot orange glow of a fire somewhere close by, Jeff Rice, the copilot, realized he was alive. As with Westerman, it was a matter-of-fact realization. There was no pain, but his chest felt strange as he pulled open the seatbelt clasp and tried to find the lever to push the seat back.

  There was no lever, and only then did he realize the seat wasn’t on the tracks. It was somewhere near the middle of the center console and twisted.

  Jeff looked over at Jim Collinwood, whose eyes were open, his headset gone. He looked back at where Robbie Jamison, one of the engineers, had been sitting, and saw twisted metal, darkness, and flickering lights through a huge gash in the floor where the rear cockpit seats had been. There had been horrendous noise after the hellacious impact with the runway.

  Jim was moving his hand and trying to speak. The plane was tilted somewhat, but Jeff managed to crawl toward him, noticing for the first time that his head was canted at an odd angle and resting against the shattered glass of the pilot’s sliding window.

  A sudden burst of heat and orange light from the left propelled him to action. They’d burn alive if he didn’t get them out of there. Jim couldn’t move. Robbie, the other engineer, and their loadmaster were simply gone. It was up to him to get the aircraft commander out.

  Pushing and hauling at the seatbelt, Jeff finally felt it give, hearing a guttural cry of pain as he half-pulled, half-lifted Jim Collinwood past the shattered right side of the pilot’s seat and across the back of the navigator’s table. The angle of his head was immaterial. There was fire.

  Other hands and voices, some speaking a language he assumed was Saudi, began intruding, coming for some strange reason through the gap in the floor, trying to grab Jim away from him. He heard himself yell that he was okay—he had the aircraft commander—but the voices and hands overwhelmed him anyway, someone ordering him in English to lie down on a stretcher. He didn’t need a stretcher. He needed to help the others, and he was in the process of heading back into the aircraft when his legs became rubber and his head became an echo chamber.

  Will Westerman arrived at the wreckage at the same time as the first fire truck. As the firefighters began spraying foam on the burning wing, trying to keep the raging fire from spreading, he ran to the front of the aircraft, where a huge breach had opened the fuselage like a tin can from the bottom of the crew entrance door to the bottom of the structure. The interior of the flight deck was mostly intact—except for the rear cockpit bulkhead seats, which were just—gone. Will could see a lone figure moving inside the cockpit. It was Jeff Rice, hauling out what looked like the body of the aircraft commander. Will joined two firemen in lifting the aircraft commander clear of the shattered flight deck, which was a maze of sharp, twisted metal. Time was critical. The heat from the raging fire behind them threatened to explode any remaining fuel in the wings.

  They laid Collinwood on a stretcher just outside the fuselage, conscious but in great pain. Will felt sick inside as he knelt down momentarily to reassure him. What kept playing in his mind as two medics rushed him off to an ambulance was the distance to the nearest U.S.-staffed field hospital.

  Over three hundred miles.

  The sounds of shouting behind him heralded a new intensity to the flames, probably from number-one fuel tank.

  Will caught the sleeve of one of the Air Force paramedics as they lifted the now-unconscious form of the copilot onto another stretcher.

  “I’m telling my command post to get a rescue bird on the way in here now to air evac these people, okay? You do have a doctor here, don’t you?”

  “Yes sir—but only one.”

  “You have a hospital set up?”

  “No sir. Only a field clinic.”

  “Get him to it as quick as possible. Then have someone report back to me at the ALCE. Understood?”

  “Yes sir.” The m
an turned with his partner and disappeared back to the ambulance as Will issued a stream of orders to the hand-held radio.

  There were three more of his people unaccounted for, and he assumed the worst, a cold knot of guilt sitting in his stomach. Why hadn’t he seen the simplicity of the hydraulic problem before? Only one of the elevator hydraulic units could have been causing the problem, but if you turned it off and back on too quickly, the other unit would reposition the elevator and make you think you were still in trouble. Why hadn’t he told them to go around?

  Will clambered through the gap where the crew entrance door had been, working his way into the tilted cargo compartment, the garish light of the fire making odd shadows inside through the small windows. He was startled to see another man standing near the wadded-up metal that had been the cockpit bulkhead, apparently oblivious to the fire. He was just standing there, looking down at something as Will approached, and that was aggravating. The rescuer should be moving, looking for survivors. There was precious little time.

  A powerful flashlight beam suddenly cut through the interior gloom as someone else began climbing in behind them, and in the shaft of light he realized the man he had assumed was a rescuer was wearing a flight suit with their squadron patch sewn on one sleeve, which made no sense at first.

  Senior Master Sergeant Bill Backus looked up then and met the eyes of his commander, before glancing down again at the twisted body of Staff Sergeant Sarah Andrews, the loadmaster, who had been entwined in the wreckage of the forward bulkhead. Backus’s eyes were filled with tears. He looked at Westerman again and pointed weakly into the shattered hull. “Robbie’s back there a ways. He didn’t make it either. Sarah and he were on the flight deck on the rear seat. They must’ve … must’ve …”

  He couldn’t finish, and sat down heavily on the upturned bulk of the sidewall seats with his face in his hands. Will stood there a split second in confusion, trying to focus, the twisted wreckage, the smell of burning fuel and metal, and the flashing emergency lights all screaming for an emotional catharsis. He wanted to bury his face as well. These were his people.

  But they might have only seconds left. As if from a long distance away, he could hear the voice of the other firefighter who had climbed in the cabin after him, yelling, “GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!”

  Will hauled Backus to his feet suddenly and passed him to the firefighter, who helped him out the door with Will on his heels. The heat had risen to blast-furnace proportions, and they all ran hard toward the line of fire trucks and cars.

  Will reached the van and stood there a second, closing his eyes and rubbing his head, realizing he had no time for the luxury of grief. As a child, he had confronted the same dilemma with his father’s alcoholic rages: in order to function, he had had to suppress the fright and the pain and the grief. He had learned very well how to put his feelings on hold. And he was still in command of a mission of critical importance, now with no airplane and no crew, but still in charge. As usual, he would have to grieve later.

  The fire flared hotter yet, the entire upper wing involved, small splashes of molten metal dropping onto the tarmac, and the firefighters ordered everyone back. The bodies of the other two crew members were still inside, but the flames had now spread to the rear fuselage. There was no way anyone was going to risk going in.

  Will left Backus in the care of another officer and climbed into the ALCE van, lifting his hand-held radio to his face and taking a deep breath, struggling to produce an even voice as the sound of a muffled explosion heralded the loss of number-two fuel tank behind him.

  “This is Ramrod,” he began. “I … we’ve got a lot of work to do to save this mission. I’m on the way back.”

  2

  In flight aboard MAC 60141 abeam Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at flight level 350

  Wednesday, March 6, 1991—7:05 P.M. (1605 GMT)

  Colonel Doug Harris, commander of the 97th Military Airlift Squadron at McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma, Washington, sat in the right-hand copilot’s seat of a C-141B and shook his head in disgust, his lap covered with classified code tables. Lighthouse had ordered them out of the blue to change destinations and divert to a particular set of coordinates over the middle of the desert, which was an unusual request, to say the least. Harris had been instantly suspicious that someone down there didn’t have a clear idea of what he was doing, but now, after Lighthouse had twice failed to reply with the proper authentication code from a very simple code table, Harris was incensed. Lighthouse, after all, was the code name for alliance headquarters in Riyadh, and they’d just fought and won a war. They couldn’t be that incompetent!

  Harris keyed the interphone, speaking only to the other crew members in the airplane, all of them activated reservists and members of his squadron. “I don’t believe this!”

  He glanced at Pete Tilden, the aircraft commander in the left seat. Tilden had gotten nowhere trying to get an explanation for the diversion order. Controlling agencies tended to run all over captains. Full colonels were not treated as lightly.

  Now it was his turn.

  Doug keyed his microphone again. “Lighthouse, MAC Alpha two-five-five again. Authentication incorrect. We’re proceeding to the original destination. Your divert request is disapproved.”

  They were close enough to Riyadh to be using UHF radio, but since anyone including Saddam Hussein could listen in, it was hardly a secure channel. Asking for authentication of a message to divert a mission was not only reasonable, it was technically required.

  A disgusted voice came back from below.

  “Okay, two-five-five, let’s cut out the cute nonsense, okay? You’ve had your fun, and no, we’re not too fast with the authentication tables. But you were directed to divert to the co-ordinates I gave you—and I mean right now! It’s a matter of great urgency.”

  “Who’s talking?” Harris could feel his blood pressure rising.

  “Say again, two-five-five.”

  “I say again, exactly who is talking, and I want name and rank.”

  There was a sneer in the reply. “This is Major Walker at Lighthouse.”

  Doug glanced at his partner in the left seat and winked as he pushed the transmit button. “And this, Major Walker, is Colonel Harris, as in O-6, as in full colonel, asking who in hell you think you’re issuing orders to when you can’t even authenticate? For all I know, you’re a clever Iraqi with a stolen radio hogging the channel.”

  Silence from below, and Doug could imagine the wide-eyed scramble in the command post as one stunned major realized his gaffe, and some superior grabbed for the microphone to smooth it over.

  Predictably, a different voice filled their headsets almost immediately. “Uh, two-five-five, sorry about the confusion. We now have the appropriate book and are prepared to authenticate again, sir.”

  This time the codes matched exactly, and the aircraft commander punched the latitude and longitude coordinates into the FSAS, a small computer on the center console that the crews called the “heads-down display.” Another three keystrokes and the Starlifter began a gentle bank to the right and headed southeast as Doug keyed the radio again.

  “Okay, Lighthouse, now what do we do when we get there? You realize a major sandstorm’s moving over this area? We were barely going to have enough time to load up at Dhahran and get off again before it hits there.”

  “Yes sir, we understand.” The new voice was different, and a great deal more cautious. “We need you for an air evac.”

  “But all you’ve given us are latitude and longitude coordinates. How do we know we’ve got enough fuel? Do we have legal alternates? Has someone checked the weather at whatever destination this is?”

  “Sir, do you have at least twenty-six thousand pounds of fuel left?”

  Doug keyed the interphone to the flight engineer. They had thirty-two thousand. “That’s affirmative.”

  “Okay, two-fifty-five, then I confirm that you’re completely legal to do what we’re asking. Twenty-six thousand is the
minimum fuel required for this divert with legal alternates. You’ve got visual weather conditions at your destination, and that will continue until at least an hour after your projected arrival. I checked personally. Also, Dhahran remains good as an alternate. When you get to the holding fix, enter holding, and come up on blue frequency for Sailor Zulu. If no contact within five minutes, call us on the appropriate HF frequency. If still no contact, after twenty-five minutes total hold time, depart and recover at Dhahran.”

  Doug shook his head again and punched the interphone button again. “The damn war is over, guys. This is weird.”

  Tilden was nodding, obviously relieved to have a full colonel’s horsepower driving the questions a mere captain couldn’t get them to answer.

  Doug turned partway around in his seat, looking back at one of the flight engineers on the jump seat. “One of their emergency air evacs last fall turned out to be a sprained wrist and a broken arm going back to Germany. Someone down there probably has a stomachache or a hangnail this time.”

  “More likely a case of terminal acne,” the engineer added.

  Doug keyed the radio again.

  “Lighthouse, two-five-five. You say we’re an air evac … Are there any med crews down there waiting for us?”

  “Uh, no sir.”

  “Then there’s no way we can do a legal air evac. Why don’t you scramble a C-130 from Dhahran? They’ve got real air-evac crews and medical technicians standing by.”

  The four-engine turboprop 130 transports were a slower and smaller Lockheed-built cousin of the C-141, but they could do the job just as well for short distances.

  “Uh, we need you, sir. That’s all I can say.”

  “You’re aware we have cargo for Dhahran?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And that doesn’t matter?”

  “No sir. This is a true emergency.” There was a long pause before the transmitter clicked on again. “Sir, we’ve got some severely injured people in critical condition down there. You may be their only chance. They need your help.”