Dixon looked at Cerro. The smile disappeared from Dixon's face in a flash. It was replaced by a blank stare. "What about my wife and children?"
Cerro didn't pick up on the change in Dixon's mood, the mention of his wife, or the blank stare. "The children should be in Britain by now. My company had the task of escorting the dependents out of the embassy to the pickup zone yesterday. When your wife gave me the children, I made sure they got on the transports. I sent one of my platoon sergeants with them to the airfield. He turned the boys over to the crew chief of one of the transports. The platoon sergeant stayed with them at the airfield till that plane left."
"And my wife? What about her?" While he may have missed the look in Dixon's eyes as he was telling him of the boys, Cerro couldn't miss the cold, barely controlled rage in Dixon's voice when he asked about the lady.
"Well, sir, I don't know. After she turned the boys over to me, she left. Ran back into the crowd. I assume she went back to her job."
Dixon said nothing. For a moment he stood there, rooted to the ground. His eyes were wide, bulging, and wild. His face went flush, then turned red. His hands, held close to his side, were knotted up so tight that the knuckles were turning white. Cerro was about to ask if there was a problem but then decided that would be dumb. It was obvious that Dixon was as surprised to find out his wife had stayed as Cerro had been when she gave her children to him.
Without a word Dixon pivoted about and stormed off. When he was gone, Duncan turned to Cerro. "Something tells me that the colonel is not happy with his wife."
Cerro looked at Duncan. "Ya know, First Sergeant, that's what I like about you — you're so observant. And quick on the uptake."
Duncan stared at Cerro. "You're lucky you're an officer, sir. Otherwise I'd tell you to fuck yourself, sir. Now, if we could get back to the platoon, with all due respect, sir."
Cerro chuckled. "Temper, temper, First Sergeant." Stepping off toward the platoon, Duncan followed. He signaled to the platoon to form up by making a circling motion over his head as they approached.
Cerro and Duncan had just about reached the assembled platoon when air-raid sirens near the airfield control tower and in the town just outside the airfield began to wail. Stopping, both Cerro and Duncan looked up in the sky, then around the airfield. "Do you think this is for real, First Sergeant?"
Duncan noted the haste with which the Egyptian personnel scattered. "Well, sir, this sure ain't exactly a good time to be messing with drills. We better—"
At the end of the runway, from a position neither man had noticed, the rocket of a Hawk surface-to-air missile ignited, cutting Duncan off in mid-sentence. By the time Cerro and Duncan turned to where the launcher was, the first missile was aloft and racing for its target. A few seconds later, another Hawk missile followed.
Turning to the platoon, Cerro yelled to the men to grab their weapons only and follow him. Duncan stood fast for a moment, making sure they were all going the right way. When the last man had passed him, he fell in behind the group and began to run with them, wondering if Captain Cerro knew where he was going. In front, Cerro was wondering the same thing.
The sudden blare of the sirens caught everyone in the WNN offices by surprise. Looking up from her desk, Fay asked what was going on. Johnny rushed by, headed for the window. "It's an air raid, Mrs. Dixon. Hassan just heard it on the radio. Everyone's supposed to seek shelter."
Fay got up and followed Johnny to the window. He was already there, looking up at the sky. Fay came up beside him and also looked up, then down. On the street below there was a scramble as people ran into buildings, searching for cover. Cars weaved around other cars stopped in the center of the street, abandoned by their drivers, who were seeking shelter. Fay looked around the office behind her. The Egyptians were gone. The other Americans in the office were either standing back against the wall or moving to the window to watch the show.
Nervously Johnny looked at Fay. "Shouldn't we go to the shelter too?"
Fay continued to look. "Johnny, we're news people. Can't get good copy from a hole in the ground." She looked down at the street, then back to the sky. "Besides, Johnny dear, do you know where the nearest fallout shelter is?"
Standing at the 6 October Bridge with the camera crew, Jan was preparing to shoot a piece on the flow of military traffic through Cairo. Behind her, huge tractor trailers hauling tanks were slowly rumbling across the bridge. She, and all other reporters, had been denied permission to go to the front to film the action because of the threat of chemicals. They hadn't even been allowed near the airfields to film the evacuation process. "Too dangerous," they had been told. Jan, being the suspicious type, didn't believe that. No doubt there were things going on out there that neither the Egyptians nor the American government wanted the press to see. So, as in the first days of the crisis, they were back to filming tanks and trucks moving through Cairo. At least this time she and her camera crew had been allowed near the bridge.
Almost ready to start shooting, the cameraman asked Jan to hold up something white so he could color-balance his camera. Taking pages from her script and waving them, she asked if that would do. "Great, love, just great. Now if you could quit jigglin' the bloody thing, we'll be ready in a moment."
She was standing there like that when an air-raid siren not twenty feet from them began blasting. The sound man ripped the earphones off his head, cursing and dancing about as he did so. The cameraman let the camera down to his side and looked up. He turned to Jan. "Looks like we're in luck, love. We're about to get some real action shots."
Jan looked around. "Oh, come on, Tim. You don't think the Libyans are going to bomb downtown Cairo, do you?"
Tim was busy preparing his camera. The sound man, regaining his composure, was resetting the volume to compensate for the screeching of the air-raid siren.
Jan stood where she was and asked the same question, this time in earnest. Tim looked up. "Come on, love. You don't hav' ta be a bleedin' Napoleon to figure out they're after the bloody bridges. Do you think old Nafissi in Tobruk wants to see that tank behind ya knockin' at his front door?" Tim pointed behind him to a tank sitting on the bed of a transporter.
The sound man pointed to something in the distance. "Look— they're firing SAMs!"
Jan turned in the direction where he was pointing. In the distance she saw a white trail of smoke racing skyward. SAM, she remembered, was short for surface-to-air missile. As she watched, a second, then a third missile raced up following the first. They really were under attack.
Racing along at less than one hundred feet, Major Hans Bruchmann, East German air force, struggled for control of his damaged MIG-23. By going low and maintaining an air speed far in excess of what would have been thought prudent in a peacetime exercise, he had survived longer than the rest of his flight of four. Bounced by a pair of Egyptian F-16s before they had even left Libyan air space, two of the MIG-23s had gone down without any loss to the interceptors. Bruchmann and his lone wingman had no sooner cleared that engagement than a pair of Egyptian MIG-21s hit them head on. As soon as both sides had acquired each other, they exchanged air-to-air missiles. In this engagement Bruchmann hit one of the attackers. But the exchange was even, as his wingman was brought down by an Egyptian missile.
As he closed on Cairo, Bruchmann's radar warning indicator began to squawk, telling him that his MIG had been detected by the acquisition radar of an American-built Hawk missile battery. He watched and waited, dropping as low as he dared go. Seconds later the radar warning tone changed, indicating that the Hawk battery illuminator radar was locked on his aircraft. He waited before he took any action to counter the lock-on. As he did, he could feel the sweat roll down his forehead and into his eyes. He fought the urge to react too soon. Nervously he waited for the missiles. Only after he saw the volley of surface-to-air missiles streaking toward him did he fire chaff and take his plane lower, accelerating as he went. For a split second he broke radar lock — but only for a moment. In quick order the illuminator radar locked back onto him. Hitting his chaff dispenser trigger, he let fly another stream of aluminum strips that puffed out of their canisters like ticker tape.