THIRTY-TWO
Good thing the digital avionics and Multi-Function Displays on the RF-111G Vampire translated English measurements into metric, Rebecca Furness thought as she keyed the mike button on her throttle quadrant. “Ankara Air Control Center, Thunder One-Zero flight is with you, level at eight thousand meters, over.”
The voice that replied had twinges of Turkish and British accents in it, which made Furness smile — she had certainly heard a wide variety of accents on this trip. “Thunder Flight, this is Ankara Air Control Center, I read you, level at eight thousand. Turn left heading zero-seven-zero, descend and maintain five thousand meters.”
“Thunder One-Zero flight, roger, left to zero-seven-zero, leaving eight for five thousand meters.”
The new heading put the island of Cyprus on their right wing and the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey on their left. Ahead about eighty miles was the Nur border region between Syria and Turkey, the scene of much combat over the past few years during the Middle East War of 1993 and 1994. In 1993, a combined military effort by Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Yemen to rearm and strengthen Iraq, weaken Israel, and take over the Persian Gulf region (the move was advertised as an attempt to form a strong pan-Islamic fundamentalist nation) threw most of this area in chaos. The decisive military power in the region turned out to be Turkey. With its strengthened military forces, its strategic location, its Islamic heritage, and its strong Western ties, it proved to be a vital factor in allowing the West to drive back a broad-front attack by the Islamic Coalition, as well as negotiate a true ceasefire with the Muslim nations.
This was a pretty pitiful show for such an important ally, Furness thought as she checked out her wingmen around her. Furness was leading a gaggle of twelve RF-111G Vampire bombers, representing the White House response to Turkey’s call for help. The flight was spread out into three groups of four, stacked down five hundred feet from one another and spread out to about two miles apart. Although they were very heavily armed — with defensive weapons only, but potent nonetheless — Rebecca would have expected a much greater response from so powerful a friend, in such a volatile part of the world, especially after that ally had just been attacked. When Kuwait was attacked, the United States had fifty F-15C Eagle fighters from the First Tactical Fighter Squadron in Saudi Arabia in twelve hours, and within three days another two hundred warplanes, mostly Reservists and National Guardsmen, were in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations.
Twelve twenty-five-year-old RF-111G Vampires were sure to be welcomed, but it was not that impressive. She was sure part of it had to do with the President’s decidedly less-aggressive stances than his war-hero predecessor.
“Got the Seyhan River valley and Adana on radar, seventy miles straight ahead,” Mark Fogelman said. He switched to the tactical electronic warfare threat display and peered into the “feed bag,” the black plastic hood around the multifunction cathode ray tube before him. “I’m picking up Echo-3-band search radar from Adana, from Latakia, Syria, in front of us, and from Nicosia behind us. Latakia has a Bar Lock search and intercept radar, probably for an SA-5 SAM system — and I’m picking up Hotel-band Square Pair fire control signals from Latakia, but they aren’t locked on to us. Echo-band height finders out there, associated with the SA-5. Too early to get an ID on the missile, but the bearing is from Syria, so I’m guessing SA-5 system.” He took his eyes out of the CRT hood, called up the missile launch control page for the AGM-88C HARM (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile) on his right-side Multi-Function Display, and checked the indication on the CRT. “I’ve got a good HARM acquisition on the Echo- and Hotel-band radars. Thirty more miles east, and we can kill them. Still not picking up the Lima- or Kilo-band Patriot or Hawk radars in Turkey — they must’ve been nice and shut them down for us.” He took his eyes out of the scope and searched the early morning skies until he located each and every one of the Bravo Flight aircraft. “The flight looks good — looks like people are starting to close in a little. They must be getting antsy with all the bad guys painting us out there.”
“Copy, Mark. Thanks.”
“Copy” was not nearly an appropriate enough response for the stunning transformation that had come over Mark Fogelman. He was a totally different airman. The old Fogelman would have been asleep five minutes into the flight and would have stayed that way until landing — this Fogelman had been awake the entire trip, nearly eighteen hours now. The old Fogelman would have not touched the radar and would never have practiced using the electronic warfare suite to locate and identify radar systems around them — this Fogelman had been giving Rebecca a near nonstop recitation on every electromagnetic bleep within range of their sensors. He had even dry-fired his HARM missiles at simulated targets and run down the proper flight procedures for engaging different threats. The old Fogelman never cared about formation procedures and had considered the control stick and throttles on the right side of the cockpit a nuisance. This Fogelman had been right on top of his formation procedures, constantly checking on his wingmen, recommending flight leader changes and position changes in case someone’s neck was getting tired from always looking in the same direction. He was on the radios constantly, talking to air traffic control and overwater-flight following, and he was into his second roll of SATCOM printer paper because he was sending and receiving so many satellite “ops normal” and weather reports. The most shocking request came when Mark actually asked to fly the Vampire into air refueling contact position behind a tanker. To Rebecca’s surprise, he was actually damn good at it, and had managed to stay in contact position for a good five minutes until a small burst of turbulence knocked him off the boom and he shyly declined to go back in again.
Fogelman finished resetting the altitude bug on the altimeter tape, after converting the desired metric altitude to feet. “Altitude bug set, five thousand to level. Radio two backup set to Incirlik tower frequency.”
It was a good thing he was finally acting like a true officer, because the trip across the Atlantic was a real sonofabitch. Rebecca had filled up three plastic piddle packs. But Fogelman didn’t make one remark about her fidgeting or her quiet cursing, never tried to sneak a peek or embarrass her. At one time she thought he was adjusting one of his rearview mirrors toward her crotch, but the wingmen were shifting positions and he was moving his mirrors to keep them in sight. The lack of confrontation was almost a letdown, but a brush with death would probably change even Satan himself.
After leveling off at five thousand meters, then accepting and complying with another descent to 4,200 meters, or about 14,000 feet, Fogelman tuned the backup radio to the Incirlik Air Base ATIS (Automated Terminal Information System) frequency and was about to direct the rest of the flight to the same frequency when they heard: “Thunder Flight, you have traffic at your eleven o’clock, fifty miles, flight of four F-16 aircraft. MARSA procedures are in effect.” Ankara Air Control Center directed the flight of Vampires to go to their frequency and report to them when they were in contact. It was common for fighters of foreign countries, especially in wartime situations, to escort allied planes through their airspace; Furness had been expecting it.