“I’m trying to recover my system and get an eyeball on our wingmen,” Fogelman snapped. “How about calling them yourself?”
“Fine. Sing out when you see Johnson.” Furness switched over to the backup radio: “Control, Zero-One, can you get Zero-Six airborne? We’ve got their bombing buddy airborne with us. Over.”
In the background, Furness could hear Burlington Departure Control calling her. Fogelman was checking something in his radar and alternatively searching out the cockpit for the other three planes. Johnson was about two miles behind them, while Norton and Kelly were completely out of sight. Furness wafered over to Burlington Departure. “Departure, Thunder Zero-One, did you call?”
“Affirmative, Zero-One. Have your wingmen squawk standby when they approach within two miles. Say intentions of Thunder Zero-Four.”
“Departure, Zero-Four will be joining on Zero-One to make a flight of four,” Furness replied. “We’re trying to get the status of the other two planes now.”
“Roger, copy, Thunder Zero-One. Have them squawk standby when they are joined up with you.”
“Zero-One, roger. Thunder Flight, you copy?”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
Furness switched over to the backup radio again. The channel was silent — they had been talking, but she couldn’t pay attention. “Control, Zero-One, you were cut out, say again.”
“I said, Zero-One,” the command post controller said irritably, “that Alpha has directed Zero-Five and Zero-Six go as a flight of two. We’re trying to get new target times on the range for Zero-Four, Zero-Five, Zero-Six, and you.”
“Control, just launch Zero-Six—he and Zero-Four can still meet their time over target,” Furness radioed back. Each bomber entered the route exactly four minutes apart, and while they were in the low-level route the airspace and the range had to be reserved for them — that meant coordinating new target times through Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, the Air Force, and the Army. If a plane was going to be late, even by just a few seconds, new reservation times had to be obtained or the flight couldn’t go. “You just need a new time for Zero-Five and a new time for me if you want me to go in after Zero-Five. Over.”
“Zero-One, Alpha wants a two-ship launch,” the command post controller replied. Obviously he was in no mood to argue — undoubtedly the command post folks were feeling a little heat from the brass, too. It was not a regulation, but aircraft with weapons aboard rarely were allowed to fly by themselves unless the weather was crystal clear — if there was an emergency, it was important to have a wingman to help lead the emergency aircraft back to base safely. The fact that they were Reservists and not full-time crews obviously had a lot to do with that unwritten rule — the thought of weekend warriors flying around by themselves with bombs on board unsettled a lot of people. “Request you contact us after your refueling so we can pass new times to you.”
“Zero-One, roger,” Furness replied. Well, so much for their plan. This was going to be a long fucking day. She had heard no reports on where her wingmen were — it was time to catch up on the joinup. She asked, “Okay, Mark, where’s—”
Suddenly she heard Joe Johnson over the primary radio say, “Lead, Zero-Two, I’m overshooting, move out a little bit,” in a rather urgent tone of voice. Furness looked out the right cockpit canopy and gasped in panic. Joe Johnson in Thunder Zero-Two was not just overshooting a bit — he was ready to collide. His overtake had been much too fast; his power was high during the climb, and the level-off surprised him.
“Jesus … dammit, what in hell are you doing!” She was about to yank the control stick over to bank away, but her right wingtip would collide with Zero-Two if she did that. Instead, she eased the stick down to lose some altitude. Slowly, the two planes slid away. “Shit, Mark, you’re supposed to be watching the rejoin!”
“I was watching it,” Fogelman seethed.
“You watch the rejoin until they’re stabilized in fingertip, and you do nothing else,” she fired back. “When you got aircraft closing into fingertip, forget the radar, forget the INS, and concentrate on the rejoin. Christ, that was close!”
Johnson knew he had come close too: he said on the backup radio, “Sorry about that, lead. Just wanted you to get a good look at our underside.”
“Thunder Flight, this is not a damned race,” Furness shouted on the backup radio. She didn’t care if the command post or the generals at Plattsburgh could still hear her — the near-collision was way, way too close for comfort: “Smooth and gentle on the rejoins. Zero-Three, say range.”
“Two miles from Zero-Two,” Paula Norton replied. Her voice sounded a little shaky — she had undoubtedly seen that near-collision as well. “We’ve got you both in sight. I’ve got Zero-Four on my wing already. He’s checked me out already, too.” Frank Kelly, an experienced F-111 pilot, had “cut off the corner,” joined on Paula Norton’s right wing, and had even accomplished a visual inspection. He would simply follow Norton in as she rejoined with Furness and Johnson.
“I want nice smooth turns and no abrupt power changes,” Furness said. “Weather looks good in the orbit area. Lead’s at 82 percent.”
One by one, as they headed southwest toward the first checkpoint, the four bombers joined together. The first sequence of events was an aerial refueling over northern New Hampshire. The rendezvous with the New Hampshire Air National Guard KC-135E tanker from Portsmouth Air Force Base was uneventful and smooth.
One by one, the formation split up while in the refueling anchor. Two minutes before Zero-Two’s end air refueling time, Johnson accomplished a rendezvous to precontact position and then performed a practice emergency “breakaway”—the receiver would chop power and descend rapidly, the tanker would shove the power in and climb, and the other planes would stay on the tanker’s wing. Rebecca remembered lots of practice breakaway maneuvers, both in the KC-135 and KC-10 tankers … and she was glad to be on the receiver side. She remembered back to those long hours flying over the desert during Desert Shield and Desert Storm as a KC-10 tanker pilot, refueling just about every kind of aircraft in the world — and she remembered how vulnerable the tanker was to any nearby danger. Especially the time during the emergency refueling with the stricken F-111G in the opening day of the war.
God, that seems like ages ago. She tossed it out of her mind and focused completely on getting into that comfortable state of mind where you feel that you’re ahead of the aircraft, anticipating the sequence of events — finally in control of the situation. It was a little rocky starting out, she thought, but it was all coming back to them now.…
Miracles never ceased.
EIGHTEEN
Mikola Korneichuk pushed her way through a rather large crowd of hospital workers, patients, and bystanders on her way to the hospital front desk. The well-wishers shouted congratulations to the dark-haired, dark-skinned beauty, but she hardly heard one word — her eyes, her heart, her soul were focused only on one extraordinary man.
“Pavlo!” she shouted as the last few onlookers stepped aside to let her pass. The tall flying officer at the outprocessing desk finished the paperwork he had been working on, signing his name with a flourish on the last release form.