The lead F-4 fireballed as the Gadfly won. But the two missiles the Israeli had launched were still homing. The air defense commander immediately placed his Flap Lid radars in standby as the tracked vehicles scooted to another position. The antiradiation missiles went into a memory mode and continued toward the last source they had detected. But the Flap Lid radars had suffered from poor quality control during construction and the wave guide on one of the sets leaked radar energy. One of the Israeli-build missiles sensed the weak energy escaping from the radar and homed on it. The missile track exploded as the missile found its mark.
Harkabi heard the radio call of the second F-4 as it tried to escape after launching two missiles. Then silence. He was sixteen miles out. His wingman split off to the right as they hugged the deck and Harkabi worked his systems. He was going to toss a two-thousand-pound optically tracked smart bomb at the target. If he could identify the headquarters on his video scope and lock it up, he could launch the bomb and leave while the optical tracker in the head of the bomb homed on the target.
But he was too low at one hundred feet and had to increase his altitude to get a picture. He lifted up to three hundred feet, well into the Gadfly’s envelope. His electronic warning gear warbled at him — he was in the beam of a monopulse radar — but he had a video picture of the concrete bunker. He drove his target cross hairs over the entrance that gave him good light and dark contrast and pickled the bomb off. The F-16 jerked as the bomb separated. Two missiles were coming directly at him. Harkabi’s hand twitched on the stick and the agile F-16's nose came up, snatching eight g’s. Both missiles committed to an up vector and Harkabi slammed his jet in a hard turn to the left as he dropped to a hundred feet. The missiles tried to follow him through the descending turn but their small fins could not handle the turn and one broached sideways while the other flashed by overhead.
Behind him he saw his wingman fireball and wondered if he had got his bomb off. He keyed his radio and told the two F-16s following him to break off the attack and not challenge the Gadfly. He was vaguely aware that he was flying over a ZSU-23 antiaircraft battery and that the quad-mounted gun had been firing at him.
Shoshana was in the back of the van, kneeling in front of the little girl who was safe in her mother’s lap. Shoshana was smiling and speaking softly in Hebrew while she cleaned the child and checked for injuries. Other than a few small cuts and bruises, the girl was only dirty and very frightened. It amazed Matt how the harsh, guttural Hebrew became soft and tender as Shoshana spoke, comforting the girl. When they were finished, Shoshana told the mother to get the child a tetanus shot just in case.
Matt sat down beside her in the van, not touching, their backs against the side panel. They were both exhausted. She turned to him, not smiling. “Matt Pontowski, you are …” She stopped, not completing her thought. Saying “wonderful” simply wasn’t enough.
“Stupid,” the old man finished the sentence for her. Matt grinned at him. “What a schmuck. I had to tell you everything.” He climbed out of the van and walked away.
The two looked at each other and laughed, the tension shredding. And both knew that love was there.
“Shoshana …” Matt paused. “I’ve got to go.”
“I know.”
“I’ll be back.”
The lone F-16 entered the safe corridor leading to Ramon Air Base at its assigned altitude, flew the prescribed route, and squawked the correct IFF code. When Harkabi was certain the Hawk missile batteries surrounding the base had a positive ID on him and would not send one of the deadly missiles his way, he flew a short final to touchdown. Little puffs of smoke belched behind the main gear. Harkabi took the first high-speed turnoff and fast-taxied for his bunker. The doors rolled back as he approached and he taxied directly inside and raised his canopy. The ground crew swarmed over the jet, checking it for battle damage as they refueled and rearmed it at the same time. A crew chief hung a crew boarding ladder over the left canopy rail and waited for Harkabi to climb down. Another pilot was waiting to crawl into the cockpit for the next mission.
Harkabi sat in the seat, too tired to move. He had drained the two plastic water bottles he carried in the leg pockets of his g suit and still felt a raging thirst. He flopped one hand over the edge of the cockpit and pulled the bayonet clip that released his oxygen mask from the side of his face with the other. Every motion was an effort. Despair ate at him — four wingmen lost in one day. At least one F-4 had also been lost on the last mission — probably two. And these were just the losses he had witnessed. He didn’t move.
The crew chief called for help and another ladder was placed against the right side of the F-16. They had seen it before. Five combat missions meant over five hours of flying that took everything a pilot had. Total concentration, fighting four to eight g’s on every maneuver, dehydration, and stress took a ferocious toll. The two sergeants climbed the ladders, one on each side and reached in, unstrapping and disconnecting the pilot from the F-16. Then they gently lifted him out and passed him down to waiting hands. The waiting pilot scrambled up the left ladder and settled into the still-warm seat. His hands flew over the switches as he ran the before-engine-start checklist.
A sergeant helped Harkabi to the side of the bunker where he could sit and wait for transportation. Both doors to the bunker cranked open as the fresh pilot brought the F-16 to life and taxied out. The combat turn had taken less than nine minutes.
Harkabi staggered to his feet and managed to walk the short distance to a crew truck. He watched the F-16 pair up with its wingman and race for the runway. Which one will come back? he thought. How much more can we take?
The war was less than ten hours old.
16
The corridor outside the National Military Command Center (NMCC) in the Pentagon was jammed with lieutenant colonels and full colonels wanting to get inside to witness firsthand the reports from the Middle East reaching the command levels of the Pentagon. Most were there because they were professional warriors with an intense interest in combat. But the rumor that the President was inside had spurred quite a few to think of a reason why they should be on the main floor. It was a golden opportunity to shine.
The NMCC was the closest thing in the Pentagon to the popular conception of a “war room,” the inner sanctum from which a war was supposedly conducted. Bill Carroll shrugged his shoulders when he realized he would never work his way through the crush of bodies in the hall and was about to leave when he ran into General Cox, his old boss from the DIA.
“Come on, Bill,” the general said, “let’s try the Watch Center. Not so much dust being kicked up by the high rollers.” They descended into the basement and found room at the rear of the main floor of the Watch Center where they had a clear view of the computer-generated situation boards. Both men felt much more at home in the Watch Center because it was essentially a fusion point that processed and evaluated incoming intelligence for forwarding to the National Military Command Center. Without the Watch Center, the higher levels of command would be inundated with irrelevant information.
Cox and Carroll were in time to hear the latest situation update briefing on the outbreak of fighting in the Middle East. “This is going to be bigger than the Yom Kippur War of ‘73,” Carroll predicted as the latest intelligence reports were covered and their significance analyzed.
“I don’t think so,” Cox replied. “So far it only looks like an attack by the Syrians, and the Arabs can’t take on Israel without Egypt.” He pointed out how the surprise attacks by the Syrian Air Force on selected Israeli targets had not knocked out the Israelis’ Air Force or command and control structure. The center board flashed and a new map appeared that showed the latest disposition of the three Syrian armored tank corps that had been positioned on the northern flank of Israel. All three had stopped their withdrawal back into Syria and were now moving southward, directly at the Israeli border. The Israeli Air Force had struck at the three columns but had taken heavy losses.