The sorties after his first had been met with even more resistance even though they had expended as much effort hitting the SAM sites as they had the fortress. They had suppressed the SAMs somewhat, but not enough to satisfy those who were about to fly over them again.
His eyes were scratchy. They seemed to be the focus of his existence as he closed them to capture some moisture. We should have used more Tomahawks, he thought. But he also knew they cost a million dollars each, and one laser-guided bomb was only fifty thou, assuming of course that the zillion-dollar F-14 that was dropping the fifty-thou bomb didn’t get shot down.
Wink sauntered back from the front of the ready room and sat next to Sean. They didn’t speak. They knew each other better than brothers. They knew the things to look for in the other that might be a sign of a problem, especially a problem that might cause a flight to be unsafe.
Big and Sedge sat down as the spare crew just as the Air Wing Intelligence Officer came on the closed circuit TV.
“Morning,” he said curtly, obviously as tired as the aircrew were. “The next event will be the final night’s strikes against our target. Moving quickly to what you probably want to know about first — the battle against the SAMs we’ve been waging all night. We’ve had great success. As you know, one of the problems with mobile SAM systems is that they are mobile. The ones that have been brought in by Syria, contrary to our expectations, were used more frequently and were more capable than what we had been led to expect. The Syrians have apparently shipped a number of their SA-6s into the area as well as SA-13s. Although we’ve had success, we think they’re still focusing on the western approach to the target. We’ve recommended to most of you who will be going feet dry that you change your approach to make it farther to the north to actually make the final bombing runs from the east to the west…”
“We got time to change our route?” Woods asked Wink, concerned.
“Already did.”
“When?” Woods asked, surprised.
“When you were snoring in your ready room chair like a dying calf,” Wink replied.
Woods swallowed and confirmed the dryness of the back of his throat. He hadn’t even known he’d been asleep. “I was preoxygenating. Loading up on extra air, for the hop. Makes your brain clearer.”
Wink rolled his head toward Woods and looked at him without saying anything. Woods just stared at the screen.
The Air Wing Intel Officer went on, unaware of the various distractions in the ready rooms of the aviators that were watching him. “Let me show you the SAM sights that are currently operating.” He turned to a chart of the target area with the telltale red circles. “The new ingress corridors are clear. We don’t expect any SAM activity until you reach the target areas.” He went on to describe in general the mission for each airplane on the event.
“As to the success we’ve been having against the target, we haven’t had a chance to do much BDA,” referring to Bomb Damage Assessment, “as it is still dark. What we can tell is that we’ve been hitting the target, and hitting it hard. We’ll have to wait until light to get a better feel for whether we’re having the success we hope for.”
When the intelligence brief was completed, Woods went to the podium in the back of the small briefing area in the ready room to finish the section’s brief for the hop. He leaned on the podium. “This is it. Last hop of the night. I’m tired. You probably are too. We have to set that aside. I think adrenaline is going to be as important as JP-5 tonight,” he said, referring to the jet fuel used by the Tomcat. “We’ve got to stay alert. We need to start thinking supersonic now, to make sure we don’t miss anything. Pritch has given us updated charts.” He moved the sliding map board to reveal a detailed chart of all of Lebanon, prepared with tremendous detail. There was a large white box on the lower right corner of the chart. It said: “Current as of 0217.”
“Kudos for Pritch,” Wink said, pleased.
Woods went on with his brief. “If in fact the SAM sites are where they’re shown, this should not be too tough. Many of them, though, are mobile SAMs. They could be moved, but it seems unlikely to me that these guys are going to drag SAM sites around in the middle of the night to any great extent. I think our chances are pretty good to stay free of them.
“Our load-out is the same it’s been all night: two GBU-10s, two Sparrows, and two Sidewinders. We’ve got up-LANTIRN pods on both birds. Wink and I will be in the lead.
“We don’t expect any fighter opposition.” He paused. “But sometimes you get what you don’t expect. The Israelis got plenty of fighter opposition when they went into Lebanon a while ago — to an area not far from where we’ve been going. We’ve heard. So we’ll see. Don’t assume anything. It’s unlikely they’ll come after us because it will be dark. Let’s go.”
Skate Wilson didn’t like the setup around the Rabat embassy at all. Since the arrival of the Snapshot Team he had spent his time finding the best observation posts and angles for the evening’s work. None of it met with his satisfaction. They were too close to many other buildings. Very easy for a sniper or bomber to set up. Even for a mortar, if someone were so inclined, a dangerous and deadly weapon that terrorists hadn’t used since the IRA tried to take out 10 Downing Street from a few blocks away with a mortar in the back of a van with a canvas top. Clever, but ultimately unsuccessful.
After circling the entire inside of the building several times like a cat, Wilson reluctantly chose the best of several bad locations for his team members to position themselves with their equipment. He set up a heavy tripod and opened a case to remove the enormous lens of a nightscope. He was screwing the tripod into the base of the scope when the door opened behind him. Wilson watched the door as he continued what he was doing. It was the American Ambassador to Morocco himself.
“Hello,” the Ambassador said to Wilson in a friendly tone. “I figured you’re the one in charge of this surveillance thing.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Anything out of the ordinary at all.”
“Don’t you think they will be expecting us to look for them?”
Wilson adjusted the scope and tested its balance on the tripod. It was perfectly weighted so the attachment point was exactly in the middle and moved easily and precisely. “Probably.”
“But it still makes sense to do this?”
“Does to me.”
“Why did they pick this embassy? Do you know? I mean there are a lot of embassies out there. Why this one?”
“You mean why are we here?”
“Well, yes.”
“Teams have gone to several embassies. But here…” Wilson closed the case for the site and placed it out of the way. “Probably because of the photographs.”
“Those pictures the Marines took?”
“Right.”
“Really? Hmm. I didn’t think they showed very much.”
Wilson wasn’t going to humor him. “Probably right. They didn’t show much at all.”
“Well then, this is really just an exercise, isn’t it?”
“You bet, sir.”
“How long do you think it will take to find this Sheikh person?”
The Ambassador was beginning to annoy Wilson. Politicians generally did. He didn’t answer, intending his nonresponsiveness as an insult.
The Ambassador didn’t pick up on the insult. His thoughts were elsewhere. “Well, I believe they already have it narrowed down, and will be dropping some big bombs on him soon, if they haven’t already.”
“That will take care of it then.” Wilson thought of Ricketts. Laser-guided bombs. Right. Easy mission. No problem. Over tomorrow. “That how you think these people work?”