Dewa Rahimi arrived with a carton of donuts and pastries. “Nice trailers, Chief,” she said, working to keep a straight face. She understood that the chief had been out dog-robbing.
Pullman shrugged and sank back in a chair, watching her go to work. He liked the graceful way she moved, and wished he had a daughter like her. “What’s the Colonel got planned for today?”
“We’re putting the mission together.” She opened the safes and pulled out maps and photos, tacking them up on the walls.
Jack Locke and Thunder Bryant came in, followed by Stansell who looked to Rahimi. “Have at it.”
“Okay. Here’s the nut we have to crack,” she began, pointing at a large mosaic photograph—“the prison at Kermanshah. It’s located on the southern edge of town next to some old Persian army barracks. The barracks appear to be mostly deserted. All of the POWs, 282 of them, are inside the prison compound. Their exact locations in the buildings are unknown.” She pointed to a large three-story flat-topped building inside the walls of the prison. “I suspect they’re all in the main cell block. The smaller building in the front corner is the administration building and guards’ quarters. There’s only one entrance,” and she pointed to a thirty-foot-long above-ground tunnel with a dome-shaped roof. It looked like a concrete quonset hut stuck against the outside center of the northwest wall. “There are heavy gates at each end. It’s probably booby-trapped inside. Obviously you can’t go in through there. These little black circles peppered over the compound are telephone poles the Iranians have planted to discourage helicopter assaults.”
“Could they be setting us up? We try a rescue mission and they bushwhack us?”
“Possible, Colonel,” Rahimi said. “They would make political hay out of a failed rescue mission, just like Operation Eagle Claw in 1980 in Tehran. And the more casualties the better.”
“The Army’s got to get into the prison fast,” Stansell said. “Dewa, you got anything on the prison walls?”
She flipped through her notes. “The DIA sent us some stereoscopic coverage that’s less than a week old. Here we are … eighteen feet high, five feet wide at the base tapering to three feet at the top. Reinforced concrete. The guard towers at each corner have unrestricted fields of fire.” She paused. “Colonel, I don’t think you can go over the walls. And I found more telephone poles in the compound than are on the mosaic.” She gestured to the photos on the wall. “They’ve also jerryrigged steel towers on top of the buildings. A helicopter or parachute assault into the prison looks suicidal.”
Stansell sat back in his chair, closing his eyes, recalling the previous Sunday night when he had sat alone in his VOQ room in Washington. Had it only been a week? … and he thought again of February 1944, the Gestapo holding those French Resistance fighters in Amiens jail, the Maquis getting word that the Gestapo was getting ready to execute most of them. There was no way they could take the prison so they asked the RAF to bomb it, making a jail break possible. The RAF sent fighter bombers against it, and over 250 prisoners escaped … He told some of this to the chief and Rahimi. “So what are you saying, Colonel?” the chief asked. “We bomb the prison and maybe kill the people we’re trying to save?”
“No. We bomb the walls and blow holes in ‘em and put a couple of five-hundred pound Snakeyes into the guards’ building. While the dust is settling the rescue team parachutes in, lands outside the walls and goes through the holes we’ve made.”
“Colonel,” Pullman said, “who the hell can do that type of precision bombing?”
“F-111s or F-15Es,” Locke said.
Pullman looked at him. “Could be … well, I’m going to build a mock-up of the prison—”
“Chief,” Dewa cut in, “you haven’t got time to build a full-scale mock-up.”
Pullman turned and walked out the door. He loved a challenge. And without it this rescue wouldn’t ever come off.
By noon the ramp at the air base was packed with French kids who had discovered Doucette and were crowding around him under a wing of the F-111. Contreraz had a seemingly endless supply of F-111 shoulder patches that he passed out to teenagers. Doucette noticed the brunette from the bar was acting as an impromptu translator and constantly whispering in the WSO’s ear. Neither of the Americans were surprised when the French Mirage pilot appeared in his flight suit to reclaim the girl.
“So like the Americans,” the Frenchman said, glancing at the F-111 and then at Doucette. “Bigger, not better. Can this really fly or does it just sit on the ground looking like an old overfed anteater?”
“It flies,” Doucette said, the combat juices rising, the boredom he’d been feeling at the bar the night before vanishing.
Contreraz’s attention shifted away from the girl when he heard the hard tone in his pilot’s voice. “Sorry, love,” he told her, “got to go. Torch is about ready to engage.” He was too late. Doucette had already agreed to do a low level, high-speed flyby at the end of the show when they launched for Lakenheath.
“Torch, don’t do this,” Contreraz told him. The two were a strange combination. On the ground Contreraz was the wild man and Doucette was all sobriety and responsibility. In the air the roles reversed. The WSO was the hard-nosed professional and Doucette became an animal. Only his flying skill and Contreraz’s constant restraint kept him out of serious trouble and still flying.
“One pass, haul ass.” Doucette’s motto on a mission. Knocking out enemy targets with his bombs was what he was about, and even a practice run turned him on. But the real thing was where it really was. Still, until a hostile target and a real enemy were in his sights — and it wouldn’t be long — he’d settle for the Frenchman who had insulted his jet.
The WSO groaned, doubting the French knew how low and fast Doucette could take the F-111. “Don’t jump us when we do it, okay? Single ship only.”
“Mail oui.” The pilot smiled, fully intending to intercept them with his Mirage when they flew down the runway.
Doucette reverted to his normal routine and spent the afternoon entertaining children while Contreraz and the girl slipped away for a long lunch. When the WSO returned, Doucette had zipped his G-suit on and was pacing. “Time to go. Flight plan’s filed and our clearance is on request.”
“I don’t want to do this,” Contreraz grumbled as he strapped in. He could see a sleek delta-winged Mirage 2000 taking off. Fifteen minutes later they were airborne.
Doucette lifted the jet off and raised the gear and flaps, cleaning it up and turning the ugly duckling into a graceful swan. He claimed that the old saying about aircraft applied to the F-111—if it looks good, it is good. And in flight, the F-111 looked good. The pilot headed to the east, sightseeing while Contreraz studied his map and punched a short route into the computer for the run that would guide them around any obstacle, towns or villages. When they were ready Doucette dropped down to the deck, swept the wings back with the variable sweep handle to twenty-six degrees, set the Terrain Following Radar to four hundred feet, engaged the autopilot and headed for the field. “Relax,” the pilot said, “he won’t find us down here in the weeds.”
“Wish I was sure of that,” Contreraz said.
Fifteen miles out from the airfield Doucette called the tower for permission to fly down the runway. He pushed the throttles up when the tower cleared them in and rooted the indicated airspeed meter on.95 mach-610 knots and swept the wings back to fifty-four degrees. Both men kept twisting in their seats, looking for the Mirage. “He’ll be there,” Doucette said. “Wants to impress the home-town crowd.” He milked the F-111 down to 200 feet as they crossed the perimeter fence around the air base. “Got him,” Doucette shouted. “Left eight o’clock high. Coming to our six.”