Leaning forward, he again peered through the windshield. The dust cloud from the exploding 300-kiloton bombs was settling, blowing off toward the east in a light wind. Still, the air was hazy and rippled as a result of the tear gas that saturated it. The exercise called for the use of tear gas in order to simulate near-reality. Ramad had feared that al-Qati’s soldiers would pull off their masks as soon as they were out of sight of an officer. Ramad did not really understand discipline, or how to instil it, al-Qati thought.
Through the haze, he could see the small sign posts that had been erected. They read, “Radio Transmitter,” or “Ordnance Depot,” or “Fuel Storage.” They were the objectives of his ground advance.
“Resistance is expected to be nil,” Ramad had laughed at the morning briefing.
“Well-equipped and trained Israeli soldiers, as an example,” al-Qati had retorted, “will be in their protective CW gear within seconds of the first blast. Resistance can be expected to be fierce. Additionally, civilians have been issued CW masks.”
The Libyan government did not so equip its civilian populace.
“That is possible,” Ramad had conceded.
“It is probable. Your bombs target civilians. Is that what we are rehearsing?”
Ramad had not answered the question.
The lieutenant gave another hand signal, and the soldiers slipped out of their seats, kneeling on one knee, facing the rear. Al-Qati could almost hear the clicks above the roar of the turbine engines as the safeties were released on the AK-74 assault rifles. The muzzles of the rifles were fitted with devices to force a build-up of gas pressure in the rifle barrels, which ejected the dummy rounds of ammunition and loaded the next dummy round. There was to be no live ammunition for these first exercises.
He grabbed a handhold as the Mi-8 flared, than thudded to a landing. The rear doors spread wide, and his soldiers leapt into action, tumbling out the rear, fanning out to either side of the helicopter.
He followed the lieutenant, dropped to the sandy earth, then jogged to the left and dropped on his stomach.
The helicopter lifted off, spraying sand in all directions, blanking out the sun.
The second helicopter, a hundred meters to his right, also took off.
As the rotor noises died away, al-Qati surveyed his position.
Typically in Libya, there was very little natural cover. On each end of his skirmish line, squads were digging shallow foxholes to site the heavy machine guns.
Officers and non-coms shouted orders.
The hot sand burned into him, and the perspiration gushed beneath the protective clothing. He had estimated in a report the year before that a soldier’s fighting ability was reduced by almost forty percent when he was encased in chemical warfare clothing and mask.
When the machine guns were emplaced and test-fired, the recon squads moved out of the line, slithering up the dime on elbows and knees.
The air was pasty with tear gas mist.
His radio operator splashed into the sand next to him, shouting through his mask, “Second squad is closing on the radio transmitter, Colonel!”
Al-Qati nodded his approval and checked his watch. One minute and forty-five seconds from touchdown.
And alarmingly, he thought about how ridiculous this all was. Grown men playing in the sand.
He would much rather be in the Seaside Hotel, ensconced in clean sheets, holding Sophia’s head to his shoulder, becoming intoxicated by her perfume, talking quietly in the night as the ceiling fan turned lazily.
He couldn’t even remember what it was that they talked about, but it was unimportant compared to the peace and euphoria she brought him.
Ahmed al-Qati got his feet under him, and cursing into the privacy of his mask, scrambled up the hill, zigzagging.
The first squad of the Second Platoon leapt to their feet and came charging up the hill behind him.
“Think of her as a beautifully and expensively restored ’57 T-Bird, Andy,” Jim Demion said. “We don’t want to scratch the paint, the first time out of the garage.”
“You’re taking an awfully damned proprietary interest,” Wyatt said.
“Can’t be helped. She’s reborn under my hands.”
In the early light of dawn — they had advanced their starting time by an hour to beat the locals to the airfield — the Phantom appeared sleek and fast and — with her weapons pylons removed — less deadly. She did have her outboard fuel tanks slung in place. In her new cream livery, she was sitting on the tarmac outside Hangar 4, her forward canopy raised as Sam Vrdla sat in the cockpit and made some last-minute adjustments.
Wyatt finished strapping on his G suit, then stood upright. “You ready, Bucky?”
“The heart’s ready, Andy. The mind will wake up around nine.”
Barr was flying the Citation as a chase plane, and he and Win Potter trundled off toward it.
“Who’s going to handle the comm system on this end?” Wyatt asked.
“That’s me,” Kriswell said, “Old Jockey Joe. You want rock or country?”
“Something symphonic might be a better omen, Tom.”
One of the other F-4s had been pushed partway out of the hangar, to clear her antennas of the steel roof. Kriswell would use the airplane’s radios to maintain contact with Wyatt and pass on messages, if necessary, to Barr.
They were testing the radios as well as the aircraft.
In addition to the standard NavCom sets, each of the F-4s, and eventually both of the Hercules transports, was to be equipped with a pair of scrambled UHF radio sets. The super-secret black boxes digitally encoded voice transmissions and decoded voice reception as a defence against hostile eavesdropping. A third black box accepted and decoded scrambled datalink signals. In the cockpit, the radios were identified as Tactical One, Tactical Two, and Data One.
Wyatt and Kriswell agreed on frequency settings for both voice channels, then Wyatt walked out to the aircraft.
“Hey, Sam! When do I get my airplane?”
Vrdla peered over the cockpit coaming. “Just want to be sure, Andy.”
“I’ll let you know what needs to be fixed.”
“It better not be anything,” Vrdla said, climbing up onto the seat and swinging his legs out onto the ladder.
Wyatt snapped his small clipboard onto his right thigh, then let Dennis Maal help him into his parachute harness.
“This has a label on it, Andy. Says ‘Don’t open before Christmas.’”
“I’ll try not to peek, Denny.”
Maal was a medium-sized, nondescript man with blondish-grey hair and a matching moustache. He wasn’t much of a worrier, and there weren’t many lines in his face. Nearly fifty, he had put twenty-five years into the Air Force, most of them flying KC-135 Stratotankers. That took steady nerves, and as far as Wyatt could tell, he hadn’t lost much composure since his retirement. His steady hands would be at the controls of the C-130F tanker, and the assignment hadn’t bothered him a bit.
Wyatt climbed the ladder, and Maal followed him and helped strap him into the seat. By the time he got his helmet on and his communications and oxygen lines connected, the sun was half a red ball on the eastern horizon.
With the APU providing amperage, Wyatt powered up the panels and tested his Tac One radio. “Yucca Base, Yucca One.”
Since they were exchanging one desert for another, they had elected to use a desert plant for their call sign.
“Five by five, One,” Kriswell said. “I couldn’t have done it any better if I’d really tried.”
“Try the Tac Two channel, and let’s see if your luck holds up.”
The second scrambled radio also performed well.
“I just told Bucky he could leave,” Kriswell reported.
The Citation passed in front of him, with Barr waving, as Wyatt went through the engine start procedures. Both turbojets fired easily, and he left them in the idle range for a few minutes.