Formsby had known Wyatt for fifteen years. They had first met when Wyatt was detached to the Royal Air Force to learn to fly Harrier jump-jets with Formsby’s squadron, and they had become good friends. Wyatt had made the arrangements which brought Formsby to the United States for a year-long course in air superiority tactics, and he had smoothed the way for Formsby to get time in F-15s and F-16s. That alone was worth a lifetime’s friendship.
When RAF Captain Neil Formsby had lost power on his Harrier at a hovering thousand feet and jammed his foot through the firewall in the ensuing crash, he woke up in the hospital to find Wyatt in attendance. And after he was out of the hospital and in rehabilitation, Wyatt had been there with a job offer. Only for Wyatt would Formsby isolate himself in a hostile and foreign desert and come to enjoy it.
He was impressed when he first caught sight of the approaching aircraft. The two lumbering transports were flanked on each side by three fighters. They were a thousand feet off the ground when they passed over, the roar of twenty engines thundering with an impact he could feel right down through his toes.
One of the jets waggled his wings at him.
Formsby truly missed, and achingly longed for, the cockpit of a fighter aircraft.
As they went by toward the east, the C-130s fanned out wide and let the Phantoms have first chance at Formsby’s crude runway. They turned back and made their approaches quickly enough that he supposed fuel was becoming critical.
It wasn’t until the first aircraft touched down that he considered that his efforts at levelling ground could possibly be inadequate. Wyatt had told him that they would substitute softer tires for rough airfields, but the F-4 still managed five hops before it settled in.
His runway was almost too short.
Sand-covered hard earth did not offer the same friction as concrete or asphalt, and excessive pressure on the brakes induced skidding.
The first Phantom reached the end of the airstrip and had barely turned off when the next one touched down.
Formsby ran out to meet the first plane. His running gait was a trifle lopsided because of his ankle.
Its nose hobbled up and down in rapid little motions as it crossed the sand toward him. In the glare of the sun off the windscreen, he could not make out who was at the controls.
He spun around, revealing the back of his shirt to the pilot. In big black letters on the white shirt were the words: “FOLLOW ME.”
Trotting toward the tanker trailers, he led the big jet to a spot near his tent, then turned and waved his hand in a horizontal circle.
The pilot raised his canopy as the Phantom turned ninety degrees, then braked to a stop.
Formsby gave him a cut-throat signal, and the turbojets spun down.
The pilot slipped his helmet off, and Formsby recognized Barr.
“Good morning, Nelson,” he called.
“Who?”
“You.”
“Oh, right. Sometimes, I forget who I am. G’day to you, mate.”
“That’s an atrocious accent, Nelson.”
“We do what we can.”
“You must have been lowest on fuel,” Formsby said.
“I resent that, Neil. I’ve got two, maybe three litres left.”
Formsby grinned at him, then trotted out to meet the next plane.
In twenty minutes, he had all of the planes parked, the jets aligned with their tails toward the tank trailers, and the C-130s side by side in front of them.
Men spilled from the Hercules aircraft, produced ladders, and helped the pilots out of their cockpits.
He received at least a half-dozen compliments on the design of his shirt.
Crossing to the fourth interceptor, he greeted Wyatt as the man came down the ladder.
“Welcome to my humble air base, Andrew.”
Wyatt threw out his hand, and they shook hands. “Outside of a demonstrated need for more practice with a bulldozer, Neil, you’ve done very well. It’s good to see you.”
“We are meeting earlier than expected, are we not? I would hate to think my calendar has been running slow.”
“We’re early, and I’ll tell you why in a little while,” Wyatt said. “First, we’ll visit your latrine…”
Formsby waved his hand at the vista around them.
“…then, if you’ve got something to drink?”
“There’s about nine thousand gallons of water. Or, your unexpected arrival has caught me with a few bottles of unconsumed ale and champagne. It’s in the icebox.”
“You always did know how to live in the desert,” Barr said as he approached, his hand out. “What’s for lunch, buddy?”
“We live off the land here, Nelson.”
“Ecch.”
Formsby shook hands also with Demion and Kriswell, both of whom he had met before, then Wyatt took him in tow and introduced him to the others.
The group scattered for the dunes to relieve themselves while Formsby popped the corks on his last four bottles of champagne, put out the ale, and started stacking paper plates with ham-and-cheese sandwiches. He used Swiss cheese since Americans in general had no palate for more exotic cheeses.
Since they could not all fit inside the tent, they ate their lunch sitting on the hot earth in the shade created by a C-130 wing.
Wyatt brought him, and apparently most of the others, up to date on the reasons for the premature initiation of their mission.
Formsby was appalled by the callous disregard for human life. “Refugees? Women and children?”
“That’s the word, Neil,” Wyatt said.
“What kind of a bastard are we dealing with?” he asked.
“The worst kind, apparently.” Wyatt briefed them on the commanders involved, referring to biographies provided by the CIA. It was always good to know one’s adversaries, and Formsby memorized the names. Ramad, al-Qati, Salmi, Ghazi.
“And,” Wyatt added, “the Langley people suspect there will be some deniability built in — such as rogue commanders acting on their own. However, they’re also certain that the great Leader and his chief advisor, Kamal Amjab, have given a thumbs-up to the plan.”
The heat was intense, and Formsby got up and crossed to his tent to get the last of the ale, a stack of paper cups, and a big jug of iced tea. He brought them back and walked around the group, pouring.
It was not high tea.
Wyatt spent forty minutes briefing the mission. Formsby could tell they had discussed it before, but Wyatt was now making some changes in timing and targeting.
“Questions, anyone?” Wyatt asked.
“The distance to target,” Hackley asked, “is five hundred miles?”
“From the staging base,” Wyatt said, “five hundred and six miles.”
“And with this bird, we’ve got a full-load combat range of five-twenty.”
“That’s right, Norm. Time over target is going to be almost nil.”
“All that means,” Barr said, “is you got to be accurate. Hit what you aimed for and skedaddle.”
“What the hell?” Gettman said. “If we run short of fuel, we’ve made plans for hitchhiking.”
“That’s doing it the hard way, Karl, but yeah, we’ve got backup,” Wyatt said.
Cliff Jordan — Formsby was concentrating on attaching faces to the names of the people he had just met — pointed at the tanker trailers. “Neil, do those rusted, broken-down buckets actually have all the fuel we need?”
Fuel — its availability and transport — was probably the most crucial aspect of this mission. Lacking a sufficient quantity in the right location meant that the ordnance did not reach its targets. Formsby was quite content with his success at producing the required amount in the correct geographical location.