“Sir, the 45th is earmarked for combat operations in the Gulf under Operations Plan ELK GROVE. Right now the Pentagon is looking for a deployment base for us to use. They’re going to have to find one pretty quick if we’re to be used there because the situation in the Gulf is getting worse every day. The Navy is predicting that attacks on oil tankers will heat up in the next few weeks, the head ayatollah’s health is failing and Israeli intelligence has reported huge Soviet arms shipments out of Ashkhabad into Iran. They say it’s all being shipped into southern Iran, but we don’t know where the arms are going and who is getting them. We do know that large numbers of SAMs and Triple A for air defense have reached the Iranians. That’s all I’ve got for now.”
Waters turned to the men. “Get this out to the squadrons so they know what’s coming at them.” He turned to his weapons-and-tactics man. “Bull, I’m worried about the SAMs and Triple A. We’re an air-to-mud attack wing, and air defenses like Bill just mentioned can chew us up good. What can we do about it?”
Bull Morgan’s chin dropped onto his chest, as though illustrating what followed. “Low levels, Colonel. The crews are going to have to get down on the deck to get under the search-and-guidance radars and go at warp eight. Five hundred feet ain’t low and four hundred knots ain’t fast if you’re trying to avoid SAMs and Triple A.”
“Okay, Bull, get with Sir David and see if you can arrange for us to overfly the Stamford Military Training Area near here at low level. Let’s see what our aerial assassins can do.”
Waters, Morgan, and Pullman were in the control tower in the middle of Stamford MTA’s target range. Morgan tuned the UHF radio to the common frequency the 45th would be using and cleared the first two Phantoms onto the range. “Let’s see how close they can hit their scheduled time over target,” he mumbled. They waited for what seemed an eternity. “Where the hell are they?”
“There, sir,” a British Royal Army sergeant major said, pointing to the north, and looking, they could see the distinctive smoke trails the Phantoms left behind as two birds ran onto the range. Morgans’ instructions to the crews had been simple: cross the target area at low level in pairs, keep your airspeed below six hundred knots and hit your TOT, time over target. “Seventy seconds late. I’d estimate their altitude at eight hundred feet, airspeed at four twenty, maybe four hundred thirty knots,” the sergeant major said.
Morgan’s ears started to turn red in embarrassment.
The phone rang, the sergeant major answered, hung up and turned to Waters, “Sorry, sir, the Rapier crew reports two simulated kills.” Another pair of Phantoms overflew the range, almost two minutes late. Again the phone rang, reporting a simulated kill on the two birds. The next two F-4s never found the range, and Waters could see their smoke trails pass two miles to the west.
Waters walked out onto the catwalk surrounding the tower, motioning Morgan to follow him. His hands clenched the railing as two more of his Phantoms flew across the range, this time a minute early. “What in the hell is going on, Bull? They’re all running in from the north and can’t even come close to hitting their TOTs. The Rapiers are having a damned field day.” Morgan could only shake his head.
For the next hour Waters watched and listened as his wing struggled across the range. Steve Farrell, the squadron commander from the 377th, hit his TOT to the second and crossed the range at three hundred feet close to 500 knots, and for the first time the Rapiers could only report a probable kill.
“At least one crew did it right,” Waters snapped.
Now there was one scheduled TOT left. Everyone in the tower looked to the north, waiting to see the smoke trails. A Phantom flashed across in front of them, running in from the east, its sound wave shaking the tower’s windows after it had disappeared over the tree tops.
“Bloody hell,” the sergeant major yelled. “That bloke was below three hundred feet. Damn close to six hundred knots… ”
Ten seconds later the second F4 slashed through from the south, kicking up a rooster tail of dust as spirals of wake turbulence fanned from its wing tips.
The sergeant major was in awe.
“Bloody fast, bloody low.”
Morgan could smile for the first time. “Fairly and Locke. They split the TOT. Fairly was five seconds early, Locke five seconds late. I doubt if they saw each other.” The telephone rang and the sergeant major relayed the Rapiers message: a probable hit and a definite miss.
Waters saw a glimmer of hope as he stared out the window. “Okay, Bull. We need to practice a mass raid stressing timing. I want to put a gaggle over a target so close together they’ll wet their pants if they blow their TOTs.”
Jack and Thunder were on one of their pub hunts, checking out the bars — the Brits called them public houses — trying to find one for a squadron party. Group Captain Childs had told them the Maypole was worth a try but they couldn’t find it. Thunder’s date, one Francine Thomas, finally asked two policemen who were parked beside the road. Francine was a buxom school teacher Thunder had met while giving one of his Friday tours to third graders from the base school.
Eventually they found the brightly lit building and a big parking lot no more than four hundred yards down the road. As they crowded up to the bar and Jack ordered drinks he also noted that there were some attractive women around, and this plus the obvious mutual attraction between Thunder and his Francine heightened his own need. It had been a dry spell for him. He’d had a notion about Sara, but Colonel Waters had taken care of that… He took a quick trip to the men’s room, and when he came back to the bar saw that Thunder and Francine clearly didn’t need him. Nobody else seemed to either, the place being full of couples… until he spotted someone he was sure he knew. It seemed almost too corny, like one of those old War War II movies with Robert Taylor, the Yank in England, or was it Oxford? and Eleanor Parker or somebody. But never mind, be grateful and accept that the lady he was looking at was, unless he was crazy, the haircutter. What was her name…? An unusual one — Gillian, that was it. Quickly as he could he maneuvered through the crowd of tightly packed bodies toward her.
“Pardon me,” he said, just as though he was Robert Taylor, “but haven’t we…?”
“You know perfectly well we have,” she said, which was all the opening he needed. He reprised how she had saved him from an inglorious shearing at the hands of his squadron commander. They went back and forth like that for a while, the two girls with Gillian trying not to show their irritation at being left out, and then drifted through the crowd and out the door into the fresh air.
Watching them go, Thunder was a little surprised. Friend Jack hardly ever went for a girl that looked like this one. Mostly they were slim and young, very young, and obvious air-heads. This one, well-built and no child, hardly fitted that bill.
The sun was flooding his room, and Jack got out of bed to close the curtains. He stood in the middle of the room looking at Gillian, still asleep. Her long hair spilled over the pillow, framing her face and catching a ray of light. The soft morning light highlighted and accentuated her lovely, near-classic English features. No question, she was a new experience for him. She’d been straightforward in a way he wasn’t used to, saying quite simply her need matched his. No cutsey-pie teasing. A woman. Her love-making had been at once gentle and fierce, not holding back, demanding and generous, too.
Rather than crawl back into the warm comfort of his bed Jack moved into the small kitchenette and started to make coffee, wondering how much longer before he’d have to send her home.