“Like the Marines in Beirut,” Waters broke in, bitterness in his voice. “A suicide terrorist blows up their barracks and kills almost two hundred and fifty Marines and the U.S. bails out. Their sacrifice is for nothing.” Waters was standing over the table, leaning on his arms, head bowed. “These casualties hurt.” He looked up, masking his deeper feelings. “John, can you get a waiver on the restriction against wing commanders flying in combat? I can’t keep asking my men to do something I’m not allowed to do.”
Shaw nodded, understanding Waters’ dilemma.
“If we can get a dedicated CAP or even fly our own CAP,” Waters added, “we can cut our loss rate and do what we were sent here for.”
“Muddy, there’s no way the UAC is going to let you fly your own CAP. You know that. They claim that’s the purpose of their Air Force. There’s a lot of Arab ego tied into that decision… What’s wrong with the CAP they’re flying?”
“They’re airborne, but they won’t go into SAM envelopes or escort us in. If we can get the Floggers off our back we can suppress the SAMs and Triple A. Jack Locke has worked out a way to hit the Gomers without a CAP and avoid getting plastered. We need to change the way we’re fragged though. Interested?”
“Locke, huh? Okay, let’s talk to your tiger and see what he has.”
“What abut the C-141? I thought it had to get going,” Waters asked.
“One of the nice things about being a general, Muddy, is that the plane will wait.”
Jack, Thunder and Carroll clustered around the flight-planning table briefing Shaw on Jack’s idea for a Wolf Flight. “General, I’m proposing we launch sorties at night to hit targets not heavily defended. We run against them in flights of two at low level and beat feet if the threat gets too hot. That’s it.”
Shaw was surprised at the simplicity of Jack’s plan. “How do you know which targets aren’t defended?”
Carroll picked it up. “We get reconnaissance photos of the area every afternoon. We can pinpoint the latest location of the SAMs and Triple A. The PSI only has so many SAMs and can’t cover every target. We pick a target they aren’t defending and plan a low-level to it around the known defenses. The RHAW gear on the F-4s can warn our crews if unexpected defenses start to pop up and we abort the mission.”
“I see you let their last defense posture determine which targets you pick — at the last minute.” The general thought for a moment about Waters wanting to change the way they were ordered into combat. “You need a list of approved targets to pick from, not a detailed frag order.”
“There’s another reason,” Carroll said. “They were waiting for us at the convoy. I don’t know how they knew. maybe dumb luck. They might have psyched out our method of selecting targets — we’ve been going after big stuff. I don’t know, maybe an intelligence leak. Also, no matter how we try to keep our communications down, that Soviet trawler offshore can monitor us as we load out and broadcast early warnings. We know it radios our launch times. As long as it’s in International Waters, we can’t do a damn thing.”
“So you do surprise launches any time during the night.” Shaw was almost sold. “What about the MiGs?” Jack allowed a grin. “The PSI has piss-poor GCI coverage. They’ll never find us rooting around in the mud at night. Besides, I don’t think your average PSI Flogger driver has the cajones to come down into the weeds at night and mix it up with a Phantom. General, Thunder claims we can do the low levels. I think we deserve a chance to nail the bastards.”
“So do I, Jack. You three get packed, you’re coming with me to a conference at JUSMAG. We’ve got some convincing to do… Muddy, Chief Pullman is going crazy at Stonewood with nothing to do. Mind if I use him until you get back?”
Waters agreed, knowing well that inactivity was the one thing Pullman could not handle.
Shaw pulled a memo out of his briefcase while they waited for the men to return. “I’ve got a nitpicker from Third Air Force for you.” The general, it seemed, had come to Ras Assanya for another reason. As director of personnel for Third Air Force he was carefully appraising Waters, looking for signs of physical exhaustion and, more importantly, emotional fatigue. “Plans and Intel claims your use of tactical call signs is giving away too much info. They’ve ordered you to stop them and use the variable call signs assigned in the frag order.” He waited to see how Waters would react.
Annoyance and amusement flashed in Waters’ brown eyes. “Tell Blevins we tried that and can’t make it work. We’ll do it if someone will come out here, fly a few combat missions and show us how it’s done. Maybe Blevins would like to volunteer. What we’re doing works well and I can’t see fixing something that isn’t broke. But like I say, I’m always amenable to someone leading a combat sortie and showing us a better way.”
“I’ll be pleased to relay that message, Muddy.” Shaw smiled. Both loathed Blevins. “Who do you want to replace Tom?” he asked, easing into a more touchy subject, still evaluating Waters’ reactions.
Waters kept his emotions under tight rein. “Steve Farrell, the 377th squadron commander. I want to give C. J. Conlan the 377th.”
In spite of the man’s fatigue, Shaw decided, Colonel Waters was firmly in control of himself and his wing. But Shaw also knew the intense pressure and burden of responsibility for leading a wing in combat would eventually take its toll, and his friend Muddy would inevitably start to make mistakes. Once a wing was committed to combat, it turned into a machine that consumed people for its fuel. Its commander became the driving force behind it, pumping his people into the maw of war, in large part determining who survived. It was a hellish burden that few sane men could carry for long.
Most of the passengers of this flight back to Washington were asleep on the Boeing C-137B, the version of the 707 the Air Force used for hauling VIPs. Cunningham sat alone in the rear compartment, enjoying the solitude and the comfort of the big leather armchair. Smoke filled the air as he puffed on one of the fine cigars that Ruth had found for him in London. Probably a Havana with its label removed. Just like Ruth, she does spoil me. He checked the sleeping compartment to see if she was sleeping comfortably. His wife had never been able to rest on protocol trips like the one they were returning from and he worried about her health. He watched her sleep, curled up in the middle of the bed, quietly closed the door and returned to the armchair.
As he turned his attention to the rough draft of a proposal John Shaw had given him in London, he thought of an ambassador’s daughter, Abigail, who had cornered him at an embassy reception in London and asked if he knew a Lieutenant Jack Locke, an F-4 pilot. The young lady, more out of her dress than in it, though within the limits set by the latest style, had more than a passing interest in the pilot. He told her he did know the lieutenant, who was currently with the 45th Tactical Fighter Wing at Ras Assanya on the Persian Gulf. She was impressed with him that he knew about a lieutenant and told him so, and a fleeting image of what the young lady might look like without clothes brushed his consciousness, a diversion he didn’t much indulge in these days. Well, fighter pilots will be fighter pilots, he told himself, remembering his days in F-86s when the world… never mind the world… when he was young.
The reception in London for NATO commanders had not been a complete waste of time and the general had been able to spend a few minutes talking with John Shaw about keeping the 45th operational in the Persian Gulf. Shaw had hurriedly explained the plan Jack Locke had put together for cutting the wing’s losses. The lieutenant had convinced the JUSMAG that it would work but they needed higher approval to implement it. The young pilot’s idea had teased Cunningham with its possibilities, but the conference’s full schedule had forced him to put it aside. He had told Shaw to give his aide Stevens the rough draft of the proposal that Shaw had banged out on a portable typewriter on the flight in from Dhahran.