Now Cunningham leaned back in his chair and turned his full attention to Locke’s proposal. The 45th had been committed to combat for two weeks and had hurt the PSI, reinforcing the UAC as the President had planned. Cunningham speculated how it had turned into a trade-off: the situation was nearing stabilization but at a cost of downed aircrews. Now the cost was causing political problems. The general began to play a game of “what if,” mulling over future possibilities, the probable reactions of the players and the counter-moves they would make. Carroll had accurately called the Soviet reaction. Glasnost was still the announced policy, the Soviets claiming what was going on in the Persian Gulf was a local matter and shouldn’t confuse Soviet-American relations. That’s what they said… Men and supplies were still reaching the PSI but not in significant amounts, not enough so far to cause the U.S. to increase its role in the Gulf. Fair enough, he decided, that’s the game we played with you in Afghanistan — keep the conflict going on a low burner until the other side gets tired of playing and goes home.
We’re close, he decided, close to stabilizing the situation on terms acceptable to the United States and its allies. But if we pull out now, the military situation will tilt in the PSI’s favor. It was a limited-war situation that fascinated the general, calling for all his skill in resolving it without allowing it to escalate into a bigger conflict. And the 45th was the key — he had to keep them in place a while longer, flying missions, wounding the PSI. But the political game dictated that it had to be done with minimum losses. No more Nams. The general thought about the proposal in front of him… F-111s would be perfect for the type of mission Locke was proposing, but F-111s would be interpreted as a deliberate escalation.
He cursed his Arab allies who would not give the 45th a dedicated CAP and refused to let the 45th fly its own. Either solution would cut the 45th’s losses. His advisers had convinced him that it was a question of Arab ego. The old macho perspective saw the ultimate use of a fighter aircraft in an air-to-air role, which was the arena the UAC had reserved for their own air force. They wanted to engage in so-called clean situations, where it was only fighter against fighter and not risk their expensive planes on escort missions into hostile territory. But if they let the 45th do it for themselves, it would make them look bad. He understood the irrationality of what was happening, and refused to accept it as a permanent condition for his Air Force.
So… he’d try to keep the 45th in the game by using Locke’s Wolf Flight while he tried to find them a CAP. He tallied what he needed to make Wolf Flight work, focusing on the 45th, letting his thoughts spin down. Waters, you’re on the cutting edge and you’ve got to keep your wing fighting until I can get you out of there some kind of a winner. Otherwise the sacrifices your people are making will be for nothing. And to think I almost canned you…
The men crowded around the largest flight-planning table in the COIC studying the message and photos that made Wolf Flight a reality. The message was much simpler than a frag order: a long list of map coordinates identifying targets the 45th could attack at will. What interested Waters the most were four general-target descriptions at the end, allowing the 45th to strike any identified troop concentrations, command posts, fuel dumps or artillery batteries that were in Iran and within a hundred-mile arc of Basra. Carroll had two of his sergeants plotting the targets on a large wall map.
The men made room for the wing commander when Waters joined Thunder. “Piece of cake, sir,” Thunder said. “I’ve never seen such clear photos and they’re one to fifty thousand, the same scale as a topo chart. And no distortion.” The crews used topographical charts for target planning. The wizzo held up the photo and chart of Ras Assanya for the colonel to compare. “I can use these to update our navigation charts and go any place we want.”
Waters didn’t much care for the note of overconfidence… it could be a killer. Studying the photo with a magnifying glass, he had to be impressed by the high resolution. “This one was taken around noon,” he told them. “You can pick out my truck on the isthmus. That was the first time I had driven it out there.” He had been inspecting Chief Hartley’s perimeter defenses before noon.
Cunningham had ordered two reconnaissance versions of the Stealth fighter to deploy secretly into a remote base in the wasteland of Rub al Khali, the “Empty Quarter” of the Arabian Desert, to support the 45th. Cunningham had welcomed the chance to test the Stealth fighters in actual operations. These photos were the first products of a new camera that relied on computer-rectified, reticulated optics and high-resolution film that imaged far beyond the normal photographic spectrum. The spooks at the salt flat of Al-Ubaylah were delighted.
“When can you be ready to launch your first sorties?” Waters asked Jack.
“The wizzos are driving this one, sir. Whenever they’re ready.”
“Tonight,” Thunder said quickly, throwing himself into selecting his route and updating his map using the photos they had just received. Waters motioned for Jack and Carroll to join him in the command post, leaving the men to work up the mission.
“Problems?” he asked the two young officers.
Jack replied: “Night deliveries will be a little tricky until we get the hang of it. The weatherman says it’s going to be clear as a bell and the moon is in its first quarter, sets at three-thirty this morning. We should have good visibility. I checked with Bull. He prefers night operations because you can see tracers from Triple A or a SAM’s plume in time to dodge them.”
“That Soviet trawler is going to cause us problems,” Carroll said. “But tonight we’ll probably catch them asleep. Hell, they throw out the anchor and even turn off their radar. They’ll hear our engines start and probably will figure it’s late-night engine runs by Maintenance. But we won’t surprise them twice, and they’ll start sending launch warnings. We don’t know how fast the PSI can react or if they’ll throw MiGs against us. The whole idea of Wolf Flight is to avoid threats and recover every bird we launch. It’s the same old problem — we can’t handle both threats.”
Waters leaned forward in his chair. “Now’s the time we have to take a calculated risk. Even if the MiGs do launch I don’t think they can find one or two birds at night down in the weeds. The Flogger Gs they’re flying don’t have a look down-shoot down capability. Tonight, let’s bet on surprise being on our side. Like on our first mission. We’ll reevaluate after every mission. Bill, keep watching for increased GCI coverage by the PSI and faster reaction on scrambles. That will be the first clue the MiG threat is heating up.” They returned to the mission planning room, where C.J. and his bear were waiting for them.
“No way you can do this without help,” C.J. said. “Stan-the-Man claims this stand-down is bad for his nerves and wants to get involved. It’s a perfect mission for a Weasel and we aren’t doing anything.”
Jack turned to Waters: “Colonel, we are dealing with a lot of unknowns tonight. Wouldn’t hurt to have a Weasel as a wingman.”
Waters nodded, pleased that Jack was showing some caution.