It was agreed to launch eight birds in flights of two, pairing an E-model with a Weasel. Each flight would hit a primary target and if no threats were encountered, would go on to a secondary flight. They finished flight planning two hours later.
“Briefing at 2300 hours,” Jack announced, sending them to get whatever rest they could find as the tension started to build.
The briefing that night started with a weather and intelligence update. Nothing had changed and Carroll had some reassuring news. “We launched a training sortie this afternoon and had it monitor the trawler for radar emissions. The targets for tonight are in front of Basra and we’re doing the usuaclass="underline" interdicting a buildup by the PSI.”
Jack took over then and covered night-time delivery techniques. “Remember,” he said, wrapping up, “from now on you’re part of Wolf Flight, and if you can’t hack night low levels going in and coming out fast, tell me now before you buy the farm.”
Wrango, a pilot from the 378th, asked about their call signs. “You’re a ‘Wolf,’” Jack answered. “Learn to recognize each other’s voice on the radio and keep the chatter to a minimum. Intel says the PSI monitors all our communications so we’ll use that as a weapon. When the Gomers hear ‘Wolf,’ I want them diving for cover, convinced that the meanest fucker on the block is coming after them personally with a five-hundred pound bomb. Instead of a name we’ll each have a number. I’ll be Wolf Zero-Nine. You pick your own number and keep it.”
At 1:08 A.M. the quiet of the early morning dark was shattered as eight Phantoms started their engines simultaneously. When their inertial nav systems were aligned they raced for the runway in pairs, maintaining radio silence. The tower saw the first two birds take the Active and blinked a green light, clearing them for takeoff. Each pair of birds made a formation takeoff to the north and never lifted above two hundred feet as they headed toward their target. Seven minutes after engine start, the base fell silent…
The PSI watch team that had been inserted to monitor takeoff activity at Ras Assanya heard the Phantoms start engines but had not reached their observation point in time to discover what had happened. The Soviet trawler offshore that served as a listening and radar watch post for the PSI never detected the activity…
C.J. moved his Phantom as close as possible to Jack’s, determined to weld himself to Jack’s wing. The sweat rolled off his face as he fought to maintain position, using the dim green luminescent formation lights on Jack’s bird for a reference. Flying formation at night, that close to the ground and fully configured for combat was adding up to the most demanding mission he had ever flown. He was so close to Jack that they were even cycling together in response to the ground turbulence.
“Right turn to zero-six-four coming up in thirty seconds,” Thunder warned his pilot.
Jack lifted the flight up to four hundred feet for the turn, spun them onto the new heading and immediately jammed them down to two hundred feet once they were wings-level on their new course.
“He’s good, damn good,” C.J. muttered under his breath.
Thunder’s call of “ten minutes out” cued Jack to arm up his bird as they headed for the truck park that was their first target. Jack had decided that CBUs would be the best ordnance to use, giving him coverage over a wide area. C.J. had a mixed load for defense-suppression and would drop his CBUs on the secondary target they had selected on their escape route, a haphazard array of barrels and crates that looked like a supply dump. He would only use his anti-radiation missiles if a SAM site challenged them; otherwise he would return with the valuable missiles. They turned the IP and made their target run. Jack listened to Thunder count the seconds down to bomb release and at the count of five saw the truck park flash up in front of him. The lay down delivery was right on.
Thunder twisted in his seat and scanned the target. “I counted four secondary explosions,” he said. “We got something that time.”
The two Phantoms headed toward their next target.
C.J.’s backseater concentrated on his RHAW gear, waiting for signs of SAM activity. Thunder guided them to their secondary IP, and again they ran in on the target. Except this time C.J. dropped his CBUs while Jack moved out to the right and slightly above him, keeping him in sight, not wanting to become separated at night.
Again, Thunder scanned the target. “Maybe one secondary,” he reported. “I saw a small flash that might have been something.” The small flash that Thunder had seen was the fuel tank of an auxiliary generator exploding.
Coming off the target Jack made a gut decision. “Head straight for home plate, Thunder; let’s get the hell out of Dodge.” Thunder punched the base’s coordinates into the nav computer. As Jack selected Nav Comp on the Navigation Function Selector Panel the bearing pointer on the Horizontal Situation Indicator slewed to the right, pointing to Ras Assanya. Jack wrenched the Phantom onto the new heading.
“Where the hell we going?” C.J. rasped over his intercom to his bear.
“Rats Ass,” Stan told him. “No reason to get off our planned route.”
“Not good.” Thunder was studying his chart, working out where they were headed. The terrain was flat, and he and Jack had spent hours over charts, identifying landmarks and significant features. What worried Thunder now was that the reccy photos had proved the charts to be out of date. “There’s a village on the nose—”
“Split,” Jack yelled over the radio. Both pilots immediately separated, pulling five Gs as they split apart, flying around an unlit radio tower on the outskirts of the village. Jack’s quick recognition of the shadowy line of the tower that had loomed up in front of him was the only thing that saved them. As it was, his left wing tip nicked one of the guy-wires that supported the tower, snapping it and ripping off the red position and join-up lights on the wing tip.
“Goddamn. Thunder, tell me when there’s a tower in front of us, you mind? That’s what you’ve got the chart for.”
“Will do,” Thunder answered. “Except there was no tower on the chart. I can’t read what’s not there… ”
Less than an hour after engine start the eight Phantoms had all recovered safely at Ras Assanya, and the sixteen men walked quietly into the COIC for debriefing. Any sense of jubilation had been replaced by a crushing fatigue that replaced the slowly shredding tension from the mission.
Waters found Jack and Thunder looking at one of the reccy photos after their debrief with Intel. Thunder was using a magnifying glass to pinpoint the tower they had barely missed. “You can hardly see it,” Thunder said. “Our charts need some serious updating.”
“I’m sorry, I blew it and yelled at you.” Jack looked at his friend, taking the blame. His backseater happened to be his closest friend.
“What the hell.” The wizzo smiled. “Like they say in the movies, ‘cheated death again.’”
“Maintenance tells me you had some battle damage,” Waters said.
“Not battle damage,” Jack told him. “I clipped a radio tower’s guy-wire. After we came off C.J.’s target things were quiet. I decided to make a straight dash for feet wet. That’s when I snagged the tower. There was no reason for deviating from our planned route. My fault.”
“Okay, Jack, you learned something — like when not to improvise. Don’t worry about it. We’ve got lots of wing tips. Wolf Flight worked as advertised. Let’s keep it up.”
The man’s going to make it, Waters decided. He’d seen in Jack that rare combination of flying skill, intelligence and charisma that could lead. And now Jack was really growing up, recognizing and owning up to his mistakes.