Carroll said, “It could work for the six, questionable for the two who serve as a diversion.”
A quick look at Thunder told Jack that his pitter was willing. “C.J., you game to be a volunteer?” Jack asked.
“Why not? It’s the kind of ride Stan-the-man likes. We’ll join you. Now we need to sell it to the Old Man.”
Waters listened to Jack’s latest plan for launching Wolf Flight and had to admit the pilot was creative in devising new ways to deceive and attack the enemy. But he was the one who had to decide whether to launch or cancel. He wanted time to think, not be forced into committing the lives of his men so fast. Except time was what he didn’t have.
He made his decision. “If we can get an airborne tanker it’s a go,” he said, and quickly left the room. All the elation he felt from the morning’s successful raid was overwhelmed by the possible consequences of his “go” decision.
The telltale flickers of the trawler’s search radar lighted Thunder’s warning gear immediately after takeoff. Jack dropped low to the water while C.J. moved up, letting the radar positively identify him. They used the warning gear as cues, porpoising up and down, making sure the trawler could periodically paint them on radar as they flew down-track. Jack could barely see the soft green formation lights on C.J.’s bird in the growing haze and darkness when he violently rocked his wings, signaling C.J. to collapse into a tight formation. The major slid his fighter onto Jack’s wing and they dropped down to the surface of the water, changing course trying to elude search radars.
Unexpectedly C.J. slowed down to below 300 knots, too slow for the area they were in, then broke silence with a short transmission. “Aborting, engine failure, frozen.” The major’s number two engine had lost its oil pressure and frozen, the compressor blades not turning and consequently creating a ferocious drag for the remaining engine to overcome.
Jack started to turn with him and return to base before realizing that he had to continue the mission. He jerked the Phantom back onto course and headed into the night alone. “No choice,” he said to Thunder. “We’ve got to hit the target to keep the MiGs looking for us.”
“New heading three-two-nine degrees in thirty seconds,” Thunder replied, navigating to the target. Then: “Contact, IP,” Thunder told him. Jack saw the crosshairs on his scope move out and freeze on an indecipherable glob while the bearing pointer on the Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI) swung and pointed to the IP. Jack cut the corner and headed straight for the Initial Point, wanting to drop his bombs and run for home. But without the protection that C.J. offered him from SAMs, he felt naked. “Contact, target,” Thunder said, and again the radar crosshairs moved over a bright return on the scope.
This time, Jack did not cut the corner and flew over the IP, giving Thunder time to refine the placement of his bombing cursor. The visibility improved as they started their bomb run. Jack selected visual mode for the delivery when he saw the outline of trucks and buildings on the near horizon in front of them. His thumb depressed the pickle button when the target-pipper on his sight was centered on the buildings, and six bombs rippled off, walking across the farm buildings the PSI had recently turned into a fuel dump. The impact on the ground was instantaneous as the fuel exploded, lighting the sky and silhouetting the lone Phantom against the night. Jack jinked hard, going as fast as he could without lighting his afterburners and giving the enemy a beacon to find him. He was just turning south when an explosion rocked the Phantom, almost twisting the stick from his grasp.
Neither he nor Thunder saw the SA-9 that was homing on the heat-signature of their tail pipes. The turn south had rotated their hot exhaust away from the missile’s infrared guidance head. The guidance program then tried to follow the Phantom through the turn by feeding cutoff into the missile’s trajectory. The guidance-head lost the heat signature halfway through the turn but went into a memory mode and speared Jack’s bird on the lower left side, below the cockpits. Most, not all, of the small warhead’s charge was absorbed by the variable ramp that led into the air duct of number one engine and the bulkheads surrounding the cockpit. The J-79 engine, damaged when it sucked in debris from the explosion, did continue to operate, sending out signals that it was hurt.
The pain was a lion to be tamed, but Jack had never dealt with a lion before. The lion walked through him, clawing and ripping. “Thunder, talk to me, babe… ” Silence. He wanted to twist in his seat to check on his friend, except the lion wouldn’t let him as it came on him, bringing a fog that threatened his consciousness. Jack fought it, fought the lion trying to drag him into the encroaching fog… “Okay, check. Fly the goddamn airplane,” he ordered himself, going through the routines he had practiced so often to analyze and handle such an emergency. “Thunder, talk to me.” He wasn’t sure if he had said it aloud so he repeated it, and again still no answer. He could feel the fog now, numbing, confusing him — the lion snarled and the searing pain brought him awake as two thoughts battered at him: fly the bird; help Thunder…
He labored to quiet the lion. What’s the matter with me? Fly the jet. He checked his instruments, started to navigate home. The engine instruments were normal; no, the oil pressure on his number one was a little low, but still within limits. Concentrate on basics: breathing, bleeding, bones — the three Bs of first aid. Where had he learned that? Fly the airplane. His internal monologue continued as his hands went through their assigned tasks. Forcing his eyes down, he checked his feet, directing his flashlight at the floor. Nausea came over him when he saw his feet soaked with blood.
Where’s that damn lion when I need him? Shock is there, has to be. Stop the bleeding, be quick about it. With his left hand he ripped the first-aid kit out of its pouch on his survival vest, shook it apart into his lap, unwrapped the large compress bandage. He patted his right side with his left hand. Nothing. Switching hands on the stick, he patted his left side. Just below his hip he felt the warm, sticky wet. He was near the leak. “Fix the leak.” A simple problem of maintenance…
The lion came again from nowhere, challenging him with pain. He had reduced the problem to basics. He looked at his left hip. A flow of blood was coming out of his upper left thigh, not pulsing or heavy, which would have meant an artery had been severed. Why couldn’t he feel it? Shock? He grabbed the bandage and stuffed it into the flow of blood. The lion snarled as he tightened the bandage around his wound, stopping the flow of blood.
Again he scanned the instruments, checked his fuel, calculated the course home. Looking outside, he searched for a recognizable landmark, anything to point the way back to Rats Ass. Automatically he scanned the instrument panel yet again, an ingrained part of his flying routine. He noticed the bearing pointer on the HSI was pointing at his one o’clock position. How had he missed that? He recycled the select switch on his HSI to the navigation computer mode and watched the bearing pointer slew back to the same position and the mileage indicator roll to 128 nautical miles. “Thunder, baby, I love you,” he said. In his last few seconds of consciousness Thunder had punched the coordinates for Ras Assanya into the navigation computer, showing his pilot the way home.
“All right now, Thunder, baby, what’s the matter with you?” He reached up to his right and twisted the far right rearview mirror on his canopy bow, adjusting it to see into the backseat. He could only make out the top of Thunder’s helmet in the dim glow of the light given off by the instruments. Gently he rolled the F-4 onto its back and started a climb. The maneuver straightened Thunder out and forced his inert body into a sitting position. While still climbing he rolled the Phantom upright and leveled off. He directed the beam of his flashlight into the rear cockpit and could now see Thunder clearly in his rearview mirror. Thunder’s helmet visor was busted and splattered on the inside with blood, and his shoulders were bloody. Please, God, not a head wound… but he knew one was likely. A cold determination came over Jack to recover the big fighter. With Thunder unconscious and with a head wound, an ejection would be fatal.