The fight was over. Four Mobil defenders were shot down. And so was Killer DeLancey.
Maxwell waited until he heard that DeLancey’s fighters had engaged the F-15s. Then he called, “Strikers, take heading two-seven-zero.”
His strike package was inbound once again to the target. Both groups of strikers — Maxwell’s Buick flight and, ten miles abeam, the Rambler flight — accelerated to attack speed.
Thirty miles out, they heard from Tracey Barnett in the AWACS: “Rambler One, bandits on the nose, thirty miles, hot.”
Maxwell could see them on his own radar, the four remaining Orange defenders. The Royal Saudi F-15s were committing. They were leaving their CAP station, making a head-on attack against the entire strike package. They were Al-Kharj’s last defense against the Blue strike force.
“Blue force, go air-to-air,” Maxwell transmitted. His Hornets were ready for a face-to-face with the F-15s. The Saudis were good, he knew, but not very imaginative. Four Eagles against eight Hornets, who also happened to be armed with the same AIM-120 radar-guided missiles.
Determined but outgunned, the Saudi pilots came blazing into the fight with the suicidal panache of the Light Brigade. The lead F-15 managed to score an out-of-range shot on Maxwell’s dash four, who was flying too wide and stepped down.
It was B.J. Johnson, Maxwell realized. He made a note to himself to debrief her about flying proper combat spread.
It was the last Orange kill of the day. Seconds later, Maxwell reported: “Splash the lead F-15.”
“Splash two,” called another Hornet pilot.
“Splash three.”
“Make that four.”
The Orange air defense had been eliminated. Twenty miles ahead, Al-Kharj lay exposed like a ripe garden.
“99 Gippers,” Maxwell said, again using his group’s collective call sign, “push it up.”
His Hornets formed a wide combat spread.
“Weapons hot.”
Maxwell shoved his throttles into afterburner, rolling into his dive. On either side, he could see his strikers doing the same, each acquiring his respective target on the big sprawling air base.
Streaking downward at supersonic speed, the Hornets ripped over Al-Kharj, dropping their make-believe weapons.
“Buick One off,” called Maxwell, flashing past the orange-and-white checkerboard-painted water tower.
“Buick Two.”
“Rambler One off.”
Each jet reported off, his simulated bomb load delivered on one of the base structures. One by one the fighters screamed over the concrete-and-sand-and-grass patchwork of the air base at nearly nine hundred miles per hour.
Inside Maxwell’s oxygen mask, a wide grin spread over his face. He knew the thunder of the sonic booms was reverberating across the air base like the hammers of hell. Glasses were probably shattering, a few windows breaking, someone’s china vase cracking. War was hell.
Maxwell knew that when their nerves stopped twanging from the booms, the Air Force blue suits down there would figure out what happened. They had just gotten schwacked by the swabbies.
Chapter Seven
Sugar Talk
DeLancey was seething. Every vivid detail of the shoot-down — that numbnuts Eagle driver sacrificing himself so he could take a shot at DeLancey — was still burning like an ember in his gut.
Ahead of him lay the great gray slab of the Reagan’s flight deck. Behind the carrier trailed a wake of white foam, sparkling in the afternoon sun. DeLancey was stabbing his throttles forward and back, struggling to keep his jet stabilized on the glide path. Trying to keep the ball — the amber light that served as the pilot’s optical glide path indicator — was supposed to be in the middle of the Fresnel lens, jutting up like a sign board at the left edge of the landing area.
DeLancey’s jet was settling in the groove. “A liii — iiitttle powerrrrrr,” the LSO coaxed, using his best sugar talk.
DeLancey responded with a burst of power, shoving the throttles up. Too much.
“Don’t go high,” said the LSO. But it was too late. Killer’s blast of thrust had pushed the jet above the glide path. “Bolterrrrr!” Pearly barked into his microphone.
A “bolter” meant that the jet’s tail hook had missed all three wires. Instead of landing, the pilot had to jam the throttles forward and take off again, hurtling off the end of the angled deck and back into the sky. The gray blur of the ship passed beneath and behind him — without stopping. Ahead was the open sky and the sea.
Now Killer was in a rage. Bolters were supposed to happen only to nuggets — pilots who were new aboard the ship — or to pilots who were rattled and had lost their concentration. He was the commanding officer! He had over eight hundred carrier landings in his log book. He wasn’t supposed to lose his concentration.
What galled him most of all was the knowledge that down there in his own squadron’s ready room, the other pilots, mostly junior officers, who had not flown today’s exercise would be watching the landings on the PLAT — the Pilot Landing Aid Television. He knew what they’d be doing. The insolent little bastards would be cracking up.
He was right.
“Yee-ha!” howled Buster Cherry, a baby-faced lieutenant. “See that? Killer blew through the deck.”
“Like soap through a goose,” observed Flash Gordon.
“Killer the clutcher!”
“Who’s he gonna blame that one on?”
“The LSO, of course. For giving the power call.”
They loved it. What could be better than watching their own larger-than-life, MiG-slaying commanding officer, Killer DeLancey, having his day in the barrel?
They watched the PLAT monitor as DeLancey made his way around the pattern, setting up for his next pass at the deck.
“Betcha a buck he nails a two wire this time,” said Flash.
“You’re on,” said Buster. “He’ll squat the jet.” “Squatting” meant descending below the glide slope, dumping the jet onto the deck and catching the first wire. It was dangerous because it increased your chances of landing short and exploding against the ramp — the edge of the flight deck.
“Killer’s cool. He’ll get an okay pass.”
“I bet on a wave off,” said Leroi Jones, the squadron duty officer. A “wave off” was a command by the LSO to add full power and go around for another try at the deck.
The ready room fell quiet. The JOs watched the black-and-white image of DeLancey’s Hornet appear behind the ship. Superimposed over the jet on the PLAT screen was a set of cross hairs, indicating the jet’s position on the glide path.
The jet was below the cross hairs.
“A little low,” came the voice of the LSO. “Give me some power.”
No one spoke. The audience in the ready room was caught up in the mini-drama of the carrier landing ritual. Carrier landing grades were a matter of pride and heated competition among pilots — and squadrons. To be named “Top Hook” — best carrier pilot — was one of the highest plaudits in naval aviation.
On the VFA-36 “greenie board” — the chart in the ready room on which each pilot’s carrier landing grades were recorded — Killer DeLancey’s name dwelled somewhere in the middle. At the top of the chart, with stars around it, was the name of the current VFA-36 carrier landing champion: Brick Maxwell. It was a distinction, as everyone in the squadron knew, that irritated the hell out of Killer DeLancey.
DeLancey’s jet was still below the cross hairs. “Powerrrr,” called the LSO.
The jet was almost at the ramp. Still slightly low. “Don’t go low…”