Final Storm (9 page)

Hunter had seen these planes do their deadly work before and it had definitely left an indelible impression. In a test run performed on a designated target area, one AC-130 gunship making one pass had blanketed an area the size of a football field with thousands of rounds of multicaliber shells from their Gatlings, cannon, and howitzers. When the smoke cleared away, every single square foot of earth had been hit. Nothing could survive that kind of fire control intensity.

Of course, Hunter had to once again remind himself that the gunships, like the smaller Thunderbolts, didn’t have much of a defensive capability. The AC-130s slow speed and nonexistent maneuverability limited its effectiveness against heavily defended targets or targets protected by enemy fighters. Their new Kevlar lightweight armor would protect the crew against stray small arms fire from defending troops, but that was about it.

Now, as the AC-130s took off, their fuselages crammed with spare ammo for their Gatlings, cannons, and 105mm howitzers, Hunter’s F-16s were to fall in behind them, lifting off last to form the trailing edge of the air bridge. By “riding drag” on the tail of the convoy, the supersonic fighters would be able to kick in their afterburners and catch up to the others if there was any trouble.

But what kind of trouble could there possibly be at 40,000 feet over the Atlantic?

Plenty …

“Falcon flight leader ready for takeoff. Request tower clearance …”

Hunter was surprised at how detached his voice was—as if he were outside himself listening to another person.

“Roger, Falcon leader,” the tower’s own disembodied voice replied. “Your flight is cleared for take off on runway three-niner, eastbound. Wind speed is five knots, from the east-southeast. Ceiling at fifty-thousand …”

Hunter then led the six F-16s down the runway, gradually building speed until they ascended into the bright December sky over Virginia. Once they were airborne and organized, he picked up the proper heading for the first leg of the journey, then rose to join up with the rest of the convoy.

He looked out of the F-16’s canopy at the fading coastline of the eastern United States. The sky was clear, the sun was bright; but still his uncanny “sixth sense” told him that somehow, it would be a long, long time before his eyes would see another dawn in America.

T
HE FIRST FIVE HOURS
of escort duty passed without incident.

The convoy, stretched out over 75 miles, was riding smoothly, seven miles high, and so far executing a perfect chapter out of the textbook on formation flying.

The flight of F-16s, led by Hunter, traced long, lazy ‘S’ curves above the ponderous flock of AC-130s and airborne tankers, who plodded straight ahead. The zig-zagging was necessary to keep the speedier Falcons from racing ahead of the slower transports.

Still, the time gave Hunter the opportunity to think—not always the best thing to do when one was about to go to war. He remembered one of Jones’s more famous “cause-effect-result” speeches. This one was titled: The many ways to get killed in an airplane. “Frozen fuel line—flameout—crash: Dead. Too many gs in a tight dive—blackout—crash: Dead. Electrical problem—engine fire—explosion: Dead. Lose power on takeoff: Dead. Midair collision: Dead. Pancake into the runway: Dead.”

The point was that an airplane—any airplane—could turn on its pilot and the results could be fatal. Just about the only way to avoid such nastiness was for the pilot to thoroughly know the airplane and to know himself. It was this one golden rule that led to the real message of the speech: How
not
to get shot down in combat.

“If you know your airplane and you know yourself better than the other guy knows his airplane and knows himself, then you will shoot him before he shoots you.”

It all sounded so simple. Too simple. But now, alone in his cockpit at 40,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, Hunter was finally realizing the subtle complexity of Jones’s words. And their darker meaning stayed with him during the hump hours of the flight, looking over his shoulder like an unseen, uninvited passenger.

Hunter’s brooding was interrupted by a static-laden radio blast from the F-15 squadron many miles in front of him. Leading the convoy with the big transports, he deduced the Eagles were somewhere over the Azores by now.

His guess was accurate, as verified by the F-15 squadron commander.

“Falcon flight leader, this is Eagle leader. We are past Checkpoint Alpha Zulu and turning for destination Ringo-Oscar-Tango. Over.”

Hunter knew that Alpha Zulu was the code designation for the Azores. Ringo-Oscar-Tango meant Rota.

He responded in the flat, toneless drone born of thousands of routine radio messages.

“Eagle flight leader, this is Falcon leader. Roger your status and location. All clear back here. Over.”

Hunter knew the F-15s were now committed to go for Rota—they were already across that imaginary line in the sky that marked the point that they could still turn around and have sufficient fuel reserves to reach a tanker rendezvous point should Rota not be a safe place to land.

It was time to refuel.

Hunter loitered behind the other F-16s, listening to their pilots converse via secure transmissions with the big KC-10A Extender airborne tanker crew during the complex refueling process.

He didn’t know any of them except for their names: Crider. Christman, DuPont, Rico, and Samuels. Yet each one took on the needed fuel like an expert.

“They’re like extras in a movie,” Hunter thought, realizing in the same instant that “extras” were usually the first ones to get killed in war films.

With that sobering thought, he eased his own fighter effortlessly into a flight path just below the big aerial tanker, and after a successful hook-up, took on a belly full of fuel.

Once gassed up, Hunter and the other F-16s resumed then-zig-zag patterns high above the transports. The weather was crystal clear—the ocean below a shimmering blue. The overall effect was one of peace, tranquility. Hardly the weather one would expect to see while heading into the jaws of World War III.

This irony was sweeping through Hunter when, suddenly, he was shaken with another, more sinister feeling. Something was wrong up ahead.

Dead wrong …

Even before his radio crackled to life with the first report, Hunter had punched in his afterburner. At the same time he relayed instructions to DuPont, Crider and Rico to do likewise and follow him.

Captain Geoffrey Spaulding didn’t even know that there was a problem until the jetliner had started to fall.

Cruising with his flight of A-10A Thunderbolts high above the flight of transports and airliners, he had observed the last plane on the left wing of the convoy formation—Airplane Number 6—shake with a convulsive shudder. An instant later it started to trail flames and smoke and began to lose altitude.

Spaulding immediately grabbed his microphone. “Flight Six? What is your situation?”

There was no reply …

“Flight Six,” he called out. “Confirm in-flight emergency …”

Once again, there was only silence.

Even as Spaulding attempted to reach the pilot of the stricken airliner once again, a dozen things raced through his mind. Did the 747 have an engine problem? A fuel problem? Was it electrical? All unlikely—the pilot hadn’t reported anything and with mechanical failures, there usually was a warning sign—an oil pressure gauge, an engine temperature light, or any one of the hundreds of feedback and monitoring systems that checked the plane’s vital signs would generally give some sort of advance notice before trouble started.

“Flight Six, Flight Six …” Spaulding called out. “
What is your situation?
”

There was no answer. Only static.

He watched in horror as the 747 was almost immediately engulfed in flames. Then it turned over, spiraled for the long plunge down.

The spike of fear finally stabbed him. Maybe they’d been hit by enemy fire.

As the A-10A had no long-range radar to speak of, he quickly scanned the area visually, checking his position at the same time. They were at 40,000 feet and still had more than 1000 miles to go to the mainland of Europe. Where would enemy fighters come from? Unless …

Suddenly his radio crackled to life.

“Thunderbolt Leader! This is 747 Flight One!” he heard the desperate, electronically distorted voice say. “We are under attack! Repeat …
we are under air attack
!”

Spaulding quickly calculated that Flight One was five miles ahead of his present position and a mile and a half below.

“Roger, Flight One,” he replied. “We’re on our way …”

Spaulding immediately radioed up the rest of his ’Bolts and as one they dove to catch up with the airliners.

They reached the scene just as Flight One was going down. But he could see no enemy fighters—not right away, at least.

“Where are the bastards!” he cried into his microphone.

No sooner had he said it when one of his pilots called back.

“Captain! This is Murphy! I can see them …” came the message. “Six miles out due north. There’s eight—no,
nine
of them. I can see them clear as day …”

Spaulding immediately put his Thunderbolt into a wide, arcing 180-degree turn, a maneuver the rest of his flight followed. Within seconds he was able to see a handful of aircraft riding almost parallel to the flight of airliners.

“They’re Soviet jump-jets …” Spaulding called out to his flight, surprised that his voice was so calm. He had immediately recognized the uniquely ugly profile of the Yak-38 Forger, a fighter flown by the Soviet Navy.

He knew more than a few things about the Yak. One, it was equipped with AA-2 Atoll air-to-air missiles, with a range of about six miles. Two, the Yak, was a Vertical Take-off and Landing type jet, and therefore operated almost exclusively from the deck of certain Soviet ships.

In other words, there was a Soviet carrier down there, somewhere.

Spaulding knew he had to act fast. There was no doubt that when the Soviet fighters had finished shooting at the convoy with their standoff missiles, they’d probably swoop in at close range to finish the job with their guns. If that happened, the ungainly A-10s would have no chance at all to save the transports, or even themselves.

So the ’Bolts would have to dive—now, straight through the formation of enemy fighters from head-on and above. And then, well—then he’d worry about what to do next.

It only took seconds for Spaulding to first broadcast a coded “Under Attack-Distress” message to the rest of the convoy. Then he armed his Gatling and signaled his flight to do the same. The Standard ARMs and Rockeyes hanging from their wings would be useless against the airborne targets. Spaulding thought ruefully that the heavy ordnance might be good for extra weight during the first dive, but then the bombs would only be that much more high-explosive baggage to drag the ’Bolt down before the swifter enemy fighters.

But Spaulding knew the Americans had one advantage: The Soviet Forger was an absolutely terrible airplane—a poor attempt by the Soviets to duplicate the superior British-designed Harrier “jump jet.” Unable to master the complex thrust-vectoring technology that allowed the Harrier to use its engine for vertical takeoffs and landings as well as level flight, the Soviets had instead stuck a big turbojet in the Forger’s fuselage with adjustable nozzles, and crammed two smaller engines forward, just behind the cockpit. The resulting hybrid was a heavy, difficult-to-fly monstrosity that squatted on the decks of Soviet carriers, unable to take off without the combined thrust of all its engines, and unable to use its forward lift engines to maneuver in flight.

Spaulding also knew that the Soviets were trying to work around this disadvantage. The Forgers were obviously operating off one of the Soviets’ very few aircraft carriers—he guessed it was either the
Kiev
or the
Leonid Brezhnev.
They had probably tracked the air convoy from far out, then waited until the formidable F-15 force was past. Once cleared, the Forgers swooped in on the transports, firing their air-to-airs in a cowardly stand-off attack on the helpless airliners.

And that was what Spaulding knew he had to stop.

The A-10s increased their power dive on his command. The sun was with them, and although the Forger was equipped with a standard naval aviation radar, it was notorious for breaking down. For the moment, the element of surprise was with the Thunderbolts.

Spaulding crossed his fingers and took a deep gulp from his oxygen mask….

Just as the enemy airplanes were about to move in on the remaining airliners, the A-10s dove through their formation. Instantly the A-10s’ combined barrage of seven-barrel GE Gatling guns raked the topsides of the Soviet fighters. The big anti-armor shells punched through their steel skins, finding a cockpit or a fuel tank or an engine. The Soviets—caught completely off-guard—immediately scattered. Yet in the quick, steep pass, at least three of the Forgers went spinning into the sea.

Now the element of surprise was gone. The A-10s had bought some time for the unarmed airliners to escape, but now the six remaining Soviets appeared to be splitting off to engage the slower Thunderbolts.

Though the Forgers were nobody’s idea of a dogfighter, they
were
more than a match for the A-10s, which were designed for shooting up columns of tanks on the ground, not for aerial combat. Knowing this all-too-apparent limitation, Spaulding immediately ordered his flight to break off and dive for the deck.

Much to Spaulding’s dismay, none of the Forgers followed. Instead the remaining enemy fighters simply continued on their way, intent as they were on going after the undefended jet liners. The Soviet pilots, Spaulding figured, were wrapped in an obedience straitjacket. They had orders to shoot down as many of the airliners as possible, and to the Soviets, an order was an order, with very little room for interpretation, spontaneous thought, or individual initiative.

But he also knew that at this altitude and speed, his A-10s would never be able to catch up to the faster Forgers. Perhaps his actions had given the airliners time to escape. Then again, maybe not. But he knew he was correct in taking the risk. And in any case, he knew he couldn’t help the airliners now….