The Hot Pilots (46 page)

Steve studied his instruments. Everything was green, including the Vector-A radar ranging system. It was represented in the
cockpit by a shoebox-size rectangular console that was studded with switches and knobs arranged around a five-inch diameter
porthole-shaped CRT screen. The gizmo was mounted on the instrument panel, just below the forward windscreen, below the Tyran’s
gun sight. During fur-ball, close-in dogfighting, the Vector-A system remained off, and the fighter’s original equipment gun
sight was used to aim its brace of 30-millimeter cannons. The Vector-A came into its own during air-to-ground attacks. Once
the pilot had locked the Vector-A on target, he could concentrate on jinking to avoid ground defenses. The Vector-A, by means
of radar equipment mounted in the jet’s nose, calculated the proper instant to automatically release the ordnance. The Vector-A
could also control Air-to-Air missile weapons systems, if the Israelis happened to have any, which they didn’t. The Tyran
IIs were equipped to carry such missiles, but because AAs cost tens of thousands of dollars each, the Israelis couldn’t afford
them. The Israelis had to pay for everything they got from their sole arms supplier, France. The Arabs got all the weapons
they could use from Russia through “foreign aid.”

Steve checked his altimeter. The strike force was now at twenty thousand feet, and taking its time cruising along at three
hundred knots, both to conserve fuel and to give the Egyptians a nice long look. The hope was that the Egyptians, not especially
known for their attention span, would get bored and decide to play a little backgammon or something to pass the time.

Steve checked his maps. Just another few moments …

He watched as far ahead the Tyrans of Orange Flight abruptly dropped into a steep dive. Blue Flight’s lead element next followed
suit. The two, dun-colored, delta-winged craft wearing the Star of David hurtled like arrowheads toward the sun-dappled azure
sea.

Here we go
, Steve thought as he shoved the stick forward to follow Blue Lead’s plunge. He glanced out the canopy to check on Benny.
His old buddy was tight on his wing, following him down.

At fifty feet the two flights leveled off. Element by element, the Tyran IIs whip-snapped around onto an easterly course,
back toward the coastline. The Israeli jets were now committed to their attack approach. For the next five minutes they would
fly a beeline, skimming the waves toward their target. Steve hoped they were now flying below the enemy’s radar. Steve, busy
greening up his weapons systems, also hoped that his Tyran II had been waterproofed. She was just now flying so low that she
was feeling more like a speedboat than an airplane. He was having a hard time seeing out of his canopy due to the salt spray
being kicked up by the after-wash of the jets ahead of him.

The Egyptian coastline was looming ever larger as the eight Tyran IIs hurtled onward.
Feet dry
, Steve thought as the strike force quickly left ocean and then beachhead behind. Now the strike force was hugging the Sinai’s
yellow sand dunes, kicking up dust and gravel as the jets shrieked across the scrubby green and gold desert.

This was it. Abu Fayad Air Base was only a few klicks away. Steve glanced at Benny, who was still flying on his wing. Benny
saw him looking, and gave him a jaunty wave.

Stick tight, old buddy
, Steve silently told him.
We kicked ass over the Pacific, and those Zero drivers were a pretty tough bunch … We shouldn’t have any trouble with these
camel drivers
—

Ahead Orange Flight went to afterburn, rocketing skyward to begin their bombing run. Steve watched for Blue Lead’s tail pipe
to spit fire, and then cobbed his own throttle, feeling the kick in the pants as his Tyran leapt to one thousand feet, which
was the ceiling for this bombing run. The Egyptians had Soviet-supplied SAM missiles, but they were useless below two thousand
feet.

As the dunes dropped away Steve saw the target. At the far end of the base he could make out Abu Fayid’s bunker-like control
tower complex. It was bristling with radar and radio antennae. Surrounding the tower were the airplane hangars, and branching
off from them was a cloverleaf complex of concrete runways. What looked like barracks-type housing lined the base perimeter,
and about one hundred yards away from the control tower and hangars were probably the fuel and ordnance depots. Tanker trucks
and ordnance vehicles were parked nearby the second runway cloverleaf fronting the depots.

It seemed as if the Egyptians were being taken by surprise. The concrete revetments lining the runways were filled with parked
aircraft. There were at least thirty silvery MIGs, and a dozen of the Soviet-built, TU-16 Badger bombers. The TUs dwarfed
the MIGs, and looked a little like the F-105 Thuds that Steve had flown in Vietnam.

Orange Flight was already executing its dive bomb attack. There was no longer any need for radio silence, so the IAF pilots
were now all excitedly chattering away to each other in Hebrew as they went about their work. Below, Egyptian personnel looked
like ants pouring out of a broken nest as they ran from the buildings, dashing madly to their planes, and to the sandbagged
anti-aircraft gun emplacements scattered about the base. As the Tyran IIs screamed down sporadic tracer fire rose up to meet
them. The tracer fire increased as more of the gun emplacements came on-line. Steve watched Orange Flight continue its attack
run, skillfully jinking its way through the wildly criss-crossing ground fire.

And that’s thanks to you, Pop
, Steve thought.
It’s the Vector-A systems that are getting us through
.

Orange Flight released its bombs over the runway cloverleaf near the fuel depot. Steve watched as the eight, five-hundred-pound
bombs hit and detonated, the massive explosions linking together into a smoky black anvil that abruptly blossomed forth its
own tower of orange flame as the nearby stores of fuel and ordnance caught.

Our turn
, Steve thought as Blue Flight spread out four abreast and nosed down toward the base. Their target was the complex of runways
near the control tower.

Steve fine-tuned his Vector-A, tracking the glowing green Aim Point target image through the drift-stabilized sight on the
portholelike CRT screen. He aligned the Vector-A’s cross hairs on the Aim Point and “froze” it in place, pressed the target
insert button, and locked down his bomb-release. He then turned his attention to avoiding the fiery beads of tracer fire so
hungrily reaching out to him. No matter how much he weaved and bobbed, the Vector-A kept the Aim Point aligned in its cross
hairs. As Steve flew over the target his ordnance was automatically released. He nosed up, coming around hard at five hundred
feet, scarcely escaping the shock waves as his own bombs detonated, tearing up the runway.

Steve switched off the Vector-A. He checked to see that Benny was still with him, and then rejoined Blue Lead and his wingman.
Orange Flight was already busy strafing what remained of the parked planes. Steve could see their dual cannons hosing down
the revetments with twin streams of 30-millimeter firepower. The helpless MIGs and TU-16 bombers were hammered into scrap
metal. Fires sprouted and quickly spread as the ambushed planes’ fuel tanks ignited.

Steve, orbiting the base, noticed a sandbag gun emplacement still operating. He skated the Tyran around onto an attack approach,
and centered his gun sight’s luminous red pipper on the barking machine gun. He pressed his trigger, and felt his Tyran 11
shake as its belly-mounted twin cannons lashed out like twin, striking rattlesnakes. The gun emplacement was quickly blown
away.

Steve eased back on the stick to climb a bit, careful, however, to stay below two thousand feet, just in case there were any
SAMs around. As was his habit, he routinely scanned the sky; that was when he saw the sun glint on four silvery specks coming
in fast from the east, at about five thousand feet.

Jesus Christ, those are MIGs
, he thought.
We’re gonna be bounced
.

His punched the mike, ready to call out a warning. The words died in his throat.
He didn’t know the Hebrew. If he called it out in English whoever was monitoring would know that American personnel were involved
in the attack
—

Steve looked around wildly at the other Tyran Us so busily buzzing the base like angry hornets tormenting an enemy. The boys
flying those planes were all good pilots, but right now, in the excitement, they’d forgotten what he’d taught them about watching
each other’s backs. They were all too drunk on their first taste of combat to do anything but concentrate on their targets.
Steve was willing to forgive them for their youthful enthusiasm, but he was totally pissed at Benny, who was a seasoned veteran,
and should have known better than to forget about watching the sky—

Especially since Benny was supposed to be flying as Steve’s wingman, and could have alerted the strike force in Hebrew!

Fuck it
, Steve thought, punching on his mike.
You play, you pay
. If he was going to be found out, so be it. He wasn’t about to put his Air Force career above the lives of these pilots—

“Listen up,” he growled into his mike. “Bandits, five o’clock high.”

There was no immediate reply. Steve could imagine the shock the other pilots were experiencing as they heard their trainer’s
familiar voice coming over their helmet headsets.

“Goddammit! Steve!” Benny blurted. “You weren’t supposed to talk!”

“Fuck you, pal!” Steve shot back. “You weren’t supposed to be bounced like a goddamned rookie!” Steve pulled back on the stick
and swung his Tyran around to meet the incoming MIG-21s head-on. “Open your eyes, everyone! Bandits! Coming in fast.”

“Rog, Steve,” one of the other pilots replied in English. “Coming to join you now…” The pilot paused. “And everyone! Remember
to speak English like we … uh …planned!”

“Yes, to confuse our Egyptian enemies—!” another pilot quickly added.

“Yes … uh … Bob—!” still another pilot chimed in. “This is … Tony! Like Steve, we must all remember to speak the English,
and use our English code names to confuse the enemy—”

Nice improvisation
. Steve grinned.
Thanks, fellows
…

He got his mind back on business, lassoing one of the oncoming MIGs in his gun sights’ luminous red circle. The MIG began
firing at him with its own cannon. Steve did his best to ignore the enemy tracers, which from his point of view looked like
flaming baseballs being lobbed past his wings. He had to make his shots count. The Tyran II carried only 125 rounds per gun.
The other guys had all been doing the lion’s share of the strafing, so they had to be pretty low on ammo. It might be up to
him to defend them from all four of these bandits …

Got’ cha
—The red pipper landed smack on the attacking MIG-21’s weird snout, just above the flashing barrel of its cannon. Steve pressed
his trigger and watched his rounds pelt the nose and canopy of the MIG. The enemy pilot veered away, exposing his underside
to Steve’s guns. Steve stitched an ugly line of holes along the bandit’s belly, gutting the MIG. It came apart in a crimson
explosion.

Steve saw Benny drop down on a MIG’s six o’clock, and then cut loose with his guns. The MIG jinked for all it was worth, but
there wasn’t a pilot on earth—Steve excepted, of course—who could get away from Benny Detkin. A few seconds later, and Benny’s
MIG had disintegrated under his Tyran’s guns like a clay pigeon shattered by buckshot.

“Does that make up for my screwing up back there?” Benny radioed in apology.”

“I forgive you.” Steve laughed.

The rest of the Tyrans had ganged up on the remaining two MIGs. Steve watched his boys go to work just like he’d taught them.
It wasn’t long before that last pair of 21s had been turned into smoky fireballs, streaking mournfully toward the shifting
desert sands.

“Time to go home, everybody,” Orange Lead radioed.

“Rog, let’s go home,” another pilot replied.

They’re all still speaking English, God bless ‘em
, Steve thought.
Still keeping up their valiant effort to save my skin
—

Yeah, they were a good bunch of boys, all right
. Steve was proud to have trained them.
And come what may, I’m glad I was with ‘em when they drew first blood
—

Steve took up his place in his flight’s formation as the victorious IAF pilots banked away from the ruined Egyptian base.
Benny settled into position on Steve’s wing, and together the two war buddies set their course for home.

It was twelve noon on a Sunday. Steve was in his Tel Aviv flat, busy packing his belongings. He was going home. He was scheduled
aboard an El Al flight departing Lod Airport for London at five o’clock. In London, he would be met by American embassy personnel.
The Air Force brass in Washington had arranged for Steve to be hustled directly to a waiting USAF transport plane that would
then whisk him across the Atlantic. His reports on the MIG-21 had long ago been sent via diplomatic pouch to Washington. He
himself was scheduled to be in Washington to begin his debriefing on Tuesday.

Steve had already said his good-byes at IAF headquarters. Thinking about that, he had to smile. Everyone had seemed genuinely
sorry to see him go, but also more than a little relieved to be rid of him. He had become one hot potato since embarking on
his impromptu combat mission four days ago…

As Benny had feared, the enemy had been monitoring radio transmissions that day. Within twenty-four hours, Nasser had gone
public with his charge that the reason the Egyptian Air Force has suffered its ass-whipping was because United States air
power had intervened on the Israelis’ behalf.

The United States, of course, had denied the charge, rightfully insisting that they had no idea what Nasser was talking about.
Nasser, unconvinced, had retaliated by breaking diplomatic ties with the U.S., and closing the Suez Canal. Syria and Iraq
quickly followed suit, and Kuwait suspended its oil shipments to the West …