Weak and wounded, crawling through the jungle, evading and serving with honor. He thought of stories from the Vietnam War: Dieter Dengler. Lance Sijan. Bud Day. Downed American airmen who didn’t give up. Of the three, Dengler made it to rescue. Starving, naked, weak from exposure and injuries from their ejections. Escaping from the enemy. Crawling inch by inch to freedom fighting jungle rot and disease. Incredible stories. Their examples were the performance bar Wilson and his generation had to meet. As the pain returned, he wondered if he would be able to even reach for the bar — with only one good arm and one good leg.
Wilson lay down in the dirt, shaded by a fern. Just a few minutes, he thought, enough to catch my breath. Resting on his stick, he focused his eyes on a hole in the foliage to the northeast. Through the leaves he could make out distant trees on another hillside almost a mile away. Another mile of rolling forested terrain.
Where the hell am I?
CHAPTER 57
Annie rolled out wings level and descended to her delivery altitude only a few hundred feet above the waves in the Columbus Channel. With Jumpin on her right wing in a loose tactical formation, she bumped up the airspeed and selected air-to-ground. She then designated her offset aimpoint on the southern tip of Agave Rock and slewed the cursors over it. The green steering cues on her HUD jumped, and she saw, on her tactical display, the “mine line” she would soon overfly to deliver two 1,000-pound mines across the mouth of Río Salta.
At Annie’s seven-o’clock, a mile in trail, were Olive and Irish, and behind them was a division of Raiders from the two-seat Rhino squadron VFA-23. The eight aircraft were the mine-layers, call sign Stream, with Annie in the lead. Above her to the south, a division of Arrow FA-18Es formed a barrier combat air patrol, serving as a layer of defense from any FAV fighters dispersed from San Ramón or sortied from Caracas. Behind the Streams, a suppression package of Growlers and HARM shooters from the Hobos provided jamming and electronic attack against any SAM radars that may be painting them. At least the Streams could take comfort that, while they had their heads down working their targeting systems, no threat would come at them from the side or the back.
Coral Sea had moved closer during the night, but not so close that Annie’s strike birds didn’t require tanking from Air Force KC-10s before descending toward the Columbus Channel — and their target. With clear weather the Colombian early warning radars may have seen them come off the tanker and obtain a raid count. Now on the surface, the mine-layers could take added comfort that their jets, weighed down with heavy, drag-inducing mines, were able to avoid detection by enemy tracking and guidance radars, which the Hobos planned to suppress anyway.
AAA and hand-held SAMs, however, were always a problem. Even over the water they could be present on any of the dozens of small craft scattered about in the Stream’s path. Any knucklehead on deck with a popgun might get a lucky shot into a cockpit or into a vital area of the aircraft. As Annie led them into the Columbus Channel, they could avoid the small craft, all painted white, with mild heading changes, but in the narrow part it was trickier. And, once Annie designated and got on her steering line, she would be committed. The mines had to go in their assigned “holes.”
Annie had three miles before she needed to turn right and get on the pickle switch. Ahead of her, dead in the water, was a small boat, maybe 30 feet, a typical Caribbean fishing boat with a small cabin up forward. Annie would fly right over it, and if anyone on deck saw her and wanted to, all they had to do was fire straight up and the fighter would fly right into the bullets. To avoid such a possibility, the Streams, under Annie’s lead, could then select GUN and strafe the boat, keeping their heads down. This was war, and the unknown boat was a threat to her and those behind. With only seconds to struggle with the decision, she pulled up and left at the last moment. She then overbanked down and right to get on her steering. As she looked out the top of her canopy, she saw a man and a boy on the boat stare at the Hornet in awe as it thundered past. Annie had made the correct decision.
“Just popped over an innocent fishing boat. Ignore it,” she transmitted to the others. Rolling out and leveling off again, she hit the initial point and turned right on course. “Stream lead is IP inbound, Armstrong.”
Annie heard the Magnum calls from the Hobos and the Comet EA-18Gs, and saw the HARMS streak by high above as they looked for “trons” to home in on. The Raiders were in position and nothing had yet come up to challenge them. Roaring over the waves, with young Jumpin holding position on her right wing and her airframe moaning at the high airspeed, Annie saw another vessel in her path. This one was an oilfield service vessel, dead in the water along her steering line and inside Venezuelan waters. Approximately 200 feet long, the aft half of the boat was flat, and it had a superstructure forward. This boat could pose a threat to Annie and the others following her, or maybe not. Again, with only seconds to decide, she put her GUN pipper on it and pulled the trigger — holding it down.
A cloud of gun gas formed over her nose as she watched small tracers of 20mm explode away from her toward the boat. She concentrated on the forward superstructure and then kicked the rudder pedals to spray the length of the boat. From a mile behind, Olive saw the long, thin cloud of gun gas float behind Annie’s jet and, moments later, the bullets made the water “boil” all around the service vessel on Annie’s nose. Annie made a small jink and got back on heading.
“Streams one-one and one-two are in,” she transmitted.
Shore-based AAA arced over the Americans and black puffs bloomed above them as the fighter pilots kept one eye on the steering cues and one on the shore watching for SAM launches. In the roadstead to Río Salta were two ocean-going tankers and several smaller coastal tankers — they would be “caught” by this minefield. Annie thought about the adage that you could drop bags of flour in the water and tell the enemy they were mines, and the enemy had a decision to make. A wrong bet would lead to catastrophe for the unlucky ship assigned to take the gamble. In this case, however, the Americans were not taking half measures. Annie and the Streams would deliver their heavy mines on time, allowing them to rest on the sea floor precisely where they planned. There the mines would lie in wait for an acoustic or metal signature, or both.
A half ton of high explosive came off Annie’s left wing with a lurch, and her HUD steering then jumped to the next aimpoint thousands of feet ahead of her as the release cue marched down. Annie kept her thumb on the pickle switch as it did. Once the second mine fell away with a jolt, Annie pulled hard north as Jumpin’s last mine came off, leading him and the rest of the Streams away from Venezuelan offshore rigs a few miles on their nose. Splashes of AAA shells on the surface were scattered about. Annie saw nothing over her right shoulder as she left Río Salta in her rear view mirrors — no missile plumes, no jets. Calling off, she lit the burner cans and accelerated to.95 indicated mach, cracking the throttles back into midrange burner so Jumpin could hang on inside her turn. She waited to hear the last of the Stream aircraft call off as they raced north through the Gulf of Paria. When she heard the welcome “Stream two-three and two-four off,” she safed her switches and concentrated on leading her charges through the narrow five-mile passage between Punta Peñas and Chacachacre, edging her formation close to Trinidad as she did.