“Okay,” he finally said, “this is a beginning. We still have the problem of Joe to solve.”
“Colonel”—it was Matt—“Dave Harkabi told us how the Israelis deliberately go after a good pilot like Mana. It takes some coordination, but it can be done.”
Martin jabbed a finger at the glossy magazine. “Sounds fair to me. Work on it. Mana is dead meat, Pontowski, and I’m gonna do the rendering.
“Next subject — training,” Martin continued. “Program the flight simulator for an attack on Kirkuk. Every crew going on the mission runs the attack at least four times in the sim until they can do it in their sleep. I don’t want this to be a first-look mission.”
“Colonel,” Furry said, “easier said than done. First, the low-level attack program in the sim is dedicated to nuclear strike lines. We’d need a waiver to the regulations from pretty high up to down load the computer.”
“Is that regulation man-made or God-made?” Martin growled.
“Also,” Furry continued, “reprogramming the sim’s computer isn’t that easy. It takes three, maybe four weeks to create a realistic data base.”
Martin paced the floor, fully alive for the first time in months, eager to engage. His “fangs” were out. “You swingin’ dicks know who the Gruesome Twosome are?” The three men exchanged puzzled looks. “Those are the two computer whiz kids who run McDonnell’s simulator at St. Louis,” Martin explained. “They can reprogram that damn thing to represent an entire low-level route, a target, and every air defense threat known to man whenever they get the urge.”
“Colonel Martin,” Furry protested, “our sim’s nowhere as cosmic as McDonnell’s. They got computer capability our pukes can’t even spell.”
“Yeah? Well, I want the Gruesome Twosome here to work on our simulator.” A wicked look crossed his face. “The crews I choose for the mission have got to stomp the hell out of those two meatheads in the sim before they get to fly the real thing.” Martin believed in competition. “They’ll be here tomorrow,” the colonel promised.
A nasty grin split Dennis Leander’s elfin face as he rolled a hand controller on the console of McDonnell Aircraft Company’s flight simulator. Inside the planetariumlike room, two young Air Force lieutenants were getting their first taste of air-to-air combat against a MiG-29 Fulcrum. Thanks to Leander, they were losing. His partner, Larry Stigler, was bored. They had defeated too many budding aces and needed a new challenge. Stigler stretched out his lanky frame that had at one time earned him the nickname Stork. Now he was known as the senior partner of the Gruesome Twosome.
“Give the kids a break,” Stigler told Leander.
“Why? Better they learn some hard facts here than in real life.” He was rolling the Fulcrum in for a “kill” on the crew inside. He was about to send an AA-11 missile up the crew’s tailpipe when the door from the hall opened and the vice president in charge of F-15 production walked in. The two immediately became all business and froze the simulator. “Please stand by,” Leander told the crew over the intercom. “We will resume in a few moments.” Both he and Stigler assumed they were in trouble for something they had done. Their hijinks in the simulator were too many to catalog and both young men were certain that some Air Force colonel had lodged a complaint — again.
The vice president studied the frozen displays on the console. “Good move,” he allowed. “By freezing the action, they may get a clue and sort it out.” He kept a straight face. “What in the devil have you two been up to now?”
Stigler shot a worried look at Leander. “Sir, if it’s about sandbagging that colonel who was in here yesterday with the good-looking captain, well, we figured he was only in here trying to impress her so we—”
“Right”—the vice president grinned, letting them off the hook—“you gave him a fuel transfer problem every time he approached to land so he would flame out and crash.” The two young men hung their heads, trying to act ashamed. “She wasn’t impressed,” the vice president said. “Do either of you remember a Colonel Mike Martin who came through here about a year ago?”
The Gruesome Twosome nodded yes. Their experience with Martin had been a hard one to forget. Not only had the colonel soundly trounced them, but he had taken them out for a night on the town, hooked them up with three Too tie La Rues, drunk them all under the table, and then come back the next day for a repeat performance in the simulator.
“We got a phone call about ten minutes ago. Martin wants you two at RAF Stonewood in England ASAP for some special project. Want to go? When Martin says ASAP, he means yesterday.”
Leander spun in his chair and keyed his mike. “Gentlemen, you’re free and flying,” he told the crew inside the simulator. He rolled his hand controller and flew the MiG-29 Fulcrum out in front of the pilot and let him take a missile shot. When the image of the Fulcrum on the wall exploded in front of the crew, Leander and Stigler worked furiously, shutting the simulator down.
The two puzzled lieutenants crawled out of the mock-up of the cockpit and walked out of the dome. No one was at the console and the door to the hall was open.
The armored personnel carrier that had been configured as an ambulance clanked up to the makeshift aid station. The rear ramp flopped down and Shoshana and Hanni carried out a litter with a badly wounded soldier. “She was out there for three days,” Shoshana told the waiting doctor. “We were lucky to have found her.” Shoshana did not tell the doctor that it had taken her and Hanni almost six hours to carry the girl down a hill through heavy sniper fire to get her to the APC.
A private on the side of the tent was working a field telephone. “They’re asking for transportation to bring in wounded POWs,” the old man said. Shoshana got the details from the private, a reservist she estimated was pushing sixty years of age. We’re reaching deep, she thought. “It’s pretty quiet up front,” the private told her, “so we’re moving POWs. Probably want to interrogate them.” Experience had taught the Israelis that a gentle questioning by a doctor while he was treating a wounded POW produced a wealth of intelligence. But it had to be a male doctor who spoke Arabic, otherwise the POW would clam up and not say a word.
The war that Shoshana was now caught up in amounted to endless short runs in an M113 APC between an aid station and the fighting. She would normally drive the twelve-ton tracked vehicle and take it right into the action to bring out wounded tankers and infantrymen. She and Hanni had turned into a well-rehearsed team and could quickly pick up a wounded man or woman. Shoshana would use die APC as a shield, and when she shouted “GO!” Hanni would drop die ramp while she darted back through the crew compartment to help. The two women could have a casualty back into the APC, buttoned up, and moving in less than a minute. They were a good team.
The run to the pickup point was quiet and they fell into a line of trucks and vehicles moving forward for resupply. Hanni had the top hatch open and watched the traffic for clues. They had become experts at judging the ebb and flow of the fighting by what was moving on the roads. Shoshana had no trouble finding the POW holding cage, which in itself was an indication that things were under control. While they waited for the MPs to bring the POWs out, they sat and ate in the shade of the APC. “I think we’re building up for a major push,” Hanni said.