“That’s the baby that probably delivered those tanks,” Jack said, thinking about Bull. He studied the vessel, sensing that something was unusual… “Count the antennas. I’ll bet your sweet ass that’s a command ship.”
He keyed the radio. “Broz, I’m going to check this one out.” His fingers ran across the armament switches, selecting the Mavericks. “Thunder, lock on that S.O.B. soon as you can.” Adrenaline flowed; he needed to even the score for Bull. Abruptly he broke out of his attack run and headed for the base. Again he keyed his UHF, calling Broz to join up and switch over to the frequency for the command post.
“Rats Ass Control, Wolf Zero-Nine, flight of two.” Nesbit acknowledged his call, Jack continued: “Lead bought it over beachhead, two tanks destroyed. Have observed an Alligator-class landing ship heading eastbound, away from beachhead. Ship has numerous antennas and signs of damage to superstructure. Standing by for words.”
“Roger, Zero-Nine,” Nesbit answered. “State ordnance remaining.”
“Lead and wingman have two Mavericks each.”
“Roger, Zero-Nine. Wolf Zero-One says your choice of targets, the ship or targets of opportunity on shore. RTB ASAP.”
“Jack,” Broz radioed, “it’s a command ship, worth hitting even if it’s leaving.” Jack could hear in the lieutenant’s voice the same anger he had felt moments earlier.
“Negative, Broz. That baby is loaded with SAMs and Triple A and it’s out of the action. We’ll split the beachhead for one pass. You take the north half.”
Broz followed Jack down to the surface as they looped south of the base before turning inland to circle and attack the beachhead from the west…
Waters had been monitoring the exchange between Jack and Broz over the radio, and though he would never know if Jack had made the right decision about which target to attack, he knew Jack was going after targets on the coast exactly as he would have done…
The two Phantoms split apart as they turned to the east, skimming across the gravelly dunes, kicking up dusty rooster tails as they ran onto the beachhead. They were crossing the thin line of UAC defenders when a string of tracers came at them. Jack jinked around the tracers and then jerked his Phantom into a sharp break to the left as a SAM flashed by and exploded. He felt a thump but continued the run, hoping Thunder could find a target on his monitor screen that the Mavericks could home on. He waited to hear Thunder’s pickle call. His telelight panel started to blink warnings at him, but without a fire warning light he was determined to press the attack.
“Cleared to pickle,” Thunder shouted. Jack raised the Phantom just high enough off the deck to get a decent launch angle and depressed the pickle button twice, sending both his Mavericks toward the tanks his backseater had found.
Thunder had his head out of the scope and was checking their six o’clock position, stabbing at the flare-and-chaff buttons. Suddenly he called out, “Broz is hit!”
Jack had descended to fifty feet and was still jinking hard as he ran for safety. Another two missiles reached over them, not able to guide on the Phantom below a hundred feet.
Thunder saw Broz’s Phantom buck from an unseen hit and then balloon up. Even in the bright afternoon sun the wizzo could see tracers reaching into the F-4, could see the rear half of the plane flare into flames as Broz climbed.
“Head south,” Jack shouted over the radio, but Broz’s F-4 bucked again, taking another hit as it turned toward the base. Jack crossed behind the lieutenant while Thunder laid a barrage of chaff and flares behind them, trying to create a diversion for the SAMs and Triple A to guide on.
Now Jack’s bird trembled from another hit and then they were clear. “Hold on, Broz,” Jack whispered to himself, “almost home.” On cue the canopies of the flaming F-4 flew off and the two men ejected as the aircraft twisted into the sea. Jack watched them slip their parachutes onto the northern end of the base, not too far from his old beach camp. Both waved furiously, signaling they were okay. “There go two lucky S.O.B.’s,” Jack said. But how much longer, he silently added.
The crew chief walked around 512, surveying the damage his Phantom had taken. Unable to contain himself he turned on Jack. “There are four, count ’em four, birds left that can fly, and she ain’t one of ’em. Look what you done.” He was shouting now, blaming Jack for the damage. “Engine change, new speed brake and flap for the right wing, gotta seal the wing tank, and more goddamn little holes than Carter’s got liver pills. The hydraulic leaks don’t even count.”
Thunder hung up the phone after reporting their message and joined the two men. When the crew chief slowed his verbal barrage, the wizzo said, “Let’s just fix it.” The crew chief grunted in surprise and darted out of the bunker, leaving Thunder and Jack behind. Within a few minutes he was back and opening the blast doors. Waiting outside were a dozen men and an engine on its dolly, still encased in a bright aluminum protective wrap.
“You fine officers believe in getting your hands dirty?”
Stansell ran into the command post just ahead of an artillery barrage, flopped down in a chair next to Waters, exhausted by the long ordeal of evacuating the wing. “They’re persistent mothers,” he said, listening to the regularly spaced whomps as artillery barraged the base.
“How’s the evacuation going?” Waters asked.
Stansell shook his head. “Five hundred and eighteen left. I don’t think we’ll get another C-130 in until after dark. Any chance of evacuating over land?”
“We only have enough vehicles to move sixty, maybe seventy people. The coast road’s been cut for four days and in this heat no one is going to walk very far. It was never an option.” Waters tried to force his mind to work but fatigue was driving him down. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle of pills Doc Landis had given him, wondering if he should take one. He needed something. Not yet, he thought, I’ve never used them and don’t know what they’ll do to me. And then he did something he never believed he could do. Sack out. To him it was like a cop out. “Rup, you’ve got the stick for about an hour. I’m going to sack out in the corner. Wake me if there’s something you can’t handle.” He walked over to the corner, stretched out on the floor and fell into an instant deep sleep.
“Colonel, wake up.” Stansell’s voice cut through the deep fog of his sleep.
Waters sat up, feeling slightly dizzy, glanced at his watch. He had been asleep over three hours and it was almost sunset. He felt alert and rested. Sergeant Nesbit handed him a cup of hot coffee.
“What’s our status?”
“Chief Hartley wants to blow the causeway,” Stansell told him. “He’s starting to take small-arms fire out there. We’ve lost contact with the GCI site and Captain Hauser never made it in… The engineers never got the runway open and are trying to patch together two thousand feet on the taxiway, enough for a C-130 to get in and out. Single-ship Floggers have tried to overfly us six times. Reccy birds, I figure. The Rapiers got ’em every time. So far. If we can hold on another six or seven hours, the Navy should be able to give us air cover. We’re taking on artillery barrage every fifteen or twenty minutes. Over two hundred casualties now, sir.”
The phone lines had been cut to the Security Police bunker and Waters had to use a radio to establish contact. “Chief, this is Zero-One. I agree. Blow the causeway.”
“Roger, Zero-One,” Hartley answered, “it’s time. We’re taking an occasional mortar round and can see movement at the head of the mine field.”
“How long can you hold?”
“Maybe three or four hours, Colonel. But that’s only a guess.”
The chief signed off then, telling them he would report back when the causeway was down. He listened for a moment, looking at his watch. “These muthas are something regular.” He calculated he had twelve to fifteen minutes to blow the charge under the causeway before the next artillery barrage would start. “Hey, with a little luck they might do the job for us with a lucky shot.” The chief was talking to himself as he strapped on his helmet and closed the front of his flak jacket, then jogged the two hundred yards from his command bunker to the embankment the bulldozers had pushed up on the base side of his big ditch. He kept down until he reached the break in the wall that they had left for the road leading across the causeway. He moved quickly and lightly, darting into the observation bunker set into the embankment next to the road.