“Okay, let’s get the hell out of here,” Luna yelled at his co-pilot as Carroll jumped off the C-130 and headed for the Command Post.
Toni snapped the gear handle up as soon as the C-130 lifted off while Luna held the big bird on the deck and pushed the throttles full forward, coaxing as much airspeed as he could out of the tired engines. “Ten minutes, babies, just ten minutes,” he pleaded…
The enemy Flogger was also on the deck, trying to avoid radar-detection and engagement by the Rapiers. The pilot was trying to figure out a cover story to prove he had overflown the base on a visual reconnaissance as the air-group commander had ordered. Those fools, he thought, nothing is impossible for them when they don’t have to do it! Well, let them try once and not take a hit from an American missile. He also couldn’t understand why his superiors were so anxious to learn if the American base was burning. A huge silhouette flashed in front of him, heading south. He pulled up and rolled in behind the escaping airplane, recognizing the outline of a U.S. C-130 and seeing a solution to his problem. A confirmed kill would give any story he concocted the ring of truth.
The pilot carefully positioned his Flogger and closed to within three hundred meters, moving the pipper on his gunsight over the cockpit area. He squeezed the trigger and held it, emptying his twin-barreled twenty-three-millimeter gun into the Hercules…
The first five shells ripped into the left side of the cockpit, killing Captain Luna and Riley Henderson. A shell smashed into Riley’s chest, tearing apart the upper half of his body. Blood and pieces of the flight engineer splashed over Dave Belfort as pieces of shrapnel cut into his face. Toni wrenched the yoke back, fighting for altitude, managing to control the Hercules and keep it airborne. Belfort unstrapped from his seat and moved across the flight deck, scooping Luna’s remains out of his seat. “I still got it,” Toni called out, and Dave grabbed the wheel and helped her fly the plane while she checked the overhead panel and radioed a distress call.
Meanwhile the Flogger repositioned for another attack and rolled in. The pilot selected an Aphid dogfight missile and placed his target-pipper on the left outboard engine before he squeezed the trigger. The missile streaked toward the Hercules and impacted outboard of the engine, tearing off the left wing. The C-130 spun to the left, out of control. Toni pushed the left throttles full-forward and pulled the right throttles aft, trying to use differential power to control the plane’s flat spin. Just before they hit the water Belfort thought he heard her say, “I’m sorry, Dave.”
The lights in the command post flickered, then went out. Waters heard the backup generator kick into life, cough twice, and the lights came back on. Stansell had never stopped talking on the phone. Now he hung up and walked over to the launch-and-recovery board and marked tail-number 512 as mission capable. “Whoever laid in the hardened com lines knew what they were doing,” was his only comment. He changed to 2049 the number of people evacuated out. “The second C-130 is taxiing out now. Three hundred eighteen to go.” Waters listened for the sounds of a C-130 but couldn’t hear the turbo-props through the thick walls. He was thankful that two shuttles had made it in since dark and most of the wounded had made it out.
He studied the boards for a moment, knowing what he had to do. Bitterness and frustration washed over him when he thought of the sacrifices his wing had made in trying to end this “little war.” He almost lost control when Bill Carroll walked into the room. “Bill, you were ordered out.”
“Yes, sir, but I think I might still be of some use… I speak Arabic and Farsi—”
“Yes, you do. Get over to Doc Landis and stay with him. He’ll need a translator.” The Intelligence officer stared at him, catching the terrible implication.
The crew chief threw open the right blast door to the aircraft bunker and motioned the refueling truck to back in. He wanted to see if he could get the truck inside and close the blast door, but there wasn’t enough room. He yelled at the pumper to get the hose out and connected. The pumper refused to be hurried and went about his duties with a studied nonchalance, an unlit cigar stump clamped in his mouth. “No way this here white man’s piece of shit is going to get into the air,” the pumper said, knowing how to rile the crew chief.
“Shut your mouth unless’en you want that cigar lit and shoved up sideways.” He went through the servicing routine that had not been completed, even though he had already called his aircraft in as mission ready. “Well,” he grumbled, “what do they expect? Bust my ass doing an engine change ’cause some pilot can’t see shit comin’ at him and now can’t find anyone so I got to do the whole thing… ” He was still muttering to himself when the pumper disconnected the hose and started to move his refueler away from the bunker. “Hey, if you see my partner tell him to get his ass back here,” he yelled after the departing truck. “And I could use a ammo cart and a gun-plumber… ”
The truck had moved about thirty yards down the ramp when another artillery barrage started to pound the base. That pumper’s a dead man, the crew chief thought, returning to his work in the relative safety of the bunker, not feeling guilty. No time for that now. He slipped into the front cockpit, checked the switches and carefully adjusted the lap belt and leg harnesses, making the cockpit ready for the next launch. He crawled into the backseat and did the same thing. Finally he found some rags and started to wipe the bird down, removing any signs of dirt, oil or hydraulic fluid.
He cracked open the small access-hatch in the blast doors, peering into the night, and worried about his partner. He thought he saw some movement on the taxiway but it was hard to tell in the darkness. The intensity of the incoming rounds had slackened and given way to a steady deadly rhythm. “Whump-one-two-Whump,” he counted, picking up the beat. He could see definite movement coming his way: the figure of the pumper materialized, pushing an ammunition cart, cigar still clamped in his mouth. The crew chief pushed the blast door open and helped the exhausted sergeant jockey the cart up to the right side of the Phantom’s nose, swung a panel down and connected the feed head into the internal gatling gun. Then he grabbed a speed wrench and started to crank the gun over, feeding fresh ammunition into the drum.
“Okay, I need help turning this fucker—”
“What’s wrong with them?” the pumper shouted back, pointing at two motionless figures on the floor in a corner.
“Ah, them’s the pilot and wizzo. They been bustin’ their asses helping change the engine. They ain’t used to workin’. Let ’em sleep.” The two then helped each other, laboriously mining the wrench and reloading the gun. They had finished when the chief’s partner staggered in with another man, carrying the last Sidewinder on base. They almost dropped the one hundred-eighty-pound missile before they could hand it over to the crew chief and the pumper. “Not bad, asshole.” The chief allowed a grin as they slipped the missile onto the left-inboard rail.
A minute later the Phantom was ready and the shelling died away. An unusual quiet descended over the bunker.
“What the hell,” the chief muttered as he settled down to wait.
The sergeant from Civil Engineers who reported into the command post was covered with dried sweat and caked dirt. His hair was plastered to his head with rivulets of fresh blood. “You’ve got three thousand feet,” he told them, and sat down, shaking with fatigue.