act as a liaison between your group and me.
“Miss Larson, the supply situation in Korea is critical. Field units are short of everything while cargo piles up at airfields and ports, and transport assets are being wasted.”
He pointed out the window. “That scene is being repeated all over Korea, and I need you and your people to sort it out. We can’t afford to delay another minute.”
He softened his tone. “You can have anything you want, and the lieutenant is here to see you get it. We’re giving you the aircraft maintenance records offices. Nobody’s keeping track of the stuff properly, anyway. Lieutenant, take over.”
Without waiting for Anne’s reply, the general and most of his entourage left, leaving the lieutenant and two enlisted men behind. The young officer stepped forward and offered his hand. “I’m Tom Pettigrew, ma’am. If you and your people will come with me, I’ve got some buses waiting outside…”
He couldn’t understand why everyone screamed. Luckily it was a short ride across the base, just long enough to fill in the young officer on the group’s adventures to date. And the buses were heated.
Anne tried to rein in her emotions. Yet another change of plans. If it was so important, they could have told them about this days ago. She wasn’t sure that there wouldn’t be another change, either.
She hoped this one was real, though. Being on the same base with Tony! It was too good to be true. There had to be another change in the works.
Half of her staff was here with her, sitting in the first bus. She decided to get a head start. “Claire, you take the computer center and tell me where we stand. Bill, make up a building plan and assign work spaces for everyone. Set aside some large room as a sleeping area.”
They pulled up outside a concrete-block building and hurried inside, eager to get out of the cold and see their new offices. The previous tenants were still packing, signs of a hurried departure everywhere.
Anne started directing the setup. The chance of actually doing her job, helping to straighten out the supply situation, excited her. It was going to be a long, hard night, the third in a row. She had a list of things to do as long as her arm. But she had to make a phone call first.
CHAPTER 37
Technical Difficulties
Tony knew it had been going too smoothly. Seeing Anne almost daily, reinforcements arriving, fewer fighters opposing them. Something had to go wrong.
The afternoon mission was no pushover; airfields never were. This was not a standard package. To keep the element of surprise there would be no warning by reconnaissance or jammer aircraft. Hugging the sides of the valley, his Falcons would make one run, dropping their bombs and then escaping before the defenses were fully alerted. It sounded like a good plan, Tony thought. He had thought it up, briefed it, and was now leading it.
Seeing the hillsides whizz by on either side didn’t leave much time for second thoughts, but he knew they were taking a risk. The only concession he had made was to have two F-16s stand by along their exit route. Armed for air-to-air combat, they would cover his group’s escape and maybe bushwhack any aircraft taking off with revenge on their minds.
The inertial navigation system showed that the last waypoint was coming up. They had been heading generally north, skirting known defenses and using the valleys to stay below enemy radars. Watching the readout, he checked the map strapped to his knee and looked at the hills around him. There was a notch on the right, and he started a gentle turn toward it.
Behind him were ten other Falcons, five pairs spaced at two-mile intervals. His was the easiest position, the lead. Normally he would have taken the rear position, but navigating to the target was also his responsibility, and that could be done only from the front.
The war had been going well in the air. American fighters were doing their jobs, and Soviet-supplied aircraft couldn’t replace the pilots the North Koreans had lost. Tony had nineteen kills to his credit now, but hadn’t made one in two days. He didn’t expect to make one on this mission either. It was air to ground, all the way.
Their target was an airfield close to the border. Intelligence said that a squadron of attack aircraft, among other things, was based there.
With the number of enemy fighters reduced, UN airpower was being used to hit targets well behind the lines, enemy assets that helped keep their offensive rolling. These included road junctions, bridges, ammo dumps, and airfields. Especially airfields.
This one was located on the floor of a valley where three mountain ridges came together and petered out. The aircraft were kept in hardened shelters dug into the side of one of the ridges. It was heavily defended, with gun and missile batteries sited near the runways and on the hills around.
As tough as it was, it was better to attack them here than wait until they were in the air. The enemy would use these planes to reinforce attacks and exploit breakthroughs. In spite of friendly air defenses, the NK planes could do a lot of damage after they took off.
It had been a long flight. There was a lot of turbulence, both from the wind off the mountains and the sun’s uneven heating of the ground. They would be attacking late in the day, when there was just enough light for the fighters to see their target, but less for the gun crews trying to pick them out of a darkening sky.
He interrupted his musings to check the time, then the armament display. His HUD was set up for air-to- ground mode, and the two bombs were already armed. The thousand-pound weapons would be dropped in one fast pass, and besides the mandatory cannon and the Sidewinders, these were his only ordnance.
The notch had widened out into its own valley, and Tony felt a roller-coaster sensation as he followed the rise and fall of the terrain. He waggled his wings and started down. From here to the target the map said the ground was flat. They would halve their altitude of two hundred feet, and Tony was going to do his best to stay below that.
They reached the initial point, and Tony blinked his running lights on, then off. Turning slightly, Tony quickly lined up on the approach bearing to his particular target. He spared one glance over his shoulder and was rewarded by a glimpse of Hooter exactly where he should be, then he moved the throttle to full military power.
The jet leaped forward, shooting out onto the valley floor like a projectile from a gun. Behind him, separated by ten-second intervals, pairs of fighters would be pouring out of the gap.
His radar warning receiver lit up instantly. He set the countermeasures dispenser on AUTO. It would kick out chaff and flare cartridges according to a predetermined pattern until he turned it off or until it ran out. The gun and missile crews had their radars up, which was not unexpected. The question was, were the crews alert? Where were the directors pointed?
Tony was busy trying to spot his target, a set of camouflaged doors carved in the eastern slope of a ridge. The long shadows from the setting sun should make them easier to spot, but it was hard to look for long in a jet moving at over six hundred knots. Especially one only a hundred feet off the ground.
“Hooter, I see it. I’m coming left a squidge.” He heard two clicks in answer and hoped that his wingman saw his target as well.
There were dark half-circles in the hill. The blast doors were inset a few feet, and the edges of the tunnel were throwing shadows onto them. Perfect. He swung the cursor up and locked his radar on the nearest opening.
They had been over the airfield for ten seconds, and the receiver had grown brighter. A
Hooter had spotted a smoke trail headed for one of the planes in the pair behind his. That was Dish and Ivan.
Tony couldn’t do anything to help. He and Hooter were committed. Luminous symbols were crawling across his HUD, showing the target, the course to steer, everything else he needed to put a pair of bombs within five feet of where he wanted them. Ten seconds more and they would be on top.
“Saint, I can see the launcher. It’s a Gecko at seven o’clock.”
