“It fucking well better not be, on Christmas Eve.” Then Tony realized what that meant.
He jumped into a set of coveralls and pulled on his boots in seconds. The sirens had not stopped, and they lent even more urgency to his movements. As Tony ran to the door, there was a mild vibration, followed by the sound of an explosion. And another. Then a chain of rumbling.
Hooter lived two doors down. He and Tony shot out of their rooms almost simultaneously, along with most of the other residents. Most were pilots or wing staff, pulling on whatever clothing was at hand. Nobody stopped to see if their doors were locked behind them. Tony had not stopped moving and was in the corridor heading toward the stairs. Only an idiot would take the elevator, and besides, the stairs were faster.
Running down the stairs was not the best therapy for his head. Most of the fuzziness was masked by the adrenaline, but he’d partied hard and gone to sleep at one. He didn’t feel his best.
“Saint!” came echoing down the stairwell, and he recognized Hooter’s voice.
Tony called up, “Meet you outside.”
Pilots spilled out of the exits and jumped into cars and jeeps. An explosion rocked the BOQ as he ran out the front door. Sure as shit ain’t no drill, Tony thought. It came from over by the ROK Air Force compound, maybe the tower. It was followed by a rapid sequence as a stick of bombs landed. Suddenly the stick was multiplied by fifty — more bomb explosions, and the base’s SAM defenses started launching, leaving bright lines across the horizon. Tony looked up and saw arrowhead forms, lit at the rear by the flames from their afterburners. They were followed by tracers from Vulcan cannon near the base. They added a sound like ripping metal to the jet engines’ roar.
Men were pouring out the door. Tony spotted one other man from his flight and called to him. “Boomer! Come in my car.” Hooter came running up, and as the three got in, other pilots piled in until there was one lying across the three in back.
Dangerously overloaded, Tony beeped the horn twice and slammed the car into reverse. He screamed out of the lot and suddenly realized there were absolutely no lights on anywhere in the base. Headlights filled the road, but there was no other illumination. The idea of being the only visible lights on a base under attack appalled him, but he saw no alternative.
He drove down the main road, heading for the squadron building. The Korean Air Force compound was on his right, with the ocean beyond. Streaks and tracers from both sides of the road pointed to the positions, or imagined positions, of enemy aircraft. Jets were coming in low, some on burner, but even the ones without burner had hot, bright exhausts. They were firing cannon, dropping flares to confuse infrared SAMs, and launching missiles.
They bumped over an inactive runway and passed the wing’s dispersal area. The arches blocked a lot of the view, but there were fires, and two columns of smoke, lit by sparks and red glows. Lights and vehicles moved about, seemingly at random.
They turned right into the squadron building’s parking lot. As Tony braked and pulled up, Creature came running up waving a flashlight. “Everybody to the squadron theater! Shadow’s running a mass brief in two minutes.”
They went into the ops building and saw a beehive of activity. Every one of the squadron’s personnel was bent on some urgent task. Some were in civilian clothes. Tony’s eyes were drawn to Airman Vance by a white bandage on his lower arm. He wondered if anybody else had been hit.
The theater was a smallish auditorium with an elevated stage. Lieutenant Colonel Robbins, “Shadow,” was the squadron’s commanding officer. He was stocky with sandy hair. Standing quietly, he held a clipboard and looked at his watch periodically. On the minute he waved his arm once and the conversation in the room stopped instantly.
“Everybody listen carefully. I’ve only got time to say this once. North Korea is making a general attack, all over the DMZ. The base has been hit once, by how many aircraft I don’t know, and one commando attack. We think all the commandos are dead, but we lost two arches and three aircraft are out. The Thirty-fifth is going to total base defense until we know the situation. Flight leaders will take charge and stack at five-thousand-foot increments, starting at ten thousand feet. We’re surging everyone.
“All birds have cannon and at least two nine limas. Some may have more. Watch takeoff. We’ve got wreckage one-third of the way down, a Colt biplane that the commandos landed in. We’re all lightly loaded so it shouldn’t be a problem. Use combat takeoffs. Don’t go below five thousand without clearance, the SAM crews are authorized to — ”
Tony and John headed for the alert shack. Pilots were running in, then back out with their flight gear. It had taken a few cannon hits, judging by the cratered wall and shattered window. “Boomer,” Lieutenant Carlson, was still with them, but there was no sign of his element leader, Captain Owens. He decided to fly as a three-ship rather than waste time finding him. They fumbled with their lockers and pulled on their g-suits and vests. Except for their helmets, they let the rest of the stuff lay.
The three pilots ran out the door toward the shelters, intending to take the first armed and fueled aircraft they came to. Luckily things were more organized than that.
Kenneth Beam, the ops officer, ran up. “Saint, you’ve got five seven nine, Hooter take four nine two, Boomer has four nine four. They’re in F, I, and J. They’ve got full fuel and gun ammo, and two nine-limas each. Where’s Viceroy?”
Tony shrugged. “I don’t know. Is he in the building?”
“I haven’t seen him. I’ll send him up to you when he arrives. You guys are Showtime flight. Pancake will give you vectors on button two. Go!”
Most of the shooting had stopped by this time. The initial raid had tried to suppress the base defenses and the command and control net — radars, radios, and the control tower. Some attention had been paid to the flight line. The North Koreans had used MiG-23s for the first wave — fast, but carrying a relatively light load. They all knew the main raid was only a few minutes away.
As Tony and Hooter ran past shelter D, they saw it collapsed on top of its F-16. There was a form lying on the concrete, covered by a jacket. Hooter looked over at Tony, looking grim. “We’re gonna kick butts, Saint.”
Tony tried to cool him off. “Just stay loose, John. It’s gonna be a long war.” They were all making their first combat flight. He had hoped for a calmer start.
Tony stopped and looked over at Bob Carlson. “Boomer” was a relatively low-time pilot, and Tony was worried about how to fit him into a practiced fighting pair. Finally he decided on simplicity. “Boomer, stay on my left and back a bit more than normal. If things get too hot, fall into trail. Keep a lookout to port. Hooter will cover your six. Let’s do it.”
They split and went to their shelters. The crew chief for 579 looked incongruous in civilian clothes and flight safety gear. Tony sprinted up. “Anything I should know about?” he asked.
Sergeant Kawamoto was confident. “No sir, it’s a good bird. I’ve preflighted it.”
“Great.” Tony started up the ladder and bounced into the cockpit. He hit the starter and got the INS spinning up.
As soon as he connected his helmet radio leads, the speakers were filled with chatter. Everybody wanted to say something immediately. And this was only the ground frequency!
He finished a highly abbreviated checklist and waited for a break in the chatter. “Flight one, go, out.” Releasing the brakes, he moved the throttle forward.
Hooter’s nose was already halfway out of the arch, and Tony rolled out onto the taxiway with his wingman in trail. Tony craned back over his shoulder looking for Boomer, and finally he saw him shoot out of his shelter and quickly taxi up. He fell in line behind them. They could hear jet engines everywhere, and there were almost continuous roars from the direction of the runway.
Tony switched to the tower frequency. It wasn’t nearly as crowded. Must be a good man on the net. He waited a moment, then called in. “Tower, this is Showtime with three Falcons.”
“Roger, Showtime, the runway has been cleared for all outbound Falcons. You are number one for takeoff.”
As they reached the end of the taxiway and turned the corner, they saw a glowing pile a few hundred feet in front of them. It looked like the skeleton of a biplane, crumpled and sagging from the heat. They continued rolling up the runway, and as they got closer, they could see bodies, some half-charred, off to the side of the runway. Tony said, “Wait a minute,” and braked.
