identifying the checkpoints with- out difficulty, no doubt because they were ridiculously prominent features in the landscape ahead, but he was finding them. The system seemed to be working as advertised and the INS was tight, tight as a virgin’s…
For the first time he became aware of Moravia’s smooth, confi- dent touch on the controls. She flew the plane with a skill that belied her inexperience. Toad watched her handle the plane. The stick barely moved as the plane rose and fell to follow the ground contour and her thumb flicked the trim button automatically. She was good. The airspeed needle seemed glued to the 335-knot tic on the dial “You’re a pretty good pilot,” he said on the ICS.
“Just navigate,” she replied, not even glancing at him.
Another casual slap in the chops. Goddamn women! He placed his face against the black hood that shielded the radar scope and studiously ignored her.
The plane approached the Columbia River again from the south down a long, jagged canyon that ran almost straight north out of central Oregon. Stealing glances from the radar, out the right side of the airplane Toad saw a harsh, arid landscape of cliffs and stone pillars, spectacular monuments to the power of wind and water and the vastness of time. The almost vertical rock surfaces pro- duced crisp, sharp images on the radar screen. He examined the infrared display. The infrared images were from a sensor mounted on a turret on the bottom of the aircraft’s nose, immediately in front of the nose-gear door. The sides of the rock toward the sun looked almost white on the IR scope, which was mounted above the radar scope and was also shielded from extraneous light by the black flexible hood projecting from the instrument paneL
The navigation checkpoint to enter the navy’s target range at Boardman, Oregon, was a grain silo and barn on top of a cliff near the lower reaches of this canyon. The cursors — cross hairs posi- tioned by the computer on the radar screen — rested near a promi- nent blip. Toad turned up the magnification on the infrared as he moved the cursors to the blip. Yep. That was the barn all right- Over the barn he cycled the steering to the initial point for the run-in to the target and called the range on radio. “November Julie 832, you’re cleared in.”
Rita let the plane drift up to 1,500 feet above the ground. They had left the cliffs and canyons behind them and flew now over almost flat, gently rolling terrain that was used for dry-land farm- ing. Following a printed checklist on his kneeboard, Toad set the switches in the cockpit for bombing. Six blue twenty-five-pound Mark 76 practice bombs hung on a rack under the right wing, Station Four. Each of these little bombs contained a smoke charge that would mark the spot of impact. The A-6 crossed the initial point, the IP, and Rita swung it toward the target ten miles east
The target lay on the south side of the Columbia River in fiat, dry, treeless country. The run-in line was marked by a dirt road on the ground, but neither Toad nor Rita paid any attention. During the minute and forty seconds it took the Intruder to traverse the ten miles from the IP to the target. Toad was absorbed in getting the cursors precisely on the radar reflector that marked the target bull’s-eye, checking the computer and inertial readouts, using the infrared for visual ID, locking up the target with the laser ranger- designator, then checking the information the computer received to make sure it was valid. Finally he put the system into attack.
Even though the practice bombs lacked laser seekers, the laser in the nose turret would give the computer more precise range and angular information than the radar could. Rita was equally busy flying the plane and centering the steering commands on the Ana- log Display Indicator, the ADI, immediately in front of her.
The infrared and laser stayed locked to the radar reflector on the slittle tower that constituted the target bull’s-eye even after bomb release as the nose turret rotated. In the cockpit Toad watched the picture on the infrared display change as the plane passed over the target. He was looking at an inverted picture of the tower when he IBW the puff of smoke near the base sent up by the practice bomb. An excellent hit.
On the downwind leg Toad raised his helmet visor and swabbed his face with his gloved hands. This was work. The plane was headed west parallel to the Columbia River. Rita scanned the sky for light aircraft.
“832, your hit twenty-five feet at six o’clock.”
“Roger.” Toad made a note on his kneeboard. “On the next run,” he said to Rita, “let’s do 500 knots.”
“Okay.”
At the increased speed Toad had only about sixty-five seconds from the IP to bomb release, so he had to work faster. The plane bounced in the warm afternoon thermals. In wartime the plane would race in toward its target at full throttle. The air could be full CS flak and enemy radar signals probing the darkness to lock them up for a missile shot. Today over this Oregon prairie under a bril- liant sun. Toad could visualize how it would be. Sweat trickled down his forehead and into his eyes as he manipulated the switches and knobs of the equipment. He got the bomb off but he was struggling. He would need a lot of practice to gain real proficiency, and today the equipment was working perfectly, no one was shoot- ing.
“A thousand feet this time, as fast as shell go.”
“Roger,” Rita said.
As fast as she’ll go turned out to be 512 knots indicated. On the next run they came in at five hundred feet, then four hundred, then three.
On the downwind leg before their last run. Toad flipped the radar switch from transmit to standby. The picture disappeared from the scope. A stealth bomber that beaconed its position with radar emissions would have a short life and fiery end. The infrared was passive, emitting nothing.
As they crossed the IP inbound. Toad found the infrared was still on the bull’s-eye tower. With the help of the inertial, the com- puter had kept the cursors there and the infrared was slaved to the cursors. He turned the laser on early and stepped the computer into attack.
Yes, it could be done, and with practice, done well. Moisture in the air would degrade the 1R, of course, but you couldn’t have everything.
As they crossed the Columbia climbing northwest, the spotting tower gave them a call. “We didn’t spot your last hit. Maybe the smoke charge didn’t go off.”
Toad checked the computer readouts. Rita had been eleven mils off on steering at the moment of weapon release. Toad couldn’t resist. He informed her of that fact. She said nothing- “Still,” Toad added magnanimously, “an okay job.” He was feeling rather pleased with himself.
“For a woman.”
“I didn’t say that. Miss Thin Skin. I said an okay job.”
“Look at the ordnance panel, ace.” Toad did so. He had inadver- tently selected Station Three instead of Station Four for the last bomb run. The practice bombs were on Station Four, and the last bomb was undoubtedly still there. Station Three — the belly station — had been empty, thank God! Oh damn. And good ol’ Rita had sat there and watched him do it and hadn’t squeaked a word! “Call Center and get our clearance back to Whidbey,” she said now, her voice deadpan.
Toad reached for the radio panel.
Terry Franklin was watching television when he heard the tele- phone ring. He listened for the second ring, but it didn’t come. He sat staring at the TV screen, no longer hearing the words or seeing the picture-
His wife had taken the kids to the mall. She had left only a half hour ago. How long would she be?
He was trying to decide just how much time he had when the phone rang again. He felt his muscles tense. Only one ring.
He turned off the TV and got his coat from the closet. He felt in his pocket for the keys to the old Datsun. They were there. He snapped off the living-room lights and peered between the curtains at the street. No one out there.
Ring, pause, ring, pause, ring…
Three rings. The drop on G Street. He would have to hurry to beat Lucy and the kids home. He remembered to lock the door behind him.
Matilda Jackson was sixty-seven years old and she was fed up. Five years ago she retired from the law firm where she had worked as a clerk-typist for twenty-six years. Seventeen months ago she had made the last payment on her mortgage. The house wasn’t much— a run-down row house in a run-down neighborhood — but by God it was hers. And it was all she could afford on her social security income and the $93.57 she got every month from the law firm’s pension plan.
The house had been something when she and Charlie bought it in 1958, and Charlie had been a good worker inside and outside, keeping everything painted and nice and the sidewalk swept. But he had died of diabetes — had it really been sixteen years ago? — after they amputated his feet and his liver got bad.
Poor Charlie, thank God he can’t see this neighborhood now, it’d break his heart. Everything gone to rack and
