“Not all that much in the way of anti-air defenses,” he said. Tracers
continued to flash and flicker across the ground below them, and the
puffy, deceptively peaceful-looking cotton balls of triple-A were
scattered across the sky. “Not as bad as I thought it would be this
close in, anyway.”
“Looks to me like their air defense is pretty much off the air,”
Sunshine replied. “Thank the Sharks for that.”
The Sharks, the EA-6Bs of VAQ-143, had delivered the first blow that
afternoon. Their stand-off HARM and Tacit Rainbow missiles homed on
enemy radars, even targeting radar sources that were switched on
briefly, then turned off. Of course, the enemy was sure to have kept a
lot of his radars off the air completely, as a combat reserve.
The A-6 gave another hard jolt, slamming Willis against Sunshine’s leg.
“Hang on!” He keyed the tactical frequency. “Terminator Five-oh-oh,
this is Five-oh-four. I’ve got my primary. Going in hot.”
“Terminator Five-oh-four, Terminator Five-double-oh. Copy that. We’ll
be right behind you. Good luck!”
“Roger that, Five-oh-four,” a different voice said. It sounded like
Lucas, in Five-oh-five. “Don’t get greedy now. Save some for us poor
tag-alongs.”
“Copy.” Willis pushed the stick over, picking up speed as the Intruder’s
nose dropped below the horizon line.
“Picking up some heavy triple-A here,” someone said. Willis didn’t
catch who it was. “Aw, shit! Shit! I’m hit!”
“Abort your run, Five-oh-five! You’re on fire.”
“I see it. Engine light. I’m losing my starboard engine. Shit! Fire
in the aircraft! Fire-”
The hiss of static chopped the transmission off in mid-sentence. Willis
felt cold. Mike Daniels and his B/N, Frank Lucas, had been good
friends.
Somehow, he managed to keep his concentration locked on his VDI. The
Intruder was sometimes described as possessing a heads-down display, for
the aircraft could be flown by an aviator who never needed to look up
through his canopy. When Willis did look up, it was into nightmare.
Puffs of smoke were scattered thickly across the sky ahead, mingled with
the rising, twisting white threads of SAM contrails. His missile-threat
warning was flashing again, coupled with a plaintive, chirping warble in
his headset.
“Steady,” Sunshine warned him. “Steady! You’re drifting left!”
On his VDI, his targeting pipper was climbing steadily up the screen
toward the release point. Something hit them, a loud thump aft like
someone kicking the fuselage.
“I’m taking it in on manual,” he said, flipping the selector. If the
A-6 had been hit by gunfire, he didn’t want to risk going in on
auto-release, flying over the target, then finding out they’d failed to
release.
The release pipper crawled relentlessly toward the bottom of the
display.
When it winked out, Willis slammed his thumb down on the pickle switch.
In the same instant, the brown and gray ground outside gave way to
pavement, runways, dozens of tightly clustered buildings, parked
vehicles, and aircraft resting in high-walled revetments. He thought he
even glimpsed men down there, dashing wildly for cover.
Then the Intruder lurched heavily upward in a series of thumping jolts.
Its warload consisted of thirty five-hundred-pound retarded bombs, four
groups of three clamped to A/A 37B-6 multiple eject racks beneath each
wing, and two groups more mounted one in front of the other on his
centerline, and they were dropping from the aircraft six at a time, in a
pattern designed to scatter them across as much real estate as possible.
Relieved of some fifteen thousand pounds of ordnance, the Intruder
rocketed into the sky. Willis helped it along, going to full throttle
and hauling back on the stick. The shock wave struck them from behind
as they climbed.
Willis twisted in his seat, trying to see aft past the Intruder’s port
wing. The center of the airfield was engulfed in boiling flame, and
several buildings were erupting in pulsing, flaming blasts, contributing
to the ongoing mass detonations as he watched. “Secondaries!” he
yelled, excitement hammering at him. “We’ve got secondaries.”
“Roger that, Five-oh-four,” Thumper called. “I think you dropped one
into their missile stores! Look at that sucker blow!”
“Goddamn!” Willis enthused. “We did it, Sunshine, we did it!”
“Did you have any doubts about that, Willis?” For the first time in long