Free The Warbirds by Richard Herman

Sergeant Nesbit has the details worked out.”
    The cigar rolled in Cunningham’s mouth for a moment. “Not bad, Blevins. Do it . Relay everything we’ve got to Outpost. And tell them to get Grain King the hell out of Libya.” The general did not bother to tell the colonels what or where Outpost was; he simply expected them to get the message through and damn quick. Gomez and Nesbit knew that Outpost was an intelligence-gathering unit in northwestern Egypt near the Libyan border that operated under the guise of a radar ground control intercept site. Outpost would be able to find the C-130 on its radar and establish radio contact to relay Cunningham’s order.
    “Excuse me, General,” Nesbit called from his console. “The module commander in the RC-135 sending the Apple Waves is Colonel Anthony J. Waters.” The sergeant knew Blevins had wanted to give Cunningham the name and take credit for himself.
    The general remembered the name. From the depths of his memory, everything became clear. So, that’s where you’ve been hiding. I wondered what had happened to you after that F-15 fiasco. I was sure the Air Force had lost one of its better tactics men. Cunningham had participated in one of Waters’ Red Flag exercises and had been trounced by the complex scenario Waters had thrown at him.
    The general had thoroughly enjoyed it.
    16 July: 1511 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 1711 hours, Alexandria, Egypt
    “Stinger One-One, scramble. Stinger One-Two, scramble.”
    Lieutenant Colonel Mike Fairly and Lieutenant Jack Locke hit their start buttons simultaneously when they heard the first “scramble” from control.
    Fairly acknowledged, “Roger, control. Scrambling now. Standing by for words.”
    Bryant’s low voice came over the cockpit intercom. “The boss would rather die than sound bad on the radio.”
    “You’ve got to look good and sound good to be a squadron commander, me lad. I want to make them eat theirhearts out at the bar tonight, so let’s try to be as good,” Locke said.
    “Goddamn Air Farce!” Bryant exploded. “Here come the missile trailers now. Too damn late. We get to go to war with only a gun? Well now, look at that. There’s a crew headed for one of the tankers. I didn’t know them SAC fellows could run.”
    Control came over the radio. “Stinger One-One and One-Two, you are scrambled to Point Hotel. Contact Outpost on primary frequency two six-five point eight, backup frequency two eight-three point five.”
    And Fairly again answered the controller, “Roger, control. Copied all.”
    “Thunder, where in all the United Arab Republic is Point Hotel and who is Outpost?” Jack asked.
    “I’ll dig it out while the inertial nav system aligns,” the WSO answered. Got to keep the boy cool, he thought.
    “A wonderful thing, the inertial navigation system,” Jack said. “All ready to go and here we sit while that damn little black box tries to make up its mind where it is.”
    “Patience, patience,” Bryant urged, pulling his aircrew aid out of a pocket on the leg of his anti-G suit. He thumbed through the small book until he found what he wanted. “Point Hotel is over two hundred nautical miles to the west. Glad for that tanker. Outpost is a radar control post. OK, the inertial nav system is aligned. Cleared primary-sync.”
    At Thunder’s words, Jack flipped his compass and nav systems to their primary mode of operation, slaving them to the gyros in the inertial navigation system. It was a long delay. Jack gave Fairly a thumbs up, signaling that he was at last ready to taxi. Lieutenant Johnny Nelson, Fairly’s backseater, tapped his forehead. When he saw Bryant nod in acknowledgment, he simultaneously rocked his head forward and closed his rear canopy. Bryant keyed on Nelson’s head nod and closed his canopy in unison with Nelson. Fairly repeated the procedure for Jack and their front canopies came down together. Only the four crew chiefs launching the aircraft saw the synchronized canopy