Shadow Flight

Passing 250 feet above the water, Spidel whipped the OV-10 into a steep turn and recoiled from the shock of a proximity detonation. He leveled the wings and felt the Bronco yaw to the left as the port engine disintegrated in a fireball. Spidel yanked the left throttle back and initiated an emergency shutdown to contain the fuel and hydraulic systems.

Wickham, looking out the back, caught a glimpse of the Mi-24 as one of the Sidewinders hit it head-on. The gunship shed the main rotor blades and plummeted into the water. The agent grabbed the spare headset and clamped it over his ears. He heard Spidel, in midsentence, talking to the sergeant.

"… lost the left engine, but we're okay for the moment." Wickham keyed his intercom. "The gunship went in."

Spidel recognized Wickham's voice. "Yeah, I saw the impact flash. You okay?"

"Fine," Wickham replied, feeling his heart pound. "We gonna make it?"

Spidel hesitated before answering. "We're a little tight on fuel. We may have to ditch off the Yucatan coast."

Wickham glanced at the sergeant, then spoke to the pilot again. "Spider, are you in contact with Cancun?"

"I can be," the pilot answered. "What's up?"

Wickham felt the winch operator staring at him. "The B-2 took off… about four this morning."

"You saw it?" Spidel asked in a surprised voice.

"No, but I heard it."

"Okay," the pilot said, switching on his scrambler. "You can talk by pushing the radio button on the cord. Let me check in and… uh, oh."

Spidel was quiet for a few seconds, adjusting the two radios. "We've lost our comm. Probably knocked the antennas off when the engine shelled."

"Do you have any other means of communication?" Wickham asked.

"Afraid not," Spidel replied calmly. "We'll have to wait until we land."

ANIMAL ONE

Vince Cangemi listened closely to the excited chatter between the Hawkeye and the F-14 lead pilot from the VF-202 Superheaters. The Tomcat flight, four miles ahead of the strike aircraft, was less than two minutes from tangling with five sections of Cuban MiGs.

Cangemi, not wanting to add to the radio clutter, rocked his wings and started a shallow descent. His flight, locked in perfect formation, followed their leader toward the deck.

Animal flight did not need to converse to accomplish its mission. The marine aviators had briefed the mission and memorized their targets, airspeeds, altitudes, headings, timing, separation, tactics, and egress procedures. The pilots had studied their charts and flown the attack mission a dozen times in their minds.

Cangemi heard Heater One, the VF-202 CO, acknowledge the Weapons Red and Free call from the E-2C. Seconds later the sky ahead and above the F/A-18s filled with white, fast-moving streaks as the Tomcat pilots fired their missiles at the Cuban MiGs.

The radio was saturated with calls to break, shoot, reverse, and pull up. Cangemi saw two, then three explosions as two MiGs and an F-14 became large black puffs in the clear morning sky.

Cangemi shoved the Hornet's nose down further, streaking across the water at sixty feet and 510 knots. He checked his switchology — air/ground in master mode, inertial navigation system set to display the target offset point in the heads up display — then kicked in the afterburners.

The F/A-18 accelerated to 530 knots as the coast rapidly filled Cangemi's windshield. Forty seconds to "feet dry." Cangemi saw the piers approach, then flash under the Hornet in a blur as he snapped into a 6-g knife-edged turn and looked for his target. He resisted the insidious g-LOC (g-induced loss of consciousness).

Eight seconds later, Cangemi saw the San Antonio de Los Banos Air Base appear in his canopy. Concentrating on altitude, he waited until he was abreast of the pop-up point, then snatched the stick back and shot skyward. The tight-fitting g suit squeezed his abdomen and legs, then deflated as he unloaded the Hornet.

Cangemi, simultaneously rolling inverted and turning ninety degrees to the left, let the nose fall through until the pipper was on the main runway.

The radar-guided 57mm and 85mm antiaircraft guns opened up in unison, filling the sky with black shrouds of flak. The ground and pavement rushed toward the marine pilot at a breathtaking speed. Cangemi finessed the Hornet's pipper up, capturing the first third of the runway, held it a second, then pickled the twelve Mark-82 bombs.

The 500-pound explosives came off the racks in timed sequence, blasting twelve huge craters in the runway as Cangemi pulled out of the dive. Clouds of dust and debris boiled into the sky as Animal Two laid his twelve bombs down a row of hangars.

The third Hornet was blasting an assortment of parked aircraft as Cangemi snapped into another "fangs out" turn to the left. The Hornet bounced upward when a shell exploded under the fuselage. Cangemi checked his warning lights. They remained blank as he let out his breath.