Flash Point

1

The dirty white van sputtered and stalled as it approached the Gaza checkpoint. The driver looked harried. He leaned forward and tried to start the van quickly. The engine caught, turned over, and stalled again. He glanced in his mirror and ahead of him at the other traffic.

One of the Palestinian guards watched the driver out of the corner of his eye as he waved two more cars through the border checkpoint. The van was about to block the morning’s commuter traffic — the thousands of Palestinians who crossed into Israel every day to work the menial jobs the Israelis didn’t want.

The Israeli soldiers on the other side of the border were much more serious about the traffic crossing into Israel. Exhausted from unending vigilance coupled with interminable boredom, they imagined a bomb in every car. They carried their loaded M-16s in their hands and sweated under their bulletproof vests. To them Gaza was just a large Trojan Horse.

The van had created a gap; only a lonely Fiat stood between it and the checkpoint. The Palestinian guard glanced toward the checkpoint and walked to the van. The van lurched, then started to move, inching along. It sat with its engine chugging reluctantly, waiting for the Fiat, now thirty feet in front of it, to pass through.

The rusty Fiat was waved on and the van was next. The van shuddered and the engine quit. The driver turned the key and the starter noisily cranked the engine. It wouldn’t catch. Again and again he tried, without success. The Palestinian guard approached the window angrily. “What is the problem?” he asked gruffly in Arabic.

“I’ve had some engine trouble?” the driver replied, also in Arabic.

“Move it or we’ll push it into the ditch! You’re blocking the way!” The road into Israel was crowded. The bright morning sun was low in the eastern horizon, shining into the eyes of the Palestinian guards.

“Yes, yes. I’m trying…” The driver leaned forward as if lending his own energy to the van. He turned the key with his right hand, and reached subtly under the dash with his left and flipped a switch. The van chugged to life with half its cylinders working. The driver smiled at the guard apologetically and the vehicle began moving slowly toward the checkpoint. It was clear it would take the van a long time to make it.

“Get this thing off this road!” the guard finally yelled, exasperated with the slowness of the stupid white van that was now blocking the entire checkpoint. The Israelis watched and waited with concern. Anything out of the ordinary received humorless, intense scrutiny; any problem, any angry outburst, anything. It could be someone about to do something dramatic, or a diversion for someone else.

The driver nodded, surrendering, and began a Y-turn to go back the way he had come. The Palestinian guard, his rifle in one hand, watched in disgust. The van turned around, now headed toward Gaza City, the driver apparently abandoning any hope of getting to Tel Aviv. He reached under the dash again, and the van’s engine coughed and died once more. The guard, barking obscenities, angrily advanced toward the window on the right side of the van. The driver suddenly raised an enormous handgun and fired, the bullet penetrating the man’s bulletproof vest, throwing him back onto the side of the road, where he lay silently, his legs jerking involuntarily.

The rear doors of the van flew open and eight men with large machine guns rushed out and opened fire. The bullets made a distinctive, unusual sound as they flew toward the Israeli and Palestinian guards who fell quickly as the bullets tore through their protective vests. The eight fanned out and fired with precision, aiming at the targets each had been briefed to hit. The Israeli guardhouse on the other side of the border was splintered, the guards inside shredded. On both sides of the border, the cry went out for Palestinian and Israeli reinforcements. Six Palestinian guards lay dead on the Gaza side.

The shooters stood staring at the dead guards on both sides, as if waiting for something. An Israeli Armored Personnel Carrier raced for the border from its safe point a half mile away. There was a loud metallic sound and a TOW missile flew out the van’s open doors from a tube bolted to the deck inside. The thin wire that carried the guidance information to the missile trailed behind it as the TOW raced toward the Israeli APC, slamming into the belly of the armored vehicle, instantly killing the Israeli soldiers inside.

The Palestinian and Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint were dead, but dozens of others were rushing to the border from their safe positions a mile away. The eight shooters, unharmed, ran back to the van, diving through the closing rear doors. The driver threw both of the switches under the dash and the finely tuned eight-cylinder engine roared to life. The van sped off in the direction of Gaza City.

Several soldiers standing in the back of an Israeli truck approaching the checkpoint began firing at the van. The M-16 bullets, small but fast, slammed into the back of the vehicle but fell harmlessly, bouncing off the van’s inner lining of Kevlar. Small chips of rubber flew off the solid tires as the bullets hit, but nothing slowed the van.

It sped down the highway, back the way it had come. A Palestinian security truck raced toward the border near the retreating van. Too late, the truck driver realized that the target he was pursuing was the van about to pass them. The truck slowed but the van had already raced by, untouched. It reached the outskirts of the city and made a sharp turn into an alley. Another van pulled in front of the entrance to the alley, blocking it completely.

The white van stopped deep in the alley and the eight men and the driver quickly walked away, blending in with passers-by who were completely unaware of what had happened. Each of the shooters wore clothes different from those he had worn during the attack, and each left his weapon lying on the floor of the van next to the TOW launcher. They split up, each taking a different direction, then climbed into the unremarkable sedans that were waiting for them and disappeared.

“Hey, Wink,” Lieutenant Sean Woods, “Trey,” as he was known, said into his oxygen mask.

“What?”

“This our last intercept of the night?”

Wink looked at the clock on the instrument panel in the backseat of the F-14. “Probably.”

“Let’s have some fun,” Woods said.

“Always.”

Woods glanced at his fuel indicator. They were fat. “You ready?”

“I’m ready,” Wink replied, then immediately transmitted, “Victory 207’s ready.”

“Roger. Victory 207, your bogey is 284 for 42, angels unknown,” Tiger replied. The bad guy — their wingman — bore 284 degrees from them, forty-two miles away, and the controller didn’t know their altitude.

Wink slaved his radar toward the left side of the Tomcat’s nose as Woods pulled around hard to the west in a three G turn. Wink picked out their wingman while still in the turn: “207, contact 284 for 40. Judy,” Wink transmitted, taking control of the intercept. Lieutenant Vialli and Sedge, his Radar Intercept Officer, RIO, in their F-14, were forty miles away and turning in at the same speed.

“Roger, out.”

The radio went silent. Woods changed the mode on his HSD, his Horizontal Situation Display, to show the radar picture Wink was seeing in the backseat. He immediately knew what kind of intercept Wink would run. He checked his fuel ladder, a group of boxes he had drawn on his knee board to keep track of how much fuel he would need at what time to get back aboard the carrier with plenty of fuel left to go around if they couldn’t trap the first time. They had fuel to burn.

“What’s his altitude?”

Wink hooked the target on the PTID — the Programmable Tactical Information Display, which showed him the radar information. “Twenty-three.” Twenty-three thousand feet above the ocean.

Woods pushed the throttles forward to the stops — as hard as the engines could work without afterburner — and pulled the nose of the Tomcat up ten degrees above the horizon.

The green glow of the screens reflected on their clear visors. The night was as dark as any night could be and still be illuminated by stars. Moonrise wasn’t for another hour. The overcast cloud layer below blocked any light from the sea, not that there was much in the middle of the Mediterranean.

“Want to take him down the throat?” Wink asked.

“May as well since we’re coming in high, but we’ll need a little angle.”

The F-14 climbed hungrily into the cool night sky. “Think they’ve got us?”

“Sure,” Wink replied.

“Then they’ll know what we’re up to?”

“If they’re paying attention. But it’s the last one, they’re the bogey. May not notice our altitude. Starboard to 300 to build up some aspect angle.” Wink wanted to come in from the side so they could roll out behind their target.

Woods turned the F-14 gently as he continued to climb. He steadied on a heading of 300.

“Okay, come port to 278.”

Woods complied as they passed through thirty-four thousand feet, still climbing. He instinctively looked behind him to see if they were leaving contrails, but quickly realized he couldn’t have seen them in the darkness even if they were there. They continued to climb straight ahead without speaking until they were at forty thousand feet.

“Ten miles,” Wink said. “We’ll start our normal intercept turn to kick him out about seven miles or so, then back in around five.”

“Roger,” Woods said, leaning forward to see down, but unable to pick out his wingman far below. “What are their angels now?”

Wink looked again. “Ten.” Five miles below them.

“That asshole,” Woods said, smiling under his mask. “They’re sitting on the overcast.”

“We’ll just have to start down earlier, and watch our speed.”

“Piece of cake,” Woods said, grinning at the thought of screaming down thirty thousand feet in the dark upside down.

“Starboard hard,” Wink called.

Woods turned the F-14 steeply but carefully in the thin air. After passing through whatever heading Wink was watching for, he called for a hard port turn.

Woods pushed the stick hard left until the Tomcat was on its back. He leaned back on the stick and let gravity pull them down toward the earth. Looking through the canopy toward the darkness below, he saw Vialli’s red anticollision light. “Tallyho,” Woods said.

“Got him,” Wink responded, glancing up. “We’re nearly on his line. Pull straight.”

“Roger.” Woods leveled the wings upside down and pulled back on the stick harder until they were pulling four Gs. Their speed increased through six hundred knots as the nose of the Tomcat pointed straight at the ocean. Woods eased the throttles back, no longer needing the full thrust of the engines; gravity could do most of the work. “Think he’s got us?”

“They may be wondering what the hell we’re doing up here.”

“I doubt it,” Woods said, grunting against the G forces. “How far behind them we going to be?”

“About a mile if you hold this.”

“Perfect.”

“Watch the speed,” Wink said as they passed through 625 knots. Woods brought the throttles back more and pulled a little harder on the stick.

“Passing through twenty,” Wink called calmly.

“You got him locked up?” Woods asked.

“Yep. Pull up at fifteen thousand feet, then we can descend to their altitude.”

“Okay,” Woods answered, taking a quick look at the engine instruments. They were still ahead of their fuel ladder. He pulled back harder on the stick and held five Gs to increase their altitude on pull-out.

Woods watched the nose of their Tomcat come through the horizon and back up toward the east. The artificial horizon told him he was approaching level flight again. He relaxed the back pressure on the stick and felt the bladders of his G-suit deflate against his abdomen and thighs.

“Dead ahead, one mile, two hundred fifty knots closure,” Wink said to Woods, then on the radio: “Fox two.” The last transmission let everyone know they had completed the intercept and simulated the launch of an AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missile.

“Want to thump him?” Woods asked excitedly.

“Could get in trouble for that,” Wink said warily.

“Rules were meant to be broken. So you want to?”

“Just don’t hit him. That could really get us in trouble, and wet — I don’t want to go swimming tonight. I’m not wearing my dry suit.”

“Roger that.” Woods pushed the throttles forward.

Tiger, the Air Intercept Controller on the carrier, transmitted: “Victory 207, head outbound at 270–204, continue inbound 090 to set up another one.”

“That’s it for us,” Wink transmitted in reply. “207’s heading for marshall.”

“Roger that, 207. Good work. See you on deck.”

“Thanks, Tiger. Good work.”

“Three hundred knots closure,” Wink told Woods. He leaned to his left and studied the approaching lights of their wingman.

Woods also watched his wingman ahead. “He’s skimming along the cloud layer. It’s totally flat — he’s completely in the clouds except his canopy and the two tails.” He pondered their plan for a moment. “We’ll have to go into the clouds to get below him.”

“That’s pretty marginal. Another time.” Wink knew Woods was willing to lean on the boundaries.

“Nah, we’ll be huge. You got a good lock?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me when we pass under him,” Woods said, lowering the nose of the Tomcat and moving into the darkness of the cloud. The approaching lights of their wingman faded, then disappeared.

“One tenth of a mile — three hundred closure,” Wink called, his eyes on the computerized radar image and the raw radarscope simultaneously. They were coming up to their wingman from dead behind with three hundred knots more speed. Wink saw the angle of the radar increase rapidly toward the top of the nose of the Tomcat, then felt the thud as the radar broke lock at a 65-degree up angle and the disappointed antenna returned to its neutral position. “Directly overhead,” Wink said.

“Roger,” Woods replied anxiously. “Think we’re clear?”

“Should be,” Wink replied.

“I’ll give it a few,” Woods said, counted to three in his mind, then pulled back hard on the stick. They came screaming up out of the cloud. The sky cleared and the stars were vivid again. “You got him?” Woods yelled.

Wink grabbed the handle on top of the radar console and used it to turn around and look between the two tails of the Tomcat. “Got him.” Wink watched as their F-14 went straight up at five hundred fifty knots directly in front of their wingman, like a rocket.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Tony Vialli saw a flash of darkness outlined by anticollision lights and the green blur of the formation lights on the sides of the Tomcat directly in front of him. Realizing there was something in front of him, he tried to dump the nose of his Tomcat toward earth to avoid what he thought was an imminent collision. “Holy shit!” he yelled into his oxygen mask so loud that Sedge could hear it in the backseat even though Vialli’s microphone was off. Coming out of their seats as the negative G forces from their evasive action pushed them up, they flew through Woods’s jet wash and entered the clouds at the same time. Vialli, fighting to recover his bearings, forced himself to watch his artificial horizon to avoid vertigo, a loss of reference that could be fatal. He quickly checked his engine instruments to make sure the jet wash hadn’t caused a flame-out.

In the other F-14 Woods and Wink were enjoying the rocket ride into the Mediterranean darkness. “That ought to do it,” Woods said. “Think they saw us?”

The radio jumped to life. “If that was you, you’re dead.” Vialli didn’t even have to say who he was talking to. He was using the radio in the front cockpit, reserved for squadron use, set to the squadron’s private frequency. Woods was the only other squadron airplane airborne on this, the night’s last flight. It was 0145.

Woods could hear the anger in Vialli’s voice and realized he might have miscalculated. He keyed the radio with the switch on the throttle. “Yeah, we overshot. Let’s knock it off. See you at marshall.”

“You thumped us,” Vialli said furiously as he climbed the F-14 out of the clouds and leveled off.

“See you on deck,” Woods replied.

Sedge answered, “We’re switching. See you guys in marshall.”

“I think they’re pissed,” Wink said as they flew straight up away from the earth.

“They’ll get over it. Got to be ready for anything.”

Wink switched the frequency on the digital display of his radio. “Victory 207 checking in. We’re on the 268 at 40, state 7.3.” They were forty miles from the carrier and had 7,300 pounds of jet fuel.

“Roger, 207,” said the controller, the same one who was there every night, the one who mispronounced the same words every night, saying “Roger” with a long “o” and available with an extra “i,” “availiable.” His consistent mistakes had come to be highly regarded by the aircrew as signposts of the ship and a comforting familiarity.

“Contact, Victory 207. Stand by for your marshall instructions.”

“Victory 207,” Wink replied. Unlike Woods, he enjoyed marshall. It was where all the carrier’s planes went before landing aboard the carrier at night, a finely choreographed holding pattern where they circled twenty or more miles from the carrier until their time came and they began their descent to the dreaded night landing.

“Want to go up on the roof?” Woods asked Wink.

“Sure. We’ve got time,” Wink replied as he searched for a card on his knee board. “As long as we’ve got the gas.”

“We’ve got it,” Woods replied.

“Victory 207, Marshall at the 240 radial at 22 miles, angels 7. Your push time is… stand by.”

“Passing thirty,” Wink said to Woods as they passed through thirty thousand feet.

“Push time is 04.”

“Victory 207–240 at 22, angels 7, push at 04, roger,” Wink replied. “Passing forty.”

Woods started the nose of the Tomcat back toward the horizon. “How high do you want to go?”

“If we go above fifty we’re supposed to wear a pressure suit. Wouldn’t want our blood to boil.”

“Forty-nine, aye,” Woods said. He leveled off at forty-nine thousand feet and set the plane straight and level, heading in the direction of their assigned marshall location where they would begin their descent to the carrier for their landing. Their push time, when they were to begin their descent to the ship from a very specific spot, was four minutes after the hour — twenty-four minutes away. “Ready to darken ship?” Woods asked.

“Affirm,” Wink replied. They both moved their hands around the cockpit expertly adjusting the lights, consoles, and switches that gave off any light at all, leaving faint indications of critical information, and turning off or dimming everything else. They lowered the radio receiver volume so they couldn’t hear the other pilots checking in to marshall. Wink switched off his radarscope and PTID screen even though the radar stayed on. There were no reflections off the clear Plexiglas canopy which reached over their heads and down below their shoulders.

Woods adjusted the trim of the Tomcat so it would fly straight and level with his hands and feet off the controls and turned on the autopilot to hold their altitude and heading. As a last step he switched off the flashing red anticollision lights, which could be seen for miles and warned other planes of their presence. Tonight, there was no one else up that high and no risk of colliding with another airplane. The Tomcat blended in with the night, invisible to everyone but God.

Woods put his arms on the railings of the canopy and looked up at the stars. As beautiful as they were from the ship in the middle of the sea on a clear night, nothing compared to sitting on the roof, on top of the world, in a darkened airplane. Woods studied the patterns of galaxies and stars, the vast number and density of them. He loved to fly as high as he could go over the water, or anywhere else, for that matter. Even on top of the highest mountain, the view couldn’t compare to the clear sky over the sea from fifty thousand feet — above the highest mountains, the highest clouds, the highest storms, and the highest airplane traffic. There was no sensation of movement at all. It was like sitting in a planetarium. But even the view in the best planetarium would pale in comparison to this. The planets had actual size. The stars were closer, clearer, and brighter. The ones he could see pointed to the ones behind them, dimmer but clear, and the ones behind them, dimmer still. They were gathered in groups, or clusters, so numerous he couldn’t even count them in one section of the sky. God’s living room.

Woods thought of the other Navy pilots flying their racetrack patterns aimlessly in marshall, waiting for their time to descend and land on the carrier, to go below and watch a movie, or eat ice cream, or do the never-ending Navy paperwork, all without ever looking up.

He leaned back and closed his eyes to moisten them. The oxygen leaking out of the top of his oxygen mask had dried them out. He opened his eyes again and looked toward the eastern horizon where the moon would be coming up in forty-five minutes. He could see the faint glow of white as the moon gathered its energy to rise and illuminate the night.

Wink broke the silence. “Two more months and we head back to Norfolk, Sean.”

“Yep. But some good port calls before then. Like Israel.”

“Never happen. Too much going on. They’ll never let us go.”

“I’ll take that bet. I was on board last cruise when we stopped at Haifa. Same kind of deal.”

“They’ll probably blow somebody up and we won’t get to go. We’ll end up in Naples again.”

“Roger that.”

Woods sat for another minute breathing the pure oxygen. Real air was stale and warm compared to the Tomcat’s pure oxygen, which seemed to rejuvenate him whenever he put on his mask. He didn’t want to go to marshall and just drill around, waiting. They were supposed to get there early enough to set up their speed and arrive at their push time within ten seconds. He liked to get there as late as he could and still make it. Somehow they always made it. Maybe it was just his way of putting off the inevitable — landing aboard the carrier.

The mere thought of landing aboard the ship at night with no moon and an overcast caused his palms to sweat. He had never gotten used to it. He was good at it; one of the best in the squadron — but it was still an unnatural act. Woods turned up the instrument lights and switched on the anticollision lights. He rolled the F-14 over on its back and headed for marshall. “Let’s do it.”