Cuban Attack Installment 2

There was a news crew setting up next to the parked ambulance. John often wondered how they always seemed to be in the neighborhood at just the right time. He hurried to get into the flight suit before the camera guys got one of them running. It was bad enough to be changing in the open with so many people around, but being televised into everyone homes was something he wished to avoid. The young Valerie took a lingering view and smiled at being caught. That was good enough to make John feel a bit younger than he physically felt.

Brad Anderson stood looking over the mayhem going on around the F-16 and the ambulance. Standing six-foot at two hundred plus pounds with a short flattop hair cut that was now mostly gray he was without a doubt a hardened military man. Now retired from twenty-eight years in the Air Force, Msgt. Brad Anderson was at home in this type of environment where everything got tossed into the air and you had to catch all the pieces in the right order. Well at least there was no bullets flying over your head like there had been in Vietnam. After taking in the situation he made his way to the ambulance where he had seen John.

Lt. Ed Robinson noticed the large man approaching and offered a hand. "This must be your father John."

Brad Anderson approached and shook the pilot's hand.

"Yes," John said looking up from fiddling with the G-suit. "Dad this is Lt. Ed Robinson, this is my father Brad Anderson." John introduced, returning his attention back to the suit.

"Sorry to have to pull you out of retirement, but we could use your help." Ed said as he releases the handshake. Ed turned his attention to John. "I'll fill your father in if you could get the other radio out of the plane; it's in a small compartment behind the seat."

"Good idea, it's bigger than this one right." Pulling a small handheld emergency radio out of the leg pocket and handing it to his father. With out another word he was turned headed for the jet.

"So Lieutenant, what is the situation." Brad Anderson said as he turned on the radio and adjusted the squelch and volume and turned it back off after checking its operation and battery.

John climbed the ladder to the cockpit as the Lieutenant filled his father in on the Cubans coming in. Finding the compartment he removed the radio and riffled though the rest, which netted an extra battery. He then sank into the seat and got a feel for the cockpit looking for various switches and compiling questions for the lieutenant. The programmers of the computer simulation game did one hell of a job making the software realistic. Everything was in the somewhat in the right place. The gauges and a couple of switches were just different enough to cause concern. John had never been in combat or in a real fighter jet, but he figured things could get intense real quick. The jet was not a worry, if he passed out from G-levels the jet would sense this from the health monitor and the computer fly by wire system would level the plane at a safe altitude according to information fed to it from the GPS system.

Only problem with that was if you had an enemy on your tail. The plane would just fly straight until it became a falling fireball. Putting those thoughts to rest, he turned to the real issue, of buttons and their function. John had not modified his control stick and throttle quadrant too much from the original layout preprogrammed by the software geeks. Some items he had changed for comfort. Well you could do that with a computer game, it was just a game. The flight stick and throttle quadrant he had at home was the same, exactly. Well they said they were the same when he bought the three hundred-dollar flight set. John wondered how the military could let a computer gaming company gain such detailed information on a fighter. Well the cold war was over, and the US did dominate the air.

The news crew had set up the cameras and extended the satellite dish on the news truck. They were feeding Channel Five news center with live video and audio from the scene. Dennis McKinney was monitoring it as it was being recorded onto file tape. Dennis had been with the station for twenty years, had witnessed all sorts of bizarre going-on's. This was by far the hottest story to come across his desk in his entire career. His reporter Walter Evens had already given a live report and the anchor tied the ends together with the ongoing Cuban story. As the executive producer of the station Dennis was the one that made the decisions regarding what got priority and what got dumped. It was getting time to make that call.

Dennis looked over the boards and editing equipment. "Call Walter and Steve and tell them I want continuous coverage, video and audio, no gaps or editing. Feed it all to us no matter what the content. Tell Walter that his cameraman has a free run; Steve has a good eye for the action. I don't want Walter screwing him up getting a side story on how the old ladies daffodils got trampled by the police or some shit." Dennis thought for a second. "We are going to run this live in a bit, get sales on the line with CNN and sell this to the hilt, they can have a live feed if they want it."

The editing technician looked up at him from his monitor. "Dennis, are you sure about this? We are getting are sorts of bad language coming though."

"Yes I'm sure, we'll pay the fines, just get ready to go live as soon as the action starts."

Steve was hooking up electrical cables to power the camera off the truck. The message had come to run continuously so for now he had the camera pointed at the guys maneuvering the Jet to point south. Looking over at Walter sitting there scribbling on a pad some BS of what he was going to say next. Why Walter was playing word games he was listening into the conversation between the pilot of the jet and the guy that was going to be taking over. He paused to rotate the camera down the road where a line of people walked hand in hand picking up garbage and such when his cell went off.

"Steve here."

"Steve its Dennis."

"Hey Dennis, what's up?"

"Thought I'd better call you personally. You have unrestricted authority to get me what I want. Don't let Walter screw it up with his patsy babbling. Steve I'm going to break into programming and run this live, no editing. So watch what you two say. Do what it takes to get the story, if I had to guess Walter is sitting doing nothing while you're stacking your sleeves with tricks.

Steve looked down at the jumper wire in his hand that he had just wired a small mic to the side of it. Then looked again at the radio the pilots were going to use to communicate.

"You could say that Dennis. You're really going to run live, no shit?"

"No shit Steve, get me the coverage." Dennis answered and the phone went dead.

Steve set his phone to vibrate, and clipped it to his belt. He didn't have the ability to monitor military frequencies so he had to tap into the pilot's radio. Reaching into his bag of equipment he extracted a breakout box, gathered his cables and stepped the three-foot distance to the gurney with the pilot on it.

"How's it going guys?" Steve asked the two.

John looked up. "Sorry man, no interviews."

"Don't want one, but I thought I might be able to help you guys out a bit."

"How's that?" Ed replied.

"You going to use that survival radio to communicate with the plane, right?"

"Go on." John said.

"Well I thought it might be hard to hear with the noise of the jet and such, and I have here a breakout box that will plug into you radio and give you a better speaker and you can even plug in head phones if you want." Steve said holding up the box and cables. "It can also give you power from the van. Unfortunately I don't have a mic that will fit it."

John exchanged glances with Ed, and got a nod. "Good idea, thanks we could use all the help we can get." John offered a hand. "This is Ed and I'm John."

"Steve, good to meet you." Holding out his hand for the radio. "You'll have to talk through the radio mic, so I'll tape this on so you don't pull it out handling it." Steve looked over the radio, plugged in the patch cord, double-checked the power-input voltage, plugged that cord in and taped the wires to it and handed it back. "I'll set the box and speaker here so you don't get feed back." He set the box on a stack of medical equipment that was plugged into the pilot. Getting a speaker from his bag he plugged it into the box, and plugged the power plug into the extension cord coming from the van generator. Along with that was another patch cord that he plugged into his equipment. Now he was fully wired into their radio.

Dennis McKinney was casually monitoring the feeds when another screen lit up. The audio blared shortly after.

"Skyhawk two three we copy Trigger Happy, loud and clear, say request."

Dennis look at the monitor that was now focused on the pilot on the gurney and noticed right off the equipment that was plugged into the radio. "That sneaky son of a bitch, god I love that guy. That is a military frequency; anyone got a clue as to how much trouble we are going to get in for tapping that?" Dennis looked around everyone shrugged. "Ok, what the hell we go with it and claim ignorance. Get tapes running on the second channel." Dennis sat back with a smile on his face, the wheels in his head spinning like mad. The monitor on the mobile camera went dead. But the audio stayed on. He must be conserving battery power he thought. The other camera on the fixed stand was still running.

Valerie was taking Ed Robinson's blood pressure and quickly becoming concerned with the results. The conversation with whoever was up there was getting heated.

"You listen to me Captain! My flight of three has only one left, as you had better well be aware of. That one fighter will have hell taking care of six Mig's and we need another plane to back her up. I don't care if he is a civilian you will give him all the support and understanding you can! He may not be familiar with the lingo, so you better talk straight with him. I may be a lowly lieutenant captain, but if you screw this up, you'll be following General Peterson around with a pooper scooper trying to get your ass back! You got that Captain!

The radio remained silent for too long of a period of time to satisfy Ed Robinson. He was about to fingering the mic button when John came over from conferring with his father concerning startup.

Valerie gave him a sharp look. "If he doesn't calm down he's going to be dead before you get in the plane."

John only put a hand on her shoulder with a sympathetic look of acknowledgement.

The radio came to life with a different voice. "Sorry sir, I understand your request and we will give you all the help we can. Your flight lead Tango One is now engaged with the bogies, Thumper reports engaged with niner Mig 25's repeat niner bogies, repeat niner bogies not six." The colonel of the AWACS command and control plane said. The AWACS turbo prop aircraft circled at forty thousand feet over head. It has the capability to look out hundreds of miles in all directions with the large radar dome mounted to the roof of the Boeing 707 Airframe. Capable of communicating with all branches of the military as well as NATO its soul task is to control and advise the air conflict. "Best estimate is two hundred miles southeast your estimated position."

"Skyhawk two three, can you patch her into this frequency, over." Ed radioed.

"Stand by one, Tango 2."

Ed looked at John; the concern there was palatable. "She can't take nine Migs John, but you knew that."

"Does she have the weapons to take down that many?" John asked.

"If every shot was pretty much dead on, it could be done. But that is not likely and she is good."

The radio came to life; Ed recognized the voice as Thumper. She wasn't saying much as the AWACS just feeding her information about the position of the Mig's around her. It was obvious how stressed she was by the tone of her voice and its pitch. Thumper was pumped full of adrenaline and rightfully so. Valerie took notice of the female voice and seemed to lean closer to the speaker. John wondered if Valerie was opposed to females in combat. Most likely not as this fit, smart, redhead had some fire in her that told people not to mess with her.

"Splash two!" Thumper called over the radio. All of those around the radio did a little hop with a smile. They also knew it was not over.

"Tango one; bearing two seven zero three in bound. You have one coming in trail behind you." The radar controller of the Skyhawk advised.

"Lock! Firing! Thumper called.

"Tango one two bogies twelve o-clock coming straight at you."

"Splash three, going vertical!"

"Tango one in bound spike, at you six."

"What is a spike?" Valerie had to ask.

"They call missiles spikes." Ed answered.

"I think it is time for me to get in the air." John said. "Any last words of advice?"

"Yeah." Ed said. "Watch your six. Tune COM one to the first frequency on the list. The others are indicated as to what they are. The AWACS can advise you on this frequency."

Valerie handed John the piece of paper she had wrote out for Ed. She looked him in the eyes, smiled and put a one-inch roll of medical tape in his chest pocket. "You should never go anywhere with out medical tape, good luck John."

"I'm hit! I'm hit!" The radio cried out. "Tango one is mayday, flame out, Tango one is mayday!"

"Copy Tango one, coast guard is in route, take heading two seven zero if possible."

"Not possible I am still taking fire!"

"Tango one, we have one thousand foot on your altitude, eject, eject, eject, copy." The communications officer aboard the AWACS remained calm the whole conversation. That was his job, but it was lost on Valerie as to the lack of emotion in his voice. "Tango two do you copy?"

"Tango Two go ahead." Ed radioed.

Tango Two you have the ball, six Mig 25's separated in pairs closest pair is bearing one one five at one thousand, four hundred knots closure, at one forty-five miles. Squawk two niner niner seven and advise."

John didn't say a word. He looked at Ed and turned on heel and walked to the plane rotating his hand in the air when his father caught site of him.

"Skyhawk two three, copy, will be airborne shortly and will advise." Ed answered.

''Copy Tango Two."

Johns father saw him walking towards the plane, he knew the meaning of the rotating hand in the air. It was time to start readying for engine start. Brad Anderson was accustomed to getting the job done without the proper tools to actually do it. This case was no different. He immediately went over to where he had six cars parked up against the jet. Confirming that the drivers knew the plan he was set to start the jet. Brad Anderson had rigged together jumper cables, two cars with one each twelve volt battery in series creating twenty four volts were joined together with the other pairs in parallel going into the jet. They had been charging the twenty four-volt batteries on the F-16 for the last five minuets. Now they would help with starting it and each driver would disconnect their cables and get out of the way soon after.

Ed Robinson was sitting up on the gurney feeling a little helpless. He looked over and saw Steve sitting with his camera at the ready, smoking a cigarette. Ed motioned for him to come over. Steve shouldered his mobile camera and walked over.

"Hey Ed what's up?"

"You have another one of those?" Ed asked.

"Sure." Steve said as he pulled a pack of Marlboro's out of his pocket. "What's going on Ed?"

Ed took the cigarette and ignored the scolding look from Valerie. "There are six Migs coming in. The other F-16 is down. Do me a favor would you?"

"Sure, what do you want me to do?"

"Go get some shots of John there. His family would be grateful I'm sure.

"He's not going to live through this is he." Steve stated as he lit the lighter for Ed. He thought to ask more questions, but he didn't need to. He had an ear-piece and had been listening to everything they had been saying.

"Most likely not. The bitch of it is he knows it, but he is still going."

I'll get some footage of him, I'll see you in a bit." Steve checked his fixed camera so that it had a wide angle shot of the area, and walked off toward the jet.

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