Jim DeFelice - Going Deep

The first refuel was a piece of cake.

It was on the second that Doberman lost control of the plane.

They grabbed a tanker and top priority about three seconds after crossing the Iraqi border. Doberman had a good feel for the plane by then; the damaged Hog didn’t have the most desirable flying characteristics, but he could hold her reasonably steady at five thousand feet. The tanker, though, ordinarily did its business much higher than that. Apprised of the situation, the KC-135 pilot slid down to about ten thousand feet; Doberman coaxed the Hog toward her gently. Even under the best conditions with two engines, it took the underpowered plane an eternity to climb; now it seemed like he was climbing Mount Everest.

The director lights beneath the tanker normally provided a reference for approaching planes. This morning they seemed only to throw him off, juggling back and forth as he eased in. Finally, Doberman got close enough for the boom operator in the back of the tanker to hook his spike into the receptacle. The Hog snorted with pleasure as it sucked up the fuel.

That was the first time. Swinging southeast toward King Fahd, they had to be vectored out the path of a large package of bombers headed north. Doberman’s right hand started shaking uncontrollably as he brought the plane to the proper course heading. At first it was just a twitch in his thumb, and he laughed at it — compared to the immense knot in his back, this torture was amusing.

But as it spread from his thumb to his other fingers, he stopped thinking it was funny. He grabbed the stick with his left hand and shook his right in the air before him, as if he could shoo the problem away. When that didn’t work, he tried stretching his hand out against the top of the instrument panel. Finally, he yelled at it to stop.

It stopped.

“Doberman, you okay in there?” A-Bomb asked. A-Bomb had slid behind him; Mongoose was in the lead.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Doberman.

“You know you’re down to three angels.”

The pilot looked at the altimeter in shock. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. I was just looking for a good draw. I got an ace in my hand.”

“Huh? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m bringing it back up.” Doberman put his right hand back on the stick, holding the control with both hands for a few seconds, not sure he could trust it.

“How are you on fuel?”

“Fine,” he barked.

“Just asking.”

Mongoose called in with the time to tanker and the frequency, then double-checked the course headings with both pilots.

Doberman barely acknowledged. There was so much shit to do, so much blank sky to fly through.

Luckiest dead man, huh? What the hell were the odds of getting all shot to hell twice in one day?

Worse than pulling a full house on a four-card draw. Worse than hitting an inside straight.

Never in his life had he done that.

Nah, he must have. All the years he’d played cards, since his uncle JR taught him at age seven, and he hadn’t gotten one?

Didn’t remember if he did. Shit, it was just that he never tried to do it. A sucker’s move.

Good ol’ JR. Taught him how to play poker, taught him how to smoke cigars, taught him just about everything important.

Ought to call him.

Jesus, that would be a good trick, Doberman realized. JR died two years ago.

Hell of a thing to forget. Son of a bitch got crunched so bad in a car accident they had to close the coffin.

“Doberman, you awake back there? The tanker is trying to reach you on their frequency.”

The pilot gave the com panel a dirty look, as if it were responsible for JR’s death.

“They’re at twenty-four thousand feet,” said Mongoose. “You’re two cars back.”

At 24,000 feet? No way he was getting that high. Hell, even a perfect Hog didn’t like being that far off the ground.

“Devil Four?”

“Yeah, I’m switching to their frequency now,” Doberman snapped. “I need them to come down. Way down.”

The tanker was a KC–IOA Extender, a military version of the three-engine McDonnell Douglas DC-10 adapted to a tanker role. Taking the boom from the jet was similar to grabbing a line from the older KC-135, and in fact Doberman had flown his Hog into the Gulf following a KC–IOA. He could suck up to one blind, and had come close to doing so on several night flights.

But no way he was getting to 24,000 feet, not in this lifetime. He was at six thousand, and struggling as it was.

How high can you fly with a hole in your wing?

The tanker pilot brought the plane to about seven thousand feet and threw his landing gear out to help slow himself down. Doberman huffed and puffed against the wind to hold the Hog relatively steady as he closed in. Everything was taking so damn long but at least the A-10 was flying perfectly; slow and perfect.

Then as the pilot pushed the Hog the last few feet toward the long pipe extending from the plane’s rear end, he felt his head starting to spin. His eyes seemed to slip back behind their sockets and down into his cheeks. When he got them back in place, he thought he was coming too close too fast and backed off the throttle; the next thing he knew, he was heading downward in a spin.

A-Bomb, riding off Doberman’s starboard wing, saw the Hog tilting to the left. Before he could key the mike to say anything, Doberman’s plane had rolled toward the earth.

He tucked his wing and started to follow. There was no fresh sign of damage to the Hog, and the wing remained intact despite the stress of the dive. In fact, if A-Bomb didn’t know there was a hole in it, he would have sworn there was nothing wrong with the A-lOA that was plummeting toward the earth at several hundred miles an hour.

Doberman didn’t answer his hail. A-Bomb tried choking back the metallic taste that crept into the corners of his mouth, but it kept coming.

Lines and circles. You could divide the world into lines and circles. Everything could be measured. In the physical world, at least. Measuring changed it. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, right? But it could always be counted off somehow.

Counting off. Ten, nine, eight…

Doberman’s eyes found the altimeter clock as he pleaded with the stick to right the aircraft. He had a bum wing, but he could do it. He ’d been a check pilot, putting newly overhauled Hogs through their paces. This was a piece of cake.

Unlucky or not, he could do it.

His mind was flooded with images that rolled and pitched much faster than the injured Hog. He was dizzy as hell, and the shake had returned, only it was hitting his chest. He reached for the throttle, discovering with a start that his hand was already on it.

What the fuck is going on with my brain!

Yo! Snap the hell out of it!

Something in his head hiccupped as the Hog fell from his hands. Now he felt a numb pain in his chest.

Maybe the damage this morning was supposed to take him out. Maybe somebody, somewhere was fixing the ledger. Luckiest dead man, my ass.

JR was there, giving him advice. “Fold when you see the other guy’s eyes twinkle.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Why’d you teach a little kid how to play poker for?

Because you’re too young to parachute.

JR took him up in Cessna for his thirteenth birthday, got him hooked on flying.

For his fourteenth birthday, JR got him a parachute ride, the damn coolest thing that had ever happened to him in his life.

Too cool to tell his mom, though, until after he landed intact.

Jump, JR was telling him. Just jump. Everything else is automatic.