Jim DeFelice - Going Deep

A-Bomb watched as Doberman’s starboard wing began to edge upwards; the plane was heading into a spin.

“Eject!” he yelled over the radio. “Doberman eject! Get the fuck out of that plane!”

Doberman felt it getting further and further away from him. He couldn’t get the nose pointed back upwards, and now the wing was sliding out from under him.

The airbrakes weren’t working. The right aileron had been hit, and probably the inside ones were screwed up.

There was a simple formula in his head for fixing all of this. It was just a matter of finding it in the clutter.

Call with two pair. Fold on anything less .

A-Bomb was yelling at him, but Doberman couldn’t hear what he was saying.

He could hear his uncle, though. He was telling him to jump from the Cessna. Jump; everything else is automatic.

No, that was the problem; he was so tired he was trying to fly on instincts and the Hog didn’t like that, not with a frazzled wing.

He wasn’t compensating right. He was pretending he was just out of the maintenance shop. Straighten up and fly right, he told himself.

The refrain danced in his brain. JR used to hum that song. Meant he had a good hand. Gave himself away. Made it easy to beat him.

The Hog snorted as Doberman’s hands finally took hold of its sides. The metallic animal sniffed at the air, unsure where the hell it was. A small piece from its wing, part of the aileron, damaged by debris when the missile hit, flew backwards like a Frisbee. Then the craft straightened herself out.

Doberman leveled out at one thousand feet, heart pumping, feet shaking, but head clear.

“Man, you got a one-track mind with this ejection thing,” he told A-Bomb. “I don’t feel like jumping today. Maybe tomorrow.

Mongoose found the two Hogs flying together at about three thousand feet. They were climbing back toward the tanker like a pair of little old ladies walking up a staircase.

“What the hell happened?”

“I think the wash from the tanker knocked something loose in the wing,” Doberman told him. “That and I might have had a touch of vertigo creeping in on the tanker.”

“Definite on that first theory,” said A-Bomb. “Part of your aileron is missing.”

“Can you fly that thing?” Mongoose asked.

“Watch me.”

“I don’t know how that fuckin’ wing is holding together,” said A-Bomb. “I say we head for the nearest set of sand bags and the hell with King Fahd.”

“I can make it,” said Doberman. “I just need some more gas, that’s all.”

“I think we’ve pushed it far enough,” said Mongoose. He pulled his map open, double-checking their position. “Let A-Bomb and me gas up, then call it a day. We’ll hang with you until the chopper comes.”

“Jesus, we’ve come this far,” said Doberman. “I know I can do that tanker. Just get the guy to come down to me instead of the other way around.”

“The tanker just bingo’d,” said Mongoose. “A replacement is on the way.”

“Fine. Have him meet us en route to Fahd,” said Doberman. “Hell, I got plenty of gas. I can squeeze another hundred miles out of what I’ve got left. I’ll back off power another ten percent.”

“You’re flying backwards as it is,” said A-Bomb. “No shit, Goose, I think we’ve pushed this as far as it can go.”

“You can’t order me to bail out. That’s bullshit. I’m not losing this plane.”

“You have to get a lot higher and faster to refuel,” Mongoose told Doberman. “I don’t know if you’ll hang together.”

“Get me a divert field then.”

“What if the gear doesn’t come down?”

“Man, why are you giving up on me?”

“I’m not giving up on you, Doberman. I’m trying to keep you in one piece.”

Mongoose bit back an angry response, then looked at the list of fields. They were all pretty damn far from here; might just as well go on to King Fahd. He checked his map and the latitude-longitude on the INS again. But it wasn’t until he glanced at his own fuel stores that it all clicked.

“Devil Two, give me your fuel status.”

Doberman reported the weight of the fuel in his tanks with a hair less belligerence than before. Mongoose worked out the math. He checked his altitude, then cut his own power to take the Hog down to about one hundred and eighty-five nautical miles an hour. The plane didn’t like it; he dropped the nose and went down to five thousand, where her complaints weren’t quite as vociferous.

“Were you serious that you can cut power ten percent and still fly that thing?” he asked.

“Shit yeah.”

“Do it.”

“What’s going on?” asked A-Bomb.

“I may have to take it lower,” said Doberman.

“Go where you feel comfortable,” said Mongoose. He could tell Doberman had already figured out what he was thinking. “Just don’t put it into the sand.”

“We have to correct three degrees back north.”

“Affirmative. I’ll have the controller tell King Fahd we’re on the way. A-Bomb, go to the replacement tanker, top off and come find us. There’s a track ahead that I’ll jump on as soon as you’re back. Doberman, listen — let’s talk it up the rest of the way back.”

“You think I’m falling asleep?”

“Man, I’m tired,” said Mongoose. “You got to be exhausted.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m a little beat. What do you want to talk about?”

“Who’s gonna win the Super Bowl?”

“Washington.”

“They’re not in it.”

“They will be by the time I land this thing.”

According to Doberman’s calculations, the stricken Hog had precisely enough gas to fall one hundred feet short of King Fahd. And no amount of math could change that.

What he hoped for was a strategic gust of wind at the last moment. Or maybe the incalculable effect of fumes and pilot willpower.

But even if he managed enough glide to make the strip, he needed several things to happen. First of all, he needed clearance. While the tower had relayed word that he would get it, things had a way of changing at the last minute.

Secondly, an A-lOA’s flaps were generally set at twenty degrees to land. Doing that on only one side would be like telling the plane to pretend it had been made by Black & Decker. He figured he would be going so damn slow he might be able to fake it. There was enough runway to roll for quite a ways — unless the strip was cluttered with too much traffic. Then he’d have to stand on very thin brakes and pray.

Assuming the right-side landing gear worked, of course. There was no way of knowing until final approach.

But aside from those minor considerations and the fact that for all he knew the wing could sheer off at any second, he was having a wonderful day.

The thing was, A-Bomb had a double standard. If it had been him flying the Hog, sure as shit, he’d have argued for King Fahd and told Mongoose not to sweat it.

But he wasn’t flying it — and that was no reflection on Doberman’s flying abilities because the dog man was a hell of a balls-out driver — but damn it, he should have punched out as soon as they were over the border. True, they would have lost the A-10 in the process. But better safe than sorry. You just didn’t fly a Hog with a hole in the wing.

Oh sure, you could. A-Bomb could. But he had a double standard.

“Doberman, you read that?” A-Bomb asked when the pilot didn’t immediately acknowledge the tower’s instruction that he was cleared to take it in any way he could.