A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [60]
A second set of bombs were little fat ones, murderous against personnel, ugly cluster bombs to shower the enemy with thousands of razor-sharp steel squares and ball bearings.
The nacelles would remain at 75 degrees so the SCARAB could fire from helicopter mode without fear of hitting the propellers. Space under the wing was limited. The laser guidance system looked fine.
The bombing run, in Gunner O’Connell’s hands, had to be executed accurately and surely. To hit the targets dead-on, the SCARAB would be maneuvered as close as possible. Would the hovering SCARAB take Iranian ground fire in this period? Were the bombs squirrely? Could they be held fast during what had to be a wild, shaking flight?
In the rear of the main cabin of the SCARAB an operating table and supplies of blood, surgical tools, and medicines were secured on the ceiling. A pulley rope allowed them to drop easily into place. Dr. Wheat checked over his supplies. Christ, keep the casualties down. The table was again stowed and secured to the roof.
Jeremiah Duncan and his pilots went over the exterior of the SCARAB, an inspection that lasted an hour and a half. In that time a tanker truck entered the hangar and filled the plane with fuel. This was a dicey moment. With this size load and full gas tanks, there was a remote possibility of fire during takeoff. Jeremiah had spotted the danger months earlier, and hoped he had beaten the problem with the Bell and Boeing engineers.
“Gentlemen, the SCARAB is ripe!”
The Marines went to their combat packs and weapons, waiting for the command to fall in.
“You will first evacuate your bowels and bladders. No one will be permitted to leave until he takes an airsick pill.”
Groan! Boo!
“You will take the airsick pill because the Marine Corps says you need an airsick pill. We’ll be riding some nausea-causing waves of air, and we will bounce until your gut humps up into your throats. Puking is not an option, but if you must do so, vomit in your evacuation bags.”
When all had evacuated who could, they fell in near the boarding ramp. Personnel were loaded forward to aft, so Jeremiah did a round of handshakes and entered behind Cherokee and IV.
Directly behind the pilots and a step higher than their heads, Duncan had a mini-console installed. Duncan, with Novinski on one side of him and Quinn on the other, could read a number of displays from it, to monitor the speed, fuel, terrain, communications, as well as the systems that would come into play at the time of their attack.
“Intercom, we all hooked up?”
“Yo, Quinn.”
“Yo, Cherokee.”
“Yo, IV.”
“Yo, Grubb.”
“Ropo, on.”
“Marsh, yo.”
“Novinski here.”
“All troops present and accounted for, sir.”
The hangar door yawned open. A tow cart inched SCARAB out into the dying light. With the nacelles at 75 degrees, the SCARAB could be rolled a short distance on the runway in a fuel-saving maneuver for takeoff as compared to full helicopter thrust.
“Dogbreath, this is Cherokee. Shall we go for a rolling start?”
“This is Dogbreath, let me think. We’ve got a monster load on. Any half-power stunts promulgates six or seven risks I can think of, none of them pleasant. Ninety degrees and full thrust, get this son of a bitch up in the air.”
“Yo.”
Cherokee switched on the engines, a whine and then the SCARAB’s whispering thunder.
“Thrust,” Cherokee ordered.
IV took the long handle to his left and levered it down. The SCARAB hesitated an instant, rose, hung, then popped up.
“We’re at a thousand…eleven hundred,” IV said.
“Beep the nacelles down.”
Cherokee’s Fred Astaire feet tickled the rudders as his hand on the joystick held the nose still.
“Nacelles at forty-five degrees.”
“Let’s do some flying…but first I want to sing you all a little song.”
Arrayed at the cramped console behind the pilots, Novinski engaged the FLIR to be able to see the ground at night.
Jeremiah and Quinn hovered over the displays depicting Fort Urbakkan’s layout. The fort’s main installations stood three