If Iraq continued its attack through Kuwait and into Saudi Arabia, land-and sea-based aircraft would immediately be on the scene to work with the Gulf allies. They would bring to bear an array of modern weapons targeted by a host of the latest intelligence-collection assets, directed by a theater-wide command-and-control element that could devastate the attacking Iraqi forces as their supply lines fanned out across the desert and along Saudi Arabia’s highways. It would be a formidable challenge. It had to be. Iraq’s air force was well trained and equipped. Its army was shielded by thousands of antiaircraft guns and surface-to-air missiles. Formidable as they were, however, they would encounter airpower beyond their ability to comprehend.

Horner threw himself into the briefing. With over thirty-two years of experience in the Air Force, and three years of working with the Gulf nations and their air forces, he knew he could put together a briefing that would make the pieces of the air plan clear to the President. No one knew more about threats, air war, and air operations in the Middle East than he did.

He was confident, and it showed when he went over the slides with General Schwarzkopf at 2300 (11:00 P.M. EDT) that Friday night.

But then his fighter pilot confidence wavered when General Schwarzkopf smiled and said, “Looks good, Chuck. Why don’t you brief it? The aircraft leaves at 0200.”

Horner sat stunned for a moment, then let out a puff of air. They can kill me, but they can’t eat me, Horner told himself.

★ Later, after Schwarzkopf had left, he sat thinking. He couldn’t screw this up. If he failed to transmit the right information, it could endanger the lives of many thousands, and the existence of a nation he respected deeply. This was not about war. In fact, if the military options were presented truthfully and executed skillfully, then war might be averted. But if war was in the cards . . . he let out another puff of air . . . then he would be the commander of the most powerful air attack in history.

He looked through his notes again, then through the slides, then he leaned back in his chair, thinking back to that day twenty-eight years before that was never far from his mind: the sand, the sky, the certainty that he was going to die. Was this what it had all been for? Was this what God had had in mind . . . ?

I - Into the Wild Blue

I

Into the Wild Blue

Chapter 1 - Every Man a Tiger

1

Every Man a Tiger

FIGHTER pilots know something of what Arabs know, and what few of us like to admit—that none of us is in control of our lives, that we’re all in the hands of God.