worst enemy wasn’t the Russians but a woman who took your mind off “one joystick onto another.”
No way, Shirer told himself, feeling the slight vibration of his oxygen mask, convinced that the thought of making sweet, unhurried love with Lana was the best guarantee in the world that he wouldn’t foul up. His vector was dead on — five minutes to the carrier, the possibility of enemy fighters suddenly appearing and pouncing remoter than ever.
In
“Tomcat two zero three, five seven zero,” came the confirmation from the arresting gear room, whose crew of four set the dials for fifty-seven-thousand pounds. Shirer was looking for the orange ball of light in the big convex mirror mounted on the carrier’s starboard side. If centered, the orange blob of light would be a second visual confirmation of the glide path projected by his computer. There were so many variables: state of sea, humidity, cloud cover, wind sheer…
He saw the orange ball between two horizontal green lights, but it was above the mirror’s midline. He was too high. Quickly he realigned degrees of flap, saw the orange orb go dead center, and called, “Meatball,” which told the LSO he was “on the ball”—locked into the correct glide path, the relief in his voice palpable despite his long experience.
The LSO’s voice blasted Shirer’s earpiece and suddenly, either side of the meatball, he saw two vertical red lines appear. A wave off. “Damn!”
“Try again,” instructed the LSO, Shirer hitting the button for full afterburner, the Tomcat veering hard left, engines screaming in a banshee howl as it climbed, leaving the carrier’s island leaning hard right and slipping downhill. Then the carrier was gone, below cloud.
“Try again two oh three,” repeated the LSO. “Nose wheel not lowered.”
In flight deck control, a man on the “Ouija” board moved the plastic model of 203 to the side while another crewman took up his grease pencil, a backup in case of power failure, and marked 203’s position on the transparent plastic screen, asking, “He a nugget?”
“No,” replied Comdr. Phil Harris, the officer in charge of FDC — flight deck control—”nothing green about him. Been on this tub longer than you have.”
“Two oh three?” said the crewman disbelievingly. “I haven’t heard of a Tomcat of ours with that number.”
“It’s been in Dutch Harbor. Watch him — he’s turning.”
“Got him,” replied the seaman cockily, skidding the plastic model around. Two oh three was already on infrared video, its ghostly outline like an underdeveloped negative, a heat blur around the twin twenty-one-thousand pound Pratt and Whitney exhausts, heat streamers trailing from the fuselage’s shimmering edge.
Shirer pressed the nose wheel release button again, unable to hear whether or not it was coming out of its well because of the noise of the fighter’s engines, the indicator nevertheless showing the wheel was down, his G suit feeling like a sauna as he took another run over the carrier, alert for other incoming aircraft. He was on a vector that would take him fifty feet above the flight deck, giving the LSO and other deck crew plus everyone in PRIFLY a chance to see whether the wheel was in fact down.
“There it is!” said one of the red-jacketed ordnance crew.
“No,” responded a green jacket from electronics maintenance, his arm following the line of the plane, “it’s only half-extended.”
“You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure.”
The LSO saw it swooping directly overhead through the mist. “LSO to two oh three. Your nose wheel is only half-extended. Do you read me?”
“Affirmative. Nose wheel half-extended,” came Shirer’s voice, crackling through static.
“LSO to two oh three. Go to five thousand. Repeat, five thousand. Minimum radius ten miles. Repeat ten miles and hold pattern. I say again, hold pattern.”
“Going to five thousand,” confirmed Shirer, silently cursing the nose wheel. “Will hold pattern.” The carrier couldn’t waste any more time on him at the moment. He would have to hold pattern until
His eyes refocused on his helmet display, which remained steady, despite the motion of the fighter. Shirer could see he had fifty-seven minutes of fuel remaining. Meantime he’d try the wheel again. He thought he felt it give a little — hoped that it might only be a bird jamming the lower gear. A bird’s body, most likely a gull, would compress on retraction — unless it was one of the big wandering albatross with a wingspan up to seven feet, but he’d felt no impact.
He tried the release again and it seemed to give, but only a fraction. Trouble was, it was so damn hard to be certain, given all the noise. Simultaneously the indicator panel’s constant flickering demanded close attention if he was to avoid midair collision.
With the ferry almost at the dock and the yellow Honda rolling slowly up behind theirs, Rosemary looked about anxiously for Robert. She saw him walk out from the bracken behind the Prices, coming up to them on the driver’s side, rapping on the window. Rosemary saw Price start, winding down the window, looking flustered.
“Going to Mallaig?” Robert asked Price, his tone convivial.
“Ah, yes—” Price turned to his wife. “Joan said we’d probably meet up with you.”
“Small world,” said Robert, still smiling. “Rosemary’ll be glad to see you.” He indicated the ferry at the dock. “Better be getting back to the car. See you on board.”
“Ah, yes.”
By the time Robert reached the car, the ferry attendant was waiting for him to drive on down the ramp. There obviously wasn’t any hurry about it — not until the Christmas rush in a few days time would the lonely road see a line of cars and trucks backed impatiently waiting to cross the loch.
“Well?” asked Rosemary. “What did they say?”
“Not much,” answered Robert. “Seemed surprised.” He pulled his seat belt strap across, looking at Rosemary. “Better buckle up. More accidents happen leaving port.”
“Except we’re not on your submarine,” she replied affably, “and we’re not leaving port exactly.”
“Buckle up. Accidents happen when you least expect them.”
As they approached the ferry and he was watching the Prices in the rearview, Rosemary saw that on the other side of the loch, mist had crept right down to the bank, and she pointed out patches of old snow discolored by pink algae visible among the heather. In a few more seconds the mist was replaced by heavy fog, tongues of it tumbling like dry ice over the embankment, spreading quickly, turning what had been the cobalt blue of the loch into a monotonous gray sheet. “I don’t fancy being ahead of them in that,” she said, indicating the fog on the far side of the loch.
“Neither do I.”
“How can we avoid it?” said Rosemary, almost as if she were asking him to turn back, her suspicion of the Prices now complete. “Not like the big ferry, is it? I mean, we’ll be first on and first off.” They went over the bump of the ramp, the metal drop plate reverberating under them, followed by a quieter sound as the tires “burred” on the grooved steel decking.
“It’ll be all right,” Robert told her.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“What did
