shit if you have to follow it to hell.”
“Roger.” Matos put James Sloan from his mind and concentrated on following the plunging Straton. The first scattering of oversized raindrops splattered against his canopy. Within seconds, his visibility had dropped to less than a half mile, then a quarter mile, then five hundred feet. Matos edged as close to the Straton as he dared, but the increasing turbulence made any tighter formation suicidal. There was no reason to throw his life away-not anymore.
“Situation report.”
“The Straton is down to forty-eight hundred. Air-speed and descent rates are constant. No power in any engines. They’ll hit within two minutes.” As he looked up, the huge silver outline of the Straton blended in with the heavy rain and gray clouds, then the airliner faded from sight.
“Roger. Understand two more minutes. Do you still have visual contact with target?”
“Stand by.” Matos peered into the grayness in front of him. Now that the Straton was no longer visible, he was afraid of colliding with it. Almost involuntarily, his hand pulled back on the control stick. He considered trying to track it with his radar, but the calibration would take too long and it would not work well at this close range. Damn it. He was becoming frightened. At this distance he knew he wouldn’t see the airliner until it was too late to take evasive action. He pulled back further on the control stick.
“Matos! Do you have visual contact?”
“Visibility near zero. Heavy rain. Turbulence.” Matos’s eyes darted around to all the places where the Straton might be, but he saw nothing. Sheets of water ran from his canopy and a bolt of lightning cracked behind him, suffusing his cockpit with an eerie luminescence. Fuck this. The only way he’d find the Straton again was if he rammed into it. His hands were shaking as he pushed on the fighter’s throttles and pulled back hard on the control stick.
As the fighter began to climb out of the storm, he hit the transmit button. “I have the Straton in sight again,” he lied. “Straight ahead. Twenty yards. All conditions remain the same.”
“Roger. What is your altitude?”
“Descending through twenty-six hundred feet. Approximately one minute to impact.” As he spoke, Matos glanced at his altimeter. Seven thousand feet and climbing. He turned his fighter northwest so he would clear the storm as quickly as possible. Even in a high-performance aircraft like the F-18, the turbulence was jarring. He felt his stomach heave. For a brief instant, Matos pitied whoever might still be alive on that Straton.
“Report.”
“Down to twelve hundred feet. Turbulence heavy. Clouds less dense here. I can see the ocean now. No chance of a successful ditching in this kind of heavy sea.” The F-18 broke out into the sunshine at 19,000 feet. Matos continued to climb at full throttle, as if the altitude would get him far away from the whole situation. Below him nothing was visible except solid, heavy rain clouds.
“Too heavy a sea for survivors?”
“Roger.” Matos glanced down but could see only the thunderstorms he had just risen out of. He turned to the blue sky ahead. When the F-18 continued climbing, he thought about James Sloan. Matos had heard a tone of triumph in Sloan’s voice. Not for the first time, he wondered if the Commander was sane. It occurred to him that even the first navigation error that had started this nightmare might not have been his own fault. He thanked God that he had not fired his second missile into the Straton. At the worst, he was guilty of criminal negligence. He could live with that. But he was not guilty of murder.
“I say again-too heavy for survivors?”
“That’s correct, Homeplate. The seas are too heavy for survivors,” Matos transmitted, reinforcing his lie. But he, too, was relieved. So relieved that tears came to his eyes and he took a deep breath to control his voice. “The Straton is nosing down,” he added as he kept his eyes fixed to the distant horizon.
“Roger.”
Matos leveled the fighter at 36,000 feet. The storms were far astern and below him, and the warm afternoon sun bathed his face. He looked down at the weather below him. Rising from the top of the large mass were the distinctive anvil-shaped clouds that made the cloud layer easily recognizable as thunderstorms. It was, thought Matos, almost as though God made them that way, in the beginning, so that one day man would recognize that he was approaching the forge and the blast furnace of the heavens.
“We’re down to four hundred feet,” Matos lied.
The thought that he should go to Captain Diehl crossed his mind. He had to confess, not so much for his own soul but more importantly so that Commander Sloan would be put away where he could do no more harm. “We are down to two hundred feet. The rain is lighter. Visibility improved. The seas are very high. The Straton is nearly in. Nearly in. Stand by.” Matos closed his eyes tightly. It was madness. He tried to forget that his playacting was a duplication of what was happening to that airliner. He could see it in his mind’s eye very clearly now, hitting the towering water-
“Matos! Matos! Is it in? Is it in?”
Matos took a deep breath. “Yes.” He put a heavy tone in his voice and noticed that it was not all an act. “Yes. It’s in. Much of it… broke apart in the ditching… The seas are too rough… Most of it has already sunk… Only the tail… part of one wing remains above the surface. No possible survivors.”
“Roger. Circle for a while to be sure.”
“Roger.”
“What is your fuel status?”
Sloan’s question jolted him. He had forgotten to monitor his fuel status for more than an hour. He’d heard stories of pilots in combat doing that under stress. He didn’t have to look at his gauges to reply, “Critical.” He glanced at the gauges. His climb to 35,000 feet had been a foolish indulgence. “I’m down to forty-five minutes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Maybe less. Where is that tanker?”
“Close. Heading westbound from Whidbey Island. Their last position was four hundred miles from your current position. He’ll be closer now. Are you looking for survivors?”
“Yes. But my fuel is critical. No survivors.”
“Roger. Okay, okay, begin your climb and steer a heading of zero-seven-five to expedite the intercept.”
“Roger.” Without hesitation, Matos turned his F-18 to the easterly heading. He was now pointed into the worst part of the thunderstorms, the part that towered high above his present altitude. “Homeplate, there’s a lot of severe weather out here. The new heading is taking me further into it.” As much as he wanted to find the tanker, he wanted nothing to do with that line of storms.
“Navy three-four-seven, this is Rear Admiral Hennings. Commander Sloan is on the phone with the tanker. These are your instructions-the tanker is cruising at thirty-one thousand feet, so you might as well get to that altitude to meet it. The weather should be better at that altitude than down lower.”
“Yes, sir.” Although Sloan had mentioned the Admiral earlier, Matos had no idea who Admiral Hennings was. But the voice was reassuring. Any vague misgiving that Matos had concerning Commander Sloan’s intentions was put to rest. He pictured the electronics room crowded with officers and men, all trying to get him home. He looked out of his windshield. He was already above most of the weather at 35,000 feet. Now he had to descend slightly to meet the tanker. “The climb has taken-is taking-a great deal of fuel. I’m really low, sir.”
The Admiral’s voice came back, gentle, fatherly. “Take it easy, Peter. The tanker is cruising at five hundred knots. He’ll be on station within twenty-five minutes. A few minutes for the fuel hook-up and you’ll be heading back. Here’s Commander Sloan.”
Sloan’s voice filled Matos’s earphones. “It’s important to stay calm, Peter. Practice fuel-conservation techniques. Keep us filled in.”
Matos pictured himself flaming out just before he reached the tanker. He was glad that Sloan was so calm. It wasn’t Sloan’s ass. “Roger. Can you arrange air-sea rescue just in case?”
“Roger that,” said Sloan. “Way ahead of you. Some of the air-and-sea rescue for the Straton is closing in on your area, including F-18s from the Nimitz. Plenty of help out there, but don’t think about that now. High-tail it to thirty-one thousand and call me when you’re leveled out.”
“Roger. What’s the frequency of the rendezvous?”
There was a long silence in his earphones. Matos was about to call again when Sloan’s voice came on. “I’m
