think you’re so shit hot. I’m sick to death of all-balls assholes like you.”
The telephone rang. Jake reached for it without taking his eyes off the man standing over him with his fists clenched. “Lieutenant Grafton.” He was having trouble with his voice.
“This is Joe Wagner. Where’s the Skipper?”
“In his stateroom.”
“I just completed a full power turn-up of Five Two Two. There’s nothing wrong with that airplane’s engines. Put it on the schedule as the roundup tanker.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Jake hung up and looked at the commander. “By the way, twenty-two is up again.”
“What?” Wilson said in disbelief. “Shit! I just downed that plane. Who was that on the phone?”
“Joe Wagner,” said Jake calmly. “He says it’s okay.”
“We’ll see about that. I’ll take care of you later.” As Wilson strode quickly out of the room, he mumbled, “Goddamned hot dog.”
Jake sat at the desk and breathed deeply. Overhead, on the television monitor, landing after landing flickered silently across the screen. The recently landed air crews began filtering into the ready room. New returned from the wardroom just as the phone rang again.
“Ready four, Lieutenant Grafton, sir.”
“Is the XO there?” It was Camparelli.
“No, sir. I think he may be over in Maintenance Control looking for Joe Wagner.”
“Joe’s down here in my room. Send someone to find Commander Wilson and ask him to come down. I want to see him.” The skipper hung up.”
“New, go find the XO. He s Probably over in Maintenance Control raising hell.” Jake tried in vain to keep the satisfaction out of his voice. “Tell him the Skipper wants to see him in his stateroom.”
When New Guy returned, Jake left for his room. Now, at last, he could read Callie’s letter. He no sooner had settled down at his desk with her letter in his hand than the phone rang.
“Wanna hear a hot one?” Sammy chortled. “Rabbit Wilson’s not flying anymore. He’s off flight status.
“How off is ‘off?”
“Off like in no more. Like in cut off, chopped off, whacked off. We’re talking amputation.”
“You don’t say?”
“The word is he got cold feet once too often.”
Jake cleared his throat. “Pretty tough for him,” he managed.
“Breaks my fucking heart,” Sammy snorted and hung up.
The pilot put the telephone back on its, cradle and laughed aloud.
He laughed until tears came to his eyes.
Finally, he unfolded the pages of Callie’s letter. She had enclosed a photograph, which he held under the light. She stood on Victoria Peak, with the mountains of the New Territories forming a blurry backdrop. It was just a photo of an attractive woman in a simple summer dress the color of wheat-an unremarkable picture really-but to Jake every detail of it held deep interest. He looked at her lips, which were curved up in a smile, and remembered how she looked just before he had last kissed her.
He shook his head. He slipped the photo behind the pages and began reading.
“Dear Jake,” she wrote, “I’m very happy to hear that everything has turned out well. That sand dollar I gave you in Cubi for luck must be pretty potent magic!”
She congratulated him on his return to flight status, and he was pleased she understood. A few sentences later, he read, “I know how important flying is to you and I was afraid that if you were unable to fly again, you would feel as though a large part of you, perhaps the vital part, had died.”
He thought about that there in the sanctuary of his stateroom, about flying being vital to him. As a boy, he had found in flying a freedom and heady excitement that life had otherwise lacked. But how did he feel about it now, when flying meant waiting to outmaneuver SAMs or turning on a knife-edge to slice through a curtain of tracers? He realized that only when the SAMs and tracers were reaching for him, only when he was naked and running flat out, did he feel fully alive He had become addicted to the adrenaline high taunting death.
He examined Callie’s picture again, then read on.
“I have looked all my life for a man who doesn’t wear a mask, for a man who truly is what he appears to be, someone who knows what he is about and engages in no pretenses. I think I’ve found him.” He finished the letter and folded it into the envelope. He propped up the photo on his desk. He remembered the sand dollar in the left sleeve pocket of his flight suit and found it still intact, which was fortunate as it was so delicate. After wrapping it in toilet paper, he placed it in the envelope with the letter. Then he put the envelope in his desk safe.
Removing the ring from its blue box, he held the diamond under the lamp. Points of colored light played against the wall. Maybe it’s not so crazy after all, he thought. He put the engagement ring in the flight suit pocket where the sand dollar had been and zipped it closed.
On December 28 Jake and Tiger learned they were scheduled for their fifth SAM-suppression mission; this time the target was on the northern edge of Hanoi.
“Maybe our best route is to go all the way around the city,” Tiger suggested.
Jake examined the wall chart. Concentrations of flak and SAMs were shown by color-coded pinheads. Hanoi was a pin cushion. Well, he and Cole had been there before. He came back to the table where Tiger had laid out his charts.
“Uh-huh,” he said. Then he asked, “When will the big mothers be along?”
“The B-52s roll in about ten minutes after our drop time of 1933.”
Jake inspected the aerial photos of the SAM site, which Steiger had collected. They revealed the classic tactical deployment of the S A 2 surface-to-air missile system: six missiles on their trailer launchers were arranged in a circle around a semitrailer with a radar antenna. The launchers sat in indentations gouged in the earth, so that if a missile was destroyed or blew up on the launcher, the blast would be deflected away from the other missiles and the semitrailer with the electronic control equipment. Off to one side Jake could make out two parked tractors. He had seen photos of hundreds of sites that looked just like this. He checked the date; the photos were more than eighteen months old.
There was a blur in the upper-right corner. He knew it was a gun shooting at the Vigilante that had taken the picture.
He tossed the photos back on the table and examined the route Tiger had marked out. The bombardier planned to coast-in just south of the lighthouse at the entrance of Haiphong harbor, proceed straight to an island in the river on the northern edge of Hanoi, and turn to the attack heading.
After bombing, they would move left in a sweeping turn that would let them circumnavigate the city and would spit them out on the southeast side, headed for the ocean and safety.
The pilot studied a sectional chart that showed in detail the terrain around the island, tonight’s Initial Point, around the target. Maybe there would be enough time to see the rivers. Like hell!
“Another good navy deal,” he said and patted the bombardier on the shoulder.
He paused again at the flak chart, then went off to the wardroom for a cup of coffee before the brief.
The Augies had a tanker hop and were in the locker room when Jake and Tiger entered. Little Augie had not exchanged a word with Jake since he had return from Cubi. Now he spoke. “Where’re you headed tonight?”
Grafton told him but didn’t bother to look at the diminutive pilot.
Little Augie lingered, watching Jake inspect the cartridges for his .357 Magnum and then carefully load it. Jake had returned his issue .38 to supply long ago so he could carry this more powerful weapon.
“If you don’t get back tonight, can I have your stereo?” Jake grinned.
Apparently whatever sins Little Aug thought him guilty of were forgiven. “If you can feel it,” Jake told him. Unlike almost everyone else, he had not bought an expensive Japanese sound system at the Cubi Point Exchange. Little punched him on the shoulder and walked out of the locker room.
Jake put the contents of his pockets, including his wallet, onto the top shelf of the locker. He placed a folded cardcase, which contained a green navy ID card, a Geneva convention card, and a twenty-dollar bill, in one of the big chest pockets of his flight suit. Like most airmen, he carried several thousand dollars worth of small, navy-issue gold wafers in his survival vest in case he had to barter with or bribe local people, but he brought nothing else of monetary or personal value. Except the ring. This he had in the left sleeve pocket of the flight suit where he had kept the sand dollar.
