watched little droplets of rain adhere to the canopy plexiglas.
“I’m tired of night cat shots,” Reed said finally. “I’m tired of drilling holes in the sky and risking my butt for nothing. I’m going back to school for an MBA, and I don’t see why I should keep doing this until Uncle Sam kisses me good-bye.”
The fine rain droplets on the canopy occasionally reached a critical mass and coalesced into one large drop, which slid slowly down the glass.
“After you get your degree, what are you going to do?”
“I dunno. Go to work for some company, I suppose. Make some money.”
“Is that what you want? Nine to five? Same shit, different day — everyone in the office creeping toward retirement one day at a time.”
“The civilians can’t be as fucked up as the navy. They have to turn a profit.”
Jake listened awhile to the airborne Hawkeye talking to the ship on strike frequency. Only ten days to Naples. He wondered where he would be and what he would be doing if he had left the navy after Vietnam. Should he have resigned years ago? The thought of all the time he and his wife, Callie, had spent apart depressed him. And his parents were getting on without their eldest son around to check on them. Too bad he and Callie had had no children, though, Lord knows, they had wanted them.
Maybe it’s time for me to pull the plug, too, he thought. Forty-three years old, eyes crapping out, maybe it’s time to go home to Callie. He thought about her, the look and feel and sound and smell of her, and he missed her badly.
“Shotgun Five Zero Two, Strike, are you up?”
Jake started. He picked up his mask from his lap and held it to his face. “Battlestar Strike, Shotgun Five Zero Two’s up.”
“Go secure.”
“Roger.” Jake threw the switches on the radio scrambler. When the synchronization tone ceased, he checked in with Strike again.
“CAG, we have been tracking a group of six boats near the Lebanese coast since dusk this evening. Apparently fishing boats. Three minutes ago one of them turned toward the task group and increased speed significantly. If he doesn’t resume course in two minutes, we’re going to launch you. Stand by to copy his position, over.”
Jake turned toward Reed. He was still sitting there, slightly dazed. Jake keyed the ICS. “Copy the posit, Mister Reed, and put it into the computer.”
Reed grabbed a pen from the kneeboard strapped to his right thigh and asked Strike for the coordinates. Without realizing he was doing it, Jake tugged his torso harness straps tighter.
“Steering to the target is good, CAG,” Reed told him.
Jake read the readout on the panel. Only forty miles. The task group is too goddamn close to the coast! This guy is almost here and he just started. Wonder what kind of weapons he has? He looked at the heading indicator. The ship was steaming southwest, away from the coast. That was a help. But the ship would have to turn into the northerly wind to launch, which would stop relative motion away from the coast and the threat, which was to the east. He felt his stomach tighten.
The deck loudspeaker blared. “Launch the alert five! Launch the alert five!”
Jake heard the flight deck tractor come to life and the high-pressure air unit, the huffer, winding toward full RPM as the catapult crewmen came piling out of the catwalk and raced toward the Tomcats in the hookup areas. Kowalski was there, small and chunky, waving directions to his men. The blue-shirts broke down the tie-down chains on the chopper and the rotors engaged. He could feel the ship heel to port as it started a starboard turn into the wind.
The plane captain twirled his fingers at Jake, signaling for a start. Jake pushed the crank button and advanced the starboard throttle to idle when the engine reached 18 percent RPM. The engine lit with a low moan and the revolutions slowly climbed.
He had both engines at idle when the chopper lifted off and the two F-14s began to ease forward to the waiting catapult shuttles. The large jet-blast deflectors (JBDs), came out of the deck behind each aircraft and cocked at a sixty-degree angle.
The taxi director waved his yellow wands at Jake. He released the parking brake and goosed the throttles. The Intruder began to roll. He applied the brakes slightly to test them, felt the hesitation, then released the pedals. He pressed the nosewheel steering button on the stick and followed the taxi director’s signals toward Catapult Three.
Now the engines of the fighter on Cat Three were at full power. With its new, more-powerful engines, the D- version of the Tomcat no longer needed the extra thrust of afterburner to launch. The roar reached Jake inside his cockpit, through his soundproof helmet, as the Intruder trembled from the fury of the hot exhaust gas flowing like a river over the JBD. The Tomcat’s exterior lights came on. Two heartbeats later it was accelerating down the catapult as the JBD came down. In seconds the catapult officer had the fighter on Cat Four at full power, then he fired the second plane into the waiting void.
A red-shirted ordnanceman was holding up the red safety flags from the weapons for Jake to see as the yellow-shirt waved him forward toward the cat. As he taxiied, Jake used his flashlight to acknowledge the ordie, okayed the weight board being held aloft by a green-shirted cat crewman with another flashlight signal, and eased the airplane right, then left, to line it up precisely with the catapult shuttle. It looked like utter chaos, this little army of men in their different-colored jerseys surging to and fro around the moving planes, but the steps and gestures of every man were precisely choreographed, perfectly timed.
Wings spread and locked, flaps to takeoff, slats out, stabilizer shifted, trim set, parking brake off, Reed read off the items on the takeoff checklist and Jake checked each one and gave an oral response as he eased the plane toward the shuttle. He felt the jolt as the metal hold-back bar stopped the aircraft’s forward progress. Then he felt another tiny jolt as the shuttle was hydraulically moved forward several inches to take all the slack from the metal- to-metal contact—“taking tension,” the catapult crewmen called it.
He released the brakes and jammed both throttles full forward and wrapped his fingers around the catapult grip, a lever that would prevent an inadvertent throttle retardation on the catapult stroke.
The engines wound to full power with a rising moan. EGT, RPM, fuel flow, oil pressure, all looked good.
He flipped the external lights on and put his head back in the headrest as the plane trembled under the buffeting of the air disturbed by its engines. His eyes were on the green light in front of the launching officer’s control bubble in the port catwalk. Now the light went out — the cat officer had pushed the fire button.
Oh lordy, here we go again! The Gs pressed him back into the seat and the forward edge of the angled deck rushed toward him and swept under the nose. As the G subsided he slapped the gear handle up and locked the nose at eight degrees nose up. The rate-of-climb needle rose and the altimeter began to respond. No warning lights.
Log another one.
8
Shotgun five zero two’s airborne.”
“Radar contact. Your squawk One Three Zero Two. When safely airborne, your vector Zero Niner Five for surface bogey and switch to Strike.”
“Squawking and switching.” Reed dialed the radio channelization knob to Channel Nine, which was preset to Strike frequency. Jake checked in.
“Shotgun Five Zero Two, Vector Zero Niner Eight for surface bogey. Make an ID pass at two thousand feet and report. Avoid Lebanese three-mile limit, over.”
“Wilco.”
Accelerating through 180 knots indicated he raised the flaps and slats and concentrated on flying the plane as the aerodynamics changed. He leveled at 2,000 feet on course and accelerated toward 400 knots. “Get the FLIR fired up, Reed. We’re gonna need it real soon.” Jake secured the aircraft’s exterior lights. No sense in giving anyone
