clipboard from a hook on the bottom of the bed and read it. Name unknown, no ID. “Can’t or won’t speak English.”
“He’s one of the terrorists, sir,” the marine said. “He fell overboard from the liberty boat earlier this evening.”
Jake nodded, replaced the clipboard on the bed, then moved on. Chaplain Berkowitz was moving through the ward, taking his time, pausing for a short conversation at every bed.
The second-deck passageways outside sick bay were still crowded with men sitting and standing, but the crowd was thinning as the chiefs and division officers got people sorted into working parties and led them off. The 1-MC blared continually with muster information for the various divisions and squadrons.
Jake climbed a ladder to the hangar deck. Foam still covered the wreckage of aircraft and lay several inches deep on the deck. The bulkheads and overhead were charred black. The glow of emergency lights was almost lost in the dark cavern.
In Flight Deck Control the handler was roaring orders over the radio system he used to talk to his key people on the flight deck. Will Cohen, the air wing maintenance officer, turned to Jake when he saw him enter the space.
Every airplane on the flight deck had shrapnel or bullet damage. “All of them?” Jake asked, stunned. “Even the ones clear up on the bow?” Cohen showed him a list he was compiling. They went over it, plane by plane. Jake wanted every fighter and tanker available airborne as soon as possible. He had Harvey Schultz briefing a dozen F-14 crews and a dozen F/A-18 Hornet pilots. But he had to get them some airplanes.
It quickly became apparent that the E-2s parked next to the island would not be flying tonight. One of them had absorbed so much shrapnel from the disintegrating rotors of the upended helicopter that Cohen thought it would never fly again. The others would require rework at an intermediate maintenance facility back in the States. Three of the tactical jets had caught fire, and the fires had damaged two other machines before they were extinguished. All the planes had bullet holes in them, and maintenance crews were checking right now to determine the extent of the damage. “We can’t take them to the hangar, and the wind makes opening the radomes and engine-bay doors hazardous,” Cohen said. “We’re going to damage some planes just inspecting them unless you slow the ship down or run with the wind over the stern.”
Jake had the ship heading due south at twenty-five knots, straight at the island of Sicily.
The bullet hole in the plexiglas status board caught Jake’s eye. Someone had drawn a yellow circle around it. It looked obscene. “One hour,” Jake told the maintenance officer. “We launch in one hour. Get me some planes.”
On the bridge Jake ordered the ship slowed to fifteen knots. The reduced wind would also help the crash crews who were trying to clean up the nuclear contamination from the wreckage of the chopper immediately in front of number-four JBD. When the helicopter had turned upside down, the ensuing fuel fire had ruptured one of the weapons, causing the conventional explosive inside to cook off and scatter nuclear material. Most of it had been carried over the port side of the ship, but the wreckage and flight deck were still hot. The crash crew was using high-pressure hoses to wash the radioactive contamination into the sea, where it would soon disperse to harmless concentrations.
Now Jake stood beside the captain’s chair and tried to absorb the avalanche of information flowing at him from all over the ship. The information came faster than Jake could assimilate it. The navigator came over to help.
Several long messages were handed to him to approve before they were sent by flashing light to
He stared at the paragraph and chewed on the pencil. The landing near Palermo was only likely because of the chopper’s fuel state. There was no way it could fly the width of the Mediterranean without refueling. Perhaps Qazi intended to transfer the bombs in Sicily to another aircraft, a faster one. “All available fighters”—that was a joke: right now he didn’t have any. And what assistance could anyone give? Never hurts to ask, he told himself and handed the message to the waiting signalman. Then he pursued the sailor, took the message back, and added one more sentence. “While in hot pursuit, intend to enter foreign airspace without clearance.”
The squawk box again. “Bridge, Handler.”
“Bridge, aye.”
“We have three aircraft on deck with strike damage, CAG. I need room. Request permission to jettison these three aircraft.”
“Push ’em over the side?”
“Yessir.”
“Have someone take the classified boxes out of them and do it.”
For some reason the squawk boxes and telephones fell momentarily silent. The navigator and several of the officers from the flag staff were having a discussion behind him, the OOD and the quartermaster were hard at it, and the junior officer-of-the-deck was briefing the lookouts, yet for the first time since Qazi escaped, no one was talking to Jake. He eyed the captain’s chair. He was so tired, exhausted physically and emotionally, and it was tempting. Why not? He heaved himself into it.
Cowboy Parker dead, Ray Reynolds, over a dozen marines and nearly fifty sailors. Major damage to the ship, enough to put her into a yard for a year or so. And forty-some planes lost. That list would grow as the machines were inspected. Any way you cut it, a major debacle. And to top it off, Qazi got away with two nuclear weapons. But this was not the time to dissect the disaster; worry now about winning the next battle. Win the next one and you will win the war. But can we win? So far Qazi has had all the cards; he has prepared and planned and plays a trump at every turn. What has he prepared in the event he is followed? What are his options?
“CAG.” Someone was standing beside him.
It was his deputy air wing commander, Harry March. Will Cohen stood beside him with a paper cup full of coffee, which he offered to Jake along with a cigarette. Jake gratefully accepted both and got down from Laird James’s chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harvey Schultz come onto the bridge in his flight gear, with his helmet bag in his hand. He was the senior fighter squadron skipper and would lead the planes after Qazi.
As Cohen lit the cigarette for him, Jake listened to March. “We have three turkeys that can fly, CAG,” March said. “Turkey” was the slang name for the F-14 Tomcat. “One KA-6 tanker and two Hornets. We’re putting our most experienced people in them and launching in thirty minutes.” March spread out a chart of the Mediterranean. “When they get airborne, they’ll be talking to the
Out the window Jake could see airplanes being towed around the flight deck by low, yellow tractors. The respot for launch was almost complete. March was still speaking: “
“Can anybody get close enough to shoot down the chopper with missiles?”
“Nope. Not enough time. After we launch, I recommend we take the carrier as far south as we can get her to shorten the flight home for the planes. Fuel is going to be tight. They’ll take our one tanker with them, but everyone is going to be watching their gauges pretty close. At least we have Sigonella for a possible fuel divert if necessary.” Sigonella was a U.S. Naval Air Station on the eastern end of the island of Sicily.
“That would violate Italian sovereignty,” objected an officer from the flag staff who had eased over to listen. He was referring to the fact that bases in foreign nations could not be used for takeoffs or landings of planes on
