made his way to the elevator portside and aft.
Like the fantail, the elevators offered unobstructed views of the sea rushing past the ship some twenty feet below. Walking into the light spilling into the hangar bay from outside, Tombstone had to stop and fish in his jacket pocket for his sunglasses. A mule and several blue shirts were manhandling an F-14 onto the elevator, and he moved out of their way, leaning against the elevator's safety netting.
Musing, he looked at the sunglasses before putting them on. They were the teardrop pilot's model with gold wire frames… like his leather flight jacket, very much in keeping with his image as a Navy aviator.
The image he was no longer able to maintain.
'Ho, Tombstone. I've been looking for you.'
He turned and saw Batman advancing across the red and yellow warning stripes painted on the deck. Like Tombstone, Batman wore sunglasses and jacket, his hat cocked at a rakish angle. He acknowledged the lieutenant with a nod and hoped the man didn't want a conversation. Tombstone didn't feel like talking just now.
'Listen,' Batman said. 'I've been trying to find you all day.' Tombstone smiled. Jefferson was a small city with a population of over six thousand. Usually it was easy to get lost in her, but somehow, this time, he'd failed. 'Well, looks like you found me.'
'Yeah.' Batman looked uncertain… even embarrassed. 'Look, I know this might not be the best time, Stoney, but I don't know who else to talk to. I'm… I'm wondering if I can do it again.' With a sharp motion, Batman pulled the sunglasses off and looked into Tombstone's eyes. 'I killed two guys yesterday. You shot down your MiG and it didn't even faze you. I need to know how you handle a thing like that.'
So that was it. Several sharp or sarcastic replies rose in Tombstone's mind, but he pushed them aside. The openness, the vulnerability in Batman's expression was something he'd not seen there before.
'I don't think I have any answers,' he said, shaking his head. 'I didn't… handle it. I have a feeling it's going to stay with me for a long time.'
When Batman didn't answer, Tombstone continued. 'That was what all the training was for, right? ACM? Making the kill?'
'Making the kill… right. But it was always… you know. A target. Not a man.'
'I doubt very much that the enemy pilot would have extended you the same courtesy, but that's beside the point. You strap on an F-14 for one purpose only, to engage the enemy, to shoot him down before he shoots you down or before he kills friends and shipmates. If there's a better reason than that, I've never heard it.'
'I keep wondering if those guys I nailed had families.'
'Of course they did.' Bitterness edged Tombstone's voice. 'Coyote had family. Mother, father. A wife I'm going to have to go see when we get back to the World.'
'Is that all there is to it? Revenge? They hit you, you hit them back?'
'Hell, no. I'll leave that to the politicians.' Tombstone's fists clenched. 'But I might lock and fire remembering what a hell of a fine guy Coyote was.'
As he said it, for the first time since his bolters the night before, Tombstone pictured himself going up again, pictured himself once more bringing the HUD pipper into line with an enemy MiG. Tombstone was an aviator. There was no escaping that part of him.
A warning klaxon sounded, a harsh bray above the noises of machinery and sea. The elevator gave a lurch, then began rising up the side of the carrier.
'You know you can't have any doubts about it once you're up there, right?' said Tombstone.
'I'm realizing that now.'
'You remember the Top Gun motto?'
The other aviator nodded, but Tombstone pressed ahead. ''Fight to fly, fly to fight… fight to win!''
'Fight to win. Yeah.'
Tombstone shrugged. 'The decision is yours, son, but if you don't mean business, you've got absolutely zero reason to be up there.'
'So how about you?'
'What do you mean?'
'Coyote and Mardi Gras. Frenchie… Losing those guys was a real shock. I thought, well, some of the guys were wondering if you'd lost it, know what I mean? Lost the edge.'
It was not the edge that he'd lost so much, Tombstone realized now, as the will to push that edge, to see how far it would stretch. To do what he did, to be who he was, meant accepting a measure of responsibility which he'd never yet been able to shoulder comfortably.
'I haven't lost it, Batman. Not yet.' He was surprised to discover he meant it.
With another lurch, the elevator arrived topside, meshing perfectly with a round-cornered gap cut from the carrier's flight deck. It was as frantic here as it had been below. Red-shirted ordnancemen were arming the parked aircraft for their next mission. At several points on the deck, red lines delineated the bomb elevators where missiles and other munitions were being brought up from the ship's magazines for loading. Other men crawled over and under each aircraft, giving them their preflights.
No longer masked from the wind by the curve of Jefferson's hull, Tombstone had to lean over and shout to make himself heard. 'You're the one with the responsibility,' Tombstone yelled. 'For yourself and your shipmates! You have to know why you're up there, and that's to fight to win. If you don't, you let yourself down, and your shipmates!'
They started across the flight deck, keeping clear of hurtling mules and ordies hauling bomb carts.
'Hey, Stoney. You won't… I mean…'
Tombstone grinned. 'I won't tell a soul, Batman.' Together they walked toward the island.
'Kot hasipsiyo!' The shot rang out, splattering more blood across the wall.
Seaman Jacobs crumpled as the soldiers released him and he fell, collapsing to the floor across Sobieski's body. Coyote felt the horror of the death, of the methodical murder of a helpless man.
Li faced the ring of stunned Americans. 'A death every two hours, Captain, until you and your men cooperate.' He gathered his men with a gesture. 'Kapsida!'
Bailey, the corpsman, was the first to move when the Koreans left, hurrying to Jacobs's side and feeling the man's throat for a pulse. 'He's dead.'
'We've got to do something,' Zabelsky said. The words were a low murmur, almost a litany. 'We've got to do something.'
'Nothin'… we can do,' Gilmore said. 'Nothing…'
'We've got a gun-'
'Belay that right now!' Bronkowicz growled. 'We won't help the SEALs… we won't help ourselves if we give it all away now.'
'Yeah,' Wilkinson said. 'What are you going to do, son, shoot your way into the compound out there? Then what?'
Zabelsky whirled, his face a mask of rage. 'Jacobs was my buddy!'
'And our shipmate,' Bailey said softly. He laid a hand on Zabelsky's shoulder. 'We don't help him by getting ourselves shot too.'
A clattering sound from outside caught their attention. 'Hey, guys!' one of the lookouts called. 'It's a helo!'
'Not one of ours,' Zabelsky said.
'Shit no. Commie job, looks like. Red star on the tail.'
Coyote joined the lookout, balancing atop a bucket to see out. The helicopter was settling to earth amid whirling dust, landing at the small airstrip on the far side of the compound. 'Mi-8 Hip,' he announced, recognizing the type. 'Military transport. Looks like we have visitors.'
'What kind?' Wilkinson asked.
'VIPs,' Coyote replied. He could just barely make out several men climbing from the bulky machine's side door, walking doubled over beneath its still-turning rotors. One wore an officer's uniform ornate with medals and gold braid. The others looked like aides or junior officers. They were met by Li and Major Po, both of whom saluted the newcomers with crisp military precision. 'Looks like high-ranking brass.'
