And Carrier Battle Group 14 was sailing right into the middle of it all.
CHAPTER 7
“What’s the status on this one, Chief?” Tombstone Magruder had to shout over the din that echoed through Jefferson’s cavernous hangar deck. Stretching for two thirds of the carrier’s 1,092-foot length and fully two decks high, the huge chamber was crowded with aircraft and the men from Department V who were in charge of maintaining and outfitting them. As always, being down here gave Magruder a sense of just how small a part the aviators and NFOs really played in the operation of the carrier Air Wing. From plane captains down to purple-shirted “grapes” who handled refueling on the flight deck, these men regarded those aircraft as their own … and quite rightly. Without them, the aviators couldn’t fly.
The brown-shirted plane captain whose name Tombstone hadn’t caught over the noise of the hangar deck gestured at the wing of the A-6E Intruder in front of them and bellowed his reply. “I’m not real happy about her, sir! She was on deck the day of the big cock-up. There was some damage to the wing … here … and over here!” His finger jabbed in emphasis.
Magruder nodded slowly. He didn’t pretend to be an expert on aircraft maintenance, but CAG had ordered him to check on the readiness of the wing’s Intruder squadron. Now that Jefferson was sailing into a potential battle zone it was critical that the attack aircraft be ready for action. “Did you give it a down-check then?” he asked.
The CPO shook his head reluctantly. “Didn’t want to, sir. The damage wasn’t bad compared to the ones that really got caught in it. But I ain’t happy about it.”
Rubbing his forehead, Tombstone tried to decide how to respond. Even with the planes he’d brought in the night before Jefferson was short of Intruders, and he could understand the chief’s reluctance to order another one taken out of service. Intruders were tough birds that could take a lot of punishment and still do the job.
But if the damage was bad enough to weaken the wings, another two-man crew would be facing disaster each time they flew the bomber.
“Give it a down gripe,” he said at length. That meant the Intruder’s maintenance log would show it as unfit for use until repairs had been made. “But put the sucker at the top of the repair list, okay?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the petty officer replied. He looked happier now. “That’s the last of ‘em, Commander.”
“Good. I want all the maintenance logs on my desk tomorrow morning for review. Got it?”
“Aye, aye,” the chief repeated.
Tombstone turned away and started across the wide deck, dodging people, tractors, and parked aircraft constantly. A well-run hangar deck left very little wasted space and still couldn’t hold all of a carrier’s planes. Jefferson’s hangar deck was very well run, and hence very crowded.
He stopped beside the bulky form of an E-2C Hawkeye to get his bearings and pick out the best possible path out of the chaos. Something flapped overhead in the stiff breeze coming through the opening of the number-two elevator, and Magruder looked up. In port, the overhead of the hangar deck would be strung with dozens of flags and banners of states, territories, foreign nations, and so on. When the ship was at sea the flags weren’t supposed to be hung, but apparently someone had placed the flag of Norway, a white and blue cross on a red background, in a prominent position dominating the center of the hangar, where everybody could see it. There was little doubt of the crew’s feelings, whatever might be coming out of Washington.
Tombstone thought back to the briefing. It was clear enough from the emphasis on the military situation that Admiral Tarrant expected Jefferson to be involved in the fighting. Whether the President finally took the plunge and ordered support for the Norwegians, or whether the Soviets chose to enforce their huge exclusion zone, that looked like the most probable outcome. But what could one carrier battle group do to help the beleaguered defenders around Bergen? Land-based air could swamp the carrier’s defenses, lurking submarines would be a constant threat … and the Soviet Red Banner Fleet was out there somewhere, an awesome assemblage of naval firepower. The Americans didn’t even have their old advantage in carriers anymore. There was at least one of the new Russian CVs in the Red Banner Fleet, and even if it was smaller and less dangerous than the Jefferson, it was a carrier nonetheless, capable of challenging America’s power-projection capability in a way no enemy had been able to try since the Second World War.
It made his new assignment all the more frustrating when he thought about the odds they were up against. While men like Coyote and Batman risked their lives flying cover for the battle group, he’d be condemned to Captain Stramaglia’s idea of his proper place.
His proper place, he told himself, was in the cockpit of an F-14.
“Mr. Magruder … sir?” The voice came from behind him, loud enough to hear over the hangar deck noise but still somehow tentative and uncertain. Magruder turned to find himself looking at a young, red-haired lieutenant with pilot’s wings and an apprehensive look on his freckled face.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” he shouted over the roar of one of the tractors — a “mule” in flight-deck parlance — hauling an F/A-18 Hornet toward one of the elevators.
“Sir, CAG told me to talk with you. Said I should see you before … before I turn in my wings …”
Inwardly, Magruder groaned. What did CAG expect of him, anyway? Once a pilot decided he’d lost the edge, there wasn’t much point in trying to change his mind. In fact it could be dangerous. If this youngster had decided that he wasn’t fit to fly but tried to hide it and stay in the air, he could end up making mistakes that would kill people. Including himself.
On the other hand, Magruder remembered the times he’d come close himself to calling it quits. And he’d talked Coyote out of quitting once too. That had turned out for the best, obviously. Coyote Grant was still on his way up.
“Look, Lieutenant, we can’t talk here!” he yelled. “Come on with me! We’ll find someplace quieter!”
Someplace quieter turned out to be Tombstone’s quarters. There weren’t many places even on a boat the size of the Jefferson where privacy was possible, and if this kid was planning on spilling his guts about his problems Tombstone didn’t want a lot of witnesses. Whether he turned in his wings or not, the kid would face a mountain of scorn if he broke the unwritten aviator’s law that a good flyer never, ever let the pressure make him lose his cool.
“All right, son,” Magruder said at last as he closed the door. “What’s your name, first off?”
“Roger Bannon, sir. They call me Banshee.” Bannon hesitated. “I’m with VA-89.”
Magruder nodded and smiled encouragingly. The wing’s single attack squadron, the VA-89 “Death Dealers” flew the A-6E Intruders that Magruder was supposed to be paying special attention to in the days ahead. Perhaps that was why CAG wanted him to deal with Bannon’s problem, whatever it was. “It’s a damned good outfit,” he said aloud.
“Yes, sir.” Bannon looked uncomfortable.
“You said you wanted to turn in your wings. Want to tell me about it, son?” He was surprised at how easily he seemed to fall into the role of the father figure.
“I–I was the one who crashed the Intruder last week, Mr. Magruder. I screwed up bad on a landing … missed the wires but didn’t have enough power to make it a bolter. Skidded … God, I couldn’t do anything to stop it.” Bannon closed his eyes as if reliving the moment in his mind. “The planes … the people who died … it was all my fault.”
“You must’ve been doing pretty good to eject from that mess,” Tombstone said quietly. “Looks like you came through without a scratch.”
A spasm of pain crossed the young face. “I was … everybody says it was lucky. I wish now I’d never got clear. My chute opened and snagged on something, so I didn’t even hit the deck.”
Magruder hesitated before probing further. It looked like it wasn’t so much fear as guilt that was weighing on Bannon’s mind, but he was no expert in psychology. He wasn’t sure how to handle the kid. This was really a job for the chaplain. But chaplains didn’t always understand the way another aviator did. Tombstone felt he had to try, at
