Vipers this morning, was flat and calm. “More power.”
He pushed the throttles forward and pulled the Tomcat’s nose up, cursing under his breath. There was no reason for this to be anything but a routine trap on the flight deck.
No reason beyond the simple fact that he couldn’t get the image of that burning helicopter out of his mind.
“Easy now,” Lassiter said. “Don’t overcompensate now.”
The very best LSOS in the fleet were the ones like Lassiter who could keep calm and unflappable, giving guidance without sounding like world-class nags.
“Ease off, Batman!”
Shit… he had overcompensated. The fighter was coming in too high now.
The red lights on either side of the meatball came on, but he was almost up to the carrier’s roundoff and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it now.
“Wave off! Wave off!”
His landing gear shrieked as they touched the deck, too far forward for the arrestor hook to snag a cable. Batman pushed the throttles forward and pulled up on the stick, cursing aloud this time. The engines thundered, the acceleration pressing him into his seat as the plane lifted clear and headed back into the open sky once again.
“Bolter! Bolter! Bolter!” the LSO called. Batman felt himself flushing behind his oxygen mask. Of all the stupid rookie tricks to pull!
“Take it easy, man,” Malibu said behind him. “Don’t let it get to you.
Just circle around and get your focus back.”
“Shit, Malibu! If you don’t like my flying, you can get out here and walk back to the boat!”
“Chill out, dude,” the RIO responded with a trace of his usual bantering style. “Just stay frosty, right? You can cool off while they bring Dixie down. Nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah. Nothing to worry about.”
Except for the fact that he’d just downed an American aircraft, maybe killed its flight crew.
Nothing to worry about at all.
The Tomcat snagged the arrestor wire with a jolt that flung Tom Mason hard against his shoulder harness. “Good trap! Good trap!” the LSO was calling on the radio as he cut the throttles back. The roar of the engines faded to a low rumbling whine. A yellow-shirted traffic director ran onto the flight deck in front of the fighter, waving his twin rods to guide Mason on his taxi path.
He backed the plane up far enough to take the strain off the arrestor cable and let it drop to the deck, “spitting out the wire,” as it was called. Then he folded the fighter’s wings and started slowly forward, following the Yellow Shirt.
“Good trap” echoed in his mind. He’d made it down in one try, at least.
After Batman’s bolter, Mason had been worried he’d have trouble, too. After all, if the commander had been shaken up by the downing of a U.S. chopper, how much worse should it have been for the man who made the bad call in the first place? Somehow, though, when the time had come to start the approach, Dixie had been able to push his concerns aside and concentrate on the landing.
“Does that make me a good aviator or a callous one?”
“I’d vote for callous,” Garrity said from the backseat.
Mason suppressed a curse. He hadn’t realized he’d been thinking out loud. “Hey, lay off, Cat,” he said. “I made a mistake back there. But just because I didn’t bolter…”
“Relax, Dixie,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Pressure hits different people in different ways. The Batman was probably shaken up by a lot more than that Black Hawk. He’s got a whole squadron to worry about.”
“Yeah,” Mason said. He pulled into the space reserved for his plane and killed the engines, then paused before opening the canopy. “Just between us, Cat, what do you think’s gonna happen?..”
She didn’t answer for a long moment. “Look, I don’t have any answers,” she said at last. “I didn’t get a good look at that helo when we made the pass. From back here, though, it looked to me like you saw exactly what you wanted to see, and that was a hostile bird you could go after.”
“But-“
“You asked for my opinion, Dixie. I’m not saying you were making things up, or anything like that. I just think you were a little too eager, that’s all.” She paused. “If CAG thinks the same, he could throw the book at you. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since I started carrier duty, it’s to play everything as chilly and professional as possible. Magruder doesn’t tolerate anything less and he shouldn’t.”
“Cat, I know what I saw-“
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure you’re convinced of it now.” There was an even longer pause. “But I’ve got to tell you the truth, Lieutenant. I’m going to ask to be assigned to another plane for a while. I don’t think I want to ride with somebody I can’t trust to keep his head in a tight spot.”
The canopy lifted slowly, and the plane captain was alongside to unfold the ladder so Mason and Garrity could climb out. He didn’t answer her.
The problem was, he wasn’t sure he could answer her.
Because, deep down, Tom Mason was very much afraid she was right.
CHAPTER 9
Coyote Grant paused outside the locker room where Viper Squadron kept their flight gear, prey to a confusing mix of emotions. He had been a part of VF95 for more than four years, and CO of the squadron since their deployment to Norway nearly eighteen months ago. It was still hard to adjust to his new role as Deputy CAG, no longer flying Tomcats almost daily alongside his men but instead a staff officer who had to think of the entire Air Wing, the interaction of all the different aircraft in Jefferson’s formidable arsenal.
He missed the Vipers. He saw them every day, of course, and even flew with them when he could, when he needed to log some flight time, but it wasn’t the same.
Aviators, more than most, showed that peculiar human trait that classified other people as “them” or “us.” It could be an especially cold-blooded fraternity. A fellow aviator might be a close buddy, a wingman, a fellow member of the squadron until the night when he lost his nerve in a particularly hairy recovery on board and turned in his wings. After that, he was an outsider, greeted, perhaps, in friendly fashion… but always with a lurking trace of condescension, a knowing smile that said, Shit, he didn’t have what it takes, after all. The guy might still be flying, but it would be as a pilot, not a naval aviator, definitely a cut below the best of the best.
Coyote was still rated for carrier duty; he flew whenever he could get out from behind his desk, every chance he could find in an increasingly paper-logged schedule. But he was no longer a member of the Vipers. He could see it in their eyes when he greeted one in a passageway, or when he was delivering a briefing. His feet were firmly planted now on the same career ladder Tombstone was already climbing. Down the line he might be a CAG himself, and someday he might even rise to command a carrier like the Jefferson. Every naval aviator’s dream…
For the moment, though, his sights were fixed on the immediate future.
He could expect to follow this Deputy CAG assignment with a tour of duty Stateside, possibly on the command staff of a Naval Air Station. That meant time with his wife and daughter, time to try to rebuild a marriage that was already in tatters.
It had been especially bad during this last deployment back to Norfolk.
Lots of tears, lots of recriminations, and the knowledge that there really wasn’t much he could do about it, unless he was willing to resign from the Navy and get a nice, normal, steady, safe civilian job. In some ways,
