'Get down ? look for chutes!' Gator said.
'On my way.' I took time to make a quick visual scan of the area around me, knowing that Gator was doing the same thing with his radar. 'All clear?'
'I'll tell you if it's not.'
I put the Tomcat into a steep dive, pulling up just about at the altitude where I estimated the chutes would be. We made a 360, each of us craning our necks trying to see them wherever they were. I felt a heavy, rotten, sinking feeling in my gut. There hadn't been time ? not enough distance. Even though they'd cleared the aircraft, the fireball must have got them.
'Get down lower,' Gator said. 'Maybe we missed them.'
I did as he suggested, far too low over the ocean for my own comfort, but desperate to see any trace of the tanker pilot and her RIO.
'Bird Dog?' Gator's voice asked. 'Have you got 'em?'
'Not yet.' I wished he'd just shut the fuck up and let me look for them.
I'm joining on you,' Skeeter said.
'No ? get back to the boat,' I ordered. The last thing I needed was Skeeter poking around down here while I was trying to find the two women who had gone down. 'One of us is enough.'
'But who's gonna cover you?' Skeeter asked. 'Bird Dog, you can't-'
'Back to the boat, Skeeter,' I said again. 'Jesus, why don't you just follow orders for once without arguing?'
Two clicks on the circuit acknowledged my last transmission. I kept my eyes glued to the ocean, hoping for something, anything. 'He's right, you know,' Gator said. 'Fuck him.'
'No, fuck you.' There was a note in Gator's voice I rarely heard, but knew better than to ignore it when I did. 'Bird Dog, he's got enough fuel, we need another set of eyes out here, if not for the crew, then for any of those nasty little bastards that want to jump US.'
'How about you keep your eyes on that radar scope and keep that from happening,' I suggested.
'Damn it ? too late for that. Bird Dog, MiGs at five o'clock, four miles off and closing fast. They're in targeting mode ? Bird Dog!'
'I'm coming in,' Skeeter said, still on the net. 'Hold on, Bird Dog.'
I was a little bit too busy to answer at that point, trying to get my turkey ass off the deck and back in the air where it belonged. How had I got suckered into this? I know better, I damn well know better.
'Targeting radar,' Gator warned, his voice higher now. 'Bird Dog, we're too slow ? too low. We can't make it out of this one.'
'I'm almost there,' Skeeter said. 'Please, Bird Dog, just-'
'We'll get some distance,' I said, thinking furiously. 'I've still got one Sparrow, the gun ? we're gonna make it, Gator.'
'The hell you say,' Gator's voice had a note of quiet desperation in it this time. 'Bird Dog, get ready. You know we're gonna have to punch out.'
'I'm not punching out. This is my aircraft, and no goddamned Vietnamese is going to take it away from me.'
'Vampire, vampire,' Skeeter screamed over the circuit, his voice losing every trace of cool it had ever had. 'Jesus, Bird Dog ? punch out. Punch out now!'
I'm not-'
The wind ripped the words out of my throat and slammed my head back against the headrest. I had just a split second to realize what had happened before the canopy broke away from the airframe, tumbled backwards in the sky above us before falling back in the slipstream. A microsecond later, the pan of the ejection seat slammed me up. Over the noise of the wind and the explosion in my ejection seat, I heard Gator's seat go, saw out of the corner of my eye the bright flash of his ejection rocket firing. My vision was already going gray, and every bit of exposed skin felt numb and sandpapered. The gray crowded in on all sides, until my vision dwindled to a mere pinpoint of light in front of me. Then quietly, amazingly understated in the fury of noise and sound around me, that too winked out.
I woke up when I tried to breathe. Cold seawater is a poor substitute for air.
My gear had done its job as advertised. Sometime after I hit the water, the ejection seat had separated and the buoyant flotation pan had kept me above water. The life raft was already inflating nearby.
For a few moments, I focused on just trying to breathe. The seas were rougher than they'd looked from the sky, and every second wave slapped me in the face and tried to make me breathe it. I got my life jacket inflated, got enough air in my lungs to be able to think clearly, and then started swearing.
'Gator?' I hollered. Silly thing to do ? I doubted he'd be able to hear me over the wave noise.
'Gator, are you here?'
I set out for the raft, breast-stroking in my best fashion and trying to keep my head out of the water. All the while, I was looking for the other life jacket, the parachute, anything that would give me an indication of Gator's position. I'd seen his chute ? the seats are timed so that his fires a split second before mine does, giving him enough time to get clear so his ejection rocket won't turn me into toast.
I grabbed the raft, hung on the side for a moment to catch my breath, then pulled myself into it. A flight suit, ejection harness, and boots were a hell of a lot heavier wet than dry.
I raised up on my knees, tried to stand, and almost lost my balance.
There ? off in the distance. I could see a speck of something that looked orange, something that might be Gator. I grabbed the paddle out of the raft and headed for him.
'Goddamn RIOs,' I said, as the events of the last few minutes flashed back in my mind.
I knew what he'd done. And he'd probably been right to do it. What was worse, I was going to have to admit it.
The missile had been on us, so quick and so fast that Skeeter hadn't had a chance to get to us. If I'd let him come back when he first tried to join on me, it wouldn't have been a problem. But it had been my delays ? mine ? that had kept him at arm's length and out of position.
There had been no time, no time at all. Gator had known it ? and at some level, so had I.
Still, I never believe that anything in the air can get me.
It's one of those things about being a pilot. You start believing that it's possible for you to get hurt, that your bright and shiny new Tomcat wrapped around you isn't an invincible and all-powerful weapon, and you lose your nerve. The next thing you know, you're starting to stutter on your approach to the boat, you lose the edge, that thing that makes you the very best in the air.
Fear? You can't afford it. Not with the guy in the back depending on you.
But this time, it had been the guy in the back who'd saved my ass. RIOs have no ego compunctions about admitting when they're over their head. After all, they're not flying. Gator had seen what I wouldn't admit ? that the missile was too close and that we were about to buy it.
Command ejection. When the ejection seats in a Tomcat are set to command-eject, activating either seat causes both to shoot out. Experienced pilots with a new RIO stay away from that, in case the guy in the back gets panicky and pulls the ejection handle. If they do, they're the only ones leaving the aircraft ? and they're the ones who'll have to explain it to the Inquiry Board.
But with a guy like Gator, one who's been on more cruises than I have and has been flying with me for a couple of years now, you leave it in command-eject. For just such circumstances as this.
I was a little closer now, close enough to see that it was indeed a life jacket I was looking at. Gator had his back to me, and was floating uneasily on the top of the waves. He was still, except for the water-generated motion.
'Gator!' I hollered, and paddled over to him as quickly as I could. All this water ? I was conscious of the overwhelming need to pee.
About three yards away from him, it suddenly hit me. The life jacket ? it looked wrong. And what I could see of the figure was too small for Gator.
I started swearing again, this time really meaning it. A damn Vietnamese ? it had to be. Now I could see the skin color, and I was certain it was not one of our guys. Or girls. For a moment, I'd had a wild rush of hope that it could be the tanker crew, but no such luck.
