“Nice trap, slick,” his RIO said as the Tomcat jolted to a halt and Hot Rock killed the engines. “Especially since we came back with such a heavy load under the wing.”
“Bird Dog, what’s your situation?” the air boss said over the radio. Hot Rock had just landed. Bird Dog was still limping toward the carrier.
“Good to go,” Bird Dog said. “Get me a green deck and I’ll get onboard.”
“I understand you’ve lost some control function,” the air boss said in a careful voice.
“Just enough to take me out of the dogfight,” Bird Dog snarled. “Not enough to keep me from putting this bird on the carrier.”
“Commander, don’t make me order you to eject.” Now the air boss sounded almost kind, although there was steel behind the tone. He was in absolute control of everything that happened on the flight deck, and responsible for it all as well. “I can’t let you jeopardize this boat just to keep from dumping that Tomcat in the drink. Is that understood?”
Bird Dog forced his voice to stay calm. “Listen, my RIO is unconscious. I don’t know… she might be hit, might have a broken neck… I don’t know. I can’t fire her out of this bird, not if I’ve got a chance of landing on the carrier. Which I do. So with your permission I’m coming in.”
There was a long pause. Ahead and to his left,
“Roger that,” the air boss said. “Green deck. Tell me what you need.”
Bird Dog let out a breath. “You might have
“You got it. Stay in the stack until I let you know it’s time.”
Bird Dog clicked his mike twice, then concentrated on keeping the Tomcat wings-level as he flew in the marshall stack. In a way, the difficulty of handling his crippled bird, the effort required to keep it airborne at all — never mind trying to land it on a moving postage stamp — was good for him. It kept him from thinking about other things.
Like what might be happening to Lobo.
“Missing?” Batman said. “You mean,
Coyote looked haggard. “Here’s the situation, Admiral. Her plane was struck by a PLA heat-seeker and downed. Her chute
“Oh, Christ. Lobo — ”
“Her situation is a different matter, Batman. SAR hasn’t found any sign of her at all.
Batman looked up. “You’re saying she might have been picked up by somebody.”
“It’s a possibility, sir. SAR reports there was a lot of surface traffic in the area: Commercial boats, cabin cruisers, fishing boats… Could easily be one of those grabbed her.”
“Until we know for sure, keep SAR going out there.” Batman clenched his jaw so hard he felt two molars grind. “Lobo got shot down before… and it went very badly for her.”
“I’m aware of her story,” COS said softly.
“Of course.” Batman sighed. “All right. So now I suppose we just wait until we get some kind of word.”
“On the positive side,” Coyote said, “our pilots shot down three Flankers, and ran the rest off. And we also picked up a civilian survivor.”
Batman made a shamed grimace. The survivor. Somehow, in the last few hours the object of this entire disastrous episode had been relegated to the status of “Oh, yes, by the way…”
“His condition?” Batman asked.
“Strained back, cuts and bruises, dehydration. Shock. He was out there for hours, and I guess he spent some time fending off sharks himself. We know his name’s Alonzo George, and he’s with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He’s out of it for now; Doc says we can visit him in medical tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” Batman wondered if tomorrow would be soon enough, then pushed the thought out of his mind and turned toward the hatch. “I’m going to watch Bird Dog’s landing.”
Major General Wei Ao, supreme commander of the Hong Kong PLA, had obviously expected this phone call. It was equally obvious to Political Commissar Yeh that Wei had called him into the room specifically so he would be involved in the conversation.
As soon as Yeh was seated, Wei flicked on the speakerphone. “Yes, Comrade General Ming,” he said. “We did consider your orders, of course. But the situation was unique. We not only needed to provide aid and assistance, but to try to find and identify the attacking aircraft.”
Ming’s voice crackled slightly over the speakerphone. “And who authorized an air battle with U.S. Navy aircraft not a hundred miles from Hong Kong? Do you realize that this was seen
Yeh watched the garrison commander’s throat pulse with his swallow. What had Ming said about this man’s vices? He collected imperial Chinese antiquities…. “I’m aware of it, yes,” Wei said.
“The American jet’s last transmission has been played on the media as well, over and over: ‘It’s Chinese; it’s got a red star.’ This is your interpretation of my orders
Wei drew himself up defiantly, something Yeh suspected he’d never dare do if the general were physically in the room. “The media broadcasts should work to our advantage, General. As you know, the attacker was described as a stealth-type aircraft, a flying wing. Obviously it could not have been a PLA fighter. The American pilot was obviously mistaken. That’s why I considered it in the interests of national security to send aircraft out to investigate what actually — ”
“And once again,” Ming said, “the only direct witness of the event ended up in the hands of the Americans. How is that possible? I consider this a very poor job on your part, Major General. Very disappointing.”
Wei slumped back in his chair. “But — ”
“Gather your co-commanders at eight o’clock tomorrow morning,” Ming said. “I’m flying down to talk with all of you and get this straightened out once and for all.”
As Bird Dog turned on final, he was annoyed to see that the crash barricade, that giant badminton net designed to catch wounded aircraft that missed the cables, had been raised across the deck. Well, of
“You hang in there, Catwoman,” he said over ICS. “You just hang in there, okay?”
There was no answer. She was resting, he told himself.
Watching the meatball, listening to the patter from the LSO, he brought the Tomcat in toward her home. Many pilots referred to carrier landings as “controlled crashes,” but Bird Dog had a higher standard than that. And he was going to live up to it now, too — not because of his pride, but because he didn’t want to jar the precious cargo in his back seat any more than he had to.
And he was
