“Admiral Magruder is a naval aviator,” the doctor said stiffly, “and I believe his aircraft of choice is the F-14 Tomcat.”
Jack’s smile broke into a broad grin. “Not so fast with that hospital gown, honey.” He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. Then he looked over at the doctor and pointed at the pile of wet clothes on the deck. “Have someone take those down to the laundry, do a freshwater rinse on them, dry them, and get them back up to us. Either that or route us out the appropriate uniforms from the lucky bag,” he said, referring to a slush fund of clothes normally maintained by the welfare and recreation committee. “And let Admiral Magruder’s chief of staff know immediately that Commander Jack Simpson and his new wife are on board and, at his earliest convenience, would be honored if they could pay their respects in person.”
The doctor paled slightly. “You know Admiral Magruder?” he asked, deep suspicion in his voice.
Jack nodded. “That I do. And believe me, if it’ll get me bailed from this joint, I’m not above capitalizing on it. The admiral and I spent a fair amount of time together at the flying club — he owns a Pitts Special, I believe.”
No, I don’t believe at all — I’m damned well certain of it. Stony and I have gone around too many times just admiring that baby for me to be mistaken about that. “Let’s get a move on, Doc,” Jack said briskly. “I’m not going to want to keep the admiral waiting.”
Lobo shot Hot Rock an ugly look full of venom and distaste. “How the hell did I ever let you talk me into this?” she demanded.
Hot Rock shook his head and smiled at her. “You’re loving it, and you know it, babe,” he said easily. “Hold on, let me settle another one of these around your shoulders.” He hefted a twenty-pound tie-down chain, doubled it, then settled it firmly over her neck draping down her front. “Too much?”
“Fuck you, Hot Rock,” Lobo said, venom dripping from her voice. “I’ll match you tie-down chain for tie-down chain any day of the week.”
Hot Rock patted her affectionately on the shoulder. Weighted down with a hundred extra pounds of sheer iron, she probably wouldn’t be able to catch him if he had to make a run for it. “There, there, little girl. We’re just doing our part to win the war, aren’t we?”
He could hear her teeth grinding over the noise on the flight deck. Two F-14s were already taxiing up to the catapult, and the noise was deafening.
He surveyed her slim, muscular form, now clad in a nondescript coverall rather than the Nomex flight suit he usually saw her in. With her hair tucked up under a cranial, goggles over her eyes, and no rank or name insignia anywhere on her coveralls, she was one of a dozen sailors hustling gear belowdecks. A damned fine attractive woman at that, but still just another sailor on the flight deck.
He ran his hands down his front, felt the oily fabric under his fingers. Well, they had to look the part, didn’t they? After all, it wasn’t like they were going to go flying anytime soon.
After pitching their case all the way up the chain of command, Lobo and Hot Rock had finally given up. The admiral was too pissed at them, too terminally pissed, to ever consider any promises they could make to be on their best behavior in the air from now on as worth anything at all. In fact, the CAG had informed them, they’d be lucky not to face a board of inquiry and have their wings stripped. As it was now, they were both off flight status, at least pending resolution of the current hostilities.
And after all, it wasn’t like the battle group really needed them right now. There was to be no anti-air activity over the island, and the
It hadn’t taken them more than three hours of pacing the passageways of the ship to feel utterly useless. All around them, activity continued at a heightened tempo, everybody seemingly hurrying to an operationally important task. Only the four aircrew were walking slowly and looking for something to do.
Finally, after three hours, Hot Rock had come up with this. He’d purloined four sets of dirtied and weathered coveralls from the maintenance chief, presented them to them, and made his pitch.
“Listen, we’re not going to be flying,” he began bluntly. “I think that should be pretty obvious to all of us. So, the question is do we sit on our hands and be pissed about it or find something to do?” With that, he held up the coveralls.
“Flight deck?” Lobo asked. “Come on, you want me to be a plane captain?” She laughed incredulously.
Hot Rock shook his head. “Nope. We’ve got qualified plane captains. What we need to do is some of the other stuff that you don’t have written quals for. There’s no way the handler would let us on his flight deck as a plane captain. We don’t have the sign-off card.”
“So we wander around incognito?” Lobo said.
“We work incognito,” Hot Rock corrected. “You know how much there is to do up there — or maybe you don’t,” he corrected. “If you don’t, it’s about time you found out. Believe me, an extra pair of hands shows up to do unskilled labor, there aren’t going to be too many questions asked.”
“Like what?” Lobo asked.
Hot Rock shrugged. “I don’t know. But whatever it is, it beats sitting on our asses down here, doesn’t it?” He surveyed the other two faces, then nodded. “I thought so. Come on, let’s go find something to do.”
As soon as they’d made their way out to the flight deck, they’d noticed a group of sailors near the stern hustling tie-down chains. They’d been on deck earlier to secure the aircraft during the weather but were now just cluttering up deck space. Each sailor carried four tie-down chains, approximately eighty pounds of extra weight. A few of the larger men carried six to eight tie-down chains.
“Where are they taking them?” Lobo asked, as Hot Rock unceremoniously draped the first tie-down chain around her shoulders.
“Just follow the crowd,” he said. “Just follow the crowd.”
The crowd, as it turned out, was heading down three ladders to the line shack compartment for an S-3 squadron. No one questioned the appearance of four extra nonrated sailors helping out with the workload, although the leading petty officer did seem faintly surprised at how quickly restowing the tie-down chains went. He stared at Hot Rock for a moment, started to ask something, and then was overcome by another crisis almost immediately.
The four made their way back up to the deck. “Well, what next?” Hot Rock said, looking around the flight deck for more opportunities. “Let’s face it, guys, if we ain’t flying, we ain’t qualified to do shit up here, are we?”
Tombstone stared at the bedraggled figure standing in front of him. He surveyed the wet hair slicked back from the broad, smiling face, the freshly scrubbed though haggard face, and then swept his eyes to the woman standing next to his friend. He took two steps forward and held out his hand. “You must be Jack’s wife. Tombstone Magruder — pleased to make your acquaintance.”
She took his hand gravely, and he noted how cool it felt. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Admiral. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, although I’m sure we both wish the circumstances could be different.”
“Of course.” Tombstone shook his head, bemused. “If I’d had any idea it was you and Jack on that boat, life would have been a lot simpler.”
“The question is, what can we do now, sir?” Jack asked, a sudden shift in his voice indicating this was now a question posed by a junior officer to a very senior one.
Tombstone studied them both for a moment longer, then glanced at the doctor standing next to them. “Status?”
“As I told the Simpsons, I’d like to keep them overnight in Sick Bay. Just to make certain,” the doctor started. Jack and Tombstone exchanged a cynical look. “After what they’ve been through…”
“We weren’t in the water that long, Admiral,” Adele broke in. “We exited the vessel before the impact, and there’s certainly no danger of hypothermia in these waters.” She left unspoken the other very real threat, that of sharks.
