Afterburn

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, Coyote had almost been glad when the unexpected orders came through, sending the CBG to the Med… and informing him that he’d just been moved to the carrier’s Deputy CAG slot.

Most of Julie’s worries were those typical of a woman left alone to raise a three-year-old girl by herself while her husband spent months on end at sea, risking his life every day. The presence of women on the Jefferson hadn’t helped things, either. When he was still CO of the Vipers, Coyote had usually flown with Cat Garrity as his RIO, and during that last rotation home he’d made the mistake of telling Julie how much he respected the woman as a naval flight officer. That, coupled with some of the more lurid stories filtering back to the States through the media ― stories about sexual harassment cases and the goings-on among the mixed crew ― had raised all kinds of unfounded suspicions in Julie’s mind. They were the sort of fears he could have allayed in seconds if he’d just been there with her to show her how much he still loved her.

But that simply hadn’t been possible. When the Navy said go, you went;

he loved Julie, but he also had a career to consider. If the Navy had wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one with your seabag ran the old saw among enlisted men. Sex and saltwater don’t mix was another.

Maybe, just maybe, his recent promotion would prove to be the first step in putting his marriage back together again. In the meantime, though, it was a letdown working on the CAG staff instead of flying with the Vipers. Worst of all were the days like this when he had to watch one of his old friends sit in the hot seat.

Grant double-checked to be sure the sign saying WOMEN was neither posted by the hatch nor lying on the deck. There weren’t enough female enlisted personnel to assign to watch the ready rooms on every shift when female flight officers might need to change, so unlike the showers the ready rooms functioned on an honor system, with the aviators taking turns… except, of course, when there was a scramble and every man and woman had to be suited up as fast as possible. The sign was a courtesy, used when there was time to observe the niceties of civilized behavior.

So far there hadn’t been any deliberate violations of ready room privacy, though there had been that one time when the sign had fallen down and one of the men from the War Eagles had gotten an eyeful when he went to suit up. Apparently, though, Cat Garrity had already finished changing and was on her way to debriefing.

He heard Malibu talking as he entered the changing area. “Look, all I’m saying is you’ve got to ease up on yourself,” the RIO was saying. “Quit acting like the weight of the world’s on your shoulders.”

“Good advice,” Coyote said. Malibu was already in his khakis, hanging up his flight suit in his locker. Batman was sitting nearby, still wearing his own flight gear.

“Coyote!” Malibu said. His features broke into a grin. “What’re you doing in here? Slumming?”

“Just making sure you two get your sorry asses up for debriefing,” Grant said. He studied Blake for a moment. The RIO had been uncharacteristically quiet lately, almost withdrawn, but he seemed more animated now. Coyote suspected he was worried about how Batman was dealing with his new role as CO of the Vipers. The two had been inseparable friends for years, with a bond that sometimes seemed almost psychic.

“I’m on my way,” Malibu said. “The Bat here has a bad case of the slows.”

“I’ll get him over that.” Grant waited until Malibu had left before turning to Wayne. “Bad time this morning, huh?”

Batman fumbled with the zipper of his suit as he replied. “There’s an understatement,” he said. “Sort of like saying Krasilnikov’s a troublemaker.”

“Look, I just got a report down from Ops,” Coyote told him. “Thought you’d like to hear right away. The flight crew on that helo’s okay. They’re pretty dinged up, but they got picked up by a Marine medevac and flown out to the Guadalcanal. The word is they’ll be okay.”

Batman let out a long, slow sigh. “Thank… God.”

“You can also thank the Army pilot on that Black Hawk. He gentled his machine down after you popped one of his blades.”

“Army? Shit, what’s the Army doing over here?”

“Damfino. I thought the Canal was just carrying Marines this time. We don’t have the full story yet, but Ops is working on the theory that we weren’t given all of the IFF computer recognition codes… which would explain why they registered as a hostile.”

“God.”

Someone rapped on the door, then stuck his head in. It was Lieutenant Randolph Wojiewski, one of the assistant LSOS. He held a clipboard in one hand. “Commander Wayne?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, got your scores, sir. Two bolters. Mr. Lassiter says it happens to the best of us.”

“Right.”

“On your landing pass, you were still a little high, a little tight. You were showing a tendency to over-correct when the LSO fed you the word.” Wojiewski continued ticking off the flaws in Batman’s trap. This was a routine that followed every landing aboard a carrier, and the results were posted on the big greenie board outside each squadron’s ready room. It was a way of showing each aviator where he stood with all the others, and giving him instant feedback that would let him improve his technique.

“All in all, not too bad, though,” Wojiewski concluded. “Mr. Lassiter’s giving you a ‘fair.’ Okay?”

Batman scowled, and for a moment Coyote thought he was going to lash out at the ALSO. In the highly competitive world of carrier aviation, each landing could receive one of four possible grades. Best of all was “okay,” and a green square on the greenie board. Next was “fair,” with a yellow square. “No grade” and no color on the board meant the trap had been dangerous to people or to aircraft on the deck. Lowest of all was a red square with the letter “C” marked in, for “cut.” That grade was reserved for a landing so dangerous it could easily have ended in disaster.

Batman, Coyote knew, carried a fierce pride in his abilities as an aviator. It would take a while to wash that yellow from the record book he kept inside his skull.

“So, what happened?” Coyote pressed him, after Wojiewski had left the compartment. “What’s your side of the story?”

“Mason happened. Shit, Coyote, I don’t know what went down out there.

The kid IDED the bogey as a Hind. I got weapons clear and went Fox two. Next thing I know, I’m hearing about a downed American helo over the radio and I’m being ordered back to the bird farm.” He managed a wry, drawn grin. “And two bolters to get me down.”

“We all have our day inside the barrel,” Coyote said, using the expression that referred to an aviator who made pass after pass on the deck but couldn’t connect with the arresting wire… each failure making the next failure that much more likely. “But this own goal you scored, that’s serious, even if the crew’s okay. Stoney’s about to go ballistic. He was over on the Shiloh when word came through, conferring with Admiral Tarrant. He was not pleased, let me tell you!”

Batman didn’t reply right away but continued changing to his uniform.

“How did you handle it, Will?” he asked after a long moment. “Being skipper of the squadron, I mean. How did you know when to get tough and when to go easy?”

Coyote raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking me if you should cover for Mason and Garrity?”

“I didn’t say that,” Batman said.

“You want to tell me what happened up there? I mean exactly.”

Batman shrugged. “Dixie was eyeball, I was shooter. He led the way in by three miles or so. Watch Dog wasn’t picking up IFF on the target. Neither did we, when we got close. Then Cat reported that they were being painted by a Zoo, and I guess she was busy turning knobs about then, because she didn’t see the target. Dixie reported a Hind.

“About that time, Malibu picked up something about the UN flight being under attack. Since the bogey was trailing UN Two-seven, I assumed, I mean, it looked like the bogey was after the UN bird, right? Anyway, I launched.”

“Was there any way you could have checked on Dixie’s ID?”

“What was I supposed to do? Ignore him because he’s a rookie and insist on another pass before I made up my mind? I might’ve flown us right into triple-A if that Zoo had turned out to be a hostile. Anyway, I can’t treat the rest of the squadron like they’re a bunch of idiots.”

“No, you can’t,” Grant agreed. “You have to trust their training. I remember Tombstone chewed my ass once in Norway because I wasn’t letting the other guys do their jobs while I did mine.”

“Well, the leader still has the responsibility, right? I was supposed to be looking out for him.” Batman gave a hollow laugh. “Good job, huh?”

“New guy. Just out of a RAG and trying to prove himself.” Grant paused.

“Is he wearing a chip? Black guy in a white-bread world?”

“I wouldn’t say he’s got a chip on his shoulder, no. He’s all right.

Seems to fit in with the others okay. But he does work extra hard to prove he can cut it.”

“Yeah.” Grant looked away. “Look, Ed, I wasn’t out there. I don’t know what I would have done in your place… but I don’t see where you made any wrong decisions. Mason missed the ID call. Hell, that can happen even to a veteran. But you can’t second-guess your people all the time, veterans or newbies. If you do, you’ll burn yourself out ― and you’ll take the squadron with you.”

Batman nodded. “You’re right. But, God, I could’ve killed someone, one of our guys.”

“Well, you didn’t. Concentrate on that. If you let it get to you, it’ll screw your head up so bad you’ll never pull out of the spin. You’re too good an aviator to lose your wings because of something that almost went down.”

“I may be a good flier,” Batman said. “The question is how good a CO I am. When I was your XO, it was pretty easy, you know? I fielded some gripes for the guys, I helped you with the paperwork, I did my turn on CAP or on combat ops. No big deal. Shit, Coyote, you should’ve told me what you were going through, running the show. Then maybe I’d’ve told them what to do when they decided to stick me in this slot.”

“You’ll handle it, Batman. Trust me. Inside a few weeks, you’ll be the same old arrogant, cocksure hot-dog bastard we all know and love.”

Batman finished dressing and closed his locker. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. He managed a grin. “Of course, first I have to survive whatever old Stoney decides to throw at me. If I don’t make it out of debriefing alive, Coyote, you can have my CD collection.”

Tombstone Magruder looked up at the four officers standing in line in front of his desk. He didn’t speak right away. His emotions were in turmoil, caught between horror at the incident that had so nearly turned tragic and relief that the ultimate tragedy had somehow been averted. The fact that two of the four were among his best friends didn’t make his job this morning any easier. Friends are a luxury you can’t always afford in the Service, his uncle, now a desk-bound admiral in Washington, had told him once.

He took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s have it,” he said.

No one answered. He studied them, one after another. Mason and Garrity were at rigid attention, looking far too young and vulnerable to be part of the carrier’s front line of defense. Batman and Malibu were older, steadier hands, officers he had long relied on. Friends…

Coyote shifted in his chair to Tombstone’s right. “Friendly fire happens sometimes, Stoney… CAG.”

“That’s not an explanation,” he shot back. “You can’t just say “Shit happens’ and leave it at that.”

Still, Coyote was right. He knew that. Friendly fire, accidental attacks against your own people, had probably been a factor in warfare since the first cavemen duked it out over the local water hole. In the Persian Gulf War some of the most serious battlefield casualties taken by Allied forces had been the result of friendly fire, especially when fast-moving ground support aircraft misidentified vehicles on the ground. The press had spent a lot of verbiage agonizing over those incidents, of course, but anyone with combat experience knew they were inevitable. The fog of war was as real on today’s electronic battlefield as it had been in the days of Napoleon… or Sargon the Great.

He was thinking in particular of an incident hauntingly like this one, back in 1994, when two U.S. Air Force fighters had engaged and destroyed two Army helicopters in the no-fly zone established over northern Iraq. The pilots had been edgy, the AWACS procedures had broken down, the IFF systems on the choppers had been turned off. And then, as now, someone had confused the U.S. Army Black Hawk with the Soviet-made Hind. That time, over twenty men had died.

Murphy’s Law still ruled, especially when men were excited, frightened, or tired. But there were supposed to be safeguards in place to keep these things from happening, and Magruder needed to know just what had gone wrong.

“Sir, I take full responsibility…” Batman began.

Magruder cut him off. “You bet you do, Commander,” he said harshly.

“But that’s not much better than “Shit happens’ either! Do you know the difference between a Hind and a Black Hawk?”

“Yessir,” Batman said quietly.

Mason cleared his throat. “I made the ID, CAG,” he said. “It was my fault, not the skipper’s.”

“You made the ID,” Magruder said, turning his angry gaze on the younger man. He let the words hang there for a moment before reaching into his top desk drawer and extracting a manila folder. Inside were several photographs, drawn from the files of Jefferson’s OZ Division, the carrier’s intelligence department.

He spread the photos out on the table, turning them so Mason could see.

“This is a Hind,” he said, tapping one of the photos. “Recognition features: five-bladed rotor; tapering, anhedral stub wings shoulder-mounted on the fuselage; separate, stepped pilot’s and gunner’s cockpits; cannon mounted in a nose turret; five-bladed tail rotor mounted to the port side of the boom.” He tapped another. “This is a UH-60 Black Hawk. Recognition features: four-bladed rotor; large, single cockpit with broad windows; four-bladed tail rotor mounted to starboard of the tail boom, and canted at twenty degrees to provide additional lift; large tail planes. Is there anything here you don’t understand?”

“No, sir. I know what a Black Hawk looks like. I know what a Hind looks like. I only saw the target for a second or two, and from behind, so I couldn’t see the double cockpit. But I did see the weapons pylons on either side. I’ve never heard of a Black Hawk with weapons pylons.”

“For your information, son, what you saw was an External Stores Support System, ESSS.” He looked at Cat. “What about you, Garrity? Did you see it?”

The woman shook her head slowly. “No, CAG,” she said. “My head was down at the time.”

“Your head was down. So you were the only one who saw it, Mason?”

“Yes, CAG,” Mason said. “I… I really thought it was. The aspect was from the rear and above, and it really looked like a Hind configuration to me. I honestly thought…”

He held up a hand. “We’ve established what you thought you saw.”

“They were being painted by a Gun Dish signal from the ground, CAG,” Batman said. “Probably a ZSU. I made my decision based on the report of one of my aviators. I could have ordered a double check of the target, but thought it would be unwise to risk possible triple-A from the Zoo. There was also the possibility that the enemy was engaging the UN flight. Time was critical.”

Tombstone let himself relax a little. “You’re right. You made a mistake. Wrecked an aircraft that cost the taxpayers something like fifteen mil. And before any of you points it out to me, I’ll say the rest. It would also have been a mistake to get confirmation if those Zoos had opened fire and brought one of you down. And it would have been a mistake if you’d let the sucker go on about his business and he turned out to be a Hind on his way to shoot down the UN Hip.”

“Hell, CAG, we can’t win for losing,” Cat Garrity said. There were a few chuckles in the room, and the tension eased a little.

“That’s exactly right, Cat,” Magruder said. “This no-fly zone crap is one of the trickiest damned ops we’ve taken on. There’s no clear-cut enemy out there, nothing but a set of vague rules that we have to interpret well enough to keep everybody off our backs while we try to do our job at the same time. Right now, our biggest worry about this incident is the fact that there were reporters on that UN helo.”

“Reporters!” Malibu said.

“Oh, shit!” Dixie added.

“The headline news tonight may lead off with a real humdinger of a story.

Something like “Navy Downs Army Helo Over Georgia.’”

“If we’re lucky,” Coyote said with a grin, “they’ll play it on the sports segment. “Navy Scores Over Army, 1–0.’”

“More likely we’re going to get a storm of inquiries. Congressmen calling. Interviews. Hell, maybe somebody will start asking some intelligent questions. Like what the devil is a carrier battle group doing way the hell out here? But in the meantime, we have to do our part to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“What the hell happened with the helo’s IFF?” Batman wanted to know.

“As near as we can tell, no one bothered to tell us that a couple of Army helos had been sent into Georgia to work with the UN team.”

“I thought the Navy was supposed to be handling no-fly zone security?”

Garrity said.

Tombstone shrugged. “You know how it goes. One service gets a plum assignment, and suddenly everyone wants a piece of the action.”

“Grenada,” Coyote added, and Tombstone nodded.

That monumental foul-up was still a reminder ― and a warning ― of how not to conduct joint military operations. When America decided to invade the tiny Caribbean country in 1983, the op had started off as a relatively small mission. Then invasion fever had started spreading through the Pentagon. One service after another had wanted in… as did each of the elite combat units within the larger branches. The SEALS. Delta Force. Army Special Forces. No one knew what anyone else was doing, radio frequencies and call signs weren’t distributed to the proper people, and in one classic case of idiocy, orders describing an air assault gave a time but failed to say whether that was EST, GMT, or local time.

A lot of Americans died unnecessarily in that invasion.

Tombstone let out a sigh. “Okay, people. There will be no disciplinary action from my office. I should warn you all, though, that I don’t have the last say here. Depending on how big a noise this makes with the brass Stateside, or with the news media, there could be a further investigation.”

“You mean we’re still on the hook,” Batman said. He looked resigned.

“What do you want us to do, CAG?”

“First thing, I want reports. All four of you get a complete report on the incident done and on my desk by 1600 hours. And I mean complete. I don’t want excuses, but I damn sure do want anybody who reads these reports to know what we’re going through to police these damned zones. We’ve got Zoos and helos…”

“And bears, oh my,” Cat Garrity put in with a grin.

Tombstone caught Batman’s eye and smiled. “No, thank God, no Bears this time.” Both men had been through some harrowing encounters with the Russian aircraft code-named Bears. As a matter of fact, the first time Magruder had ever chewed out Batman Wayne was over a Bear hunt, back when Tombstone was the squadron CO and Batman a young hot dog just joining the squadron. Some things, it seemed, never changed. He let the smile drop. “Next. Dixie, I’m taking you off the zone patrols for a few days. You’ll be limited to flying CAP until further notice.”

“Sir-“

“No arguments. I know your record; I know you think you’re the hottest pilot Viper Squadron’s ever seen; I know how much you want to be out there. But until this has a chance to settle out, I don’t want you in the no-fly zone.” He looked at Batman. “You’ll see to the scheduling?”

“Aye, aye, CAG,” Wayne said. He sounded unhappy.

“All right, then. Case closed, at least for the moment. You’re all dismissed.”

The four from Bird Dog Flight filed out of the office, but Coyote didn’t leave. “You have a problem?” Magruder asked him when the door closed behind Garrity.

“More than you can imagine,” Grant said. “But a couple of immediate concerns. Don’t you think you could’ve been a little nastier? Like maybe call off Christmas or something?”

“We’ve had this talk before, Will,” Magruder said with a sigh. He leaned back in his chair. “CAG staff’s not like being in the squadron, not even like being squadron CO. You know how I feel about Batman and Malibu. And those two kids are going to be hot when they get some seasoning, as good as we ever were.”

“Better, maybe.”

“Maybe. But I can’t be their buddy anymore. Neither can you. our responsibility isn’t to the individuals, or to the squadron. it’s to the whole Air Wing, to the Jefferson, and to the mission. If this incident had resulted in Americans being killed due to friendly fire, I’d’ve been forced to recommend relieving them of duty. A court of inquiry. You think I’d want something like that hanging over Batman? Next to you, he’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”

“I don’t like it much,” Coyote said quietly. “Sometimes I think I wasn’t cut out for this staff shit. Maybe I should’ve turned you down.”

“You can’t sit in the cockpit forever, Coyote,” Tombstone told him. He jerked a thumb at a mug that sat on the corner of his desk. A dozen cigars stuck out of it, still in their original wrappings. They had belonged to Tombstone’s predecessor as CAG, the man who’d taught him at Top Gun school years before. He kept them on his desk as a reminder of the lessons the man had taught him, both at Top Gun and later, when Magruder was his Deputy CAG and Jefferson was sailing into the Norway crisis. “Stinger Stramaglia made my life a living hell when I was his deputy. But he also taught me that if I didn’t grow I’d end up being left behind. The first time I realized just how big this damned job was I almost cracked. All I wanted was a chance to strap on a Tomcat and go up with the Vipers again. Trouble is, that isn’t an option. Sometimes you have to sit behind the desk and cope with all the petty little details so the other guys can get in the air.”

“I’m just not sure I can cut myself off from everything that’s gone before,” Grant told him. “I’m not a machine.”

“Neither am I. I’m worse. I’m the CAG.” Magruder looked away. “You said there were a couple of things bothering you. What else?”

Coyote frowned. “Just wondering if you knew what you were doing with Mason.”

“By rights, I should’ve grounded him. I have the impression he saw exactly what he wanted to see out there, and we damn near lost an American air crew. I took it easy on him because… well, because I’m not a machine. He’s got the makings of a good aviator, but he needs some drudgery to put things into perspective.”

“I read his file. He’s got friends in high places.” Magruder raised an eyebrow. “His sponsor when he applied to Annapolis. Sammie Reed represented his district and made the recommendation.”

“Well, well. Our brand-new Secretary of Defense.” Magruder shrugged.

“If I read Mason, he isn’t the sort to run for help just because he gets his ears pinned back.”

“Yeah, but you know how these things get out. He mentions it in a letter, somebody back home gets outraged, phone calls get made…”

“You really think it could be a problem?”

“Come on, Stoney, wake up and smell the avgas! George Vane resigned as Secretary of Defense because of policy disagreements with the President. Mostly the Kola deployment, but also all the damned social experiments. Our new fearless leader doesn’t share any of his reservations. Look at Directive 626.”

“I try not to,” Tombstone said wryly. Directive 626 was a new order from the upper levels of the Pentagon requiring women in combat units to be worked into command slots on a quota basis, regardless of relative seniority or experience. The Air Wing had been forced to make a number of adjustments to accommodate the order, and it was one more blow to the unit’s morale. “And Mason?”

“Is a minority, in case you were too color-blind to notice it. Sam Reed would love to have a cause like that to get behind if it would make the Navy look bad. You remember the trouble a couple of years back? The Top Gun graduation?”

Magruder nodded. Before moving to the cabinet, Reed had been on the House Armed Services Committee, one of the liberal voices pushing hard for unpopular reforms in the military. After the committee had recommended relaxing the standards for female pilots to compete for slots at Top Gun and other advanced schools, a graduating class had displayed banners calling Reed some extremely derogatory names. That had sparked an ongoing feud between Reed and the Navy, particularly in Naval Aviation.

Now Samantha Reed was America’s first female Secretary of Defense, and she was well placed to carry on that feud.

Magruder frowned for a moment, then shook his head. “I appreciate the advice, Coyote. I really do. But I’ll take my chances on this one. If I have to look at an officer’s gender or color or sexual preferences before I can hand down discipline I might as well just pack it in. If Madam Secretary Reed wants my head, she can have it… but she can’t make me screw up this unit in the name of political correctness.”

Coyote grinned and shook his head. “You always did have a bad attitude, Stoney. Head hard as a rock. Not exactly good for the career track, but-“

“Screw the career track,” Tombstone said. “If they take this job away from me, maybe I can go back to flying airplanes!”

“Now you’re talking!”