Final Flight

7

How long was Columbus at sea on his first voyage to the New World?” Jake Grafton asked Yeoman First Class Farnsworth, who pushed himself back from his typewriter and thought seriously about the question.

Abandoned by his mother at the age of five, Farnsworth had spent his youth shuttling between foster homes. He had enlisted in the navy at seventeen and earned his high school equivalency diploma during his first tour of sea duty. The navy, with its routine and tradition and comfortable discipline, was the only happy home he had ever known. There were times when Farnsworth wished the captain standing in the middle of the office and gazing about distractedly had been his father. Except that Grafton was about ten years too young. Still, he had an air of quiet self-confidence that Farnsworth found most agreeable. So Farnsworth tried desperately to recall if he had ever heard how long Columbus’ voyage had taken.

“Sir, I don’t remember.”

“Me either. How about running up to the ship’s library and looking it up? Better check on Noah, too.” And since he was not in the habit of giving frivolous orders, Jake added, “I need a good excuse to ask the powers that be for a day off for the troops. Maybe we could have a deck picnic when we equal Columbus’ time at sea.”

Farnsworth was out the door almost before Jake finished. The captain went into his office and tackled the contents of his in-basket. He was deep into the preliminary draft of an accident report, Jelly and Boomer’s crash, when Will Cohen knocked and entered.

“Sit down, Will.”

“Thanks, CAG. Thought I’d give you a report on the maintenance inspection.”

Jake leaned back and propped his feet on the open top drawer of the desk. “How’s that going?”

“We’ve finished both the F-14 outfits and one of the F/A-18 squadrons. Still working on the others. One of, the fighter squadrons”—he named it—“has been cheating a little. They’ve been robbing parts from down birds to keep the others flying.”

Jake knew about that dodge. You kept your aircraft available to fly by shuffling components, which increased the work load on the sailors. For every bad component that needed replacement, the mechanics had to remove two parts and install two more. The practice, known as cannibalism, increased the opportunities for a maintenance error, and it certainly didn’t help morale.

“Are parts all that hard to come by?” Jake asked as he watched Cohen take out a pack of cigarettes, Pall Mall filters, and light one.

“Supply says no. But that skipper and maintenance officer are doing their damnedest to keep their availability looking as good as possible.”

Jake grunted and watched Cohen look around for an ashtray. The maintenance officer settled on the trashcan and pulled it over.

“That’s a lot of work for the troops for a damn small increase in availability.”

“Yep,” Cohen agreed. “But when everyone wants a ‘walks on water’ fitness report, you want the numbers as good as possible.”

Jake knew all about the fitness report game, too. But this, he realized, was more complex than the natural desire of the skipper to look good. The skipper was under intense pressure to keep the maximum number of his aircraft ready to fly, and if the supply system failed to spew forth spare parts quickly enough, the temptation to cannibalize an aircraft that couldn’t be readily repaired was almost irresistible. The real challenge was making the supply system work properly. Jake Grafton’s primary responsibility was making the entire system — including supply — function as it should, and the effort absorbed the bulk of his time. There were moments when the sheer inertia of the bureaucracy daunted him. “I’ll have a little chat with that skipper. You give me a list of the parts he’s been cannibalizing. What else have you found?”

“Not a whole lot. Little screw ups here and there, but the repair work seems to be getting done properly and quickly. At times they get behind on the documentation, which is par for the course. Overall the quality of the work is excellent.”

“They only have to fuck up once and somebody dies.” He picked up the draft accident report and perused it again as a thin blue fog of cigarette smoke filled the small compartment. The exact cause of the accident was unknown, but the investigators opined that the probable cause was an oxygen system malfunction that the crewmen had not noticed in time. The equipment used to fill the aircraft’s tank with liquid oxygen had checked out perfectly. The aircraft had flown almost a hundred hours without an oxygen system gripe. The crew was current on their low-pressure chamber training and their masks had been inspected recently. Jelly had five hours sleep in the twenty-four hours prior to the crash and Boomer had slept for six. Both men had eaten within six hours of flying, food from the wardroom that had not affected anyone else.

Jake sighed and tossed the report onto the desk. He eyed Cohen. “Gimme a cigarette.”

“I thought you were trying to quit.”

“I am trying, asshole. But you came in here and fumigated the joint and now I want a fucking cigarette. So gimme one.”

Cohen scrutinized the captain carefully. He decided he was serious and passed one across the desk. Jake sniffed it, then placed it in his mouth. “Now a match.”

“You shouldn’t do this, you know.”

Jake glared.

Cohen passed over his lighter. Jake lit up and exhaled slowly, through his nose. “Keep going on the inspection. And tell Chief Shipman to drop in the next time you see him. I want to hear how he’s doing too.”

Cohen stood up. “Yessir.”

“Thanks, Will.” Cohen closed the door behind him on the way out.

Jake took another drag on the cigarette. It tasted terrible and made him light-headed, yet he wanted it. He held it up and stared at the glowing red tip. I’m addicted to these fucking things, he told himself slowly. He stubbed it out on the inside of the gray metal trashcan, only to see several red coals fall on down toward the bottom, under the paper. He poured cold coffee into the can and sloshed it around.

Farnsworth opened the door, paused, and sniffed. “You’ve been smoking.”

“Eat shit and die,” Jake Grafton snarled.

The yeoman wasn’t fazed. “Columbus was at sea continuously for only thirty-four days before he landed in the West Indies. His whole first voyage, including a few weeks in the Canary Islands, only took sixty-two days.”

“That quick, huh? How long have we been at sea?”

“One hundred five days.”

“So that’s out.”

“Noah might be a better bet. It’s a little confusing, but it looks like he floated around for a hundred and fifty days. And lots of ships have made longer voyages, sir. Maybe ol’ Noah set the record when he did it, but he wouldn’t even be close now. I’ll bet I could find someone who went to sea a bosun third and came home an admiral.”

Down in the wastebasket half the cigarette remained un-burned, though it was slightly bent. Jake pushed it off the paper wad where it rested and watched it turn brown in the coffee at the bottom of the can. “Another voyage from yesterday to the day after tomorrow,” he muttered and sat back in his chair. “Forget it, Farnsworth. It was just an idea. I’ll ask for the day off anyway.”

“Can you imagine ol’ Noah mucking out under all those animals for a hundred and fifty days? And I think I have to shovel shit around here!”

“How about seeing if you can find me a clean trashcan,” Jake said, nudging the offending container with his foot.

“Sure.”

“Thanks, Farnsworth.”

A heavyset sailor wearing a filthy jersey that had once been yellow stood against the bulkhead outside the XO’s stateroom, facing the marine sentry in dress blues. The marine, a corporal, was at parade rest, his eyes fixed on infinity. For him the sailor was beneath notice, not worth the effort to make his eyes focus. On the sailor’s jersey, just barely visible amid the grease and gray pall of jet exhaust, were the words “Cat 4 P.O.”

“What are you doing down here, Kowalski?”

“Uh, waiting to see the XO, CAG,” the sailor said with an embarrassed little grin. He held his flight deck helmet in both hands and twisted it nervously.

Jake nodded and spoke to the marine. “Tell the XO I need a few minutes of his time.”

The corporal snapped to attention, then picked up the telephone receiver on the bulkhead and waited until the executive officer in his stateroom answered it. “He’ll be with you in a few moments, sir,” the corporal said as he hung up the phone and resumed his parade rest stance. Jake leaned against the bulkhead beside Kowalski.

“Are you ready for Naples, Ski?” Captain James had announced an hour ago on the public address system that the ship would dock in Naples in ten days.

“Uh, yessir.” Kowalski’s forehead and two large circles around his eyes were spanking clean, as white as the top of the corporal’s hat, but the bottom half of his face, which was unprotected by his helmet and goggles, was tanned and grimy. The grime was as nothing compared to his hands though; the grease had become permanently embedded in the crevices of his skin and no amount of scrubbing would make them clean. He reeked of jet exhaust. He was so nervous he could not hold still, so Jake gave him a reassuring smile.

The door opened and the XO, Commander Ray Reynolds, motioned to Jake, who went in and closed the door behind him. “What’s the problem with Kowalski?”

The XO grinned, a ludicrous effort since his four top front teeth were missing and when he grinned, he tried to hold his upper lip down to hide the hole. The effort caused his entire face to contort, and as usual, Jake politely averted his eyes at this demonstration of Reynolds’ vanity. Jake liked Reynolds immensely.

“Ski has a habit of getting drunk and getting into a bar brawl every time he goes ashore. He’s an alcoholic.” Grafton nodded. “And he’s the best catapult captain we have. If we could just keep him aboard ship all the time, he’d do fine. I told him last time that his feet weren’t going to touch dry land until the end of his enlistment, but that isn’t fair. So I’m going to let him ashore in Naples. If he gets carried back to the ship one more time by the shore patrol, he’s on his way to the drunk farm, and maybe out of the navy.” Reynolds shrugged. “But what did you want to see me about?”

“I want to have a deck party for the crew on Saturday if we can get a day off. We will have been continuously at sea over three times longer than Christopher Columbus, and I think we ought to play it up and let the crew know they’ve done something big.”

“I’m all for it. I think I can get Captain James to approve it. You talk to the admiral. It’ll depend on whether we can pull off the coast long enough to go to alert status that day. Admiral Parker’ll have to ask the big poo-bahs.” He was referring to the people in Washington. “Three times longer than Columbus, huh?”

Jake nodded and Reynolds crossed his arms on the desk in front of him. He waited expectantly. He was waiting for Jake to light a cigarette. Reynolds was the driving force behind a rigid antismoking campaign that was rolling over tobacco users with the relentless power of a mountain avalanche; indeed, Reynolds was waving the banner of purity with the awesome zeal that he brought to every task. So whenever Jake visited the XO’s office, he lit a cigarette and deposited the ash in a neat pile on the front edge of the desk. Reynolds’ fulminations were quite gratifying.

Jake patted his pockets dramatically. Sighing, he said at last, “Oh gee, I almost forgot. I quit.”

“A sinner saved! Hallelujah!” Reynolds clasped his hands together and looked up. “Thank you, Lord, for saving this poor ignorant fool sitting here before me from the evils of tobacco and impure women and bad whiskey and marked cards and …”

Jake couldn’t help himself. He laughed. Most of the berthing compartments and working spaces aboard ship were now nonsmoking. The ship’s smoke shop, where cigarettes and pipe tobacco had been sold, was now a free-weight gym. The only place aboard a man could still buy cigarettes was in the ship’s store under the forward mess deck. And the wise and the weary knew its days were also numbered.

“I had to quit. They stopped carrying my brand.”

Reynolds feigned surprise, his hand on his chest and his mouth in a little a He leaned across the desk and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I’m only letting them stock seven brands from now on, the least popular brands on the ship. When the smokers complain, I’m just going to look surprised and tell them it’s the supply system. It’ll work sort of like the no-smoking sign caper.” No-smoking signs had appeared magically one night in a grab bag of spaces where smoking was traditionally allowed, and the ship’s master-at-arms force had ruthlessly enforced the prohibition. Protests about the signs’ legality fell on deaf ears. “The little people must be made to suffer.”

Reynolds screwed his face up and giggled. In spite of himself, Jake joined in the laugh. Reynolds was one of the few men Jake had ever met who truly loved stress. Not excitement or danger, but pure fingernails-to-the-quick, heart-attack stress. He thrived on it, reveled in it, lived for it. Once Laird James had figured that out, Reynolds could do no wrong. In his mind’s eye Jake could see the two of them huddled like thieves on the bridge, plotting every detail of the antismoking campaign and the subsequent disinformation cover-up to deflect the outrage of the addicted.

“One of the reasons I came down here to see the Knight of the Busted Ashtray,” Jake said, “is because I’d like to send a message to Oceana.” NAS Oceana was the air base where the air wing had its headquarters when the ship was not deployed. “My wife and four or five of the other wives wanted to come to Europe sometime this cruise, and I figure we’d better do it now. May not have another chance.”

“No sweat. You draft up the message. I think there are six or eight officers in ship’s company who want their wives to come over, too. I’ll ask around and we’ll put it all in the message.”

“Okay.” Jake stood up.

Reynolds held out his hand. As Jake passed through the open door, Reynolds roared, “Get your miserable ass in here, Ski, and tell me some more of your pathetic lies.”

The old man had difficulty making the first step up into the bus. A young man in a dirty undershirt and smelling of wine steadied him. The old one’s back was hunched and he moved slowly, carefully, with the aid of a walking stick. A woman gave him her seat. He sank down with a sigh. “Grazie!” His hair was gray, his face lined, and his glasses had an obvious correction. In spite of the June heat, he wore a shabby black suit and leather gloves that had been expensive when new.

As the bus wound its way through the Naples business district, Colonel Qazi ignored his fellow passengers and stared out the window, which was covered with grime. The glasses strained his eyes, so after a few minutes he closed his eyes and nodded as if drifting off to sleep. Every so often he started at a car horn or a severe lurch, glanced around with eyes blinking vacantly, then he napped again. The bus slowly made its way into the suburbs.

It had taken several hours to dye his hair gray, and two hours more to get the makeup just right. He wore cotton plugs between his cheeks and lower teeth to appear more jowly, and the upper front teeth were covered by a false cap that made them look yellow and slightly twisted.

He left the bus at an intersection of a tree-lined street. No one got off with him. He looked about in all directions, examined the fronts of the nearest houses as if unsure of where he was, and began walking slowly.

In a few moments a car stopped beside him and a middle-aged man exited from the backseat and held the door for him. He got in unaided and sat with his walking stick between his knees, both hands resting on the handle. Neither the driver nor the man in the backseat spoke.

Twenty minutes later the car turned off the two-lane country road and swept through an open iron gate. After fifty meters of gravel, a large villa appeared. The car circled the house and eased to a stop on the lawn in back. Qazi’s backseat companion helped him from the car and pointed toward the garden.

A man in a white dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves was pruning leaves from tomato plants. He greeted Qazi and watched him settle into a wrought-iron chair with a padded seat.

“Buon giorno, Signor Verdi.”

“Signor Pagliacci, with respect, it is indeed a pleasure,” Qazi replied, keeping his voice soft and husky.

The Italian produced a large handkerchief from his hip pocket and mopped his brow. He was at least sixty, with an ample girth, though he didn’t look fat. He poured two small glasses of wine, held them up and examined them against the sky. He grunted after a moment, then set one glass on the small table on Qazi’s right. He, too, took a chair.

Qazi took a tiny sip of wine. It was dry and robust.

“You had a good trip?”

“Si. The jet airplanes are much better than the old ones. Really, it is the airports now.”

Pagliacci smiled politely and drank from his glass. If he knew Qazi was thirty years younger than he looked, he had never even hinted at it in the five years Qazi had known him.

“Is he well?” the Italian asked.

Qazi knew he was referring to El Hakim. “Oh, yes. He is a bull. It is the women.” Qazi chuckled dryly.

Pagliacci smiled again and used the handkerchief on his brow. He sipped his wine in silence and frowned at his tomato plants. Looking at his clothes and hands, one would think him a gardener or perhaps a captain of industry who had taken early retirement and burned his business clothes. Pagliacci was neither. He was one of the most powerful mafiosi in southern Italy, and he was very well connected in the international cocaine trade: four of his sons were in the business — two in New York, one in Colombia, and one, the eldest, here in Italy. Qazi had never met the sons, preferring to do business with the father.

“He agreed,” Qazi said at last, after he had lowered the level of the wine in the glass half an inch and set the glass on the table.

“I hoped he would. You see, I have many friends, and I like to help them out as best I can. I help you because you are a friend and I help them because they are friends. Friends help each other, right?”

“It is so.”

“And a man cannot have too many friends, friends he can count on in times of trouble, for favors and aid. Aah, sons and brothers, we have too few. So friends are the next best thing, friends who are as brothers and who help each other.”

“I have taken the liberty of preparing a list,” Qazi said and slowly felt in his jacket pocket. He passed it across.

Pagliacci held it out, almost at arm’s length, and scanned it. “The uniforms will not be a problem. The vans are, of course, no problem. The helicopters …”

“They must be fueled and ready. Every night, all night, for the entire ten days. And I cannot guarantee their safe return.”

Pagliacci reached and flipped a slug from a tomato plant. Finally he nodded, “We can do it,” and looked again at the list. At last he folded it and put it in his shirt pocket. “We can help you. The telephone items”—he waved his hand to show their insignificance—“and all these other things. But the airport surveillance at both Roma and Napoli? That will take many people. They will have to be paid.”

He belched and poured himself another glass of wine. “People for a month? And a safe office at both airports, with passes to get through security? These things will be expensive. It is our organization and expertise your cocaine is compensating us for, so we should not go out of pocket on your behalf.” He gestured for understanding to his guest. “Do you agree?”

Qazi had expected this. The old pirate would squeeze him for every lira. “Signor Pagliacci, we value your friendship. What do you think is fair?”

“First we must know just what is it that you are planning. What are our risks?”

Qazi rested both hands on the head of his cane. They were badly palsied. Next time he must remember to half the drug dosage.

“I will be frank with you,” Pagliacci said. “I will tell you my problems. You must explain carefully to El Hakim. If an … event … happens at an airport, then the authorities will place such pressure on my people that they might be compromised.” He gestured again, hugely. “I must watch out for their interests.”

“It will cost more?” Qazi asked disingenuously.

“Truly. I must take care of them.”

“El Hakim is looking for several enemies of his regime,” Qazi lied. “He is irrevocably committed to removing these people as threats to our political system. We will provide your watchers with photographs of these misguided ones. When they are found, of course they will die.” The colonel needed a reasonable explanation for the equipment and services he needed from the Italian, and the best way to provide a plausible one was to expand the list of goods and services required to fit a fictitious story, the cover. This was the cover. The entire airport project was designed to keep Pagliacci’s people occupied while Qazi was busy elsewhere.

“Here? In Italia?”

“Probably.”

Pagliacci named a figure which both men knew from past experience was twice as much as he wanted.

They discussed it like two pensioners relating recent surgical experiences, with gusto and mock sympathy. Pagliacci came down. Qazi came up. They sipped wine and finally compromised.

Qazi was apologetic. “El Hakim expects me to haggle. You know the Arab mind.”

Pagliacci was gracious. “No man likes to pay too much. And sometimes what sounds right in one place will sound too expensive in another. Do not concern yourself.”

“As long as you understand.” Qazi wet his lips with wine and set the glass down with finality.

“When can I tell my friends in New York to expect the first shipment?”

“It will arrive at our embassy via the diplomatic pouch the day after tomorrow. Your man should call at the embassy and ask for this man.” Qazi produced another scrap of paper from a pocket and passed it over. They settled on a recognition phrase. “I am sorry we must deliver it there in the embassy, but it has become too dangerous for our man to carry it in the streets.” This was an understatement. Should a diplomat accredited to the United Nations be involved in an accident, or be detained by police, and be found in possession of several kilos of cocaine, the diplomatic consequences would be catastrophic. Even El Hakim understood that.

“Getting it into the U.S. is the problem,” Pagliacci said. “My friends can handle it from there.” His sons, he meant.

“We will deliver two kilos of pure, uncut cocaine on the same day every other week until you have the quantity we have agreed upon. If your man does not show on the appointed day, he will be expected two days later. If he does not appear then, it will be assumed that he is never coming and all deliveries will cease.” Qazi leaned back carefully in his chair. “Money would have been easier.”

Pagliacci ignored that comment. Years ago, when Qazi had first approached him for aid on another project, cocaine was the only currency which Pagliacci would discuss. The money was secondary, icing on the cake, for the local soldiers.

“But now I must go back to El Hakim and inform him that money is also required.” Qazi had made this comment on other occasions. Both men knew it was pro forma.

“He will understand. I have great respect for him.”

“I suggest that we pay you the money when we are ready to take delivery of the goods.” Qazi was apologetic again. “It is no reflection on you or on our relationship, which is an excellent one of long standing, with mutual satisfaction, but a necessity due to my position with El Hakim.”

Pagliacci nodded slowly. Qazi always insisted on this point, too.

Qazi used his cane to rise from the chair. “Signor Pagliacci, I salute you. You are a man of wisdom and discretion.” He looked slowly about, at the grass, the tall palm trees, and the rows of olive trees across the back of the lawn. “It’s so beautiful here. So peaceful,”

“It is perfect for an old man like me. With my wife gone”—he crossed himself—“and with the children in homes of their own, I am left with the pleasures of old men. And the summer is not being kind to my tomatoes. Like all old men, I complain, eh?”

“Arrivederci. Until we meet again.”

The two men shook hands and parted. Qazi made his way toward the waiting car without looking back.

When Jake walked into the air wing office, one of the A-6 squadron bombardiers was sitting in the chair by Farnsworth’s desk. Jake tried to match the name to the face but couldn’t. He was too far away to read the leather name tag on his flight suit. “What can we do for you today?”

“I need to talk to you, sir.”

Farnsworth nodded toward the helmet hanging by the door. Jake tilted it and a bright piece of metal fell into his hand. Naval Flight Officer’s wings. A piece of white paper with a name was taped to it. Lieutenant Reed.

“Better come into my office.” Jake led the way.

When both men were seated with the door closed, Jake tossed the wings in the middle of his desk.

“Okay.”

Reed swallowed several times and wet his lips with his tongue. He was about twenty-five, with short blond hair. His features were even, as if eyes, nose, lips, and chin had been carefully chosen to make an attractive set. A fine sheen of perspiration was just visible on his forehead. His name tag proclaimed he was Mad Dog Reed.

Jake pulled out his lower desk drawer and propped his feet on it. The desire for a cigarette was very strong, so he rammed both hands in his trouser pockets. “What’s the deal?”

“I want to turn in my wings.”

Jake grunted and stared at his toes.

“Uh, you know …”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, you said if we got to feeling that we couldn’t do our best up there, we ought to turn our wings in. That’s the way I feel,” he said defensively. When Grafton didn’t respond he added, “I’ve had all of this bullshit I can stand.”

“By chance, do you have a personal computer on board?”

“Yessir.” Reed brightened. “I do all my paperwork on it. I’ve written a few programs. We can now track …” and he rambled on enthusiastically.

Jake wiggled his toes. Almost every junior officer these days had a computer in his stateroom. The flight program had become so competitive that one almost needed an honors engineering degree to have a chance for the limited slots available. As a result, the pilots and naval flight officers today were the cream of the college crop, brilliant youngsters with stock portfolios and spread sheets that the navy couldn’t keep beyond the first tour. Over half of them turned down career-retention bonuses that approached fifty thousand dollars and left after their first tour. Rocket scientists, one admiral called them. “I see,” Jake murmured.

“I submitted my letter of resignation from the navy, but it won’t be effective for six months. I just don’t think I should keep flying if my heart isn’t in it.” Reed’s words were carefully enunciated, respectful but not apologetic.

Jake searched for something to say. “How’d you get that nickname, Mad Dog?”

Reed flushed. “There was a big party at Breezy Point.” Breezy Point was the name of the officers’ club at NAS Norfolk. “I had too much to drink and … made something of a fool of myself. When the CO of the base called the squadron a few days later to complain, the skipper told him I was just a mad dog.”

The A-6 skipper was John Majeska. “What does Commander Majeska say about all this?”

“Well, sir, he and I fly together and I’ve talked it over with him.”

“And …”

The door opened and Farnsworth stuck his head in. “You better start suiting up now, CAG. You have a brief in ten minutes for a five-minute alert bomber. With the A-6 outfit.” His eyes swiveled to Reed.

Jake stood up. “You’re my bombardier tonight, Reed. See you at the brief in ten minutes.”

“But, sir—”

“No fucking buts, Reed. Ten minutes. Now get out of here so I can change clothes.”

When Reed was gone, Farnsworth said, “That was a good line, sir. ‘No fucking buts’ …”

“Go fly your word processor, Farnsworth.”

“A very good line, sir. I may use it as the title for my memoirs, which will chronicle my lifelong crusade to promote heterosexuality.”

Jake Grafton laughed and slammed the door in his face.

An hour and a half later Jake stood in Flight Deck Control and stared out the bomb-proof porthole at the flight deck. Misting rain and water trickling down the glass distorted the planes and men on the flight deck and made them look grotesque in the weak red light.

He turned and watched the aircraft handling officer, the “handler,” who was seated in a raised chair, direct the spotting of the planes that were landing. As each aircraft announced its arrival on deck with a full-power bellow of its engines as the arresting gear dragged it to a halt, a sailor wearing a sound-powered telephone headset placed a cutout of the plane in the landing area of the table-sized model of the ship, which stood in front of the handler’s chair. Taxiing out of the landing area, the pilot visually signaled the aircraft’s maintenance status to a man on the deck, who relayed it by radio to another sailor here. This man placed a colored nut or washer on the model aircraft. The handler then announced the parking spot, which other sailors wearing radio-telephone headsets relayed to the taxi directors on the flight deck.

Four sailors wearing headsets surrounded the table and pushed the aircraft models around it in response to the observations of spotters stationed high in the island or on the hangar deck. The scale model and the cutout aircraft allowed the handler to instantly ascertain the location of every aircraft on the ship. Although he had four and a half acres of flight deck and two acres of hangar to work with, the handler fought a never-ending battle against gridlock.

Against the far wall the squadron maintenance chiefs shouted into their headsets and intercom boxes and wrote with grease pencils on a large plexiglas board that showed the maintenance status of every aircraft on the ship. Almost everyone was shouting, at someone else or into a mouthpiece, and the muffled whine of engines at idle or full power provided symphonic background. The airmen in flight gear waiting to man the alert aircraft crammed the rest of the space. Grafton turned back to the window when a sailor near him lit a cigarette.

“Okay. That’s the last one,” the handler finally roared over the hubbub. “You alert guys give me your weight chits and man ’em up.”

Grafton passed him a printed form with his aircraft’s weight computation penciled in. The launching officer would need this weight to calculate the proper setting for the catapult in the event the alert birds had to launch.

The handler glanced at the form, ensuring it was signed by the pilot, then scribbled the number in grease pencil on a status board beside him. The crews donned their helmets and waddled toward the door in pairs — it was hard to walk normally wearing forty pounds of flight gear and a tight torso harness that impinged upon your testicles.

Grafton opened the hatch to the flight deck and stepped through. He and Reed walked between two aircraft and stopped at the foul line, the right edge of the landing area. The wind and misty rain gave the air a chill, and Jake shivered. The rescue helicopter, the “angel,” came out of the gloom over the fantail and settled onto the forward portion of the landing area. The crewman tumbled out the side door of the SH-3 and began installing tie-down chains as flight deck workers in blue shirts rushed in to help. In moments the chains were installed and the engines died. The rotors spun slower and slower, until finally they came to rest.

A yellow flight deck tractor towed an F-14 with wings swept aft past the helicopter and spun it around into the hook-up area of Number Three Catapult. When the blue-shirts carrying chocks and chains had it secured, the tractor was unhooked and the nose tow-bar removed. In a few moments another tractor came aft from the bow towing the A-6E that Jake and Reed were to man and parked it just short of the foul line on the port, or left, side of the landing area.

Tonight the alert aircraft consisted of the two F-14 Tomcats spotted just short of the waist catapults and two A-6 Intruders spotted clear of the landing area. Only one aircraft was aloft now in the night, an E-2C Hawkeye early-warning radar plane. This twin-engine turboprop could easily stay airborne for four hours. The radars aboard the various ships would also be probing the night, but the Hawkeye’s radar, from its vantage point six miles up, had a tremendous range advantage. The information from all these radars was data-linked to the NTDS computer and displayed in the Combat Information Centers aboard every ship in the task group. In the half-light of computer-driven display screens, amid the murmur of radio speakers, the CIC watchstanders coded, analyzed, and identified every object within hundreds of miles. And if any unidentified plane appeared whose course might take it so near the task group as to constitute a possible threat, the alert fighters would be launched. If the bogey was an unidentified surface target, a ship or boat, the A-6 bombers would follow the fighters into the air.

Tonight the handler had his alert bombers spotted clear of the landing area, so he would only have to respot the two alert fighters when the time came to launch another Hawkeye and trap the returning one.

Jake Grafton began his walk-around inspection as the tractor backed up to the starboard side of the aircraft and a high-pressure air hose was attached to the plane. Another man dragged a power cable across the deck from the catwalk and plugged it into the aircraft.

Jake examined the ordnance hanging on the A-6’s wing stations. A Harpoon air-to-surface missile was mounted on the right inboard wing station, station four; a pod of flares hung on the left inboard wing station, station two; and four Rockeye cluster bombs hung on each of the outboard wing stations, stations one and five. The centerline station, station three, contained a two-thousand-pound belly tank, as usual. He checked each weapon to see that it was properly mated to the rack and the fuses were correctly set.

Jake also examined the grease-penciled numbers in the black area on the port intake to ensure the plane captain had written in the proper weight of the aircraft, including fuel and ordnance. This was yet another check for the catapult officer, whose calculation of the catapult launch valve setting had to be correct or the aircraft would not get enough push from the catapult to get safely airborne.

One mistake, Jake mused, by any of the dozens of men involved in a launch, if not detected and corrected, would be fatal to the men in the cockpit. Every man had to do his job perfectly all the time, every time. The launching ballet had come to symbolize, for Jake, the essence of carrier aviation.

Satisfied at last, he mounted the ladder to the cockpit, preflighted his ejection seat, removed the safety pins and counted and stowed them, then maneuvered himself into the seat. The plane captain scurried up the ladder to help him strap in. Reed was busy strapping into the bombardier-navigator’s seat immediately to Jake’s right. Unlike most military planes where the crew sat in tandem, in the A-6 they sat side by side, although the BN’s seat was several inches aft and slightly lower than the pilot’s.

The pilot’s hands flew around the cockpit arranging switches for the start. All the cockpit lights and dials came alive as electrical power was applied to the plane from the deck-edge cable. As the plane captain twirled his fingers and the huffer bellowed, Jake cranked the left engine. When it was at idle, 60 percent RPM, the plane captain disconnected the huffer, which supplied high-pressure air to the plane, and advanced the left engine to 75 percent. Now he started the right engine using bleed air from the left one. With both engines at idle, he turned on both of the A-6E’s radios and watched Reed complete his set up of the computer and inertial. Finally he gave a thumbs-up to the flight deck bosun who stood in front of the aircraft. The bosun cupped his hand around a lip mike on his headset and informed flight deck control that the alert bomber was ready. Then the engines were shut down and the plane captain closed the canopy and snapped the pilot’s boarding ladder up into the fuselage.

Now the crew relaxed. They would sit here like this for two hours until they were relieved by another crew. Unless the alert planes launched, it was all very boring, a typical military exercise in hurry up and wait.

Jake surveyed the cockpit as if it were the front seat of a familiar and treasured automobile. The A-6 had changed significantly in the years since he flew the A-version in Vietnam. The search and track radars of the A-6A had been replaced by one radar that combined both search and track functions. The rotary drum computer was gone, and in its place was a solid-state computer that rarely failed. The old Inertia! Navigation System (INS) had also been replaced by a new system that was more accurate and reliable.

Above the bombardier-navigator’s radar scope was a small screen much like a television screen. This instrument displayed a picture from a Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) camera mounted in a turret on the bottom of the fuselage, in front of the nose gear door. Also in the turret were a laser ranger designator and receiver, which the crew could use to obtain very precise range information on a target within ten nautical miles.

Jake used a rheostat to adjust the level of the cockpit lighting, then he looked around at the other airplanes and the men moving around the deck on random errands. He had difficulty distinguishing features of the other aircraft and the colors of the jerseys worn by the men on deck. He squinted. The island floodlights didn’t seem to help much.

This is just an alert, he told himself. Nothing will happen. We won’t launch. He breathed deeply and exhaled slowly, trying to relax.

“So why do you want to turn in your wings?” he asked Reed over the intercom system, the ICS, as he watched little droplets of rain adhere to the canopy plexiglas.

“I’m tired of night cat shots,” Reed said finally. “I’m tired of drilling holes in the sky and risking my butt for nothing. I’m going back to school for an MBA, and I don’t see why I should keep doing this until Uncle Sam kisses me good-bye.”

The fine rain droplets on the canopy occasionally reached a critical mass and coalesced into one large drop, which slid slowly down the glass.

“After you get your degree, what are you going to do?”

“I dunno. Go to work for some company, I suppose. Make some money.”

“Is that what you want? Nine to five? Same shit, different day — everyone in the office creeping toward retirement one day at a time.”

“The civilians can’t be as fucked up as the navy. They have to turn a profit.”

Jake listened awhile to the airborne Hawkeye talking to the ship on strike frequency. Only ten days to Naples. He wondered where he would be and what he would be doing if he had left the navy after Vietnam. Should he have resigned years ago? The thought of all the time he and his wife, Callie, had spent apart depressed him. And his parents were getting on without their eldest son around to check on them. Too bad he and Callie had had no children, though, Lord knows, they had wanted them.

Maybe it’s time for me to pull the plug, too, he thought. Forty-three years old, eyes crapping out, maybe it’s time to go home to Callie. He thought about her, the look and feel and sound and smell of her, and he missed her badly.

“Shotgun Five Zero Two, Strike, are you up?”

Jake started. He picked up his mask from his lap and held it to his face. “Battlestar Strike, Shotgun Five Zero Two’s up.”

“Go secure.”

“Roger.” Jake threw the switches on the radio scrambler. When the synchronization tone ceased, he checked in with Strike again.

“CAG, we have been tracking a group of six boats near the Lebanese coast since dusk this evening. Apparently fishing boats. Three minutes ago one of them turned toward the task group and increased speed significantly. If he doesn’t resume course in two minutes, we’re going to launch you. Stand by to copy his position, over.”

Jake turned toward Reed. He was still sitting there, slightly dazed. Jake keyed the ICS. “Copy the posit, Mister Reed, and put it into the computer.”

Reed grabbed a pen from the kneeboard strapped to his right thigh and asked Strike for the coordinates. Without realizing he was doing it, Jake tugged his torso harness straps tighter.

“Steering to the target is good, CAG,” Reed told him.

Jake read the readout on the panel. Only forty miles. The task group is too goddamn close to the coast! This guy is almost here and he just started. Wonder what kind of weapons he has? He looked at the heading indicator. The ship was steaming southwest, away from the coast. That was a help. But the ship would have to turn into the northerly wind to launch, which would stop relative motion away from the coast and the threat, which was to the east. He felt his stomach tighten.

The deck loudspeaker blared. “Launch the alert five! Launch the alert five!”

Jake heard the flight deck tractor come to life and the high-pressure air unit, the huffer, winding toward full RPM as the catapult crewmen came piling out of the catwalk and raced toward the Tomcats in the hookup areas. Kowalski was there, small and chunky, waving directions to his men. The blue-shirts broke down the tie-down chains on the chopper and the rotors engaged. He could feel the ship heel to port as it started a starboard turn into the wind.

The plane captain twirled his fingers at Jake, signaling for a start. Jake pushed the crank button and advanced the starboard throttle to idle when the engine reached 18 percent RPM. The engine lit with a low moan and the revolutions slowly climbed.

He had both engines at idle when the chopper lifted off and the two F-14s began to ease forward to the waiting catapult shuttles. The large jet-blast deflectors (JBDs), came out of the deck behind each aircraft and cocked at a sixty-degree angle.

The taxi director waved his yellow wands at Jake. He released the parking brake and goosed the throttles. The Intruder began to roll. He applied the brakes slightly to test them, felt the hesitation, then released the pedals. He pressed the nosewheel steering button on the stick and followed the taxi director’s signals toward Catapult Three.

Now the engines of the fighter on Cat Three were at full power. With its new, more-powerful engines, the D-version of the Tomcat no longer needed the extra thrust of afterburner to launch. The roar reached Jake inside his cockpit, through his soundproof helmet, as the Intruder trembled from the fury of the hot exhaust gas flowing like a river over the JBD. The Tomcat’s exterior lights came on. Two heartbeats later it was accelerating down the catapult as the JBD came down. In seconds the catapult officer had the fighter on Cat Four at full power, then he fired the second plane into the waiting void.

A red-shirted ordnanceman was holding up the red safety flags from the weapons for Jake to see as the yellow-shirt waved him forward toward the cat. As he taxiied, Jake used his flashlight to acknowledge the ordie, okayed the weight board being held aloft by a green-shirted cat crewman with another flashlight signal, and eased the airplane right, then left, to line it up precisely with the catapult shuttle. It looked like utter chaos, this little army of men in their different-colored jerseys surging to and fro around the moving planes, but the steps and gestures of every man were precisely choreographed, perfectly timed.

Wings spread and locked, flaps to takeoff, slats out, stabilizer shifted, trim set, parking brake off, Reed read off the items on the takeoff checklist and Jake checked each one and gave an oral response as he eased the plane toward the shuttle. He felt the jolt as the metal hold-back bar stopped the aircraft’s forward progress. Then he felt another tiny jolt as the shuttle was hydraulically moved forward several inches to take all the slack from the metal-to-metal contact—“taking tension,” the catapult crewmen called it.

He released the brakes and jammed both throttles full forward and wrapped his fingers around the catapult grip, a lever that would prevent an inadvertent throttle retardation on the catapult stroke.

The engines wound to full power with a rising moan. EGT, RPM, fuel flow, oil pressure, all looked good.

He flipped the external lights on and put his head back in the headrest as the plane trembled under the buffeting of the air disturbed by its engines. His eyes were on the green light in front of the launching officer’s control bubble in the port catwalk. Now the light went out — the cat officer had pushed the fire button.

Oh lordy, here we go again! The Gs pressed him back into the seat and the forward edge of the angled deck rushed toward him and swept under the nose. As the G subsided he slapped the gear handle up and locked the nose at eight degrees nose up. The rate-of-climb needle rose and the altimeter began to respond. No warning lights.

Log another one.