Final Flight

13

Do you know i love you, woman?” Jake whispered.

“I’ve often suspected it,” Callie replied, pretending to examine her nails in the moonlight which streamed through the open door to the balcony and fell across the bed. “But you sailors, with your women in every port! A poor girl must stand in line. And it just doesn’t pay to invest much emotion in a ‘here today, gone-tomorrow’ lover.”

Jake chuckled and nuzzled her neck, drinking in the smell of her and luxuriating in the sensuous pleasure of her skin against his, the sleek coolness of the sheets, the ripeness of her body under his hand. “That’s me, I guess.”

“I guess. So what am I? Number ten for you this month?” She giggled as Jake ran his tongue down her neck and across her collarbone, heading south.

“Eleven, I think.”

She hugged him fiercely. “Oh, I love you, Jake Grafton, you worthless gadabout fly-boy, you fool that sails away and leaves me.”

When she released him, he propped his head on one elbow and ran his finger along her chin. She nipped at it.

“Have you been to the beach house lately?” he asked. Three years ago they had purchased a house on the beach in Delaware that they visited at every opportunity, anticipating the day when they would live there permanently.

“Just last weekend. You can still hear the gulls from the window, and the surf hitting the sand when the tide is in. But the upstairs commode stopped up. I had to call a plumber….” She went on, detailing the domestic crises and how much it had cost. He rolled out of bed and slipped a robe on.

From an easy chair near the door to the balcony, he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about that house, lately.”

Callie sat up in bed and swept her long dark hair away from her face. “Is twenty-three years enough?” That was how long Jake had been in the navy.

“I can’t fly at night anymore. I’m half grounded.” She left the bed, came over to the chair, and sat on his lap. He wrapped the robe around them both, as far as it would go.

“It’s my eyes. I’m losing my night vision. Something about liquid purple and rods and all that.”

“My God, Jake, won’t you miss the flying?”

“Yeah,” he sighed disgustedly.

“And if you can’t fly, how can you continue to command an air wing?”

“I can’t. They’ll send someone to relieve me pretty soon. I’ll probably be home in a month or so, and they’ll ground me completely. No more flying. Ever.”

“Where will you go from here?”

“I don’t know. Probably some admiral’s staff someplace. We’re short on radar repairmen, but we’ve got a lot of admirals and a lot of staffs.”

“So you’ve been thinking about the beach house?”

“Uh-huh. And about us. About you and your gadabout fly-boy lover and all the time we’ve been apart. And I’ve been thinking, maybe it’s time. Everybody retires sooner or later, unless they get zapped, and so why not? It’s time you had a full-time husband, not some …”

Callie put her face inches from his. Her cascading hair framed her dark eyes. She put her hands on his cheeks. “I’ve been extraordinarily happy married to you. Oh, the separations have been hard to take, but I can endure the days alone because I know that, God willing, you’re coming back to me. You are who you are and what you are, and I love you. So don’t you dare start talking like you’ve given me the dirty end of the stick these last fifteen years. You haven’t.”

He started to speak, but she put her lips on his. In a moment he carried her back to the bed.

They ate a room service breakfast on the balcony, wearing only their robes. From here you could see the sweep of the Bay of Naples and the old Renaissance harbor where the yachts moored. The carrier lay several miles out to sea, foreshortened from this angle. Two surface combatants were anchored near her. The carrier’s flat top looked grotesque, but the cruisers with their superstructures looked ominous, powerful — gray warships on a blue sea. And way, way out there, the sea and the sky were married by the summer haze. It was going to be hot today.

“Are you going out to the ship?” Callie asked as she sipped her orange juice.

“Thought I might, after a while. Then maybe this afternoon you and I could go somewhere together. How about Pompeii?” Jake sat looking at the ship and drumming on the glass table with his fingers.

“I’m glad you gave up smoking.”

“I haven’t made it yet,” Jake said, and self-consciously stuffed his hands with their chewed fingernails into his robe pockets.

Callie hid her smile behind another piece of toast. Yes indeed, she decided, she had been extraordinarily lucky when she landed this one. Not that he had had a chance of getting away, of course. She ran a hand through her hair and stretched. Jake was looking down at the patio around the pool three stories below where breakfast was served al fresco.

“What are you looking at?”

“I thought I recognized that girl. But from this angle I’m not sure.”

Callie rose and stepped over to the railing. She had her toast in her hand. “Which girl?”

“That one with the blue dress.”

Callie leaned on the railing and called, “Oh, Judith. Good morning.” The girl in the blue dress looked up, grinned, and waved.

“It’s Judith Farrell,” Callie announced, and popped the last bite of toast into her mouth.

“Where in the name of God did you meet her?”

“On the plane down here from London. She sat right beside me. She’s a very nice young lady, an American reporter living in Paris. Gave me an excellent chance to practice my French. She’s very fluent. She’s going to be in Naples for two weeks. I asked her to have dinner with us tonight.”

Jake’s startled gaze left Callie and went back to the patio and the top of Judith Farrell’s head.

“Who did you think she was?” Callie asked curiously.

“I thought she might be Ms. Judith Farrell of the International Herald Tribune. The world is just too goddamn small.”

Up in his suite, Colonel Qazi swung his binoculars toward poolside and examined Farrell’s profile. He was seated on a chair atop a table well back from the doors to the balcony so that he was invisible to persons in other rooms. After a moment he took his headphones off and handed them back to Yasim. He lifted the binoculars again. His brows knitted as he watched Judith Farrell eat her continental breakfast.

“Judith Farrell. What room is she in, Noora?”

The girl checked the chart. “Room 822.”

“You and Yasim get it wired as soon as possible. Bugs in her phone, bathroom, and bed.”

“Who is she?” Ali asked.

“Ostensibly a reporter. She was on the ship in Tangiers.”

“Could she recognize you?”

“No. I was fat and sixty-five years old for that appearance.” He handed the binoculars to Ali, who trained them on the girl at poolside.

When Qazi received the glasses back, he swung them to the Graftons’ balcony. So Farrell and Mrs. Grafton had side-by-side seats on the flight from London. Very interesting.

The colonel climbed down from his perch while the ex-CIA agent, Sakol, examined Judith Farrell with the binoculars. He fingered the focus knob. After a glance, he placed the glasses back on the table. “I’ve never seen her before — Mossad, CIA, or GRU.”

“It is also possible she is what she seems to be,” Qazi said with finality.

“Or she could be one of those amateurs that the Americans are using these days instead of the CIA professionals,” Sakol retorted as he resumed his seat. “Perhaps she delivers autographed Bibles and cakes shaped like keys.” He yawned and stretched.

“We’ll check her room,” Qazi said. “It would be an honor to have an opportunity to steal a Bible signed by a president.” He turned to Ali. “What did you learn last night about security and antiterrorist precautions aboard the ship?”

“They have armed marines at the enlisted landing on the fantail, and on the officer’s brow. Four fifty-caliber machine guns, two on each side of the flight deck, are manned by marines around the clock. Planes are scattered around the flight deck so there is no room for a helicopter to land. The radio masts that surround the flight deck are kept in an up position. Lights are rigged around the ship so that swimmers and small boats cannot approach at night unseen.”

“And the communications?”

“He got it all,” Sakol sneered. “Your sadistic, camel-fucking assistant enjoyed every minute. He had a hard-on the whole time. I thought his cock was going to rip his zipper out.”

Ali’s right hand moved toward the pistol he carried in his trouser pocket, since it was too hot to wear a jacket.

Qazi waved his hand at Sakol. “Enough, Sakol. Enough. I can’t let Ali shoot you just yet.”

“The little prick wouldn’t enjoy just shooting me. He would first want to—”

“Enough!”

“I’m going to get some sleep,” Sakol said. “You perverts figure out how you’re going to rape the world. Put Ali near the crotch.” He went into the bedroom and slammed the door.

“He will betray us,” Ali said.

“Perhaps, given the opportunity.” Qazi sighed and stretched. “Are we on schedule?”

“It will be very tight. I am returning to Africa this afternoon. Noora should return with me. We will need her to handle Jarvis.”

“Three days. We must be ready to go in three days. The Americans might sail at any time.”

“Their reservations are for another seven days,” Yasim reminded them.

“The American government could order the ship to sail at any time in response to events in Lebanon. This would be an excellent time for those Shiite fools to behave themselves, but one cannot expect miracles. We must seize this opportunity before it escapes us.”

“Then we must make some changes.”

“Yes.” Qazi rubbed the back of his neck. Ensuring the painstaking accomplishment of a myriad of small details was the foundation of a successful clandestine operation, and the reason Colonel Qazi was still alive after twelve years in the business. He insisted Ali and his other lieutenants exhibit the wholehearted enthusiasm for detail he preached. Unanticipated events would occur in spite of every precaution, but the less left to chance the better.

“Tell me about the communications.”

Jake left the hotel at eight A.M. with four other officers he met in the lobby. All were attired in civilian clothes. Walking down the Via Medina together, they still drew glances from pedestrians and kamikazes zipping by on motor scooters. American sailors on liberty were no longer authorized to wear their uniforms ashore due to the terrorist threat, but their nationality was obvious to everyone, especially when they opened their mouths. Another regulation decreed without even a nod toward reality, Jake mused. He began to perspire as he walked. The exercise felt good after so long without it.

They turned left when they reached the Piazza Municipio and walked down the divided boulevard toward the harbor. Behind them, across the top of the boulevard, was the Municipal Building. On their right the Castel Nuovo jutted upward into the dirty-white morning haze. On the side of the seven-hundred-year-old structure Jake could see a shell impact mark, perhaps a scar from World War II. It appeared as if a shell with a contact fuse had gouged a shallow hole in the stone and the shrapnel had ripped out gouges which radiated in all directions from the center crater. Jake wondered how many wars and sieges and shellings the castle had withstood.

The little group threaded their way through bumper-to-bumper morning traffic to the gate to the quay. The carabinieri on duty gave the little group a salute and received smiles in reply.

They joined other officers and men waiting for the ship’s launch. As they chatted they watched the ferries getting under way for Ischia and Capri. People boarded the vessels through the stern, then each moved slowly ahead as a man on the bow took in the anchor cable and, a hundred yards from the quay, the anchor itself. Now the screws bit the water in earnest and the wake began to spread. As each ferry departed, people on the stern waved heartily to the Americans.

When the officer’s launch arrived at half past the hour, Jake stood with the boat officer and coxswain amidships rather than sit in the forward or after passenger compartment. He had never gotten used to riding these small craft in the chop beyond the breakwater.

The launch plowed the oily, black water and stirred the floating trash with its wake as it passed the bows of four U.S. destroyers and frigates moored stern-in against the breakwater. At the masthead of each ship the radar dishes rotated endlessly. Most of these ships were part of the flotilla that accompanied and protected the United States. At the piers on the other side of the harbor, on his left as the launch made for the harbor entrance, ships of the Italian Navy were moored. Just visible in the haze beyond them was the rising prominence of Mount Vesuvius.

Jake looked aft, over the stern on the boat. Buildings from prior centuries covered the hills behind the Castel Nuovo and the Municipal Building. At the top of the most prominent height stood a magnificent stone castle. This was Castel Sant’Elmo, now a military prison. The flanks of the hill between the Municipal Building and Castel Sant’Elmo formed the oldest, poorest quarter of the city, the tenderloin known to generations of American sailors as “the Gut.” The bars and girls there had entertained seafarers for centuries, and the punks there had rolled them and left them bleeding for at least as long.

Even with its smart new residential and shopping districts, Naples remained an industrial port city, not pretty, not spruced up for tourists, but a city of muscle encased in fat and smelling of sweat and cheap wine. It was an old European city that modern Italian glitz and new Roman fashion had yet to transform.

He watched the features of the city merge into the morning haze as the boat bucked through the swells beyond the harbor entrance. The natural breeze was magnified by the boat’s speed, so the perspiration dried on Jake’s face and his stomach remained calm. He even traded quips with the boat officer, a young F-14 pilot in whites.

Gulls looking for a handout swept over the launch, almost close enough to touch, their heads pointed into the prevailing wind, out to sea. On the boat’s fantail the Stars and Stripes crackled at attention.

It was a good feeling, Jake reflected, seeing the gray ships lying there at anchor in the sun with the sea breeze in your face, the coxswain wearing his Dixie cup at a jaunty angle to prevent it from being blown off, his white uniform incandescent in the sun. This was the part of his life Jake would miss the most, this carefree, tangy adventure with the world young and fresh, life stretching ahead over the waves toward an infinite horizon.

But as the launch approached the United States Jake Grafton’s thoughts were no longer on the scenic quality of the morning. The two linesmen lowered the bumpers at the last moment and leaped onto the float below the officer’s brow as the launch brushed against it. At the top of the ladder the officer-of-the-deck saluted Jake, who nodded and rushed on by. He made his way to his stateroom on the O-3 level, right beneath the flight deck, and called Farnsworth as he changed into a khaki uniform. “Have you been ashore yet?” he asked the yeoman.

“Not yet, sir. I’m going this afternoon after I get a few more things done.”

“How about having someone bring the maintenance logbook for that A-6 that crashed up to the CAG office. I want to look at it.”

“I’ll call their duty officer.”

“Anything sizzling?”

“Same old stuff, sir. The XO is having everyone do another muster this morning. Seems three guys, one of them a petty officer, didn’t show up this morning. So the XO is making the whole ship muster again.”

“See you in a few minutes.”

He wondered what that was all about. Ray Reynolds must be worried about something.

In the office he automatically reached into the helmet suspended from the overhead. It was empty. He accepted a mug of coffee from Farnsworth and stared accusingly at the helmet as he took the first experimental sips. Finally he retreated to his office, the “cave,” where he flipped through the incoming messages and letters. The navy had named an officer to replace him, someone he didn’t know. The new man would report in four weeks. No hint as to Jake’s next assignment. Perhaps that was just as well. No doubt it would be some staff or paperwork job somewhere. Better he shouldn’t know just now, while Callie was here.

The maintenance logbook was delivered by a young airman, whom Jake thanked. The book was a loose-leaf binder. On the metal cover in numbers an inch high was the black stencil “503,” the side-number of the A-6 Majeska and Reed had taken on Reed’s last flight. Below the large number, in smaller stencil, was the aircraft’s six-digit bureau number.

Jake opened the book. On the right side were the “down” gripes for the last ten flights. Each gripe card carried the date of the repair, the name of the man who had performed it, and the corrective action taken. On the left side of the book were all the “up” gripes that had not been repaired. A down gripe, by definition, was one so serious that the aircraft could not fly until it was fixed. An up gripe, on the other hand, was a nuisance problem that could wait until the bird was down for another problem or a planned maintenance inspection before it was repaired, or “worked off.”

Jake read the down gripes first and the particulars of each sign-off. The problems struck him as routine; the type of complaints that one expected an aircraft to have, especially if it were used hard, as all the A-6s had been these last few months.

The up gripes constituted quite a stack. The little forms were arranged in order, with the most recent on the top of the pile and the oldest on the bottom. When he had read each one, he went back through and read them all again carefully.

Finally he closed the book. What was there about that aircraft that caused a crash? There was not a single gripe on the oxygen system. Had Bull Majeska really blacked out? At sea level, where there was plenty of oxygen if his mask were not completely sealed to his face? Or was he lying? What revelation could he make that would be so terrible? Terrible to whom? To Majeska, of course. When Jake found himself chewing on a fingernail, he slammed the book on the desk and shouted for Farnsworth.

“Gimme a cigarette.”

“No.”

“Goddammit! Please!”

“Bust me. Give me a court-martial. No more weeds for you.”

“If you shaved your legs, Farnsworth, you’d make somebody a good wife.”

“No cigarettes for you, sailor. But you wanna buy me a drink?”

“Go down to the captain’s office and find out why we had two musters this morning.”

“Yessir.”

Up on the flight deck Jake wandered along until he found an A-6 unattended by maintenance troops. He lowered the pilot’s boarding ladder and thumbed the canopy switch. The canopy opened slowly, the battery driving a small hydraulic pump that whined loudly in protest. He climbed the ladder and sat down in the cockpit.

He wondered if Reed would still be alive if he hadn’t taken him flying that night. Mad Dog, with the regular, even features and the soft voice. Agh, who can say what might have been or should have been or would have been, if only …? That kind of thinking was for philosophers and politicians. But Reed was dead. The kid that had had enough was now dead.

His eyes went from instrument to instrument. ADI, altimeter, airspeed, radar altimeter, gyro, warning lights … His gaze meandered to the buttons and knobs on the bombardier’s side of the cockpit. He found himself staring at the black hood that shielded the radar and FLIR.

They were looking over a Greek freighter at night. Reed must have had the FLIR on, just as he had done when he and Jake had swooped down on that dynamite boat several weeks ago. And Reed would have had his head glued against the hood. Bull Majeska had been sitting here, flying the plane, close to the water — how high? As they went by the ship Reed would have used the zoom lens on the FLIR in the nose turret to see the detail of the freighter. And Majeska? He would have squeezed the stick trigger and brought the infrared display up on the ADI. And he would have been paying attention to flying the plane. If he got too near the water, the radar altimeter would have given him a warning.

Jake’s left hand went to that instrument and rotated the knob that set the altitude at which the warning beep would sound. He watched the little wedge-shaped bug move around the dial. If the pilot had it set too high, when the warning went off he would ignore it. If he had it set too low, when the warning sounded it would be too late.

Say Majeska was watching the freighter instead of flying. Or say he got distracted by something in the cockpit. The audible warning sounds when the aircraft descends to whatever altitude the bug was set to. And then? What? Majeska rights the plane and breaks the descent? No. Not that. They either hit the water or … Or what? What made Majeska refuse to talk?

Jake smacked his fist on his thigh and got out of the cockpit. He closed the canopy and strode across the deck. Down in the CAG office, he grabbed the maintenance logbook and flipped through the up gripes. There it was. “Contrast control on ADI intermittent. Went dark once. Possible short.” That had been an up gripe. Two flights later, just the night before the crash, a down gripe: “ADI went black. FIX THIS THING.” The sign-off was the same as on the previous gripe: “Could not duplicate.”

He fired up the office copying machine and shot copies of both gripes. He put the copies in the top drawer of his desk.

“What did you find out?” he asked Farnsworth when he returned.

“They just said the XO told them to take another muster. He didn’t say why.”

“Here,” Jake said, handing the maintenance log to the yeoman. “You can take this back, then go get some chow. It’s lunchtime.”

Jake called the XO, Ray Reynolds. “This is Grafton, XO. Just curious, why two musters this morning?”

“One of those guys who didn’t show for muster is a petty officer. Another’s a marine lance corporal I know the corporal. He stands orderly duty for me sometimes. He is one squared-away marine, a damn good kid. Something is wrong.”

“Maybe …”

“Oh, I know. What officer ever knows what a youngster is thinking, what his wife or girlfriend is writing him? But I would have bet a month’s pay on this kid. He’s going to the Naval Academy prep school at the end of this cruise. I even wrote a letter of recommendation for his application.”

“Terrorists, you think?” Jake asked, chewing again on a fingernail.

“People see terrorists in every woodpile. I don’t know what to think.”

“Thanks for filling me in.”

“Sure. How’s Callie?” They exchanged pleasantries for a moment, then broke the connection.

Jake was sitting in the forward wardroom going over paperwork with four of his staff officers when Toad Tarkington brought his lunch in on a tray and sat down with his buddies at another table.

“Okay, Will. You scribble up responses to these messages,” Jake indicated a pile, “and Harry, you do these others.” Will Cohen and Harry March gathered up their respective heaps. “Unless a message is marked urgent, we’ll answer the rest of them after we sail.”

“Yes, sir.”

“After Farnsworth gets the messages typed, I want you to put him on a boat for the beach. He deserves liberty and he won’t go as long as he thinks there’s still something in the in-basket. Kick him off the ship.”

“You got it.”

“Thanks, guys.” The officers picked up their papers and departed. Jake raised his voice, “Mr. Tarkington.”

“Yes, CAG.”

“Come join me for a minute, will you?”

Toad brought his lunch tray with him. When he had resumed work on his hamburger, Jake said, “Remember that female reporter that came aboard in Tangiers? Judith Farrell?”

Toad nodded and mumbled affirmatively as he chewed.

“How would you like to have another go at her?”

Toad’s eyebrows went together and he swallowed hard. “She’s here? In Naples?”

“Yep. Going to have dinner with me and my wife tonight. How about you coming along and seeing if you can get her off my hands.”

“Geez, CAG …”

“Now look, you idiot. I’m not asking you to put the munch on this broad. Just see what you can do to get her away from me. You did a real nice job of that in Tangiers and … since you’re a sporting lad, I thought you might be willing to try again.”

“She didn’t think a whole lot of my act, CAG. When I need something hard to pound my head against, I can always go down to my room and bop the bulkhead.”

“Hey, my wife tells me she’s a very nice lady. Now personally I find that hard to believe, but it might be true. Maybe she was just playing the role for us yokels in uniform. You know, hard-boiled political reporter looking for dirt.”

“Or playing a role for your wife.”

“Toad, are you going to respond affirmatively to this request for assistance from a senior officer?”

“Uh, yessir, I am, since you put it that way.”

“You’re a good man, Toad. There’s just not much demand for good men these days. Wear a suit and tie. Meet you at seven in the lobby of the Vittorio Emanuele. That’s a hotel. Ask a cabbie where it is.”

“You’re picking up the check tonight, aren’t you, sir?”

“Eat a couple hamburgers before you show up. That’s an order.”

“Has Majeska said anything yet?” Admiral Parker asked.

“No, he hasn’t.”

“The idiot,” Parker muttered, more to himself than Jake. He rubbed his forehead with the fingertips of both hands. “He can’t stay in command of that squadron.”

“He knows that. But the alternative, for him, seems worse.” Jake sipped his coffee.

“Do you have any ideas what happened out there?”

“I’ve got a theory. But that’s all it is. No hard evidence. In fact, no evidence at all.” Jake passed Cowboy the copies of the gripes from the lost plane’s maintenance logbook. The admiral read each of them twice. He looked at Jake quizzically.

“I think the ADI blacked out on him and he got distracted. Or he had the infrared display on the ADI and the changing aspect angles disoriented him. In any event, he quit flying the airplane, just for a few seconds. Maybe he had the radar altimeter warning set too low. Or too high. Then he realized he was going into the water.”

Jake shrugged. “I think he panicked and ejected.”

“Leaving his BN sitting there?”

“That’s the only thing that would explain his refusal to talk. He’d rather kiss his career good-bye than confess he panicked and punched out without warning his BN. I think he now believes he left Reed there in the cockpit to die.”

“Maybe there wasn’t enough time to tell Reed. Maybe if he had, they would have both died when the plane hit the water.”

“Maybe. But if Bull thought that now, he’d probably be talking.”

Parker tugged at an earlobe and read the gripes again, then passed them back to Jake. “I think you should relieve him of his command and notify Washington. Write a message requesting that he be ordered to remain aboard until the accident investigation is completed.”

“I already have, sir.” Jake passed a draft of the message to the admiral, who read it carefully.

“Have you told Majeska yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Do it. If you’re wrong, maybe he’ll set us straight.”

“What if I’m wrong and he’s really telling the truth? Perhaps he really doesn’t remember.”

“Then you’ve just made a command decision on the best information available and mistakenly cut a good man’s throat. You’ll have to live with it and so will he.”

Jake nodded and placed the message on his lap. He folded the gripe copies and put them in a shirt pocket.

The two men sat in silence. Finally Admiral Parker said, “How’s Callie?”

“Fine.” Jake chewed on his lower lip.

“Listen, Jake. Majeska has given you no choice with this. You must relieve him.”

“I know.” Jake’s features contorted and he threw the message on the floor. “God damn his fucking ass! God damn him to fucking hell! That kid Reed was going to quit flying since he was getting out of the navy in six months. And I talked him into staying in the cockpit. Damn near ordered him to.” He swore some more. “And then that fucker Majeska kills the kid and isn’t man enough to face up to it. And now I have to can his ass.” He ran out of steam. “Damn it all,” he said softly.

Admiral Parker examined a picture on the bulkhead, then studied his fingernails. “What does Callie think about your quitting smoking?”

Jake picked up the message and folded it carefully. He crossed his legs. “She says it’s about time.”

Parker grunted. “Bring her out to the ship some evening and we’ll have dinner together.”

“Sure. Which evening? Can’t do it tonight.”

“Day after tomorrow?”

“Okay.”

“Tell her I said hello.”

“Sure, Cowboy.” Jake got up to leave. “Sure. She’ll be looking forward to seeing you again.”

“Farnsworth, why the hell are you still here?”

“Uh, I had a few things still to do, CAG.” Jake knew he would not go ashore until his boss did. He dropped into the chair beside the yeoman’s desk.

“Call the A-6 ready room and ask if Commander Majeska is aboard. If he is, ask them to pass along that I would like to see him here in the CAG office as soon as possible.”

Farnsworth had typed the message in Jake’s hand, so he knew what this was all about. He dialed the phone and spoke to the A-6 squadron duty officer as Jake stood and stared at the helmet hanging upside down from the ceiling.

“He was in the ready room. He’ll be right up.”

Jake laid the message on Farnsworth’s desk and signed it. “When Majeska gets here, send him into my office. Then I want you to walk out of here with that message, lock the door behind you, and take the message to the communications center for transmission. Then you are to change clothes and go ashore. That is a direct order.” Jake stood up.

“Yessir.”

Jake tilted the helmet on the coathanger, just in case. Nothing. He gave it a little punch with his fist, then went into his office and closed the door behind him.

When Majeska arrived, Jake motioned to a chair. “Sit down.” The A-6 skipper looked exhausted, the creases in his face now deep grooves.

“I’m relieving you of your command, Bull.”

Majeska nodded and studied his hands.

“Look me in the face, Goddammit!”

Majeska’s gaze came up. His lower lip quivered.

Jake took the copies of the gripes from his pocket and unfolded them. He passed them across the desk.

Majeska read them slowly, unbelievingly, one after the other. When he finished with one sheet, he placed it under the other, and so read them again and again and again. It was as if there were six or eight sheets of paper, not just two. Finally he said, “You knew … that speech the other night to the air wing … you knew all along.”

Jake held out his hand for the copies.

Majeska’s chin sank to his chest.

“It was an accident, Bull. You didn’t mean to kill him.”

“There just wasn’t any time. We were going down so fast, the water was right there…. I had to get out. There was no time to think … no time …”