Final Flight

20

The carrier loomed like a cliff out of the heaving sea. She had swung on her anchor until her bow was pointed directly into the wind.

The boat officer held the spotlight on the float moored against the ship’s stern as the coxswain maneuvered the assault boat in. From the cavernous fantail fifteen feet above the water-line, two more spots were trained on the float, which rose and fell to the rhythm of the sea, water spewing from the steel deck and the tires lashed along the side for bumpers. The stairway up to the fantail had wheels mounted on its base, where it rested on the float, and was tracking madly back and forth across the bucking float like a giant phonograph needle on a badly warped record.

The coxswain threw the screws into reverse and jammed on the power, but the mike boat was in the sheltered lee created by the huge ship and continued to close too quickly on the float, which rose when the boat fell and fell when the boat rose. He slammed the lever for the screws out of reverse and jammed the throttles forward as he spun the helm. He clawed off, barely missing one corner of the gyrating steel float.

The coxswain was no more than twenty. Framed by his slicker, his wet face was a study in concentration as he again brought the boat with its load of sodden, sick men in toward the ship. This time he closed too slowly, and the boat lost headway twenty feet below the float, before it reached the wind shelter created by the ship. The coxswain poured on the power and Jake could hear the engines roaring above the noise of the storm. But the corkscrewing boat was stymied by the wind deflected down the side of the monstrous ship, which pushed it away from the float and the looming stern-quarter of the carrier. The coxswain spun the helm hard over and used full power on just one engine to swing the boat out, away from the ship, for another try.

“Third time’s the charm,” Jake yelled into the coxswain’s ear. The boy’s lips parted in a slight grin, but his eyes never left the writhing float.

The boat officer was standing by Jake now. As the senior officer on the boat, Jake was legally responsible for its safe operation. The young boat officer wanted to be where he could relay any order Jake cared to give. Jake knew this, and he also knew that the coxswain was a much better boat handler than either of the officers, so he intended to say nothing at all unless the coxswain completely lost the bubble. Then Jake’s only real option would be to order him to return to the beach.

The coxswain had learned from his first two approaches. This time he held his speed until the proper moment, then used the screws in reverse to bring the boat against the float. His line handlers lassoed the mooring bitts on the float and lashed their lines down as the boat and the float ground together, still moving up and down out of sync.

Jake eyed the heaving float, and jumped across when the boat and float established a brief, temporary equilibrium. He held onto the lifeline and made his way to the moving stairway, which he leaped aboard and climbed while holding onto the railing with both hands.

He presented his ID card to the marine sentries at the top of the ladder, then stepped aside to watch the men exit the boat. The boat officer was directing men out of the well, and two men from the ship stood on the float and grabbed as men jumped or leaped across. The drunks were the last to be manhandled from the welldeck and assisted onto the float.

Then it happened. The next-to-last impaired sailor lost his balance and fell backward waving his arms violently. Somehow the men holding him lost their grip, and the flailing man fell against the man behind him and they both toppled over the stern of the mike boat. Their life jackets held them up, but the wind and swells were pushing them away from the float.

“Man overboard, man overboard, from the fantail,” the ship’s loudspeaker blared.

The boat officer threw a life ring. Then he tossed a saltwater-activated flare.

Jake fought his way through the marines checking ID cards and the stream of sailors coming up the ladder. “Get these people off the float and outta here,” he shouted at the sergeant in charge of the marines.

“Keep those lights trained on the guys in the water,” Jake roared at the sailors manning the spotlights. He grabbed the bullhorn from the junior officer-of-the-deck and elbowed his way to the rail.

“You in the boat! Take those men there helping on the float and make off. Pull those guys out. Put life jackets on everyone.” He turned around. The fantail was full of gawkers. He used the bullhorn again. “You people get the hell out of here. Now!”

Colonel Qazi led his two former Shore Patrolmen and four of the drunks down the narrow passageway that led from the fan-tail to the hangar bay. He would have to work fast. The men in the water had been instructed to attempt to delay their rescue as long as possible, but once picked up, they would be taken to the ship’s sick bay and there it would be discovered they were not Americans. Qazi hoped he had at least fifteen minutes, but that was about all the time he could reasonably expect.

There were many men on the hangar deck, all in soaking wet civilian clothes. They were just passing through on their way to the berthing compartments for dry clothes. Qazi’s men in civilian clothes would become conspicuous in just a few minutes. Qazi fanned out his men and they began to search through the crates stacked against the aft end of the hangar bay. Men dribbled past from the fantail passageway. Qazi fought back the urge to help his men search through this mountain of supply crates and stood watching with his arms crossed.

A group of men in working uniform ran past, toward the entrance to the fantail passageway.

The loudspeaker blared to life. “Flight quarters, flight quarters for helo operations. Standby to launch the helo on the waist.” Captain Grafton wasn’t betting all his chips on the assault boat coxswain, Qazi thought.

A chief petty officer approached Qazi. “What’s going on?”

“Couple drunks fell overboard getting off the liberty boat.”

“No shit? What a night for it. You better go get some dry clothes on yourself.”

“Yeah, Chief.”

The chief walked away, headed forward. Qazi turned back to his men. They were still scouring the crates, which were piled four deep on pallets and the pallets were stacked together with narrow passageways all the way back to the aft bulkhead. There must be two hundred crates stacked here. Where was their crate?

“Over here.”

It was back in one narrow walkway, on top of one crate, with another stacked on top of it. One of the men grabbed a fire ax from a bulkhead mount and attacked the crate. The planes forward of them in the bay and the piles of boxes sheltered them from observation by other people going to and fro. Yet the ax against the wood made a lot of noise, the wrong kind of noise. Then the wood gave.

They pulled the other crate off the top of it and pushed it up on another pile and disassembled their crate. Two diesel engines were packed side by side.

“Stack the wood neatly against the bulkhead,” Qazi directed. As the men quickly cleared up the wood, Qazi examined the two engines. He found the mark he was looking for.

“This one,” he said. “Bring the ax.” The six men lifted the engine and he led them out of the crate-storage area and between the aircraft which filled the bay to a compartment on the port side. An A-6 with wings folded was parked nearly in front of the door, shielding it from the view of the man in the fire-fighting compartment high in the bulkhead on the other side of the bay. Qazi used the pointed, piercing tool on the back of the axhead to force the door.

The compartment was a damage-control locker. Fire hoses, oxygen-breathing apparatus, fire extinguishers, fire-resistant suits, and other tools of the damage-control party filled the space. With the engine and all the men inside, Qazi shut the door.

When he turned around, the men were opening the container, which really wasn’t an engine at all but merely a metal shell stamped to look like an engine. Inside the shell were uniforms and weapons, Uzis with silencers. There were also Browning Hi-Powers with silencers for everyone. The men stripped to the skin and put on the uniforms, bell-bottom jeans, and short-sleeve denim shirts. Over this they added a navy-blue sweater and a jacket. White wool socks and black, ankle-high brogans went on the feet and wool caps on the heads.

“Go get the other shell and bring it in here,” Qazi said when everyone was dressed. That shell held plastic explosive and fuses.

The Command Duty Officer relieved Jake on the fantail. Tonight the CDO was Commander Ron Triblehorn, the chief engineer. The mike boat was a hundred yards from the ship making an approach to one of the men in the water. The helo was still on the flight deck. As Commander Triblehorn explained the situation by telephone to Captain James, who was on the bridge and had ordered the helo launched, Jake left the fantail and walked through the hangar bay. He passed Ray Reynolds dogtrotting aft. Jake climbed a ladder amidships and went to his stateroom on the O-3 level. After he stripped off his sodden clothes and toweled himself dry, he called the air wing office.

“Who’ve you got up there tonight, Farnsworth?”

“Well, sir, one of the yeomen and three of the officers have showed up. I’m getting the yeomen in here to help with the muster.” Whenever “man overboard” was called away, every division and squadron on the ship had to muster its people. Since so many men were on the beach tonight, the listing of personnel who could not be accounted for would be time-consuming and tedious. “I was already here when they called man overboard,” Farnsworth continued. “Lieutenant Tarkington was looking for you, so I came down to the office to give him a place to sit. He’s waiting for you now.”

“I’ll be up there in a few minutes. I’m changing clothes.”

“I’ll tell him, sir. And CAG,” Farnsworth’s voice dropped to a whisper, “Mr. Tarkington’s pretty upset.”

“If he thinks he’s going to rag me about securing his liberty, he’d better have another think before I get there.”

“I doubt if that’s it. He doesn’t look a bit self-righteous.”

“Humph. Remind Tarkington to call his squadron to muster.”

Jake put on a clean khaki uniform and pulled on his leather flight jacket. The air inside the ship was at no more than sixty degrees tonight. It had been so warm these past few days, perhaps someone had forgotten to turn on the heat. Or Captain James had ordered it left off to save the navy sixty-four cents worth of enriched uranium. Jake toweled his head dry and combed his hair. He grabbed his combination cap, the one with the scrambled eggs on the visor, and locked the door behind him.

“What’s your problem, Tarkington?”

“I need to talk to you, sir. And I heard you were looking for me.”

“Into the office.” Farnsworth and his two assistants were already checking names on muster sheets as the squadrons called in.

Jake closed the office door and motioned Tarkington to a chair. He felt around for the note the lieutenant had written to him on the beach, but he had left it in his civilian trousers.

“They shot two men to death tonight at the Vittorio.”

“I heard,” Jake said.

“I was there.”

“Oh,” said Jake, and sank into his chair.

“Judith Farrell was the leader of the assassination team.”

Jake Grafton threw his hat on the desk and rubbed his eyes. “Start talking.”

His men stood casually. Their handguns were in the back of their trousers, in the small of their backs under their sweaters and jackets. The Uzis were in small gym bags, along with spare magazines and grenades.

Qazi examined each face. “Okay, you know your assignments. The success of our mission depends on each one of you carrying out your assignments exactly as you have been taught. Remember, they do not yet know we are aboard, and the longer we remain undetected, the easier this mission will be. You are now American sailors. Just proceed purposefully, yet unhurriedly, and the Americans will accept you as one of them.” Three of them spoke no English and the other three spoke only a little, with heavy accents. They had all been instructed that when spoken to, merely nod, smile, and go on.

Their faces were grim, determined. “Remember to smile.” A smile was an American’s passport, the visible proof that his heart was pure and his intentions honorable. Since World War II the Americans had grinned at almost everyone on earth. Now even nomads in the Gobi desert were smiling.

“Go.”

When everyone had left the compartment, Qazi closed the door and placed a padlock on it. He removed the key from the padlock and put it in his pocket. A close examination would show the door had been forced and the door-handle lock broken, but the padlock would delay them for a few minutes. He picked up his gym bag and, with two of his men behind him, walked between the airplanes until he could look up at the man in the center hangar-deck fire station, CONFLAG 2. He smiled at him and walked toward the hatch immediately below the watch station. He glanced around. One of the red paint lockers stood against the bulkhead. As soon as he finished upstairs, while his men were visiting the other two CONFLAG stations, he would plant bombs on at least four or five of these paint lockers. He took a deep breath and began to climb the ladder.