Flash Point

24

Meat erased the aircraft numbers on the grease board in the front of the ready room for the event that had just landed and began to put numbers up for the crew’s briefing. The board showed the ever-changing status of the flight schedule. Woods sat in the chair in the first row staring at the television screen. Most of the other officers in the ready room were watching the CNN report too, but none with his intensity. A reporter stood in front of a pile of rubble on a clear bright day in southern Lebanon. Several people behind her, their mouths covered, were sorting through the broken stones and pieces of building. On the bottom of the screen was the name of the town, Dar al Ahmar, Lebanon.

The officers in the ready room listened with skepticism. Any time the media reported on anything military, they held onto their wallets.

“… and here, as you can see, there has been substantial damage by some stray Israeli bombs. We have spoken to many local residents and all of them have said that there was no reason to bomb Dar al Ahmar. It has nothing of military value and is not defended by any antiaircraft guns or missiles. They are very upset that the Israelis were unable to aim their bombs correctly and killed several innocent people. According to the residents, the building was hit by two bombs almost simultaneously. It was a motorcycle sales and repair shop, selling mostly motor scooters and motorized bicycles. At the time of the attack there were approximately six people inside getting the shop ready to open for business, including one unlucky fellow who had just stopped in this morning to deliver some new Honda motor scooters to the shop. The attack occurred at approximately 8 a.m. Lebanon time, and was very short in duration. There were several other places bombed, and there were airplanes shot down, but details about the air battle are still unclear, according to what I have been able to piece together. Back to you, in Washington.”

Woods tried to look nonchalant. He was so glad Israel had done it. He was thrilled to have been in combat for the first time. He wanted to shout from the highest point on the carrier, “Got you!” He wanted to let everyone know that Americans would always protect their countrymen. But his exuberance was tempered by Leavenworth. He knew the chances of being caught were now less — they had made it back safely and on time, and the Gunner would take care of the rest. The Gunner assured him he knew how to fix the computer and paper records so no one could trace the replacement missiles.

The remainder of the day passed unremarkably. That night Woods lay awake staring at the overhead. He kept seeing the MiG that he had gunned go down and slam into the desert, undoubtedly killing the pilot. He tried to count. That MiG pilot for sure. The Flogger pilot with the Sparrow shot… the Sidewinder kill, no chute. Three. He had personally killed three men. At least three. Maybe more. It was such a blur, but a vivid blur. He had never killed anyone before. He had never even started a fistfight before. Been in a few, but never of his own making. Over and over again, he could hear the whoosh of the missiles coming off the rails. Sparrow. Sidewinder.

Bernie the Breather was making its curious gushh, cuh cuh cuh sounds, matching the images of the missiles going off the rails in Woods’s mind. He listened for several minutes to the mindless valve inside the pipe flapping up and down.

“You awake?” Big asked.

“Yeah,” Woods answered.

They lay in the dark, unable to see each other.

“What you thinking about?”

“The strike.”

“What about it?”

“Everything. Cat launch, going over the beach, the rendezvous, going north at low level, the air battle, the fight, the LGBs on the target, heading south, reloading, getting back to the boat on fumes. But most of all, pulling it off. By God, pulling it off,” Woods said. “We actually did it, Big.”

Big didn’t say anything at first. He had his arms behind his head under his pillow. Finally he spoke. “So far.”

“What do you mean?”

“A lot of people know about it, or know something about it. Somebody’s going to slip.”

“Nah. They wanted us to hit back as much as we did.”

“All it takes is one.”

“Don’t sweat it.”

Big wasn’t to be comforted. “How does it feel to have killed somebody?”

“How do you feel?”

“Sort of cold. I expected to be upset, or feel sorry for the guy or something. It hasn’t gotten to me at all.”

“The only one that keeps coming back is the Fishbed I gunned. The bullets went right through the canopy. He never knew what hit him. No ejection. Nothing. Dead as a doornail. Just drifted down and hit the deck. That was it for him.” Woods was quiet. “That’s the one that keeps coming back.”

Bernie breathed and flapped between their bunks and the bulkhead. Airplanes rushed down the deck above them, pulled off the carrier into the night by the catapults.

“Knowing what you—”

“Would I do it again?”

“Yeah.”

“In a second. And we got him, Big. Vaporized him.”

“The Israelis got him.”

“We were there. If I could have, I would have personally vaporized him.” Woods turned onto his side. “How about you?”

“In a second.” Big rolled over. “Do you know how great a screenplay this would make?”

“I’m telling you.”

“I’ll start on it tomorrow.”

“No, Big. You can’t tell anyone about this for twenty years.”

“Twenty years? I’ll be ancient by then. Forty-six.”

“Twenty years.”

“Not fair,” he said, rolling back to lie face up on the top bunk. “Probably best anyway. We don’t know how it ends.”

Woods settled into the chair in the back of the ready room just as he had hundreds of times before. Wink sat next to him, and the other four officers in the brief were scattered in the other chairs. At the prescribed time, the television came on for the brief, but instead of one of the Ensign Intelligence Officers, CAG stood behind the podium looking particularly stern. “Instead of the usual intelligence brief before the first event, there have been some developments of a serious nature that I want to discuss with you. Those of you in the ready rooms, call all your officers. I want to speak to as many at once as we can. The television will be going off right now. You have five minutes to round up your squadrons. My brief will begin in exactly five minutes.”

Woods yelled to the front of the ready room, “You hear that?”

“I heard it. I need help,” Easy said as he reached for the phone. “Can you start at the bottom of the list and call from the phone on the ops desk? I’ll start at the top with Rocket One and go down.”

Woods jumped up, threw a concerned look at Wink, and ran to the phone on the desk on the other side of the ready room. “Bottom aye,” he yelled to Easy as he ran.

Within five minutes they had found everyone in the squadron but one. Word spread fast. Most of the officers had been in the wardroom eating breakfast, and those who weren’t had been in their racks. They came in their flight suits to see what CAG thought was so important.

“You ever seen anything like this, Skipper?” Sedge asked casually as all the officers settled into seats.

“Never,” Bark replied, annoyed the CAG hadn’t talked to the Squadron Commanders first. Typical. Senior officers were always yelling about using the chain of command, except when it suited them to go around it.

“You got any hints what this is about, Skipper?” asked Easy.

Bark shook his head. He drank from his coffee cup as the television in the front of the ready room jumped to life.

CAG stood in the same place with the same grim look on his face. He was sour-looking anyway, a forty-five-year-old man with skin that looked as if he had spent his whole life avoiding the sun. He was tall and gaunt, and kept his graying hair closely cropped. “Sorry to interfere with the cyclic ops, but we have some news that I wanted to convey to all of you as soon as possible,” he began.

“As you and everyone else in the world knows, yesterday Israel attacked terrorist bases in southern Lebanon. But this was more than the usual air strike. This time they went in force. They sent antiradiation missiles to take out the air defense network, they sent Wild Weasels to take on the SAMs directly, they sent special forces to attack the communications. They had jamming birds, and the E-2C airborne, and they sent their bombers against the camps and one town. They sent fighters in force. Syria apparently responded in kind, and sent dozens of its own fighters… ”

Woods sneaked a look at Big, who was licking his dry lips and avoiding Woods’s gaze.

“… all leading to an enormous air battle. Israel apparently was very successful in taking out the air defenses, as well as the Syrian fighters. The preliminary reports out of Israel are that over twenty Syrian MiGs were shot down, with no Israeli losses.”

The Jolly Rogers looked at each other amazed, murmuring. “Ooorah,” one said.

“All this is interesting, and I’d love to see the gun camera film, but there are other implications,” the CAG went on.

“If you recall, this ship was in port in Haifa the day before yesterday. We went en masse” — he pronounced it “in-mace,” butchering the word, “to a reception at Ramat David Air Force Base. In all likelihood we were with the very people involved in the raid. They couldn’t very well tell us about it because it had probably been in the plans for weeks. The timing of our visit was just unfortunate. The problem is that someone may try to imply that we helped plan the raid. We must do everything we can to avoid even the appearance of complicity. That is why the first two events of this morning are canceled” — the aircrew moaned as a group — “and the ship is going to steam due west to put more distance between us and the Syrians and the Israelis. We don’t want to be mistaken for someone participating in this melee,” he said, butchering the pronounciation again.

“So, when we do fly, stay west of the carrier, ensure that we aren’t approached by any unauthorized aircraft, by either side — we don’t need another Liberty incident — and we’ll make our way to the western Mediterranean. If you have any questions, please address them up the chain of command. Anything you want to know about the raid will be forthcoming in intelligence reports or news reports, whichever comes first. That is all,” he said, removing the microphone from his shirt. The television went blank.

Bark stood up and turned to look at the squadron. “How ’bout them apples,” he said, grinning. “Hey, Trey, just when you were whining, wishing someone would go beat the hell out of them, the Israelis were planning to do just that,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll bet you’d give your left nut to have been on that go.”

Woods nodded and laughed. “I don’t know about that, Skipper. That’s an awfully high price — I’d let them have Wink’s left nut though,” he said.

Bark continued, “Did you tell the Israelis it was Vialli?”

Woods nodded.

“I’ll bet they were busting a gut to tell you,” Bark said.

“Probably,” Woods replied.

“Well,” Bark said, “nothing really to be done. Can’t wait to hear the after action reports. Stay loose, and don’t fly feet dry over Lebanon. Course it’ll be hundreds of miles away by the time we fly again.” He stopped and looked around. “Any questions?”

Easy raised his hand. “What liberty incident was CAG referring to? Some sailor do something in Tel Aviv?”

Bark shook his head. “Not liberty incident, the USS Liberty incident,” he said, emphasizing the name of the ship. “How many of you have heard of the Liberty?” Three of them raised their hands tentatively, hoping he wouldn’t call on them for an explanation. Bark shook his head disgustedly. “You guys are pathetic. The Liberty was a U.S. comm ship operating off Suez in the eastern Med in 1967 when the ’67 war kicked off. The Israelis attacked it and killed a bunch of Americans. Over thirty. Even though it was clearly in international waters and clearly flying an American flag.”

The officers looked at one another. “Mistake?” one finally asked tentatively.

Bark shrugged. “Broad daylight? U.S. Navy gray ship, with U.S. flag? ID number and name in twelve-foot-high letters? International waters? Attacked by airplanes and torpedo boats all of whom were close enough to hit it with machine guns, and neither Egypt nor Syria has a ship anything like it?” He paused. “You tell me. A lot of people think they did it because they were afraid the U.S. was sending intel to Egypt.”

“That’s incredible,” Big said, feeling somehow betrayed, looking at Woods, who was fighting the chill that had settled over most of the officers in the room.

“There are books on it. Read for yourself. Israel said it was a mistake and they were really sorry.”

“What do you think, Skipper?” Big said, anger inside him.

Bark stared at him. “Would you make a mistake like that? Dropping iron bombs on the wrong ship? If you weren’t sure, would you drop? And they had boats out there machine gunning it. Visual range.”

Big shook his head.

“Me neither. I think the official U.S. policy is to accept the Israeli explanation. Well,” Bark continued, “go about your business. Lieutenant fitness report inputs are due to the department heads by Friday, and in final form to the Ops O, our pinch hitting XO, by the next Friday.” He hesitated as they all thought of the XO and Brillo. Woods tried to keep the image of Brillo’s scalp on the airplane tail from leaping into his mind but was completely unsuccessful. “First class evals are due to you in draft from your division chiefs by the end of the month. I still need Sailor of the Quarter nominations, and we have a surprise health and safety inspection scheduled for tomorrow morning. Any other questions?”

There weren’t any.

Kinkaid put the photographs up on the screen. There were three of them, the three views from the accessible sides of the building. There were white arrows on the photographs next to two individuals who were barely noticeable otherwise. It was a grainy, fuzzy photograph, obviously taken through a thermal site. “We just got these in,” he said. He turned the lights down to make the room even dimmer than it already was. All they could see clearly were the computer screens, lights from the equipment, and the photographs on the screen in front of them.

Kinkaid continued, his voice tired from years of tracking people who were hard to find and harder to deal with. “These are from the embassy in Rabat, Morocco. Maybe a couple of thieves. Or, they may be something else. They were standing outside the embassy at two in the morning. They were very hard to see, because they’re very good at what they’re doing—”

“How do we know they’re not just thieves?”

“They may be. That’s what I just said, if you would listen,” he replied annoyed. “But in this case, our officers on the ground say this is a little out of the ordinary. It’s their job to spot the anomalies, and they say this is out of the ordinary. Plus, if you thought about it, thieves don’t usually case an embassy. Not a good target for theft, what with Marines and all.

“I wanted us all to be aware of this. You can see what the concern is. If someone’s watching an embassy, the obvious question is why and the obvious answer is to conduct some kind of attack on the building.”

He showed an overhead diagram of the location of the embassy in Casablanca, another larger one of the city, and a smaller one of the blocks immediately around the distinctive three-story structure. “As you can see, the possible approaches for a truck bomb are numerous. There has been some progress made in blocking off the parking near the building, but we’re not free of risk.”

“He wouldn’t use a truck bomb against an embassy,” Sami said.

Kinkaid stared at Sami, put off by his tone. “How do you know that?”

“It’s not their style.”

“So that’s the end of our analysis? ‘It’s not their style’?”

Sami was stung. “I just don’t think they will. His Assassins operate based on a different set of criteria. He doesn’t seem interested in large bombs that blow up hundreds of people. I think there might be some — I hesitate to call it wisdom — but thinking there. If it’s a big explosion and a hundred people are killed, all we see is a pile of dead people, but it isn’t really personal. So far, at least, he’s gone for the dramatic impact.”

“So don’t worry about a large attack or truck bomb because Sami says?”

“No, sir, we should take precautions, absolutely, I’m just telling you that I don’t think it’s very likely.”

“I’m sending out Snapshot Teams,” Kinkaid said with finality. “Anybody disagree with that?”

Cunningham spoke reluctantly. “Why would he be after us? Unless he knows Ricketts was there, the only American he’s encountered was the Navy officer. By accident. So why would he start on us?”

“Maybe we’ve been his target all along, and now he’s just getting started.”

Cunningham nodded. He and the others knew better than to disagree with the head of the task force, at least when he had declared what he had decided to do. And it did make sense. It was something that should be done, even if they found nothing. The riskier course would be not to send the teams, and have something happen.

Woods sat in front of the computer screen dealing with the e-mails he looked at every day. In fact, in many ways they made his day. He stayed in touch with his mother, his brother, his friends from college, and Navy pals whom he had met at various points in his Navy career. He stared at the in box, surveying the return e-mail addresses for the new e-mails he had received. He noticed one he didn’t recognize — “jaime.rodriguez@mail.house.gov.” What the hell is that? he thought to himself as he scrolled down and hit Enter to retrieve that e-mail first. It came up and he read it:

Woods couldn’t believe his eyes. He read the e-mail again and again. He sat back in his chair and stared at the screen. Suddenly he yelled, “Big!”

Woods and Wink were elected by Bark to be the first aircrew to sit alert five. During the transit west, while there wasn’t going to be any flying, the carrier still had to protect itself from an unexpected attack. It was one thing that all carrier Captains and Air Wing Commanders had in common — an aversion to being attacked by surprise. Pearl Harbor had changed everything. If there was even the remotest possibility of a threat, pilots sat in airplanes on alert, ready to take off on a moment’s notice. With Israel and Syria having at it, it was decided to keep fighters in alert five until the flight schedule picked up again in the afternoon.

Alert five simply meant they had the ability to get airborne with live missiles and defend the carrier battle group from any attack in five minutes. The aircrew had to be strapped into their seats, airplane plugged in, sitting on the cat, alignment set, ready to go. All they had to do was start the engines and get shot off the catapult.

Woods and Wink sat in the Tomcat on catapult three in the middle of the landing area of the flight deck. The canopy was open to the warm beautiful Mediterranean day. The sun was overhead, the sea swept by at thirty knots.

Woods concentrated and moved the buttons quickly with his thumbs. He had done it hundreds of times and was ready. He knew the limited time he had, about thirty seconds. He moved buttons furiously, frustrated, an occasional curse coming from his mouth. The thirty seconds passed, and the ship’s radar antenna came around again, wiping out the electronic football game he was manipulating. “Fourteen points,” he called to Wink as he passed the football game back to him.

Wink grabbed it and checked the location of the rotating radar. Thirty seconds. He worked the game frantically, passing, carrying the ball and scoring, again and again. He was much better at it than Woods. He could see the radar approaching. He worked faster. The radar beam passed through them and wiped out the game. “Seventeen points!” he announced.

He reached forward with his right hand and passed the portable game back to Woods. “You cheated,” Woods accused. “No way you could score that much in one pass of the radar.”

“You just can’t stand losing.”

Woods was so intent on the game he didn’t see their relief approaching the plane. The two officers began their own preflight. Each new alert crew took the opportunity to check the airplane themselves. Not that they didn’t trust their squadron mates. They wouldn’t have trusted themselves. When they were done, they called up to Woods and Wink. “Okay,” they said. “You can come down.”

Woods and Wink unstrapped, gathered their navigation information and flight bags, and climbed down to the flight deck. “All yours,” Woods said. “I wish we could stay and sit in this plane longer, but I guess we can’t have all the fun.”

Lieutenant Commander Paulson looked at Woods with a smile. “You may not be winning this deal. There’s another officers’ meeting in five minutes. That’s why we decided to relieve you just a little early. Now you’ve got to go.”

“Ohhh, not another one. What about?”

Paulson shrugged. “CAG’s on the warpath. He’s running around all over the ship with his hair on fire. Something’s up.”

Woods looked at Wink, who was trying not to throw up. “You guys want the football game?” he asked finally.

“No thanks. I brought a book.”

“You’re not supposed to read,” Woods said.

“I know. I’d better be careful, or they’ll give me a time out and strap me into a seat in a small confined place for two hours.” He shrugged. “What are they gonna do? Send me home? Hurt me,” he said as he climbed into the front cockpit.

“See you guys,” Wink said. He glanced at Woods and saw the concern on his face. They walked across the flight deck to the starboard side by the arresting wires and stepped onto the short ladder leading below to the O3 level. As they stepped off the ladder, Wink asked Woods, “You worried?”

Woods took longer to answer than he usually did. “I feel like a criminal hoping the police don’t find the evidence I know is there.”

“I still can’t believe we did it,” Wink said, pursing his lips as he moved through the hatch to the passageway. “But I’d do it again.”

“Do what again?” asked Bark, standing in the passageway waiting to go into the ready room.

“Kick his butt in the portable football game,” Wink replied quickly.

“That all you guys do on alert is play that stupid football game? You don’t ask each other NATOPS and safety questions? You don’t review airplane systems?” All the systems were explained in Naval Air Training and Operational Procedures Standardization manuals on which they were tested regularly. Failure meant you were grounded.

“Guilty, Skipper,” Woods added. “Paulson says there’s yet another meeting. What’s the deal?”

“I don’t know. It’s CAG’s show. I’m just an attendee, like you. I guess we’ll soon find out. But this one’s just for our squadron. In five minutes — actually, right now,” he added, checking at his watch.

Woods and Wink followed Bark into the ready room. The Jolly Rogers were sitting in their assigned ready room chairs. Woods made his way to his seat in the second row. Wink took a chair farther back.

Officers were talking quietly to each other, but their attention rarely diverted from CAG, who was standing in front of them waiting for something. Nervousness was universal. No one knew why they should be nervous, but they all knew they should be.

CAG looked at Bark, sitting directly in front of him in the front row chair. “Everyone here?” CAG asked him.

“Yes, sir, except for the alert.”

CAG started without any preliminaries. “You heard what I said on the television this morning. There was a large battle between Israel and Syria, and we didn’t want to be anywhere near it. It was bad enough for us to have been in Israel the day before. They should have told us not to come knowing what they were going to do the day we left — but we can’t change that now. The reason I wanted to talk to you, our one and only F-14 squadron, is because it has turned ugly. Israel has been sending continuous raids all day. They’re not letting up this time.”

The officers glanced at one another, relieved to hear it wasn’t about them.

“But there has been a new development that has really got me frosted,” he said, scanning the faces in front of him. “This is really about VF-103. I just hope there has been some… mistake.”

Woods involuntarily gripped the armrests of his chair. He tried to continue to breathe through his nose. He could feel Wink’s eyes burning holes in the back of his head.

“I was just called on the carpet by Admiral Sweat. Syria has lodged a formal protest against the United States. Actually, against us. Their Ambassador called on the Secretary of State this morning, in Washington, to accuse us of assisting the Israeli attack on the Syrian Air Force, and of actually participating in the attack.”

The officers, murmured about how ridiculous that accusation was.

“According to Syria, their pilots reported seeing U.S. Navy Tomcats during the air battle.”

The aircrew laughed nervously. Woods tried to join in with sufficient sincerity so he wouldn’t stand out. He glanced at Pritch, who was standing in the corner behind the SDO desk. She looked as if she was going to faint.

“Not only do they say they saw F-14s in the battle, but they say the F-14s had the skull and crossbones on their tails,” CAG said. “And there’s more. Syria said they aren’t basing this accusation only on visual sightings. Several of their pilots claim their wingmen were shot down by F-14s. They claim that Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles were used. A couple of pilots themselves claim to have been shot down by Tomcats.”

The officers dismissed the accusation as so much nonsense. “That’s not all,” CAG said, frowning. “The Syrian Ambassador said that they were sure.” He lowered his voice and took a step forward. “Their electronic warfare people identified the F-14 radar.”

Woods tried not to hyperventilate. The pilots and RIOs were silent, wondering suddenly if it was somehow true, but unable to imagine how it could be.

“If anyone has anything to say, I would like to hear it,” CAG said softly. He stood in front of the group and waited for someone to speak.

Woods tried not to draw attention to himself. He began to sweat, and told his body to stop sweating. He knew he couldn’t look at Big, or Wink, or Sedge. Any knowing look would be intercepted by the CAG, or someone else, and all would be lost. They had never discussed what to do if found out. Lie? Lie boldly? Say nothing? Lie to protect others but not yourself?

Woods admitted to himself that he hadn’t thought it through in the infinite detail he should have. They never should have turned on their radar. Just because he wanted the kill. No, he thought, because he wanted to live. Because the Flogger was coming after them and was going to kill them if they hadn’t turned on the radar. He had to.

But he thought he had all possibilities covered. He had told himself that if they closed in on him, if they discovered what had happened, he would stand up courageously and announce what had happened, and tell the world that he was proud of it.

But he wasn’t proud anymore. He was scared. Officers began to stir. Nobody wanted to even touch the subject, or risk being the focus of some investigation.

Bark stood up and crossed to the other side of the ready room from the CAG. He looked at the squadron. “Any of you have anything to say?” he asked, sweeping his eyes over them. “Who was on the flight schedule yesterday?” he asked.

Woods thought Bark’s gaze rested a little longer on him than it did on the other officers.

“CAG,” Bark said, “when was this supposed to have happened?”

“They didn’t give a time. Sometime yesterday, during the air battles.”

“But the reports I’ve read said there were several battles, going on most of the day.”

“That’s right. We don’t know the actual time.”

Bark smiled. “Well, are they saying there were Jolly Roger Tomcats there all the time?”

The other officers smiled, realizing the ridiculousness of such a statement.

“I don’t think so,” CAG said. “Sounds like one section to me.”

Bark rubbed his chin, his brown eyes intense and thoughtful. “They say these Tomcats shot down ‘several’ MiGs?”

“That’s right.”

“How many?”

“Between four and eight.”

Bark whistled. “That’s pretty good work. And with missiles?”

“That’s right,” CAG confirmed.

“If they shot down four to eight MiGs, there should be four to eight missiles missing. Right?”

CAG thought for a second. “Right.”

“Let’s inventory the missiles.”

“Great idea,” CAG said. “Do it.”

“Yes, sir, sure will,” Bark replied.

CAG turned his gaze back toward the aircrews. “But I want to hear from the officers in your squadron. I want to hear from them that they weren’t there.”

“Sir, you asked them if they had anything to say, and they didn’t.”

CAG paced in front of the squadron. “How could the Syrians have been so wrong about seeing F-14s?”

Bark smiled. “I’d like to meet the MiG pilot that can tell the difference between an F-14 and an F-15 in the heat of the battle. Both have two tails, two engines, nice radome shaped noses, basically the same color unless you see them together — I have trouble sometimes when we fight F-15s. Easy mistake. Look at World War II — U.S. pilots shot at American planes thinking they were Japanese. Happens all the time.”

“But why would they say the planes had the skull and bones on the tail?”

“Because we’re the most famous Navy fighter squadron in the world!” Bark replied.

“Ooorah,” one officer said loudly, endorsing the accolade.

Bark went on, “We’ve been in movies, commercials, you name it. Nearly every book you see about F-14s has our plane on the cover. Every model made of the F-14, just about, has our paint scheme on it. It’s everywhere. It’s probably the only one they know about. Hell, CAG, that’s why VF-103 changed its name to the Jolly Rogers when the Navy decommissioned VF-84. We didn’t want to see that great tradition die, so we became the Jolly Rogers.”

CAG hesitated, his confidence in his information faltering. “What about the radar? They detected the F-14 radar.”

“I’ll bet they had the F-18 radar too, and our E-2C,” Bark replied. “It’s a powerful radar. Those electrons keep going — I’ll bet you could pick them up on the moon.” His eyes searched the room. “Who’s our NATOPS RIO? Wink?” Wink raised his hand. “How far you figure an F-14 radar could be picked up by ESM? More than a hundred miles?”

Wink nodded. “Way over two hundred miles. Probably could detect it on the moon. Literally.”

“They probably were being bombarded by F-14 electrons. No news there. We were flying all day, and radiating the entire time. No reason not to. We didn’t even know about the air battle. This sounds like sour grapes to me. They know we were in port the day before. They’re probably just trying to make us look bad. To tie us in. Trying to throw blame around for their rout. As if the Israelis need our help.”

Maybe there was an explanation, CAG decided. He surveyed the room slowly, trying to find something that seemed out of place in the demeanor of the officers. “Well,” he said to Bark, “I guess we’ll know for sure if we’ve got a problem when that missile inventory is completed.”

“Yes, sir, we sure will.”

“I want CAG Ops to do the inventory.”

“Yes, sir, no problem,” Bark said.

CAG hesitated and then made his way out of the room. The officers breathed easier.