National Security

CHAPTER 9

“You out there, Nickel Five-Five?” The 747 pilot’s voice crackled over the Super Hornet’s radio.

“Go ahead, sir.” The young Marine turned his head to the left and watched the heavy airliner glide against the lumpy backdrop of white clouds. They traveled at the same speed and the big bird appeared to hang motionless in the air.

He’d allowed his fighter to inch closer and was now less than two hundred yards off the 747’s wing, flying behind and slightly above. It was a position he called owning—though in a weapons platform as sophisticated as the F-18 Super Hornet, he owned all he could see and then some.

“Call sign Nickel… one twenty-second Crusaders, right?”

“Aye, sir,” the fighter pilot said, snorting. He was genuinely impressed. “If you don’t mind me asking, are you a Marine?”

“Negative, son,” the 747 pilot came back. “United States Navy.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the fighter jock chuckled. “Didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.” He wished the brass would come back and tell him what was going on. This chatting with a bus driver was going to get old fast.

“Good one, Marine. I’ll let that slide since you happen to outgun me. Not to mention the fact that I’m partial to the airframe you’re flying.”

“Got a little time in an F-18, sir?”

“A little,” the 747 pilot said. There was something faraway in his voice. “Mind if I ask your name, son?”

He really hated when these old geezers called him son. “Stoner, sir, Captain Brad Stoner.”

“They got the Crusaders flying off Rough Rider now?”

Stoner snorted again. This guy knew a lot more than an ordinary bus driver. Rough Rider wasn’t the ship’s real name — the President had co-opted that one — but the folks lucky enough to serve aboard the Roosevelt still called her that from time to time. “Aye, sir, we’re on our way home from the Persian Gulf. You spend time aboard the TR?”

“Fair amount.”

Man, this dude was cagey. “May I ask your name, sir?”

“Holiday,” the 747 pilot replied. “Steve Holiday. I was likely retired before you graduated high school.”

Why did that name ring a bell?

“What squadron were you with before you retired, sir?”

“Flight Demonstration,” Holiday said.

“Captain Steven Holiday of the Blue Angels? That’s you, sir?”

“My friends call me Doc,” Holiday said.

“It’s an honor to fly the same patch of sky with you, Captain Holiday,” Stoner gushed in unabashed hero worship. “I had a model of your F-18 hanging from my ceiling when I was a kid. I still got a poster you signed at the Oshkosh air show. Wait until I tell the guys in my squadron.”

Stoner had dreamed of being a Blue Angel from the time he was in the seventh grade. He wanted to say more, but the radio squawked.

“I’ll be right back, sir. I’ve got HQ on the other freq.”

“Roger that, son,” Holiday’s voice crackled. It was breathless, as if he’d just finished a long run. “Glad you’re here, Marine.”

The USS Theodore Roosevelt relayed an encrypted patch from the Pentagon to the F-18 Hornet. Only five people were privy to the ninety-second conversation. By the time it was over, Brad Stoner thought he might cry.

“You… hangin’ in there, Captain Holiday?” Stoner’s throat convulsed.

“Roger that.”

“Listen…” Stoner shook his head, trying to focus on the instruments in front of him. “Sir…”

Holiday, ever the warrior-gentleman, saved the distraught younger pilot from having to explain himself. “Say, Brad… I did some thinking while you were gone…” His voice flickered like a failing light. “You might want to know that my good friend and first officer just passed away…” He coughed. “The way she went wasn’t pretty.”

“Captain—”

Holiday cut in. “They still strap a Slammer on those birds?” A Slammer was the AIM 120—the big sister to the Sidewinder Air Interceptor Missiles the Super Hornet carried at the end of each wing.

“They do indeed,” Stoner said in a reverent whisper. Holiday gave a ragged cough. “I gotta tell you, Brad, I never considered myself a coward, but I don’t relish the thought of dying like my friend just did… You hear what I’m saying?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Outstanding—”

“Captain Holiday, would you do me the courtesy of looking out your starboard window?”

Stoner maneuvered his F-18 twenty yards off the jumbo jet’s right wing. He turned on the cockpit light, flipped up his helmet visor, and snapped a crisp salute. He held it for a long moment as tears welled in his eyes.

Across the dark void of sky between the two men, in the cockpit bubble of the 747, Navy Captain Steven “Doc” Holiday returned the gesture.

“A small favor, Brad?”

“Name it, sir.”

“This is gonna be awful hard on my wife…” His cough was more ragged now. “If you ever get a chance… her name’s Carol. Tell her you met me once — and that all I ever talked about was her.”

“Aye…” Stoner couldn’t finish.

“Tallyho, Marine—” Holiday broke into a coughing fit and cut radio contact.

Stoner pulled back on the stick, gaining the altitude and distance he’d need to carry out the admiral’s order. On his console, a small light reading A/A — air to air — blinked red.

He’d never be able to tell anyone what he was about to do — nor would he want to.