With Hostile Intent

Chapter Fifteen Requiem

The rifles of the Marine honor guard crackled once, twice, three times. With each volley the crowd on the hangar deck jerked.

It was appropriate, Maxwell thought, that the service for Devo Davis would take place on such a day. The Gulf had turned choppy, and a ragged deck of clouds scudded low over the Reagan battle group. A warm breeze wafted through the space where the air wing officers were huddled.

The chaplain, a Lutheran minister with the rank of lieutenant commander, had delivered a brief eulogy capsulizing the forty-one years of Commander Steve “Devo” Davis’s life. He recounted the details — his mid-west origins, his graduation in the upper quarter of his Naval Academy class, his rise through the echelons of naval aviation. “God gives, and God takes away,” the chaplain said. Devo Davis, he assured them, was a man who loved God, his country, and the U.S. Navy.

On a linen-covered table lay a collage of objects — Devo’s gold aviator’s wings, a ceremonial naval officer’s sword, photographs of Devo as a midshipman, as a young nugget aviator, as a senior squadron officer. In one photo, a radiant Devo and his new bride passed under the crossed swords of his fellow officers as they emerged from a chapel.

On a little dais lay a triangularly folded American flag, which was supposed to be delivered to the next of kin. Seeing the flag, Maxwell wondered about Devo’s next of kin. He tried to imagine how Eileen had reacted when she learned that she was a widow. Saddened, probably. He guessed that she also felt relieved. Her inconvenient status as a naval officer’s wife was officially ended, without the messiness of a divorce.

The melancholy sound of taps reverberated across the hangar deck. Each mournful note of the bugle seemed to swell in the air, then vanish in the cold steel bulkheads.

The soul of Devo Davis was committed to the Almighty.

Maxwell stopped outside DeLancey’s stateroom door. He rapped twice, then heard DeLancey’s voice: “Come in, it’s open.”

It was their first meeting since CAG had tapped him to be the squadron executive officer. Maxwell wished he could have seen DeLancey’s reaction.

Delancey sat at his desk shuffling through a pad of notes. He didn’t bother looking up. “Sit down.”

Maxwell sat on the steel chair and glanced around. It was a typical senior air wing officer’s quarters — single bunk on one bulkhead, a steel bureau with pull-out drawers, a couple of padded chairs. An oriental throw rug lay on the deck. On one bulkhead hung a framed portrait of Delancey standing beside his Hornet with the kill symbols beneath the cockpit. Next to it was a framed collage of DeLancey’s awards and decorations, including the new silver star.

Maxwell glimpsed his own name at the top of one of DeLancey’s note pages.

Finally DeLancey said, “Contrary to my expressed wishes as commanding officer, you are going to be the XO of my squadron.”

Maxwell said nothing.

“How did you pull that off? Was it your old man, the admiral?”

Maxwell ignored the question. “I’d like to say I look forward to working with you, John. Sounds like you don’t feel the same way.”

“Let’s get something straight. You may address me as ‘Skipper,’ or by my call sign. You and I will never be on a first-name basis.”

By tradition, squadron commanding officers and executive officers dropped military protocol and began a bonding process. So much for tradition, thought Maxwell. “Okay, if that’s the way you want it.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re a temp. You may be the CAG’s golden boy, but you are by no means a permanent replacement as my XO.”

DeLancey picked up the sheaf of papers. “These are documented deficiencies in your performance. As a squadron department head you were a flop. As an aviator, I consider you average at best, and in my opinion your act of cowardice in combat is worthy of a court-martial. Besides all that, you were never a team player in this command. I’m going to write you a fitness report as operations officer that will end your career. Those orders to the Training Command were the only route you had to a graceful retirement.”

Maxwell did not respond. It was nonsense. Since he had arrived, the squadron’s scores had reached an all time high. With the exceptions of the late executive officer, and the recent problem with Spam Parker, all the pilots were trained and combat ready.

DeLancey went on. “I don’t care what CAG said about your strike lead into Al Kharj. As far as I’m concerned, it was a disaster. Right now he’s the only man standing between you and the brig. I have good reason to suspect your loyalty to your country. I’d like to pull your security clearance, given that you’ve been shacking up with that reporter —”

Maxwell felt a wave of anger pass over him.

“—but you can read all about it in your next fitness report,” DeLancey said.

Maxwell knew there was nothing he could do about his fitness report. Commanding officers could say anything they wanted.

DeLancey tilted back in his chair. “Here’s the bottom line. VFA-36 is my squadron. You will carry out my orders immediately and without question. You take no action without my approval. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Much as I hate to afford you the privilege, you’ll need to occupy the XO’s stateroom. You’ll conduct squadron business in there, and I don’t want it to look like there’s a rift between us.”

Delancey regarded Maxwell for a moment. “Don’t get too comfortable. As far as I’m concerned, your real job is in Kingsville, and my advice is that you should take it and run. CAG might think you’re here for the duration, but he doesn’t necessarily have the last word, either.”

Maxwell didn’t reply. The meeting with DeLancey had gone as he expected.

DeLancey kept his gaze on him. “First whiff I get you’re trying to stir something up with the CAG or the admiral, I’ll have you in front of a court-martial. Do you copy?”

Maxwell didn’t answer right away. For a moment he was tempted to dredge up the past — the real reason DeLancey despised him. Maybe this was a good time for them to bury it. The MiG you claimed in Desert Storm? You can have it. It’s over.

He saw DeLancey’s narrowed, hate-filled eyes, and he realized the truth. It would never be over.

“I copy, Skipper.”

“Good. Get the hell out of my office.”

Maxwell emptied the drawers in Devo’s locker, neatly folding and placing all the clothing in a wooden shipping container. On a yellow legal pad he listed each article that went into the container. Then he gathered the items from Devo’s desk — photographs of his wife, videocassettes that he guessed were tapes he exchanged with Eileen, and a stack of letters. He and Eileen were childless, which had been a frustration for Devo. Maxwell remembered that sometimes, when Devo was drinking and feeling contemplative, he would mention that Eileen had never wanted children.

In a desk drawer he found another stack of photos. In one of the shots he was startled to see the four of them — Devo and Eileen, Brick and Claire. It was taken on the Maryland seashore while Maxwell was still waiting for his assignment to NASA. The four faces smiled at him from the photograph. Maxwell felt an overwhelming sadness come over him. He sank into the desk chair. The face of Claire Phillips smiled at him from the photo.

He remembered that day, the breeze blowing in from the gulf, the seagulls and the sand crabs. Devo had been filled with himself, cocky and proud. He had his orders to a strike fighter squadron as a department head. Someday in the not-too-distant future he would be an executive officer and prospective commanding officer. The only thing better than being an astronaut, he gloated, was getting command of your own fighter squadron. To a fighter pilot like Devo Davis, that was the ultimate success: your own command. It didn’t get any better.

It didn’t happen. That was before Killer DeLancey, before Eileen announced that she was splitting. Before the Reagan and a bad day over the Persian Gulf.

Before Spam Parker.

Maxwell sighed and laid the photograph back on the stack. He wished again that he had stood firm and insisted that Devo’s name be removed from the flight schedule that night. Of course, it would have given DeLancey the final ammunition he needed to relieve Devo of his duties as executive officer. Devo would be disgraced but alive.

Then it would be Devo cleaning out this room, Maxwell thought. He would gather his effects and quietly disappear from the Reagan, transferred to some meaningless billet back in the states. Devo would hate it, and after a few weeks he would put in for early retirement. Then he would then drink himself into an early grave.

The thought made Maxwell even gloomier. One way or the other, Devo Davis had been a doomed man.

He returned to the task of packing Devo’s effects. He filled the wooden container with clothes from the drawers. He placed all Devo’s personal papers in a manila envelope and sealed it. Then he removed the contents of Devo’s safe — five bottles of vodka, one a quarter full, and a half-empty flask of brandy. Devo’s nightcap stock.

He poured the liquor into the sink, rinsed the insides of the bottles, then slipped the empties into a plastic bag. After nightfall, the bottles would join their owner in the dark waters of the Persian Gulf.

Maxwell picked up the photo again. Claire was wearing the scarf he had given her. She looked happy, as if she was in love.

Maxwell decided that he would keep the photo. Devo would approve.

In his room, Maxwell put on the new Berlioz CD he bought in Dubai. He placed the photo from Devo’s room on his desk, next to the one of Debbie. He sat at the desk, letting the music wash over him, and he thought about the shambles that had become his life. A numbing sadness settled over him like a shroud.

Everything he loved had turned to dust. He had lost Debbie. His once-brilliant career was probably at a dead end. His father, whom he admired above all men, had walked out of his life after his resignation from NASA. His best friend lay at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

He had nothing of value left. Nothing that mattered.

Debbie smiled at him from the photograph on the desk, and he felt the hole in his heart opening wider. Maxwell closed his eyes, fighting back the tears.

For the thousandth time he remembered that day on the cape.

It was one of those dazzling Florida afternoons. From the gantry tower Maxwell could see eastward far beyond the beach, all the way to the rim of the Gulf Stream. The air was crisp, the horizon as sharp as a pencil line.

She waved at him as she boarded the orbital vehicle. Like the other six crew members, Debbie was wearing the orange pressure suit with the mission patch and wings on the left breast, the American flag emblazoned on the shoulder.

It was a dress rehearsal for the actual launch in two days. They would take their stations and run through the check lists, do a power-up and test of the command and control consoles, and then simulate a count down to ignition. It was a routine procedure they did before every launch.

Debbie Sutter loved being an astronaut. Though she wasn’t a pilot, she intended to be someday. Eight years of college, med school, then the four years of internship — there’d been no time for flight training. She’d been a cardiologist when she made the cut for astronaut training. She was assigned as a human factors specialist, and for the ten-day mission of the space shuttle Intrepid, her job was to study and quantify the effects of prolonged weightlessness on cognition, memory, and sleep patterns.

They had been in the vehicle for nearly an hour. The boarding hatch of the shuttle was closed and sealed so the vehicle could be pressurized, just as it would be for the real launch.

Maxwell watched from the gantry observation room. On the monitor he could see views of the command cabin, where the shuttle commander and the pilot sat. In the cabin he could see the mission specialist stations. Debbie was in her reclining launch seat, facing a console with instruments and a panel of labeled switches.

All the astronauts were wearing the sealed pressure helmets. Their suits were plugged into the onboard oxygen system, and they communicated via the ship’s closed-circuit interphone.

As the pilot read off the checklist, another astronaut would perform the required action, then acknowledge.

“Crew compartment hatch 212 closed,” called out Jeff Beamish, the pilot.

“Hatch 212 closed,” confirmed Anton Vevrey, a payload specialist.

“ER loop automatic control.”

“ER loop automatic,” replied another astronaut.

“Perform cabin leak check.”

“Cabin leak check in progress.”

They went through the litany of pre-launch items, checking cabin pressurization, communications systems, flight controls, thrust-management parameters.

“Main engine controller bite check.”

“Main engine controller bite check okay.”

“Terminate liquid oxygen replenish.”

Maxwell heard Debbie’s voice give the response. “Liquid oxygen replenish is terminated.”

“Okay. Open the liquid oxygen drain valve.”

“Liquid oxygen drain — Aahhhhh!” Debbie’s voice stopped abruptly.

The hair on Sam Maxwell’s neck stood up. Every face in the observation room whirled to the monitor that watched the aft crew compartment. Thick black smoke was filling the compartment.

“Oh, shit!” Maxwell heard a controller say. “Fire in the crew compartment!”

A shrill, clanging alarm went off. On the wall over the door, a red light started flashing.

New voices came over the channel, all issuing desperate commands. “Depressurize! Close the liquid oxygen valve! Get the goddamn hatch open!”

Maxwell watched helplessly while they rushed to open the hatch. A cloud of bilious smoke gushed from the crew compartment. Paramedics rushed across the cantilevered gantry platform and boarded the vehicle. Within a minute they were dragging out orange-suited astronauts, yanking off helmets, slapping on oxygen masks.

The two pilots, Cutler and Beamish, were wobbly but okay. Nancy Rehman, an astrophysicist, came out on her own power, though she was shaking uncontrollably. The Japanese payload specialist, Nomuru, had breathed in smoke and was coughing badly. So was the Swiss mission specialist, Vevrey, but both revived when they were given oxygen.

The last to come out were the two astronauts in the aft crew compartment, Bud Feldman and Debbie Sutter. The paramedics hauled them out on gurneys.

Both were dead.

Two veteran astronauts who had been there in the gantry held Sam Maxwell’s arms, restraining him. “Go down below, Sam. Don’t stay here.”

Maxwell wouldn’t leave. He stood there transfixed while they removed her helmet.

She had died not from smoke inhalation, but from fire. The flames had entered her suit, torched her face and hair and her lungs. Her final seconds of life had been spent in excruciating pain.

They would have been married a year the next month. After Debbie’s rookie space flight, they were going to take a trip somewhere, maybe to the Bahamas. They would celebrate, rejoice, think about starting the family they planned to have someday. They had already become famous as the shuttle couple, the husband-and-wife astronauts, the high fliers. Newsweek did a piece on them. They appeared on CNN Live, the Good Morning, America show, and Oprah.

They wanted to interview Sam Maxwell again. They wanted him to explain for their viewers the depth of his grief. Give the public a look at his Tom Selleck good looks while he maybe shed a tear or two on camera.

Maxwell refused. He hung up when they called. He ignored them when they approached. When a Houston reporter pursued him across a parking lot, Maxwell seized him by the collar, shoved him over the hood of a Lexus and promised him if he saw him again, he would stuff his Nikon up his ass.

The inquiry into the tragedy went on for a month. In the final analysis, they declared it a freak accident. It had been a one-in-a-million combination of circumstances — a tiny fracture in the liquid oxygen drain valve, a leak in the crew ventilation system, and a simultaneous spark from the faulty console switch activated by Debbie as she complied with the pre-launch checklist. There was nothing inherently wrong with the space shuttle.

An enraged Sam Maxwell refused to accept the findings. The director of NASA ordered him to take a thirty-day leave, clear his head, then report back for duty at the space center in Houston. Instead, Maxwell went home and drafted a letter of resignation.

He opened his eyes and let them focus on the two photographs standing side by side on the desk. Debbie and Claire.

After a while Maxwell powered up the Compaq notebook on his desk. He logged onto the net and, a minute later, saw the flashing notice that he had mail waiting.

Through a blur of tears Maxwell read the note. A swarm of mixed feelings spilled over him. He gazed again at the photograph, at the smiling, happy girl with the new scarf.

He felt something tugging at him, dragging him out of his black mood. Admit it, Maxwell. You want to see her.

He went back to the computer and began typing a reply.