With Hostile Intent

Chapter Nineteen The Ramp

The blackness.

Spam hated it. She hated night flying in general, and in particular she hated launching and recovering on an aircraft carrier at night. Most of all she despised the inky, vile blackness that clung like a shroud over the Persian Gulf.

It was stupid. Why were they droning around in the dark up here on the CAP station? They called it Combat Air Patrol, but she knew that no one in the region, least of all the Iraqi Air Force, was crazy enough to venture out in this evil blackness.

Only the U.S. Navy. So typically stupid.

“Runner 405,” came the voice of Killer DeLancey, her flight lead. “Check your position. You’re too far abeam.”

“I’m just where I want to be,” she answered. “What’s the problem?”

“Your station is supposed to be a mile abeam. Move it in.”

She felt like telling him to shove it. He could pull that world’s-greatest-fighter-pilot crap with everyone else, but not with her. She didn’t have to put up with it.

She knew why Killer was her flight lead on tonight’s sortie. He was checking on her. He wanted to see how she performed as a wingman. She was being evaluated.

On every sortie for the past week, Spam had found herself assigned to fly with a senior officer. And they never gave her anything meaningful to do. Nothing but these goddamn boring CAP assignments.

Yesterday she’d flown with Craze Manson, who was a jerk. And the day before with Maxwell, the ex-astronaut that DeLancey hated so much. To her surprise, Maxwell seemed like an okay guy, which made her wonder why DeLancey was always bad-mouthing him. Spam reminded herself to check that story out. You never knew when such a thing could be useful.

At least she’d heard no recent talk about a FNAEB. Killer had gotten the message loud and clear. The cocky little bastard had figured out that if he wanted to keep his job, he had best look out for the interests of Lieutenant Spam Parker.

Sleeping with the boss. It always worked. The best career insurance you could have.

“Runner 405, we’re leaving CAP for the marshal.”

“Roger that,” she replied.

It was too early. She had expected that they would remain on the CAP station another ten minutes. The marshal was a stack of holding patterns thirty miles behind the ship where the inbound aircraft positioned themselves for recovery aboard the carrier. Each pilot was supposed to time his turn in the marshal pattern so that he “pushed” — departed the stack — at a precise time that would keep him in sequence with the other jets.

She knew why they were going early. Killer was worried she would have trouble getting set up in the marshal pattern and screw up the approach sequence.

Like last night. She had gotten out of sequence during the push. But it wasn’t her fault, she remembered. It was those dumb shits in CATCC–Carrier Air Traffic Control — who kept issuing totally incomprehensible instructions to her. They had deliberately caused her to arrive late at the marshal pattern, which in turn caused her to push at the wrong time, which had forced a couple of other Hornets to wave off their approaches to the ship. Then they tried to blame it on her —

“You’re ten miles from marshal,” she heard DeLancey say. “Make a left-hand entry and start your timing. Don’t screw this one up.”

Spam felt a burst of anger. How dare he talk like that when everyone could hear? Then she realized that she was hearing him on the back radio, the secondary frequency used for plane-to-plane private communications.

“I know what I’m doing,” she snapped back. “Save the lecture for those idiot CATCC controllers.”

That should shut him up.

In the briefing room before the launch, DeLancey had tried to intimidate her with that male senior-fighter-pilot act. Admonishing her about flying a good pass at the ship, staying in position, getting set up in marshal.

She had shut him up him by mentioning her upcoming interview with the senator from California.

DeLancey had nearly choked. “With who?”

“You know, the woman senator who’s investigating the reports about the Navy mistreating women pilots.”

After that he sulked. He was strangely quiet as they rode the escalator to the flight deck. On the radio he was surly and curt, giving her this unnecessary advice.

The two Hornets passed over the marshal holding fix at twenty-two thousand feet. Killer flashed his lights, signaling that Spam was detached from the two-ship formation.

She entered the holding pattern — and became confused. Was the holding radial two-thirty or three-twenty? What was her push time? How the hell was she supposed to get back to the fix when —

“Runner 405, this is Marshal. Where are you going? Your push time is now.”

“I was getting established in this stupid pattern. What’s the hurry?”

“Roger, 405, turn to a heading of zero-five-zero. Start your descent now.”

Spam was rattled and angry. On the back radio she said, “Damn it, this is your fault. You dropped me off too close to the stack. You’re gonna hear about this!”

I hate that bitch. The thought kept playing like a refrain in DeLancey’s head.

He was descending through 8,000 feet. On the marshal frequency, he could hear the controllers issuing instructions to Spam. She had missed her push time and was out of sequence. And, of course, she was arguing.

She was hopeless, thought Delancey. Spam Parker couldn’t navigate her way out of a parking lot. Yet she had everyone — from the captain of the ship to the air traffic controllers — treating her with kid gloves. No one wanted a war with such a belligerent female.

Including Killer DeLancey.

Why did I do it? he wondered again. It was insane, getting involved with her. It was the worst mistake you could make in this business, thinking with the wrong part of your anatomy. Getting laid had taken priority over keeping his job.

He had to find a way out.

Twenty miles from the ship, passing 5,000 feet, he called, “Runner 401, Platform.”

“Roger, switch to final controller.”

On the final control frequency he could no longer hear Spam and her ongoing dispute with the marshal controller. She was still ten miles behind him. That was fine with him. He’d heard enough of her bitching.

A half mile from the carrier, he picked up the glimmer of the deck lighting and the amber meatball. DeLancey flew a steady pass to the deck, snagging the two wire.

Following the lighted wands of the taxi director, DeLancey parked his jet forward of the carrier’s island superstructure. He shut down the engines, but left the battery switch on while he listened to the UHF radio.

Just then, he saw the dark silhouette of a Hornet flash past the port side of the ship. A second later, he heard the roar of twin afterburners — Whooom! A jet was being waved off from its pass at the deck.

Spam, he realized. Getting another wave off by the LSO. This was going to be interesting.

On his UHF radio display he selected the channel on which the LSO was working Spam’s jet. Then he heard rapping on his Plexiglas canopy. Ruiz, the plane captain who maintained DeLancey’s jet, was standing on the boarding ladder.

DeLancey raised the canopy. “There’s something wrong with the radio,” he yelled over the din of deck noise. “It dumped the loaded frequencies. I have to reprogram it.”

“Never mind, sir,” Ruiz yelled back. “I’ll do that.”

DeLancey shook his head. “No, I remember the frequencies. I can do it.” He closed the canopy and busied himself punching numbers into the UHF display. Ruiz shrugged and stepped back down the boarding ladder.

On the radio DeLancey could hear Pearly Gates using his sweetest sugar talk: “— not enough power, then you came on with too much. Go easy with it next time, Spam.”

“You go easy!” Spam snapped back. “I was doing okay until you started giving me all those power calls.”

Listening to the radio exchange, DeLancey began to have an idea. There was a way. Maybe, just maybe, he had found a way out of his predicament.

“You tell me,” Boyce barked, “why the hell is that pilot still wearing wings?”

Maxwell didn’t reply. They both knew it was a rhetorical question. And they both knew why Boyce was asking the question in a loud voice. The skipper of the Reagan, Captain Stickney, had just stormed into CATCC.

The room was flooded in an eerie, red-lighted glow. Flickering consoles were arrayed along each bulkhead. Controllers sat hunched over their displays, directing the Reagan’s jets through the night sky.

Stickney was wearing his old battered Navy flight jacket. “We’re running out of sea room on this heading,” he said. “We’re bearing down on Kharj Island and a cluster of Iranian oil platforms. You’ve got five minutes to get her down or she bingoes.”

Boyce nodded. “Yes, sir. We’ve got the tanker hawking her on the downwind.”

Stickney didn’t look happy. He turned to leave, then said over his shoulder, “Why is that pilot still wearing wings?”

Spam tried to concentrate. Down in the ready room, she knew all the other pilots — the men — were glued to the PLAT, cackling and making bets and having a good old time watching the alien trying to get aboard. Bolter, bingo, or barbecue?

She was on final approach, a quarter mile from the ship. Close enough to see the ball clearly. It was a little low, and that was fine with her. It made for a better pass, she believed, if you kept it on the low side all the way in. It gave you a better shot at the wires.

“Don’t go low,” she heard Pearly say. “A lii — tttlle powerrrrr….”

She responded with a jab of the throttles.

The ball was coming up, almost in the middle…

“Eeeeasssy with it.” The LSO’s voice sounded different, she thought.

Then, the same voice, “Don’t go high!”

It didn’t sound like Pearly. CAG must have assigned another LSO to take over.

She snatched the throttles back again.

She heard a garbled transmission. The new voice again: “Don’t go high. Right for line up.”

Obeying, she dipped the right wing, swinging the jet’s nose slightly to the right.

And dropping lower.

Much lower. The ball was descending to the bottom of the lens.

More garbled transmissions. She didn’t understand. What was he saying?

The red wave-off lights were flashing.

The ball was flashing red at the bottom of the lens. She saw the gray mass of carrier looming out of the darkness ahead.

She saw the ramp.

Spam jammed the throttles forward. Seeing the blunt end of the deck swell in front of her, her mind froze.

“Power! Wave Off! Wave Off! Burner!” Pearly Gates was yelling — screaming — into his radio.

It was as if she didn’t hear him. The jet was descending like a rock toward the blunt ramp of the carrier. Suddenly Pearly knew what would happen next.

His only escape was the survival net that hung out over the water beneath the platform. He took one last glance at the approaching jet, then dropped his handset. With a running leap he hurled himself over the side of the platform. Astonished, the two other LSOs dropped their notebooks and leaped behind him.

In the next instant, the F/A-18 struck the ramp.

KABLOOOM! The jet broke in half, and the internal fuel tanks exploded.

A torrent of flaming jet fuel swept over the aft flight deck, engulfing the LSO platform.

The aft portion of the fighter, tailhook still attached, slid up the deck and snagged the number one arresting wire. The tail of the jet lurched to an abrupt stop, burning fiercely.

The forward half of the Hornet was wrapped in flame. As if in slow motion, it tumbled end over end down the angled deck. At the end of the angled deck, it pitched into empty space and disappeared in the blackness of the Gulf.

A sheet of flame covered the ramp of the landing area. Trapped in the arresting wires, the aft fuselage was a bright orange fireball. The LSO platform and its electronic console were ablaze.

Klaxon horns blared. The air boss’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers: “Fire! Fire! Fire on the flight deck aft and amidships. Away all support teams. This is not a drill!”

It was a scene of horrific beauty. Whipped by the thirty-knot wind over the deck, the flames cascaded into the sky, lighting up the flight deck. Behind the ship, the surface of the sea shimmered in an orange glow.

Firefighters in asbestos suits moved like mechanical toys over the illuminated deck. Hoses gushed streams of white foam onto the blaze.

Alone, DeLancey watched from the cockpit of his parked Hornet. All the deck crewmen had run to join the fire fighting team. DeLancey allowed himself a smile of satisfaction.