Final Flight (31 page)

Passing the terminal building and the frigate
moored end-on to the top of the quay, Jake could see
a halo around each of the lights. The rain drops
came into the halos at an angle, driven by the
wind. The lights of Naples reflected on the
oily black surface of the harbor. The boat
officer fastened the top button of his raincoat and
turned the collar up. He wore his life jacket
under the raincoat. He loosened the gold strap on
his hat and slipped it under his chin. Everyone on this
open boat without foul-weather gear would soon be
soaked. The boat officer, a lieutenant
(junior grade) from a fighter squadron, grinned
when he saw Jake watching him. “Great navy
night, sir.”

Jake Grafton nodded and filled his lungs with the
sweet salt wind.

Proceeding down the harbor, they were swept
periodically by the circling beam from the lighthouse at
the harbor mouth. The boat began to wallow
as it entered the turbulent water flowing into the harbor
from the sea.

The coxswain played with the throttle and helm and
coaxed the flat-bottomed landing craft to the right,
toward the open sea. Now the square bow rose and
fell to meet the incoming swells.

The pitching motion worsened when they cleared the
breakwater. As the stern rose, the bow smashed down
into the next trough, throwing water out to the sides. But
before the boat could rise to meet the oncoming swell,
the moving ridge of water smacked into the bow door
with a thud and threw a sheet of water aloft, to be
sprayed aft by the wind. The men in the welldeck
unched against the sides of the boat in a vain attempt
to stay dry. Jake could hear the sounds of retching from
the welldeck. The carrier was several miles ahead,
hidden by the rain. Jake watched the coxswain handle
the boat.

A little red light shone on the compass and RPM
indicator. The boat officer held onto a
stanchion with one hand and aimed the boat’s spotlight
with the other. He swept the welldeck and the miserable
humanity huddled there. Wet and shivering, Jake
tightened his grip on the stanchion in front of him.
The wind was quartering from starboard and roared in
his ears.

The puny light played on the Oncoming
swells. The water was black with streaks of white.
The swells were at least six feet from crest
to trough, and the wind was ripping spindrift from the tops.
The view was the same in all directions.
Apparently satisfied, the boat officer doused the
light.

Over his shoulder Jake watched the glow of
Naples fade into the gloom.

They were in total darkness. The assault boat
plowed on, away from the land, into the heart of the stormy
night sea.

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 waterline, 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 rner of the
gyrating steel float.

The coxswain was no more than twenty. Framed
by his slicker, is 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 elow the float, before it reached the wind
shelter created by the ip. The coxswain poured on the
power and Jake could hear the ngines roaring above the
noise of the storm. But the corkscrewg boat was
stymied by the wind deflected down the side of the
monstrous ship, which pushed it away from the float and the
loming stern-quarter of the carrier. The coxswain spun
the helm and 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
ri thing float.

The boat officer was standing by Jake now. As the
senior officer in the boat, Jake was legally
responsible for its safe operation. The young boat
officer wanted to be where he could relay any
instruction Jake cared to give. Jake knew this, and
he also knew that the coxswain was a much better boat
handler than either of the ofcers, 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 crews 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 nto 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 lifejackets 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 fantail 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 enance to the fantail passageway.

The loudspeaker blared to life. “Flight
quarters, flight quarters helo operations. Standby
to launch the helo on the waist.” Captain
Grafton wasn’t betting all his chips on the
assault boat xswain, 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 other stacked on top of it. One of the
men grabbed a fire ax from a bulkhead mount and
attacked the crate. The planes forard 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.
when the wood gave.

They pulled the other crate off the top of it and
pushed it up on other 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 gine and he led them
out of the crate-storage area and between the aircraft which
filled the bay to a compartment on the port de.

An A-6 with wings folded was parked
nearly in front of the or, 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 rce 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 HiPowers 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
Trixorn, 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 Trihom 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 dog-trotting
aft. Jake climbed a ladder amidships and went
to his stateroom on the 0-3 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 yeoman 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 his per, “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
enched 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 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 Toad, 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 ckets.

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.

“SHE ASKED ME not to tell.”

“She knew you would.”

Tarkington’s face was a study. Lines
radiated from the corners of his eyes and his face
seemed… older. “She knew you had to tell,”
Jake said.

“If she knew I was going to spill it, why did
she ask me not to? How come she didn’t just shoot
me?”

“Women are like that,” Jake Grafton muttered.
“They ask you to do something they know you’re gonna do,
and they watch our face while they ask it.” He
shrugged. “Maybe they’re just measuring the size of
your heart.”

“I think they were Israelis. Mossad.”

“Any evidence?”

“They ragged on one guy who sounded like an
American. They called him an “agency
asshole.” Apparently he shot the first guy when
he wasn’t supposed to.” Toad looked around
desperately.

“They didn’t kill me,” he said, his voice
rising. “The Mossad only kills terrorists.”

“Or so you’ve heard. And you’ve ratted on them
when she asked you not to. Now you feel guilty as
hell. Thank you, Judith Farrell.”

Jake picked up the phone and dialed
Farnsworth. “Find the senior intelligence officer
who’s aboard tonight and tell him to go to the intel center.
I’m sending Mr. Tarkington over there now. I
want them to wring out Tarkington like a sponge and
draft up a Top Secret flash message.
Then find out if Admiral Parker’s aboard, or
the chief of staff.”

When he cradled the receiver, he said to Toad,
“I want you to tell this tale to the Air
Intelligence guys. Describe every one of those people.

Including Judith. What they were wearing, height
and weight, facial features, the works.” As
Toad rose to go, Jake added, “Sooner or
later, you may get curious about why I
had everyone on this boat looking for you all afternoon.
Judith Farrell is not a native speaker of English.

She’s probably not an American.

Toad looked dazed. “But she said she was!”

“Tarkington,” Jake said, exasperation creeping
into his voice, “you got yourself smack in the middle
of somebody’s heavy operation. Farrell’s on
someone’s team. You’re real fucking lucky you
didn’t get zapped for just being in the wrong place
at the wrong time.” Toad didn’t react, the
sap. “Look at it this way, Toad: if you
hadn’t meant anything to her, she wouldn’t have bothered
to tell you to keep quiet.”

The younger man just stared, his mouth open slightly.
Jake came around the desk and sat on it. Maybe
he shouldn’t go into this. But Toad…

Why wait for the guy to figure all this out ten
years from now? “You care about her, right? And she was
telling you she cares about you.

She told you the only way she could. The words
weren’t the message; it was the way she said it.”

Toad nodded slowly.

“Now quit feeling like a shit and go tell the
intel guys everything you know.” Jake
pointed toward the door. “Beat it.”

As Toad left the room he glanced back at
the captain, who was absently patting his pockets as
he gazed at the telephone. Then the door closed.

Private Harold Porter hadn’t worn his
slicker for this watch. the rain had soaked him and the
wind was making him miserable.

He huddled against the side of the ship, under the lip
of the flight deck curb, and kept his hands tucked
under his armpits. The ip’s red flight-deck
floodlights illuminated the$50-caliber maine
gun and the ammo feed box. The sound-powered
telephone headset he wore kept his ears warm.
At least that was something.

Porter elevated his head and watched the
helicopter lift off the deck.

Its flashing red anticollision light swept the
numbers on the side of the island. The chopper rose
several feet off the deck and the tail came up, then
it accelerated forward off the angled flight deck.

Porter watched it go, then lowered his head back
below the curb of the deck.

Those poor bastards in the water were really in the
soup. Too bad the action was on the other
side of the ship, where he couldn’t see it. The
scuttlebutt on the sound-powered circuit was that they
were drunk. So if they don’t drown, they’re going
to be shoveling it when old man James gets through with
them. Serves the stards right, Porter decided. He
hadn’t been ashore for the last two nights. Envy
wrapped its slimy fingers around his heart. The
corporal should be around in a few minutes. Maybe
he could get the corporal to go down to the berthing
spaces and get a slicker for him. Naw, not
Simons, that prick. But maybe Jons would
relieve him for a few minutes and let him go get
it. sourly contemplated the odds of talking the
corporal into that. imons was an asshole, no question.
Two little red chevrons he acted like he’d been
promoted to disciple. Why in hell the ps ever
promoted a cock-stroking butt-licker like him was a
od question to contemplate on a bad night.

Aagh, it’s enough make you puke. You work your ass
off spit-shining your fucking es and polishing your
fucking brass and cleaning your fucking shoes, and then
Hershey-bar lifer pricks like Simons. omeone was
coming down the catwalk. Damn! Couldn’t be ons.
Not five minutes early. Oh, it’s some
dirt-bag sailor, bably drunk, out
wandering around after a big night in town, to give the
corps some shit.

‘Hey Dixie-cup, you-” the first bullet from the
silenced 9-millimeter hit Private Porter
in the throat. The wind swallowed the muffled
report. As the marine’s hands went to his throat,
the pistol popped twice more, and the now-lifeless body
slumped down into a sitting position.

The assassin opened the breech of the big fifty
and the ammo feed box.

He lifted out the belt of shells and fed it over
the rail, between the big gray canisters that contained the
fifty-man life rafts. The ammo belt fell
into the blackness. The killer bent over the open
breech. In a few seconds he snapped the
weapon’s breech and the ammo-box lid closed, and
walked forward toward the bow.

Lance Corporal James Van Housen was
bored. And when he was bored, he entertained himself with
isometric exercises. He strained at the top
bar of the catwalk rail, trying to curl it. He
counted the seconds:…

fourteen, thousand, fifteen, thousand, sixteen,…
When he got to twenty, he relaxed and counted his
pulse while he examined the sweep
second hand of his watch, just visible in the red lights
of the ship’s island.

The rest of these guys, they just stand around and get
fat while the sergeants kick their asses. Van
Housen was staying in shape. He was taking
advantage of every opportunity to exercise. That’s
what the corps is all about, staying in shape, ready
to fight. If they wanted to be marshmallows, they should
have joined the fucking navy. The sailors all think
exercise is what they do to their dicks in the shower.

Van Housen saw the chopper cross the fantail
and make its approach to the helo spot on the
angle. The sound-powered circuit talker said the
angel had picked one guy up from the liberty
boat, which had pulled him from the water. A damn
bad night for a swim. The talker didn’t know about
the other guy in the water. Van Housen watched a
team of corpsmen with a litter run toward the chopper
as soon as it touched down.

The lance corporal seized the top rail and
lifted again, counting to himself. He finished this set and was
flexing his arms, trying to pump out the fatigue
toxins, when he saw a sailor come up a ladder from
the 0-3 level, fifty feet aft, and turn
toward him. He first glimpsed the man from the
corner of his eye, then turned to watch him.

What the hell is he doing out here at this time of
night? The sailor had something in his right hand, down
against his leg. He was concealing it behind his thigh. A
doper? Carrying a joint?

Naw, it was an object of some kind.

Van Housen stepped back against the bulkhead,
partially out of sight because of the way the catwalk zagged
outboard around this nearest ladder up from the 0-3
level.

As the sailor in a sweater came around the
corner, Van Housen was watching his hand. It swung
up. A gun! It flashed-Van ousen heard the
dull pop-and the bullet rocked him, but he had already
launched himself forward. His momentum drove the sailer
back against the rail, stunning him. Van Housen
wrestled for the gun. There was a silencer on the
barrel. He smashed the sailer’s arm against the
railing. The pistol fell. Van Housen punched his
assailant in the stomach, then again. The man doubled
over.

Van Housen could feel himself weakening. Got
to stop this guy! Got to!

Before I go down. He seized the man by the belt
and one arm and heaved him up and outboard as
he exhaled convulsively from the exertion. The man
sprawled on top of a life-raft canister. Van
Housen tore the wool cap off and grabbed him by the
hair. He smashed his fist into the sailor’s face.