The Intruders (7 page)

In a few minutes Jake had 6,500 pounds of fuel and gave the
purple-shirted fuel crew the cut sign, a slice of the hand across his
throat. Mask on, canopy closed, parking brake off, engage nose-wheel
steering and goose the throttles a smidgen to follow the director’s
signals. Now into the queue waiting for the cat …

And too soon it was over. Jake had the ten day traps the law required
and was once more day qualified as a carrier pilot. He shut the plane
down on the porch near Elevator Four and climbed down to the deck still
wearing his helmet.

After a few words with the plane captain, he descended a ladder to the
catwalk, then went down into the first passageway leading into the 0-3
level, the deck under the flight deck.

Flap Le Beau was behind him.

“You did okay out there this morning, Ace,” Flap commented.

“You didn’t.” Jake stopped and faced the bombardier/navigator.

“Say again?”

“I got an eighty-year-old grandmother who could have done a better job
in the right seat than you did today.”

“Kiss my chocolate ass, Ace. I didn’t ask for your opinion.

“You’re going to get it. You flew with me. I expect a BN to help me
fly the plane, to act as a safety observer at all times, to read the
checklists.”

“I just wanted to see if you could-`

“I can! While you were sitting there with your thumb up your butt and
boring me to tears with the story of your miserable life, you could have
been checking out the computer and radar for the debrief. You never
even brought the radar out of standby! Don’t ever pull that stunt
again.”

Flap put his face just inches from Grafton’s. “I ain’t taking any shit
from the Navy, swabbie. We’d better get that straightened out here and
now.”

“Le Beau, I don’t know if you’re senior to me or I’m senior to you and I
really don’t give a rat’s ass which way it is, But in that cockpit I’m
the aircraft commander. You’re going to do a solid, professional
job-there ain’t no two ways about it. If you don% your career in the
grunts is gonna go down the crapper real damn quick. You won’t be able
to catch it with a swan dive.”

Flap opened his mouth to reply, but Jake Grafton snarled, “Don’t push
it.” With that he turned and stalked away, leaving Flap Le Beau staring
at his back.

When Jake was out of sight Flap grinned. He nodded several times and
rubbed his hand through his hair, fluffing his Afro. -Flap, my man, this
one’s gonna do,” he said. “He’s gonna do fine.” And he laughed softly
to himself.

Jake was seated in the back of the ready room filling Out the
maintenance forms on the airplane when the air wing landing signal
officer, the LSO, and the A-6 squadron L-SO came in. The A-6 guy Jake
knew. He was an East Coast Navy pilot who had been shanghaied like Jake
to provide the Marines with ,experience.” His name was McCoy and by some
miracle, he was Jake’s new roommate. if he had a SIL

first name Jake didn’t learn it last night, when the LSO came in drunk,
proclaimed himself to be the Real McCoy, and collapsed into his bunk
facedown.

“Grafton,” the senior air wing LSO said, consulting his notes, “you did
okay.” His name was Hugh Skidmore.

“Touch-and-go was an OK, then nine OKs and one fair. All three wires.
You’re gonna wear out that third wire, fella.”

Jake was astonished. OKs were perfect passes, and he thought he had
five or six good ones, but nine? To cover his astonishment and
pleasure, he said gruffly, “A fair? You gave me a fair? What pass was
that?”

Skidmore examined his book again, then snapped it shut “Seventh one.
While you were turning through the ninety the captain put the helm over
chasing the wind and you went low. You were a little lined up left,
too.” He shrugged, then grimed. “Try a bit harder next time, huh?”

Skidmore went off to debrief the major but McCoy lingered. “Geez, Real,
you guys sure are tough graders.”

“Better get your act together, Roomie.”

“What did you do to rate a tour with the Marines? Piss in a punch
bowl?”

“Something like that,” the Real McCoy said distractedly, then wandered
off.

After lunch Jake went to his stateroom to unpack. He had gotten the
bulk of his gear on hangers or folded when McCoy came in, tossed his
Mickey Mouse ears on his desk, and collapsed onto his bunk.

“I threw a civilian through a plate glass window,” Jake told the LSO.
“Just what did you do?”

McCoy sighed and opened his eyes.. He focused on Grafton. “I suppose
you’ll tell this all over the boat.”

‘.Try me.”

“Well, I made too much money. I got to talking about it with the guys.
Then I had the Admin guys draft up a letter of resignation. Before I
could get it submitted the skipper called me in. He said a rich bastard
like me could just count his money out on the big gray boat.”

“Too much money? I never heard of such a thing. Did you toot the
coffee mess?”

“Naw. Nothing like that.” McCoy sat up. He rubbed his face. “Naw. I
just got to playing the market.”

“What market?”

“The market.” When he saw the expression on Jake’s face, he exclaimed,
“Jesus H. Christ! The stock market.”

“I never knew anybody who owned stock.”

“Oh, for the love of . . .” McCoy stretched out and sighed.

“Well, how much money did you make, anyway?”

“You’re going to tell every greasy asshole on this ship, Grafton. It’s
written all over your simple face.”

“No, I won’t. Honest. How much?”

McCoy regarded his new roommate dolefully. Finally he said, “Well, I
managed to save about sixteen thousand in the last five years, and I’ve
parlayed that into a hundred twenty-two thousand three hundred and
thirty-nine dollars.

As of the close of business in New York yesterday, anyway.

No way of knowing what the market did today, of course.”

“Of course,” Jake agreed, suitably impressed. He whistled as he thought
about $122,000, then said, “Say, I got a couple grand saved up. Maybe
you could help me invest it.”

“That’s what got me shipped out here with these jarbeadsl AD the guys in
the ready room wanted investment advice.

Everybody was reading the Wall Street Journal and talking about interest
rates and P/E ratios and how many cars Chrysler was gonna sell. The
skipper blew a gasket.”

McCoy shook his head sadly. “Ah well, it’s all water under the keel.
Can’t do nothing about it now, I guess.” He looked again at Jake. “Tell
me about this guy you threw through the window.”

When they had exhausted that subject, Jake wanted to know about the
officers in the squadron.

“Typical Marines” was the Real’s verdict, spoken with an air of resigned
authority since he had been with this crowd for three whole weeks.
“Seems like three months. This is going to be the longest tour of my
life.”

“So how many are combat vets?”

“Everyone in the squadron, except for the three or four nuggets, did at
least one tour in ‘Nam. Maybe half of them did two or more. And six or
eight of them did tours as platoon leaders in Vietnam before they went
to flight school.

Your BN, Le Beau? He was in Marine Recon.”

Grafton was stunned. Le Beau? The San Diego cocksman? “You’re pulling
my leg.”

“I shit you not. Recon. Running around behind enemy lines eating snake
meat, doing ambushes and assassinations.

Yeah. That’s Le Beau, all right. He’s a legend in the Corps.

Got more chest cabbage than Audie Murphy. He ain’t playing with a full
deck.”

Jake Grafton’s face grew dark as he recalled Flap’s rambling cockpit
monologue. And that aura of bumbling incompetence that he exuded all
morning!

Seeing the look, McCoy continued, “God only knows why the Marines made
him a BN. He went back to Vietnam in A-6s. Punched out twice, the
first time on final to DaNang.

Walked through the main gate carrying his parachute and seat pan. The
second time, though, was something else. His pilot got his head blown
off and Le Beau ejected somewhere near the Laotian border. Maybe in
Laos or Cambodia-I don’t know. Anyway, nobody heard anything, Just
nothing, although they looked and looked hard. Then seventeen days or
so later a patrol stumbled onto him out in the jungle in the middle of
nowhere. He was running around buck naked, covered with mud and leaves,
carrying nothing but a knife.

Was busy ambushing the gomers and gutting them. They brought him back
with a whole collection of gomer weapons that he had stashed.”

From the look on Grafton’s face, McCoy could see that he was not a happy
man.

“That ain’t the amazing part, Jake,” the Real McCoy continued. “The
amazing part is that Le Beau didn’t want to get rescued. Two guys have
told me this, so I’m assuming that there’s something to it. He didn’t
want to come back because he was having too much fun. The grunts on
that patrol almost had to tie him up.”

“His last pilot didn’t cut the mustard,” McCoy continued, “not to Le
Beau’s way of thinking. Was having his troubles getting aboard. Oh, he
wasn’t dangerous, but he was rough, couldn’t seem to get a feel for the
plane in the groove at night. He might have come around, then again he
might not have. He didn’t get the chance. Le Beau went to the skipper
and the skipper went to CAG and before you could whisper ‘Semper Fi’ the
guy was transferred.”

“Le Beau did that?”

“Whatever it takes to make it in the Corps, that dickhead has it. He
just got selected for promotion to major.

Everyone treats him with deference and respect. Makes my stomach turn.
Wait till you see these tough old gunnies-they talk to him like they
were disciples talking to Jesus. If he fives he’s going to be the
commandant someday, mark MY words.”

“Strangers in a strange land,” Jake murmured, referring to himself and
McCoy.

“Something like that,” the Real agreed. He pulled off his steel-toed
flight boots and tossed them carelessly on the floor. “This tour is
going to be an adventure,” he added sourly.

“TA-huh.”

“We’ve got an all-officers meeting in the ready room in about an hour.
I’m going to get fourteen winks. Wake me up , huh?” “Okay.

McCoy turned over in his bunk and was soon breathing deeply.

Jake snapped off the overhead light, leaving only his desk lamp lit, the
little ten-watt glow worm. He tilted his chair back against McCoy’s
steel foot locker and put his feet up on his desk.

Thinking about Le Beau, he snorted once, but his thoughts soon drifted
on to Callie. The gentle motion of the ship had a tranquilizing effect.
After a few moments his head tilted forward and sleep overcame him.

The skipper of the squadron was Lieutenant Colonel Richard Haldane. He
was a short, barrel-chested, ramrod straight man with close-cropped
black hair that showed flecks of gray. In this closed community of
military professionals his bearing and his demeanor marked him as an
officer entitled to respect. He took Jake aside after the all officers
meeting-boring administrative details in a crowded, stuffy room filled
with strangers-and asked him to sit in the chair beside him.

Haldane had Jake’s service record on his lap. “We didn’t get much of a
chance to talk last night, Mr. Grafton, but welcome aboard. We’re glad
to have someone with your carrier experience.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“We’re going to assign you to the Operations Department. I think your
experience will be the most help to us there.”

:’Yessir.”

“During this transit to Hawaii, I want you to put together a series of
lectures from CV NATOPS.” CV NATOPS was the bible on carrier operations.
The acronym stood for fixedwing carrier naval air training and operation
procedures.

“We’ve been through it several times while working up for this
deployment,” Colonel Haldane continued, “but I’d like for you to lead us
through the book again in detail. I want you to share with us
everything you know about A-6 carrier operations. Do you think you can
do that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Richard Haldane nodded his head a millimeter. Even sitting down he
exuded a command presence. Jake sat a little straighter in his chair.

“I see from your record that you have plenty of combat experience, but
it’s experience of the same type that most of the officers in this room
have had-bombing targets ashore.”

“Single-plane day and night raids, some section stuff, and Alpha
strikes, sir, plus a whole hell of a lot of tanker flights.”

“Unfortunately our combat experience won’t do us much good if we go to
war with the Soviets, who are our most likely opponent.”

This remark caught Jake by surprise. He tried to keep his face deadpan
as Haldane continued: “Our part in a war with the Russians will probably
involve a fleet action, our ships against their ships. Mr. Grafton,
how would you attack a Soviet guided-missile frigate?”

Jake opened his mouth, then closed it again. He scratched his head. “I
don’t know, sir,” he said at last. The truth was, he had never once
even thought about it. The Vietnam War was in full swing when he was
going through flight training, when he transitioned into A-6s, and
during his three years in a fleet squadron. The targets were all
onshore.

“Any ideas?”

Jake bit his lip. He was the naval officer and he was being asked a
question about naval air warfare that in truth he should know something
about. But he didn’t. He decided to admit it. “Sir, I think the
answer to that question would depend on a careful analysis of a Soviet
frigate’s missile and flak envelope, and to be frank, I have never done
that or seen the results of anybody else’s look. I suspect the Air
Intelligence guys have that stuff under lock and key.”

“So what weapons does a Soviet frigate carry?”

Jake squirmed. “Colonel, I don’t know.”

Haldane nodded once, slowly, and looked away. “I would like for you to
study this matter, Mr. Grafton. When you think you have an answer to
the question, come see me.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“That’s all. Good luck tonight.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jake rose and walked away, mortified.

Well, hell, the stuff he had spent his career attacking was all
mud-based. Of course he should know about ships, but …

What Haldane must think-a naval officer who doesn’t know diddly-squat
about naval warfare!

Congratulations, Jake. You just got your tour with the Marines off to a
great start.

THERE WAS STILL A LITTLE SPLOTCH OF LIGHT IN THE WESTER ,N sky and a
clearly discernible horizon when Jake Grafton taxied toward the catapult
that evening. This first shot would be a “pinky,” without severe sweat.
He needed six landings to attain his night qualification, which meant
after this twilight shot there would be five more … in darkness.

A pinky first one was just dandy With him.

He carefully scanned the evening sky. The cloud cover was almost total,
with the only holes toward the west, and low, maybe seven or eight
thousand feet. Wind still out of the northwest, but stiffer than this
morning. That was good.

Tonight the ship could steam slower into the wind and yet still have the
optimum thirty knots of wind over the deck.

Since every mile upwind took her farther from the coast and the
airfields ashore, the fewer of those miles the better.

Car quals are always goat-ropes, Jake thought, something going wrong
sooner or later, so there is at least a fifty-fifty chance I’ll have to
divert ashore once tonight. And if my luck is in, maybe spend the night
in the Alameda BOO, call Callie …

No matter how long you’ve been ashore, after a half hour back aboard one
of these gray tubs you’re tired, hungry and horny. No way to cure the
loniless, but a night ashore in a real bed would work wonders on the
other syndromes, with real food and a long, hot shower and Callie’s
voice on the phone His reverie was interrupted by Flap Le Beau’s voice
on the intercom system, the ICS. “Don’t do nothin’ cute tonight, huh? My
internal table ain’t so stable when we’re out here flyin’ through black
goo.”

“You and Muhammad Ali. How about laying off the monologue. When I want
comedy I watch TV.”

“Golden silence to practice your pilot gig. You got it. Just fly like
an angel flitting toward paradise.”

“You do the radio frequency changes and I’ll do the transmissions,
okay?”

“Fine.”

“Takeoff checklist,” Jake said, and Flap began reading off the items.
Jake checked each item and gave the appropriate response.

And soon they were taxiing toward the cat. Automatically Jake leaned
forward and tugged hard on the VDI, the televisionlike display in the
center of the instrument panel that functioned as the primary attitude
reference. It was tight, just as it should be.

“Flashlight on the backup gyro, please,” Jake said to Flap, who already
had it in his hand. If both generators dropped off the line, the little
gyro would continue to provide good attitude information for about
thirty seconds, long enough for Jake to deploy the ram-air turbine,
called the RAT, an emergency wind-driven generator.

Of course a double generator failure was rare, and if it happened on a
launch with a discernible horizon there wouldn’t be a problem. Yet on a
coal black night … and all nights at sea were coal black. Jake
Grafton well knew that emergencies were quirky-they only happened at the
worst possible time, the time when you least expected one and could
least afford it. Then you would have to entertain two or three.

The A-7 on the cat in front of Jake was having a problem with the
nose-tow apparatus. A small conference was convening around the nose
wheel, but nothing obvious seemed to be happening.

Jake looked again at the sky. Darkening fast.

Automatically he reviewed what he would do if he got a cold cat shot-if
the catapult failed to give him sufficient end speed to fly. From there
he moved into engine failure.

He fingered the emergency jettison button, caressed the throttles and
felt behind him for the RAT handle. Every motion would have to be quick
and sure-no fumbling, no trying to remember exactly what he had to do-he
must just do it instinctively and correctly.

They were still screwing with the A-7. Come on guys!

He felt frustrated, entitled to a pinky. These guys had better get with
the program or this shot will be like being blasted blindfolded into a
coal bin at midnight.

“Gettin’ pretty dark,” Flap commented, to Jake’s disgust.

The pilot squirmed in his seat as he eyed the meeting of the board under
the Corsair’s nose.

“Why did you stay in the Navy anyway?”

What a cracker this Le Beau is! “I eat this shit with a spoon,” Grafton
replied testily.

“Yeah, I can see you’re loving this. Me, I’m too stupid to make it on
the outside. It’s the Marines or starve. But you seem smarter than me,
so I wondered.”

“Put a cork in it, will ya?”

Jake smacked the instrument panel with his fist and addressed the dozen
men milling around the Corsair: “For Christ’s sake, let’s shoot it or
get it off the cat. We gonna dick around till the dawn’s early light?”

And here came Bosun Muldowski, striding down the deck, gesturing
angrily. “Off the cat. Get it off.”

And it happened. The Corsair came off the cat and Jake eased the
Intruder on. Into the hold-back, the thump as the shuttle was moved
forward hydraulically, off the brakes and full power, cat grip up, cycle
the controls, check the flaps and slats, now the engine gauges …

Time to go.

Jake flipped on the external lights, the nighttime equivalent of the
salute to the cat officer. He placed his head back into the rest, just
in time to catch Flap giving Muldowski the bird.

Wham!

As the G’s slammed them back into their seats Jake roared into the ICS:
“Yeeeeoooow,” and then they were airborne. A pinky! All right! Not
very pink, but pink enough.

Engines pulling, all warning lights out, eight degrees nose up-his eyes
took it all in automatically as he reached for the gear handle and
slapped it up.

With the gear coming, the bird accelerating nicely, the pilot keyed the
radio transmitter: “War Ace Five One One airborne.”

“Roger, Five One One,” the departure controller said from his seat in
front of a large radar screen in Air Ops, deep in the bowels of the
ship. “Climb straight ahead to six thousand, then hold on the One Three
Five radial at sixteen miles. Your push at One Seven after the hour.”

“Five Eleven, straight up to Six, then hold on the One Three Five at
Sixteen.” Jake moved his left thumb from the radio transmit button to
the ICS key and opened his mouth.

He wanted to say something snotty to Flap about the gesture to the
bosun, but the bombardier beat him to the switch.

“Hey, I damn near ejected on the cat stroke. What in hell was that
squall you gave back there?”

“I-,, “You damn fool! I came within a gnat’s eyelash of punching out. I
coulda drowned! If I got run over by the boat you wouldn’t be so damn
happy. Yelling on the ICS like a wildcat with a hot poker up your
ass-that’s the stupidest thing I ever Jake Grafton waited until the
flaps and slats were safely in, then he reached over and jerked the plug
on Flap’s mask.

Silence. Blessed silence.

Damn you, Tiny Dick Donovan. Damn you all to hell.

The night quickly enveloped them. The world ended at the canopy glass.
Oh, the wing-tip lights gave a faint illumination, but Jake would have
had to turn his head to see them on the tips of the swept wings, and he
wasn’t doing much head turning just now. Now he was flying instruments,
making the TACAN needle go where it was supposed to, holding the
rate-of-climb needle motionless, making the compass behave, keeping his
wings level. All this required intense concentration. After five
minutes of it he decided enough was enough and reached for the autopilot
switch. It refused to engage.

Maybe the circuit breaker’s popped. He felt the panel between him and
the bombardier. Nope. All breakers in.

He punched the altitude-hold button three more times and swore softly to
himself.

Okay, so I hand fly this monument to Marine maintenance, this miraculous
Marine Corps flying pig.

He hit the holding fix, sixteen miles on the One Three Five radial, and
did a teardrop entry. Established inbound he pulled the throttles back
until he was showing only two thousand pounds of fuel flow per hour on
each engine. This fuel flow would soon give him 220 knots indicated, he
knew from experience, the plane’s maximum conserve airspeed.

Would as soon as the speed bled off.

Mt the fix, start the clock, turn left. Go around and around with the
tailhook up, because this first one is a touch and-go, a practice
bolter.

The second time he approached the fix the symbology on the VDI came
alive and gave him heading commands from the plane’s onboard computer.
Flap. He glanced over. The BN had his head against the black hood that
shielded the radar scope and was twiddling knobs. Sure enough, the
mileage readout corresponded with the TACAN DME, or distance measuring
equipment.

:,You plugged in?” Jake asked.

,:Yep.”

Thanks for the help.”

“No sweat.”

“Autopilot’s packed it in.”

“I noticed.”

Just like an old married couple, here in the intimacy of a night
cockpit. There are worse places, Jake thought, than this world of dials
and gauges and glowing little red lights.

Worse places . . .

At exactly seventeen minutes after the hour he hit the fix for the third
time, popped the speed brakes and lowered the nose. This was the
pushover. The A-7 that had been holding at five thousand feet was
inbound in front of them a minute earlier.