The Trojan Sea (32 page)

“Dissimilar air combat training is a demanding mission,” Stuart replied, parroting his father’s words. He didn’t have a clue what that meant, but it sounded good. “Chalky is over at the base briefing with the two F-15 pilots he’ll be flying against today.” He checked his watch. “He better hurry if he’s going to make his takeoff time. By the way, I’ve got a favor to ask.” He quickly explained about his upcoming court date and how Langston could help when Barbara Raye’s lawyer used the videotape of the TV program to prove they had placed Eric in danger. Harry said he would be glad to help. “One question,” Stuart asked. “Why didn’t the TV station ever show the tape?”

“Because,” Langston replied, “I told them it was a bunch of bullshit about Eric being in danger, and if they showed it, I’d buy the station and fire every one of their asses.”

“Can you afford to do that?”

“Hell no. But
they
don’t know that.” He grinned. “When you can’t win it in the air, win it in the debrief.”

“You sound just like my dad,” Stuart said as a car drove up. Seagrave got out wearing a flight suit. He pulled a G suit out of the back and quickly zipped it on. “Your chaps do get carried away with briefings,” he told the men. “Covered about everything under the sun—except the sun’s position.”

Shanker grinned. “Sounds like a mistake to me.”

“Absolutely,” Seagrave replied. “Especially when you’re going back to basics.”

“What’s happening?” Langston asked.

“They can’t use their radars to find me,” Seagrave explained. “They’ve been assigned to roam an area and deal with whatever happens.”

“It’s Red Baron time,” Shanker chortled. “All else is rubbish.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Langston muttered. “I’d trade half my sex life to go along.”

Seagrave pulled on his helmet and climbed the boarding ladder. “Sorry. No passengers on this one.” He checked his watch. “Shanker, call ground control for engine start and coordinate with the tower for a fast taxi and immediate takeoff.”

“Why all the fuss?” Hank asked.

“Fuel is a real problem in the Lightning,” Shanker explained. “Any delay cuts into the mission. He’s only got maybe fifty minutes max before he’s got to be back on the ground.” Shanker made the radio calls and gave Seagrave a thumbs-up. The Gray Eagles sprang into action as Seagrave gave them the signal to crank engines. Less than a minute later he was taxing for the runway.

The quiet after the Lightning had cleared the hangars was deafening. One of the wives who’d come along to make sure their husbands stayed out of trouble emerged from the hangar office. “Mike, a phone call for you. The Washington police. Something about catching a hit-and-run driver.”

“I’ll be damned,” Stuart said, hurrying to take the call. The boom of the Lightning’s afterburners echoed over the hangars as Seagrave took off. Stuart picked up the phone. The caller identified himself and quickly explained the situation. The police had found the driver, a teenage girl who was driving her parents’ car without a license or their permission. She was scared to death. Did he want to press charges? He told the caller no and turned it back over to the police. He thanked them and broke the connection. “I’ll be,” he said to himself.
Maybe Jane was right. Maybe I’m just having a run of bad luck. That explains everything but the car brakes.

He pulled into himself, thinking.
What did Broad say? Follow the money trail? What money?
Then it hit him.

He dialed his parents and told his mother he was returning to Washington. He had work to do the next few days. “Over the weekend?” Martha asked.

“That’s the only time,” he replied.

Seagrave leveled off at eighteen thousand feet and checked his fuel. It was a long way to the training area over the Atlantic Ocean, and fuel was going to be a problem. He radioed ATC requesting clearance into the training area and was immediately cleared in. He spoke into the microphone in his oxygen mask so his tape recorder could document for the debrief what was happening. “Crossing western boundary of training area.” According to the rules of engagement, they could engage in DACT only inside the training area, and anything outside was considered as sanctuary for the Lightning. It was a rule Seagrave intended to use to his advantage. He scanned the sky, looking for the distinctive planform of the F-15 Eagle. The Eagle is a big fighter, but its air-superiority gray paint job makes it hard to see.

Fortunately there was nothing wrong with Seagrave’s distance vision, and he saw two dots on the horizon at his ten-o’clock position—exactly where they were supposed to be. He fell in behind them and nosed over, never losing sight of the two Eagles. It got even better when he confirmed he was following them. “Tallyho two bogeys, twenty-four thousand feet, heading one thirty-five degrees into the sun. I’m seven miles in trail descending to the deck.” He maneuvered through a low marine layer of clouds that covered about 50 percent of the sky. He dropped out the bottom of the clouds at nine hundred feet and leveled off. He checked his fuel. He never flew straight, weaving back and forth to keep a clear patch of sky above him so he could keep the F-15s in sight. Again he needed the clouds. His neck ached from constantly looking up, but that would soon change.

“Bogeys reversing course now, heading approximately two-sixty degrees, away from the sun, directly toward me.” He called up the Sidewinder missile mounted on the left pylon just under the leading edge of the wing root. He fully intended to have the F-15s for lunch.

“Partially obscured by clouds. Bogeys haven’t seen me yet.” He wasn’t surprised, since the Lightning’s dark gray paint blended perfectly with the gray ocean and clouds. He checked his fuel. “Come on, chaps, get the finger out. Haven’t got all day.” He waited for what seemed an eternity as the jets converged. But age and experience had made him a patient man—when required. “F-15s passing overhead at approximately twenty-four thousand feet. Reheats now.” He stroked the afterburners and sat the Lightning on its tail, heading straight up. He punched through the clouds, directly beneath the F-15s.

The tone of his voice changed as his fangs came out. “Confirm bogeys are F-15 bandits. I’m engaged.” He passed directly behind the two Eagles, still going straight up. He pirouetted ninety degrees so he could look over his left shoulder as he climbed above the Eagles, which were still going away from him. “Check six, old chaps, or you buy the farm.”

He was about to slice down behind the Eagles when they finally saw him. Seagrave had never flown against the Eagle and was astounded by the violence of their maneuver. One pitched back left, the other right, as they turned back into him. For all appearances it looked as if they were hinged at the tail and flopped backward. In a fighter like the Lightning that maneuver would have killed all its airspeed, but the Eagles came out accelerating—climbing thirty degrees and headed straight for him.

At this point enemy pilots had been known to reach for the ejection handle in a last-ditch attempt to survive. Seagrave laughed and sliced down into the attacking F-15s, which were now looking directly into the sun. A loud growling sound filled his headset as the Sidewinder’s infrared guidance locked on and told him he had a shot.

He made a radio call, as required by the rules of engagement. “Lightning has bandits in sight. Fox Two on the right Eagle.” Fox Two was the brevity code for employing a Sidewinder. The Eagles had no choice and honored the threat. Again both maneuvered violently to avoid the simulated missile heading their way. In the confusion Seagrave nosed over and stroked his afterburners, heading for the cloud deck below him. Now it was a race for sanctuary before the F-15s found him and maneuvered into a firing position. His altimeter unwound like a sprung clock, and he was relying on pure skill and instinct to know when to pull out. He racked the throttles full aft and pulled on the stick. For a fraction of a second he was sure he had delayed too long and wasn’t going to make it. The nose came up, and he shoved the throttles full forward, engaging the afterburners and killing his sink rate. He skimmed along above the ocean’s surface at 600 knots, partially hidden by the cloud deck above him. “Tallyho, the fox,” came over the radio. The F-15s had him in sight. “Blue One’s engaged.”

Seagrave keyed his radio before he heard a Fox Two call. “Lightning One is outside the area.” It was a lie, and he still had two nautical miles to go, another ten seconds away. He squeaked the Lightning down another fifty feet and checked his fuel. It was going to be close. Another voice came over the radio. “Blue Two confirms bandit still inside the area. Take the shot!”

Seagrave laughed and hit the transmit button. “Sorry, chaps. But I am outside the area now.” And he was. The engagement was over.

He turned to the west and zoomed, trading his airspeed for altitude. He throttled back and radioed ATC. “Lightning One RTB at this time. Declaring minimum fuel, request priority handling.”

The Gray Eagles paced the ramp as they waited. To the man, they were trying to act cool and unconcerned, but their relief was obvious when the Lightning touched down and taxied back on one engine. They marshaled the jet into the chocks and gave Seagrave the cut-engines sign. He popped the canopy as the engine spun down. “Maintenance problem?” Shanker called, expecting another mechanical difficulty.

Seagrave pulled away his mask and rubbed his forehead. The outline from the mask etched his face, and he was exhausted. But he hadn’t been so alive in years, and he laughed at the signals coming from his groin. “Other than a bit short of fuel,” he answered, “she’s absolutely perfect.”

Shanker gave him a thumbs-up. The Lightning was fully operational and up to speed. “We got to get your ass over to Langley for the debrief,” Shanker said. “They’re hopping mad.”

“Can’t say I blame them,” Seagrave replied. “They had a very bad day.”

“What did you do?”

Seagrave climbed down the boarding ladder. “Cheated.”

Shanker smiled. “What the hell, a kill’s a kill.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

The small briefing room was packed with bodies when Seagrave and Shanker walked in. The two F-15 pilots were locked in a serious discussion with their squadron’s ops officer as a lieutenant colonel and colonel, both wearing blue uniforms and not fight suits, listened. The men all fell silent as Seagrave sat down at the head of the table. “Shall we begin?” he asked. His blue eyes sparkled in anticipation.

“This was, without doubt,” the lead F-15 pilot said, “the most fucked-up mission I’ve ever flown.”

“How is that so?” Seagrave asked.

“First, we weren’t allowed to use our radar to find the bandit.”

“Can your radar find a fighter with stealth characteristics?” Seagrave asked. There was no answer. “The reason you were denied use of your radar was to simulate engagement with a stealth fighter where your radar will be of limited use.”

“Second,” the pilot protested, “you jumped us out of the sun. We couldn’t see you.”

Seagrave almost laughed. “That’s the way it’s done. If you recall, it was agreed in our earlier briefing that either aircraft could engage as long as it had the other aircraft in sight and came no closer than two nautical miles. I had you both in sight and never entered your bubble.”

“Third, you cheated. I was about to take my shot, when you—”

Seagrave interrupted. “Assuming my first shot didn’t kill you.”

“You can’t document that,” the pilot replied, trying to be calm.

“I agree any missile shot is always problematic,” Seagrave said. “But still, I had a steady growl in my headset, indicating the missile head was tracking.”

“I honored the shot and turned away!” the pilot shouted. “But that radio call that you were outside the area was a fuckin’ lie!”

“It did cause you to hesitate. Are you assuming an enemy will not cheat?” A hard silence came down.

The squadron ops officer stood up. “This mission was a waste of time, fuel, and our training resources. It was a very bad idea to begin with, and it got worse when we did it.”

“Was it?” Shanker said from the back of the room. “I was with the Triple Nickel when it deployed to ’Nam.” Everyone in the room but Seagrave knew that the 555 Tactical Fighter Squadron had earned the title “MiG Killers” during the Vietnam war. “But we had to relearn some hard lessons before we got good. You just relearned a few of ’em today.”

“What exactly were those lessons?” the colonel in the blue uniform asked.

Seagrave stood up and wrote on the whiteboard in big red letters
CHECK SIX
. “I was down on the deck and followed you into the area at your deep six-o’clock. I never once saw you perform a belly check.”

“Shit,” the colonel moaned.

“Further, when you reversed course, you flew right over me. Once your tail was to me, I zoomed into the sun.” The colonel’s moan turned into a growl. “The next time you engage someone coming out of the sun,” Seagrave said as he diagrammed the engagement, “split-plane maneuver so one of you is very high, looking down on the engagement like God, or go low to look up and not into the sun. That way you take away any up-sun advantage the bandit may have and force him to split his attention. Finally, you allowed me to talk you out of a good missile shot. When you have a shot, take it. Sort out the rules of engagement on the ground.”

“But what if the bandit has reached sanctuary for real?” the pilot protested.

Shanker guffawed. “A kill is a kill. Take the shot and say you’re sorry later. Otherwise the goner will come back the next day and hose one of your buddies out of the sky. Your wingman will thank you, even though the REMFs will hang you out to dry.”

“REMFs?” Seagrave asked.

“Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers,” Shanker told him.

“Ah,” Seagrave replied. “We have a few of those in the RAF.” He looked at the two seated pilots. Both were superb fliers who only needed seasoning. “Always remember, when all else fails, cheat.”

“It’s the British way,” Shanker confirmed.

The blue-uniformed colonel looked at the two pilots. “Gentlemen, if this debrief is over, we need some privacy.” The pilots and their ops officer left the briefing room and closed the door behind them. “Commander Seagrave,” the colonel said, “I work for the inspector general. I think we can use you and the Lightning.”