True Valor (33 page)

Grace

Grace ~

I’m so glad you have been there to help out Jill. I’ve been feeling a bit helpless as a big brother lately; there is so little I can do from here. CONGRATULATIONS on getting the medical release. I’ve been praying fervently that it would happen. A dream has kept you moving forward all your life. Fly the meatball, the glide path, and watch the wind. You can do it, honey. I’m so proud of you just for being willing to try. I do wish I could be there. Know you are in my thoughts.

I love you.

Bruce

Thirty-Nine

* * *

JUNE 14

AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS
HARRY TRUMAN

A
TLANTIC
O
CEAN OFF THE
C
OAST OF
V
IRGINIA

She would love to catch the third wire, but she’d settle for the first or even the fourth if she could just find the ship. Grace descended through the clouds. Five miles ahead, somewhere, was the USS
Harry Truman
. The Atlantic Ocean was an incredibly big place at night.

Grace fought the sensation of being task saturated as she kept up the scan of sky and instruments. Flying that had been instinctive months before, she was now consciously doing. It wasn’t a good sign, and the more she tried to change it, the more she got herself further behind in the mental game. One poor landing and her flying career was over. She came out of the clouds. Where was the ship?

She spotted a yellow line of lights far ahead. She half smiled to herself as she saw it and felt the fear that was always there in a night landing to cause her hands to sweat. She really was going to land on that strip of lights.

Entrance into carrier landing pattern was at a point in the sky three miles behind the carrier at eight hundred feet.

She had made four day traps aboard the
Harry Truman
and knew what she should expect in those last seconds of landing. The LSO working tonight was excellent at his job. She was glad the man was there to help get her safely onto the ship.

She scanned outside the cockpit, across the heads-up displays, feeling out the plane. She started the break for the deck and hit the entrance point to the landing pattern high and increased her rate of descent. Her timing was off. At 250 knots she lowered the landing gear and the tailhook.

“624, three quarters of a mile, call the ball,” the air controller said.

“624, Hornet ball, 4.5,” she replied. The massive meatball yellow light glowed in the night, the bulbs actually dimmed so they didn’t shimmer in the night air. The meatball was above the line of green datum lights. She was still high.

She edged down.

So many people were pulling for her to make this—Bruce. Wolf. Jill. Her squadron. The press had been all over her since news she was going to fly again. She just wanted to land safely and get the entire incident behind her. She’d overcorrected and the yellow light notched below the green lights. She increased power.

She was overflying, trying too hard to fly the plane. She could do this, but it felt like she’d never done it before.

The LSO had yet to give her a single correction, either he was comfortable she was on top of the needed corrections or the radio was dead. She preferred to think positively.

Do not be low.
She was not going to fly a ramp strike.

She got the light centered, had the centerline, was on the glide slope. Eight seconds to go. She had this landing. She could feel it. If not a perfect approach, it was still going to put her into the third wire.

The bank of lights went flashing red. “Wave off. Foul deck!”

She shoved open full power on afterburners and pulled back hard, putting the Hornet in a rapid climb, knowing she would be shaking the tower windows with the close abort. Adrenaline surged.

“624, Paddles. Digbat problem here. Good approach. We’ll give you a clear deck on the next round.”

“Paddles, 624. Roger.” She breathed deep to relax. She knew all about digbats, a polite word that covered everything from birds on the deck to a caution light on an arresting wire. There was no margin in a landing, and the LSO waving her off had just saved her life. Maybe she shouldn’t be doing this. She wanted to marry Bruce, not have him attending her funeral.

She reached angels 10 and turned, flying the downward leg to come back around for another landing approach.

What am I doing wrong?

The mental zone of perfection she normally had when flying was far, far away.
God, I need clarity. Help me.
She had walked nuggets through this mental moment of crisis. She’d been here before.

She wasn’t trusting her shoulder and hand to be there; she wasn’t comfortable that weakness wouldn’t catch her by surprise. The realization came in the moment before she broke again for the landing approach. The crash had been a fluke. She accepted it. She was going to prove it.

She hit the entrance point to the pattern, was lined up and on a good approach.

“624, three quarters of a mile, call the ball,” the air controller said.

“624, Hornet ball, 4.1,” she replied.

“624, Paddles. Wind at twenty-nine knots, slightly pitching keel.”

“Paddles, 624. Roger.”

The finesse started coming back. The meatball hung like a heavy weight right in the center of the green lights, never clicking up or down. The ship grew larger and larger. She crossed the fantail.

She hit hard and slammed open afterburners just in case she had to bolter. The tailhook caught and the Hornet was jerked to a full stop in two seconds. Grace sucked in her breath at the pain that rippled as the restraint harness tightened, stopping what otherwise would have been her forward crash through the windshield.

She’d give herself an okay pass for that landing. Just a touch right in the lineup, maybe a fraction high in the middle, right into the third wire.

Yellow wands were waving at her. She blinked clear her vision and powered back her jet to idle, raised the landing hook. She followed the waving wands not to a parking place but across to catapult 2. She was going to launch and do it all again. Welcome to carrier quals, she thought to herself with a smile, and wondered if she’d have the energy to climb out of the cockpit when the night was over. It had just begun.

FORWARD OPERATING LOCATION

T
URKEY
/S
YRIAN
B
ORDER

“Have you heard anything?”

Bruce stretched out on his bunk, glanced to the door of the tent, and shook his head. “She should be in the middle of quals about now.”

“Grace will be able to make it.”

“And if she fails?” Bruce couldn’t imagine what that would do to her. Failure wasn’t a word in Grace’s vocabulary. He didn’t want her feeling again the sadness that had swamped her after Ben’s death. And he knew not being able to fly would cut that deep. She didn’t like to fly slow and level; she needed to be flying for the Navy. As much as he wanted her safely being a civilian, he wanted her doing what she loved even more.

“If something happens, she’ll brush herself off and try again.”

Bruce smiled at Wolf’s confidence. “Any word on the mission?”

“We’re on standby.”

It was just the two of them. Bruce could afford to be honest. “I hope they don’t execute this one. It’s stupid.”

Wolf took a seat on Rich’s bunk. “It would be . . . interesting.” That was one way of putting it. There were rumors that Syria was converting a deep oil well complex at Aleppo to go after water, were attempting to drill under Turkey’s border and literally into the reservoir complex. Stealing water—it was a fairly creative solution to Syria’s problem. One that would toss a match back on a tinderbox they had just got calmed down.

Bruce shook his head at the idea. “They’ve got to find a diplomatic solution. I wonder how the military brass learned about the Aleppo project?”

“Our defector?” Wolf speculated.

“Then he’s doing a lousy job at stopping a war.”

“The diplomats talk; the military waits.”

“We need rain.”

Wolf nodded. “This mission isn’t going to get the go-ahead. Calmer minds will step in. Any mail come today?”

“No.”

“I got a letter from Jill.”

“Did you?”

“A mushy one.”

Bruce smiled. “My sister likes being engaged.”

“She’s going to like being married more.”

He laughed. “Probably. She’ll change your life.”

“She’ll try.” Wolf opened a can of peanuts. “When are you going to get around to asking Grace?”

Bruce turned his head to look at his friend. “She’s got rather a lot on her mind at the moment.”

“True. We could have a double wedding.”

Bruce sat up. “Interesting idea.”

Wolf shrugged. “Otherwise we end up having two weddings a few months apart. You know they’ll want to be each other’s maid of honor. You’re my best man, and assuming no ugly stuff happens, I’ll probably stand up at yours.”

“It has to be their idea.”

Wolf smiled. “Since when has that been a problem to make happen?”

Bruce punched his pillow and lay back down, trying to get comfortable on the cot. “We’ve got too much time on our hands if we’re planning wedding details.” He thought about it for a minute. “When?”

Wolf laughed.

USS
HARRY TRUMAN

A
TLANTIC
O
CEAN OFF THE
C
OAST OF
V
IRGINIA

She had been assigned a temporary bunk aboard ship. Grace would have gone to the dirty-shirt wardroom to unwind with the other pilots renewing their carrier qualifications tonight, but she didn’t want to talk about her crash, and among pilots it was a natural question. They’d want to congratulate her for coming back to flight status.

She set down her gloves and her kneepad, the neat cards and the maps showing her hours of preparation for tonight’s flights. Takeoffs and landings that she had prepared for with the intensity of a live missile strike. She’d been prepared, overprepared maybe.

Two fairs and an okay. She’d flown better but she’d survived the grade cut. That was the most important fact. Exhausted, she nevertheless stepped out of the flight suit and pulled on a sweat suit. The physical therapist had given her a set of exercises to help stretch out her shoulder muscles after a flight and make sure they didn’t stiffen up.

She started stretching her arm and her shoulder, lifting and slowly rotating it to recover from three hours flying where mobility was limited.
Lord, was all this worth it?
She had her wings back, and she was so tired she wondered if it had been the right goal to go after. She’d flown, she’d been shot down, now she was back preparing to fly again. She could have a calm life with Bruce, be there whenever he was able to be home. Instead she was going after the right to continue a job where she would be gone for long stretches of time.

She could tell she was tired. She was doubting decisions she had made. The exercises complete, she changed again and got ready to turn in. She slid back the curtain on the lower bunk to slip in. A letter and a big bouquet of roses were on her bunk. Tears came to her eyes as she carefully lifted the bouquet. The roses were gorgeous.

Grace ~

Consider this the first of what will hopefully be many long love letters. I am so proud of you. Congratulations. I knew you could do it! Nothing gives me more pleasure than to know you are flying and staying true to a dream that goes all the way back to your youth. Wolf figured out the channels to get this letter to you tonight and got the flowers smuggled aboard. I’m glad it was this letter left for you with the flowers, and not the other I also wrote. It’s much easier to be happy for you long-distance than sad. I would have been as miserable as you, had tonight run into problems.

I’m sitting watching the stars, pleased to know that wherever you are you can share the same view. My life has become so much richer since you entered it. Never doubt that this is worth it, Grace. As much as I want to be there in person to tell you how proud I am of you, know this letter carries my full heart with it. You have pretty eyes, a laugh that makes me smile, and you write wonderful letters. Your picture is wearing out, it gets pulled from my pocket so often. Thinking of you tonight.

Yours, with an ocean of love, Bruce

PS You still owe me your dog tags.

Bruce ~

I’m so wiped I don’t know if I can write a letter that is readable. I FLEW GREAT! The clouds were so white, and the ocean was so huge, and the ship was soooo small. It was everything I remembered from those first flights as a nugget. Pure terror and overflying, and I got a wave off seconds before landing from a digbat problem— I wish I could bottle tonight and share some of this emotion. Adrenaline returns just thinking about it.

I did not think about the crash tonight; something I feared might happen. Frankly, I was too busy remembering everything that used to be second nature. On the whole, I’m very pleased with tonight. I think the roses are incredible. And your letter stupendous. I want to hug you with ink and paper. I’m now crashing, big time, and will probably sleep through my alarm.