Last Son of the War God

by Clay Martin

  His eyes burning into those of his errant copilot, he pressed his transmit button. “Two-four is rolling,” he growled at the mic.

  “Are you…?” Jake began.

  “Harness,” the captain barked, cutting off the younger man, and asserting his authority.

  “Harness secure,” Jake responded, relief evident in his voice.

  “Flaps.”

  “Fifteen and fifteen. Two green…” and so on the pair went through the takeoff checklist.

  When Gance eased forward on the thrust levers he felt Jake’s hand come down gently atop his own. “No sweat, Cap,” the younger man said, his voice calm yet well aware that he’d not only abused his authority but compromised his captain and would be called to the carpet—or worse—for his actions.

  Equally aware that the CVR was recording the crew’s every word, Jake said nothing more.

  Gance nodded and both men applied power exactly as they had hundreds of times before and the big jet accelerated.

  “Vee-one,” Jake called.

  “Rotate,” Gance replied, and they were flying.

  As the airplane rolled into a climbing departure turn, Manhattan’s sun-draped spires glistened vermillion through the mist. And, though disappointed by his copilot’s brief but serious transgression, Captain Gance took confidence in Jake’s recovery and in doing so allowed himself to be awed by the beauty so unique to their vantage. Knowing, too, that he needed to ease the residual tension on his flight deck, the captain waxed poetic, saying, “Red sky at morning...”

  No one heard Ed James respond, “...sailor take warning.”

  - Chapter 2 -

  Once at altitude, and not content to endure the uneasy silence that permeated the cockpit, Ed spoke first. “Sorry, Jake. It was a dumb thing I said about your friend being on dope and all. You know how I do.”

  “It’s okay, Ed,” Jake said. “Don’t dwell on it.”

  But Ed did dwell on it, and Gance, knowing the CVR would record over itself in two hours, allowed it while collecting his own thoughts. “I, well…I just didn’t know,” Ed said. “The paper called him Leif Bergstrom. But you just called him Swede. Ain’t that right, Cap?”

  “Swede’s a nickname,” Jake corrected, “a call sign.”

  Gance, forcing calm, gestured toward the newspaper crumbled on Jake’s lap. “Okay, Number-One,” he said. “It’s time to come clean about Bergstrom.” A pause. “I know you don’t like to talk about your time in Iraq,” he went on, “I get that. But, if something disrupts procedure, I have to know why. So, spill it or we do this by the book.”

  “I flew one recon mission with Swede,” Jake finally groused. “I hardly knew the guy”

  “Do not push me, Jake!” Gance admonished. Having himself flown F-4s in the first Gulf War the captain was not about to put up with patronage from a fellow combat pilot. “You learn more about a man after five minutes of war fighting than you can in a lifetime at anything else. If that man risked his life to save your ass, he’s your brother for life. So start talking.”

  Embarrassed, realizing how far his captain had stretched the rules on his behalf, Jake relented. “Look. I just can’t believe where a pilot like Swede ended up, that’s all. Learning a thing like that, it’s like a punch in the gut.”

  “At least he was flying again,” Ed James noted, referring to the news article. “I thought he’d been badly wounded.”

  “You thought right,” Jake affirmed. “But that doesn’t make him a drug runner.”

  Observing the younger man’s performance, his deft touch and movements, the captain knew Jake was back in control of both his emotions and the aircraft. So, and with a qualified man in the jump seat, he pressed. “Was Iraq the last time you saw him?”

  “Yes. When Swede disappeared, my fighter was really shot up, but I circled the area until my last drop of fuel reserve was gone, so were half my systems. I never saw his chute or any wreckage, never heard a beacon. He just disappeared.” Jake shifted in his seat, uneasy with the memory “I know he got picked up alive. But that’s all I was told. Of course, Command and Control knew exactly what happened in that sky, but Swede and I had engaged against orders and it was the day after the president had made his Mission Accomplished speech from that carrier deck, so nobody said shit.”

  “I thought no F-16s were lost to enemy action since like the Nineties,” Ed pondered aloud. “Hell, didn’t one of ‘em just shot down a MiG-21 in India or someplace?”

  “I never said…” Jake began to explain, only to have the captain cut him off.

  “…and the other side claims it was their MiG that took out the F-16. That’s the fog of war, Ed,” Gance declared, satisfied with Jake’s explanation, the hard-earned wisdom and quiet comprehension of a combat warrior relieving the younger man of further painful recollection.

  “Ever reach out,” Gance went on, “call Swede’s folks?”

  “Absolutely,” Jake answered, relief at the unexpected tolerance apparent in his captain’s tone. “Even visited his parents out in California first time I deployed back stateside. Lemme tell you, it was, uh…interesting. But it’s how I learned what became of him.”

  “Sounds like he fell on hard times,” Gance said.

  “A man’s gotta eat, y’all,” Ed offered.

  “There’s more to the story,” Jake added. “Swede’s father, Truls Bergstrom, told me what he knew.” Both men listened intently as Jake began. “Whoever got hold of Swede, worked him over good. But he didn’t talk—he couldn’t, none of us knew shit. You were Navy in the first go, Skipper. You get it. We were tip ‘a the spear, period–but they pumped the poor bastard full of pentothal anyway and God knows what else. Between that and the beatings, he came back, well, different, y’know, according to his father.”

  “But whoever had him, released him, right?” Gance asked.

  “Right. Swede spent a year in Walter Reed. After that some desk-jockey dropped his discharge papers and a couple of campaign ribbons into his B-4 bag and sent him home. But what he went home to was also different. He had a kid sister, talked about her all the time.” With that, Jake paused, pensive, thinking. “For the life of me, I can’t recall her name. I only know she thought Swede hung the moon, and he doted on her like a mother hen. After the family learned he was MIA she, well, she was at that age, maybe thirteen or so when you still think you can change the world. She got bitter, started going to protest rallies.” Pensive, Jake shook his head as if rejecting the image. “Anyway, Swede had always said she was a good-looking kid, not that you could prove it by me. The kid I saw was a mess. But, anyway, it wasn’t long before one of the rally leaders got his hands on her. Prick’s name was Philippe… probably bullshit. He was just a grifter with a tie-dyed shirt, working his con on the kids. Pretty soon, she’s living with him, strung out on his heroin, hooking for him. Apparently Swede found her that way when he got out of Walter Reed. Truls had been told of his son’s release, but Swede never went home. He just swept in and out of town like a ghost.”

  “But his sister made it back home?” Gance asked.

  “Affirmative,” Jake continued, his gaze distant as he struggled with the memory. “Kid was in bad shape when I saw her. Looked like a zombie, but I guess she was trying. I dunno. Old Truls Bergstrom dragged her into the room when I visited. She kept her head down, trying to hide her face. She didn’t look like the other Bergstroms. She was a scrawny little thing with black hair. The rest of them were big, round-faced blondes. She was different…trying to be different, too, I guess. Huge eyes, skin white as a sheet, just stuck on her bones like wet paper. But what really turned my crank was she had needle marks up and down her skinny arms. Man, I never seen that before. But Truls made sure I got a good look, pushing her in front of me like he expected me to scold her or something, and all the time she’s trying to hide herself as if she were a leper. She didn’t say a word the whole time
I was there, which wasn’t long, believe me.”

  The other men listened in silence as Jake mused. “But, y’know what sticks out in my mind the most?” he said. “Despite the way old man Bergstrom pushed that strange, skinny kid around, I was dead certain she scared the shit out of him. She had a menace about her, and it filled the room like the stink of the place.”

  “What happened to the drug dealer, Philippe?” Ed asked.

  “Disappeared.”

  “Swede’s doing?”

  “I’d bet on it,” Jake said, handing the crumpled newspaper back to Ed. “So, like I said, knowing what I know about Swede, about his family, and especially about the kid sister he adored, I know Swede Bergstrom didn’t smuggle drugs or knowingly fly airplanes for the scumbags who do.”

  The cockpit went quiet and Jake sensed his crewmates’ discomfort. “Okay, gents, now you know all, so let’s drop it?”

  “Roger that,” Gance said while Ed searched for the puzzle page.

  - Chapter 3 -

  It was early afternoon when North Am-24 touched down at LAX. Jake was pleased to be in California with much of the day still ahead of him. He thought he might stay over and look up the Bergstrom family in Stockton.

  However, as the day wound toward evening, Jake sat in his airport hotel room, staring at the phone, frustrated.

  Unable to find a listing for Truls Bergstrom in Stockton, he’d tried several other California towns and come up empty; while the name Truls was unique, the surname Bergstrom was not. Nonetheless Jake ran down every iteration in the state, calling any and every Bergstrom, leaving detailed voicemail messages, his name, number, and his reason for calling. His old flight leader’s family had moved on.

  Jake was stymied. What to do next? As he contemplated the phone, it rang.

  “Jake?” It was Gance’s gravelly voice. “Had any luck running down Bergstrom’s family?”

  “Nothing,” Jake said, then added, “and, Bill, thanks for cutting me a whole lot of slack today. I know it wasn’t easy.”

  “Easy? Hell, I’m not sure it was even regulation. Breakfast?”

  “Affirmative, Skipper. What time?”

  “I’ll see you downstairs at six.”

  Jake looked at the clock. It was only 7:00 p.m. but that would be 10:00 p.m. New York time and last night’s joyful romp with Sandy McRea, had left him tired.

  Within an hour, Jake was in bed. Sleep, however, eluded him. Swede Bergstrom’s abrupt re-emergence had frazzled his nerves and he lay silent, letting his troubled mind wander back to an earlier time, a younger time, when life was filled with wonder and the lure of adventure.

  To young Jake, adventure meant but one thing: flight.

  Unable to afford civilian pilot training, he took another somewhat riskier path. The country was at peace, so within a week of his college graduation, he chose the Air Force. As expected he scored high on the entrance aptitude tests. His mental acuity, physical condition, and spanking new degree in aerospace engineering qualified the aspiring airman for a commission and undergraduate pilot training. There, too, he excelled, earning a place on Training Command’s elite Fighter, Attack, Recon (FAR) track.

  Everything was going according to plan until the morning of September 11th 2001, when Jake’s plans along with those of countless other Americans, evaporated in a noxious cloud of ash and metal and blood and bone, leaving the Manhattanite incensed and seeking only retribution against whatever monsters had presumed to attack his home city.

  When his chance finally came, the young lieutenant left the training grind of Luke AFB for his first duty station.

  Tensions were high when Jake arrived at the coalition airbase in Saudi Arabia. The adrenal rush of combat permeated both the conversation and posturing of Jake’s squadron mates: young men all. Jake, however, found himself increasingly unable to reconcile the events that had colored the two years between the World Trade Center attack and this, his first combat assignment. If this war was indeed a response to the events of September 11th, it seemed an irrational one. As Jake’s frustrations had grown, so had his incredulity. Why, he’d wondered, was he finding himself based in the same country that had spawned the mastermind of those attacks and 15 of the 19 perpetrators? If that weren’t confusing enough to the conflicted young officer, why was he here to fly against Iraq, none of whose people took part in the attacks?

  Bound by love of country and a staunch determination to stand by his sworn oath, yet finding it ever more difficult to suffer his dissonance in silence, Jake tossed in his bunk.

  Unable to sleep, he rose and quietly dressed, deciding to take a pre-dawn run in the hope of clearing his head.

  Donning his flight jacket above a t-shirt and shorts, he stepped into the cold desert night.

  His path took him in the direction of the flightline where the unmistakable sound of departing F-16s drew him closer. Stopping at the foot of the tarmac he jogged in place and watched as the magnificent little warplanes streaked past, each lifting off to soar above the desert floor, its engine trailing a bright cone of flame against a black and moonless sky. But to young Jake, the terrible beauty of such spectacle served only to reinforce the sense of privilege he felt at having been granted command of so awesome an instrument of dominion and the almost unbearable responsibility contingent upon its use.

  Unwilling to voice such ambivalence to those he assumed were his unsympathetic squadron mates, and not a man who’d seek comfort from his chaplain, Jake did the only thing he thought he could; against the roar of jet engines he shouted a catharsis into the beautiful uncaring Arabian night.

  Mesmerized by the spectacle unfolding on the runway, he hadn’t noticed the young captain quietly standing a few feet to his rear. At first showing no reaction to Jake’s outburst, the aloof officer seemed to be ignoring the rookie until, finally, rather than upbraid the young malcontent, the veteran stepped closer and tempered his derision with advice. Without turning away from the sound and fury of the departing jets, the reticent officer raised his voice above the roar, saying, “I hear you’re a boxer.”

  “Was a boxer,” Jake corrected, as startled by the man’s presence as he was surprised by his insight.

  “I know a thing or two about boxing, myself—and boxers.”

  “Is that right?” Jake replied, hiding his embarrassment behind a macho fighter-jock demeanor. Then, noticing the guy’s collar bars he added an obligatory, “…Sir.”

  “That’s right, shavetail,” the slightly older flier said, now turning to speak directly to the young lieutenant “And the first thing I know is that every boxer has a plan.”

  “Affirmative,” Jake said, lowering his voice as the last warplane climbed away.

  “Yeah,” the stranger concluded with a nod, “you all have a plan…until the bell rings.”

  Despite his mood, Jake had smiled in silent agreement.

  “That’s how I also know,” the captain added, “that once it gets real, guys like you stop giving a shit if the man comin’ at you is big or small or loves his mother or has a friggin’ puppy. You just wanna kick his ass before he kicks yours. Everything else is suddenly bullshit.” With that he paused, making certain the metaphor was not lost on this naïve lieutenant. Satisfied, he went on. “So be advised, pal. The same thing applies here…in spades. Now I’m gonna try to forget that pile of crap you just spouted, and remind you that you’re not a politician, and you’re sure as hell not a philosopher. What you are,” he said while stepping closer that he might poke the pilot’s wings printed into the leather nametag affixed to the breast of Jake’s MA-1 jacket, “is an American airman. So unless you want to spend the rest of your tour pulling my size thirteen boot out of your worthless new guy ass, you will think and act and fight like the exquisitely trained US goddam fighter pilot those wings represent.”

  With that, the young captain leaned close to Jake’s ear, and concluded with,
“By the way, hot shot, I have it on good authority—my own—that your bell’s just about to ring and when it does, your rationale will KO your half-assed rationality.”

  As the officer turned to leave, Jake followed him into the Base Ops shack. “Captain,” he called out. “You seem to know a lot about me, and I don’t even know your name.”

  “You will, Lieutenant,” the stranger barked before disappearing into the night.

  Without looking up, the sergeant behind the operations desk said, “Most call him Swede.”

  The ensuing weeks found the squadron’s new pilots each assigned to a flight: a small subset of their squadron wherein they’d be engaged in seemingly endless local area orientation drills and systems training exercises. During these drills, Jake did get to know Captain Leif Bergstrom’s name quite well. Bergstrom was the young pilot’s Flight Commander. And, over the course of these increasingly arduous dry runs, Lieutenant Silver’s flying impressed Bergstrom. From that common bond and anticipation of impending combat, the two young lions drew close. Then, when Bergstrom not only declared Jake Silver mission-ready, he also assigned the young pilot to fly his wing on what would be Jake’s first combat sortie.

  Theirs would be an NTISR, or Night Time Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance mission—clandestine, defensive, and among the most dangerous assignments in all of aerial warfare. With Swede Bergstrom’s, “until the bell rings,” admonition top of mind, the junior officer hung on every word of the pre-mission briefing.

  Satellite surveillance and JSTARS airborne battlefield management systems had been encountering unusually high surface vehicle traffic in an area around Baghdad, an area that had been largely neutralized by the previous two months’ of massive SEAD air defense suppression operations, but could confirm little beyond that. Theirs, then, was to be an armed recon mission, old-school, daring, and exactly how fiercely independent Swede Bergstrom liked it. And though the pair expected to be tracked, there would be no directions from Command and Control. Officially, they were alone and unknown.