Carrier c-1

by Keith Douglass

  The flag whipping from its mast was North Korean.

  Coyote clung tighter to Mardi Gras's body, still unwilling to accept his friend's death, unwilling to accept the gray specter which was drawing closer now on throbbing, idling engines. North Korean seamen were lining the Osa's rail, AKM rifles pointed directly at Coyote.

  "Oh, Vince," he said softly. "We are in one hell of a world of shit."

  1445 hours

  Tomcat 205, one mile abeam of the U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

  "Rodeo Leader, Charlie now." The voice of Jefferson's Air Boss sounded over Tombstone's earphones, signaling him to leave his holding pattern ahead of the carrier. He brought the stick over, dropping the Tomcat into a 4-G turn. He throttled back until the further engines were barely idling and popped the speed brakes to slow the craft. At 300 knots, the F-14's computer decided to slide the wings forward.

  Normally, Tomcat pilots overrode the automatics and kept the wings folded back, holding that a wings-forward position made them look like a goose as they went into the break. This time, though, Tombstone left the wings forward. He was angry and he was worried, and somehow the aviator's concern with looking good on the landing simply didn't seem as important as it did normally.

  "We are now in goose mode," Snowball said from the backseat. "Training wheels activated."

  Tombstone ignored him and concentrated on the turn. His left hand flicked the control to lower his landing gear. At 230 knots he dropped the wing flaps, slowing the aircraft still further as he maintained the turn. His eyes flicked to the console. Rate of descent… 600 feet per minute. Turning at 22' angle-of-bank. Range from the ship now three-quarters of a mile. He was coming up on Jefferson's wake now, sweeping out of the turn and lining up with her flight deck from astern. The carrier was plowing northeast into the wind at twenty knots. The swells had gotten stiffer in the last half hour, and Tombstone caught a glimpse of white spray bursting over Jefferson's bow. From here he could make out the squat tower of the ship's Fresnel landing system, the "meatball" on the carrier's port side which let him judge his glide slope.

  He called the ball. "Tomcat Two-oh-five ― Six point four, ball." That told Jefferson's landing signals officer ― the LSO ― that he had the meatball lined up, and that he had sixty-four hundred pounds of fuel on board. He'd not taken a full load from the KA-6D, since he needed only enough to get back to the ship. Excess fuel would have to be dumped before landing anyway.

  "Roger ball," the LSO replied over his headset. "Deck going down. Power on."

  In these rough seas, Jefferson's deck was heaving up and down, changing altitude beneath Tombstone's wheels by ten feet with the passage of every wave. The LSO's warning let him increase speed enough during the last second of his approach to keep from touching down short on the deck. Tombstone caught his breath and held it. It was in these critical seconds that the LSO would wave him off if he'd screwed it up.

  Large as she was, Jefferson never looked tinier to Tombstone than when he was dropping toward her deck for a trap. The deck was rising now to meet him… fast… faster. As the wheels touched steel he shoved the throttles forward; if his tail-hook missed the arresting wire, he needed full power for a "bolter" ― a touch-and-go that would send him off the forward deck and around for a second pass.

  The hook caught hold with a savage jolt that flung Tombstone against his shoulder harness. "Good trap!" he heard over his radio, as he brought the throttles back and the whine of the engines dropped in pitch. Ahead of his aircraft, a yellow-shirted deck director waved a pair of wands, guiding him onto his taxi pass. He backed the F-14 slightly to spit out the wire, then folded the Tomcat's wings and crept forward, following the yellow shirt.

  He'd already killed the engines in the designated space when he realized something was different. As the F-14's canopy raised up and he pulled the oxygen mask clear of his face, he saw that there were more men than usual gathering about the aircraft… and more were arriving second by second. Normally, the color-coded crewmen seemed segregated, each with their own kind, but now purple-shirted fuel handlers mingled with red-shirted ordnancemen, shoulder to shoulder with green-shirted hook and catapult men, safety monitors and corpsmen in white, crew captains in brown. The noise which assaulted his ears as he unfastened his harness and hitched himself up was deafening. Chief Walters, 205's crew chief, unfolded the ladder from the Tomcat's side and was there to congratulate Tombstone as he stepped from the cockpit and onto the deck. "Welcome home, sir! Number one job! Number one!"

  "Thanks, Gabe."

  The crowd was all around him, pounding him on his back. A red-shirted ordnanceman beamed up at him. "We got us a MiG, didn't we, Commander?"

  "We sure did," Tombstone replied. He tried to grin and failed. He felt keen disappointment. He'd just experienced what every peacetime Navy aviator dreamed of, engaging MiGs air-to-air and scoring a kill, but worry about Coyote and Mardi Gras dampened his joy.

  Besides, Coyote had made a kill as well.

  But the enthusiasm of the flight deck crew was wildly contagious. Those men regarded the MiG kills as no less theirs than his. He found himself laughing despite the pain as he and Snowball were hoisted high and carried in triumphant procession toward the carrier's island.

  If only Coyote and Mardi could have been there to share it.

  1455 hours

  Pried-Fly, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

  "Admiral on deck," a seaman barked out, as Magruder stepped across the hatch combing and into the glassed-in brightness of Primary Flight Control. Captain Fitzgerald was there, the inevitable blue ball cap with Jefferson's name and number inscribed on it low over his eyes, an unlit cigar clenched in his teeth. He was looking through the windows aft, watching the flight deck where a rainbow of colored shirts was closing in on the pilot and RIO who had just made their trap.

  Fitzgerald turned and met Magruder's eyes. "Your boy's done well for himself, Admiral. A goddamned hero."

  "That he has, Captain." Inwardly, he wondered what he should say… or should not say. More than ever, Magruder questioned the wisdom of allowing Matthew to be stationed aboard this carrier, out of all the carriers in the Navy.

  He knew Matthew had the same questions. Having an admiral for an uncle could cause more problems than it was worth.

  "You look worried, Admiral. What's the gouge?"

  Magruder sighed. Better to say it right out. "I've already talked to CAG. Backstop is RTB. And the carrier group is to stay put for the time being."

  Captain Fitzgerald was silent for a long moment. Behind him, through the Pried-Fly windows, Magruder could see one of Jefferson's angels, a rescue chopper holding station half a mile off to port. That was routine during launch and landing ops, a safety net against the chance that a plane might have to ditch. So many flight op procedures were designed to safeguard the men who launched, flew, and recovered the carrier's planes, to give them the best possible chance of returning from a mission alive.

  Magruder's words might well have just condemned Coyote and Mardi Gras to death. He couldn't escape that fact… but it was damned hard to look at it too.

  "Washington?" Fitzgerald asked. There was the slightest curl to his lip as he spoke the word.

  Magruder looked at his watch. "Fourteen fifty-six," he said. "They've been in the water for almost an hour. Backstop lost the beeper signal forty minutes ago. How long do you think they'll survive in that cold water, Captain?"

  Fitzgerald's cigar worked up and down in his mouth, the muscles in the lean face working furiously. "I'd say we still have to give it a try, Admiral. We can't just leave our boys out there, can we?"

  Magruder looked away as he handed a teletype printout to Fitzgerald.

  The reply to his call to CINCPAC had been routed back down the line with startling swiftness. Admiral Bainbridge had assured him that the Joint Chiefs were closeted with the President at that very moment, discussing this latest twist to the Korean crisis.

  In the meantime, though…

  J
efferson's carrier battle group consisted of six ships spread across nearly one hundred miles of ocean. Closest to the Korean coast was the Spruance-class destroyer John A. Winslow, now steaming north some forty miles west of the Jefferson. Even at top speed, it would be hours before the Winslow could launch her two Sea Kings, hours more before the helicopters would reach the waters where Rodeo Two had gone down.

  They'd be better off getting help from the Republic of Korea. The ROKs kept helos ― Blackhawks and Sea Kings ― stationed at Yangyang and Kangnung on South Korea's east coast. Hell, they might even have a few up at Kansong, and that was only seventy-five miles south of where the action was. Seventy-five miles was thirty minutes for a Blackhawk. They could have been there already!

  Fitzgerald looked up from the teletype. "Washington is sitting on the ROKs?"

  Magruder nodded. "Somehow, they seem to feel the North Koreans are going to feel threatened by a fleet of South Korean helicopters coming at them up the coast." He gestured at the message. "Quote, it is imperative that no actions which can be construed as deliberately provocative be taken, unquote."

  Commander Wheeler, Jefferson's Air Boss, looked up from his chair across the compartment. "And shooting down one of our Tomcats isn't provocative," he said in disgust. "Shit."

  Magruder ignored him. "We've been ordered to hold our position while the Joint Chiefs study the situation," he said quietly. "We're too far out to launch a SAR of our own, and a sortie by the ROKs is out of the question. I'm afraid we've lost our people."

  "You want to explain that to our aviators?" Fitzgerald asked. The faces of the other officers in Pried-Fly wore the shock which the Captain's words lacked.

  "Want to? No. But there's not a hell of a lot else to do, is there? Except wait for CINCPAC and the Joint Chiefs to get off their asses and make up their minds."

  "We'll be sitting out here until this time next year."

  Magruder walked over to the window and looked down on the aft flight deck, forty feet below. The procession of deck crewmen had vanished with Tombstone and Snowball beneath the overhang of the island's superstructure. Matthew would be coming up shortly. The Admiral had passed the word for his nephew to meet him here.

  The Air Boss walked over to stand beside him. "Pardon me, Admiral, but we can't leave those boys out there."

  "What do you want me to do, Commander? Invade North Korea?"

  "If that's what it takes." The muscles at his jaw worked for a moment before he added, "Sir."

  There was a stir of emotion by the Pried-Fly entry, and Tombstone walked in. Lieutenant Commander Pete Lepke, the Assistant Air Boss ― "mini boss" to Jefferson's aviators ― was the first to shake his hand. "First class, Matt."

  "Thanks, Pete." Tombstone turned to face Magruder and Fitzgerald. "Admiral. Captain. Reporting as ordered."

  The admiral couldn't look at Matthew Magruder without seeing the boy's father ― his brother. Tombstone was tall for an aviator, as tall as Sam had been, with the same unruly brown hair, the same dark eyes. The somber, almost brooding features which had given the boy his running name were Sam's too.

  "So you chalked one up for the wall at Miramar?" the admiral asked. There was a wall in a passageway at the Top Gun school at Miramar where the dates of Navy air-to-air victories are recorded on red-painted silhouettes of the kills. "Well done, Matthew."

  "Thank you, Admiral. Is there any word yet about Coyote and Mardi Gras?"

  The admiral kept the smile frozen in place. The older man shook his head, a slight, jerking movement. "Negative, Matthew. Backstop lost the SAR beeper forty minutes ago." He paused, unwilling to say the rest. "I've ordered Backstop RTB."

  "For God's sake, why? Coyote is still alive out there somewhere! I talked to him!"

  Admiral Magruder looked away. "They're out of range for SAR helos. And we're being dangled by those bastards in the five-sided squirrel cage."

  "The Pentagon? What-"

  "It's a touchy situation, son," Captain Fitzgerald said. He gestured with the teletype flimsy. "Coyote may have gone down inside North Korean territorial waters."

  "So? They shot him down. They shot first. We go in and get him."

  "I wish it were that simple," Admiral Magruder said. "But with tensions running as high as they are up here, the word is to play it with a low profile. No hostile acts."

  "It was the NKs who started with the hostile acts, damn it!" He caught a warning glint in his uncle's eye, and stiffened. "Yes, sir."

  "I know how you feel, Matthew, but right now our hands are tied. There's a chance the North Koreans picked him up. If so, it will be up to the State Department boys to get him out, not us."

  "And if the November Kilos didn't pick him up?"

  The admiral walked over to one of the windows. A rainbow of colored shirts spilled across the flight deck a telephone pole's length below. A pair of F-14s were being nudged into position on catapults two and four. Green shirts ran the cat shuttles back, locking them in place to each aircraft's nose gear as steam boiled from the deck around them. "Then it's probably too late already. That water out there is damned cold."

  "Yeah," Tombstone said after a moment's silence. "And the water's not the only thing that's cold. Sir."

  He turned and strode from Pried-Fly. Admiral Magruder could feel the younger man's anger like a white heat.

  CHAPTER 5

  1610 hours

  U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

  Tombstone spent the next hour surrounded by sea and sky on Vulture's Row, the railed walkway high up on Jefferson's island, trying to come to grips with the knowledge that Coyote wasn't coming back. The sight and jet-engine shriek of Batman and the other Backstop aircraft coming in for their traps onto Jefferson's stern were like nails driven into the coffin. They'd lost Coyote.

  Numb, he made his way down the number two island ladder and into the gray maze of passageways and corridors branching out beneath the flight deck. His destination was the mess area known as the dirty shirt wardroom. In the formal wardroom below the hangar bay he'd be expected to change into the uniform of the day, but things were more relaxed here. He was still wearing his flight suit, and he felt sticky, dirty, and ripe enough to peel paint off a passing battleship, but his squadron was still on alert, and he didn't want to risk the luxury of a shower and a clean uniform. Not yet.

  He was stopped along the way by an explosion of noise from the VF-95 ready room. "Tombstone!" Batman Wayne and Malibu Blake burst from the open doorway, still wearing their flight suits and carrying their helmets.

  "What happened out there?" Tombstone said, cold fury moving beneath the words. "How'd you guys lose the Coyote?"

  "Take it easy, Stoney," Batman said. "We didn't lose him. He just stopped transmitting."

  Other officers stepped into the passageway behind him. Lieutenant Gary Ashly, "Dragon," gave Tombstone a tight grin. "Congratulations on your kill, Tombstone! Nice job."

  Dragon's RIO was Lieutenant Commander Henry Whitridge. He took a hard look at Tombstone and shook his head. "Lay off the guy, Dragon. Can't you see he's shot?"

  Malibu seemed to read the misery in Tombstone's face. "Look, Tombstone," he said. "We're all real sorry about the Coyote and Mardi. I know you guys were close-"

  "That has nothing to do with it!" The words were out before he could stop them, driven by the pent-up anger and frustration he felt inside. He reined himself in, looking from Batman to Malibu and back. "Coyote and Mardi Gras were two damned good men. I hate the thought of losing them… that's all."

  But he knew that that was a lie as he said it. He'd flown with Coyote before, off the Kennedy, and before that they'd been stationed together at San Diego Naval Air Station. Both of them had dated Julie Wilson until she finally decided to marry Coyote, and then Tombstone had been best man at their Navy wedding.

  "You know, Stoney," Whitridge said. "We all miss those guys. But we can't bring 'em back. All we can do is go back in, right?"

  "Snoops is right," Batman said, using Whitridge's ru
nning name. "Rack 'em up and zap a few black hats for Coyote and-"

  "Damn it. Wayne, I don't want to hear your damned hot-dogging patter!"

  He turned away and strode off, lifting his feet as he stepped through the knee-knocker partitions where bulkheads crossed the passageway. After a moment's silence, he heard a burst of laughter from behind.

  "Ah, he'll be okay," he heard Batman say as the officers filed back into the ready room. "Just shook, is all. Man, I hope those gomers come out again. I just wish I could've had one of 'em in my sights-"

  Tombstone walked away, feeling as though he'd lost his brother. It wasn't that his running mates were insensitive, he knew. Sometimes it was the bravado, the aviator's mystique of the right stuff, that helped a man handle sudden death. Or maybe the idea of Coyote's death hadn't touched them yet, hadn't sunk in.

  Coyote, dead. He forced himself to face that word, to say it in his mind. And how would he ever know for sure that Coyote's death had not been his fault? He, Tombstone, had split the formation after the first dogfight. It had been his command responsibility, his decision. And Coyote was dead because of it.

  The question gnawing at his thoughts now was, would he be able to make that kind of decision again? As squadron commander he would have to, but could he? It was possible that they'd be in combat again within the next few days in the skies over Wonsan.

  He didn't know. The uncertainty was as keen an agony as the loss of his friend.

  2130 hours (0730 hours, EST)

  Cabinet Room, the White House

  The President of the United States had been up the entire night. His Chief of Staff had pulled him out of the formal reception for the OAS representatives early the previous evening, and he'd been on the firing line ever since.

  He sat at the end of the long hardwood table which dominated the Cabinet Room. The other men who ringed that table had also been at it all night, and they looked it. Most had abandoned suit jackets or uniform coats for shirtsleeves, and the room's ventilation system was having difficulty with the cigarette smoke collecting under the ceiling's soundproofing tiles. The Secretary of State looked worried; the Director of Central Intelligence looked tired. Most of the others showed varying mixtures of fatigue and worry as each came to grips with this latest piece of bad news from the Far East.