by Larry Bond
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Dangerous Ground
By Larry Bond
Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU
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Prologue
January 1, 2003
Naval Air Station Lemoore
Near San Francisco, California
A Navy Hornet fighter sits at the end of Runway 32R, engines spooling up, pilot making final checks before takeoff. Receiving clearance from the tower, he releases the brakes and smoothly accelerates down the concrete surface.
Pressure on the seat behind him matches the HUD’s numbers as his speed builds quickly. He approaches V1, where he’ll bring the nose up. Takeoff will be at V2, just a few moments away.
The right main gear tire blows with a sound like a cannon shot. He feels the jar through his seat, then a slight tilt as the right wing drops a hair and the nose pulls to starboard. Already feeling time dilation, a corner of his mind sees the airspeed change on the HUD. It’s dropping, and he realizes he’ll never get it off the ground now.
He hesitates for half a beat. Can he somehow slow the plane safely? Yanking the throttle all the way back, he stomps on the left brake and pops the airbrakes, but it’s a lost cause. The nose swings sharply to the right and with the engines off, he can now hear the screech of the right gear leg grinding against the concrete surface.
His training takes over and he slams his back hard against the seat and pulls the ejection handle. The canopy flies off and the seat follows, narrowly missed by the port wing, then the tail, as the plane cartwheels and explodes.
Crash crews reach the pilot moments after he’s landed, his chute billowing out behind him. He’s come down hard on one arm, and the sleeve of his flight suit is ripped, with white bone showing through the tear.
As they load the stretcher into the ambulance, he wakes up, calling over and over, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
* * * *
Navy Hospital Lemoore
Commander Albert Casey normally loved his job. He commanded squadron VFA-125, the “Roughriders,” the best Hornet squadron on the West Coast, in his not-so-humble opinion.
Right now, though, he hated it. He’d been standing in front of the door to Jerry Mitchell’s room for over five minutes, far exceeding the normal attention span of a fighter pilot. He’d come up with ten different ways to give Jerry the news, and they all sucked.
He didn’t have to knock. The door was open, and he could hear two of Jerry’s squadronmates inside visiting with him. As he turned the corner and stepped in, they saw him, and both immediately snapped to attention. They didn’t have to do that in a hospital, but reflexes are hard to fight. The two pilots, clad in khakis and leather flight jackets, saw Casey’s face and cleared out, with a few last encouragements to the patient.
Casey compared Jerry’s appearance to the way he’d looked right after the accident. They’d cleaned him up and bandaged his injuries, including a nasty abrasion on one side of his face. Somewhere in there was a young man in his mid-twenties, with buzz-cut black hair and 20/10 blue eyes.
Mitchell’s right arm was enveloped in a fat white cast, and the fingers protruding from one end were fire-engine red and swollen like sausages.
Casey wasn’t sure that Jerry didn’t try to come to attention lying in the bed, but obviously thought better of it as his body complained.
“Hello, Menace.” Casey used Jerry’s radio call sign. All pilots had them, and used them as casually as civilians used their first names. Every pilot had a different call sign, of course, picked for them or assigned when they arrived at the squadron. For a new pilot like Mitchell, the joke was whether he was more of a menace to the enemy or his own squadron, but everyone got ribbed, and he took it well.
“Good morning, sir.” Commander Casey’s call sign was “FEDEX,” but lieutenants junior grade didn’t use the CO’s call sign unless they were in the air and actually talking to him on the radio.
Casey didn’t bother asking if Jerry was in pain. “Have they still got you doped up?”
“Yes, sir,” Mitchell replied. He held up a push button on the end of a cable. “Any time I get a twinge, I push this. Problem is, I start seeing strange things, then fall asleep.”
“Sleep is what you need, kid. You’ve got some healing to do.”
“I’d heal better outside, away from this hospital.”
“You’d have to take the bed with you,” Casey joked, then continued, screwing up his courage, “I just came from the flight surgeon. You seem to have taken ones from columns A, B, C, and D. Between the back, the arm, and other miscellaneous injuries, you’re going to be here for another two weeks, at least, and then you can expect a few months of physical therapy.”
Mitchell sighed. “I’d heard as much from the doctors.”
“You’ve got to have at least one more operation on the arm, as well.”
“I hadn’t heard that,” Mitchell’s face was grim, but his tone matter-of-fact. “Whatever I have to do. So it’s going to be a few months before I’m back on flight status? How much of the training cycle will I have to repeat? I was so close to finishing.”
“The thing is, Jerry, like I said, I just talked to the flight surgeon. And the flight surgeon’s boss, and a couple of orthopedic specialists. I can’t read X-rays, but they all agreed that you can’t come back to flight status.”
“What?” Jerry’s unbelieving question mixed pain and surprise.
“The break in your arm was close to the wrist, Jerry. And it was real messy. They won’t be able to give you a full range of motion in your right wrist, and that means you won’t be able to control the throttle properly.”
“How can they tell that?” Mitchell demanded. “I haven’t been in this bed for a week and now they’re telling me I can’t fly? Let’s wait and get the cast off. Let me do some exercises.” His tone was fierce, and he half-rose out of bed, which must have been agony with a sprained back.
“They’ve seen this before, Jerry, and if there was any hope, I’d keep you on the squadron rolls until you were old and gray. But there’s no chance. None at all.”
Casey leaded forward, his voice earnest. “This is worse than a raw deal, Jerry. You are a good pilot, and you might have been a great pilot. The Navy loses you, and you lose your career. It’s taken you years of hard work to get this far, and if there was anything that could be done to keep you as a pilot, I’d be doing it right now.
“The accident board’s already writing up the report, and confirms it was a blown tire—pure bad luck. It’s definitely not your fault, and under other circumstances, I’d chew you out for trying to save the airplane, but I am convinced that hesitation did not affect your ejection. I’ve reviewed the tape, and you got out clean. Your landing and the broken arm was just more bad luck.”
Jerry’s world was turning upside down. What could he do? Pilots tend to be control freaks, depending on knowledge and skill to master any situation, but nobody could control this. And then Jerry realized that he couldn’t even think of himself as a pilot anymore.
* * * *
May She Ever Go to Sea
March 14,2005
SUBASE, New London
Groton, Connecticut
The Naval Submarine Base New London is located on the eastern shore of the Thames River in Groton, Connecticut. It has been there since the 1860s, although Jerry couldn’t remember the exact date. More important, it had been a sub base since World War I. Nearly two dozen nuclear subs were based there, all of them attack boats, SSNs, with the exception of the deep-diving research sub NR-1.
Having been stationed at New London for the past two months while attending submarine school, Jerry knew all about the “Upper Base.” He wasn’t as well-versed as to where things wer
e on the “Lower Base,” though, and so he studied the base map until he’d memorized the layout of the squadron’s piers. His knowledge of the nautical route in and out of the SUBASE was even more limited, and he had gone to the trouble of ordering his own copy of the harbor chart.
It hadn’t been a long trip from Newport, Rhode Island, but he’d been nervous enough about his arrival to program extra time into his trip. He’d arrived back in Groton a day early, leaving as soon as Manta school had been completed, and had spent last night and part of this morning prepping his uniform and memorizing (again) everything he’d been able to find out about the boat. Her CO was Commander Lowell Hardy, the XO LCDR Robert Bair. The boat was commissioned in 1977 and was redesignated as an experimental submarine to test advanced submarine systems and sensors in 1989. She was one of six SSNs that made up Submarine Development Squadron (SUBDEVRON) Twelve. There were many more facts, mechanical and meaningless right now, in isolation, but they would soon be the foundation of his new life.
In spite of all his study, and although he’d attended sub school here, the New London base felt different, strange. He was coming back as a submariner now, reporting to his first ship: USS Memphis, SSN 691.
Jerry looked around his apartment’s living room one last time, making sure he had everything, and then shut and locked the door. He quickly glanced at his watch, checking the time. He’d allowed twenty minutes for the drive to the base, figuring the best time to arrive was 0900 (9:00 a.m.) The crew would be done with the bustle of Quarters, but he didn’t want to appear tardy in reporting.
He checked his uniform again. The skipper would only get one first impression, and Jerry wanted it to be a good one. He carefully checked the driving directions to Lower Base (yet again) on the front seat and drove off.
He made the SUBASE’s main gate right on schedule and was allowed to pass, after a brief security check. He turned onto Shark Boulevard and proceeded toward the Lower Base entrances, being very careful to mind the speed limit. Jerry had found out—the hard way, of course—that the SUBASE police had a thing for red sports cars that violated the speed limit by even two or three mph. Once he reached Dorado Road, he turned left and was waved through the Lower Base gate, having gotten his parking decal the day before. He even found a parking spot. Leaving his gear in the Porsche, he straightened his uniform one last time, and even remembered his orders. It was a good start.
Pier 32 was two blocks and two corners away, and he breasted the bitterly cold March wind, glad for the bridge coat he’d bought. It was a dark midnight blue, made of heavy wool, and long, reaching down to cover his legs, but most officers bought it for looks as much as for warmth. A shorter peacoat would be much more practical on a sub, where space was at a premium.
Memphis lay berthed on the north side of the pier. Only her name on the brow revealed the boat’s identity. A low, weathered black shape on the water, most of her hull rose just a few feet above the wavelets that slapped against her rounded sides. Only a large rectangular structure aft broke up her smooth lines. The brow lay aft of the sail, leading to an open hatch in the deck. There was a small, battered gray wooden shack perched on the pier next to the brow, and Jerry could see an enlisted man inside. The petty officer, a second class, was speaking on the telephone.
Compared with a jet fighter or even a surface ship, the sub looked harmless. No visible weapons, not even all that big above the waterline. Most of her bulk, and all of her abilities, were hidden below the surface.
* * * *
The Petty Officer of the Watch was keeping an alert lookout, and spotted Jerry as he turned the corner. He saw a short black-haired lieutenant junior grade in his mid-twenties. He looked slim, even in his bridge coat, and carried a manila envelope tucked under one arm.
It was clear he was headed for Memphis, and the petty officer summoned the duty officer, then stepped out of the shack to meet him.
Jerry stopped at the shack and returned the petty officer’s salute, and in keeping with long-standing naval tradition, said, “Request permission to come aboard.”
* * * *
Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command
Compound Norfolk, Virginia
Commander Lowell Hardy sat nervously, waiting. A summons to see the big boss was to be expected. The Manta trials were over, Memphis was old, and Hardy’s tour was nearly over. Hopefully, he was about to be congratulated on a job well-done. Or maybe not.
Memphis had been his first command, and he’d done his best with the old girl, and he’d turned in a good record. But it hadn’t been perfect.
They called a captain the master of his ship, the last absolute monarch. Hardy was the master of 6,100 tons of complex, and in the case of Memphis, cranky machinery. He was the monarch of 135 rugged individualists whose chance of doing the right thing went down as its importance went up. Only his constant supervision had prevented some hapless teenage sailor from sending his career straight into the toilet.
And now his fate was in another’s hands again. He was waiting for Rear Admiral Tom Masters, Commander Submarines Atlantic, to tell him what came next.
Memphis was scheduled for decommissioning, and preparations for that would take several months. There’d be the last trip to Bremerton, Washington, where she would actually be decommissioned, and the crew would split up, each with new orders. What would his read? Another boat immediately? That was the best he could hope for in his heart of hearts, but unlikely. Purgatory in a shore command for a year or two with the promise of another boat afterward? More probable, and by then there’d be a slightly better chance of him getting a newer . . .
“Commander, the admiral will see you now.” The receptionist’s summons surprised him, because as far as Hardy knew, there was still a herd of people in there with SUBLANT. He’d shown up early for his appointment and he’d seen them go in, but they hadn’t come out yet. Still, if he was supposed to go in, he’d go. Bracing himself, he rapped twice on the dark wood door and opened it.
Hardy had been in the admiral’s office before. It was spacious, filled with the obligatory flags, ball caps, plaques and a four-foot model of the admiral’s first boat.
And people, lots of them. Hardy immediately recognized Rear Admiral Masters behind the desk and Captain Young, Commander SUBDEVRON Twelve and his immediate boss, to Masters’ right. What surprised Hardy was seeing Vice Admiral William G. Barber, Director, Submarine Warfare Division, on the CNO’s staff standing behind Masters. “What have I walked into?” Hardy asked himself.
Sitting in the only available chair was a tall, handsome woman in her late thirties or early forties, stylishly if severely dressed. A younger woman stood near her, and a young man in a gray suit stood to the left of the admiral. They all looked at him expectantly, and Hardy smelled a setup. Whatever was coming, he saw his next command spiraling down the drain.
Reflex took over. He came to attention, hat tucked under his arm, and announced, “Commander Hardy reporting, sir.” Unnecessary, of course, but it broke the silence.
Admiral Masters nodded, “Good to see you, Hardy. I know what you expected to hear from me, but there’s been a change in plans. We’re not going to decommission Memphis just yet.” The admiral motioned to his gray-suited guest. “This is Mr. Weyer Prescott. He’s from President Huber’s office.”
“Deputy to Science Advisor Schaeffer,” Prescott elaborated, as if that explained everything. Hardy noted the gray power suit, the expensive tie, and immediately typed him. There is a natural antipathy in the military services for political animals like Prescott, and from his expression, Hardy guessed the feeling was mutual.
“President Huber needs the Navy to help him with a special problem.” Prescott intoned Huber’s name as if he was invoking a deity, and in effect, he was. Any orders that came from the Commander-in-Chief went straight to the top of the U.S. Navy’s to-do list. From Prescott’s expression, Hardy guessed he either didn’t think the Navy was up to the task or that the Navy would screw it up.
&
nbsp; “As you all know, President Huber’s recent mandate was based in large part on his support of environmental causes, and his concern for the damage to the environment...”
Actually, Hardy hadn’t known that, or didn’t care to know it. He’d voted for Coleman, for all the good it had done. He personally regarded Huber as a nitwit, although as the Commander-in-Chief, he’d faithfully execute any lawful orders the freshly inaugurated nitwit issued.
Prescott’s speech was carefully worded, rehearsed, and Hardy suspected he loved the sound of his own voice. “.. . wants to be seen as an environmental champion, not only here at home but abroad as well.”
“At the upcoming World Environmental Congress in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the President has decided to bring the Russians to task for their many ecological abuses, especially relating to nuclear waste disposal.”
