“You position an armed battle group in our waters and ask my justification?”
“This from the nation that let thousands of refugees die at sea between our two countries?”
He shook his head angrily. “No, Madame Ambassador, this time the United States has gone too far. The attack on a civilian aircraft was your doing.” He placed his hands flat on the table and leaned forward toward her. “Effective immediately, Cuba is declaring a no-fly zone fifty miles around her coastline. Tell your pilots, Madame, that they violate our sovereign airspace at their own risk. They may find that our MiGs are not quite so easy to shoot down as an unarmed civilian aircraft.”
1155 Local (+5 GMT)
Hornet 301
30 Miles North of Cuba Thor yanked back hard on the yoke, shoving the throttles forward to full afterburners in the same moment. The Hornet responded almost before he’d completed the move, pitching nose up in the sky and standing on her tail. Gravity worked with the force of the afterburners to shove him back in his seat, pinning him against the lumbar support panel with five Gs of force. Thor felt the flesh pull back from his face, try to creep around back to his neck, and smiled.
God, there was nothing like it! Open sky, plenty of fuel, and a Hornet strapped to your as sit didn’t get any better than this.
He shut his eyes for the briefest second, letting the thundering waves of noise wash over him. The afterburners were fully engaged now, adding the peculiar, deep-throated roar of their fire to the normal, solid, reassuring howl of the engines. He enjoyed the brief sensation of danger with his eyes shut, then looked quickly back down at the altimeter.
“Bet that’ll make them sit up and take notice,” he said out loud, noting that his instruments indicated an SOG-speed over ground of zero.
“You check that altitude, boys, and you’ll see what a Hornet can do.
Straight up, no forward movement. Now that’s a fighter.”
Sure enough, the voice of the operations specialist from Jefferson sounded anxious in his left ear. “Hornet Threezero-one, say state?”
The routine inquiry into his fuel status masked the real question: Now, just what the hell are you doing. Hornet 301?
“Eight thousand pounds,” Thor said, forcing the words out of his throat. He grunted and tensed his abdominal muscles, driving blood from his extremities back up into his brain. “I’m fine. Flasher,” he said, using the air intercept controller’s nickname. “Don’t worry about me just puttin’ her through her paces.”
“It’s a post maintenance check flight,” Flasher noted calmly, “not a tryout for the shuttle program, sir.” The enlisted technician’s voice was just barely tart.
Thor toggled his mike and let the OS hear him laughing.
“I know, I know. Someday I’m going to strap a backseat on this baby and let you see what you’ve been missing, Flasher.”
“I’d like that just fine,” the AIC said immediately. “Just fine.” The words were slow, and rich with a southern drawl.
“But you keep this up, sir, somebody’s gonna be noticing.
You know?”
“Okay, okay,” Thor muttered. He shoved the yoke forward slightly, dropping the Hornet’s nose down from straight vertical. “That better?”
“Almost, sir. Now you just look like a helicopter on the scope, instead of a balloon.”
“You find me a balloon with this much armament on it and I’ll ride backseat on you.” He eased the Hornet forward farther, into level flight. “Okay, Flasher, I’m heading back to the pattern. You happy now that you’ve destroyed my fun?”
“Fun’s not over yet, sir.” The operations specialist sounded amused.
“Your tower flower just called down and said you’re short one formation flight this month. He’d like you to get it over with now.”
Thor groaned. “With who?” Flying close formation with another Hornet was a routine qualification for all pilots, but it was not his idea of fun. Traveling a little under Mach 1 that close to another airplane required a pilot’s constant attention, not only on his instruments, but on the eight thousand pounds of flying metal just yards away. No screwing around, no unexpected maneuvers, just a careful ballet between two giant dragonflies.
“Fly in with the Tomcat, sir. Tomcat Two-zero-eight is airborne for formation flight in five mikes. You’ve got time to scamper over and get a drink, then back to Marshall to join on him.”
“Who’s flying her?” Thor demanded. If anything was worse than a formation flight, it was working with a Tomcat.
While the F-14 had an extended range and could carry more armament than a Hornet, it was markedly less nimble. It was, he reflected, not a damn sight much better than driving a surface ship. He shuddered at the thought.
“Staff wienie, sir. Call sign Bird Dog. That okay?”
Thor grinned. “Sure, send the young lad on up. We’ll let him get a look at a real aircraft.”
Thor heard muffled voices just below audibility come out of the headset. Finally, the operations specialist came back on the air.
“Tomcat Two-zero-eight will be on button three for coordination. And, sir, he asked me to tell you that you’d better suck on some fuel before he gets up there. He doesn’t want to be waiting outside the rest room for you every five minutes. He said,” and Thor could hear the smile in the OS’s voice, “that you should’ve gone before you left home.”
1205 Local (+5 GMT)
Tomcat 208
Flight Deck, USS Jefferson “You ready?” Bird Dog asked. He twisted in his seat to look back over his shoulder at Lieutenant Commander Charlie “Gator” Cummings, his backseat radar intercept officer.
“Just like old times, huh?”
“I don’t know how the hell I let you talk me into this,” Gator muttered. “It’s not like I have to get five traps a week to stay current.”
“Come on, you know you love it. Besides, no one else wants to fly with me.” Bird Dog’s voice took on a plaintive note. “They think I’m getting rusty.”
“You are. That’s why you’re scheduled for PAM flights every week.”
Gator’s voice was tart. “And I’m not so sure that playing grab-ass with a sponge of MiGs is my definition of a FAM flight.”
“I’m entitled I’m on staff,” Bird Dog responded.
“Jesus, don’t you think I’d fly every second if I could? But somebody’s gotta keep the big picture around here.”
Gator snorted. “You?”
“Yeah, me. What, you think that’s funny? Considering that the Cubans have gone from a couple of lookie-loo surveillance flights every day to full-scale combat patrols, I don’t find anything at all amusing about the situation.”
“Considering I was teaching you to fly not three years ago, I damned sure do. When I first met you, you were as raw and fresh-caught as Skeeter Harmon was a little while ago,” Gator snapped, referring to the young pilot who’d been their wingman cruise before last. Skeeter was currently attending Top Gun school, honing the combat skills he’d learned on their last Med cruise. “Now all at once you’re a military genius?”
Bird Dog sighed and turned back to face forward. He ran through his prelaunch routine automatically, consciously tensing and untensing his muscles, giving his ejection seat harness one last tug to make sure it was secure. Was he that rusty? No, he didn’t think so. And he’d never been as raw as Skeeter the young black pilot might have shot down a missile in flight, but so what? Bird Dog had more time in the cockpit than Skeeter had in the chow line.
Still, the notable lack of enthusiasm among the RIOs on staff had irked him. “Just like riding a bicycle,” he muttered.
“No it’s not,” Gator said sharply. “And if you think it is, you just let me out at the next stop.”
Bird Dog signaled to the yellow shirt on the flight deck and tensed himself for the catapult shot. “It’s damn sure not.
You can’t do this on a bicycle.” He snapped off a salute and waited.
The Tomcat jolted, start
ed rolling forward slowly, and quickly gathered speed. About 150 feet later, it was hurtling down the flight deck at 134 knots. Bird Dog heard Gator’s sharp intake of breath and grinned.
His backseater always had been a nervous Nellie on cat shots, even on routine flights. And if he couldn’t answer a simple question about whether or not he was ready, then he deserved what he got.
Seconds later, the aircraft shot off the pointy end and Bird Dog felt the familiar lurch in the pit of his stomach and his ass floating away from the seat as the Tomcat lost altitude.
The sea rushed up at him, smooth and glassy.
His balls contracted as a small flash of terror shivered through him.
The first few microseconds after launch, this fight for altitude and safety, were every pilot’s worst nightmare. If Jefferson lost steam pressure unexpectedly on the catapult shot, the Tomcat would dribble off into the ocean. A soft cat shot meant dead aircrews. Moments later, he felt the G-forces press him back into his seat as the Tomcat clawed for altitude.
“Good shot,” he announced. “Airborne once more.”
Behind him, he heard Gator groan.
1206 Local (+5 GMT)
Hornet 301
“Button three for coordination with tanker,” Rasher said.
“Roger. Got a visual on him. Making my approach.” Thor eased back on the throttles, slowing the Hornet’s forward speed imperceptibly. Of all the evolutions a carrier pilot had to master, refueling in midair was one of the most dangerous, second in his nightmares only to landing on the carrier deck at night during a storm.
“Hey there, Thor,” the female KA6 tanker pilot’s voice echoed in his ear. “You dirty-winged?”
“Hell, no. This is a PMFC, not CAP. Why, you want me to kill somebody for you, sweetheart?”
“Maybe later, big boy. It’s just that there’s a cluster-fuck of MiGs milling about smartly in the middle of Tanker Alley. Thought we might sneak off somewhere that we could be alone for a while.”
Thor grinned at the lascivious note in the other pilot’s voice. The Marine Corps forced him to be politically correct on the ground. In his estimation, the paranoia that overreacting politicians generated did more to harm the morale of both men and women than it helped. This was more like it-the good-natured banter between two pilots who respected each other. “I’ll follow you anywhere. Striker,” he said, using her call sign instead of her name. “You got some particular dark and secluded corner in mind?”
Striker rapped out a quick series of vectors defining a piece of airspace well away from the MiG herd. She led the way, with Thor darting around her in his faster fighter. Ten minutes later, they were in clear airspace.
“Now, how can I make you happy, Thor?” Striker asked finally.
“Five thousand pounds will do it. Burned up some on afterburner, and I need some legs to play patty-cake with a turkey,” he added, using the common aviator’s nickname for the Tomcat.
“Cozy on up to momma. Marine. I gots what you be needing.”
Thor focused on the drogue extended in front of him from the back of the KA6. The basket bobbed and weaved in the air as it streamed out behind the other aircraft. “Steady, steady,” he muttered, talking himself through the approach.
If the Tomcat pilots thought tanking was tough, let them try it in a Hornet without a RIO to act as safety observer for them.
He watched the drogue grow larger and bled off a few more knots of airspeed. “There,” Thor said, satisfied. He tapped the throttle forward and increased speed just enough to thump gently forward into the drogue, seating his probe firmly inside the refueling apparatus.
“Got it first time.”
“Good seal,” Striker agreed. “Ready to pump.”
“Receiving,” Thor reported. “And Striker, it’s only polite to ask was it good for you, too?” He grinned and waited for the rude reply he knew he deserved, all the while watching the fuel transfer indicators for signs of trouble.
The insistent beeping of his ALR-87 threat warning receiver filled the cockpit. Thor’s head snapped up and he scanned the sky, urgently trying to find the source of the fire control radar illuminating his Hornet.
“Settle down back there,” Striker snapped. “What do you think you’re ” “Emergency breakaway!” Thor throttled the Hornet back, jerking out of the basket. Raw fuel streamed out of the drogue before the tanker’s back-pressure sensors terminated the flow. “Striker, get the hell back to the carrier! We’re being illuminated by ” The two aircraft were separated by barely fifty feet when he saw the missile.
Too low, too slow! I can’t maneuver, I’ve got no airspeed.
There’s no choice. Thor reached for the ejection seat handle.
“Striker, punch out. Now!” As his fingers closed around the yellow and black ejection bar, the tanker disintegrated into a fiery, expanding ball. Metal shrapnel tore into his Hornet as he yanked down on the bar.
A massive force slammed into his ass. Thor blacked out milliseconds later as he cleared the shattered canopy.
FOUR
Monday, 24 June
0600 Local (+5 GMT)
50 Miles North of Cuba
I’m drowning. Thor’s body realized it before he was fully conscious. He emerged from a warm, dark unconsciousness to the feel of water searing his throat, the taste of salt filling his senses. Instinctively, he began flailing his arms and legs, pushing himself toward the surface twenty feet above. The same survival instinct clamped his mouth shut and made his lungs strive to extract every last molecule of oxygen from the air still trapped inside.
Hours later, it seemed, he broke the surface. He drew in a deep, shuddering gasp, as he only then started to realize how close he’d come to buying it.
With sudden clarity, the details of the accident came flooding back.
The tanker, jinking violently to avoid a missile. His own response, the hard diving turn of his Hornet, the water glistening below, looking soft and inviting. He remembered the flameout vaguely, just enough to wonder how he’d managed to pull the ejection seat before the massive G forces had drained the blood from his brain and thrown him into oxygen-starved unconsciousness.
The life jacket. Why wasn’t it inflated? Thor swore, coughing up seawater. He quickened the rhythm with which his feet beat at the water as he felt for the manual inflation tube. There it was, on the left side of the life jacket. He screwed the retaining valve apart, put his lips around the hard plastic tube, and blew.
Immediately, he felt the swell of expanding plastic around him. With each breath, the life jacket started contributing to his buoyancy rather than weighing him down. Finally, when it was fully inflated, he turned his attention back to his surroundings. Sea state three, maybe four, with whitecapped waves obscuring his line of sight. He caught a glimpse of an unnatural fluorescent yellow fifty, maybe seventy-five feet away, and started stroking doggedly toward it. It bobbed into view, then disappeared behind the growing swells. The wind was in his face, blowing spray and wavelets up his nose.
From the summit of the next wave, he caught sight of it again. If anything, it was farther away than it had been when he’d started swimming toward it. At this rate, there was no way he could get to it.
He paused, treading water, the full impact of his situation starting to sink in.
The rough water around him was blood temperature, and survival time without slipping into hypothermia was almost unlimited. But warm water brought hazards of its own, the ones that downed aviators feared more than almost anything else. This part of the ocean was host to a wide variety of sharks, all of which were more at home in the water than Thor. Their senses of smell and their acoustic ranging abilities rivaled that of any submarine.
He touched his face with a hand, then held the limb in front of him.
Thin streaks of blood trickled down from his fingertips to his wrists.
Thor groaned. Even more than the rhythmic motion of a panicked swimmer, blood attracted sharks. The scent traveled for miles
, enticing every natural predator with the prospect of an easy meal.
Wounded prey the sharks would know it immediately.
Despite his years of training, panic crowded the back of his throat.
He forced it down, concentrating on remembering countless survival lectures and ample practice in open ocean.
Thor stripped off his flight suit, knotted the legs, and flung the garment over his head while holding the legs to inflate the rest of it with air. He tied the neck portion shut, along with the arms. The flight suit swelled satisfyingly as the cotton fibers soaked up water and held the air in.
Thor gathered up his strength and lunged onto the inflated flight suit.
According to what he’d been told, floating instead of treading water accomplished two things. First, he could conserve his strength, extending his stay time in the warm water. Second, by relying on the natural buoyancy of the flight suit, he could avoid the frantic flailing motions of treading water that attracted sharks.
Was there anything else? Of course. He turned the flight suit over, unzipped one leg pocket, and drew out the standard Navy-issue shark repellent and dye marker. He cracked both open, spilling the contents into the water. A sickly yellow tint spread through the water, highlighting his position for the sea-air rescue helos that he hoped would be overhead shortly.
But would they? He considered the matter, his heart sinking.
He and the tanker had been far off course when the collision occurred, well outside of the group’s flight pattern.
While Jefferson’s radar had undoubtedly held them, it would take some time to get the helos vectored over.
How long? Too long.
The tanker crew could they have made it out? Not likelyhe’d seen the fireball, and no chutes. For better or for worse, he was the only passenger the SAR helo would have.
He glanced nervously at the water around him, imagining sharply raked dorsal fins lurking behind every swell, and started stroking for the life raft.
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