Joint Task Force #4: Africa

by David E. Meadows

  “Hey, Badass. How many young sailors you convinced today to get out of the Navy?” Senior Chief Brad Conar asked with a hint of distaste.

  “Pits, you shit-bird,” Razi said, reaching up and pulling a paper cup from the overhead storage area. “What’re you doing back here instead of up front? Fight engineers should be in the cockpit, not back here impressing newbies with their importance.”

  Razi poured himself a cup of coffee, set it on the table, and slid into the booth alongside the senior chief, using his butt to push the older, lankier man against the bulkhead.

  “Got that new trainee on board. Thought I’d takeoff back here with you passengers and see how the less fortunate live. Besides, it gives her a chance to be on her own.”

  “Passengers hell. If it wasn’t for us, you wouldn’t have any reason to fly.”

  “Yeah, and if we didn’t fly you, you wouldn’t have a way to do your mission.”

  “Gripe, gripe gripe,” Razi said good-naturedly, ignoring the obvious dislike of the senior chief. He took a sip of the coffee. “She any good, Senior Chief Brad ‘Pits’ Conar, or is she an arrogant asshole like the rest of you flight engineers?”

  “That’s Pits with a capital P, Badass, and, yes, she knows her stuff and like the rest of us flight engineers, she is modest to a fault, unlike certain chief petty officers who prance and strut to the officers.” Pits put a spread hand against his chest. “I have personally tested her aviation knowledge and without doubt, I know she can run rings around you.” Then in a lower voice added, “And, I have third class petty officers who can run rings around your knowledge of this aircraft.”

  “Ain’t no way. No one knows the EP-3 fucking Echo better than me.”

  “What’s the mission today, Badass? You guys going to keep us boring holes in the sky for ten hours, or you going to call it quits sooner than yesterday so we can get a good night’s sleep?”

  Razi looked at the senior flight engineer, his thick eyebrows bunching as he gave quick consideration on what to tell Conar. Then, he nodded to himself, thinking, He’s got the security tickets to know, and besides we’re all in thistogether. Once you leave mother earth, what happens to one, happens to all. Of course, this is one senior chief I wish it would only happen to.

  He lifted his cup and took a long drink. Coffee lost its heat fast at 22,000-feet altitude, and the paper cups didn’t help either. Paper cups, though, didn’t become projectiles when the aircraft had to take evasive action. Getting hit upside the head with a paper cup was preferable to the Navy ceramic. The rear of the aircraft was always cooler—colder was a better word—than the front part where the flight crew controlled the heaters.

  “You going to tell me or are you going to play this ‘need to know’ crap? You cryppies are all the same, you know. Walk around like God—”

  “I never said I wasn’t going to tell you. You flight engineers are a might touchy when you think someone is gonna dis’ you.” He pulled himself out of the booth, crumbled his cup, and tossed it in the trashcan. “I was just thinking that you being the senior flight engineer on board and all, and knowing how technical-competent you are on mechanical things, how in the hell was I gonna find the simple words necessary so you could understand what we’re doing today.” Razi shook his head. “It ain’t easy explaining this complex stuff to people who barely graduated from high school.”

  Conar’s lips tightened, his mustache twitching slightly. “You know something, Badass, someday someone’s going to forget those muscles under that flight suit and whip your ass.”

  Razi leaned closer to the senior chief, glancing around to make sure they were the only two in the galley. “Pits, it won’t be you. If you ever hit me and I found out, it might— just might piss me off.”

  “Let me out, Razi. I can only tolerate so much of your arrogance.”

  Razi slid off the padded seat so Conar could move.

  Pits was half-out when the aircraft dropped a few feet and trembled as it hit slight turbulence. “Damn, better get back up there. Now, you going to tell me or not?”

  Razi nodded. “When you turn southeast—” He motioned to the right “—onto the track running parallel to the north of the Liberian border, we’re going to try out this new infrared sensing device from Naval Research Laboratory.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Pits said with mock laughter. “If we have to drop down to look at everything that emits heat in Africa, we might as well stay at fifty feet.”

  “Supposed to be a little more complex than the normal infrared devices. This one detects a heat signature at high altitude. The heat signature profile bounces against a database of heat signatures to determine size and weight of whatever is emitting the heat. If the thing is moving, the computer calculates speed of motion. When all of those factors are combined, the system—called Dragnet—will provide an opinion as to what generated the heat signature.”

  Conar listened as he pulled a fresh cup of coffee. “Sounds to me like Star Trek stuff, Razi. Even if this Dragnet can do this stuff that you say, out here you’re going to run into more than humans.” He stirred his coffee for a second and then looked up at Razi. “What about monkeys or gorillas? Wouldn’t this system call them human?”

  Razi hadn’t given consideration to that. He shrugged. “Don’t know. This is the first time we’ve tried the system.” He turned and pointed at two operators sitting immediately outside the mess area. “See those two petty officers?” he asked, pointing. “They’re from Naval Security Group Activity San Diego. They’ve been training on the system for the past month, so we’ll have to depend on that training to tell us what we’re seeing.”

  Conar took a swallow of the black coffee. “Guess that means we’ll be going down for look-sees every time they spot something, huh?”

  Razi nodded. “Guess so.”

  Conar shook his head. Running his right hand through his hair, he faced Razi. “Just what I said. We might as well stay at fifty feet altitude. You know, it’s one thing to go low over the water to do an identification pass against a contact, and quite another to go low over a jungle where trees sometimes reach a hundred feet.”

  Razi laughed. “Tell you what, Pits. You watch the trees and keep the leaves out of the intakes, and I’ll watch my operators. Different subject, shipmate; who’s the new officer?”

  “Oh, that’s Ensign Leggatt, Naval Academy class of one of these recent years. Fine outstanding member of the officer community.”

  “New?”

  Conar nodded. “Yeah, as new as a baby’s butt.” He set the paper cup on the table and turned to Razi. “Razi, don’t pull one of your shitty practical jokes on the new officer. They’re only funny to you. For the rest of the chiefs’ community, they’re embarrassing.”

  “Well, you know these missions are long. A little fun never hurt anyone, and the only thing embarrassing to the chiefs’ community is you, Pits. You need to lighten up and enjoy life a little instead of walking around bad-mouthing everyone. My little ‘practical jokes’ as you call them are rites of initiation. The other aircrew veterans enjoy them.”

  “They may, but those on the receiving end don’t see the humor. Just don’t make him barf, Razi. Last time you caused someone to upchuck, we flew the entire eight-hour mission with the smell trapped inside the fuselage.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, Pits. It’s our way—the spooks’ way—of welcoming new members to the crew.”

  “Right! Well, I’m heading back up to the cockpit.” Conar glanced at his watch. “About another thirty minutes to the turn. I wouldn’t screw with the mission commander, Badass. Peeters isn’t known for his sense of humor.”

  “I know. This isn’t my first flight with him, but he tends to leave us CTs alone.”

  “That’s because he hasn’t quite figured out how you do what you do, but once he’s got it about eighty percent figured out, you’ll find him more than ready to jerk you in and put you in your place.”

  “Which is more than you can or will do, Pits. Yo
u’re all talk—”

  “Fuck you, Razi. Remember one thing,” he said, his voice low and menacing. “I’m a goddamn senior chief petty officer and while I support the integrity of the chief’s locker, I haven’t forgotten some of the things you’ve done.”

  “Goat locker,” Razi interrupted.

  “Goat locker?”

  “Yeah, real sailors don’t call the comraderie of chiefdom the ‘chief’s locker.’ It’s called the ‘goat locker.’ Been called that all through history, and it hasn’t changed.”

  “Fuck you, Razi.” Pits grabbed his cup, sending some of the coffee splashing over the side. “Your time is coming,” he added as he walked around Razi and headed toward the cockpit.

  Razi watched Pits as the number-one flight engineer worked his way through the fuselage, his left hand touching the backs of the console seats as he moved. Asshole, Razi thought as he sipped his coffee. Sure Peeters was a new mission commander, but Razi was sure the man was impressed with his professionalism. Who couldn’t be? Time to make sure everyone is ready. Probably going to be another dull, deadly mission searching for this terrorist Abu Alhaul, and at the same time trying to develop some intelligence on this African National Army.

  Razi stepped out of the lighted mess into the darkened work area of the aircraft. He glanced at the two Dragnet operators as he stepped by them. It looked as if they were going down a checklist, pressing icons on the computer screen. He stopped behind the five cryptologic technician aircrewmen—some called members of that rating “CTs” and sometimes they were called “cryppies”—sitting in a row, manning the EP-3E normal reconnaissance consoles. Razi reached up and grabbed one of the two hollow steel bars that ran the length of the fuselage. The bars helped aircrewmen move up and down the fuselage when flying in heavy turbulence. Razi listened to the low murmur of Petty Officer First Class Brett Lacey speak into the microphone of the internal communications system as he talked with the other team members. Razi glanced to his right at the lab operator located beside the four excess passenger seats. Then, he looked again at the two temporary crewmen manning Dragnet. The system had been installed in the only spare space the aircraft had, a chart table between the reconnaissance positions and a spare position they seldom manned. The downside was that Dragnet blocked the small round window that allowed some daylight into the dark confines of a working reconnaissance aircraft. The two NRL newbies couldn’t hear Lacey prepping the team for the mission. They didn’t even have their headsets on. Normally, the squadron would have refused to allow anyone who wasn’t a qualified aircrewman to fly with them, but the war on terrorism couldn’t wait for every valuable soul to become qualified. Luckily, the issue never arose because these two wore aircrew wings and knew how to assume ditching positions, and it only took a little bit of effort on Razi’s part to ensure that they knew how to put on a parachute. Somewhere, they had earned their wings.

  Movement from the forward console caught his attention. Lacey had opened a small black notebook and was running his finger down a page as he spoke into the microphone, going down a checklist to make sure the computer was working. Everything was done by computers nowadays. Not like when he first joined the Navy. Sure, they had computers back then, he wasn’t that ancient. But back then, when you joined they sent you off to “A” school for Basic Cryptology 101. You didn’t graduate, you didn’t become a CT. Instead, you were shipped out to sea to learn the fine art of chipping rust and applying paint. The school taught you what the hell your rating was about. Nowadays, it seemed most sailors had some college or even a degree or two.

  Who in the hell was that sailor they were talking about months ago at the Chief’s Club in Rota? He racked his mind for the name of the second class petty officer at Naval Information Warfare Activity in Washington that had a masters degree in electrical engineering and was working nights on a doctorate. Now why would someone with that much education want to be a sailor, when he could be working for some commercial company drawing big bucks and pontificating great and wonderful things to make more money? Something wasn’t quite right with that picture. But the commercial world’s loss was the Navy’s gain.

  “Hey, Chief,” Petty Officer Lacey shouted above the constant din of vibrating engines and humming electronics.

  Razi turned his head. “Yeah, Lacey?”

  “We’re done. Everything is A-OK and we’re ready.”

  “Then why in the hell ain’t you turning and burning. Those systems don’t operate themselves.”

  “Ah, Chief. You know they do operate themselves. We’re along for the ride and make sure they don’t quit.”

  Razi took a couple of steps and bent over Lacey. “We’ve got a new guy on board,” he whispered followed by a short chuckle.

  Lacey lowered his headset, keeping hold of the earpieces with both hands. The first class petty officer looked up and down the fuselage. “You mean the ensign? The one who doesn’t look old enough to shave.”

  “That’s the one. A Naval Academy ensign, no less.”

  Lacey looked up and smiled. “So, which will it be?”

  “Peanut butter.”

  “Peanut butter,” Lacey replied, laughing. “No pity, Chief. You ain’t got a pity bone in your body.”

  “Moi?” Razi said, acting bemused. “I am the most sympathetic guy on board this flying bucket of bolts. Why, people come to me with their problems. I listen attentively. I nod when nodding is called for and agree when they need agreeing.”

  “And then you tell them how no story has ever touched your heart like this one and for them to go fuck off and die somewhere else and leave you alone.”

  “Lacey, remind me to kick your butt later when we land.”

  “Of course, Chief Razi, you never say that when an officer or someone senior can hear.”

  “Lacey, don’t bother reminding me to kick your butt. I’ll remind myself.”

  Lacey laughed. “I just happen to have a tube of peanut butter from yesterday’s box lunch. When do you want to do it?”

  “Let me have it. Eventually, he’s going to have to take a leak and when he comes out, we’ll do it then.”

  “That’ll give me time to tell the others.” Lacey raised his earpieces and placed them over his ears, laughing. “Peanut butter.”

  Razi looked forward, searching for the victim. No new member went unpunished was the unwritten rule of reconnaissance flying. Fighter pilots, strapped to their seats like wrapped bacon, would never know the camaraderie of twenty-four Navy men and women crammed inside a four-engine propeller-driven aircraft bouncing across the sky on the hidden hills of turbulence where every fart received its due. The young officer was standing beside Lieutenant Commander Peeters. Razi stroked his chin. Maybe Pits was right and the officer wasn’t impressed with him. Lord, protect me from lieutenant commanders. I’ve had more trouble with lieutenant commanders than any other group of officers. They resent being called junior officers and can’t understand why it’s taking so long for the Navy to recognize their greatness with the scrambled-egg hat of a commander.

  “Chief!”

  Razi looked toward the mess area. One of the two petty officers operating Dragnet waved at him. What now?

  REAR ADMIRAL DICK HOLMAN STOOD ON THE BRIDGE wing of the USS Boxer. He was going to throw that cryptologic officer overboard when they arrived in Monrovia. No one on this ship had Cuban cigars but him . . . but, no . . . what did he find last night when he walked to the fantail? That’s right. The goddamn cryppie smoking one of his cigars. At first, he had thought the lieutenant commander had his own, but when he went to his stateroom, he discovered three missing. The man must think he can get away with taking three of his cigars and him not missing them. This morning when he left his stateroom, he counted his cigars and wrote the number on a piece of paper that he slipped under the large calendar on top of his desk.

  The slight sea breeze of the afternoon blew the smoke from his Cuban cigar down the side of the huge amphibious carrier. He watched as it quickly
dissipated. Other than knowing someone was swiping his cigars and having the audacity to smoke them in front of him, today had been a great day, so far, he said to himself, wondering what could go wrong. He smiled. He’d catch him . . . and when he did, he’d have his nuts for garters. He nodded to himself and thought, I’m a nice, squared-away admiral with a love of the sea and my sailors, and am such a congenial asshole everyone argues with me, but no one, and I mean no one, touches my cigars. It isn’t as if I have an endless supply of them.

  His thoughts drifted elsewhere. Three months from now, he’d no longer be Commander, Amphibious Group Two; the largest, strongest amphibious force in the world.

  He turned and leaned against the railing encircling the bridge wing, his elbows resting on them. He had had a great career in the Navy. He was going to miss it unless Admiral Yalvarez, Chief of Naval Operations, decided there was another job for a pudgy, cigar-smoking, fighter-pilot, one-star admiral. He took another puff as a sailor stepped onto the bridge wing with a cup of coffee.

  “Admiral, fresh coffee, sir. Compliments of the Officer of the Deck.”

  “Thanks, Navi guesser,” he said jovially to the quartermaster. Holman looked into the bridge, thanking the OOD by hoisting the cup at her. “You make it, First?” He asked the first class petty officer.

  The quartermaster shook his head. “Sorry, Admiral, our new boatswain mate seaman made it, sir. This is his first cup and we thought you should be the first to grade it.”

  “Uh-huh. Guess I’m the guinea pig, eh?”

  “Admiral, nothing can kill you, but just in case—since it is his first cup, here’s a couple of antacids,” the petty officer said, handing Holman a couple of white chewables.

  Dick looked into the bridge. Everyone was smiling and watching him. He noticed the young boatswain mate standing near the helm of the Boxer, near the 1MC ship-speaker-system mounted on the aft bulkhead. The seaman wasn’t smiling, though Dick could see the young lad was watching him. He smiled, thinking of the stories the others in the bridge had made up to scare the newbie. Probably things along the lines of “the admiral is a screamer and when he really gets angry, he’s been known to throw sailors overboard, and . . . most of all, he hates seamen.”