Joint Task Force #4: Africa

by David E. Meadows

  Pits shook his head. In his head, that fake smile of Razi blinded his consideration of the man. No way Razi did this for those sailors. He was going to have to watch this self-serving—Look, don’t you think my biceps are firmer—chief petty officer stick a star above his anchor device and call himself senior chief. He sighed.

  Pits parted the curtains and ducked inside the dark cockpit. A small red overhead light lit up the flight engineer’s seat.

  “Here’s your coffee,” he said to the flight engineer. This time Pits was the second flight engineer. The one coming down with the skipper insisted he go with the boss.

  “Thanks, Pits,” Chief Petty Officer Roberts said, still wearing his flight gloves, as he took the paper cup from the senior chief.

  Pits shoved aside the flight folders the cockpit crew had thrown on his perch in the short time he had been away. The small uncomfortable shelves running along both sides of the cockpit behind the pilot and copilot also served as seats for the extra pilots and flight engineers when they flew. Pits sipped his coffee and kept quiet. They were still ascending and from the looks of things above them, clouds were moving into the area. One moment he could see the stars and the next they disappeared. Without moonlight, it was hard to tell what was below them. It wasn’t as if they were flying over the United States or Europe where lights on the ground reassured everyone above that below them civilization existed. Here in Africa, there was none of that. Electricity lit up the major cities. Even a few miles from the major population centers, the lights gave way to blackness as poverty and jungle showed a face of darkness to everyone who flew over.

  “Skipper, we’re passing one-two-zero,” Lieutenant Evans said.

  “Only a third of the way up.”

  “Roger, Skipper.”

  The only thing worse than flying with Razi was the anxiety of flying with the skipper. The skipper’s flights, for the most part, were calm, easy trips broken by moments of butt-tightening intensity. It wasn’t as if the skipper was a self-serving sycophant like Razi, but the squadron’s goat locker had reached the conclusion that the skipper was immortal. Even if they hadn’t reached that conclusion, the skipper believed he was immortal. There were few immortals in the Navy. Most were admirals and master chiefs. All the others were pilots. What was it his sister said about dating pilots after he and his wife lined her up with one from the squadron during her visit last summer? “I knew the date was half-over when he said, ‘Enough about me; now let’s talk about flying.’”

  “What are you smiling about, Senior Chief?” Commander Charles Tidbody Greensburg, better known as Crazy Harry to the troops, asked, staring at him in the reflection cast on the cockpit window by the green and red console lights.

  “Nothing, sir. Just thinking how great it is to be up here.”

  “I know what you mean, Senior Chief. I truly do.” The skipper shook his head. “Just wish it was for some other reason than—”

  “Yes, sir. I know.”

  It would not have surprised Pits to walk up the aisle at the Rota Chapel some Sunday and find the skipper standing alongside the chaplain handing out wafers, chugging the wine, and exchanging details on their last conversation with God. Anyone else, and Pits would have long ago convinced the detailers to ship him out of VQ-2, but there was something about flying with someone so confident that he was convinced he could put a four-engine air-breathing turboprop into orbit.

  Therefore, as long as the skipper was at the yoke and throttle, wrapped in this cloak of immortality, nothing bad would ever happen.

  Pits gently shook the coffee in the cup, watching the liquid swirl clockwise, stirring up the cheap military instant creamer from the bottom. The problem with the skipper’s cloak of immorality was Pits’s increasing doubts as to whether the cloak was large enough to encompass everyone who followed the man.

  “About an hour to track. Another hour to first light after that,” Chief Roberts said.

  “We’re going to find them,” the skipper said. “When we do, we’re going to orbit over them until the Air Force finishes its crew rest and takes their leisurely time to fly out here and haul their asses up.”

  “They’re scheduled for an o-six-hundred hours launch,” the copilot said. “Three hours from now.”

  “When they arrive, we’ll be there. Once I’m sure they have our four aircrewmen aboard, then we’ll turn tail toward home plate, and call it a night.”

  “Passing two-zero-zero,” the copilot said.

  “What do you think?”

  “About what, sir?”

  “Here, nearer the equator.”

  Lieutenant Evans glanced at Chief Roberts and Pits. Both shrugged their shoulders.

  “Nearer the equator what, Skipper?”

  Crazy Harry let go of the yoke. “You know what! We can have some fun here.”

  Evans tightened his grip on the yoke, feeling the control of the huge EP-3E reconnaissance aircraft shift to him.

  The skipper didn’t care for automatic pilot and he seldom let others know when he was going to release the yoke, leave his seat, or doze off. Pits crossed his legs. It was that cloak of immortality.

  “Nearer the equator the air is thicker. Means you can fly higher. I was thinking . . . I was thinking that we might be able to break the altitude record we set over Marbella, Spain.”

  “Skipper, we nearly crashed—”

  “Oh, don’t be stupid, Dell. We never ‘nearly’ crashed. Sure, we lost power for a few moments—”

  “Power to all four engines!” Evans exclaimed.

  “It wasn’t as if aircraft don’t lose power every now and again. The thing to remember is we reached thirty-six thousand feet before the engines sputtered.”

  “Skipper, they didn’t sputter! They stopped. Kaput! Ceased to operate!”

  Crazy Harry pulled his flight gloves tighter and wiggled his fingers. “All of the engines didn’t stop. You make it sound worse than it was. Here, we should easily beat that record. It’ll be fun and educational.”

  “Skipper, if you want fun, then let’s put you and Colonel Hightower the helicopter pilot in the club when we return, and you and him can argue who flies faster,” the copilot offered.

  “Skipper, we only reached thirty-two thousand and some odd feet,” Chief Roberts added.

  Crazy Harry motioned downward with his hand, looking up at the reflections in the cockpit windshield. “Chief, the altimeter was screwed up. When you adjust for the altimeter error, we passed thirty-five thousand feet. I would say we were nearer thirty-six thousand. So what if our brethren and sisters who wrote the Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures—”

  “Standardization,” the other three said in unison.

  “Okay, NATOPS it is. I’ll call it NATOPS, but I thought it important for training purposes that you recognize what the acronym stands for. As I was saying, so what if NATOPS says the max altitude is twenty-eight thousand, three hundred feet?” He reached out and patted the top of the flight controls. “What the hell do they know? This baby can make forty-thousand feet. Who in the hell decided that odd three-hundred-feet-portion of NATOPS max altitude? That’s like selling something for three-ninety-nine instead of four dollars; or, telling someone the distance is three point two miles instead of three miles. Do you realize somewhere we—us taxpayers—are paying someone mega-dollars to be that specific. Why didn’t they just say, ‘The max altitude for the EP-3E Aries II aircraft is a little over twenty-eight thousand feet, so be careful if you exceed it’?” He looked at the copilot. “The EP-3E flies faster than some goddamn helicopter.”

  “We agree,” the three of them said in unison.

  “Agree with what?”

  “Agree with what you said about NATOPS, Skipper, and that we can outfly a helicopter,” Chief Roberts answered.

  Crazy Harry shook his head. “Oh, ye of little faith. I was just using that as an example of how they should have written it. Not an example of a fact. Don’t believe that everything written down and appro
ved by a bunch of engineers is a fact. Why, I’ve never—”

  “—seen a project ever completed by an engineer,” the other three said in unison.

  “—seen a project ever completed by an engineer,” Greensburg continued, “Because engineers always believe there is a much, more, better thing they can do to it.”

  “Sir, we’ve been lucky, so far, in this—”

  “Listen, Lieutenant, let’s don’t trade skill for luck in this endeavor to prove the orbital powers of the EP-3E.”

  “Sir, I would never trade luck for skill.”

  “Good. Luck is always the better friend when you’re losing power, hydraulics are gone, and you can’t see the ground.”

  “But you’ll still have enough power to reach the scene of the crash.”

  “You guys are beginning to get on my nerves,” Commander Greensburg said. “I have a perfect aviation record—I’ve never left an aircraft in the air.”

  Pits leaned back, his head touching the bulkhead. He opened his mouth to join the banter, but instead tossed back the few remaining drops of lukewarm coffee. He’d heard this conversation on too many flights. The skipper arguing how wherever they were flying, the air was thicker; the chief correcting him; the copilot counterarguing to talk him out of it, and the skipper rebutting with his theory that no one really analyzed the max altitudes of aircraft— commercial or military. If there were actual people who did that, then they wouldn’t be so specific because they’d know that pilots believe NATOPS to be more like guidelines than restrictions. Most times he succeeded and beat the copilot and flight engineer down. Sometimes he didn’t. When he didn’t, then he invoked the fallback position of the God-given right of the skipper, and off they’d go, butt-cheeks tight, heading for the heavens.

  “Skipper, you want another cup of coffee before we start searching for our men?” Pits asked.

  Crazy Harry glanced up at the windscreen, his eyes meeting the reflected eyes of Pits. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, Senior Chief. Too many of you against me this time, so I will take the coffee, but I’ll get it myself. But once they’re safe, depending on fuel constraints, we’re going to check the thickness of this African air. Dell Evans, level us off at twenty-four thousand and we’ll cruise at that altitude. The skipper slid his seat back, unbuckled, and stepped out. “Why anyone would want to fly a fighter plane and stay strapped in one position throughout the flight is something that beggars the mind of us normal pilots.”

  “I think it’s the piss tube,” Lieutenant Evans offered. “I’ve heard it has suction on it.”

  Pits smiled as Crazy Harry shook his head. “That’s just typical. Fighter pilots always get the better amenities. Probably explains the glazed look in their eyes when they land.”

  They waited until the curtains closed behind Crazy Harry before they spoke.

  “Avoided another one,” Chief Roberts said.

  “Don’t count on it,” Evans replied. “Once our aircrewmen have been rescued, he’ll be thinking about it again as we head home.”

  “Lieutenant Evans, do you mind me asking if Dell is really your first name?” Pits asked as he started to follow the skipper.

  The copilot shook his head. “No, it’s Daniel, but the—”

  “I gave him that handle,” Crazy Harry said, sticking his head back through the curtains. “Dell is the masculine form of Dale and I didn’t want to hurt his masculinity by spelling it D-A-L-E, which is why I keep the young lieutenant with me—the only reason I keep him with me. He reminds me of cowboys with white hats and the tales my father told about Roy Rogers and his lovely wife, Dale.” The skipper reached over and punched Pits lightly on the shoulder. “ Senior Chief, I thought we were going for coffee.”

  “Can do, will do, glad to, Skipper.” Pits followed as they worked their way aft.

  Crazy Harry stopped just before the galley and twisted the knob on the door leading to the small compartment where a metal canister about four foot high served as a urinal. There was a seated position—honey pot—that anyone could use, but the first person to use it had to clean it once they landed. So, like wolves, aircrew watched the head while they flew waiting for someone, who could no longer control it, to use the honey pot. Then, it was fair game for everyone.

  Pits was drawing the second cup when the skipper stepped up, grabbed one, thanked Pits, and headed back to the cockpit. The only time anyone saw the skipper during a flight was when he made a quick head call. Otherwise, he lived in the cockpit, sitting up there, sometimes quiet, his thoughts to himself, and just when you relaxed, he’d voice his thoughts such as the one last month, wondering whether an EP-3E could do a roll.

  Pits had been on that flight. It was a check-ride for one of the senior pilots. No one laughed. The skipper never joked about his flying. Pits had immediately tightened his seat belt and held on, because the skipper was also known to talk about trying something while in the middle of executing it. The skipper might be immortal, but at times such as that one, Pits believed the cloak had been left on the runway.

  Other times, he believed the Navy was shielding a great leader from greatness. Crazy Harry was a phenomenal mix of great leadership and dangerous ideas. The key was to respect him from afar, but that was hard to do when you were crammed with twenty-two other aircrew on the same aircraft with a genius for a madman. Luckily, Crazy Harry didn’t try to do a victory roll in the EP-3E, and he hadn’t voiced the idea since.

  “Well, Senior Chief, looks as if we’re earning our flight pay today,” Lieutenant Commander Peeters said, stepping up beside Pits.

  “Yes, sir. We hear anything yet, Commander?” Pits tossed the plastic spoon into the trash and took a sip.

  “Not yet, but if they keep to their SEER training, they’ll be transmitting every fifteen minutes.”

  Pits nodded. “Yes, sir, but yesterday when we left them, we told them to expect rescue either late yesterday or early this morning. I don’t think they’ll be transmitting—”

  “Chief Razi is with them. If anyone is sharp enough to know what to do, it’s him. By now, he’s got those three junior sailors standing watch, policing the area, and going over the details for a helo rescue.”

  I’m going to be sick, Pits thought. The man is unbelievable! It’s one BS after another and every one of these officers believe him. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “No doubt in my mind that if anyone can turn this into a good-news story, it’ll be Chief Razi.” Pits edged by Lieutenant Commander Peeters and walked back toward the cockpit, unaware of Peeters staring after him. Nor did he see Peeters eventually scratch his head with a questioning look on his face as Pits passed from view into the shadows of the aisle.

  CHAPTER 11

  RAZI SHINED THE RED LIGHT ON THE GROUND AHEAD OF him, waving the flashlight back and forth, raking the huge tangle of bushes blocking his way. He ran his free hand over his face, feeling the tattered cloth of his glove move through the mud and dirt caking his features. Razi reached out and pushed the leaves of the nearest bush, watching them move easily aside. Just one more obstacle to overcome, but—he took a deep breath and raised his head— none of the others stopped him, and neither would this one. He dropped his hand. The leaves sprung back to their original position. Razi straightened. He was a goddamn chief petty officer, and chief petty officers never let obstacles stop them—and they always fell so that their rank insignia was hidden.

  He tucked the flashlight under his arm, the light pointing down, and pulled the compass from his survival vest. The survival vest hung loosely from Razi’s shoulders. Sometime during the night, he didn’t recall when, he must have unzipped it down the center to allow the night air to dry the dampness from the sweat-soaked trunk of the flight suit. He touched the zipper halves with both hands for a moment as if to zip the survival vest back together, but a rustle to his right drew his attention, and he dropped his hands away.

  After several seconds, Razi freed his compass, lifted the flashlight, and illuminated it. Squinting, he assured himself he was o
n the right course before jamming it back into the vest. Razi fought an urge to howl at the barrier in front of him. He’d done that a couple of times at earlier barriers only to discover the barriers fought harder. He knew his fellow chiefs would laugh at the idea of plants fighting you, but he had learned a lot in the jungle. Things no one else knew. Things he would never tell anyone. He touched the leaves for a moment. He snickered at the idea of him knowing these secrets and keeping them to himself.

  It was better to go ahead without the fanfare of his howl. He nodded and grinned. His war cry, as he thought of it, was getting better. Razi reached forward, shoved the limbs aside, and stepped into the edge of the thicket. The red light barely showed a foot away in this mess, but he was on the right course toward his sailors, and nothing was going to stop him.

  Razi had long quit wondering if the noise he made alerted those ahead. He wanted them to know he was coming. In his misguided reasoning, Razi had convinced himself that if those boy soldiers heard him coming, they would give up their pursuit and run in fear. He smiled at the thought of their wide-eyed fear as they scattered pell-mell into the surrounding jungle, running to momma. It never dawned on Razi, as it wouldn’t on most Americans, that the children soldiers of Africa had long since seen and heard worse things in the night than an unarmed, dirty chief petty officer lost in the turbid jungles of their land. Most of Africa’s children soldiers had no parents, and those few who did had little idea where their parents were, much less where they themselves were.

  It took Razi two hours to penetrate the thick maze of jungle growth before he suddenly emerged into a semblance of a clearing that stretched off in the direction he needed to go. Razi didn’t stop to congratulate himself on working through the jungle bramble. He stepped off, hurrying forward. Not sure why he was hurrying, but knowing he had to find his sailors before sunlight. Tomorrow the— What would come tomorrow? He checked his watch and his compass. Fifteen minutes before four. He bit his lower lip and shook his head in disbelief. Rescue! That’s what would come. A helicopter swooping down, snatching them from the jungle, and by this time tomorrow, he’d be on his second case of beer.