Final Flight jg-2

by Stephen Coonts

  The conversations between the airborne pilots and the controllers came over a loudspeaker and provided the background noise. The same conversations could also be heard next door, in air ops.

  The chief saw Jake standing near the door and came over, his headset cord trailing after him. “Where’s Five Oh Six?”

  The chief led Jake to one of the radar consoles, where together they stared at the large scope, searching for the coded blip of Majeska’s aircraft. Jake fumbled in his shirt pocket for his glasses. Even with the display expanded to show the airspace within a fifty-mile radius of the ship, the correct blip wasn’t there. “We’ve been calling him for ten minutes,” the chief said to Jake. “Ask Strike if they hold him,” the chief told the controller.

  The sailor did as ordered. The chief listened to the conversation. The strike controller hadn’t talked to the A-6E for almost fifteen minutes. He broadcast the Intruder’s call sign over the air several times, but received no reply.

  “Could he be just outside the range of your radar?” Jake asked.

  “No, sir. And Combat doesn’t hold him either.” The operators in CDC would be querying the NTDS computer.

  “Skin paint?” If the aircraft’s IFF gear had malfunctioned, it was no longer coding the radar energy it received and broadcasting it back to the ship. The shipboard radars could also look at raw blips — that is, uncoded energy bouncing off the skin of the aircraft.

  “No, sir. We tried. We can’t find him up there.”

  Jake felt the swoosh and thud of a catapult firing. He glanced at the monitor. The launch had started.

  An officer stepped up to Jake’s elbow. “Sir, Commander Walker wants you.” Jake thanked the chief and followed the lieutenant through the smoke.

  Walker had a telephone to his ear when Jake sat down. “A Greek freighter called on the commercial net. Says he thinks a plane crashed near his ship about twenty minutes ago. You want to go over to Combat and see what they know?”

  “Yeah.” Jake heaved himself up. Every eye in the place was on him. He walked out, feeling very tired. The door to Combat was only forty feet or so forward, on the same starboard O-3 level passageway as CATCC. As Jake walked he could feel catapult pistons thudding into the water brakes. More airplanes aloft.

  The NTDS computer consoles and their operators were scattered all over the compartment. The watch officer, a lieutenant, was also sucking on a cigarette. Jake wanted one so badly he could taste it.

  “Any sign of survivors?”

  “The freighter hasn’t found any.”

  “What was that plane doing out there?”

  “Surface surveillance. Their last transmission was that they were going to check out that freighter that’s in the vicinity. The freighter says it is looking for survivors, but it can’t find any. We’re sending the fighters that just launched to that position to orbit overhead. Maybe they’ll hear a survival radio or see a flare.”

  The two men discussed the situation; the location of the destroyer steaming toward the crash site, how long the fighters could hold overhead, the estimated time en route of the helicopter which would be launched from the carrier in a few minutes, when the current recovery was complete. Jake called his deputy air wing commander, Harry March. When he arrived the recovery was in full swing and the compartment vibrated as the planes smashed down on the flight deck, which was the ceiling of all the O-3 level compartments. Jake and March went out in the passageway and walked the fifty feet to the strike ops office, whose denizens wrote the daily air plan, the document that created missions for the ship’s aircraft. A plan for a wreckage and personnel search at first light by air-wing aircraft was quickly put together as the strike operations officer conferred on the telephone with the admiral’s operations officer. Everyone, Jake reflected, had a finger in the pie.

  “This would have to happen just before going into port,” one of the strike ops officers said glumly.

  “Is that chopper still on deck?”

  “Yessir.” Everyone looked at the monitor. The chopper was spreading its rotors. “Harry, tell Walker to hold that chopper on deck until I get there,” Jake said. “I’m going with them. In the meantime, I want you to get all the people you need, right now, and check out the liquid-oxygen system of every A-6 on this boat. And check all the lox servicing gear. If any of those systems are contaminated, seal them.” March nodded. “Go. I’m going to get on that chopper.”

  Jake borrowed a filthy flight suit in flight deck control and dashed across the flight deck toward the waiting helicopter, an SH-3 Sea Knight. The men around it began breaking down the tie-down chains when they saw him coming. The breeze down the flight deck was brisk and the sky clear. The first pale hint of the coming dawn was just visible in the east.

  Inside the chopper, one of the two rescue crewmen passed him a helmet which trailed a long black electrical lead. He pulled it on and the crewman plugged the end of the lead into a socket on the forward bulkhead. Now he could hear the pilot and copilot running through the pretakeoff checklist. Jake sat on the floor and wiggled into the flight suit, pulling it on over his uniform. Then he donned an inflatable life vest which the second crewman passed to him.

  Even with the helmet, the noise level was extremely high as the helicopter lifted off and transitioned to forward flight. Out the open door, Jake saw the lights on the bow of the ship pass from view. Then there was nothing to see in the featureless darkness of night sea and sky. He motioned to the crewman who had given him the helmet and, when he was close enough, shouted in his ear. “How long until we reach the crash site?”

  The crewman spoke into his lip mike and Jake heard the answer from the cockpit. An hour and twenty minutes. As the crewmen closed the sliding side door to improve cruising aerodynamics Jake found a kapok life vest to lay his head on and tried to relax. He gnawed a fingernail already into the quick from too much chewing and half listened to the cockpit crew chanting the litany of the post takeoff checklist on the ICS. Why in the name of God had Bull Majeska crashed, a man with three thousand hours in jets, over twenty-five hundred in A-6s? What could have gone wrong? Was the wreckage afloat or had it gone down? Could it be recovered?

  Disgusted at himself for his impatience, he finally spit out the fragments of fingernail and forced himself to close his eyes and breathe regularly.

  After ten minutes he gave up trying to sleep and stood behind the pilot and copilot where he could see the flight instruments. He exchanged pleasantries with the crew as the dawn chased the stars away and gradually revealed the restless gray sea and blueing sky.

  The new day had completely arrived when the radio gave them the news. One of the orbiting jets had located a survivor. He was talking on the radio. It was Bull Majeska.

  “Ask them to ask Majeska if the bombardier ejected.”

  The chopper pilot spoke into his mike. In a moment he turned back to Jake. “The pilot doesn’t know, sir.”

  “Tell the guys in the jets to search for the second man. And tell them to be careful. I don’t want anyone to fly into the water on a search-and-rescue.”

  * * *

  “I see you,” the tinny voice on the radio shouted. “I’m gonna pop a smoke.” Orbiting jets overhead had guided the helicopter toward Bull Majeska in his life raft.

  “There he is!” The copilot pointed toward eleven o’clock. A trace of orange smoke was just visible rising from the surface of the water. The swells were running three to four feet, and there was enough wind to break a whitecap occasionally. From a thousand feet up you could just see the tops of the low mountains of Cyprus peeping above the northern horizon and the superstructure of the freighter, hull down to the east.

  The helicopter pilot approached the little raft from downwind, flying about forty feet above the water, coming up the trail of orange smoke toward the tiny bobbing figure.

  Jake moved back into the cargo compartment and watched the hoist operator run the orange horse-collar down toward the sea. The rescue swimmer in full wetsuit
adjusted his goggles and leaned out the open door. He would only go into the sea if the survivor could not get into the horse-collar.

  Majeska had trouble getting out of his raft, so the helicopter sagged toward the water and the swimmer slipped out of the door. In less than two minutes the crewman pulled Majeska onto the floor of the cargo area and Jake helped get the collar off him. He was so exhausted he just lay there streaming water.

  “Did Reed get out?” Jake shouted.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jake helped Majeska out of his survival gear and wrapped him in a dry blanket. When the swimmer was back aboard, he gave him a blanket too.

  “CAG,” the helicopter pilot called on the ICS.

  Jake leaned into the cockpit.

  “There’s no sign of the other guy and we’re running low on fuel, CAG. We’re going to have to break off and get back. There’s another chopper on its way here.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “That guy may need medical attention.”

  “Has anyone spotted the wreckage?”

  “An A-6 has spotted a few pieces. The destroyer will be here in about three hours and they will pick up everything they can find.”

  “How come that freighter didn’t wait around until dawn and help look for survivors?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell one of the guys upstairs to make a low pass over it and get some pictures. Then let’s get back to the carrier.” Jake went back to check on Majeska.

  “Are you hurt?” Jake shouted at Majeska over the noise.

  “Don’t think so.”

  “What happened?” He was referring to the crash.

  Bull Majeska shook his head. “Don’t know. I blacked out.”

  “Did Reed eject before you did?” Since the A-6 lacked command ejection, each crewman must eject himself.

  “Don’t know. I didn’t hear him on the radio when I was in the water. I called and called.”

  Jake wrapped another blanket around the shivering A-6 pilot. He stood in the door and looked at the gray ocean, thinking about the bombardier and watery death. Later the crewman derigged the hoist and shut the side door.

  * * *

  Doctor Hartman hovered over the patient, listening to his lungs and heart. They were in a two-man room in sickbay, but the second bed was empty. Majeska had already been X-rayed and had urinated into a bottle. Now he was sitting on the side of the bed.

  “So just exactly what happened?” Jake asked.

  “Like I said, CAG, I don’t really know. We were making a low pass by that freighter and the next thing I knew, I was in the water. I don’t know if the ejection seat fired when the plane hit the water or whether the plane broke up on impact and tossed me out. I just don’t know! And I don’t know if Reed got out.”

  “Were you in the seat when you came to?”

  “No. My life vest was inflated and there were parachute shroud lines everywhere. I had to cut my way out of them and get my raft deployed. Jeez, I haven’t worked that hard in years, and I swallowed a couple gallons of salt water. I must have cut every shroud line three times.”

  The life vest, Jake knew, had two carbon dioxide cartridges that automatically activated when immersed in salt water and inflated the vest. But the parachute should have deployed only if the ejection seat had fired.

  “Did you see the freighter after you were in the water? They said they looked for survivors.”

  “I saw it. But I was so wrapped in shroud lines I couldn’t get my flares out for a while. And when I finally did, they left anyway. At least I think they did; after the first flare burned out I spent at least a half hour trying to get into the raft, puking my guts out all the while. There were shroud lines everywhere and the raft kept getting hung up. I kept thinking the parachute might pull me under. I was flailing away with that shroud cutter and swallowing water and heaving my guts.”

  “CAG,” Doctor Hartman said, “I can’t finish this examination with you two talking. Could you …”

  “Come back after a bit, Doc,” Jake said. The doctor opened his mouth, thought better of whatever he was going to say, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Jake sat on the other bed, facing Bull. “I don’t believe you,” he said.

  Majeska set his jaw. “Just what the hell do you mean by that?”

  “I mean I don’t believe you. I think you know a lot more than you’re telling and I want to hear it. Now.”

  “You’re calling me a liar.”

  “Don’t you puff up on me, you sonuvabitch. There’s one man dead and a thirty-six million-dollar airplane at the bottom of the ocean. Now I want the whole fucking truth.”

  Majeska lowered his gaze. “There’s nothing we can do to bring Reed back,” he said softly.

  “I want it all, Bull. Now.”

  “I’ve said everything I’m gonna say to you, Jake. I’ve told you how it happened. Now I’ll tell it again to the accident board, but I’m not saying anything more to you. Sir.”

  “I’m your boss, Bull. I write your fitness report. That accident report will come to me for my comment before it goes off this ship.” Jake took a deep breath. “You idiot, I’m responsible for all these airplanes and every swinging dick that gets in them. I don’t want any more people dead.” Majeska’s face was covered with a fine sheen of perspiration and he was biting his lip. “I’m not here to just chew on your ass. If you fucked up, you fucked up. But I need the truth!”

  “You already have the truth, sir.” Bull Majeska said at last.

  Jake rose and walked out of the room.

  * * *

  Will Cohen was waiting for him in the CAG office, along with Harry March.

  “We checked out all the liquid-oxygen servicing equipment and the lox system in the A-6s, CAG. Couldn’t find anything wrong, except one A-6 had a leaky seal. We downed it for that. Take a couple hours to fix.”

  “One leaky seal. Could a seal leak have contaminated the system?”

  “No way.” Cohen shook his head.

  “Do every other airplane on this ship. And have the senior parachute rigger check every oxygen mask on this boat.”

  “Gee whiz, CAG. If some fighter puke has a mask that wasn’t inspected when it should have been, that doesn’t have anything to do with why Majeska crashed.”

  Jake just looked at Cohen.

  “You want it, you got it, Toyota,” Cohen said and made for the door.

  Jake headed for his office. “What do you have, Harry?”

  “Photos of that Greek freighter, the Aegean Argos. It seems she probably came from a North African port and is on her way to Beirut now. She’s headed in that direction at twelve knots. Making plenty of smoke.” When Jake was behind his desk, March tossed the photos in front of him.

  Jake examined them. There were no visible weapons, but the deck cargo was covered with a tarpaulin. “What do the Air Intelligence guys say about this?”

  “They say there are no visible weapons.”

  “Send off a message. Somebody should check that ship out when it docks.”

  “Beirut isn’t New York. The port authorities aren’t going to be falling over each other trying to help us.”

  “I know that. And I know that half the people in Lebanon are probably on the CIA payroll or would like to be. Send the message.”

  “You think maybe the Argos shot Majeska down?”

  “I don’t know what to think. Maybe they nailed him with a hand-held missile or a machine gun mounted on a rail. Maybe a wing fell off, catastrophic failure. It’s happened before. Maybe the plane just blew up. I don’t have the foggiest. Bull says he blacked out and came to in the water. One thing is sure, the captain of that freighter didn’t want to give us a real close look in the daytime. It’s almost as if he started to look for survivors, then realized if he found any we’d come aboard to get them, so he sailed away.”

  “A real nice guy.”

  “There’s a lot of them here in the Med. Majeska says he had a flare goin
g and the freighter left anyway. They should have seen him. There wasn’t that much of a sea running and visibility was good. Go talk to the strike ops guys. And see what the admiral thinks of all this.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  As the officer departed, Farnsworth came to the door. “Admiral Parker wants to see you, at your convenience.”

  “What about?” Farnsworth had probably been talking to the yeoman in the admiral’s office. The yeomen usually knew more about what was going on than the officers did.

  “That little shindig you have planned tonight in the wardroom.”

  Jake had forgotten. After every at-sea period he liked to get all the aviators together in the wardroom. The LSOs gave out certificates to the crew with the best boarding average and the catapult officers put on a little skit about the worst mistake they had witnessed on the flight deck. Tonight Admiral Parker was supposed to present centurion patches to the crews that had logged a hundred landings aboard this ship. And he had asked Cowboy to participate in a skit. He had also forgotten about the skit.

  “That will have to wait. Since the skipper of the A-6 squadron had the crash, I think I’ll probably have to convene the accident board.” Normally the commanding officer of the squadron that had the crash convened the board.

  Farnsworth held up his hand. He stepped out the door and returned with a large, black binder, which he laid on Jake’s desk. Farnsworth opened the binder to the accident instruction. Between the pages was a draft of the appointing order for Jake’s approval.

  Jake looked it over. It was complete, except for the names of the officers who would do the investigation. Jake gave Farnsworth the names. “Type them in. You know, someday you and I are going to have to trade jobs for a day or two. I want to see if I know as much about running an air wing as you do.”