Final Flight jg-2

by Stephen Coonts

  James punched the button on a squawk box, an intercom system, labeled “CDC.” “This is the captain. You people manned up down there?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Get off a voice transmission, scrambled if possible, on your circuits. Tell our escorts to relay it to Sixth Fleet and CIN-CLANT.” CINCLANT was the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet.

  “Yessir. What do we send?”

  “Goddammit, man,” James thundered. “Send the substance of the announcement I just made over the 1-MC.” The 1-MC circuit was the ship’s public-address system. “Tell them we have armed intruders aboard. More info to follow as we get it.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  * * *

  Chief Terry Reed stared in disbelief at the padlock on the door to the after hangar-deck repair locker. The men behind him peered over his shoulder, curious about the delay. Why the hell was this door padlocked? The doorknob had an integral lock, and every man in the chief’s repair party had a key. This locker was their battle station. Chief Reed took a closer look at the doorknob. It had been forced.

  “Somebody get a fire ax and pry this damn lock off.”

  The chief scanned the hangar bay while he waited. Intruders? Aboard this ship? Captain James didn’t throw words around lightly. He must know what’s going on. The chief looked at the doorknob lock again. Someone had pried it until it broke. And this padlock — it wasn’t navy-issue. Damn. Could the intruders have been here?

  A man came running with a fire ax. The chief moved back away from the door. He looked again around the hangar bay, still puzzled. Why would anyone want to get in the repair-party locker? There was nothing in there but damage control gear. The valuable assets were the airplanes, out here in the bay. He stared at them, wings folded and chained to the deck. Some of the machines had access panels and nose domes open, exposing radars and black boxes and bundles of cables. They looked naked. Had they been sabotaged?

  Even as the thought occurred to the chief, the paint locker on the opposite side of the bay exploded. In an instant the flammable chemicals stored there were burning fiercely.

  The chief looked wildly about for the nearest fire alarm. He saw it against the wall right by the fire-fighting station and lunged for it. His motion galvanized his men into action. They energized the pumps and began dragging the hose out. They had the nozzle half way across the hangar when two more paint lockers exploded.

  * * *

  Qazi and his men huddled under an aircraft wing immediately forward of the island. He counted them. Seven plus himself. “Who’s not here?”

  “Mohammed. Apparently he only wounded one of the marines on the machine guns and they fought. He may have gone overboard.”

  “Did you set his charges on the antenna leads?”

  “Mine and his both.” So all the radio-antenna leads of which Qazi was aware had been severed. The damage could be repaired fairly quickly as soon as the Americans discovered where the breaks were, but the search would take time, and time for the Americans was running out.

  Qazi looked up at the dark windows of the bridge, eight decks above him in the island superstructure. The glare of the red flood-lights around the top of the island made it impossible to see if any lights were illuminated on the bridge. Of course, the ship’s senior officers were there. They had to be. The quick-reaction team couldn’t have made it to the bridge yet, but they were undoubtedly on their way. Qazi had to reach the bridge before the marines did or he might not be able to get there at all. Time was running out for him too.

  He gestured to two of his men, pointing out the positions he wished them to assume on the flight deck, positions from which they could command the helicopter landing area on the angle, abeam the island. Since the ship’s rescue helicopter was airborne, most of the helo landing area was empty and the whip antennas that surrounded the flight deck had been lowered to their horizontal position. Qazi wanted to ensure everything remained that way.

  The rest of his men he led across the deck through the wind and rain toward the hatch that opened into Flight Deck Control, the empire of the aircraft handler. E-2 Hawkeye radar reconnaissance planes were parked beside the island, their tails almost against the steel and their noses pointed across the deck at the helicopter landing area. The wet metal skin of the airplanes glistened in the weak red light. The colonel went under the tails and glanced through the porthole into Flight Deck Control. The compartment was full of men. He stopped in front of the entrance door and motioned for two of his men to grab the handle that would rotate the locking lugs.

  * * *

  Reports were arriving on the bridge over the telephones, the squawk boxes, and the sound-powered circuits. Damage-Control Central reported fires in the comm spaces and on the hangar deck. The airborne helicopter had been unable to find the second man overboard. Fully 20 percent of the ship’s company was still ashore. Most of the ship’s radios seemed to be off the air with suspected antenna problems. As Captain James tried to sort it out, Jake and the admiral stood in the corner and listened to the reports coming in.

  Jake looked at his watch. Two minutes had passed since general quarters had sounded.

  “What are they after?” the admiral asked, more to himself than Jake. “And where are they?”

  * * *

  The door to Flight Deck Control swung open and Qazi followed two of his men into the space. They had their Uzis in front of them. The rest followed him into the compartment.

  “Silence. Hands up,” Qazi shouted in English.

  A sea of stunned faces stared at Qazi. He waved at the area behind the scale model of the flight and hangar deck. “Over there. Everyone. Over there!”

  No one moved. Qazi pointed the Browning Hi-Power, with its silencer sticking out like an evil finger, at the chiefs and talkers near the maintenance status boards. “Move. Headsets off.”

  They stood frozen, staring. The silenced pistol swung toward the status board and popped, but the smack of the bullet punching its way through the plexiglas and splatting into the bulkhead was louder. Eyes shifted hypnotically toward the neat, round hole in the transparent plexiglas. In the silence Qazi could hear the tinkle of the spent cartridge case as it caromed off a folding chair and struck the metal bulkhead.

  “Do as he says. Get over here, people.” The speaker was an officer in khakis, a lieutenant commander sitting in a raised padded chair.

  The men moved with alacrity, shedding the sound-powered telephone headsets.

  When everyone was crammed thigh to thigh in the indicated space with their hands on the back of their necks, Colonel Qazi spoke again. “You will stand silently, without moving. My men will kill every man who moves or opens his mouth. They understand no English. And they know how to kill.” He added, almost as an afterthought, “They enjoy it.”

  He turned and went through the doorway that led to the ladder up into the island. He would have to hurry. Were the marines ahead of him?

  Qazi went past the door to the down ladder, a standard nonwatertight aluminum door, and opened the door to the ladder going up. Although Qazi didn’t know it, this was the only place on the ship where the ladderwells were sealed with doors and aluminum bulkheads. This feature prevented fumes and noise from the flight deck from penetrating deeper into the ship.

  He heard a thundering noise immediately beneath him. Men running up the ladder beneath his feet! Marines on the way to the bridge! He gestured frantically to the men following him. Just then the door from below burst open and one of Qazi’s men triggered an Uzi burst full into the chest of the marine coming through. He fell backward onto the man behind him. The door sagged shut on his ankle.

  On the ladder below the marine who had been shot, someone fired his M-16 upward, through the thin aluminum bulkhead. Once, twice, then an automatic burst.

  “A grenade,” Qazi whispered hoarsely.

  The man nearest the colonel pulled the pin and tossed it over the booted ankle trapped in the door as everyone else fell flat on the dec
k.

  The explosion was muffled. “Another,” Qazi ordered.

  This time the explosion was loud and shrapnel sprayed through the aluminum ladderwell wall.

  The grenades would merely delay the marines below. They would seek an alternate route upward, and they knew the ship. He had purchased himself mere seconds. Maybe that would be enough. “Quickly now, let’s go.”

  Two of his men failed to rise. Someone turned them over. One was dead, a rifle bullet through the heart, and the other had a piece of shrapnel in his abdomen. No time to waste. Qazi charged up the ladder two steps at a time with those of his men who were still on their feet right behind. More gunfire. Qazi paused at the top and glanced back. The last man was down holding his leg. The marines had fired through the aluminum sheeting under the ladder. Even as he looked, another burst came through the aluminum and the wounded man lost his balance and fell. But he still had two men on their feet behind him. Qazi circled the open turnaround and leaped onto the next ladder.

  O-5 level, O-6 level, O-7 … On the O-8 level he passed the flag bridge. No marines in sight. Maybe, just maybe …

  As he came up the ladder to the O-9 level he saw a marine wearing a pistol belt standing in front of the door to the navigation bridge. The marine had his pistol in his hand and looked apprehensively at Qazi as he took the steps two at a time. Qazi glanced over his shoulder as his head reached the landing coaming — no more marines — and leveled his pistol as he topped the ladder. He shot the surprised sentry point-blank. The body was still falling as Qazi jerked open the door to the navigation bridge and hurtled through.

  22

  When Gunnery Sergeant Tony Garcia reached the bottom of the island ladderwell on the O-3 level, he stood stock still and looked at the carnage, stunned. He had eaten dinner tonight in Naples with two friends and had been sound asleep when general quarters was called away. He had pulled on trousers, shirt, and shoes and raced for the armory, where the corporal on duty had tossed him an M-16 and duty belt. Then he had run for the bridge. Normally he led the squad that guarded the bridge during GQ, but Sergeant Vehmeier had tonight’s duty section. Now he stood looking at the five marines lying amid blood and shrapnel. One of them was conscious.

  “Grenades, Gunny,” the wounded man whispered. His back and side were covered in blood and blood oozed out his left sleeve.

  Sergeant Vehmeier lay face down in a pool of gore. Garcia turned him over. The man’s hands were gone, only red meat and white bones remained, and his abdomen was ripped open. He had fallen on one of the grenades, probably the first one. Miraculously, he still had a pulse in his neck. Garcia used both hands to scoop Vehmeier’s intestines back into his abdominal cavity. He rolled Vehmeier over, then stripped off his shirt and used that as a bandage to protect the wound.

  “Quick,” the sergeant whispered at a knot of gawking sailors. “Get these men to sick bay, right fucking now! This man first.” The sailors leaped to obey.

  Garcia wiped his bloody hands on his trousers. “Get tourniquets on these men,” he directed. He stepped over the casualties and climbed the ladder, his M-16 at the ready.

  The man at the top, with his foot caught in the door and sprawled on his back down the ladder, had taken a half dozen rounds in the chest. He was beyond help. When Garcia eased the door open to peer out, the body slipped, making noise. Just below the sailors were making a hell of a racket carrying the casualties away, but Garcia froze anyway.

  He waited for the bullets to come. He was sweating and his heart was pounding. Nothing. He peered again through the crack in the door, then eased it open enough to slip through.

  There were two men down in the passageway, here on the flight deck level. Garcia picked up the Uzis and pistols lying on the deck. One man was still alive, but he wasn’t going anywhere with that hole in his gut. A gym bag lay near him. Garcia opened it carefully. Grenades and some stuff that looked like plastique. Some fuses.

  A crumpled body lay at the bottom of the ladderwell up to the next floor. It had almost a dozen wounds in it. Garcia could see the holes in the aluminum sheeting. One of his marines had fired an M-16 clip through the aluminum and nailed this guy.

  The wounded man moved and groaned. Garcia swung the M-16 in his direction. It was tempting. The bastard deserved it. But no.

  The sergeant looked up the ladderwell. What was waiting up there? Should he go find out? Or should he take another route? Another route would probably be healthier.

  He heard a door opening to his left and leaped right, toward a corner. Even as he did, he heard bullets spanging off the steel. In a corner of his mind it registered that there were no loud reports, and he knew the weapon had a silencer.

  He sprawled on the deck and scrambled furiously, trying to ensure his body and legs were behind cover. He rolled over and waited for the gunman to round the turn in the passageway. Slowly, slowly he got to his feet, keeping the rifle pointed. He wiped the sweat from his face with the front of his T-shirt and tried to visualize the corridor that he had just left. The door that opened must have been the door to Flight Deck Control. The bastards must be in there! With all those sailors. He couldn’t shoot through the door for fear of hitting a sailor. Damn!

  His thigh felt like it was on fire. He looked. A bullet hole in his trouser leg. He felt his thigh. A slug had grazed him, but not too bad. The wound was bleeding some. Those motherfuckers!

  He could hear the sound of men running somewhere in the ship, minute vibrations that could be heard for hundreds of feet, and the faint clank of watertight hatches being slammed shut. These were normal noises mixed in with the hum and whine of machinery that was present every minute of every day. He stood listening now for the sound of a door being eased open or shoes scraping on steel or a weapon clinking ever so faintly against a bulkhead. Of these noises, there were none.

  It was coming back to him now, those feelings of combat. Always tense, always listening, always waiting … waiting to kill and waiting to die. He had not felt those feelings for twenty years. But now they were back and it seemed like only yesterday. He was sweating profusely and his mouth was dry. He was desperately thirsty.

  He heard a watertight door being opened somewhere behind him but near. He pointed his rifle and waited. Now someone was coming around the corridor, in from the starboard side of the island. It was only Staff Sergeant Slagle and a lance corporal. What was his name? Leggett. Corporal Leggett.

  The 1-MC hissed. “Men of United States. I am Colonel Qazi. I have taken over the ship. We have your captain and your admiral with us here on the bridge. Further resistance by you is futile and will result in the deaths of your officers and the sailors here with us on the bridge. If another shot is fired at my men by anyone, I will execute one of the Americans here with me and throw his body down onto the flight deck. Now I want everyone to clear the flight deck. Clear the flight deck or I will execute a sailor.”

  “What do we do now, Gunny?” Slagle asked.

  Garcia examined the silencer on one of the pistols he had picked up from the deck. The slide had been machined to take the silencer by someone who knew his business. He pushed the button on the grip and the magazine popped out into his hand. About ten rounds remained. He reinserted the magazine in the grip and checked that the weapon had a round in the chamber and eased the hammer down. Then he stuffed the pistol in his belt. He gave the other weapons to Slagle. “Get on a phone to Captain Mills—”

  “He’s on the beach.” Mills was the marine officer-in-charge.

  “So call the lieutenant,” Gunny Garcia rasped. First Lieutenant Potter Dykstra was the second in command and the only other marine officer in the detachment. “Tell him the squad that was on the way to the bridge got wiped out by grenades. And there is at least one gunman in Flight Deck Control. Find out what the lieutenant wants to do. Leggett, you stay right here. If anybody carrying a weapon comes out of Flight Deck Control, kill him. These fuckers are dressed like sailors. I’m going up to the bridge and see what’s what.�
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  Slagle turned and trotted away.

  “Listen, Leggett. These assholes got grenades. They’re liable to toss one out here to see if they can perforate you. Keep your head out of your ass.”

  “You bet, Gunny.” Leggett licked his lips and started to peer around the corner.

  “Don’t do that, dummy. If you’ve gotta take a peek, get down on the deck and peek around the corner down low. And don’t let him shoot you in the head.” With that, Gunny Garcia turned and went up the ladder in the back of the island, his M-16 pointed ahead of him with the butt braced against his hip.

  * * *

  The fires on the hangar deck were out of control almost immediately after the paint lockers exploded. Men came pouring out of the shops and repair lockers and attacked the fires with AFFF (aqueous film-forming foam) from the fire-fighting stations located around the bay, but the burning paint and chemicals from the sabotaged lockers had been sprayed everywhere, on aircraft, in open cockpits, in the drip pans under the planes, and on aircraft tires. The tires ignited almost immediately and gave off a heavy, thick black smoke. When the CON-FLAG watches failed to close the two interior fire doors, the hangar deck officer, a lieutenant, ordered the doors closed manually. And he sent a man up to the nearest CONFLAG station to light off the hangar deck sprinkler system.

  The men fighting the fires were relieved in shifts to don Oxygen-Breathing Apparatus (OBAs), which were self-contained breathing systems. Although the fires were producing immense quantities of toxic gases and smoke, most of it was being vented out the open elevator doors. And the wind was funneling in the doors, feeding the fires.

  A minute after he had been dispatched to the CONFLAG station, the messenger was back and informed the hangar deck officer that the CONFLAG watchstander was dead, shot, and the sprinkler control system was shot full of holes.

  The hangar deck officer called Damage-Control Central. The hangar deck sprinking system was turned on from DC Central, almost four minutes after the paint lockers had exploded. The sprinklers had little visible effect on the fires, so with the concurrence of the Damage Control Assistant (the officer in actual charge of the ship’s minute-to-minute damage control efforts) in DC Central, the elevator doors on the sides of the bays were closed too. In seconds the interior of Bays Two and Three filled with black smoke and toxic gases. The smoke became so thick that the fire fighters were literally blind inside their flexible rubber masks. Men worked by feel. They hung onto hoses with a death grip, and if one tripped and fell, he dragged men down on both sides of him. A couple men panicked and hyperventilated inside the self-contained OBAs and let go of their hoses. Lost, blind, and seemingly unable to breathe, they ripped off their OBAs and passed out within seconds from the toxic fumes.