Final Flight jg-2

by Stephen Coonts

“Don’t move, Colonel.” An arm reached around him and removed the Browning Hi-Power from his waistband. El Hakim paused halfway through the compartment and turned to face him.

  “What did you plan to do, Colonel? Kill me?” A smile slowly spread across the face of El Hakim. “Don’t look so surprised. Come, Colonel. Come up here so we can close the door and depart.” He turned and marched forward. The guard prodded Qazi in the back and he followed.

  A seating module occupied the forward third of the cabin. The guard motioned Qazi into a seat against the outer fuselage. He was directed to buckle his seat belt, and he complied. With his Uzi against Qazi’s neck, the guard snapped handcuffs on his wrists, then used a second pair to fasten the first pair to the armrest of the seat. The guard seated himself across from Qazi, beside El Hakim, and leveled the Uzi at Qazi. Those two had their backs to the radio compartment, beside which was the short stair that led up onto the flight deck.

  As the engines started El Hakim chuckled. “You have served us well, Qazi, but your task is complete. You have our gratitude. I express it now.” His smile faded. “But that is all the thanks a traitor like you will ever receive.” He leaned forward and raised his voice, to be heard above the engine noise. “We are going to Israel now, Colonel, to strike with our hammer. Zionism will not survive the blow. And the debt we owe you for your treason will be paid in full.” El Hakim showed his teeth.

  Qazi leaned his head back into the seat and closed his eyes. He listened to the creaks and thumps of the taxiing plane, just audible over the whine of the turbojet engines. He heard Jarvis and Noora slipping into seats behind him. He heard Noora speaking to Jarvis, fastening his buckle for him, fussing over him. After a few minutes the transport creaked to a stop, then the engines spooled up. The plane rolled and in a few moments left the earth.

  When at last Qazi opened his eyes, El Hakim had reclined his seat and was watching him with a satisfied, contented expression.

  * * *

  Jake Grafton strode across the flight deck toward the F-14 Tomcat sitting behind Cat Three. The boarding ladder was still down and he mounted it. “Get out, Harvey. I’m going in your place.”

  “What about the ship?” Schultz asked when he found his tongue, his voice bitter.

  “The navigator can handle it. Unstrap and get out and give me your gear. You can brief me.” Jake lowered himself back down the ladder.

  “CAG,” came a voice from the backseat. “Do you want me in here?” Jake looked into the rear cockpit. Toad Tarkington was looking back. Jake nodded yes and motioned for him to stay put.

  When Harvey Schultz reached the flight deck, he began taking off his flight gear. “None of this stuff will fit you,” he muttered.

  “No time to wait for my stuff.” Jake paused, then continued, “It isn’t that I don’t trust you, Harve, but I’m the senior man and I’m the one who should take the shit when the fan starts turning.”

  “I could handle it, CAG.”

  “I know that, Harve. But I’m not taking you up on the gallows with me. I want you to get with my staff and get as many of these planes ready to fly as possible. Cannibalize if you have to. If Qazi gets away, those weapons are going to crop up somewhere, and whoever ends up with them will have bought a lot of trouble. You get this air wing ready to give them all the trouble it can dish out. Get this ship ready to fight.” Jake zipped Schultz’s G-suit around his legs. The fit was terrible. Schultz’s calves and thighs were much thicker than his; it was as if he wasn’t wearing a G-suit at all. He unzipped it. He would just go without one.

  Farnsworth came hurrying across the deck carrying a load of flight gear. “I heard you were going flying, CAG.”

  “Thanks, Farnsworth.” Jake pulled his own G-suit from the pile Farnsworth laid on the deck and zipped it around his stomach and legs. Then he wriggled into his torso harness. All this was going on over his khakis, since Farnsworth hadn’t brought his flight suit.

  “Ask the waist catapult officer,” Jake said to Farnsworth as he pulled on his survival vest, “to come over here and talk to me.”

  Schultz briefed Jake as he completed donning his flight gear. They discussed rendezvous altitudes and frequencies. “Toad knows all this stuff,” Schultz said. “You have two Phoenix missiles and two Sidewinders. We had to download the Sparrows — they had shrapnel damage.”

  Jake nodded. The Phoenix missiles were the big guns and were mounted on a missile pallet on the Tomcat’s belly. Weighing almost a thousand pounds each, they could knock down a plane over sixty nautical miles away with a 132-pound warhead when fired from any angle. They were expensive, too, costing over a million dollars each. Although the F-14 could carry six of them, because of their size, weight, and cost, Sparrows and Sidewinders were the usual load. Phoenix was loaded only when you were going hunting for bear — like now. The Sidewinders were heat-seekers and had a limited head-on capability with a much shorter range. They were also a lot smaller and cheaper than Phoenix, weighing only 190 pounds each. Sidewinder was a simple, reliable weapon.

  Farnsworth came back with Kowalski and a chief. “Morning, CAG,” the chief said. He was in khaki trousers and a yellow shirt, but Kowalski was still wearing grimy civilian trousers. His once-white T-shirt had spots of vomit on it.

  “Where’s the cat officer, chief?”

  “The only one we had aboard is dead, killed in that hangardeck fire, and the rest of them are on the beach. I’m all the khaki the catapults have aboard.”

  “Who’s going to launch us?”

  Kowalski looked around the deck and shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I am,” he said sheepishly. “But I’m sober, sir.” The chief nodded at both comments, then added, “He knows more about launching procedure than I do, CAG.”

  “Whose bright idea was it to flip that chopper upside down with the JBD?” Jake climbed the ladder into the cockpit. The plane captain followed him up to help him strap in.

  “Mine, sir,” Kowalski said, looking up at Jake.

  “Didn’t you hear my orders on the 1-MC not to interfere with those people?”

  “I didn’t hear any announcement, sir,” Kowalski said.

  “What? I can’t hear you.”

  “No, sir,” Kowalski said, louder.

  “Did you know that there was an armed nuclear weapon sitting on deck over there by the island, and the leader of that bunch had threatened to detonate it if anybody interfered with him?”

  Kowalski pressed both hands against the sides of his head.

  The plane captain finished strapping Jake in and went down the ladder. “I didn’t hear your answer, Ski.”

  “No, sir. I didn’t know that.”

  Jake motioned at the catapult captain. “Come up here.” When the man’s face was a foot from his, Jake said, “Do you know enough to launch these planes?”

  “I’ve seen the shooters do it lots of times, CAG.”

  “You can practice on me first.” Jake grabbed a handful of Kowalski’s filthy T-shirt. “Son, you’re a drunk. We need you sober or not at all. Promise me here and now, if you ever take another drink, you’ll ask for an administrative discharge as an alcoholic.”

  Tears filled Kowalski’s eyes. His head bobbed.

  “Okay,” said Jake Grafton. “Now give everybody a good shot. Take your time and be sure you know what you’re doing.”

  “You can trust me, sir,” Kowalski said and disappeared down the ladder.

  28

  Jake Grafton eased the throttles forward to full military power and felt the nose of the fighter dip as the thrust of the engines compressed the nose wheel oleo. The Tomcat seemed to crouch, gathering strength as its two engines ripped the night apart.

  “You ready back there?” he asked Toad. As usual, Jake’s heart was pounding as he scanned the engine instruments.

  “I’m behind you all the way, sir.”

  Jake glanced over at the waist catapult bubble as he flipped on the external light master switch. The bubble windows were opaque. He looked str
aight ahead, down the catapult track at the ink-black void.

  The G pushed him back into his seat and the end of the deck hurled toward him faster and faster as the howl of the engines dropped in pitch. The deck edge flashed under the nose and the G subsided, and he released the throttles and slapped the gear handle up as he let the nose climb to its optimum, eight degrees up, attitude. Accelerating nicely … 180 … 190 … 200 knots, still accelerating and climbing, flaps and slats up, little wallow as they come in…. Passing 250 knots, he looked ahead for the lights of the KA-6 Intruder tanker, which had been the first plane off Catapult Four.

  Toad was on the radio to Gettysburg: “… airborne, two miles ahead of the ship, passing two thousand and squawking …” Jake eased into a left turn and looked back for the next plane. God, it’s dark out here! There — a mile or so behind. Back on the gauges, still climbing and turning, still accelerating — Jake breathed deeply and tried to relax as his eyes roamed across the panel, taking everything in.

  The Tomcat that had launched from Catapult Four was on the inside of the turn, closing. Jake searched the night for the beaconing anticollision lights of other fighters leaving the little island of light that was the carrier. Nothing yet. Kowalski must be taking his time. That’s good; better safe than sorry.

  Jake eased back the throttles and leveled at 5,000 feet, still turning. The second fighter was only a hundred yards away, closing nicely. It traversed the distance and slid under Jake and stabilized on his right wing, on the outside of the turn. The tanker was on the opposite side of the ship, so Jake steepened his turn to cross the ship and rendezvous.

  “Red Ace Two Zero Six, Volcano, over.” “Volcano” was the radio call sign for the Gettysburg.

  “Go ahead, Volcano,” Toad replied.

  “Roger. Uh, sir, we have received, uh …” The transmission ceased for a few seconds. “Maybe we should go secure.”

  “Roger.”

  After he turned on the scrambler, Jake glanced again at the carrier. Still no anticollision lights on deck or in the air. Come on, Ski! He turned his attention again to the little collection of lights in the great black emptiness that was the tanker.

  “Red Ace,” the controller aboard Gettysburg said when Toad had checked in again, “we have received a high-priority message from Sixth Fleet and have relayed it to Battlestar.” “Battlestar” was the United States. “Sixth Fleet has directed that there be no planes launched to pursue the intruders unless and until authorized by the president. Battlestar suspended the launch after we relayed this message to them by flashing light. Do you wish to hold overhead until we receive presidential authorization for the mission, or do you wish to recover back aboard Battlestar?”

  Jake stole a glance at his fuel gauge as he closed on the tanker on a forty-five-degree line of bearing. The totalizer had begun its relentless march toward zero when he started the engines. Fuel from the tanker would delay the inevitable, but not prevent it. “Any timetable on when you might hear from the president?” Jake asked as he matched his speed to the tanker and passed under it, surfacing on its right side.

  “Wait.” The controller aboard the cruiser must be questioning his superiors.

  The tanker lights flashed, and Jake flashed his; now he had the lead. He could see the reflective tape on the pilot and bombardier-navigator’s helmets whenever his own red anticollision light swept the plane. That was all. Just the outline of two helmets in the darkened cockpit. The tanker drifted aft so the pilot could look up the leading edge of Jake’s left wing. Jake checked his right wing. The other Tomcat hung there motionless, suspended in this black, formless universe.

  “No, sir,” the controller finally said.

  “Talk to you in a minute,” Jake replied. He glanced at his heading indicator. Passing 210 degrees. He rolled wings level when the indicator read 180 degrees.

  “Toad,” Jake said over the intercom, “use your red flashlight to signal those guys to switch to two three two point six.”

  Tarkington did as requested while Jake dialed the radio to that frequency. “Two, you up?” Jake asked.

  “Roger.” This was the other fighter.

  “Shotgun’s with you.” That was the tanker crew.

  “Go secure.”

  The response was mike clicks.

  With the scrambler engaged, Jake said, “Who’s over there in the turkey?” He slowly nudged the throttles forward and lifted the nose. The needle on the altimeter began to move clockwise.

  “Joe Watson and Corky Moran, CAG.” The needle on the vertical speed indicator swung lazily up past five hundred feet a minute, then eight hundred, and stabilized at one thousand. It was reassuring, in a way; he could make these little needles do precisely as he wished with the smallest displacement of stick or throttles. Jake added more power and tweaked the nose higher.

  “Joe and Corky, huh? And you, Shotgun?”

  “Belenko and Smith, sir.”

  “Well, this is how it is, guys. I’m going after those terrorists. Sixth Fleet ordered me not to. The president will probably approve of a pursuit, but we’ll lose the chance if we wait around. Those people killed a bunch of our guys and stole two nuclear weapons. I’m going with or without you. If you want to go back, that’ll be fine. If you go along, the fact that I’m the man responsible and you’re just following orders may not be a big enough piece of armor plate to cover your ass. I don’t have any steel underwear to give you. Think about it.”

  Silence. He had 90 percent RPM on both engines now and they were passing through 12,000 feet. He was wasting fuel climbing this slowly, but the tanker pilot probably had his throttles almost to the stops.

  “Uh, CAG,” Toad said over the intercom. “Don’t I get a vote in this? I’d like to stay out of prison if at all possible. I’m pretty young, you know. Whole life before me and all that. It seems to me—”

  “Shut up,” Jake Grafton said. “You’re flying with me.”

  The scrambler beeped. “What do you think they might do with those weapons, CAG?”

  “They’re not going to mount them on a wall somewhere as trophies.”

  The jets passed thorough a thin cloud layer. Above it, Jake could see the pink light of dawn to the southeast. The stars were fading rapidly. It was going to be a good day to fly.

  “Red Ace Two Zero Six. This is Volcano on Guard.” “Guard” was the emergency frequency, 243.0, which was constantly monitored by a separate radio receiver in each plane. “RTB. Return to base. Contact Volcano on …” and he named a frequency.

  When that transmission ceased, the scrambler beeped in, and the voice from the other fighter said, “CAG, we hold Palermo five degrees port. What are we gonna do when we get there?”

  “What about you, Belenko?”

  “If you guys are going to tilt some windmills, we wanta be there to watch.”

  “Oh, shit,” Toad sighed.

  * * *

  From his seat Colonel Qazi could see the light in the eastern sky. The airplane was heading right for the spot where the sun would shortly appear. The windows were round and small and covered with scratches which suffused the pink dawn.

  El Hakim was in the after part of the cabin watching Jarvis complete the task of wiring the trigger to the bomb. In the seat facing him, the bodyguard with the Uzi kept the gun pointed at Qazi’s stomach. Qazi shifted in his seat and tried to get comfortable. His wrist and head hurt from the blows of the night and his entire body ached from the exertion.

  He heard someone walking this way. The dictator fell onto the seat beside the guard and leered at him.

  “You know, I assume,” Qazi said, “that the triggers won’t work.”

  El Hakim’s lips pulled away from his teeth, exposing them. “Oh yes. I thought you might do something along those lines, so Jarvis checked them before he left Africa. He replaced the timing devices.” The dictator leaned forward. “They’ll work now.”

  Qazi looked out the window. The fiery disk of the sun had peeped over the horizon. �
�You tipped your hand when you subverted Ali,” he said just loud enough for El Hakim to hear. “He was not a good double agent.”

  El Hakim sat with his hands on his knees, the knuckles whitening. The muscles in his cheeks tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed, rhythmically. “Another possibility to be guarded against. Another precaution to be taken.” He leaned across and slapped Qazi hard. “Look at me!”

  Qazi complied.

  “You knew I might discover your sabotage of the triggers. What precaution did you take against that?”

  Qazi merely looked at him.

  “Answer!”

  “Your only viable alternative,” Qazi said slowly, calmly, “is to take these weapons back to Africa and use them as diplomatic tools. They will give you stature and respect in international councils. Your voice in the Arab world will … That is your only alternative, Excellency.”

  “What else did you do, Colonel? Tell me now.”

  “I called the Israelis and told them you were coming. You won’t get within a hundred—”

  El Hakim stood speechless, his mouth open. He licked his lips. It wasn’t true, of course, Qazi reflected. Too risky to give an aggressive bunch like that any advance warning of his acquisition of weapons that would change the entire power structure in the Mediterranean. But El Hakim was accustomed to calculating different risks.

  “You’re lying,” El Hakim spluttered. “You’re bluffing.” He tried to laugh. “It won’t work with me.”

  “The number in Rome is 679 93 62.”

  El Hakim had him around the throat. He shook him like a dog shakes a snake. “Traitor! You filthy, slimy traitor!”

  Qazi’s cuffed hands wouldn’t reach. He fought for air. He bit his tongue. The darkness closed in and his vision shrank to pinpoints. He could hear El Hakim shouting, but the words were being replaced by a roaring in his ears. Then suddenly the pressure on his neck ceased, leaving him gasping, chest heaving.

  “… too good for you. Oh, no! I will kill you slowly, make you die by inches.” El Hakim stood over him, staring down. Perspiration glistened on his face. “You betrayed us. You betrayed me. And we will get through. We will use the weapon on the Jews.” El Hakim leaned down. Saliva flecked his lips. “I have fighters coming to rendezvous. They will escort us in and we will push the weapon out the back and the parachute will open and it will detonate in an air burst a thousand meters above Tel Aviv.” The perspiration was making rivulets on his face. “You will live to see it, Colonel.” El Hakim struck him, then turned away toward the flight deck, breathing hard.