Flight of the Intruder jg-1

by Stephen Coonts

  “If you say anything after I give you that comma You will be all alone on your first, and probably last solo in an A-6. And, of course, if I get too busy and forget to tell you and you see me eject, then you’d better hurry right along.” More head bobs, nervous ones, Jake observed with a trace of satisfaction.

  “Now, I want to go over how the ejection seat works with you.” Jake took the doctor to the blackboard, drew a rough sketch of the seat, and explained the ejection sequence. Jake knew the doctor had heard it all before, but both he and Mad Jack had been around navy airplanes long enough to know the value of, and not be bored by, repeated instruction.

  Grafton went over the intercom system. “Your ICS mike switch is the toe pedal by your right foot. Just stay silent if you hear me talking on the radio. I’ll have my switches set up so that I can hear any radio transmission coming in even if you’re talking. Feel free to ask questions, talk, tell jokes, whatever. I want you to enjoy the hop.” Jake smiled. He really meant it.

  As they left the ready room, Jake put the evals he had polished in Wilson’s mailbox. The sonuvabitch could read them when he got out of bed.

  Lundeen’s plane was ahead and to the left of Jake’s as, ten minutes after launching, they approached the coast of Luzon. Low green mountains rose out of the cobalt sea, and early-morning shadows played across the white-sand beach.

  The two planes dropped to 200 feet and turned northward, about five hundred yards out to sea, parallel to the surf. Occasionally they saw a fishing boat, but mostly the airmen looked at an empty sea separated from unbroken tropical forest by a filament of beach that ran from horizon to horizon. Here and there a fisherman’s shack broke the lonely sweep of beach.

  Jake Grafton felt refreshed. It was good to be flying again with nothing to worry about, to be sightseeing and sporting along. The cockpit was as comfortable as a living-room armchair.

  “How about that cat shot, huh?” Jake asked. The doctor, who was still on hot mike, was breathing hard “Next time be sure to give a war whoop as you go down the cat. That seems to magnify the sensation.”

  The doctor chuckled, and his breathing slowed toward normal.

  Up ahead, Lundeen dipped lower and lower. A low hut was visible far ahead.

  The warplanes dropped to about 50 feet. Crossing the surf, they thundered down the sand toward the structure. They passed over the shack at 300 knots. As they pulled up into a steep climb, Lundeen shouted “Yahoo” over the radio and did a victory roll. Jake came alongside Sammy’s right wing. Lundeen waved and Marty Greve flashed him the finger in salute.

  They turned east, inland, and threaded their way through a valley at 500 feet.

  Jake dropped astern, assuming the tailchase position, about one hundred fifty feet aft an just above the leader. After a few sharp turns, they crossed the ridgeline, shooting through a narrow gap where the clouds almost rubbed the mountain rocks. The uplands fell away quickly to forests and occasional fields.

  Every so often, a winding road or village punctuated the landscape.

  Sammy’s voice boomed in Jake’s ears. “Let’s go and tangle -” Without waiting for a reply, he angled and came on with the power. Soon they were climbing through a great hag of clouds illuminated by sunlight Riding their winged steeds, they soared effortlessly through Valhalla toward the open sky.

  They passed the cloud tops at 12,000 feet. Thunderheads were building and would reach great heights by early afternoon, but now there was plenty of room to play. Leveling at 23,000 feet, Lundeen waved and turned thirty degrees to the left. Grafton return the wave and veered thirty degrees right. Jake concentrated on Lundeen’s rapidly receding plane. How quickly the vastness of the sky swallows up the tiny machines that bear men aloft. “Better tighten your harness and lock the shoulder restraint,” he advised the doctor, who did as suggested.

  “Damn pilots,” was the radio comment Grafton and the doctor heard from Marty Greve.

  “Turning in,” Jake broadcast.

  “Turning in, Mother,” he heard his roommate chuckle. “I’m going to wax your ass.”

  The aircraft approached each other head on. Jake had the throttles wide open and his ship accelerated nicely. This was the fair way to start a dogfight, a head-on pass so that neither pilot had the advantage. Jake glanced about. The sky was empty. Jake’s eyes flicked over the gauges, and he noted automatically the information displayed there. The oncoming jet grew larger.

  “Loser buys.”

  They came together at a combined speed of well over a thousand miles per hour. Lundeen went past Jake’s left side, his wingtip a scant fifty feet away.

  Grafton yanked the stick back and to the left.

  The G forces tore at his body but he scarcely noticed. He was craning his head over his left shoulder, trying to see which way Lundeen had turned. For several seconds he couldn’t locate his opponent. He rolled the ship into ninety degrees of bank and pulled harder on the stick. “Six Gees,” Mad Jack groaned. At-least he knew where the G-meter was.

  Then Jake saw the other Intruder. Lundeen and he were canopy to canopy on the opposite sides of an invisible circle, headed in opposite directions. His eyes fixed on his opponent, Jake decreased the angle of the plane’s bank and kept the Gees on. The nose of his machine came up, and his airspeed was converted into altitude. As the plane slowed it needed less room to turn, so now Jake increased the angle of bank and the nose tracked around. In seconds he was only ninety degrees off Lundeen’s heading but several thousand feet above him in a lopsided loop, one hundred thirty five degrees of bank, and coming in on his opponent’ stern quarter.

  Lundeen was having none of it. He sheered away from Grafton and dived.

  Jake relaxed the stick and did a slow roll into a wings-level dive.

  Only 300 knots. Lundeen had more airspeed and drew steadily away going downward.

  Both machines accelerated, but Sammy’s lead was almost three miles; he was far below and still diving. Then Jake saw the nose of Lundeen’s ship come up. He’s doing a Immelmann turn, thought Jake, a half loop with a half roll on top. He shallowed his dive, and the two planes flashed past head-on again, Grafton right side up an Lundeen upside down at the top of the loop, flying a little over 200 knots.

  Jake pulled the stick back hard. This time he kept his eye on the instruments and applied a steady four-G pull until the nose was pointed up, away from the earth, like a missile.

  The airspeed bled off quickly. The lowest reading on the indicator was 50 knots and here was where the needle came to rest. The jet hung motionless in the sky at 30,000 feet, its nose aimed up and the exhaust pipe aimed down at the rain forest. The thrust of the engine held it poised for several heartbeats as the men in the cockpit floated weightlessly. The pilot released the stick and cuffed the doctor lightly on the arm. “Great fun huh?”

  The sensation became one of falling as the bird began a tail slide toward the earth. Then the machine lurched and tumbled over backwards.

  The weight of the nose and the streamlined shape took effect, and within seconds the gyrations ceased and they were plummeting earthward, gravity and engine thrust acting together to wind the airspeed-indicator needle around the dial at a dizzying rate.

  Jake was busy again. He chopped the engines to idle and opened the wingtip speed brakes while searching for Lundeen.

  “Do you see him?” he asked his passenger anxiously. They scanned the sky.

  “I see you.” It was Lundeen.

  Jake swallowed hard and brought his gaze up. There was the bastard, level and coming in head on. As fast as thought itself he rotated the plane, retracted the speed brakes, added power, and began a pull to go under Lundeen and force the opponent into an overshoot.

  It was good to feel the plane respond to the slightest pressure on the controls, good to see the earth and sky tumble and change positions, good to fly free. Occasional scans of the fuel gauge and engine instruments were the only concessions to the machine. The pilots worked their sticks and rudders ins
tinctively, as training and experience had taught them to do. Each focused entirely on the location of the other aircraft and tried to anticipate his opponent’s next maneuver. It was as if men and machines were fused: the fuel was blood, the engines muscle, the wings and speed and soaring flight their spirit. This was flying as the ancients had dreamed of it, when they watched the birds swoop and dart, The doctor rode in silence, enduring a ride worse than that of any roller coaster. This was a job for a younger man with a cast-iron stomach. Mad Jack managed to remove his oxygen mask, but the little bag he had thoughtfully placed in the lower leg pocket of his G-suit was beyond reach. He ripped off his left glove and vomited into it.

  The plane was no longer maneuvering; it was glued to one-G flight as firmly as if it had been welded to a pedestal in a museum display. Mad Jack looked left and met the smiling eyes of Jake Grafton. The pilot winked at him as he told Sammy Lundeen to join up.

  Once on the ground at Cubi Point Naval Air Station the planes taxied to the parking mat near the carrier. A sailor guided them into their parking place and another man chocked the wheels.

  With the canopy open and the engines sighing in silence, Grafton removed his helmet and let the afternoon breeze cool his soaking-wet hair. The doctor did the same. Jake ran his hand over his hair and used a finger to squeegee the perspiration from his eyebrows.

  “What do you think, Jack? Is it worth the final crash?” Before Mad Jack could answer, they were interrupted.

  “Hi, Jake.” A khaki-clad figure tossed a can of beer up to the cockpit. The pilot fielded it and handed it to Mad Jack, then caught the next one tossed. The beer was ice cold, an elixir as it raced down Jake’s throat. The doctor sipped his.

  “Welcome to Cubi again, Jake,” the beach detachment officer shouted.

  “Thanks.” The pilot saw Lundeen walking toward him with his helmet bag in hand. “Sam, I want the beer you owe me.”

  “You can have anything they got, Jake. You’re buying.”

  “Ha! I whipped you so bad I thought you were on autopilot there for a minute.”

  Lundeen gestured at the heavens. “Have you honor? God is watching you, Grafton, to see if you pay a debt of honor, a wager fairly made and fairly lost.

  There are two gates up there, you know; one for winners and one for welshers- You’ll be going in that back gate while I’m around front with Saint Pete listing my virtues.”

  “And that,” called Marty Greve, “will be a damn short list.” The carrier rounded the headland and by the time the carrier entered the channel, all four men were sitting in the officers’ club drinking beer. The view from the club, which sat high on a hill overlooking Subic Bay and Olongapo City, was breathtaking. Each man had time to drink another beer before the great ship drifted to a stop a hundred yards from the pier and four tugboats nestled against her.

  “We’ll take some rooms. Let’s go up to the desk, before the guys on the boat get here,” Marty suggested, “and maybe work in a dip in the pool.”

  “Well, fellows,” Mad Jack told the airmen as they stood up, “I’m on duty today so I have to go back aboard.” He stuck out his hand to Jake. “Thanks for the flight.” The doctor smiled. “I won’t forget that ride for a while. Maybe you’re right. Living fast might be worth the final crash. Maybe that’s the secret you fliers know.”

  Grafton grinned and shook the offered hand. “See you later, Jack.”

  NINE

  The Filipino steward at the BOQ regarded the three airmen with suspicion. “When your ship come in?” he demanded. The BOQ was not to be used by officers whose ships were in port.

  “It’s classified,” Lundeen said with a straight face. “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” He signed for a room.

  The steward folded his arms across his chest. He had no doubt dealt with many navy flight crews, most of whom were inclined to ignore everybody’s rules except their own. “You must check out of your room when your ship come in. We have very few rooms.”

  “You can bank on it,” Lundeen told him, then picked up his gear and led the group down the hall. “It’s a good thing we got here before the Shilo crowd swarms around the pool. Then he would have known the boat was in.” They agreed to meet in fifteen minutes at the pool.

  After showering, Jake ran into his buddies in the hall and they trooped to the pool behind the sprawling U-shaped building. “Six gin-and-tonics for my friends and me,” Jake shouted to the bar girl, then plunged into the water. Sammy and Marty were right behind. By the time the first group of officers from the ship arrived at the poolside bar, the gin, the cool water, and the hot sun had worked together to soothe the three men.

  “How’s the water, fellas?” Little Augie asked.

  “All used up. Too bad you missed it.”

  Little dropped his kit bag and set his drink on the table. “Like hell I did,” he said and dived in, clothes and all.

  “Brilliant,” said Marty when Little surfaced.

  “What’re you going to use for dry clothes?”

  Little hoisted himself out of the water and took off his shoes to drain.

  “They’re in the bag. I plan ahead.”

  He laughed and lifted his drink.

  The Boxman, Bob Walkwitz, walked over carrying a tall glass filled with a rum concoction. He pulled up a chair.

  “Going across the bridge tonight, Box?” Sammy inquired.

  The Boxman took a drink and flexed his shoulders. “Maybe.”

  “‘Maybe’ my ass. It’d take wild horses to hold you back.”

  “Can I help it if I like women?” Box demanded. “What’s wrong with you guys, anyway? Ya queer?” He sipped on his drink and leered at the waitress.

  “Already I’m in love.”

  “I thought you were in love with her the first time we pulled into Cubi. Didn’t she give you something to remember her by?”

  Boxman stared at the swaying figure of the retreating girl. “Naw. It wasn’t her. Couldn’t be.” He shook his head. “Naw. They all remember me.”

  “Did I hear that right?” Sammy wiggled a finger in his ear.

  “Talk about confidence!” Jake said, slightly awed.

  “What’ve you got that we don’t have?”

  “Ask Mad Jack the next time you see him,” Box said smugly.

  “He’s seen it so often I use him for a reference.”

  For a while they were free of the navy and the flight schedule, and a good belly laugh made the world a comfortable place once again.

  When Lundeen and Grafton arrived at the Cubi Point Officers’ Club that evening, they found Cowboy and a group of friends sitting near the back of the dining room drinking whiskey, chewing steak, and shooting the breeze. Cowboy expounded on the scandal of the hour, the Phantom.

  “God help that poor idiot when they catch him. He’ll get the first keelhauling in a hundred years. That’s after they boil him in oil but before they string him up to the yardarm.”

  Jake and Sammy gave the waiters their orders and settled back to listen to Cowboy. “They’re going about catching him all wrong, I reckon. They’ll no doubt stake out likely compartments and have a huge investigation.”

  “Well, how should they do it then?”

  “All it takes to catch this guy is a keen sense of smell and a little knowledge of your fellow man.” Cowboy cut a piece of steak and chewed slowly.

  “Now the fellow we seek is an individualist, a rugged individuallyst as the cliche goes. He does his own thing without much thought as to what the rest of the world thinks. He has a good sense of humor and likes to see other people laugh with him.”

  “That ought to narrow it down to half the officers in the air wing,” Sammy said.

  “Oh, but there’s more. Our boy likes taking chances. He gets a thrill out of running a risk.”

  “That eliminates a whole bunch of guys I know Cowboy,” Little Augie snickered.

  Cowboy ignored the sarcasm and the pun. “Sure a lot of guys get a charge out of danger. almost everyon
e does if the danger isn’t too great. But the Phantom’s a different breed. He loves danger no matter how great. He seeks it out, relishes it. He doesn’t need the applause of the crowd, the medals, or the photos in the newspaper. He’s addicted.”

  Jake shook his head. “We’re all addicted to danger. We wouldn’t keep climbing into those airplanes if we didn’t find it exciting.”

  “Grafton, let’s take you as an example. You enjoy flying but you don’t take unnecessary chances, and you rarely do things for the pure hell of it.

  With you there usually has to be a reason.” Cowboy jabbed his fork in Lundeen’s direction. “Our Phantom is a man who just doesn’t give a damn, like Lundeen here. If Sammy Lundeen doesn’t find some danger or excitement in what he has to do, then he either doesn’t do it or he manufactures some.”

  “Crap! From an amateur headshrinker,” Sammy protested. “I’m a good officer and you know it. I grind out the routine stuff with the best of ‘em.

  Come down to the personnel office sometime and you’ll see the service records are in top-notch shape. Everyone gets his paper shuffled in my shop. Why, you could be the Phantom yourself.”

  Cowboy grinned. “That thought has not yet occurred to the heaviest.” He glanced around to see who might be listening. “I wonder what will happen if it does?”

  The conversation moved on to the one subject that always proved irresistible-flying. They talked flying at every opportunity. A great deal of knowledge was exchanged in these bull sessions. The underlying theme of all of these stories was how to stay alive when everything goes awry. Because it was considered gauche to tell a story which demonstrated one’s aerial virtuosity, the narrator survived despite his own ineptness, ignorance, and stupidity when the world turned to shit and the arresting gear cable broke, or the catapult fired with not enough steam to get him to flying speed or the tie-down chains snapped and he slid over the side into the hungry sea. But some stories were about the time the world turned to shit and a buddy made a mistake and did not live to tell about it. Then the dead man’s sins were mercilessly dissected.