The Intruders (30 page)

“Still no gas.”

“Tanker Control, this is Five Two Two, we’re sour.”

“Roger, Two Two. Your signal is dump. Steer Two Two Zero and descend
to One Point Two, over.”

“Five Two Two, Two Two Zero and down to One Point Two.”

“Texaco, Tanker Control, you steer Two Zero Zero and descend to One
Point Two, over.”

Jake slid left and the other tanker went right. It was already
streaming fuel from the main and wing-tip dumps.

Nine tons of fuel would have to be dumped into the atmosphere. Too bad,
but there it was.

Jake settled onto his desired course and popped his speed brakes. The
nose went over. When he stabilized he looked to the right for the other
A-6, which was already fading into the rain and darkness. He came back
into the cockpit and concentrated on his instruments.

This little world of needles and dials illuminated by red lights had
always fascinated him. Making the needles behave didn’t seem all that
difficult, until you tried it. And on nights like this, when he felt
about half in the bag, when he was having trouble concentrating, then it
was exquisite torture.

Everything he did was either too little or too much. It was maddening.

The perverse needles taunted him. You are too high, they whispered, too
fast, off course, now you are low … He had to work extremely hard to
make them behave, had to pay strict attention to their message. The
slightest inattention, the most minute easing of his concentration would
allow the needles to escape his grasp.

The controller worked him into a hole in the bolter pattern, which was
rapidly filling up. The voices on the radio told him the story as he
struggled to make the needles behave. The weather was worse than
forecast. Rain was ruining the visibility, the sea was freshening, and
one of the F-4s had already boltered twice. Nearest land was 542 miles
to the northwest. There were no sweet tankers in the air.

“Ain’t peace wonderful?” Flap muttered.

“Landing checklist,” Jake said, and they went through it.

They were too heavy so they dumped fifteen hundred pounds of fuel to get
to landing weight. Crazy, that the only good tanker was dumping to land
instead of hawking the deck to help that Phantom crew, but ours is not
to reason why, ours is but to do or …

At a mile and a half he saw the ship, a tiny smear of red light
enlivening the dead universe.

Flap called the ball at Six Point Oh.

“Roger Ball.”

Jake recognized the Real McCoy’s voice, but just in case he didn’t the
Real continued, “Deck’s dancing, Jake. Watch your lineup.”

He had the ball centered, nailed there, and with just a little dip of
the wings he chased the landing centerline to the right, working the
throttles individually so as not to over control. The rain flowed
around the canopy in a continuous sheet, but the engine bleed air kept
the pilot’s windscreen clear.

There was an art to throttle-work on the ball, moving each individual
lever ever so slightly, yet knowing when to move them both. Tonight
Jake got it just right. The deck got closer and closer, the ball stayed
centered, the lineup was good, the angle-of-attack needle behaved …
and they caught a three-wire.

“Luck,” Jake told Flap as they rolled out of the landing area.

They taxied him to a stop abeam the island where a halfdozen
purple-shirts-grapes-waited with a fuel hose. Jake opened the canopy as
the squadron’s senior troubleshooter climbed the ladder. The wind felt
raw and the rain cold against his skin.

“We’re going to hot pump you and shoot you again,” the sergeant shouted
over the whine of the engines. “This is the only up tanker.”

Jake stuck his thumb up to signify his understanding.

The sergeant went back down the ladder and raised it as Jake closed the
canopy. Might as well keep the rain out.

The sergeant flashed a thumbs-up and went around to the BN’s side of the
plane to watch the refueling operation. Jake moved the switch to
depressurize the tanks.

Refueling took a while. They needed twenty thousand pounds for a full
load and the ship’s pumps could only deliver it at about a ton a minute.

He was tired and his butt felt like dead meat, yet it was very pleasant
sitting here in the warm, comfortable cockpit.

From their vantage point here beside the foul line they had a grandstand
seat. The planes came out of the rain and darkness and slammed into the
deck. The first two trapped, then a Phantom boltered, his hook ripping
a shower of sparks the length of the landing area. This was the guy who
had already boltered twice before.

Ah yes, this comfortable cockpit, with everything working just the way
it was supposed to, the rain pattering on the Plexiglas and collecting
into rivulets that smeared the light.

He was tired, but not too much so. Just pleasantly tired.

Jake unhooked his oxygen mask and laid it in his lap. He took off his
helmet and massaged his face and head. He used his sleeves and gloves
to swab away the perspiration, then pulled the helmet back on.

The minutes ticked by as the fuel gauges faithfully reported the fuel
coming aboard.

They were still fueling when the errant F-4 came out of the gloom and
snagged a two-wire. The pilot stroked the afterburners on the roll out.
The white-hot focused flames poured from the tailpipes for about a
second, then went out, leaving everyone on deck half-blinded.

Two minutes later an A-7 carrying a buddy store, a tanking package hung
on a weapon’s station under one wing, was taxied from the pack up to Cat
Two and launched.

Apparently the brain trust in Air Ops wanted more gas aloft.

At last Jake and Flap were ready. Pressurize the tanks.

Boarding ladders up, refueling panel closed, seats armed, and they were
taxiing toward Cat Two, the left bow catapult.

Spread the wings, flaps to takeoff, slats out, wipe out the cockpit,
ease into the shuttle. There, the jolt as the holdback reached full
extension, then another jolt as the shuttle went forward into tension.
Off the brakes, throttles up.

He watched the engines come up to full power as he pulled up the
catapult grip and arranged the heel of his hand behind the throttles,
felt the airplane tremble as the engines sucked in vast quantities of
that rainy air and slammed it out the tailpipes into the jet blast
deflector-the JBD. Fuel flow normal, temperatures coming up nicely, RPM
at 100 percent on the left engine, a fraction over on the right.
Hydraulics normal, everything okay.

Jake wiped out the cockpit, glanced at the panel, ensured Flap had his
flashlight on the standby gyro… “You ready?”

“Let it rip.”

He flipped on the exterior light master switch on the end of the cat
grip with his left thumb.

The hold-back bolt broke. He felt it break. Then came the shot, a
stiff jolt of terrific acceleration, which lasted about a quarter of a
second. Then it ceased. Sweet Jesus fucking Christ the airplane was
still accelerating but way too goddamn slow!

He was doing maybe 30 knots when he released the cat grip and closed the
throttles. Automatically he extended the wing-tip speed brakes. He
jammed his feet down on the top of the rudder pedals, locking both
brakes.

They were still going forward, sliding on the wet, greasy deck.
Thundering toward the bow, the round-down, the edge of the cliff …

Jake pulled the left throttle around the horn to idle cutoff, stopping
the flow of fuel to that engine.

He released the left brake and engaged nose-wheel steering. Slammed the
rudders to neutral, then hard right. That should capture the nose wheel
and turn it right, if the shuttle wasn’t holding it. But the nose wheel
refused to respond.

Still going forward, but slower. The edge was there, coming toward them
… only seconds left.

He released both brakes, and engaged nose-wheel steering and slammed the
rudder full left. He felt something give.

The nose started to swing left.

On the brakes hard. Is there enough deck left, enough-?

An explosion beside him. Flap had ejected. The air was filled with
shards of flying Plexiglas.

Sliding, turning left and still sliding forward … he felt the left
wheel slam into the deck-edge combing, then the nose, now the tail spun
toward the bow, the whole plane still sliding . . .

And he stopped.

Out the right he could see nothing, just blackness. The right wheel
must be almost at the very edge of the flight deck.

He took a deep breath and exhaled explosively.

His left hand was holding the alternate ejection handle between his
legs. He couldn’t remember reaching for it, but obviously he had. He
gingerly released his grip.

The Plexiglas was gone on the right side of the canopy.

Flap had ejected through it. Where his seat had been there was just an
empty place.

Was Flap alive?

T H E IN T RUD ER S

Jake closed the speed brakes and raised the flaps and slats, watched the
indicator to make sure they were coming in properly, exterior lights
off. Out of the corner of his eye he saw people, a mob, running toward
him. He ignored them.

When he had the flaps and slats up, he unlocked the wings, then folded
them. The wind was puffing through the top of the broken canopy …
rain coming in. He could feel the drops on the few inches of exposed
skin on his neck.

Was the plane moving? He didn’t think so. Yet if he opened the canopy
he couldn’t eject. The seat was designed to go through the glass-if the
canopy was open, the steel bow would be right above the seat and would
kill him if he tried to eject. And if this plane slid off the deck he
would have to eject or ride it into that black sea.

Now the reaction hit him. He began to shake.

A yellow-shirt was trying to get his attention. He kept giving Jake the
cut sign, the slash across the throat.

But should he open the canopy?

Unable to decide, he chopped the right throttle and sat listening as
that engine died.

Someone opened the canopy from outside. Now a sergeant was leaning in.
“You can get out now, sir. Safe your seat.”

“Have they got it tied down?”

“Yes.”

He had to force himself to move. He safetied the top and bottom
ejection handles on the seat and fumbled with the Koch fittings that
held him to the seat. Reached down and fumbled in the darkness with the
fittings that attached to his leg restraints. There. He was loose.

He started to get out, then remembered his oxygen mask and helmet leads.
He disconnected all that, then tried to stand, He was still shaking too
badly. He grabbed a handhold and eased a leg out onto the ladder, all
the while trying to ignore the blackness yawning on the right side, and
ahead.

Here he was, ten feet above the deck, right against the edge.

He felt like he was going to vomit.

Hands reached up and steadied him as he descended the ‘boarding ladder.

With his feet on deck, he looked at the right main wheel.

Maybe a foot from the edge. The nose-wheel was jammed against the
deck-edge combing and_the nose-tow bar was twisted.

Jake asked the yellow-shirt, “Where’s my BN?” The sailor pointed down
the deck, toward the fantail. Jake looked. He saw a flash of white,
the parachute, draped over the tail of an A-7. So Flap had landed on
deck. Didn’t go into the ocean.

Now the relief hit him like a hammer. His legs wobbled.

Two people grabbed him.

His mask was dangling from the side of his helmet, and he swept it out
of the way just in time to avoid the hot raw vomit coming up his throat.

He started walking aft, toward the island and the parachute draped over
that Corsair a hundred fifty yards aft. He shook off two sailors who
tried to assist him. “I’m all right, all right, okay.”

An A-7 came out of the rain and trapped.

There was Flap, walking this way. Now he saw Grafton, spread his arms,
kept walking.

The two men met and hugged fiercely.

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Haldane watched the PLAT tape of the cat shot
gone awry five or six times as he listened to Jake Grafton and Flap Le
Beau recount their experience in the ready room.

They were euphoric–they had spit in the devil’s eye and escaped to tell
the tale. In the ready room they went through every facet of their
adventure for their listeners, who shared their infectious glee.

Isn’t life grand? Isn’t it great to still be walking and talking and
laughing after a trip to the naked edge of life itself.?

After a half hour or so, Haldane slipped away to find the maintenance
experts. He listened carefully to their explanations, asked some
questions, then went to the hangar deck for a personal examination of
523’s nose-tow bar.

Apparently the hold-back bolt had failed prematurely, a fraction of a
second before the launch valves fully opened, perhaps just as they began
to open. The KA-613 at full power had begun to move forward, creating a
space-perhaps an inch or two–between the T-fitting of the nose-tow bar
and the catapult shuttle. Then the shuttle shot forward as steam
slammed into the back of the catapult pistons. At this impact of
shuttle and nose-tow bar, the nose-tow bar probably cracked. It held
together for perhaps thirty feet of travel down the catapult, then
failed completely.

Now free of the twenty-seven-ton weight of the aircraft, the pistons
accelerated through the twin catapult barrels like two guided missiles
chained together. ate steam drove them through the chronograph brushes
five feet short of the water brakes at 207 knots.

With a stupendous crash that was felt the length of the ship, the
pistons’ spears entered the water brakes, squeezed out all the water and
welded themselves into the brakes.