The Intruders (31 page)

Brakes, spears, and pistons were instantly transformed into one large
lump of smoking, twisted, deformed steel. Cat Two was out of action for
the rest of the cruise.

Colonel Haldane was less interested in what happened to the catapult
than the sequence of events that took place inside 523 after the
catapult fired. Careful analysis of the PLAT tape showed that the plane
came to a halt just 6.1 seconds later. Total length of the catapult was
260 feet, and it ended twenty feet short of the bow. The plane had used
all 280 feet to get stopped. The bombardier ejected 3.8 seconds into
that ride.

That Jake Grafton had managed to get the plane halted before it went
into the ocean was, Colonel Haldane decided, nothing less than a
miracle.

Seated at his desk in his stateroom, he thought about Jake Grafton,
about what it must have felt like trying to get that airplane stopped as
it stampeded toward the bow and the black void beyond. Oh, he had heard
Grafton recount the experience, but already, while it was still fresh
and immediate, Grafton had automatically donned the de rigueur cloak of
humility: “In spite of everything I did wrong, miraculously I survived.
I was shot with luck. All you sinners take note that when the chips are
down clean living and prayer pays Off.” i Most pilots would have
ejected. Haldane thought it through very carefully and came to the
conclusion that he would have been one of them. He would have grabbed
that alternate ejection handle between his legs and pulled hard.

Yet Grafton hadn’t done that, and he had saved the plane.

Luck, Haldane well knew in spite of Grafton’s ready room bullshit, had
played a very small part.

Should he have ejected? After all, the Navy Department could just order
another A-6 from Grumman for $8 million, but it couldn’t buy another
highly trained, experienced pilot.

It took millions of dollars and years of training to produce one of
those; if you wanted one combat experienced, you had to have a war,
which was impractical to do on a regular basis since a high percentage
of the liberal upper crust frowned upon wars for training purposes.

Yep, Grafton should have punched. Just like Le Beau.

Sitting here in the warmth, safety, and comfort of a welllit stateroom
nursing a cup of coffee, any sane person would reach that obvious
conclusion. Hindsight is so wonderful.

And the sane person would be wrong.

Great pilots always find a way to survive. Almost by instinct they
manage to choose a course of action–sometimes in blatant violation of
the rules-that results in their survival.

The most obvious fact here was probably the most important: Jake Grafton
was still alive and uninjured.

Had he ejected … well, who can say how that would have turned out?
The seat might have malfunctioned, he might have gone into the ocean and
drowned, he might have broken his neck being slammed down upon the
flight deck or into the side of an airplane. Le Beau had been very
lucky, and he freely admitted it, proclaimed it even, in the ready room
afterward: “I’d rather be lucky than good.”

Grafton was good. He had saved himself and the plane.

Yet there was more. In the ready room afterward he hadn’t been the
least bit defensive, had stated why he did what he did clearly and
cogently, then listened carefully to torrents of free advice-the
what-you-should-have-done variety. He wasn’t embarrassed that Flap
ejected. He blamed no one and expressed no regrets.

Haldane liked that, had enjoyed watching and listening to a man whose
rock-solid self-confidence could not be shaken.

Grafton believed in himself, and the feeling was contagious.

One wondered if there were anything this man couldn’t handle.

Now the colonel dug into the bottom drawer of his desk.

In a moment he found what he was looking for. It was a personal letter
from the commanding officer of VA-128, Commander Dick Donovan. Haldane
removed the letter from its envelope and read it, carefully, for the
fourth or fifth time.

I am sending you the most promising junior officer in the squadron,
Lieutenant Jake Grafton. He is one of the two or three best pilots I
have met in the Navy. He seems to have an instinct for the proper thing
to do in a cockpit, something beyond the level that we can teach.

As an officer, he is typical for his age and rank. Keep your eye on
him. He has a temper and isn’t afraid of anything on this earth. That
is good and bad, as I am sure you will agree. I hope time and
experience will season him. You may not agree with my assessment, but
the more I see of him, the more I am convinced that he is capable of
great things, that someday he will be able to handle great
responsibilities.

I want him back when your cruise is over.

Colonel Haldane folded the letter and put it back into its envelope.
Then he pulled a pad of paper around and got out his pen. He hadn’t
answered this letter yet, and now seemed like a good time.

Donovan wasn’t going to be happy to hear that Grafton was resigning, but
there wasn’t anything he or Donovan could do about it. That decision
was up to Grafton. Still, it was a shame. Donovan was right-Grafton
was a rare talent of unusual promise.

When the adrenaline rush had faded and the ready room crowd had calmed
down, Jake and Flap went up to the forward–11dirty shirt”-wardroom
between the bow cats. Flap had already been to sick bay and had several
minor Plexiglas cuts dressed. “Iodine and Band-Aids,” he told Jake with
a grin. “I’ve been hurt worse shaving. Man, talk about luck!”

In the serving line each man ordered a slider, a large cheeseburger so
greasy that it would slide right down your throat. With a glass of milk
and a handful of potato chips, they sat on opposite sides of a long
table with a foodstained tablecloth.

“I didn’t think you could get it stopped,” Flap said between bites.

“You did the right thing,” Jake told him, referring to Flap’s decision
to eject. “If I hadn’t managed to get it sliding sideways I would have
had to punch too.”

“Well, we’re still alive, in one piece. We did all right.”

Jake just nodded and drank more milk. The adrenaline had left his
stomach feeling queasy, but the milk and slider settled it. He leaned
back in his chair and belched. Yep, there’s a lot to be said for
staying alive.

Down in his stateroom he stood looking around at the ordinary things,
the things he saw every day yet didn’t pay much attention to. After a
glimpse into the abyss, the ordinary looks fresh and new. He sat in his
chair and savored the fit, looked at how the light from his desk lamp
cast stark shadows into the corners of the room, listened to the creaks
and groans of the ship, examined with new eyes the photos of his folks
and Callie that sat on his desk.

He twiddled the dial of the desk safe, then pulled it open.

The ring was there, the engagement ring he had purchased for her last
December aboard Shilo. He took it from the safe and held it so the
light shown on the small diamond.

Finally he put it back. Without conscious thought, he removed his
revolver from a pocket of his flight suit and put that in the safe too,
then locked it.

He was going to have to do something about that woman.

But what?

It wasn’t like he had her hooked and all he had to do was reel her in.
The truth of the matter was that she had him hooked, and she hadn’t
decided whether or not he was a keeper.

So what is a guy to do? Write and pledge undying love?

Promise to make her happy? Worm your way into her heart with intimate
letters revealing your innermost thoughts?

No. What he had to do was speak to her softly, tell her of his dreams
… if only he had any dreams to tell.

He felt hollow. Everyone else had a destination in mind: they were
going at different speeds to get there, but they were on their way.

It was infuriating. Was there something wrong with him, some defect in
him as a person? Was that what Callie saw?

Why couldn’t she understand?

He thought about Callie for a while as he listened to the sounds of the
ship working in a seaway, then finally reached for a pad and pen. He
dated the letter and began:

“Dear Mom and Dad…”

When he finished the letter he didn’t feel sleepy, so he took a hot
shower and dressed in fresh, highly starched khakis and locked the door
behind him. There weren’t many people about. The last recovery was
complete. The enlisted troops were headed for their bunks and the
die-hard aviators were watching movies. He peered into various ready
rooms to see who was still up that he knew. No one he wanted to talk
to. He stopped in the arresting gear rooms and watched a first-class
and two greenies pulling maintenance on an engine. He stopped by the
PLAT office and watched his aborted takeoff several more times, wandered
through the catapult spaces, where greenies supervised by petty officers
were also working on equipment. In CATCC the graveyard shift had a
radar console torn apart.

In the Aviation Intermediate Maintenance avionics shop the night shift
was hard at repairing aircraft radars and computers. This space was
heavily air-conditioned and the lights burned around the clock. The
technicians who worked here never saw the sun, or the world of wind and
sea and sky where this equipment performed.

Finally, on a whim, Jake opened the door to the Air Department office.
Warrant Officer Muldowski was the only person there. He saw Jake and
boomed, “Hey, shipmate.

Come in and drop anchor.”

Jake helped himself to a cup of coffee and planted his elbows on the
table across from the bosun, who had a pile of paper spread before him.

:’You did good up there on that cat.”

“Thanks.”

“Kept waiting for you to punch. Thought you had waited too long.”

“For a second there I did too.”

They chewed the fat for a while, then when the conversation lagged Jake
asked, “Why did you stay in the Navy, Bosun?”

The bosun leaned back in his chair and reached for his tobacco pouch.
When he had his pipe fired off and drawing well, he said, “Civilians’
worlds are too small.”

:’What do you mean?”

“They get a job, live in a neighborhood, shop in the same stores all
their lives. They live in a little world of friends, work, family.
Those worlds looked too small to me.”

“That’s something to think about.” Jake finished his coffee and tossed
the Styrofoam cup in a wastebasket.

“Don’t you go riding one of those pigs into the water, Mr. Grafton.
When you gotta go, you go.”

“Sure, Bosun.”

A SOVIET TASK GROUP CAME OVER THE HORIZON ONE SUNDAY M late November.
Columbia had no flying scheduled that day, so gawkers packed the flight
deck when Jake Grafton came up for a first-hand look. A strong wind
from the southwest was ripping the tops off the twelve- to fifteen-foot
swells. Spindrift covered the sea, all under a clear blue sky.

Columbia was pitching noticeably. The nearest destroyer was
occasionally taking white water over the bow.

Up on deck Jake ran into the Real McCoy. “Where are they?”

McCoy pointed. Jake saw six gray warships in close formation, closing
the American formation at an angle from the port side, still four or
five miles away. The U.S. ships were only making ten knots or so due
to the sea state, but the Soviets were doing at least twice that. Even
from this distance the rearing and plunging of the Soviet ships was
quite obvious. Their bows were rising clear of the water, then plunging
deeply as white water cascaded across the main decks and smashed against
the gun mounts.

On they came, seemingly aiming straight for Columbia, which, as usual,
was in the middle of the American formation.

Gidrograf, the Soviet Pamir-class AGI that had been shadowing the
Americans’ for the last month, was trailing along behind the Americans,
at least two miles astern. Her speed matched the Americans’ and she
made no move to oin the oncoming Soviet ships.

“What do you think?” McCoy asked.

“Unless Ivan changes course, he’s going to run his ships smack through
the middle of our formation.”

“I think that is exactly what he intends to do,” McCoy said after a bit,
when the Russians were at least a mile closer.

“Sure looks like it,” Jake agreed. The angle-of-bearing hadn’t changed
noticeably, which was the clue that the ships were on collision courses.
He glanced up at Columbia’s bridge. Reflections on the glass prevented
him from seeing anyone, but he imagined that the captain and the admiral
were conferring just now.

“Under the rules of the road, we have the right of way,” McCoy said.

“Yeah.” Somehow Jake suspected that paper rules didn’t count for much
with the Russian admiral, who was probably on the bridge of his flagship
with one eye on the compass and the other on the Americans.

The Soviet ships were gorgeous, with sleek, raked hulls and
superstructures bristling with weapons and topped with radar dishes of
various types. The biggest one was apparently a cruiser. A couple were
frigates, and the other three looked like destroyers. All were armed to
the teeth.

The American destroyer on the edge of the formation gave way to the
Russians. On they came. Now you could see the red flags at their
mastheads as dots of color and tiny figures on the upper decks, like
ants.

“Big storm coming,” McCoy said, never taking his eyes off the Russians.
“Up from the southwest. Be here this evening.”

Jake looked aft, at the carrier’s wake. It was partially obscured by
parked aircraft, but he saw enough. The wake was straight as a string.
He turned his attention back to the Soviet ships. About that time the
collision alarm sounded on Columbia’s loudspeaker system. Then came the
announcement: “This is not a drill. Rig for collision portside.”

The Soviet destroyers veered to pass ahead and behind Columbia but the
cruiser stayed on a collision course. Now you could plainly see the
sailors on the upper decks, see the red flag stiff in the wind, see the
cruiser’s bow rise out of the water as white and green seawater surged
aft along her decks, see that she was also rolling maybe fifteen degrees
with every swell.

But she was a lot smaller than the carrier. The American sailors on the
flight deck were well above the Russians’ bridge. In fact, they could
see the faces of the Russian sailors at the base of the mast quite
plainly. The Russians were hanging on for dear life.

The Russian captain was going to veer off. He had to.

Jake jumped into the catwalk so he could see better as the cruiser
crossed the last fifty yards and the carrier’s loudspeaker boomed,
“Stand by for collision portside. All hands brace for collision.”

The Soviet captain misjudged it. He swung his helm too late and the sea
carried his ship in under the carrier’s flight deck overhang. The
closest the two hulls came was maybe fifteen feet, but as the cruiser
heeled her motion in the sea pushed her mast and several of the radar
antennae into the underside of the flight deck overhang. The Russian
sailors clustered around the base of the mast saw that the collision was
inevitable only seconds in advance and tried to flee.

Two didn’t make it. One fell to the cruiser’s main deck, but the other
man fell into that narrow river of white water between the two ships and
instantly disappeared from view.

The top of the mast hit the catwalk forward of the Fresnel lens and
ripped open three of the sixty-man life raft containers. The rafts
dropped away. One ended up on the cruiser and the others went into the
sea. The Russians’ mast and several radar antennae were wiped off the
superstructure and her stack was partially smashed.

Then the cruiser was past, surging ahead of Columbia with her mast
trailing in the water on her portside.

Jake bent dawn and stuck his head through the railing under the life
raft containers so that he could keep the cruiser in sight. If the
Russian captain cut across Columbia’s bow he was going to get his ship
cut in half.

He did cut across, but only when he was at least six or seven hundred
yards ahead, still making twenty knots.

The Soviet ships rejoined their tight formation and continued on course,
pulling steadily away.

An American destroyer dropped aft to look for the lost Soviet sailor as
the air boss ordered the flight deck cleared so he could launch the
alert helo.

The helo searched for half an hour. The destroyer stayed on the scene
for several hours, yet the Russian sailor wasn’t found.

By evening a line of thunderstorms formed a solid wall to the southwest,
a wall that seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon. As the dusk
deepened lightning flashed in the storms continually. Jake was on deck
watching the approaching storms and savoring the sea wind when the
carrier and her escorts slowly came about and pointed their bows at the
lightning.

The ships rode better on the new course. Apparently the heavies had
decided to sail through the storm line, thereby minimizing their time in
it. Unfortunately the weather on the back side of the front was
supposed to be bad; heavy seas, low ceilings and lots of rain. Oh well,
no flying tomorrow either.

When the darkness was complete and the storms were within a few miles,
Jake went below. This was going to be a good night to sleep.

The ringing telephone woke Jake. The Real McCoy usually answered it
since all he had to do was roll over in his bunk and reach, and he did
this time. The motion of the ship was less pronounced than it had been
when Jake and Real went to bed about 10 P.m., during the height of the
storm.

“McCoy, Sir.”

Jake looked at his watch. A little after 2 A.M.

After a bit, he heard his roommate growl, “This had better not be your
idea of a joke, Harrison, or your ass is a grape … Yeah, yeah, I’ll
tell him … In a minute, okay?”

Then McCoy slammed the receiver back on the hook.

“You awake up there?”

“Yeah.”

“They want us both in the ready room in five minutes, ready to fly.”

“Get serious.”

“That’s what the man said. Must be World War III.”

“Awww . . .”

“If Harrison is jerking our chains he’ll never have another OK pass as
long as he fives. I promise.”

But Harrison wasn’t kidding, as Jake and the Real found out when they
went through the ready room door. The skipper and Allen Bartow were
standing near the duty desk talking to CAG Kall. Flap Le Beau was
listening and sipping a cup of coffee. All of them were in flight
suits.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” CAG said. He looked like he had had a great
eight hours sleep and a fine breakfast.

He couldn’t have had, Jake knew. Things didn’t work like that in this
Navy.

“I’Morning, CAG,” McCoy responded. “So it’s war, huh?”

“Not quite. Pull up a chair and we’ll sort this out.”

Apparently the admiral and CINCPACFLT had been burning the airways with
flash messages. The Soviet ambassador in Washington had delivered a
stiff note to the State Department protesting the previous day’s naval
incident in the Indian Ocean, which he called “a provocation.” The
powers that he had concluded that the U.S. Navy had to serve notice on
the Russians that it couldn’t be bullied.

“The upshot is,” CAG said, “that we have been ordered to make an aerial
demonstration over the Soviet task group, tonight if possible.”

“What kind of demonstration, sir?”

“At least two airplanes, high-speed passes, masthead height if
possible.”

Eyebrows went up. McCoy got out of his chair and went to the
television, which he turned to the continuous weather display. Current
weather was three to four hundred feet broken to overcast,
three-quarters of a mile visibility in rain.

Wind out of the northwest at twenty-five knots.

CAG was still talking…… it occurred to me that this would be a good
time to try our foul weather attack scheme on the Russians. I thought
we could send two A-6s and three EA-613s. We’d put a Hummer up to keep
it safe. The admiral concurred. The Prowler crews and Hummer crews
will be here in a few minutes for the brief. What do you think?”

“Sir, where are the Russians?”

“Two hundred miles to the east. Apparently the line of thunderstorms
went over them several hours ago and they are also under this system.”

As he finished speaking the ship’s loudspeaker, the 1-MC, came to life:
“Flight quarters, flight quarters, all hands man your flight quarters
stations.”

In minutes the Prowler and Hawkeye crews came in and found seats and the
brief began. CAG did the briefing, even though he wouldn’t be flying.
Forget the masthead rhetoric from Washington-the lowest any of the crews
could go was five hundred feet.

The three senior pilots of the Prowler squadron would fly their planes,
and the C.O. of the E-2 squadron would be in the left seat of the
Hawkeye. Lieutenant Colonel Haldane and the Real McCoy would fly the go
A-6s and Jake Grafton would man the spare.

“Uh, skipper,” Flap said, “if I may ask, why McCoy?”

“He’s got the best landing grades in the squadron.

Grafton is second. As it happens, they have more traps than anyone else
in the outfit and getting back aboard is going to be the trick. As for
me, this is my squadron.”

“Yessir, but I was wondering about McCoy. Let’s face facts, sir. When
the landing signal officer has the best landing scores-well, it’s like
an umpire having the top batting average. There’s just a wee bit of an
odor, sir.”

Laughter swept the room as McCoy grinned broadly. He winked at Jake.

“What say you and I flip for the go bird,” Jake suggested to McCoy.

“Forget it, shipmate. If my plane’s up, I’m flying it. Tonight or any
other night.”

“Come on! Be a sport.”

The Real was having none of it. And Jake understood.

Naval aviation was their profession. Given the weather and sea state,
this would be a very tough mission. When you began ducking the tough
ones, you were finished in this business. Maybe no one else would know,
but you would.

In flight deck control Jake looked at the airplane planform cutouts on
the model ship to see where his plane was spotted. Watching the handler
check the weight chits as rain splattered against the one round,
bomb-proof window and the wind moaned, Jake Grafton admitted to himself
that he was glad he had the spare. He wasn’t ducking anything-this was
the bird the system gave him and he wasn’t squawking.

All he had to do was preflight, strap in and start the engines, then sit
and watch Haldane and McCoy ride the catapult into the black goo. After
that he could shut down and go below for coffee. If he went to the
forward mess deck galley he could probably snag a couple doughnuts hot
from the oven.

The handler was a lieutenant commander pilot who had left the Navy for
two years, then changed Ins mind. The only billet available when he
came back was this one-two years as the aircraft handler on Columbia. He
took it, re. . himself to two years of shuffling airplane cutouts - 9
around this model, two years of listening to squadron maintenance people
complain that their airplanes weren’t where they could properly maintain
them, two years listening to the air boss grouse that the go birds were
spotted wrong, two years checking tie-down chains and weight chits, two
years listening to the hopes, dreams and fears of young, homesick
sailors while trying to train them to do dangerous, difficult jobs, two
years in purgatory with no flying … yet the handler seemed to be
weathering it okay. True, his fuse was getting almighty short and he
wasn’t getting enough sleep, but his job performance was first-rate,
from everything Jake had seen and heard. And behind the tired face with
the bleary eyes was a gentle human being who liked to laugh at a good
joke in the dirty-shirt wardroom. Here in Flight Deck Control, however,
he was all business.

“Forty-six thousand five hundred pounds? That right, Grafton?” The
handler was reading from Jake’s weight chit.

This would be his weight if he launched.

“Yessir.”

Savoring the hubbub in Flight Deck Control while surreptitiously
watching the handler, Jake Grafton felt doubt creep over him. Was
getting out a mistake? It had been for the handler. An eight-to-five
job somewhere, the same routine day after day …