Final Flight (39 page)

His announcement was heard all over the ship,
except in those spaces where the public-address
system was not working because of fire damage to the wires
or loudspeakers. As it happened, two of the silent
areas were the portside catwalk on the flight deck
and the midships area of the 0-3 level, where the waist
catapult control rooms were located.

On the portside catwalk forward of the angle,
up near the bow, Gunnery Sergeant Garcia
stepped over the body of Lance Corporal Van
Housen and laid familiar hands on the
Browning 50caliber machine gun. He snapped
the ammo box open and carefully fed in the belt of
cartridges he had so painfully carried up I from
the ship’s armory draped around his shoulders. Then he
opened the breech and slipped the belt in. He
closed the breech and cycled the bolt. It jammed.

He tried again. No. The cartridge felt like it
was hitting an obstruction. Don’t tell me!
No! He used his fingers to try and seat a
cartridge. They’ve spiked it. They had pushed a
metal plug, probably tapered, into the chamber and
his attempts to chamber a cartridge had forced the
plug deeper into the barrel, jamming it. I And
Garcia, you ass, you didn’t look first! You should have
known!

He looked aft along the length of the catwalk
at the helicopters sitting silently on the angle
and tried to decide if he had the time to go get a
rod to force down the barrel to push out the plug. So
near and yet so far! There they sat, and here he was with a
weapon could destroy all three machines right where they
were, or tter yet, as they lifted off the deck, so
they would fall into the without damaging anything else. And
it wouldn’t take ammo. Van Housen lay face
down.

Another dead marine. At least he had had the
sense to pick up another weapon. It was
slung over his shoulder, a Model 700
Remington$308 caliber with a sniper scope. The
marines called it the M-40. hefted it in his hands
and stared at the helicopters. No. The best place
for this was up in the island. On Vulture’s Row.
From there he could command the entire angled deck. He
turned away from the machine gun and the dead marine and
went below.

Captain Grafton’s announcement should have been
heard in the waist catapult control bubble because the
loudspeaker there functioning perfectly. Or would have
been functioning pertly had the volume been turned
up even slightly. As it was, the volume knob had
been cranked to its lowest setting by some kind soul
earlier in the evening when Kowalski was brought here to sleep
it off. Now the loudspeaker didn’t even hiss.

Kowalski sat on the floor of the darkened bubble
with a headset, a sound-powered telephone, over his ears
and listened to one of the cat crewmen working on the JBD
hydraulic pump in the Cat ur control spaces
under the hookup area. The power was off to the pump and the
crewmen were trying to tie in a line to another cuit
at the main catapult junction box. A
man there wearing a headset gave Kowalski an
account of their progress when goaded operly.

“How much longer?”

“Goddamn, Ski, we’re working as fast as we
fucking can. Give a break, will ya?”

“I just asked a civil question, peckerhead.
Gimme a guesstiate.”

“Ski wants an estimate…. The Russian
says five minutes.”

“I’m looking” at my watch. You tell the
Russian he had better mpit.”

“Where is the ship going, Ski? We can feel the
vibrations here. Hey, this mother really cranking.”

“You people just worry about your end of the navy. Ten
minutes, Ski thought, maybe fifteen. The
Russian always ought he was about finished.

Ski checked the clock on the bulkhead behind him.
His watch was broken.

Probably happened last night at that bar.

He swallowed two more aspirin and inched his way
upright. He eased his head level with the deck and
surveyed the situation. One of the sentries was walking
slowly around the choppers. The wind was whipping his
shirt and trousers. The guys below were right; this tub was
really bucketing along.

One of the places Captain Grafton’s I
comMC announcement was heard was in the fire crew’s
shack in the after part of the island superstructure, on
the flight deck level. The firemen had a
watertight door that gave them immediate access to their
large fire truck parked just outside on the flight
deck. If there had been planes aloft or
planes on the deck with engines turning, the bosun
would have had his men in asbestos suits and sitting in the
truck with the engine running. Now as the bosun listened
to the announcement he knocked his pipe out into the
ashtray on his desk and slowly refilled it.

He was bone tired and filthy. So were his men, who
sat or lay on the floor all over the compartment.
They had been down in the hangar bays fighting the
fires. That place was a gutted shell now. The
bosun and his men had helped the damage-control
teams there stack the bodies like cordwood on the
elevator when the fires were out. They had helped
lay out Ray Reyolds. And they had laid out the
waist cat officer and two of the catapult chiefs.
They had died when an airplane with a little fuel
left in its tank had exploded. The bosun wiped
the grime off his face with his shirttail.

“Don’t interfere with the intruders,” the
CAG had said. So the fucking terrorists had the
U.s. Navy by the gonads and there was nothing
anybody could do. Ha! No doubt that announcement
had been made to please the terrorists, because they had
heard it too. This Grafton, another
over-the-hill, worn-out jet-jock who’s pulled
too many Gs. A far cry from Laird James.
Now there was a real sailor, an asshole to work
for and a perfectionist hairsplitter, but the bosun had
spent twenty-seven years working for driven men who
demanded perfection and were satisfied with nothing less.
He was used to them. This Grafton!

He’ll probably get courtmartialed after tonight,
the bosun told himself bitterly.

When he had his pipe drawing well, he leaned
back in his chair and put his feet on his desk and
regarded the no-smoking sign posted on the wall.
Yep, Grafton was just like Ray Reynolds.
Stick the fucking sign on the fucking bulkhead,
Bosun, and don’t get caught smoking by the
sheriff’s boys or by the XO on one of his little
jaunts around the boat. Don’t get caught
breaking any of the chickenshit little rules. Just fight
the fires and stack the bodies, Bosun.

Before those terrorists got to the bridge,
Captain James made an announcement. Do your
duty, he said. That fit the bosun’s pistol. He
had made warrant officer four, the senior warrant
rank, by doing the right thing regardless of what the book
said. They couldn’t hurt him with a fitness report
now. No, sir. It would take a court-martial
to rip the gold and blue off his sleeves. And the
navy doesn’t court-martial guys who do the right
thing. It just shits all over assholes like Captain
Grafton who earn their rank pushing paper, then
fold up when the chips are down.

“Is there fuel in the truck?” he asked his
first-class. “Of course.”

“When did you start it last?”

“This morning. No, yesterday, daily maintenance
inspection. Started on the first crank.”

The bosun puffed on his pipe and stared at the
television monitor over the door. The
helicopters just sat there. Occasionally one of the
sentries moved a little. The monitor swayed
slightly in its mount.

Grafton really has this tub cranked up, the
bosun thought. Wonder if he knows what the hell
he’s doing?

“Where in the fuck are those crazy
assholes going at thirty-three knots?”

The skipper of the cruiser Gettysburg roared this
question at his navigator, operations officer, and
communications officer collectively.

All three stood beside him on the bridge and together
they regarded the little arrangement of lights several
miles ahead in the murk that was the United States.
“Thirty-three knots, limited visibility, right
through the Italian coastal shipping lanes, right through
all these little fucking fishing boats and yachts full
of rich queers-those crazy assholes must be out of
their fucking minds!”

He turned and faced the communications officer.
“Why in hell can’t you talk to her?”

“They’re not answering on any circuit,
Captain. We don’t think they’re transmitting
on any frequency. None of their radars are
radiating.

They’re observing EMCON.” EMC0N
meant “emissions control.”

The captain picked up the Navy Red
telephone and pushed the transmit button
futilely. He wiped his forehead and slowly put the
instrument back into its cradle.

“They’re certainly in a hurry to go
somewhere,” the ops officer observed calmly. He had
always found it best to stay calm when the skipper blew
off steam.

“Okay,” the captain said, his voice back
to normal. “Get on the horn to Sixth Fleet.
Tell him what’s going on. See if he knows
something we don’t. Find out what he wants us to do.
And get off a flash OPREP to Washington.” An
0PREP was an “operational report,” used
to advise naval headquarters of emergencies.

“We’re doing all the turns we can, sir,” the
00Do piped up. “We’re not going to catch them
if they keep this speed up.”

“Thank you, Mr. Epley,” the Old Man said
sourly. He gestured at the communications officer.
“Okay. Call Sixth Fleet and send the OP
REP. Ops, you get down to Combat and sort out the
surface picture.

The United States isn’t talking to us, she’s
not talking to anybody.

She may run down one of these civilians.
Try to call anyone in her way on the civilian
emergency nets and tell them to get the hell out of the
way. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll pick up
survivors.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Willie,” he said to the navigator. “I
want to know where we are every damn minute and where
we’re heading. I don’t want to follow those
fools smack onto a reef or island at
thirty-three knots. Let me see a chart with a
projection of this course. They may be running for a
launch position.” That was the hypothesis that made the
most sense, really.

The carrier was silently racing to get into position
to launch a strike.

But against whom?

It’s like a nightmare, the captain told himself as
he looked at the backs of his departing officers.
One day they had a war and nobody told you. Is this
the big one? Naw, they would have told us, for
Chrissake!

Maybe Laird James and Earl Parker have
gone off their nut. Maybe there’s been a mutiny.

Infuriated and thoroughly confused, the captain
sat in his chair and tried to get his blood
pressure under control as his ship bored into the
swells. White water spewed back from the bow, then
the bow rose clear of the sea and crashed majestically
into he next swell in another thunderous
cloud of spray. He pushed his squawk-box
button for the chief engineer and warned him to be ready
to cut power to the shafts instantly if the screws
came out of the water. He had gotten his ship underway
in record time, getting the anchor up in seventeen
minutes from the time the capstan had began to turn.
Due to the sonar dome under the bow, he couldn’t move
the ship until the anchor cleared the water. The
United States had been seven miles ahead, but
he had managed to close the distance because she had stayed
at seventeen knots for almost twenty minutes. Then
she accelerated to thirty-three. Now, with he larger
swells here in the open sea, he was hard-pressed just
to watch her speed.

Sooner or later he would close on her; if
she turned port or starboard he would turn inside
her and close, roviding he didn’t have to back off
some turns to keep the screws in the water and could
stay with her.

Something was seriously wrong aboard United
States. He tried to imagine a combination of
circumstances in peacetime that would ustify a capital
ship weighing anchor unannounced in the dead of night
and steaming off alone, without her escorts, at high
speed hrough crowded shipping lanes with
radar and radios silent. hen, or if, he caught
up with her, it wouldn’t hurt to be ready for anything.
“Lieutenant Epley, sound general quarters.”

Meanwhile, aboard United States, Jake
Grafton was huddled in ngineering with the ship’s
department heads and every squad skipper who was aboard,
plus about half the executive officers. His
operations officer and the flag ops boss were also
present. Jake had told Qazi when he called
the second time that restoring power to the elevators would
require half an hour, and azi had given him
half that time. Still, twenty minutes had assed and the
new circuit had not been energized.

All that reained was the throwing of a switch by the load
dispatcher in entral Control. Jake had not yet
told him to throw the switch.

“Goddammit, Captain,” the weapons boss
shouted, “We can’t zust let that terrorist take some
bombs and fly off this ship. We an’t.” This
statement was merely a rehash of arguments voiced for the
last ten minutes by desperate, angry men crowded
around Jake.

“Now you listen,” Jake said calmly, “All of
you. This is going to the the last word. I’ve listened
to all your arguments. We’ve hashed and
rehashed this for ten minutes. In my opinion,
we’ve got no other choice. This man has us by the
balls. None of you has suggested a viable
alternative course of action.”

“Goddammit-“

“No! Don’t you cuss at me! I’m the man
responsible and I’ve 1 made the fucking
decision. End of discussion!”

“I still don’t see why we can’t zap his choppers
with missiles when they are about five miles out, after
the bomb is disarmed.” Everyone assumed that Qazi
would leave an armed weapon on deck that he could
explode by radio control if he were pursued.

“Bullshit. We’ve got no radar.” Jake
pushed his way to the engineering watch officer’s desk and
picked up the I comMC microphone. “Central
Control, this is Grafton. Energize the emergency
circuit to the forward weps elevators.” He
threw the mike on the desk.