The Gulf (15 page)

“John? That you?”

“It's me, Ola. You asleep?”

“I was in bed.”

She sounded sleepy and at the same time distant. He asked her how she was, and then the boy, and then the herd.

“It's not been easy, John.” Two more milkers had mastitis and production was down. The machines were hard to handle and Stacey and Suzanne wouldn't let down for her. “I think they know you're gone,” Ola said.

He wanted to ask about cleaning, had she disinfected the milk house every day, but then he thought, You know she did. So he only said, “Look, if you need a hand with the herd, call Lew Drexel. His boy's lookin' for work this summer.”

“What are we going to pay him with, John? Have you sent me anything yet?”

“Ain't got anything yet.”

“Well, I'm doing the best I can here. I'm working fourteen hours a day, keeping things up and cooking, too. I haven't been out to the kiln since you left. The boy's workin' hard nights after school.”

“How's he taking it?”

“I'm not real sure, John.”

He couldn't think of anything else to say except, “Well, hard work never hurt a boy.”

“How is it there? Where are you, anyway?”

“South Carolina. Oh, good enough.”

“Are you getting enough to eat?”

“Yup. But I miss that maple bread you make.”

“I thought you were going overseas.”

“We are.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “It'll take us three or four weeks to get across, I figure. No phone. No mail. So you may not hear from me for a while.”

She didn't answer for a time. And all she said then was “All right.”

He said goodnight, waited for a response, and at last hung up. Stared toward the little ship. A curtain of steam came up and hung in the air, glowing with yellow light.

Under way tomorrow, he thought. He didn't know what they'd find on the other side. Their instructors didn't, either. The reports from the Gulf were contradictory. They'd lost one team already and no one knew why: only a sudden explosion, then mute drifting bits of wet suit and flesh. The technicians and engineers wanted him to send reports on what he found, what types of mines and fusing mechanisms, and what worked on them. And by elimination, by silence, what didn't.

He didn't like the way Ola sounded … she was tired, sure … that was all it was. She was tired.

He wiped his feet again, unthinking, as he stepped off the gangplank. Then he squared his shoulders, and snapped off a salute.

8

U.S.S.
Turner Van Zandt

STANDING on the flight deck, melting in the fireproof flight suit and fifteen-pound survival vest, Chunky Schweinberg dragged a glove across his face. His mouth felt wooden.

He hadn't expected to fly today. Or, he told himself now, I'd of kept it in the green in the Londoner. He'd felt numb at breakfast, but now he was at that stage of a hangover where it hurts when your heart beats. And the slow roll of the flight deck didn't help a bit.

But Woolton had given them the first twelve-hour shift under way, and now the new captain wanted to see them strut their stuff. Well, Claude R. Schweinberg had never said “I can't” in his life. Never in three years of high school ball, never in three with the Seminoles. You didn't play a lot when you were number three behind Paul McGowan. But he'd done all right—thirty-eight tackles and two blocked punts in three seasons. Till that deadly day when Bobby Bowden had called him into his office and shut the door.

He farted sadly and squinted into the sun. It burned furiously down at him through the dust and murk of the Gulf. He wished he'd drunk another Coke. No, that just made you want to pee. One goddamned thing after another … “Okay, Buck,” he muttered. “Let's get this over with.”

Hayes was sweating, too. Along with the Nomex suit, vest, and gloves, he was wearing thirty-eight pounds of body armor. Now he shifted his gum to his right cheek and his helmet to his left hand, and flipped open the blue NATOPS checklist. He ran his eye down the preflight, trying to ignore his headache. It was centerlined between his eyes, like an ax blade pressing outward. “Chocks,” he mumbled.

“Forget that flight school stuff, Bucky-boy. I'll take right side and meet you on top.”

Hayes agreed dully and the two pilots started at the nose, checking the main rotor blades, windshield, wipers, and air-temperature gauge. Schweinberg found an oil smear and called for the chief. Mattocks shouted to a mech.

Van Zandt
shuddered under them, accelerating. The men on the flight deck leaned without noticing the heel. Wind rattled the plastic-coated pages in Hayes's hand. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. Red video games played behind his retinas, but the headache backed off a bit. TACAN, ESM, data link. He yanked on a stubby antenna. It seemed to be firmly attached.

They moved slowly along. Hover lights, radar housing. Hayes peered into the pitot tubes to make sure they were clear, then leaned into the cockpit to check harness, mirrors, flight controls, and pressure gauges. A tire gave a dull thud as his flight boot impacted it.

Hoisting himself heavily by footholds in the fuselage, Schweinberg perched himself on the aircraft's back. It seemed awful high off the deck. A lot of water around them, all right.… He popped the cover on the hydraulics bay. Fluid levels, access covers, servos, flight controls, transmissions. He inspected the rotor-drive system carefully for forgotten tools or parts. Chief Mattocks strolled around below with his arms folded, looking out at the horizon and whistling soundlessly through his teeth.

Chunky held tight to a rotor while he wiped his face again. He'd found nothing. Not that he'd expected to, but it was his neck. He closed the access panels and banged them to make sure they were secure before he climbed down. Standing on the deck, he felt dizzy for just a moment.

Finally it went away and he continued aft. An SH-60 had 117 items to check in the preflight and Schweinberg, as he always did, made himself concentrate for every one. The most minor thing, like a loosely fastened cowling, could trick-fuck you in the air.

They met at the tail cone and agreed that the exterior looked okay. Chunky, having a previous deployment under his belt, was the HAC, or aircraft commander, and without speaking, he headed for the pilot's seat, on the right.

Hayes went around to the port side. The Navy called its H-60 copilots ATOs, airborne tactical officers. He settled into the sheepskin-covered bucket, inhaling the mingled smells of paint, fuel, hot plastic, and lubricants. His pulse accelerated as he brought up external power and the cockpit came to life. He buckled the seat belt and shoulder harness and cinched them tight, adjusted the seat for his long legs. He pulled the helmet on last. He hated the issue lids. They were hot, heavy, bulky, and flew off your head if you hit something.

But then, he thought with a sudden touch of depression, there were a lot of things not to like about flying for Uncle Sam. In some ways, it was just a job, and a dirty, hard, and not-very-well-paid one at that.

Whereas a civilian engineer …

Thinking vaguely about the job offer, he plugged in and adjusted the mike. Within the plane, since ambient noise was so loud, the crew communicated through an intercom system. The ICS was voice-actuated. If he wanted to radio the ship, he tapped a foot switch or pressed a trigger on the cyclic. Beside him, Schweinberg was checking the shear wires on the windows. Neither the pilots nor the crew wore parachutes. No one bailed out of a helicopter. “Pilot, ATO,” Hayes said into the mike.

“Loud and clear.”

“Ready when you are for prestart.”

“Go.”

Hayes glanced around the cockpit. He and the pilot sat side by side, separated by a central console at elbow height. Ahead of him, shielded by an overhanging dash, was the main panel. This included an airspeed indicator, radar and barometric altimeters, an artificial horizon and horizontal-situation indicator, fuel gauges, and engine RPM and rotor torque readouts. To the right was the caution panel. When he pressed the test button, seventy-five indicators flashed on and then off. Two inches above his helmet, the overhead was crusted with circuit breakers and switches.

A whine began above them as Schweinberg started the auxiliary power turbine. AW2 Kane, the SENSO, climbed into the cabin. The sensor operator sat behind the pilots, a battery of sonobuoys against his back and a radar and computer display in his lap. There was a seat for a door gunner/hoist operator, but it would be vacant for this flight, which would be a routine radar patrol.

Schweinberg unlocked the blades and pressed the radio switch. He looked to the right, into the eyes of the landing signal officer. “LSO, Killer Two One. How you doin' today?”

“Good, Chunky,” crackled the voice in his phones.

“Request clearance to start and engage.”

“Anytime you want, big boy.”

“That's what they all say.” He grinned, then winced. It even hurt to smile.

Forward of them, the hangar door was sliding down. Behind it was the fire team in their reflective suits, helmets under their arms. He hoped if there was a fire they'd come in fast. He remembered what the old guy, Richards, had said about burning to death.… He moved the engine ignition switch to NORM and fuel selectors to cross-feed, then mashed the
START
button. Now the engines got JP-5 and spark. They fired with a double bump followed by a climbing whine and the airframe began to vibrate. Engine oil pressure, check; starter light, out.

Hayes's voice in his head. “Harnesses and doors locked. Deck clear.”

“Center the cyclic, collective down.” He wrapped his right glove around the cyclic. Between his knees, like a conventional stick, it accomplished much the same purpose, controlling the helicopter's attitude. The collective, a horizontal column to the left of his seat, controlled main-rotor pitch and engine fuel flow. Cyclic, collective, rudder pedals; those were the flight controls.

Kane came up on the ICS. Schweinberg rogered and went over the flight profile and lookout procedures. It wasn't complicated. In the Gulf, they seldom used the expensive antisubmarine gear. Most of the SENSO's attention would be on the radar, while the front-seaters would be eyeballing water and sky. When he was done, he hit the radio switch and made sure the guys in CIC were on the right frequency.

“Getting hot in here,” he heard Hayes mutter.

“No shit.” The interior was black, and in the tropical sunlight, in suit and gloves and helmet, he knew how a potato felt in a microwave oven. “Ready to engage,” he added, checking pressures again.

The swept tips of the SH-60's four blades accelerated swiftly. In five seconds, they were a flicker at the top of the windscreen. He ran RPM up, watching the instruments. A caution light flickered—number one hydraulic pump—then went out. He reached up and pushed the black ball of the power control forward to FLY. The engine changed pitch and their heads nodded to a long-period airframe shudder. The collective was still horizontal, the blades whipping through the wind without biting out lift, and the throttle and torques matched on the indicators.

“Buck, you ready?”

Hayes gave him a wordless thumb. Schweinberg saw Hayes had dropped his visor, and he did, too. The glare lessened. He leaned back and glanced out. The ship was ready. He forgot his uneasy gut and the way his heart was thumping in tune with the blades.
Click.
“LSO, Two One.”

“LSO, go.”

“Rotors engaged, request clearance to launch.”

“Stand by for clearance. Takeoff data to follow. Barometric pressure twenty-nine point thirteen. True wind zero-one-zero at seventeen, relative starboard twenty at twenty. Deck pitch negligible, roll five.”

Buck gave a thumbs up as he copied. “Roger, we're ready to lift.”

“Stand by … beams open, green deck,
lift.
”

The LSO tossed them a salute. Chunky hauled up on the collective. The turbines rose in a twinned scream. But 421 stayed glued to the deck, held down by ten tons of weight. Eight. Six. Four …

Suddenly the thrust of air downward exceeded the weight of airframe, engines, and crew. He went heavy in the seat. The flight deck dropped away, the ship dropped away; the cyclic described a tiny arc astern in his gloved hand. “All clear, Four Two One,” crackled in his ears.

He came slightly forward on the stick again, maintaining full power. The helicopter shuddered as it transitioned to forward flight.
Van Zandt
's masthead flashed past. The altitude needles wound upward. His eyes flicked to the horizon. It widened with every foot they gained in the familiar succession of illusion: became first a disk, then a bowl, at last a separate, gently curved world below. He brought the cyclic an inch back and to the right and gently lowered the collective. The helicopter, climbing more slowly now, banked to starboard. The coast of Oman came into view, dry, flat, tan and yellow, dancing and shimmering madly in the heated air. The sea beneath him was tan-green, the shallows shading to a blue so delicately brilliant it made his heart hurt.

“After takeoff checklist.” Hayes's voice in his headphones. Schweinberg nodded, still looking out. As if shaken loose by the vibration, fragments of memory came free and drifted through his mind. “The Michigan State video shows you flinching, Schweinberg. Noles can't use linebackers who flinch.…”

“I don't want that animal in the house anymore, Claude.…”

Fuck it, he thought savagely. Fuck it all; all that was over. He didn't need to drink, but it passed the time. He didn't care that much about bodybuilding, either, though it was good to stay in shape; too many ball players let themselves go to fat. Everything else in his life was just something to do when he couldn't be where he wanted to be. Which was here. High above the sea, adrift in the sky …