Stephen Coonts - Jake Grafton 6 - Intruders

by Intruders (lit)

  Next came the hook. Jake merely pulled the handle and made sure the transition light disappeared.

  The intruder was slowing... 17)... 160.

  150.

  "Here goes nothing," he told Flap as he lowered the gm handle to the gear down position, then rotated the ('mob on the end ninety degrees and pulled it out. The up-UP-UP indications on the panel barber-Pggled.

  He waited. He could feel the drag increasing on the Plane, could see his airspeed decreasing, and added power. The fitel-flow tapes surged upward.

  C'mon, baby. Give me three down indications. Please!

  The nose gear locked down first. Two seconds later the mains locked down. Seventeen hundred pounds of fuel left in the main bag.

  "They're down," he announced to Flap and God and whoever else was listening.

  Approach controller was giving him a steer.

  "Hell!" Flap exclaimed disgustedly between calls from the controller, "it wasn't even close. We don't even have a low fuel light." The low fuel warning light would come On at about 1,360 pounds.

  "We aren't down yet," Jake Pointed Ou"...Oh ye of little faith, take note. We're almost down-was Jake concentrated on flying the plane, staying on speed, smoothly intercepting the glide path.

  He was carrying less power than normal since the speed brakes were inoperative after the hydraulic failure, and while this saved a few gallons of gasoline, it caused its own problems. If he got high, retarding the throttles would be less effective than usual-the plane would tend to float.

  He saw the ball two miles out. At a mile he called, "Five Two One, Intruder ball, One Point Four." "Roger ball. Paddles has you. Looking good... fly the ball!" The meatball began to rise above the datums and he pulled power aggressively while watching that angle-of-attack needle.

  Paddles was talking to him. "Power back on... too much, off a little... No, little more.

  lineup..." Any second would come the burble, the swirl of air disturbed by the ship's island. He anticipated it just a smidgen on the power and didn't have to slam on too much, then he was quick to get it off.

  Coming across the ramp the airspeed decayed a tad and the ball began to sink.

  "Power!" shouted the LSO.

  Slam! The wheels hit. Throttles to the stops... and the welcome, tremendous jerk as the hook snagged a wire.

  "Two wire, I think," Flap told him.

  Jake didn't care. A huge sigh of relief flooded through him.

  Here came the yellow-shirts. He raised the flaps and slats electrically while they chocked the plane, then cut the engines.

  They were back.

  Walking across the flight deck with their helmet bags in their hands, with the warm sea wind on their wet hair, the firm steel deck beneath their flight boots, Flap repeated, "It wasn't even close." No, Jake Grafton acknowledged to himself, it wasn't. Not tonight. But a man can't have luck all the time, and someday when he reached into that tiny little bag where he kept his luck, the bag would be empty. A hold-back bolt would break T HE IN T RUDER S at the wrong time, a taxiing plane would skid into another, the airborne tanker would go sour, the weather would be bad... some combination of evil things would conspire against the man aloft and push him over the edge. Jake Grafton, veteran of more than 340 cat shots and arrested landings, knew that it could happen to him. He knew that as well as he knew his name.

  ghtrope The brass had taken the net from under the ti when they didn't let him bingo, and he was infuriated and disgusted with himself for letting them do it.

  I think Jake wrote to Callie that night, that a man's fate is not in his control. We are under the illusion that we can control our destinies, that the choices we make do make a difference, but they don't. Chance rules our lives. Chance, out wish to call it.--sets the hook and fate fortune-whatever y pulls the string and we quiver and flail; jerk and fight.

  Maybe pray. much. I do it anyway, just I don't think praying helps very in case.

  I ask Him to be with me when I fall.

  THERE ARE FEW THINGS IN LIFE MORE SATISFYING TI-IAN TO BE accepted as an equal in a fraternity of fighting men. Jake Grafton was so accepted now, and this morning when he entered the ready room he was greeted by name by the men there, who asked him about his adventures of the previous evening and listened carefully to his comments. They laughed, consoled him, and joked about the predicament he had found himself in last night. Several refused to believe, they said, that the main dump valve had failed: he had forgotten to secure it and was now trying to cover his sin by appealing to their naivete.

  All this was in good fun and was cheerfully accepted as such by Jake Grafton. He belonged.

  He was a full member of this aristocracy of Inerit, with impeccable credentials. Ms mood improved with each passing minute and soon he was his usual self.

  He and his Marine colleagues inspected the board that recorded the pilots' landing grades. Jake's grades for his qualification landings were not displayed there, so like most of them, he had only two landings so far this cruise, an OK 3-wire and a fair 2-wire.

  The bombing poster was more complicated, displaying the CEP of each crew, and to settle ties, the number of bull's-eyes. Jake ranked fourth in the Squadron here. Today he was scheduled to go to the target with twelve five-hundred pounders, so perhaps he could better his standing.

  He had a secret ambition to be the best pilot in the squadron in landings and bombing and everything else, but he shared that ambition with everyone so it wasn't much of a secret. Still, it wasn't a thing that you talked about. You tried your very best at everything you did, glanced at the rankings, fiercely resolved to do better, and went on about your business. The rankings told you who was more skilled-"more worthy" was the phrase used by the Real McCoy a day or two before-than you were.

  The LSO regarded intrasquadron competition with goodnatured contempt. "Games for children," he grumped. But Jake noticed now that McCoy's name was in the top half of the rankings on both boards.

  This morning there was mail, the first in six days. A cargo plane brought it out from Hickam Field, trapped aboard, then left with full mail sacks from the ship's post office. Two hours later the mail was distributed throughout the ship.

  Jake got three letters from Callie, one from his folks, and something from the commanding officer of Attack Squadron 128 in an official, unstamped envelope. He shuffled Tiny Dick Donovan's missive-probably some piece of official foolscap from a yeoman third in the Admin Office--to the bottom of the pile. Callie's letters came first.

  She was taking classes at the University of Chicago, working on her master's degree. Her brother and her parents were fine. The weather was hot and muggy. She missed him.

  I think that it is important for you to decide what you wish to do with your life. This is a decision that every man must make for himself, and every woman.

  To make this decision because you hope to please an other is to make it for the wrong reason. We each owe duties to our families, when we acquire them, but we also owe a duty to ourselves to make our lives count for something. To love another person is not enough.

  I have thought a great deal about this these last few weeks. Like every woman, I want to love. I feel as if I have this great gift to give-myself. I want to be a wife and mother. Oh, how I could love some man!

  And I want the man I love to love me. To have a man who would return the love I have to give is my great ambition.

  I have dated boys, known boys of all ages, and I do not want to marry one.

  I want to marry a man. I want a man who believes in what he is doing, who goes out the door every day to make a contribution-in business, in academia, in government, somewhere. I want a man who will love not just me, but life itself. I want a man who will stand up to the gales of life, who won't bend with every squall, who will remain true to himself and those who believe in him, a man who can be counted on day after day, year after year.

  An hour later, after he had reread Callie's letter three times and lingered over the one from his paren
ts, he opened the official letter. In it he found a copy of his last fitness report, bearing Donovan's signature. In the text Donovan wrote: Lieutenant Grafton is one of the most gifted aviators I have ever met in my years in the naval service. In every facet of flying, he is the consummate professional.

  As a naval officer, Lieutenant Grafton shows extraordinary promise, yet he has not made the commitment to give of himself as he must if he is to fulfill that promise.

  There was more, a lot more, most of it the usual bullshit required by custom and instruction, such as a comment upon his support of the Navy's equal opportunity goals and programs. Jake merely skimmed this treacle, then returned to comthe meat: "dis.. has not yet made the commitment to give of himself as he must if he is to fulfill that promise." A pat on the back immediately followed by a kick in the pants. His first reaction was anger, which quickly turned to cold fury. He stalked from the ready room and went to his stateroom, where he opened his desk and seized pen and paper. He began a letter to Commander Donovan. He would write a bullet that would skewer the son of a bitch right through the heart.

  What kind of half-assed crack was that? Not committed to being a good naval officer? Who the hell did that jerk Donovan think he was talking about anyway?

  Even before he completed his first sentence, the anger began leaking from him. Donovan had said nothing about the Sea-Tac adventure, didn't even mention that the promising Lieutenant Grafton had punched out a windy blowhard and thrown him ass over tea kettle through a plate glass window, then spent a weekend in jail. Perhaps his comments dealt strictly with the performance of Jake's duties at the squadron. No, he must have meant that comment to cover the Sea-Tac debacle in addition to everything else.

  Worse, Donovan was right-a more Committed, thinking officer would not have done it. A wiser man.

  well, he wouldn't have either.

  Jake threw down the pen and rubbed his face in frustration.

  were Callie and Dick Donovan talking about the same thing?

  "Man, you should have seen ol' Jake last night," Flap Le Beau told his fellow Marines.

  "Both the you're-gonna-die lights pop on bright as Christmas going' down the cat, and this guy handled it like he was in a simulator. Cool as ice.

  just sat there doin' his thing. Me-I was shakin' like a dog shittin' razor blades. I ain't been so scared since the teacher caught me with my hand up Susie Bulow's skirt back in the sixth grade." There were eight of them, four crews, and they had just finished a briefing for another flight to the Kahoolawe target.

  This time they were carrying real ordnance, twelve five-hundred-pound bombs on each plane. After they had reviewed how the fuses and arming wires should look on the bomb racks, the crews stood and stretched. That was when Flap took it on himself to praise his pilot to the heavens.

  Jake was embarrassed. He had been frightened last night, truly scared, and Flap's ready room buff puckey struck a sour note. Still, Jake kept his mouth shut. This was neither the time nor place to brace Flap about his mouth.

  He got out of his chair and went over in the corner to check his mailbox. Nothing. He gazed at the posters on the wall as if interested, trying to shut out Flap, who was expanding upon his theme: Jake Grafton was one cool dude.

  One of the pilots, Rory Smith, came over and dug a sheet of official trash out of his mailbox, something he was supposed to read and initial. "Flap gets on your nerves, does he?" he asked, his voice so soft it was barely audible. He scribbled his initials in the proper place and shoved the paper into someone else's box.

  "Yeah." "Don't sweat it. To hear him tell it, every guy he flies with is the best who ever stroked a throttle. He was saying that in the ready room about his last stick five minutes before he was down in the skipper's stateroom complaining that the guy was dangerous. You just have to take him with a grain of salt." Jake grinned at Rory.

  "Everybody else does," the Marine said, then wandered off toward the desk where the maintenance logs on each aircraft were kept. Jake followed him.

  Smith helped himself to the book for 511, the plane Jake had flown into an in-flight engagement.

  "Gonna fly it today, huh?" Jake said.

  "Yeah," Smith said. "The gunny says it's fixed. We'll see' "It'll probably go down on deck," Jake pointed out.

  "Down" in this context meant a maintenance problem that precluded flight. "Since I bent it," he continued, "I'll fly it if you want to trade planes." "Well, I'm one of the maintenance check pilots and they gave it to me." "Sure. 9 f Meanwhile Flap had progressed to his favorite subject, women.

  Jake looked up from the maintenance book on his plane when Flap roared, "Oh, my God, she was ugly!" comHow ugly?" three or four of his listeners wailed in unison.

  "She was so ugly that paint peeled off the walls when she walked into a room." "How ugly?" "So ugly that strong men fainted, children screamed, and horses ran away." "How ugly?" This refrain had become a chorus. Even Rory Smith joined in from the back of the room.

  "Women tore their hair, the sky got black, and the earth trembled." "That's not ugly-was "I'm telling you guys, she was so dingdong ugly that mirrors cracked, dogs went berserk, fire mains ruptured and one man who had smiled at her at night dropped stone cold dead when he saw her in the daylight. That, my friends, is the gospel truth." It was a typical afternoon in the tropics-- scattered puffy clouds drifting on the balmy trade winds, sun shining through the gaps.

  Hawaii was going to be wonderful. Two more days, then Pearl Harbor! Oh boy.

  Jake inspected the Mark 82 five-hundred-pounders carefully. He hadn't seen deadly green sausages like this since the night he was shot down, seven months ago. Talk about a bad trip!

  Well, the war was over, this was a peacetime cruise.

  He could probably spend another twenty years in the Navy and would never again have to drop one of these things for real. World War III? Get serious.

  Up into the cockpit, into the comfortable seat, the familiar instruments arranged around him just so. The truth was he knew this cockpit better than he knew anything else on earth. Just the thought of never getting back into one bothered him. How do you turn your back on six years of your life?

  Flap settled into the seat beside him as the plane captain climbed the ladder on jake's side and reached in to help with the Koch fittings.

  He had lived all this before-it was like living a memory.

  And somehow that was good.

  Rory Smith preflighted his aircraft, 511, very carefully indeed. "nat four- or five-foot fall couldn't have done this thing any good.

  The main concern was the landing gear. If anything cracked... Well, the airframes guys hadn't found a single crack. They had scraped the paint from the parts, fluoroscoped them and pronounced them perfect. What can a pilot do? Just fly it.

  The radar, computer and inertial were seriously messed up. All the component boxes of those systems had been replaced, as had the radar dish and drive unit in the nose.

  The vertical display indicator-the VDI'-AND THE radio were also new.

  When Smith and his BN-HANK Davis-were strapped in, they turned on each piece of gear and checked it carefully.

  The inertial was slow getting an alignment, but it did align.

  Make a note for the debrief.

  They were the last A-6 to taxi toward a Cat, number two on the bow. The others were airborne and in a few minutes, Smith would join them at nine thousand feet. That altitude should be well above the tops of this cumulus, he thought, taking three seconds to scan the sky.

  Roger the weight board, check the wing locks, flaps and slats down, stabilizer shifted, into the shuttle, off the brakes and power up. Check the controls.

  "You ready?" "Yep," Hank Davis told him cheerfully.

  Rory Smith saluted and placed his head back into the headrest. He watched the bow cat officer give his fencer's lunge into the wind as his arm came down to the deck. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the catapult deck edge operator lower both hands as he reached for the fire butt
on.

  In the space of a second the launching valves dropped open, 450 pounds of steam hit the back of the pistons, and the hold-back bolt broke. The G's slammed Smith back into his seat as War Ace Five One One leaped forward. And the VDI came sliding out of the center of the instrument panel.

  Rory Smith reached for the black box with both hands, but too late. The front of it tilted down and came to rest in his lap. Jammed the stick back.

  All this in the first second and a half of the shot.

  Desperately Smith heaved at the box against the G. He had to free the stick!

  And then they were off the bow, the nose coming up.

  And up and up as he struggled to lift the fucking box!

  With his right hand he reached under and tried to shove the stick forward. Like pushing against a building.