Stephen Coonts - Jake Grafton 6 - Intruders

by Intruders (lit)

The cat officer signaled for afterburners, an opening hand on an extended arm. The river of smoke pouring skyward off the JBIGGNESS cleared, leaving hot, clear shimmering gases.

  Incredibly, even here in the cockpit of the tanker the noise level rose. Jake got a good whiff of the acrid stench of jet exhaust.

  My oxygen mask must not be on tight enough.

  Fix it when I'm airborne.

  The last of the catapult crewmen came scurrying out from under the fighter. This was the man who swung on the bridle to ensure it was on firmly. He flashed a thumbs-up at the cat officer, the shooter.

  The shooter saluted the F4 pilot, glanced down the deck, and lunged. One potato, two potato, and wham, the fighter shot forward trailing plumes of fire from its twin exhausts.

  It hadn't gone a hundred feet down the track when the JBD started down and a taxi director gave Jake Grafton the come-ahead signal.

  After he watched the Phantom clear the deck, the shooter turned his attention to the fighter on Cat Four, which was already at full power. He gave the burner sign. Fifteen seconds later this one ripped down the cat after the first one, which was out of burner now and trailing a plume of black smoke that showed quite distinctly against the gray haze wall.

  Jake taxied forward and ran through his ritual as the wind T Iff E I n T R U D E R S over the deck swirled steam leaking from the catapult slot around the men on deck. Their clothes flapped in the wind.

  Power up, control check, cat grip, engine instruments, warning lights, salute.

  One potato, two pota--he felt just the tiniest jolt as the hold-back bolt broke, then the acceleration smashed him backward like the hand of God.

  The strike controller told Jake to 90 on up to 20,000 feet.

  "Texaco take high station." Flap rogered, then Jake said on the ICS, "They must not be going to launch the alert-fifteen." "Why do you say that?" "Surely they'll want US to tank the second section of fighters immediately after launch, if they launch them." "Maybe not." die "Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or "Noble sentiment. But let's do today, not die." "Aye aye, sir." "Don't get cute." Jake Grafton gave a couple of pig grunts.

  "I thought you said you weren't going to insult the Corps?- Flap sounded shocked.

  "I lied." The sea disappeared as they climbed through 3,000 feet.

  Jake was on the gauges. There was no horizon, no sky, no sea. Inside this formless, featureless void the plane handled as usual, but the only measure of its progress through space was movement of the altimeter, the TACAN needle, and the rotating numbers of the distance measuring equipment comDME.

  Jake kept expecting to reach an altitude where the goo thinned perceptibly, but it was not to be. When he leveled at 20,000 feet he could see a blob of light above him that had to be the sun, yet the haze seemed as thick as ever.

  Just what the visibility might be was impossible to say without another object to focus upon Flap reported their arrival at high station. The controller rogered without apparent enthusiasm.

  Jake set the power at max conserve and when the airspeed had stabilized, engaged the autopilot.

  He checked the cockpit altitude and loosened one side of his oxygen mask from his helmet. Flap sat silently for a moment or two, looking here and there, then he extracted his book from a pocket of his G-suit and opened it to a dog-eared page.

  Jake busied himself with punching buttons to check that the fuel transfer was proceeding normally. The tanker carried five 2,000-pound drop tanks.

  The transfer of fuel from these drops was automatic. If transfer didn't occur, however, he wanted to know it as soon as possible because he would have that much less fuel available to give to other aircraft or burn himself. Today the transfer seemed to be progressing as advertised, so he had 26,000 pounds of fuel to burn or give away.

  They were almost eight hundred miles northwest of Midway Island alone in an opaque sky. Other than flicking his eyes across the instruments and adjusting the angle-of-bank occasionally, he had nothing to do except scan the blank whiteness outside for other airplanes that never came.

  The fighters were being vectored out to intercept the incoming Russians, the E-2 was proceeding away from the ship to a holding station-those were the only other airplanes aloft. There was nothing in this sky to see.

  Yet if an aircraft did appear out of the haze, it would be close, very close, on a collision course or nearly so, a rerun of the Phantom incident a week ago. He sure as hell didn't want to go through that again.

  In spite of his resolution to keep a good lookout, boredom crept over him. His mind wandered.

  He had signed the letter of resignation from the Navy yesterday and submitted it to Lieutenant Colonel Haldane.

  The skipper had taken the document without comment Well, what was there to say?

  Haldane wasn't about to try to argue him into stayinghe barely knew Jake. If Jake wanted out, he wanted out.

  What he could expect was a form letter of appreciation, a handshake and a hearty "Have a nice life." That was what he wanted, wasn't it?

  Why not go back to Virginia and help Dad with the farm?

  Fishing in the spring and summer, hunting in the fall... He would end up joining the Lions Club, like his father. Lions meeting every Thursday evening, church two or three Sun days a month, high school football games on Friday mg in September and October.

  it would be a chance to settle down, get a house of his own, some furniture, put down roots. He contemplated that future now, trying to visualize how it would be.

  Dull. it would be damn dull.

  Well, he had been complaining that the Navy was too challenging, the responsibility for the lives and welfare of other people too heavy to carry.

  One LIFE offered too much challenge, the other too little.

  Was there something, somewhere, more in the middle?

  "Texaco, Strike." "Go ahead." "Take low station. Buster." Buster meant hurry, bust your ass.

  "We're on our way." Jake Grafton disengaged the autopilot and rolled the Intruder to ninety degrees angle-of-bank. The nose came down. Speed brakes out, throttles back, shallow the bank to about seventy degrees, put a couple G's on... the rate-ofdescent needle pegged at 6,000 feet per minute down. That was all it would indicate. A spiral descent was his best maneuver because the tanker had a three-G limitation, mandated by higher authority to make the wings last longer. He was right at three G's now, the altimeter unwinding at a dizzying rate.

  Low station was 5,000 feet, but it could be lowered if the visibility was better below this crud. Maybe he should ask.

  "Ah, Strike, Texaco. How's the visibility and ceiling underneath?" "A little worse than when you took off.

  Maybe a mile viz under an indefinite obscuration." "Who's our customer?" "Snake-eye Two Oh Seven. He's got an emergency.

  Switch to button sixteen and rendezvous on him." Jake was passing ten thousand feet, still turning steeply with G on. Bracing himself against the G, Flap changed the radio channel and called.

  "Snake-eye Two Oh Seven, this is Texaco. Say your posit, angels, and heading, over." "Texaco, I'm on the Three One Zero radial at nine miles, headed inbound at four grand. Better hurry." Jake keyed the radio transmitter. "Just keep going in and we'll join on you." The fighter pilot gave him two clicks in reply.

  Jake eyed the TACAN needle on the HSI, the horizontal situation indicator, a glorified gyroscopic compass. He had a problem here in three-dimensional space and the face of the instrument was an aid in helping him visualize it.

  He rolled the wings level and stuffed the nose down more.

  Ms airspeed was at 400 knots and increasing.

  con'Snake-eye, Texaco, what's your problemr "We're venting fuel overboard and the pull-forward is 90mg to take more time than we've got." ",Posit again?" "Three One Zero at five, angels four, speed three hundred, heading One Three Zero." con"Are you in the clear?" "Negative." "Let's go on down to three grand." Jake was passing six thousand feet, on the Three Three Zero radial at nine miles.

&
nbsp; He was indicating 420 knots and he was raising the nose to shallow his dive. He thumbed the speed brakes in and added some power. "We're going to join fast," he muttered at Flap, who didn't reply.

  The problem was that he didn't know how much visibility he would have. If it was about a mile, like the controller on the ship said, and he missed the F4 by more than that margin, he would never see him. Unlike the Phantom, the tanker had no radar to assist in the interception.

  He was paying strict attention to the TACAN needle now.

  The seconds ticked by and the distance to the ship closed rapidly.

  "There, at one o'clock." Flap called it.

  Now Jake saw the fighter. He was several hundred feet below Jake, which was good, at about a mile, trailing a plume of fuel. Grafton reduced power and deployed the speed brakes.

  Uh-oh, he had a ton of closure. He stuffed the nose down to underrun the Phantom.

  "Look out!" The wingman! Ms tailpipes were right there, coming in the windscreen! Sweet Jesus!

  He jammed the stick forward and the negative G lifted him and Flap away from their seats. In two heartbeats he was well under and jerked the stick back. He had forgotten about the wingman.

  Still indicating 350, he ran under the Phantom in trouble and pulled the power to idle. "At your one o'clock, Snakeeye. We'll tank at two seventy. Join on me." At 280 knots he got the power up and the speed brakes in. He quickly stabilized at 270 indicated. After checking to ensure that he was level headed directly for the ship, Jake turned in his seat to examine the Phantom closing in as Flap deployed the refueling drogue.

  The three-thousand-pound belly tank the F-4 usually carried was gone. Fuel was pouring from the belly of the aircraft.

  "Green light, you're cleared in," Flap announced on the radio.

  Jake turned back to his instruments. He wanted to provide a stable drogue for the fighter to plug. "What's your problem, Snake-eye?" "Belly tank wouldn't transfer. We jettisoned it and now we are pumping fuel out the belly. The check valve must be damaged. We're down to one point seven." "Strike, Texaco, how much does Two Oh Seven get?" "All he needs, Texaco. We should have a ready deck in six or seven minutes. Putting forward now." This meant all the planes parked in the landing area were being pulled forward to the bow.

  The green light on the refueling panel went out and the fuel counter began to click over. "You're getting fuel," Flap told the fighter.

  They were crossing over the ship now.

  Jake Grafton eased the tanker into a descent.

  If he could get underneath this haze he could drop the Phantom at the 180-degree position, only thirty seconds or so from the deck.

  When the fuel-delivered counter registered two thousand pounds, Jake told the fighter pilot.

  "Keep it coming. We're up a grand in the main bag. At least we're getting it faster than it's going over the side." At two thousand feet Jake saw the ocean.

  He kept descending. At fifteen hundred feet he spotted the carrier, on his left, turning hard.

  The ship was coming into the wind.

  From this distance Jake could only see a couple airplanes still to go forward. Very soon.

  He leveled at twelve hundred feet and circled the ship in a left turn at about a mile.

  Five thousand pounds transferred... six.

  . seven... the ship was into the wind now and the wake was streaming straight behind her, white as snow against the gray sea as the four huge screws bit hard to drive her faster through the water.

  "Snake-eye Two Oh Seven, this is Paddles. We're going to be ready in about two minutes. I want you to drop off the tanker on the downwind, dirty up and turn into the groove. Swells still running about fifteen feet, so the deck is pitching. Average out the ball and fly a nice smooth pass." "Two Oh Seven." Jake was crossing the bow now, the fuel counter still clicking. Eight thousand five hundred pounds transferred so far.

  "Texaco, hawk the deck." "Roger." Hawk the deck meant to fly alongside so that the plane on the bolter could rendezvous and tank.

  This was going to work out, Jake told himself. This guy is going to get aboard.

  The fuel-delivered counter stopped clicking over at 9,700 pounds. The fighter had backed out of the basket. Jake took a cut to the right, then turned back left and looked over his shoulder. The crippled fighter was descending and slowing, his hook down and gear coming out. And the fuel was still pouring from his belly in a steady, fire-hose stream. The wingman was well behind, still clean.

  When the fighter pilot jettisoned the belly tank, Jake thought, the quick-disconnect fitting must have frozen and the plumbing tore loose inside the aircraft. There was a oneway check valve just upstream of the quick-disconnect; obviously it wasn't working. So the pressure in the main fuel cell was forcing fuel overboard through the broken pipe.

  Jake slowed to 250 knots and cycled the refueling hose in and back out to reset the reel response. Now to scoot down by the ship, Jake thought, so that if he bolters, I'll be just ahead where he can quickly rendezvous.

  He dropped to a thousand feet and turned hard at a mile to parallel the wake on the ship's port side.

  The landing fighter was crossing the wake, turning into the groove, when Jake saw the fire.

  The plume of fuel streaming behind the plane ignited.

  The tongue of flame was twice as long as the airplane and clearly visible.

  "You're on fire!" someone shouted on the radio.

  "In the groove, eject, eject, eject!" Bang, bang, two seats came out. Before the first chute opened the flaming fighter went nose-first into the ship's wake. A splash, then it was gone.

  "Two good chutes." Another voice on the radio.

  In seconds both the chutes went into the water.

  As Jake went over he spotted the angel coming up the wake.

  "Boy, talk about luck! It's a wonder he didn't blow up," Jake told Flap.

  He was turning across the bow when the air boss came on the frequency. You always knew the boss's voice, a Godlike booming from on high.

  "Texaco, your signal, charley.

  We're going to hot spin you." Jake checked his fuel quantity. Nine thousand pounds left.

  He opened the main dump and dropped the hook, gear and flaps.

  As advertised, the ball was moving up and down on the optical landing system, which was gyroscopically stabilized in roll and pitch, but not in heave, the up and down motion of the ship.

  He managed to get aboard without difficulty and was taxied in against the island to refuel. He kept the engines running.

  In moments the helicopter settled onto the deck abeam g the island. Corpsmen with stretchers rushed out. The stretchers weren't needed. The two Phantom crewmen walked across the deck under their own power, wet as drenched rats, grinning broadly and flashing everyone in sight a thumbs-up.

  Jake and Flap were still fueling five minutes later when two Soviet Bear bombers, huge, silver, four-engine turboprops, came up the wake at five hundred feet. The bombers were about a thousand feet apart, and each had an F-4 tucked in alongside like a pilot fish.

  The flight deck crew froze and watched the parade go by.

  "We could have done a better job up there today," Jake told Flap. "We should have had the second radio tuned into Strike. Then we would have known what Two Oh Seven's problem was without asking. And we should have asked about that wingman. Phantoms always go around in pairs, like snakes." "Those tailpipes in our windscreen," Flap said, sighmig.

  "Man, that was a leemer." Jake knew what a leemer was-a shot of cold urine to the heart. "We gotta get with the program," he told the BN.

  "I guess so," Flap said as he tucked Malcolm X into his G-suit pocket and zipped it shut.

  The air wing commander was Commander Charles "Chuck" Kall, a fighter pilot. He was known universally as CAG, an acronym that rhymed with rag and stood for Commander Air Group. This acronym had been in use in the U.s. Navy since it acquired its first carrier.

  CAG Kai] made careful notes this evening as he li
stened to the air intelligence officer brief the threat envelopes that could be expected around a Soviet task force. Lieutenant Colonel Haldane, his operations officer Major Bartow, and Jake Grafton were the A-6 representatives at this planning session. Jake sat listening and looking at the projected graphics with a sense of relief-the Also's presentation sounded remarkably like his homemade presentation for Colonel Haldane several weeks ago. An attacking force could expect to see a lot of missiles and stupendous quantities of flak, according to the Also.

  "They aren't gonna shoot all those missiles at the first American planes they see," CAG said softly. He always spoke softly so you had to listen hard to catch his words.