Although a shadow of his former warrior-self, he, too, would fight. He was many gin bottles away from the youth he had been, and—despite the condition of the flesh downstairs—the membrane upstairs was as formidable as it had ever been. Having traded his Royal Navy uniform for a herringbone Armani suit and big paychecks, he was director of British Aerospace’s Systems Surface Fleet Solutions, the division of the company that built aircraft, munitions, and defense systems; a company that was one of the principal providers of hulls for the Royal Navy. Today, however, his suit hung in a locker, and instead, he had clothed himself in blue coveralls. Despite the downgrade of his physicality, this man stood as strong a patriot as ever, perhaps even more so. He focused on one goal: the recapture of the Falkland Islands. Both men wore white hard hats, more symbols of safety than a desire to be safe. After all, times were desperate and thus required desperate measures. Despite superficial differences, both men called themselves mates. They had known each other since the Second World War, when both were young engineers working on ‘Q-ships,’ heavily armed merchant vessels that, with weapons concealed, would lure German submarines into making surface attacks. These wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing then opened fire. Having faced impossible odds before, these men took stock of their current position.
A former adversary had recaptured a far land that had been fought over before, a land that had taken blood and treasure to keep in the fold. However, they were both certain of one thing: this land was worth both these things again—the fight and the treasure—and the loyal citizens that tilled its soil and fished its seas deserved even more so. The two men paused on the high steel of a walkway. They surveyed Scotstoun shipyard. Beneath their perch was the 229-foot cargo ship Moon Breeze.
The dry-docked ship was a beehive of activity. Her black freeboard and white superstructure were being painted haze grey, her white waterline and red bottom: black. Gantries traversed the ship’s beam, slinging plates of steel to be welded to a trussed frame that stood proud of her decks. Branched black towers were being mounted atop her bridge. They held domed and flat arrays, each with tendrils of wires waiting to be connected. While this occurred, old familiar allies were mustering too, and their support was in transit.
◊◊◊◊
USNS Fred W. Stockham plied the waves of an Atlantic squall. She dove into troughs and climbed the wave faces to the crests, crashed back down and plunged into the seas, a wash of milk-white foam rushing off her bow.
An American container & roll-on/roll-off support vessel, Stockham made way as fast as the sea-state permitted, pushing on toward the sunrise. Black like the deep ocean water, and covered with cranes and hoists, her 900-foot length rode up and over the latest pile of water. She slammed back down. Stockham’s hull creaked as her bow plowed in and parted the water. Her steel ribs vibrated under the torment.
Activity in the ship’s hold hummed as the hull’s steel frame quivered like a tuning fork. Within the cavernous space were row upon row of shrink-wrapped aircraft. Toward the ship’s stern, sailors braced themselves against the roll of the ship’s hull. They peeled back the cover from one of many airplanes that were aboard.
With canted tails that jutted from either side of a single engine’s gaping maw, the sleek jet sported a golden canopy above forward-leaning engine inlets, diamond-shaped wings, and a sharp faceted beak. Any opening in the fuselage—the vent for its lift fan, the doors for its landing gear, or the windows for its myriad sensors—was accentuated by saw-toothed, radar deceiving lines. This F-35 Lightning II ‘Bravo,’ a short take-off and vertical landing version of the new fifth-generation multirole fighter, had been built for the United States Marine Corps. However, at this time, the airplane was needed elsewhere, needed by an age-old friend, and had gladly been shifted from inventory.
Within Stockham’s hold, an American sailor sprayed olive-drab paint over the starred and winged roundel already there, over unit numbers on the aircraft’s empennages, and the word: ‘MARINES’ that adorned its tail. When the paint had dried, the sailors applied new stencils to the Lightning II’s radar-absorbent material, and began to spray colors. When peeled back, the first stencil left behind a red, white, and blue bulls-eye that, through history, has graced Avros, Bristols, Sopwiths, Hawkers and Supermarines, and British Aerospace, and Eurofighter aircraft. With a whiff of polyester urethane Jet Glo Express, this proud bulls-eye now shined on a Lockheed Martin creation, and it would shield an island. Proud of his work, the sailor waved away help from another, and chose to apply another stencil by himself. He carefully taped it into position on the aircraft’s tail and sprayed the body of the F-35B. The sailor removed the paper outline. He revealed the name of the new owner of this Lightning II:
‘ROYAL NAVY.’
Table of Contents
Copyright
Books by Peter von Bleichert
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
DEDICATION
CHARACTERS
NOTES
BRIEFING
PROLOGUE: CABAL
Six months later…
1: KALAT
2: DOGO
3: KELPERS
4: WAYLAY
5: DRAKE’S DRUM
6: WHITE DOVE, WHITE HARE
7: ARAPUCHA
8: TANGO
EPILOGUE: GRITTED TEETH
Crown Jewel: The Battle for the Falklands Page 13