The Edge of Honor

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Fuckin’ ghosts is what this is,” muttered Garuda.

  “Ghosts?”

  “Yes, sir, radar ghosts. The Gulf is famous for ‘em, especially when the northeast monsoon comes along.

  Commies must be putting some shit in the air or something, but the radars start seeing contacts that aren’t there. Sometimes you even get what looks like video.”

  “I better call the Old Man.”

  “That’s a roger. But tell him we think they’re ghosts.

  The E-two radar is famous for this shit. I’d talk to staff on the Yankee Station, but the Wager Bird’s gone home.

  I’ll talk to the guys in the E-two.”

  While Garuda conferred over secure UHF voice with the E-2, Brian called the captain in his cabin, but he could not get a reply. He called the exec on the internal admin phones.

  “XO.”

  “XO, this is Mr. Holcomb in Combat. I tried to call the captain but couldn’t raise him. We’ve got five unknown air tracks in the system heading from North Vietnam to Hainan Island. They’re E-two tracks and Garuda says they’re probably ghosts.”

  “Okay. It’s northeast monsoon. But put a Spook Fifty five on one just to make sure. If there’s no video in the gate, just watch ‘em,” the exec said, yawning.

  “Uh, yes, sir, roger that, and do you know where the captain is? I tried the bat phone, but there’s no answer.”

  There was a slight pause at the other end. “I think he may have taken a pill or something. Said he hadn’t been sleeping well with all this bouncing around; the doc was going to give him something. Consider the report made unless something breaks.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Brian said, and hung up the phone.

  “These are ghosts, all right,” said Garuda. “Even the E-two guys think so now.”

  “Anyone have skin?”

  “We don’t, but the E-two has video, but it’s too good, too perfect, all in formation, line abreast like that, all the same speed. The carrier radars don’t see ‘em either.

  There’s no airfield down there, and they’d never pull a stunt like that with the E-two up and the BARCAP on station—they know we’d nail their asses.”

  “SWIC, Track Supe, the E-two has lost video on the air unknowns.

  Dropping tracks from the system.”

  “SWIC, aye. Like I said, ghosts.”

  The hubbub in Combat died down as the word went out that the unknowns were ghosts and not a formation of enemy aircraft. The air controller was explaining to the BARCAP pilots why they could not go roaring down the Gulf in hot pursuit. The E-two continued on its way home to the carrier. Brian refreshed his coffee and brought Garuda a refill.

  “Weird stuff,” Brian observed.

  “Yeah. There’s talk that the original Gulf of Tonkin incident, back in ‘64, was all about ghosts. It was fall and the northeast monsoon was up.

  There’re people who say there never were any PT boats or anything else out there that night.”

  “I’ve heard that story. I think Maddox and Turner Joy had PT boats—I’ve seen the pictures. But the second one, with Morton and Edwards, that was at night. They shot off a couple of hundred rounds of five-inch. Said they held good solid video, and their sonars even heard screw beats, but they never found any sign of wreckage, oil, debris—nothing. And nothing was ever sighted visually.”

  “Yes, sir, but as I remember it, that incident, the second one, was the one they went in and bombed North Vietnam for, like the very next morning.”

  “Well, they’re Commies. They probably deserved it—if not for that, then for something else.”

  “I hear that,” Garuda said with a grin.

  A few minutes later, the door to Combat opened and the captain came into D and D. Brian saw him first and did a double take. Speaking of ghosts.

  The captain’s face was haggard and pale, almost white, scored with deep lines and shadows. His hair looked thinner, and even the Navy foul-weather jacket could not disguise the fact that he had lost even more weight since Brian had last seen him. He wore khaki pants and his bedroom slippers. He held on to the back of his captain’s chair to steady himself against the ship’s slow rolling.

  “Captain’s in Combat,” Brian announced to the world after finding his voice. People turned to look and the noise level began to diminish.

  “XO tells me you had some ghosts?” the captain said.

  Even his voice sounded thinner, Brian thought.

  Brian explained the E-two’s contacts and the sequence of events. The captain asked whether Brian had put a Spook 55 radar on the tracks.

  Brian remembered the exec’s instruction.

  “No, sir, we didn’t. The E-two downed the tracks before we could do it and we had no video to designate to. Neither the forty-eight or the forty radars saw anything, nor did the carrier air-search radars.”

  “Okay. Next time, even if we think they’re ghosts, assign them to the missile systems and take a look, anyway. In the northeast monsoon, you never know what the radars are doing. Everything else quiet?”

  “Yes, sir. So far. Air ops secured about an hour ago.”

  “Okay. And if you can’t raise me by phone, always send someone down to the cabin.”

  “Yes, sir. I did call you, and then—”

  “You did the correct thing, but next time, send someone down.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  The captain looked around Combat for a few seconds and then walked out.

  When he had gone, Garuda let out a low whistle.

  Brian nodded. “Looks like hell, doesn’t he?” Brian said. “I wonder what’s going on there.”

  Garuda took a long drag on his cigarette and shook his head. “I don’t know, but that man looks sick.”

  “I haven’t actually laid eyes on him since the mast cases with the missile techs.”

  “Come to think of it, neither have I. What with these midwatches and everything …”

  “Yeah. Austin says he sees him several times a day for messages and ops briefings. I should ask Vince.”

  Garuda turned around in his console chairs and sequenced through the remaining tracks in the system.

  The 48 picture was unnaturally clear as the northeast monsoon streamed clean, cold Manchurian air across the Gulf and down into the humid river deltas of Southeast Asia. Even though they were over one hundred miles down the Gulf, the carriers could be seen as points of video under then”

  link symbols. The ridges of the coastal mountains in North and South Vietnam were also visible as ripples of amber light on the screens. The BARCAP Phantoms stayed at the far southern end of their barrier line, also clearly visible as pinpoints of light under their Combat Air Patrol symbols. Garuda switched presentations to the SPS-10 surface-search radar and brought the display range down to sixty miles. The coast of North Vietnam jumped into view, as did the point of light representing the South SAR station ship, the guided missile frigate Preble, fifty miles to the southeast.

  “Even the ten is a perfect picture tonight, double its usual range,”

  Brian said.

  Garuda nodded and switched displays again, this time to the SPS-40 radar, the ship’s secondary air-search radar. The 40 radar painted air contacts as large fuzzy blips instead of the pinpoints of the digital display 48, but even the 40 was much clearer than usual, showing the BARCAP Phantoms as relatively small video smears moving along the much larger video cloud bank of the North Vietnamese coast. Garuda went back to the 48 radar and the 250-mile-range scale.

  “Ichiban good radar tonight,” he declared. “Now if only we didn’t have to rock and roll so much to get it—”

  “Yeah, I’m getting tired of this bouncing around. It’s not enough to make you seasick, just enough to keep you tense all the time trying to stay steady. We get this for how long?”

  “The northeast monsoon runs until March or April, and then it gets hot and still again.”

  The radio messenger came into Combat with the night’s stack of
traffic.

  “Yuk,” Brian said. “I guess I’d better go work the paper mountain.”

  Brian sat down at the evaluator table, wedging his chair between the SWIC console and the support stanchion to keep it in one place and pulling the burn bag close. He sipped some cold coffee, made a face, and started in on the four-inch-high stack of messages, scanning each one and discarding most of them into the bum bag. Occasionally, he would set one aside, scribbling a note on it as action or info to one of the other department heads.

  Garuda busied himself at the computer-control key sets, cycling through the system-monitoring panels and checking on the digital health and status of each of three big Univacs one deck below in computer control.

  Hoodoo, the duty AIC, gave an occasional control order to the BARCAP while playing idly with the button controls on his key set and waiting for the first tanker to come up from Yankee Station. Throughout the rest of Combat, people settled into the nightly routine. Over in weapons, Brian could see Chief Hallowell, who was holding down both the FCSC and EC consoles while the first class, FTM1 Barker, was down in missile plot, supposedly holding training with the junior man on watch, FTM3 Warren. Brian made a mental note to go down there later on during the mid and see what was actually going on. Maybe they would do some trial designations with the BARCAP after the first tanker had come and gone.

  He shook his head, trying to clear out the cobwebs. Goddamn mid watch.

  The afternoon had been hectic, with several raids going in over the southern provinces and one actual SAR operation that had tied up both helos for over two hours with no results. The messages began to blur as he stared at them, and he wondered whether maybe he could read with one eye while he rested the other, just for a moment.

  Over in surface, RD1 Rockheart was having no trouble staying awake. He looked at his watch again. Anytime now, they ought to have his ass. The chiefs had set tonight as the night, after Jackson had gone to see the money for himself. Finding some of the marked bills had made the chief’s day. Jackson was supposed to make the call right after 0130. He and Martinez were going to hide themselves in the after officers’ head, which was right across from the Lucky Bag. They would let Bullet get into the locker, get the vent open, and then nail his ass.

  Rocky originally had counted on Bullet’s greed to entice him to go for the hidden cash, but then he had decided that there was a decent chance Bullet would assume Rocky knew about the welder and would have removed the cash himself. So he had added a wrinkle.

  When Jackson had called him in Combat and told him that the deal was on for anytime after 0130, Rocky had stepped into the chart house forward of Combat and called Bullet in a faked panic. He told him that this time, he needed a favor—a big favor.

  “The fucking Sheriff’s got a wild hair up his ass. He just told me he’s gonna have a working party clean out the Lucky Bag and then he’s gonna have a welder fix that vent pipe. I can’t get out of Combat—we’ve got too much shit going on tonight. I need you to go up there and get my money, man. Get it out of there before those fuckers find it. I’ve left a key in the CO-two extinguisher rack right by the scullery. Will you do it?”

  Bullet had laughed softly. “Yeah, man. He already call me. Some of my guys gotta do the cleanin’ out. But lass I heard, you wasn’t too secure with me and my dudes.

  How come you trustin’ me with nine grand all of a sudden, you tell me that.”

  “Hey, man, those are scary guys you got hanging around. I don’t know those guys. But more to the point, the Sheriff finds that money, there’s gonna be hell to pay around here.”

  “You the one with the key; sounds to me like you’d be payin’it’fore I did.”

  Rocky, mousetrapped, had no answer for that, other than his fervent hope that, if nothing else, greed would rule: There would be no way that Rocky could make Bullet give the money back. For a long minute, the line had been silent.

  “OK, man. I do it. Where that key again?” Rocky had told him and then thanked him warmly.

  “I owe you, man.”

  “Sixty-forty?” Bullet had asked slyly.

  “Yeah. Fuck yeah. It’ll be worth it.”

  Rocky looked at his watch again. Anytime now. Any fucking time now.

  “That must be a damn interesting message,” said Garuda as Brian snapped awake. “You been readin’ it for three minutes now.” Garuda was grinning and holding out a fresh mug of coffee. Brian shook his head again, put the message down, and reached for the coffee. He looked at his watch: 0230. Christ. Three and a half hours to go.

  Garuda sat back down at his console, keeping one hand on his coffee mug to prevent it from rolling onto the deck plates.

  “Tanker inbound to BARCAP,” reported the AIC.

  “I’m gonna hold ‘em at the southern end, hook ‘em up, and then tank ‘em in the northerly direction.”

  “SWIC, aye.”

  “Let’s do a trial missile designation on the tanker,” Brian said.

  “SWIC, aye. AIC, call your tanker and tell him we need to shine on him with fire control for a test.”

  “AIC, aye.”

  The AIC spoke briefly to both the BARCAP pilots and the tanker driver, then gave a thumbs-up to the SWIC, who fired off an engagement designation to weapons module, following it up with the announcement that this was a drill. The chief, who had heard Brian’s order, leaned forward and processed the designation; the directors rumbled into action. They had a lock-on in fifteen seconds with both systems.

  “Give’emcwi.”

  “CWI shining.”

  “AIC, get an alert report.”

  “Tanker has SAM warning lights, and so do the BARCAP.”

  “Down CWI.”

  “CWI is down.”

  “Break track; break engage; centerline your systems.

  Good track.”

  “FCSC, aye. Warren says they landed right in the gate.

  He didn’t have to do anything.”

  “Tell him well done,” Brian said. “Guy’s been catching some shit lately.”

  “I heard some of the badasses been picking on him,” said Garuda.

  “Yeah. That and all this extra training. He’s a good kid, but I’ll be glad when we get some replacements for the three shitbirds. At least the systems are seeing well tonight.”

  “Given this atmosphere, I’m not surprised,” said Garuda.

  “I haven’t seen it this clear all cruise.”

  They watched the symbol of the tanker merge with the symbols of the BARCAP Phantoms, and then the AIC reported laconically that he had them hooked up. Brian thought about what that brief report meant: One hundred and twenty miles away, at 42,000 feet in the icy dark, the two Phantom pilots had pulled astern of the tanker aircraft, an A-6 with fuel tanks strapped under the wings, found the twin refueling booms, and driven their fueling probes into the cones, where they would stay mated to the tanker for twenty minutes while refueling. The AIC had effected the rendezvous at the southern end of the BARCAP barrier line and was now bringing the mated trio up the line toward Red Crown.

  “Tanker is sweet,” reported the AIC, announcing that both Phantoms were able to connect and draw fuel.

  Sometimes one or the other would not be able to get fuel; in that case, the tanker would be reported as sour.

  “The big event for the night,” Brian said, sighing.

  “That’s as big as we want it; anything else that goes down at this hour of the morning is by definition bad, and I’m too old for bad on a midwatch,” replied Garuda, reaching for the umpteenth cigarette.

  Down in the after officers’ head, Martinez and Jackson waited to see what would happen. They had been waiting almost an hour, and Martinez was beginning to have some doubts. Like every head in the ship, this one had inadequate ventilation and stank of running seawater and more noxious things. The chiefs had backed out two screws in the joiner bulkhead between the head and the passageway. The resulting peepholes were tiny but gave a direct view of the locker across
the passageway.

  “We could be here all goddamn night,” Martinez grumped. “Man’s got until reveille to get his ass up here.”

  “Keep it down. And I don’t think so,” Jackson said.

  “He’ll come before the watch change at 0345; too many people up and walking around after that.” He peered through the screw hole in the door again. “Speaking of the devil,” he said softly.

  The boatswain leaned down to look through his own peephole. Bullet was bent over the door to the Lucky Bag, working the key. He got it opened, looked both ways up and down the passageway, stepped inside, and closed the door. Jackson had been holding his breath and released it now that Bullet was out of earshot.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now we wait.”

  “Not too fuckin’ long,” growled the boatswain.

  Brian looked at his watch again: 0245. Wow, fifteen whole minutes had elapsed. Wasn’t the time just thundering by.

  He put his finger in his coffee cup. Time for a reheat. The intercom spoke.

  “SWIC, Track Supe.”

  “SWIG, aye.”

  “Track Supe, my forty operator reports a clobbered sector on the forty.”

  “Jamming? You gotta be shitting me.”

  “That’s what he says. I’m lopkin’ at it, and there’s something definitely fucked up with it.”

  Garuda switched over to the SPS-40 display while Brian watched over his shoulder. In place of the clear display of a half hour ago, there was now what looked like a cloud of snow over the landmass of North Vietnam.

  “Supe, that does look like jamming. The forty operator got ECCM fixes in?” asked Garuda.

  “Track Supe, and that’s a negative. That’s a clean screen.”

  “Fixes?” asked Brian.

  “Yes, sir, the forty operator can put antijamming fixes into the system to clear it up. That sure as shit does look like jamming, though. One way to prove it.”

  “Put the fixes in, you mean.”

  “Roger that. If it’s not jamming, the fixes don’t do shit. Supe.”

  “Track Supe.”

  “Enter fixes, serial order.”