Flash Point

by James W. Huston

  “We should do something like Entebbe, like the Israelis did.”

  Big shook his head and scratched his scalp. “I hate to break it to you, Trey, but there aren’t any hostages here. They did all the killing they wanted to. And as to retaliation, you can rest assured the Israelis will do plenty of that. Probably already have.”

  “It doesn’t count. It’s not from us. The world will still think they can kill Americans and it won’t matter. We won’t do anything about it.”

  “I think you need to think about something else for a while. If you ever hope to fly again and get unchained from this desk, you’d better start acting normal.”

  “You still like living in your stateroom?” Woods asked.

  “What kind of a question is that? Am I being evicted? Is the landlord from the second deck going to come and lock me out for failing to pay my mess bill on time?”

  “No, I was just wondering—”

  “Victory 204, Tomcat ball, 4.8,” Brillo transmitted.

  “XO’s on the ball again,” Big said, looking over Woods’s shoulder.

  Woods turned around to watch the television image. The XO was in the middle of the screen and holding the crosshairs steady as he descended toward the deck. Woods and Big could see the horizontal tails moving quickly to correct for minor changes in pitch and roll. The black smoke was barely perceptible on either side of the dangling tailhook as the XO changed power to maintain his perfect rate of descent and accommodate for minor changes in wind direction and strength. He crossed the ramp and held his exact attitude and power setting until the Tomcat slammed into the deck at a five hundred feet per minute rate of descent and the tailhook grabbed the number-two wire. The nose of the plane pressed into the deck and the XO went to full power as he felt his wheels touch the flight deck. The Tomcat rolled down the deck and strained against the arresting wire until it was clear that the wire had won the tug-of-war. The XO reduced power and the hook came loose from the wire. He taxied away from the landing area to the bow of the carrier as he swept the fighter’s wings behind him.

  “Decent pass,” Big said.

  “Good enough,” Woods replied. “I was thinking maybe you’d like to take Tony’s spot in my stateroom.”

  Big considered the offer. “I don’t know, Trey. This is so sudden,” he said, smiling.

  “Well, think about it.”

  “Isn’t there someone more senior who would want it? I’m only a frocked Lieutenant. I won’t start getting paid for it for a few months.”

  “Vialli was a JG.”

  “I never did understand how he scammed a spot in a two-man stateroom when he was a nugget and a mere JG.”

  “Sedge was supposed to take it, but he decided he wanted to sleep in the four-man. He hated being right under the catapult at the water break. Every time the cat went off after he went to bed, which was just about every night, he used to sit up like he’d been shot when the catapult hit the water break,” said Woods, laughing as he recalled Sedge’s reaction. “You get zero warning. We’re at the end of cat three, and you can’t hear it coming. All you hear is this ‘BAAAM,’ when the piston hits the water break. I don’t even hear it anymore, but Sedge couldn’t get used to it. So when Vialli came, he took Sedge’s place.”

  “I could probably handle that,” Big said. “I’m under cat two right now . . .”

  “Plus there’s Bernie the Breather.”

  “Who’s that?” Big asked, his face full of concern. Hedidn’t like there being problems with anyone, especially someone who called himself a “breather.”

  Woods laughed to himself. He lowered his voice. “There’s this pipe that hangs down into our stateroom out of the overhead,” he said, holding his fingers together to indicate a pipe of three inches in diameter. “It stops about three feet from the deck. Just hanging there. It’s between our bunk beds—our racks—and the bulkhead.” Woods got a twinkle in his eye. “And sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, it makes this breathing noise. There’s a valve somewhere inside it, not at the end—the end is open and pointing down at the deck—but somewhere in the lower three feet, there is a flapper valve. And the pipe breathes in, a kind of ‘guuushhhh,’ as it breathes in, then a ‘cuh cuh cuh,’ as the flapper flaps down,” he said, using his hand as a valve flapping against an invisible opening in a pipe. “Guush, cuh cuh cuh. It’s stealing air out of our stateroom,” he said, raising his eyebrows twice and smiling mischievously. “Or, maybe, it’s putting air into our stateroom. Either way, we can’t figure out why, or where the pipe is going.”

  Big looked at him skeptically. “You’re pulling my leg,” he said.

  “Nope. I’m not. You’ll have to see it. I just wanted you to know about it so you didn’t move in and then whine about it. Sedge about went nuts between the water break and Bernie.”

  “Sounds weird.”

  “It’s a great stateroom. It’s not like those other boring staterooms that only have regular deafening noises; we have the regular deafening noises, but we have the unique noises too.”

  “Okay. I’m in,” Big said, shrugging. “How could I not be?”

  12

  Pritch searched under her seat in the ready room for something. Bark watched her struggle. “Need some help?”

  She looked up. “No, sir. Thanks. Just looking for my notepad.”

  Bark sat down and studied the message board. Suddenly Pritch sat down next to him. “Sir,” she said, “can I ask you something?”

  He looked at her skeptically. “You don’t like going to sea and you want to go home?”

  “No, sir, nothing like that. I may be off base, so let me know if I shouldn’t be asking.”

  He frowned in expectation. “What?”

  “It’s about Trey.”

  “What about him?”

  She didn’t know how to begin. “He’s . . . I don’t know. So upset about Boomer. I understand being upset, everyone is. But Trey is over the top. He seems so intense about it. Angry. At the government. What’s going on with him?”

  “You are off base.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “No, it’s okay. We’re like a family. We see each other every day, and we wonder what’s going on with someone if they’re acting odd. Well, he is. And I know it. And I’ve taken steps to reel him back in. We’ll see.”

  “What’s it about? Anything more than meets the eye?”

  Bark lowered his voice. “I take it he’s never shown you the notebook.”

  “Notebook?” she asked. “What notebook?”

  “Pan Am Flight 103.”

  “What about it?”

  “He has a notebook with every scrap of news or evidence or speculation in it. News reports, book excerpts, photographs, his own notes trying to figure it out, you name it.”

  “Why?”

  “He wants to know what happened, and why the U.S. didn’t do anything about it. He’s got all kinds of theories—”

  “Like what?”

  Bark thought. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I got the speech. He doesn’t talk about it much. He’s afraid people will take him for a fanatic or something, like one of those people who’ve obsessed about the Kennedy assassination for decades.”

  “Is he obsessing?”

  “Probably.”

  “What theories?”

  “Oh, let’s see. I remember he said that the Libyan thing might be a red herring. Israel started planting stories about Libya being responsible hours after it happened, and the press swallowed it. Some group. L-A-T, or something—”

  “LAP?”

  “Yeah, I think so—”

  “That’s Israeli. Department of Psychological Warfare.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just do.”

  “If you say so. Anyway, they started accusing Libya—calling journalists all over the world to plant the story—then spread rumors Syria and Iran were involved, and then that Iran did it as revenge for the shoot-down of the Irani
an airliner by the USS Vincennes a few months earlier. But then it gets real complex. He loses me, but he says there was some illegal CIA group dealing drugs in the Middle East, and it was tied in to the Iran-Contra thing for funding the Contras, and that that group was on board the plane. They were called KOREA, or something like that. No, COREA, that’s it. And there was an American Army hostage rescue team on board that had been in the Middle East and one of the guy’s suitcases disappeared from the accident scene and was suddenly returned empty. That the COREA group had been tipped off by German intelligence that a bomb was aboard the plane, but didn’t do anything about it . . . I can’t remember it. I couldn’t really follow it when he was telling me about it.”

  “He has information on all that?”

  “Oh, yeah, and more. He has stuff from the attorney who represented Pan Am in all the suits from the accident. Trey wrote to him. The attorney got on the scent of all this stuff about the cause of the accident and subpoenaed the CIA, the FBI, the FAA, the NSC, and NSA. The government wouldn’t give him anything. Claimed it invaded national security.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep. It’s all very mysterious. Then those two Libyans were sent to trial in Scotland for the thing. He just scoffs at all that. The thing that really got him though was reading in some book that Israel sent one of its Mossad case officers from London—”

  “A Katsa?”

  “I don’t know what they’re called, anyway, sent him to Lockerbie hours after the crash. Why would you send an intelligence agent to the site of an airplane crash?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Anyway, he’s got a lot of skepticism. He distrusts the Israelis, the CIA, and the general approach of the U.S. to terrorism. He thinks it’s all a game to them.”

  “Incredible,” Pritch said. “Why does he care so much about Pan Am 103?”

  “His father was on it.”

  Pritch gasped. “Truly?”

  “Yeah. He was in London on business. Coming home for Christmas.”

  “That must have killed Trey.”

  “He was sixteen.”

  “I had no idea.” She sat quietly. “Does everyone in the squadron know this?”

  “A few.”

  “Thanks for telling me. I wish I could help him somehow.”

  “There’s nothing anyone can do. He’s a big boy now. He just has to deal with it.”

  As soon as Woods turned on the overhead light Lieutenant Big McMack rolled over in his rack and pulled the Navy gray wool blanket over his large head. “What are you doing?” he asked, offended.

  “Getting dressed,” Woods replied. “What do you think I’m doing?”

  “Do you have to do it with the overhead light on?”

  “It’s six-thirty, Big. Time for all good Navy pilots to be out of the rack. Didn’t they teach you that as a Golden Bear Cub in Junior NROTC at UCLA?”

  “I didn’t get in until one this morning when you were getting your academy-puke beauty sleep.”

  “What can I say?” Woods replied, lacing up his black leather flying boots. “I was in HAQ for three long days, but now I’m back in the good graces of the Skipper, I’m back on the flight schedule, and I’ve got the second brief this morning. Not the first brief mind you, not the one that would have required that I be there at 0630; no, I’ve got the brief for the second event, which briefs at 0800. Which has allowed me to take a shower, to go now and get some breakfast—a five-egg omelet with bacon, ham, and cheese should do it—and then I’ll stroll down to the ready room and brief for a hop in which I will intercept numerous Air Farce F-15Es trying to sink our home and get our stereos wet, and properly kick their asses.” He stood up and looked at Big’s general outline underneath his blanket. “Who wrote this incredible flight schedule?”

  “You’re making me sick,” Big replied.

  “Well, I’m off. Don’t wait up,” Woods said as he opened the steel door to the passageway. “Do you want me to turn out the light?” he asked. He answered his own question before Big could. “Nah, you’re getting up anyway,” he said, closing the door and leaving the light on.

  “Trey!” Big yelled helplessly.

  Woods stood outside the door for five seconds, then reached in and turned off the light before locking it behind him.

  Woods and Wink walked out to their airplane at 0830. It was as clear and beautiful a day as either could remember. Blue everywhere, the sparkling ocean, and the crystal clear sky, divided only by the razor-thin horizon that was visible only because of the color difference between the water and the sky.

  They handed their helmet bags and knee boards to Airman Benson and stared at the ocean. Woods noticed that Wink was looking up. “What you got?”

  “Intercept of an F-15,” Wink replied, pointing and smiling.

  Woods saw them immediately. He could hear the distinctive sound of the Tomcat’s engines. “The sound of freedom! I love it!” The F-15 was heading straight for the ship and descending on the way. It was about three miles out and hard to see. Woods saw the F-14 to its right running an intercept on the F-15.

  “Who’s up?” Wink asked.

  “XO and Brillo,” Woods replied, naming the crew he had written into the flight schedule last night for the first hop of the day.

  They watched as the F-14 lowered its nose to cut across the circle and get to the F-15 before he reached the ship. “He’s doing a low yo-yo,” Wink observed.

  “He’s a little low to try that.”

  They stood in their flight gear and watched the F-14 approach the F-15. Others on the flight deck were staring. It was rare for them to see an F-14 flying that fast after another airplane so close to the carrier. The sky was completely clear except for the two fighters.

  The F-14’s nose continued to drop toward the ocean.

  “He must be doing five hundred knots,” Woods remarked, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the steepness of the F-14’s dive.

  “At least.”

  “He’s going to be in some deep shit if he doesn’t pull up,” Wink said, watching with building terror.

  The F-15 was within a mile of the carrier and continuing to increase speed and move lower toward the ocean. The Tomcat’s nose continued down and was now pointed directly at the water a thousand feet above the carrier and right in front of it.

  “He doesn’t know where he is!” Woods exclaimed; he and everyone else on the flight deck knew what the Tomcat pilot didn’t.

  “Pull up!” Wink screamed.

  “Get out! Get out!” Woods joined in, watching helplessly.

  Others on the flight deck were yelling futile instructions at the Tomcat.

  The F-14 couldn’t hear them. It made the sound of a breaking baseball bat as it plunged straight into the sea at six hundred knots and vanished beneath the surface.

  Woods and Wink dashed madly to the bow of the carrier as the Captain tried to stop the Washington’s forward momentum.

  The F-15 screamed overhead and banked to see the point of impact in the water. The Eagle pilot pulled up and headed back to Italy.

  The sea boiled with white foam from air and jet fuel and energy where the Tomcat had just buried itself. Woods could feel the deck of the carrier shuddering as the enormous screws reversed themselves to slow the ninety-five-thousand-ton behemoth to a stop. Woods and Wink searched the water for any sign of life or of hope. All they saw were small pieces of honeycombed airplane parts floating quietly to the surface.

  “They bought it,” Wink said.

  Woods nodded, fighting back the desire to scream, or throw up, or quit flying. “Let’s go tell the Skipper,” he said. They found the nearest ladder down to the 03 level from the flight deck and worked their way back quickly to the ready room. Word had somehow already spread through the ship. All the sailors in the passageway could tell the officers needed to get by and made a hole allowing them to pass.

  They turned into Ready Room Eight. They knew by the long faces that word of what had happened had
preceded them.

  Woods looked at Bark. “The XO?”

  Bark nodded, his face dark with sadness. “I need you to head up the on-scene accident investigation team.”

  “Yes, sir,” Woods replied automatically.

  “There’s a helo turning on deck. It’ll take you over to the David Reynolds. They have a motor whaleboat in the water. They’re waiting for you. Recover what you can. Check for signs of malfunction or fire.”

  “Yes, sir,” Woods said.

  “Any questions?”

  Woods spoke quietly. “There wasn’t any fire, sir. They just flew into the water. I saw it.”

  “I know. We’re just going to do this by the numbers. . . . How am I going to tell his wife? Three daughters.”

  Woods put his helmet on a chair, then wondered where his knee board was. Still in the plane, he recalled. Then what Bark had just said hit him. He remembered the XO’s daughters. They had come to the last squadron party before their father left on cruise. “How old?”

  “Eight, ten, and twelve.”

  Woods hated the senselessness of it. “It’s not worth it.” His frustration boiled over. “What are we doing out here, Skipper?”

  Bark thought about it. “Brillo. All he wanted was to get married and have a family. Never even got the chance. He didn’t even have a girlfriend.” He forcibly shifted his focus. “Get up to the flight deck.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Woods walked quickly out of the ready room and hurried down the passageway to his stateroom, grabbing his flight jacket. He slipped it on while running toward the island and the waiting helicopter. He reached the office on the flight deck and looked around for the transportation officer.

  A First Class Petty Officer approached. “You the one going to the David Reynolds, sir?” At Woods’s nod, he handed him a cranial helmet and flotation rest and opened the hatch to the flight deck.

  “Follow me, sir,” he said.

  Woods walked quickly after the man, heading for the SH-60, which was on the aft-most helo spot. Its rotors were turning.