by Tom Kratman
McCaverty unkeyed his microphone, looked at his own fuel gauge and said, "Fuck."
Looking again out his left window, he saw Two land fairly effortlessly. Sure, it bounced for a bit and for a moment it looked like it would veer over the side. But Two's pilot regained control and righted the thing within a hundred and fifty feet of first touching down. Within a couple of minutes, the engine was dead and a portion of the deck crew was pushing the plane back, then lifting the tail to turn it forward again.
McCaverty asked, "Four are you ready?"
"Roger. If the swabbies can get their timing right."
"Both of you need to have your timing right."
He held his breath, this time, as Number Four came in. He didn't begin to breathe again until he saw it safely landed and being pushed out of the way.
"Number Five, your turn," McCaverty said.
The answer was clear and confident. "Roger."
"Do it. Pay attention to-"
"Six, this is One. I'm practically dry. I've got to get in fast."
"You're after Five, One."
Again, McCaverty held his breath as Five came in. His landing was, if anything, smoother than Two's.
"One, Six. Go; but be careful."
Number One didn't answer. McCaverty watched the approach, watched the flight deck crewman trying to wave One off, then watched as the pilot ignored the signal and came in anyway.
Smith, flying Number One, was a hotshot. He knew it; everyone back in the Navy had known it. At least, everyone had known it until he made one little mistake. One little fucking mistake and they beached me, the bastards.
But in his own view, he was still a hotshot. Thus, it was confusing when he came in to a flight deck, and none of the signals he was used to as a carrier pilot were present in quite the same way. A landing on a real carrier had what amounted to a lot of automation to help the pilots. This kind of landing was more touchy feely, almost like the carriers of the Second World War.
And it was damned strange. And disconcerting. And Goddamit, I'm nearly out of fuel. And . . .
The rising bow caught the landing gear and snapped it off like three spindly twigs. The plane almost flipped over and did nose dive into the deck. McCaverty couldn't see it, not even with the NVGs, but his mind's eye provided the detail of the propeller blades shattering into thousands of splinters. For some distance, Number One skidded on its nose, tail in the air. Then the tail came down to the deck. This failed to stop the skid which continued all the way to where Number Five was resting. McCaverty saw people, presumably Five's pilot and the deck crew that had manhandled it as far as they had, scattering to either side, like kitchen roaches when the light came on, as One slammed into its predecessor.
While that deck crew was scattering, a different crew was racing out with large but portable fire extinguishers. If there was any fire, and McCaverty had reason to believe there was, these killed it.
I hope Smith didn't kill himself, McCaverty thought, because that privilege is owed to me.
"Up!" Coffee shouted into the female medical barracks containers. He sounded positively happy. "Up, you refugees from . . . " he was about to say "bordellos" then realized that was a little too close to the unpleasant truth. "Up, I said."
In seconds, the area in front of the female medical barracks was a seething sea of half-covered female flesh, not all of it young. Instead of the sound of the surf, however, there was a confused and confusing medley of mixed English, Romanian, and Mandarin.
Phillie led the pack. "How bad is it?" she asked, breathlessly. "Have you notified Doc Joseph?"
"He's already standing by in OR," Coffee answered. His voice went from happy to somber and serious. "Two of them are pretty bad."
"I understand." Then Phillie said something that endeared her to Coffee completely. "Follow ME, girls!"
***
McCaverty's engine sputtered out just as Number Three made a safe landing. It had taken precious minutes to get one of the small earth movers they'd once used in Brazil out on deck to push the wreckage of One and Five safely out of the way. Those minutes had been a few too many.
"I can't land," McCaverty informed the bridge. "I . . . " He checked his position relative to the ship, made some assumptions about his glide path, then continued, "I can splash in about two hundred meters to port. Please have the Bastard pick me up."
"Roger. Bastard standing by."
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Every carrier landing is graded . . .
-U.S. Navy SOP
D-Day, MV Merciful, seventy-seven miles
southwest of Soqotra
Drumming his fingers impatiently on plywood, McCaverty sat cross-legged over the chart house. Around him, a puddle formed from the water released by his dripping clothes. The puddle was actually more of a wet spot, as the curvature of the plywood allowed and encouraged excess to run off to the sides. His face, normally cheerful, was grim.
"I'm going to kill that stupid son of a bitch," he muttered for roughly the hundredth time since being picked up.
Powerless, and with full flaps down as he'd neared the water, McCaverty had slowed to just under forty miles an hour. A well timed pull of his stick had lifted the plane's nose up, so that he touched down with the tail. That sudden increase of resistance in the tail had slowed the plane rapidly, though less rapidly than a nose dive would have. Instead, the tail-touch had caused the tail to nearly rip off and the fuselage to slam down almost vertically. At that, the plane had so nearly stopped that only McCaverty's safety harness had kept him from being thrown into his instrument panel.
While the harness might have saved him from any number of cuts and contusions, or worse, it had had the unfortunate effect of holding him fast inside the plane as the latter had rapidly filled with water-most of it surging through the new gaps by the tail-and gone under. If he'd panicked for an instant, he'd probably never have gotten out. As it was, the plane had been ten or fifteen feet underwater-he really couldn't be sure-before he'd managed to extricate himself and swim to the surface, there to be met by a smiling Chinese with a small life ring from which a line ran to the idling patrol boat.
They'd picked him up, gotten him-wet and shaking, with residual fear, not with cold-aboard, and then eased in toward the ship. He held in his hand, the one where the fingers weren't drumming, a good sized glass of lukewarm whiskey placed there by the patrol boat's captain, Chin.
Bastard inched up to the net that had been hung over the side. Looking up at the gantry's whine, he saw a fairly large platform composed of welded I-beams being lowered onto two projections from the hull. The platform, he knew, would be covered with PSP to provide a landing spot for one of the compliment's five-two of them now in Yemen-helicopters. A similar structure was to be erected on the starboard side, assuming that hadn't been done yet.
Probably hasn't been done yet; I don't see where they've had time.
Chin turned the wheel over to one of his crew and stepped up to where McCaverty sat. "You've a choice, pilot," the Chinese said. "You can wait for us to rig the patrol boat and get hoisted aboard that way, or you can scramble up the rope net."
"I have someone I need to kill," McCaverty answered. "And justice won't wait." He tossed off the remnants of his drink and walked unsteadily to the net.
The hand that helped him over the gunwale belonged to the commander of the aviation company, Mike Cruz.
Cruz waited until McCaverty had his feet on deck before saying, "We now have either one extra pilot or two of them. We don't need you to fly. On the other hand, we've got five men hurt, two of them badly. So, junior birdman, your flying days for us are over; you're a doctor again. No, it isn't because you did anything wrong. Ya done good . . . under the circumstances. Now get your ass to surgery and give Doc Joseph and the Chinese woman a hand."
As McCaverty started to leave he turned his head over his shoulder. "How much damage did it do to the flight deck?" he asked.
"Essentually none," Cruz answered. "Amazing stuff, PSP."
It reeked.
"You McCaverty?" asked the surgeon at the other table. Blood sprayed through one of his hands while the other, holding a hemostat, sought out the vessel from which the blood spurted.
"That's me," he answered.
"I'm Joseph, Scott Joseph. This guy's a mess. I'll be lucky to save his legs. Really lucky. But that may not matter because his skull's caved in. I cut a goodly chuck of it away to relieve the pressure. But he's got bone fragments stuck in his brain that are way beyond my skill set to remove. I understand you're neuro."
"Yeah." Automatically, McCaverty looked at his hands. Steady as a rock, which they weren't when they picked me up. Must be the whiskey Chin fed me. Ordinarily, really crappy idea to operate after drinking anything. In this case . . . might be the only possible idea.
"Well don't just stand there with your teeth in your mouth. Get to work."
"Yes, sir." McCaverty looked at the patient and said, "We've got to save this one."
"Any reason in particular, beyond the Hippocratic Oath?" Joseph asked.
"Yeah. I need him to get better so I can kill him."
Joseph laughed. "Sheeettt."
D-Day, MV Merciful, thirty-two miles east of Ofone, Ophir
"Mierde," said Luis Acosta, the headman of the Mexican ground crews, as he looked over the wreckage of the two aircraft, under the gantry and pushed off to the port side. "Shit."
Acosta was a bit over thirty years old, short, stout, brown, and with stiff black hair that jutted almost straight up from his hairline before rolling its way back over his head. The other sixteen Mexicans clustered around him, ten on one side, six on the other. All from the same area-Guadalajara-and many of them related; they tended to look much alike. Only one was substantially taller and he was also much lighter.
Manuel, Acosta's number two, and the tall, light skinned one, shook his head and said, "Man . . . Luis . . . no fucking way. I mean no fucking way. Shit. How much time did you say we have?"
"Twenty hours," Acosta replied. "That's when we need to have made one good plane out of these two wrecks."
Manuel looked again at the wreckage. "Man, I can't even tell where one plane ends and the other begins. Shit." Manuel sighed, and asked, "What did you say they'd pay us if we can make one out of these two?"
"The bonus? Seven thousand pesos. Each."
"Ohhh. Well, fuck; that's different. What the hell we waiting for? Let's start sorting and inventorying parts, man. Seven thousand pesos and I'll carve us any parts we need."
Manuel glared to his right and left at the others. "What are you maricones waiting for? Didn't you hear the man? Seven thousand fucking pesos if we get one of these things running. For a day's work? Move it, you chingada assholes!"
D-Day, Bandar Qassim, Ophir
All in a night's work. They'd done it; the thirty-six most dangerous or economically significant ships and boats in the inner and outer harbor were mined. Now, out past the harbor mouth, Antoniewicz and Morales treaded water while waiting for Simmons to raise the submarine.
"Where the fuck is he?" Morales asked aloud. He took his GPS from his belt and raised it above water, pressing the query button as he did so. "We are exactly where we're supposed to be. Exactly."
"Relax, Morales," Eeyore said. He glanced at his own watch. "Simmons has four minutes before he's due to rise." His face acquired a puzzled look. "Did you hear something?" he asked.
"Something like an out of tune lawnmower? Now that you mention it, yes." Arms being busy, Morales pointed with his chin. "It's coming from over there."
They'd both rotated their night vision monoculars away from their eyes and turned them off once they'd passed the mouth of the outer harbor. Eeyore now rotated his monocular back into position and turned it on.
"Oh, fuck," he said.
The second pirate ship limped; there was no better word.
Oh, sure, cursed the captain, we went out in high style. looking for the best prize we'd heard of lately. Quite a show, the bow cutting the waves and the men waving their rifles and RPGs like they meant business. And then the fucking infidel engine decided to go asthmatic on us. Even a stinking fat merchantman can outpace the miserable seven or eight knots we can do.
The captain looked behind him and down and spit at the engine. That wasn't satisfying enough. He turned the wheel over to another and walked to the housing, delivering it a solid kick. Bastard.
"Captain," the helm called out, "we've got something coming up out of the water."
Simmons had timed it pretty well, he thought, raising the small sail within two minutes of when he'd been supposed to. Setting the engine to idle, he backed off to all fours then pedaled back to where he could sit and then nearly stand. He took a quick glance out of the sail's forward, wrap-around, view port-which was also the direction any threat was most likely to come from-and saw nothing to worry him. Then he reached overhead and turned the wheel to open the hatch. It opened with only minimal sound and with little salt water dripping in. With the hatch out of the way he was able to stand up fully to scan for his two mates. As soon as he stood, he heard the asthmatic coughing of a marine engine in truly sorry shape, coming from close behind him. He barely had time to register the sound and turn when something close by struck the sub, right on the tower.
Nothing cracked, Namu was small and slight enough to give readily in the water. But the angle of the strike pushed it over, rotating the sub about its long axis. The boat-Simmons realized it was a boat-began to ride up on the sub, forcing the turn to continue. And then water began pouring into the open hatch.
"What the hell was that?" the pirate skipper asked.
"I don't know," the helm answered, "but we hit it and it went under."
The captain considered this for a few moments, before ordering, "Engines, all stop. And some of you ferret-faced weasels break out a half dozen or so grenades. Maybe we can force whatever is down there up again."
"By the way, did you see it?" he asked.
The helmsman shrugged. "Yeah, maybe, kinda, sorta."
"What did it look like?"
"Well . . . I didn't see much, but I thought it looked a little like a killer whale. You know, like those ones in the movies."
Struggling against the push of the in-rushing water, Simmons managed to get one hand on the hatch's wheel. He pulled for all he was worth, the water resisting even his prodigious strength. He managed to close the hatch, and to dog it, too, but not before the minisub was more than half full of water and sinking. The lights stayed on, which was some comfort. Life support, however, choked and died. Simmons doubted he'd be able to get the thing off the bottom once it settled down.
With water above his thighs, and the sub slowly sinking, he said, "I'm so fucked."
***
"Come on," Morales insisted, "we've got to go get Simmons out."
Eeyore put a restraining hand on his team mate and answered, "Yes, but not yet."
"Why?"
The answer came in the form of a small flash on the boat, followed within a few seconds by a wallop that came through the water and that felt highly analogous to being kicked in the testicles.
After half an hour, and the expenditure of a dozen grenades, the captain decided that if there were anything down there, it wasn't coming up for anything he could do. Shaking his head again, and spitting once more at the engine, he said, "It was probably nothing. You said it looked a bit like a killer whale?"
Again, the helmsman
shrugged. "Yeah. They're rare around here, I know, but they're here. Seemed kind of small, too."
"Hmmm. Small, you say. Well . . . let's get to harbor and get this fucking engine in the queue to be fixed before its mother shows up."
"Oh, man, that hurt," Morales moaned.
He and Antoniewicz had swum off as fast as possible once the first explosion had gone off. At the range they'd stopped at, the eleven explosions that had followed had still been unpleasant, but not at quite the kicked-in-the-balls level of pain the first one had been.
"Yeah," Eeyore agreed. "Hey, look, they're moving off. Let's give them a few minutes and we'll see what we can do, if anything, about Simmons and the sub."
Namu hadn't been all that impressed by the explosions, even though they could be felt. Simmons, on the other hand, had been.
If whoever it was hit me had taken off, I'd have hyperventilated, cracked the hatch, let the sub fill, and then swum out. But I can't swim in an area being depth charged. Shit.
Already the air was noticeably stale.
This is not how I intended to die, Simmons thought. Not at all. Shit.
"This is about where Simmons surfaced," Eeyore said. "He's not going to stop short of the bottom, so head straight down and then north, then east. I'll do the same and head south then west."
"What do we do if we find him?" Morales asked.
"Assuming he's alive but that the sub is fucked, one of us can share a tank until we get him to the surface."
"Yeah."
"Okay, then. Monoculars on. We'll come up every twenty minutes to coordinate."