Hostile Contact

by Gordon Kent

  The terrain was getting dark under his wings. He wondered if he’d be able to see to land. They had to get down soon. At one level, he was confident in his GPS and his instruments, but he wanted to be there. It would be bad if the S-3 beat them to the road.

  He looked down again, saw the bulk of Shimoni Island against the darkening sky, and matched what he saw to his map. The GPS beeped.

  He was there.

  He flew down the strip, passed it by a mile and turned back to minimize the crosswind that was coming straight off the sea. The plane, though heavy, seemed fine. The fuel gauge said empty, but he probably had gallons of reserve and he couldn’t spare time to worry. He used his flaps to slow and fought the breeze off the sea until the plane was settling on the road almost diagonal to the pavement. A gust from the sea hit him and moved him off center and he put both hands on the yoke to steady up, almost flinching from the pain in his maimed left hand as he gripped with it. And then the wheels touched and they were down, suddenly changing from slow flight over a calm landscape to a very fast drive down a narrow road in a vehicle that wanted to blow right off with every gust. Alan rocked them back and forth, dodging potholes and fighting the sea breeze until they stopped, then taxied them right off the road and into a rocky field with some cassava, where the wheels began to sink into the thin soil. He didn’t care. The plane’s work was done.

  “That concludes your chartered safari,” he said. Triffler already had his door open and was out on the field. Alan thought he might kiss the ground. Harry was slower, but he was the first into the storage compartment. Alan killed the engine, and suddenly the night was quiet. He looked at his watch for the millionth time that day.

  “Maybe thirty minutes. We need lights.”

  Triffler flourished a bag of metal coffee cans and a jerry can of fuel.

  “I’ll see if I can tap what’s left in the reserve,” Alan said. He got another gas can and opened a wing panel.

  Harry was already chopping brush, and Lao simply sat in the plane, watching them.

  Alan was running on empty, but he kept at it, got the can filled, and followed Triffler around, filling the old coffee cans with aviation fuel. Then they ripped Alan’s khaki shirt up for wicks while Harry continued to pile brush for a bonfire at the start of the runway section of the road. Local people began to appear out of the dusk, first two young boys and then an older man. Alan could hear Harry talking to them.

  “Got any Kenyan shillings?” Harry called to Alan. Alan trotted over and gave Harry a wad of local bills. He overheard Harry telling the local man that they were with the Kenyan Air Force. The man laughed. It was like Jim’s laugh in Nairobi, the pan-African polite laugh of disbelief. Alan ran back to the plane and got the signal pistol. Then he trotted back to Harry.

  “If they want to help, get one of them to stand by every coffee can. When I fire the flare, they can light the wicks. Somebody needs to keep the road clear of traffic.”

  There turned out to be no lack of willing hands. Just a lack of lighters. Finally, when Alan and Harry and Triffler had all passed theirs out, Lao contributed one.

  “I thought America was all high-tech,” he said quietly.

  A boy ran up with four bottles of Coke. Alan laughed, too loudly, fatigue and a little insanity mixed.

  “He asked if we wanted them,” Harry said.

  Alan popped the top off his bottle while he scanned the sky. They stood in a little clump in the falling dark, Africans and Americans and one lone Chinese. Alan drank off half his Coke and handed the rest to the tall man standing next to him, who nodded his thanks and finished the bottle. Alan pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and came to a decision. He handed them around until they were all gone. Then he crumpled the pack in his hand and stuffed it in his pack.

  They all watched the sky. Triffler took Lao back to the Cessna and sat him in it.

  Alan heard the engine noise first, a low hum well out to sea that quickly resolved itself into the familiar vacuum-cleaner noise of the S-3. He checked the cartridge in the flare pistol and, as if that itself were a signal, the local people trotted off into the near dark. In the west, the last of the sunset made a brilliant line of pinks and reds.

  He could see the plane. A wind gust caught at the dust of the cassava field and it swirled around him so that he had to turn his head, and he thanked God that it was Rafe coming to land in the crosswind. The landing had been one of the hardest he’d done.

  He raised the pistol and fired, and the flare arced high and ignited in a brilliant spark that brought a shout of approval from the locals. Alan forced himself to run to the Cessna and turned on its lights to mark the end of the runway, and all along the edge he saw Triffler’s makeshift can-lights flame into action. He looked back at Lao, who was silent, immobile. Then he watched the S-3 as it made its approach slipping crab-wise toward the makeshift runway as some of the coffee cans blew out. The S-3 was whispering along, throttles low, and he watched a gust pick it up and move it, but the S-3 was heavier than the Cessna and the pilot got his correction in time to put the plane on the tarmac in a three-point landing, far more elegant than what Alan had managed.

  Alan took Lao by the arm and started to run for the plane. In a moment, it was turning around at the end of the road, lit by the dying headlamps on the Cessna, and Harry and Triffler appeared out of the dark. Alan got the safety hatch open and pushed his head up inside the cockpit. He had a moment of shock when he saw that the face under the pilot’s helmet wasn’t Rafe’s. The landing had been all Rafe.

  “Soleck!”

  “Sir. Hope we aren’t late.” Soleck spoke with a smile, as if he were bursting to say something.

  Alan raised his hand. “We’ve got to get out of here. Ah, Mister Campbell. Please get this gentleman belted in. You brought a spare harness? Too big. Do your best.” He backed out of the well and pushed Lao up into the plane. Back on the road, he began to climb into his own familiar harness, so much better-fitting than the one he had worn at Whidbey Island. It felt like home.

  He pulled the top over his shoulder and zipped the front.

  “We’ve got to find another way of getting some quiet time,” he said to Harry, and hugged him. Harry embraced him strongly.

  “Soon, Alan.”

  Alan didn’t know if Triffler would want to be hugged, but Triffler was there ahead of him.

  “We did it,” was all Triffler said.

  “What about the plane?” Harry asked.

  “Mike’s problem. I’m out of it. Ask the locals to call it in.” Alan smiled at the two of them. “You guys going to be all right?”

  Harry nodded. Triffler looked at Harry. Alan gave them a tired salute and crawled back into the tunnel and then right up into the Tacco seat. He checked Lao’s harness and then pulled the hatch closed, settled into his seat, and clipped his own harness. His helmet rested under the seat.

  “Do you get airsick, Colonel?”

  “Not that I know of. Where are we going?”

  Alan let that go and pulled on his helmet. His helmet.

  Alan plugged in his comm cord to his helmet. He hit PTT (push to talk) on his cockpit display. “Let’s go,” he said.

  They started to move. Lao, odd-looking in a borrowed flight helmet, tried to get Alan’s attention. He pointed at Alan’s helmet, with his name emblazoned in reflective tape.

  “You’re Alan Craik,” he shouted, and started to laugh. Alan didn’t get it.

  They bumped down the road, and then the ride was smooth and they were in the air. In the front, Campbell switched his intercom to FRONT SEAT ONLY and looked at Soleck. When they were less than eighty miles from the boat, he asked, “You okay to land?”

  Soleck laughed. “After this flight?”

  Campbell called their ETA and got a radial for approach. The battle group was on full alert. They had a limited combat air patrol up and an engagement zone set around the carrier. They were ready for a second attack. Soleck wondered where the aircrews were coming fro
m. The air wing would be flying any qualified pilot; men and women on tours as fuels officers with the ship would find themselves in a cockpit if their sinuses were clear.

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. What the fuck—” Soleck felt the fear grab at him again, this time injected by Campbell. He’d been fine until someone had to remind him—

  “Open mike.” Al Craik. Soleck suddenly realized that he had his commander on board and that he had just heard Soleck’s fear and Campbell’s doubts.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “You still having landing problems, Mister Soleck?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alan laughed in the back. It was a rich, free laugh, the laugh of a man who has been under tension for a long time and is now free of it. “Mister Soleck, I want to get back to the boat ASAP with Mister Lao and get some sleep. I don’t want to worry about a landing. Do you get me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “See to it, then.”

  Twenty miles out.

  Soleck took a deep breath and turned for his radial. He wasn’t going to fuck this up. He was going to be good, and lucky, and get the wire just right. He’d shot the cigarette boats; that had required skill and luck.

  He started doing the pre-landing checklist.

  The LSO was having a busy day, and he sneezed and wheezed his way through landing F-18s flown by guys who hadn’t seen a deck in three or four months. It was crazy, because they were flying pilots who weren’t in flying billets this tour. He had to make some hard calls. His temper was frayed and his nerves weren’t all that good.

  He brought an EA-6B down, gave him a late power call, and then gave him a no-grade, the worst thing that a pilot could get from an LSO, short of a crash. It wasn’t a fair call, but the LSO’s temper got worse with every landing.

  “Dickhead,” he muttered. He pulled a wad of dirty Kleenex from his flight suit and blew his nose into the sodden mass. Behind him, two junior LSOs tried to hide from the rain in the shelter of the deck edge. They were all wet. No one could get a cigarette to light.

  “FAG in the break,” one of them called to him. He looked up, watched the F-18 break. Sad. The hottest airplane in the world, and that was the guy’s best break? Then the guy was low in his downwind and slow into the groove.

  “Call the ball.”

  The F-18 called it, with fuel and weight. Somewhere else, another officer with an equally runny nose checked her clipboard and yelled at her chief to get the tension set for an F-18 on the arresting gear. The plane itself dropped toward the deck, his angle of attack excellent but his wings wobbling with overcorrecting.

  The LSO cursed. The F-18 added power when he should have kept his hand still on the throttle and boltered, missing the wires by five feet and thundering off the deck in a shower of sparks. The deck left twilight behind and entered full dark.

  The LSO pounded his fist into the steel side of the ship and hurt it. “For the love of Christ!” he bellowed. “Can’t anybody land a fucking plane?” He looked at his watch, which shone red in his deck light. Ten more minutes on duty.

  He watched the F-18 climb out of his bolter. “Send him around again,” he said into his mike. “Who else is in the stack?”

  “S-3 waiting. Last plane this event.”

  The LSO groaned, knowing full well who was in the S-3. He thought for a moment about “flogging the glass” and handing over the LSO watch to his relief before the S-3 landed. His relief was standing behind him already, staring out into the night and already soaked to the skin. But the LSO had a keen sense of honor, and he knew he was the better LSO. He didn’t shirk.

  “Okay. Give me the bolter again and then we’ll get to the S-3.”

  He watched the guy come around again, still low in the downwind, still flat in the groove.

  “Steady up,” he said quietly. He tried to sound encouraging. The guy’s wings rocked back and forth like a bird’s. It was a dirty night, and the deck was pitching, and this poor bastard probably hadn’t looked at a deck this tour.

  “Good lineup,” he said. He didn’t usually say things like good lineup, but this was the time for encouragement. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought, I’m practicing for the S-3.

  Not great, but steady into the deck and two wire. Too short, too far left, too wobbly. “Two wire and no grade,” he called to his assistant, who wrote it out in grease pencil. His relief muttered.

  “What?” he yelled at her. “What?”

  “You tell him he’s good for lineup and then give him a no-grade?”

  “I told him he was good for lineup, to stop him from fucking with his stick. His landing sucked.”

  Rather than arguing, she nodded. “Yeh. Yeh, it did.” She smiled. “Learn something every day.”

  He turned back to the night. Women as LSOs? The world was coming to an end.

  “S-3 is next,” his assistant called. “Are we taking it or turning over?”

  “We’ll take it,” the LSO called. His assistant and his petty officer both groaned. A bad pilot could extend them on deck by thirty minutes or more, missing landings, getting fuel. You don’t switch LSOs in mid-landing. No one said the name aloud, but everyone knew who was in that plane.

  “Jus’ get Tholeck on deck,” Stevens said from the tower. He had a cold from hell. He also sounded resigned and angry all at once.

  “We’re next to land,” Soleck called from the front. “Everybody ready?”

  Alan unclipped his harness, leaned over the aisle, and checked Lao. Lao looked glassy-eyed and a little airsick. His skin was gray. Alan smiled at him. He felt on top again. Lao represented a major victory, one that would be felt for a long time. He tugged sharply on Lao’s harness and then sat back and belted in to his own. In his ear, he could hear the tower flower coaching Soleck. It wasn’t bad advice, just stuff calculated to send a calm pilot over the edge.

  “. . . and watch the set of your flaps on the downwind. You know the drill. . . .”

  Alan listened for a moment, anger rising. Soleck was as ready to land as he ever would be. Soleck was a trained pilot. Alan didn’t hear Stevens giving advice, he heard Stevens trying to avoid responsibility for Soleck’s failure. Alan hit PTT (push to talk).

  “Break. Tower, this is Alpha Hotel One-Zero-One.”

  “Roger, Wud-Thero-Wud.” Sounded like Stevens, even through the cold.

  “Paul, shut up.” Alan disengaged PTT. He hit INTERCOM. “Just land the plane, Mister Soleck. Wake me up when we get there.”

  Soleck smiled so wide that his cheeks hurt. “Everybody ready?”

  Campbell and Craik both responded.

  “Let’s rock,” said Soleck.

  “S-3 in the break,” called his assistant. The LSO knew it. He’d watched the plane’s lights, listened to the exchange between the tower and the plane, smiled when someone told the tower to shut up. He agreed. Soleck sucked, but he didn’t need to be babied. He needed to make a good landing. He needed confidence.

  He sure did suck, though. The LSO thought of his last few landings.

  “Here we go.”

  The S-3 rotated from horizontal to vertical in one quick motion and went to full power in a turn right over the bridge of the ship. The timing of the break and the smartness of the rotation and the turn made it an excellent break. Soleck was great at the break.

  “Shit hot in the break,” the LSO said. Ordinarily, he would have been too busy with other planes to watch the whole downwind leg, but Soleck was the last plane in the event. He watched as Soleck dumped speed and altitude toward his turn into the groove.

  “On the numbers at the stern,” he called. He was smiling a little.

  A mile away, Soleck turned into the groove. All over the boat, sailors watching the Plat camera from boredom or interest saw the first twinkle of Soleck’s landing lights. He was thirty seconds from the deck.

  “Call the ball.”

  “Roger, ball.”

  Their wires were already set.

  His a
ngle of attack was good. Not great, and there were two little hiccups right out at the start of the turn, when he was correcting something. A little rough.

  Don’t fall apart. Just like that. JUST LIKE THAT.

  Ten seconds from the deck. Down in the ship, on the TVs that blared in every berthing area, Soleck’s lights filled the screen. In the ready rooms, men and women covered their ears.

  Good for lineup. He looked good. The LSO’s heart was in his throat. He wanted to say something. He didn’t.

  The roar and flash of light from the landing S-3 went by and he clapped his hands together in glee.

  “Three wire and okay!” he shouted.

  He slapped the female LSO on the back. “All yours, bud!”

  Harry and Triffler had watched the lights of the plane until they disappeared into the dusk. Then they took a few minutes to disperse the locals, paying each of them a few dollars and thanking them. You never knew when you’d pass this way again.

  Triffler had felt good, the kind of happy fatigue he got after a long run. He had just extinguished the last of the runway lights. The Africans were gone.

  “What do we do now?” he asked Harry. He’d just realized they had no transport.

  “We’re two black guys in Africa, man. What d’you think we do?” He put his arm around Triffler’s shoulders. “We walk.”

  Coda

  Washington.

  “I want to be a special agent, just like you.”

  Leslie had developed a look of almost-religious adoration that she turned on Dukas like a spotlight every time she saw him now. Back for one week, with Lao and his family parked at Pax River, Dukas thought that all his office needed was incense and a few candles for him to feel like a plaster saint.

  “You don’t want to be just like me. For one thing, I don’t look good in a dress.”

  “You’re my role model.”

  That seemed to clinch it for her—if she could use a cliché, it must be true.

  Leslie was holding enough textbooks against her front to cover her from thighs to throat. She had just announced that she was starting night classes in criminal justice and wanted to get her degree so that she could, yes, be a special agent just like Dukas.