Flight of the Intruder jg-1

by Stephen Coonts

  “Yessir.” Jake opened the door.

  “Oh, and by the way, tell your roommate that if I hear of him shitting anywhere but in a head, he’ll eat the damn stuff off the deck.”

  Jake’s mouth dropped open.

  “That’s all, Jake. Good night.” The Old Man chuckled.

  Jake started through the door, then paused for another look at the commander, who took a long pull from his drink. “Don’t slam the door on your way out” Camparelli said smugly.

  “Sit down, Sam.” They were in their stateroom. “Huh?”

  “Sit down. I have something to tell you.” Sam complied, his eyes on Jake’s face.

  “The Skipper knows you’re the Phantom.”

  “What?” Sammy searched Jake’s face. “Are you sure?”

  “For a fact. He knows.”

  “Good God!” Sammy jumped up. “Damn. Who told him?”

  “I think I did.”

  “Gimme a break-come on-“

  “I think he took a shot in the dark and hit the bull’s-eye.” Jake repeated the conversation to Sammy.

  “Man, I’ve never been so surprised-and it showed. When he saw my face, he knew he’d hit the mark.”

  “That old fox. That’s it? Nothing else?”

  “No. That was the whole conversation on that topic, He fired that salvo as I was going out the door.”

  Sammy threw himself on Jake’s bunk. “I’ll be damned,” he howled. “Who’d have guessed it?”

  “Camparelli seems to have done just that. Maybe Cowboy suggested you to him.”

  Sammy thought a moment. “No way, man. Not Cowboy. No, I think you’re absolutely right. The Skipper guessed.” He laughed.

  “Don’t get too tickled, asshole. I’m in hack.”

  “What for?”

  “Throwing that guy to the alligators.”

  “Tough. But don’t sweat it. Any junior officer-“

  “I know, I know.

  ‘-Drawing any water.” But I’m not taking your turn as duty officer next time in port, so don’t even ask. Jesus, I hope I don’t have to make any more of those little trips down to his room.”

  Sammy lay back and mused, “Where can the Phantom strike next?”

  Jake strolled over to the door. “If I were you, shipmate, I’d be a little concerned. Already the Phantom has imitators. Now that Camparelli knows, it may get a little warm for the Winged Wraith if his helpers take it upon themselves to add to his fame and legend.”

  Jake stepped out, leaving Sammy to his thoughts. He wandered along the passageway, his hands deep in his pockets. Stuck aboard the ship the next time in port! It would be three months before he could see Callie again. Camparelli got a pound of flesh, Jake thought glumly, even though he didn’t know it.

  Somewhere a compressor was pounding, and Jake could hear the muffled whine of a power drill, perhaps from the hangar deck above his head. Five thousand men, every one of them leading his own life with his own cares and worries and problems. And every one of them thinking the world revolves around him.

  As he walked through the enlisted men’s mess deck he heard music. He followed the sound. The music throbbed, a driving beat that bounced off the steel bulkheads and echoed down the passageways.

  He found the musicians on a ladder turnaround, similar to a stairwell landing.

  Four black sailors in T-shirts whanged away on electric guitars while one beat a set of drums. The singer, who had a microphone, moved aside without missing a note to let the pilot pass. Jake climbed up to the next deck and went down the passageway a frame or two until the volume did not assault him. He leaned against the bulkhead and closed his eyes.

  The music was Motown, the big city sound, the pulsating beat of Detroit.

  It was the sound he remembered from the radio of his ‘57 Chevy as he blasted along on summer evenings with the smell of mown hay and plowed earth in the air. The music made him long for home.

  On the 0-3 level Jake went outboard until he reached a light-trap, a series of turns in the passageway that prevented light within the ship from escaping.

  He felt his way through and found himself on a ladder leading up four steps to the catwalk that lined the flight deck. Because the shape of the hull funneled air upward, a chilly, spray-laden wind rushed up through the catwalk. The flight deck was at chest height. above Jake’s head, the tails of aircraft were just visible in the dim glow of the masthead lights. The aircraft were parked in rows, wheel to wheel with wings folded. Each plane was backed up with its main mounts against the steel curb around the deck; fifteen feet of its fuselage and tail protruded over the ocean.

  Jake walked forward on the catwalk until he stood at the very bow of the ship. Here the wind came head on. By leaning out over the railing he could see the white curl as the bow cut the black water.

  He rested his arms on the railing.

  He thought of Callie. He tried to recall her face, her voice, her warmth, but it was difficult in the overpowering presence of the night sea. Was it love he felt for her?

  Get a grip on yourself, Grafton. Reality is another long line period.

  More worthless targets, more flak, more SAMs. More bombs to drop.

  Only now McPherson’s dead. Dead for a few acres of splintered trees.

  And what had Morgan believed in? They had never discussed the war, except professionally. War is night cat shots and going in low and fast and hard. And death.

  McPherson. Dead.

  “You should have talked to me, Morg. You should have talked to me.” The sea wind swallowed his words. He was talking to the infinite night that Morgan McPherson was now a part of. “How come we never talked? You should have told me. . . .”

  What would Morgan say to me? I flew with you, Jake, and I lived as you lived and I felt what you felt and I was ready to die when you died. But I died alone. Yet I died swinging, laying the bombs in with a good radar and a good computer.

  McPherson would tell him to keep swinging. Keep riding the cat and laying them in. Keep swinging at a good target. Swing at something that will make a difference. Swing at something that will make them bleed. Swing with a blade in your hand.

  But what can you attack with weapons designed to destroy industrial targets when the enemy has a nonindustrialized, agrarian economy?

  Bridges, railroads, and power plants had all been hammered. There were no oil refineries; fuel was stored in fifty-five-gallon drums, and storage areas were hit wherever they were identified. The one steel mill had been flattened. The Haiphong shipyards had been reduced to servicing only fishing boats. Munition storage sites? When they could be found by photoreconnaissance, they were pounded. Big factories making chemicals, cars, guns, glass, cans, television sets, radios, airplanes, dishes, furniture? Not in North Vietnam. Cottage industries, little shops, did all the manufacturing. There weren’t even any food processing centers, just outdoor markets so typical of Asia where rice and seaweed and rotting fish were sold from flimsy stalls. The dams and dikes were vulnerable, but the politicians refused to target them. So what was left Nothing. Except the people. Their only real resource was people.

  Maybe that was the answer. Maybe the VietNamese communists couldn’t afford to lose their leadership What the hell! He could at least look into it. First, he would need a map of Hanoi that showed the streets an major buildings.

  Abe Steiger was in the Mission Planning space “Don’t you ever sleep?” the pilot asked.

  “Could ask you the same question,” Steiger said a he placed his index finger on the bridge of his glasses and pushed them back.

  Jake shrugged. “It’s been a busy day.” He glanced around, hoping to see a map of Hanoi on the bulkhead He walked over to a chart index of Indochina. “Do you have any large-scale charts of Hanoi? Something that shows the streets?”

  Steiger consulted the index, then searched through the drawers.

  “It’s no big deal,” Grafton added. But he knew Steiger would be curious “I’ve been wondering what Hanoi reall
y looks like.”

  “I know what you mean,” Steiger said as he took a chart from a chest with deep, thin drawers and laid it on one of the tables. “I’ve taken out this one from time to time for the same reason.”

  The chart showed the main streets and major buildings and the bridges across the Red River. That was about all. A bombardier would have a hell of a time constructing a radar prediction from this. “Got anything more detailed?”

  “Naw, this is about it. We’re not National Geographic, you know.”

  ‘Where’s the Hanoi Hilton?”

  Steiger’s finger went directly to the spot where the POWs were kept.

  “This old prison here.”

  Jake lit a cigarette and leaned over the chart. The French, who had been in Indochina for almost a hundred years before being evicted, would have located the important buildings on traffic circles and avenues.

  “Got any pictures?”

  “Some,” Abe said. “Just a minute.” The intelligence officer went next door to where reconnaissance photos were developed, studied, and cataloged.

  About three minutes later he returned with a pile in each hand. “We have a few, but they aren’t too recent.”

  Grafton flipped through the photos. Vertical and side-view shots were mixed together. He glanced at the captions of each, hoping that he would find one marked “Capitol” or “Communist Party Headquarters.” He did find two photographs that showed prominent buildings, and one of the structures had a flag in front of it. But that could be the post office. He continued slowly through the stacks, careful not to show too much interest in any one picture.

  Jake had not yet apologized to Abe for the wardroom scene, although he intended to at some point. He and Steiger were now alone together for the first time since the incident. Jake sensed a coolness between them, but he avoided the subject and limited himself to occasional remarks about the pictures.

  For the most part, the city consisted of endless blocks of three- or four-story apartments-the pictures showed laundry in seemingly every window-and drab squat little factories with smoke stacks. No hotels or tourists here, and no big public monuments like those in most national capitals. Even Karl Marx, Jake thought, would be appalled at this dreary, cheerless workers’ paradise. He found a picture of the remnants of the Paul Doumer bridge and studied it closely. Men had died and airplanes had fallen putting an end to the bridge.

  Jake spread out the photos and scrutinized them one by one. If you could pick any target in the country, he asked himself, what would you bomb? Well, it would have to be here, inside the capital. If they have anything worth a damn, it must be here, in these pictures. But what?

  “Got any infrared photos back there? Steiger looked doubtful. “I’ll see.” As soon as he had disappeared, Jake slipped half a dozen of the most interesting prints into his shirt. He was trying to pinpoint the major buildings on the chart when Steiger returned with three eight-by-tens taken from directly above the city.

  These pictures could be mistaken for time-exposures of the city at night, but the light came from heat sources, not street lamps. The paved streets that had absorbed the sun’s energy showed as faint ribbons Some of the brighter hot spots were probably factories The pinpricks of light might be kitchen chimneys. What else can I learn from looking at these pictures? Jake wondered.

  Would hot or cold air flow out of public buildings? Wouldn’t it depend on the time of day?

  A magnifying glass might help. He realized he didn’t no know enough to interpret the pictures, so he finally handed them back. “Mind if I borrow this?” he asked as he rolled the chart into a tube.

  Down in their room, Sammy was asleep. Jake sat quietly on his bottom bunk and examined the stolen photos again before locking them in his desk safe.

  A significant target-perhaps Communist Party headquarters? If he could drop two or three thousandpounders into it, what a message that would deliver to the Hanoi leadership! The Communists would assume that the American government had ordered the bombing. Perhaps that would drive them to end the war.

  He watched his cigarette tip glow in the dark as he considered the implications of such a raid. It was tempting. This would not be a “suspected truck park” or another raid on a bombed-out rail yard. No, this would be a real target, something worth the trip, a hit that might have a positive effect on the outcome of the war. Communists have a sure feel for gun-barrel politics, Jake told himself. They’d get the message. Of course, they’ll throw everything they own into the air to defend Hanoi, and we’ll have to get through it.

  Morgan would have agreed readily to go after party headquarters, Jake decided, but would Cole? If Cole were a competent bombardier and a fighter, as Jake suspected, perhaps he could be approached. The next few days would tell the tale.

  Jake stubbed out the butt and undressed in the dark.

  It would be so great to smash them!

  FOURTEEN

  Their torsos glistened with sweat in the early afternoon sun.

  Stripped to the waist, wearing bell-bottom navy issue jeans, the ordnancemen worked in teams hoisting the bombs from dollies to the aircraft’s bomb rack almost six feet in the air. Every time they lifted, the muscles stood out. Two different crews worked on the Intruders today. On the “up” shout of the crewleader eight sailors grunted together and the thousand-pound bomb went up to the rack. They held it there with muscle power alone while the crewleader closed the mechanical latches that mated the weapon to the aircraft, then inserted red-flagged safety pins. Where three of the big green sausages hung from each rack one man went from bomb to bomb screwing in the mechanical nose fuses and installing arming wires. The ordnancemen reminded Jake Grafton of a high school football team, all youth and muscle, all wide shoulder and corrugated stomachs, all cheerful camaraderie.

  Several of the men always seemed to find time to chalk a personal message to the North VietNamese on a bomb or two. Everyone had done that the first month of the cruise, but now the novelty had worn off for most. Their fathers had loaded bombs this way and had then written similar messages to the Japanese. One scrawl caught the pilot’s eye: “If you can read this you are one lucky gomer.”

  Jake checked each weapon to see that it was properly installed, then examined the settings on the nose fuses. Each bomb was set to arm after 6.5 seconds of freefall. Today Jake’s Intruder carried a dozen 1000-pounders and a 2000-pound belly tank, over twice the payload of a B-17 on its way to Berlin.

  “Go get ‘em, Mister Grafton,” the crewleader told him as he led his gang off to the next plane. Jake went on with his preflight inspection. The sun felt pleasantly warm on his shoulders, and perspiration moistened his T-shirt as he checked tires, brakes, and door latches. Pausing, he closed his eyes and faced the sun, which he could see through his eyelids. The breeze ruffled his hair. He opened his eyes and looked at the towering cumulus in the bright blue sky. Soon….

  By the time Jake swung into the cockpit, Virgil Cole was already strapped in and checking his charts and information cards. Maggot, the plane captain, followed Jake up the ladder and leaned in to help him with the harness buckles. “How’s your Dad, Maggot?” Jake asked.

  “Doing okay now, Mister Grafton. I called back to Texas like you said. I think he’s going to be all right. Hey, where’re you guys flying to today?”

  The pilot reached into the ankle pocket of his G-suit and pulled out his map. Spreading it out, he stabbed with his finger. “Right there.”

  The plane captain saw green and brown relief for delta and mountains, blue lines for rivers, and dots and circles for cities and hamlets with strange exotic names. “What’s there?”

  “A power plant.” One that Jake knew had been bombed at least three times in the last six months.

  The plane captain asked, “Where’s Hanoi?”

  Jake opened the chart another fold. “Right here. And we’re down here on Yankee Station.” He moved his finger to the Gulf of Tonkin.

  The enlisted man grinned. “G
lad I ain’t going with you,” he said and disappeared down the ladder.

  As usual, the pilot went through the prestart check list from memory, visually and physically checking the position of every switch and knob Within his reach. Jake wiggled into his seat. Aah! he thought. My favorite chair. He closed his eyes and checked the switches again, his fingers closing confidently on each one.

  He compared his watch with the five-day clock on the panel. He had three minutes before the air boss would order the engines started. Down on the deck the plane captain and ordnancemen, Jake noticed, now all wore shirts and helmets and, in case the exhaust of a jet engine blew them into the sea below, inflatable life vests. The pilot leaned back and watched the sunlight and shadows weave through the puffs of clouds. “Sure is a great day to be going flying,” he told Virgil Cole who looked up from his computer.

  “Yep.” The pilot put on his helmet and waited for the plane captain’s start signal. In less than ten minutes they were taxiing toward the number-three cat on the waist, middle, of the flight deck. Planes launched here went off the angled deck instead of the bow.

  As they waited for their turn to launch, Jake watched Warrant Officer Muldowski, who was launching on the waist cats today. The bosun swaggered about the deck like a pirate captain, his belly out and his shoulders back, keeping one eye on Pried-Fly and the light sign mounted there. Once the launch began he was a very busy man, checking the wind speed and setting the steam pressure for each aircraft while monitoring the hook-up of the plane on the other waist cat.

  He launched each plane individually, first signaling the pilot to wind the aircraft up to full power while he inspected it, then taking the salute and giving the launch signal, a fencer’s lunge into the face of the thirty-knot wind. He held the pose, arm outstretched, as the wing of the accelerating machine swept over his head. The wind and hot exhaust blast swirled around him like a gale against a great rock.