Flight of the Intruder jg-1

by Stephen Coonts

  “I’m sorry, Skipper. I know we’ve blown your trust.”

  The skipper rubbed the side of his head with the heel of his hand.

  “Yes, you sure as hell did, Jake.” He turned to Parker. “Cowboy, you and I better get some sleep. Grafton isn’t flying and neither is New, so somebody has to. First brief at 2200.” He looked at his watch. “Six hours from now.”

  Cowboy stood up. “Jake,” the skipper said, “when we’re in that hearing tomorrow, I want you to make damn sure you tell the truth. Tell the God’s truth and let the chips fall where they will and maybe somehow we’ll all be able to live with this.”

  In the passageway Jake apologized to Cowboy, who momentarily put his arm around the smaller man’s shoulders. “Nothing to apologize for. I just wish you’d wasted that building and the entire goddamn National Assembly.”

  Jake went to his room and locked the door.

  He thought about pouring a drink but decided against it, a warm can of Coke would do instead.

  The untidy room and the pale green walls and the sounds of the ship weighed on him. He wanted Callie McKenzie with him and not just for a night or weekend. He didn’t even have a photograph of her.

  He dug through the stuff on his desk until he came up with a writing tablet with white, lined paper. Halfway through the first page, he suddenly wanted to buy an engagement ring for her the next time he was in port.

  If he could get off the ship. Then he remembered he seen some rings in the window of the ship’s store. Maybe it was still open. Checkbook in hand, he slammed the door behind him.

  They sat in the empty wardroom next to the lounge where the hearing was being held. Jake and Tiger were there, as well as Sammy, Cowboy Parker, and A Steiger. COmmander Camparelli and Rabbit Wilson were already inside. Everyone was wearing fresh starched khakis. Most of the men were smoking cigarrettes; no one had anything to say. A marine corporal in dress uniform stood at parade rest near the door.

  At last the door opened and a lieutenant in whites stuck his head out.

  “They’re ready for you, Grafton.

  Jake levered himself upright and turned toward the door. Sammy caught his eye. “Keep the faith, Jake. The pilot nodded and passed through the door, which the orderly closed behind him.

  “What faith?” Abe Steiger asked. Sammy just looked at him.

  The presiding officer’s long-sleeved khaki shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, barely contained his bulging torso. Silver eagles shone on each collar and a set of gold wings gleamed on his chest. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing forearms bristling with black hair. The stubble on his head was less luxuriant.

  “Mister Grafton.” He spoke from behind a long table. “Please take a seat.

  I’m Captain Fairleigh Copeland. I invited you in to hear Doctor Catton testify about the results of the physical examination he recently gave you. Physicals are supposed to be held in confidence. Since this is an official inquiry I can hear it and enter it into the record without your consent. But I wanted to ask you if these other gentlemen can hear what the doctor has to say.”

  Jake had never before heard Mad Jack the Jungle Quack referred to by his surname. His eyes swept the room. The commanding officer of the Shilo, Captain Boma, was there, dressed in his customary white uniform even though every other officer on the ship wore wash khakis. The task force commander’s chief of staff, a captain, sat beside him. The other chairs contained the CAG, the air operations officer, Commander Camparelli, Rabbit Wilson, and a couple of younger officers Jake didn’t know. He assumed the lightweights had come from Washington to help Captain Copeland slay the infidels. “That’s fine with me, sir,” he told Copeland.

  “Okay, Doctor. What did you find when you examined Lieutenant Grafton?”

  “I examined Lieutenant Grafton in the early morning hours of 7 December.”

  Mad Jack consulted his notes. “He’s a physically sound Caucasian male, age twenty-seven, with 20-15 vision in both eyes and excellent hearing. His heart rate and blood pressure are at the low end of normal limits. The only physical abnormality is an incipient case of hemorrhoids. As you gentlemen are well aware, this is an occupational disease in jet pilots and is aggravated by extreme G-loadings.

  Other than that, he’s in perfect physical health.” Mad Jack folded his notes and laid them on his lap “I should mention one other thing. Lieutenant Grafton had palsied hands when I examined him. This is usually associated with the aged or those with nervous disorders-In his case, I believe the palsy can be attributed to the constant, heavy stress this officer has been under for an extended period. I’ve seen the same disorder in marines after lengthy patrols in hostile territory where the tension was unrelenting. Palsy may be one of the ways the body reacts to continuous adrenal stimulation. But in view of his otherwise healthy state, Lieutenant Grafton’s hand tremors have no medical significance other than demonstrating that he needs a break from the stress.”

  Jake cast a quick look at his hands, which tremble only a little.

  “Anything else?” Copeland prompted.

  “No, sir.”

  “How about his mental state?”

  “I’m not a psychiatrist, Captain, but I’d say that on the morning I examined him his emotional state was about what one would expect in an individual under high stress. For what it’s worth, I suspect that Lieutenant Grafton is not the only aviator or naval flight officer on this ship who exhibits symptoms of stress.”

  “What about his judgment?”

  “I’m not trained to assess that. You gentlemen are as qualified to form an opinion about that as I am.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. I would appreciate it if you would put your evaluation in writing and give it to one of my assistants.”

  Captain Copeland glanced at the others in the room then instructed an aide to admit the men waiting outside. Copeland doodled on a legal pad while they all found seats.

  “Gentlemen, this is an informal investigation ordered by the commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet. It’s to be conducted in accordance with the Manual of the Judge Advocate General. I’m Captain Copeland and I’ve had conversations with almost everyone in this room during the last forty-eight hours. Some people I’ve visited with several times. I’ll make a report of my findings to CINCPAC, who will act on them as he sees fit. One of his options, I’d like to point out, is to convene general courts-martial.” His eyes traveled from face to face.

  “My assistant here” he gestured with his left thumb “has in his briefcase blank permanent change-of station orders already signed by the chief of naval personnel. All I have to do is fill in the names. These orders are to places like Adak, Alaska, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the Canal Zone, and several other garden spots. If anyone here fails to cooperate fully with my investigation, he’ll be gone from this ship this afternoon and can count on rotting in one of those vacation spas while awaiting his court-martial or the processing of his resignation. I can tell you for a fact that it’ll take three or four years to procesSAResignation. I hope I’m making myself understood.

  He drew a breath. “I assume you all wish to talk to me, so I’m going to skip the legal mumbo-jumbo about your right to consult a lawyer and remain silent. You should all consider yourselves under oath. By God, each of you will tell the whole truth and the truth, nothing but the truth. Is that clear?

  Dead silence. Copeland then asked, “Clear, Mister Grafton?”

  “Perfectly clear, sir.”

  “Are you ready to answer my questions?”, “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you ever attacked an unfragged target?”

  Jake said, “Yessir, I have.”

  “When and what was it?”

  “About a week ago Lieutenant Cole and I hit the fragged target, saved eight bombs, and then took a shot at the National Assembly building in Hanoi. That’s it.”

  “Just one mission?”

  “Yessir- Just that one.”

  “You’re damn sure about that.” Copeland’s mouth pu
ckered into an O, then relaxed.

  “Yessir.”

  “Lieutenant, I certainly hope that you realize that now is the time to come clean. Jesus. You’re in a helluva lot of trouble, and if you don’t come clean you’re going to have every captain in the U. S. Navy fighting to be the president of Your court-martial. When this hearing is over, there’d better be no surprises, no revelations that crop up-something that slipped your mind.”

  Copeland leaned forward and slammed his fist down. “I want the whole damned story here and now-teeth, hair, ass hole, and all -” The senior officers at the other table sat flagpole straight.

  “You are getting the whole story, sir. There was only one mission.”

  “Is that right, Mister Cole?”

  “He said there was only one mission,” Cole answered.

  Copeland’s arm shot out and he leveled his finger Tiger. “Mister Cole, you’re just one answer away from becoming the naval attache in Nepal. Now I’m going to ask you one more time. Is Lieutenant Grafton’s testemony correct?

  “Yes, sir, it is. “You and he bombed one unauthorized target?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain’s attention returned to Jake. “Did you report this strike at the intelligence debriefings?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you report it on your after-action report?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you tell anyone you were going to bomb an unauthorized target?”

  “Mister Steiger, sir.”

  “No one else knew what the hell you were doing?”

  “Just Cole, Steiger, and me.”

  “How about you, Cole? Have you shared the tale of your adventures with anyone?”

  “No, sir. I haven’t. I’m naturally blabby, but I sat on this one.” That sally drew a frigid stare from Copeland as Cowboy Parker had a coughing fit and Camparelli turned red. Jake Grafton worried his lower lip and glanced at Sammy, who remained expressionless. Copeland finally subjected Cole to closer scrutiny as if to goad the lieutenant into trifling with him further, but Cole, impassive, said nothing else.

  Copeland sipped a glass of water, then turned his attention to his legal pad and wrote some notes. Like most interrogators, he had apparently learned long ago that silence was a very effective weapon. Jake imagined, as he felt the tension grow in the silent room, that Copeland used it often on thieves, dope peddlers, embezzlers, fraudulent defense contractors-and the professionally doomed. At last Copeland broke the silence, asking Grafton, “And just how did you identify and target this blow for freedom?”

  The pilot knew that the ice was thin and cracking. “We used charts, And photos we borrowed from the Intelligence Center.”

  “Classified aerial reconnaissance photographs?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You removed them from the Intelligence Center in violation of the security regulations?”

  “Yes, sir.” Pilots often took them on daylight missions to help identify the target, but there was no sense bearding the lion.

  “With Mister Steiger’s help?”

  “Yes, sir. We needed his assistance. What we really wanted to attack in Hanoi was Communist Party Head quarters, but we couldn’t identify it. Even with his help.”

  “Is that right, Mister Steiger?”

  Behind his thick glasses Abe looked even more wide-eyed than usual.

  “I didn’t hear your answer, Mister Steiger.”

  “I helped Grafton and Cole plan their raid on Hanoi.”

  “Thank you, Mister Steiger. I understand this matter came to light when Commander Camparelli examine the order-of-battle charts and the intelligence report and found, much to his surprise, that they didn’t show the SAM sites that shot at Grafton. You helped plan this raid, so why didn’t you fake those reports?”

  Abe blinked behind his glasses. “I couldn’t do that. I knew where the missile sites were that had fired on Lieutenant Grafton.

  They were already in the system as known sites. I couldn’t bring myself to put fake sites into the system.”

  “Did you tell Grafton that you weren’t going to falsify the data?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t discuss it with him. I didn’t have to. Lieutenant Grafton is a damn fine officer, regardless of what he’s done wrong, and I knew he’d rather risk being discovered than report false data.”

  “What would be the danger in listing nonexistent SAM sites?”

  “Bombardiers plan their routes to avoid the worst of the ground defenses.

  I couldn’t take the chance that someone might fly near a real site in order to avoid a fake one.”

  Copeland grunted. “That’s the only time you use good judgment in this escapade.” He sifted through some notes. To Jake’s ears the rustling of papers in the otherwise silent room sounded as loud as rifle shots.

  “Well, Mister Grafton. You have an attentive audience here. Perhaps you could take this opportunity to explain why you felt a one-plane war was the way to go. “Was that really a question, sir?”

  “Uh-huh.” Copeland gazed at the far bulkhead. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  Copeland fixed his eyes on the pilot. “Come, come, Mister Grafton. We’re all sitting here with hated breath anxiously awaiting your explanation. Why would a seemingly sane pilot and bombardier get wild hairs up their asses and violate every goddamned targeting regulation the navy has? Not to mention several dozen security breaches and make false official statements. C’mon Shed some light on this mystery.”

  Jake took a deep breath. “I can only speak for myself. I got tired of risking my ass and my bombardier’s, plus a valuable airplane, night after night, bombing targets that were absolutely worthless: suspected truck stops, suspected troop bivouacs, sampan repair yards that had been bombed ten times before, road intersections-you get the idea.” He took another deep breath. “I don’t know who picks the targets, but I’ll bet a year’s pay that they don’t fly through the flak and risk their precious asses bombing them.”

  He looked around at the other faces in the room. “My first bombardier, Morgan McPherson, and about fifty thousand other Americans are dead. Not all these men died actually fighting. Some died on flight decks, launching planes.

  But they were all engaged in one effort. So, what did they all die for? Does anybody know? I don’t, but I do know this: McPherson didn’t get killed hitting a worthwhile target. He died bombing a bunch of trees. I only wish he and I had been swinging with our best punch against a target that made sense when he caught that bullet.”

  He leaned forward. “I guess this sane pilot questioned the sanity of those officers and politicians who think that the way to fight a war is to tie one hand behind the fighter’s back. Commander Camparelli pointed out to me the other night that America’s arm forces are her sole defense against enemies much more powerful than that bunch of communist crack pots in Hanoi will ever be. And America needs her military to obey. America also needs warriors. Yet our military leadership doesn’t insist on military objectives to make sense. The lives of our fighting men are being wasted every day. Either we end this war or we fight like we mean it. If we pussy-foot around much longer, America may not have an army or navy to defend her-We won’t be able to recruit good people to serve and we won’t be able to get Congress to buy us the weapons to fight with.

  “So, Captain, you can tell all those admirals in Washington that Lieutenant Nobody is perfectly willing to obey orders,” he nodded at Camparelli. “But I for one hope those gentlemen with stars remember that a naval officer’s job is to sail in harm’s way, not to work the cocktail-Party circuit. Or we won’t have a navy worthy of the name for them to lead. Jake lowered his voice. “Captain, you asked. The opinion is mine alone. I don’t speak for anyone but myself. I disobeyed orders and I regret it. Nothing I’ve said excuses my conduct. I’m ready to accept whatever punishment the navy feels appropriate.”

  “Is there anything more you want to say?” Copeland asked.

  Jak
e thought a moment. “No, sir.”

  “All right, lieutenant. You’re dismissed.”

  Jake was sitting on his bunk when Sammy came “He kicked us junior folk out soon after you left.” Sammy told him and plopped into his desk chair. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been as scared in my life as I was at that hearing.”

  “Yeah,” Grafton agreed. “Man, I really screwed up. But I said what I’ve wanted to say for a long time. Now all I have to do is plead guilty at the court-martial.” He reached into his pocket. “Look at this,” he said, holding out the ring.

  Sammy looked at it as if he had never seen an engagement ring before in his life. “What’s this? A fucking engagement ring? At a time like this you’re buying a fucking engagement ring?”

  “Yep,” Grafton said. “I finally figured out what’s important. What do you think of it?”

  Sammy looked with incredulous eyes from the ring to his roommate and back to the ring. “Did you get this in the ship’s store?”

  “Yep.” Jake smiled happily.

  “You’ve flipped out, man. They’re going to hang you from the yardarm and you’re buying rocks in the ship’s store. I don’t believe this.” He put his fingertips on his forehead. “How much did you pay.

  “Three hundred bucks.”

  “Well, it looks like a good one to me, but I don’t know a goddamn thing about diamond rings. I don’t want to learn, either.”

  “I haven’t asked her yet, but I think she’ll say yes. I’m going to ask her the next time I see her.” He held the ring under the light.

  Sammy watched his friend out of the corner of his eye. He lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly. Finally he said, “Let me see that ring again.” He was making appreciative comments when there was a knock on the door.

  Camparelli entered. “Take a hike, Sammy, will ya? I want to talk to Jake.” The Old Man stood at the end of the bunks. He drew a deep breath.

  “There probably won’t be a court-martial, but there’s no guarantee on that.”

  He looked around the stateroom. “You guys keep any booze in this slum?”

  Jake spirited a bottle out of the desk safe and poured several fingers in a glass for Camparelli, “Have a drink yourself. You’re one lucky sonuvabitch.”