Joint Task Force #1: Liberia (6 page)

“I should have about a minute to transform to propeller power before I begin to descend again.”

A pair of F-14’s appeared on both sides of him. One of the pilots shot him the bird while the other saluted. Wasn’t hard to figure out what camps these two pilots supported.

As if reading his mind, the two heavy fighters hit their afterburners, turned their noses up, and crossed directly in
front before disappearing above him. Jet wash shook the stricken aircraft.

“Hey, Doc. Anyone told those f’ing Tom Cruise wannabes to stand off? That I have an in-flight emergency?” asked Shoemaker through clenched teeth.
“Oh, shit!”

The aircraft fell to the right, going into a right-handed spin, heading back toward the earth. The spin increased in tempo. Clouds blocked Shoemaker’s vision for a couple of seconds until he fell through them. Altimeter showed ten thousand feet. The spin continued to increase. The cockpit screens blurred into a kaleidoscope of browns, greens, whites, and blues as North Carolina land, beach, ocean, and sky merged.

He reached up and shut off the engine, simultaneously pulling the throttle back to zero. No effect. The aircraft was nearly vertical on its one-way trip. Sweat poured from his face, but he was too busy with the controls, trying to right the aircraft. His heart raced. He could hear the damn thing it was beating so fast. Shouldn’t be this way.

Airspeed gauge showed 350 knots and heading upward. He flipped the engine back on. What were the stress factors on the damn wings?
Shit, shit shit!
He had maybe two minutes to get power or it would be his last flight in this aircraft.

“Your heart rate is increasing, Lieutenant Shoemaker,” said Dr. Dunning. “I would suggest—”

“Suggest, hell! I’m the one riding this thing down!”

“But you must understand—”

“Leave him alone, Doc. This is our first in-flight emergency. If anyone can pull it out, Nash can. Show him, Nash! Be one with the plane,” Pauline said, saying the last few words like a mantra.

Shoemaker ignored the banter. He grabbed the throttle, flipped the ignition switch, and scrunched his eyes. The blur was causing him to lose concentration. He pushed the stick and throttle forward. His head pressed against the headrest. The stick didn’t move.
Damn!
The outside air pressure and spin had pinned the flaps. Even with hydraulics working with him, the flaps refused to budge. He pulled the throttle back, reducing power, hoping it would reduce the pressure just enough for him to manipulate the flaps. He leaned over, grabbed the stick with both hands, and pushed forward.
Nothing. He put his entire weight behind it, but nothing moved. Holding the stick, he took his right hand and unbuckled his seat belt. Then, putting all of his body weight against the stick, he felt it move forward. His eyes widened.
All right, baby, come on!
He leaned his chest against the stick and reached over, pushing the throttle forward. Power increased. The nose of the aircraft shifted slightly from a head-on rush toward the earth to a twenty-degree descent. Shoemaker was still heading toward a fast-approaching ground.
“It’s not the fall that kills you,”
his flight instructor had told him when he first entered the Navy.
“It’s that sudden stop when you hit the ground.”

He was vaguely aware of listening to the other aircraft entering the landing pattern of USS
Boxer
.
Christ!
He was formation leader. It just wasn’t right that this was happening to him. However, he might pull this out by the seat of his pants. He would try it again.

Shoemaker pulled back on the stick, flipped the pressures on the pedals, trying to bubble the aircraft out of the tornadolike spin taking him to the ground.

“You’ve got power, Lieutenant Shoemaker,” Dr. Dunning said.

Dunning was not happy. It was never his technology at fault. It was never his ideas. It was never his concepts. It was always the pilots, or the junior engineers, or the contractors, but never him or Naval Air Systems Command—better known as NAVAIRSYSCOM—or Naval Research Labs that was at fault.

“Spin is slowing,” Shoemaker reported over the radio. He took a deep breath. He had not realized he had been holding it.

“I can see what’s happening, Lieutenant,” Dunning said with a hint of petulance. “I have the master control panel here with all the gauges, so you just bring my prototype home and don’t lose her.”

“What about me?” he asked sarcastically.

“What about you? It isn’t as if we can’t replace you.”

Asshole.
Shoemaker reversed the pedals again. Wrong move! The spin was back. It shoved the aircraft forward. Once again he was headed toward the ground. Five thousand feet! Warning lights and beepers broke the cockpit isolation.

“Lieutenant! What are you doing?” Professor Dunning shrilled, his voice high-pitched in anger.

Five thousand feet, too sharp a descent angle—he was losing what little control he had had. All he needed now was for one of those F-14 glory hounds to light him with their fire-control radar and set off the warning blare from the electronic-countermeasures suite.

Engine power died. Shoemaker watched helplessly as the RPMs rapidly dropped until only the speed of descent was being measured.

“Shoemaker! What in the hell did you do?”

Nash bit his lip. He flipped off the power, pulled the throttle back. Almost immediately, he flicked the power switch back on and shoved the throttle forward all the way, mentally making the sign of the cross across his chest and forehead. So, this is how a pilot felt when he knew death was rushing to meet him. His breath was short, rapid. He felt this urge to urinate.

Shoemaker pulled back on the stick. Surprised how easy it came back. The spin slowed. He had power again, but it was increasing too slowly.
It wasn’t going to be enough!

“Come on, baby, come on,” he whispered.

He reached forward and slapped the gauge. Power hung at fifty percent. He pushed the throttle again, but it was already fully forward. The speed gauge showed three hundred knots. No way he could switch to propeller. The wind would tear the thing apart and the pieces would rip through the fuselage—the small cockpit on board it being one of the things torn apart.

“It don’t look good!”

“DON’T YOU CRASH MY AIRCRAFT!”

“Damn, Doc! What the hell do you want me to do?”

Five hundred feet.

“Get her up! Get her up!”

“I have tried everything—”

The ground! Shoemaker instinctively covered his face with his hands. The screens went black. The sounds of the displays, gauges, and electronics controlling everything around him in his cocoon wound down.

He sat there, breathing rapidly, his hands crossed in his lap. The hydraulic noise of the top of the cockpit rising caused him
to look up. Looking down at him was Dr. Dunning, his face a work of thunder, and the other three pilots.

“What in the hell were you doing, Shoemaker?”

Nash unstrapped and pushed himself up. His head was even with Dr. Dunning’s. “How in the hell do I know, Doc? One moment she was flying fine. You saw the photographs. We splashed those Tomcats, and the next moment, power to the engine failed.”

Shoemaker stepped over the side of the cockpit onto the hangar deck of the USS
Boxer
. He turned to the other three pilots. “Were you able to land your UFAVs?” he asked pronouncing the acronym for “Unmanned Fighter Aerial Vehicles” as a word.

“Piece of cake, Top Gun!” Pauline said.

Nash Shoemaker would have grinned if he weren’t so angry with Dunning and the mishap. Pauline was almost dancing with joy over her victory. And that’s what it was.

“This is really going to hurt the program,” said Dunning.

Lieutenant Valverde reached forward and touched Nash Shoemaker on the shoulder. “You all right, shipmate?” he asked, concerned. His dark brown eyes looked Nash over as if searching for a wound.

Nash nodded. “Another lesson learned,” he mumbled.

Shoemaker tossed his helmet onto the seat of the cockpit. “Doc, aircraft crash. It’s a fact of life that things not meant to be in the air tend to return to the ground when the things keeping them up stop. You have a victory here.”

“Yeah, Doc. When a non-flying object discovers itself at ten thousand feet and returns to Mother Earth by the most direct route, there tends to be a great reunion much to the detriment of the object,” Pauline added. “Ensign!” she shouted at Jurgen Ichmens, who was walking over to the group, his helmet tucked under his left arm. “Write that quote down. You’ll be able to use it someday at the Academy teaching new Navy officers about the laws of physics.”

Dunning’s eyes shifted back and forth. Shoemaker knew the man was weighing the pros and cons of the exercise. “Sure, Lieutenant Shoemaker. You are right. We have had a victory against manned fighters. But do you think they’re going to latch on to that? You can bet your sweet cheeks that every
pilot—especially the flag-officer ones—are going to point to your crash.”

“You may be right, Doc.”

Lieutenant Valverde reached into the nearby ice chest, pulled a water bottle out, and handed it to Nash. “You sure you all right? You don’t look it.”

“Doc, on the other hand, you can also point out that while the prototype crashed, it was less expensive than having a heavy crash, and you didn’t lose a pilot in it.”

Nash nodded at Alan. “Thanks.” Then he looked at Dunning. “Doc, you sent four unmanned fighter aerial vehicles—UFAVs—piloted remotely by the four of us sitting in the hangar bay of an American warship fifteen miles off the coast. Those UFAVs engaged four of our top fighter aircraft flown by some top fighter jocks, and we won. In a live war, we would have shot them down.”

“And don’t forget, Doc,” Pauline added. “On our way back we have photographs that show us strafing the Marines on the beach. Man, oh, man, Doc, you are going to be one very important person when you get back to Washington. When do you think you’ll leave?”

Dunning glared at the taller female officer.

“Yeah, and you could be right about the crash,” Valverde added. “Those fighter jocks are probably scrambling all over themselves to get to the telephones to call Washington to tell them about it. And here we are stuck out at sea without a way to tell our story.”

Pauline reached over and tapped Dr. Dunning on his right shoulder. “This will be one time the Navy and Air Force join forces against a common enemy,” she said, chuckling.

“What’d you mean?” Dunning asked.

“You don’t think the aviation community is going to sit by and watch their piloted aircraft be replaced—
even a little
—by a bunch of amateurs who never leave a ship or a building and who can eat a sandwich while they engage in a dogfight?” Valverde added. “Man, oh, man, Doc. I am glad I’m not going to be at the Pentagon when the results of this reaches the inner ring, top floor, third door, second office.”

“Doc, don’t listen to Alan,” Pauline said, pulling the
scientist around by his shoulder to face her. “He’s just trying to upset you. Here’s what I’d do if I was you. I would get the hell off this ship ASAP. I would fly directly to Washington. I would show all the positive sides of what we’ve done today. Even point out the crash as an example of how this UFAV program will save lives.”

“Pauline’s right, Doc. Why, at one point I was pulling over ten Gs. Tell me what pilot can do that and not lose consciousness? I’ll tell you. None,” Shoemaker said, jumping on the bandwagon. “You’ve got a great success story to tell. Of course, we’re all stuck out here and they’ll have first chance at telling that story at second door . . .” His voice trailed off and he looked at Valverde.

“. . . second office, inner ring, top floor, third door,” Valverde finished.

Shoemaker leaned back against the cockpit. A wave of fatigue rushed over him. He had to go to the head before he peed his pants.

“You may be right,” Dr. Dunning said, reaching up and stroking his chin before walking back to the master console. Shoemaker shook his head. To some, it would seem shameful the way they played his vanity. Pauline winked at Shoemaker, her blue eyes sparkling. He had never met a woman quite like this redhead. Beneath her cajoling, humorous, snide comments, and bravado was a temper that could rip your lips off and stuff them up your butt.

Pauline cocked her head at him. He must have been staring.

She took a step forward, briefly wrapped her arms around Shoemaker’s shoulders, and grinned. “I’m not even going to ask what you were thinking.” She stepped back, blew on her fingers, and brushed them against her chest. “Most men have those thoughts every six seconds. With me around, I am sure the time is reduced.”

He would have said something back, but he was just too tired. He grinned and hoped he didn’t stumble when he started away from the cockpit.

“Yes, I agree,” Alan said to Pauline. “But that reduced time is from fear.”

“Someday
JAG
will make an episode about this,” Kitchner said, chuckling.

“I’ve got to get my data together,” Dunning said as he started to pull himself up the short ladder to the mother console. “You are right. The sooner I get the data read, consolidated, and analyzed, the sooner I can present my findings.”

Pauline shook her head and shouted, “Going to be hard to do, Doc! Right now, I bet those fighter jocks at Oceana are already on the ground, running toward the ready room, knocking each other out of the way to be the first to call the Pentagon.” She put her hands on her hips, leaned her head down, and shook it several more times. “No, I think we may be dead on arrival on this one, Doc. You’ll never get us off in time. We’re stuck out here while they’re with reporters from all the major news agencies. We’re going to be fighting an uphill battle unless you get us off this floating bathtub and back to Washington.”

Dunning stared at her for a moment, and then started nodding. “You’re right. You’re goddamn right! I have to get off here and get back there now. Right now! I can do the data reduction at Pax River Naval Air Station tonight and by tomorrow be at the Pentagon.”

“Right, Doc! Now you’re thinking. This is a good news story. Your face is going to be plastered all over the newspapers. So, how long do you think we have before we can fly off here?” Pauline asked, her smile disappearing as she waited for the answer.