The Ocean Between Us (2 page)

Steve didn’t move a muscle, even though the sound of Lamont’s name was a punch in the gut. He wondered if he would ever get used to having Lamont under his command. A C-2 Greyhound transport plane had flown the young pilot aboard as a replacement pilot. Lamont was a member of the Sparhawks, the carrier’s squadron of EA-6B Prowlers. The reporter probably thought his call sign was sweet, but Steve knew it came from an incident during training in Nevada—Little Angry Man Boy.

“He’s flying Prowler six-two-three,” she observed. “My cameramen videotaped the aircrew while they were preparing that plane for tonight’s flight.”

“You’re making a video?” The public affairs office hadn’t bothered to tell him exactly what was up.

“You bet.”

He shouldn’t be surprised. A magazine was no longer just a magazine. These days every publication needed a multimedia presence on the Web, with all the attendant bells and whistles. Higher Authority had given their blessing to the article. These were patriotic times and frankly—unexpectedly—the media had been good to the military in recent times. Strange bedfellows, but sometimes you never knew.

“Lamont’s been in the air one hour and forty-eight minutes now,” he said. “Looks like they’ll be landing soon.”

“What about the other name in red—Sean Corn?”

“Lieutenant Corn is due to land directly behind the Prowler. He’s driving one of the Tomcats.”

“And they’re new to night carrier landings?”

“Yes, ma’am, but they’ve had extensive training.” Steve quickly switched to the public-affairs spiel. “A carrier landing is basically a crash landing on an area about four hundred feet long. The margin of error on approach is less than eighteen inches,” he told her. “The tail hook has to grab an arresting wire, or you have a bolter and the pilot has to come around for another pass. Success depends on every member of the team doing his job right, doing it on time and following orders. So the question isn’t why so many accidents happen but why so few.”

“But accidents do happen.”

He wondered if she had a secret wish to witness one. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you fly often, Captain Bennett?”

“Enough to stay qualified.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Flying used to be my life, but after almost a thousand carrier traps, I can live without it.” He tried not to smile at her thunder-struck expression. “Look, ma’am, if you’re looking for drama, you’re talking to the wrong guy.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t make good copy. Not anymore. I used to be a cowboy,
turning everything into a competition. I used to look another pilot in the eye, call him my best friend and then wax his ass in training.”

“But you don’t do that anymore?”

He hesitated. “I’ll introduce you to some guys who do.”

They put on headsets, goggles and cranials with ear protectors marked across the top with reflective tape. Then Steve stood aside, motioning her ahead.

They climbed several more steel ladders. Steve opened another hatch and they passed a sign: Beware Jet Blast-Props-Rotor Blades. They crossed the platform, mounted a few more steps and finally reached the four-and-a-half-acre flight deck.

A strong, cold wind slapped at them, carrying with it the reek of jet fuel and hydraulic fluid. Cinders flung up from the nonskid surface of the deck needled their faces. Behind the protective goggles, Francine’s eyes reflected amazement. This was a strange new world, with the deck humming underfoot, busy personnel in color-coded jerseys and cranials communicating by gesture, planes and tractors scurrying to and fro. Despite the late hour, bright lights and thundering sound burst across the deck in a chaotic but precisely choreographed ballet of landing aircraft. The deafening noise made speech superfluous, so he gave her an expansive gesture: Welcome to the bird farm. She staggered a little as a blast of wind hit her, but then responded with a thumbs-up.

They crossed the roof to the island tower and climbed a series of ladders, passing various control centers. In Flight Deck Control, a chief petty officer kept track of the different aircraft and their positions on the “Ouija board,” little game-piece planes on a scale map of the deck. After asking permission to enter the bridge, he led her up another level to the top of the island, where the Air Boss presided over a domain of darkened cubicles encased in shatterproof safety glass. In Primary Flight Control, touch-sensitive glass, glowing control panels and monitors reflected off the intent faces of busy crew members. Another screen showed the positions of the entire battle group and other vessels in the area. Steve pointed out destroyers, cruisers, a supply ship, the oiler.

“And what’s that?” she asked, pointing to the screen.

“Probably a Japanese fishing boat,” Steve said.

In the tinted glass aerie, Commander Shep Hardin, the Air Boss on duty, barked commands at the flight deck. He paused briefly to greet them. “Aren’t you lucky,” he said to Atwater. “A guided tour by the gray wolf himself.”

“Thanks a lot, pal,” Steve said, then turned to the reporter. “Hardin’s no fun, anyway. Want to watch from Vultures Row?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

As they headed for the observation balcony overlooking the flight deck, she asked, “Why did he call you the gray wolf?”

He was sort of wishing she hadn’t heard that. “A carrier crew is made up of young men and women, most of them under twenty-five. At forty-four, I’m old.” He didn’t want to go into all the politics and posturing of his climb to the upper ranks. He pointed to a row of three aircraft chained to the deck. “Those are Prowlers, parked down there. They’re used for electronic reconnaissance and jamming.”

Francine cupped her hands around her eyes, pressed her face to the glass and studied the lighted deck. “The planes look sort of…lived in.”

She was right. These deck-weary aircraft hardly resembled the gleaming birds in Navy publicity photos. They looked as though they’d been patched together with duct tape, baling wire and Bondo.

“Ma’am, flight ops are the whole reason a carrier exists, so keeping the planes operational is crucial. Air crews work 24/7 to keep them ready to go,” he assured her, but he hoped she didn’t notice the drip of hydraulic fluid spattering the black steel deck. “The Prowler squadron has only four aircraft, so they get used a lot. It’s late in the cruise, and the concern isn’t making them look pretty. It’s making them work right.”

“And Lamont, the…nugget, is flying the other one.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Using her deck-ops manual for a flat surface, she made a note on her yellow pad.

“You ready to see some landings?” he asked.

“In a sec.” She scribbled furiously.

Then he instructed her to lower her goggles, slid open the door and they stepped outside. High off the bow, two shooting stars streaked briefly, drawing twin parallel lines down the black sky before disappearing. Steve tried to alert the reporter, but it was over so quickly that she missed it. No big deal. Shooting stars weren’t the main attraction tonight. Planes rained from the sky, one after another, slamming down on deck with screams of rubber and metal. Tail hooks searching for an arresting wire threw up rooster tails of sparks.

He handed the reporter a pair of binoculars and pointed out Landing Signal Officer Whitey Love, who stood with the other LSOs on the port side atop a wind-harried platform. From his vantage point under the edge of the flight deck, near the first set of arresting wires, the LSO studied the night sky through a pair of infrared lenses. Over the headset, he talked to his pilots. It was his job to coax each fifty-thousand-pound aircraft, hurtling at a hundred thirty miles per hour, to a three-hundred-foot landing strip.

A luminous amber signal on the port-deck edge aligned with a row of green lights, signaling that the incoming pilot was on the proper glide path for a safe landing. The dainty-looking tail hook had a shot at just five wires. Each cable could be used for a set number of traps before it was retired, compromised by the strain of stopping the speeding jets. If something went wrong, it could mean the loss of a sixty-million-dollar aircraft off the deck, and perhaps the lives of the pilot and crew.

Steve noticed a whiteshirt and three other VIPs loaded with equipment. Atwater saw his look and motioned him inside.

“My photographer and videographer and their assistant,” she explained.

He hoped the camera guys had been briefed on safety, too. The videographer appeared clueless as he filmed a turning jet that was on its way to the elevator. He clearly had no idea that the blast
might toss him twenty feet in the air. Just in time, the host yanked him out of harm’s way and the group headed to the island.

They met up at deck level, where the floor hummed and a water cooler by the base of the elevator vibrated dangerously. As Francine made the introductions, an ordie in a soiled red shirt stepped inside, slapping a smoking glove against his thigh.

Steve recognized Aviation Ordnanceman Airman Michael Rivera behind the smudged goggles. The sailor quickly came to attention. The photographers immediately aimed their cameras at him.

“Everything all right?” Steve asked.

“Yes, sir. Slight problem with the flares, is all,” Rivera said, removing his goggles and scuffed red cranial. “It’s okay now.”

“Go down to the battle-dressing station and get that hand looked at.”

“No need, sir. Just wanted to get out of the wind for a minute.”

Rivera was Steve’s favorite kind of sailor—professional, dedicated, sure of himself. Not likely to let a smart-ass hotshot fighter pilot intimidate him on the flight deck. Besides that, Rivera’s winning smile and genuine warmth made him a regular recruiting poster boy. His face was covered in grime from a long shift on the flight deck, but that only made his teeth look whiter.

Atwater loved him instantly. Steve could tell from the soft-eyed expression on her face. Hell, he might as well indulge her. He made the introductions, and Rivera warmed right up, probably grateful for a break from the chaos of the open deck.

“And what do you do?” Atwater asked him, pen poised over her notebook.

“I deal with ordnance, ma’am. The bomb farm’s the area between the island and the rail where bombs and missiles are stored during flight operations. From there they’re brought to the aircraft.”

“And there was trouble with a flare?”

Rivera nodded. “Flares are used with F-14 Tomcats as a decoy for heat-seeking missiles. Each flare contains eighty internal units, and each of those burn at sixteen hundred degrees, so we’re real careful with them.” He grinned, and an irrepressible happiness
shone from him. “I have even more reason to be careful these days. Had an e-mail from my wife this morning. The doctor found out the baby’s sex. We’re having a boy.” He looked ready to burst with pride. “Our first.”

“Will you be home for the birth?” Ms. Atwater asked.

“No, ma’am. But she’s got a lot of support at home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington State. Captain Bennett’s wife has been a real good friend to Patricia,” he added with a grateful look at Steve.

Don’t look at me, Steve thought. He had no idea what Grace was up to, but it didn’t surprise him to hear she was helping out a young airman’s wife. Discomfited, he looked through a viewing pane while the PAO who had been escorting the photographers joined in the conversation with Rivera.

Outside, Steve noticed…something. He’d spent too many hours on a carrier deck to not clue in when something was going on. A subtle change came over the crew charged with recovering the next aircraft. It was like a slight shift in the wind or an invisible spurt of adrenaline, something the reporter or even most of the flight-deck ops would never notice.

Steve excused himself. The CAG LSO, Bud Forster, who didn’t usually participate in a recovery unless things got ugly, was speaking quickly into his headset. “Prowler six-two-three…” he said, and his face was made of stone. Steve knew that look.

And he knew whose plane Forster was talking about. Lamont was driving the Prowler, and whatever was going on had not been in the plans for tonight’s exercises. Forster was handling it, though, and Steve wasn’t about to interrupt his work. He would have stuck around, but when he looked at the deck again, he noticed Francine Atwater and the others following Rivera to the bomb farm. The PAO was nowhere in sight.

None of the civilians would sense the mounting tension, he realized, hurrying down to the deck. But Steve felt it buzzing like an electrical current through his whole body. Shit. He’d have to
go round them up like a herd of cats. Your ass is grass, Rivera, Steve thought. And I’m John Deere.

But then he reminded himself that he was the one who was supposed to be in charge of Francine Atwater, and he’d walked away. As he headed toward the ordnance, he thought he saw sparks and a stream of smoke from an aircraft flare dispenser on the deck behind Rivera and the civilians.

He blinked and rubbed his glove across his goggles, and saw it again. They were too far away to hear a shouted warning. But he shouted, anyway, at the same time signaling flight-deck control to sound a fire alarm. During flight ops there was always a fire truck and a team of firefighters standing by with nozzles leading to water tanks and aqueous film-forming foam.

Rivera, who was closest to the dispenser, spun around. He cast about, looking for the source of the fire, and for a second Steve thought he might miss the smoke. Then Rivera grabbed the burning cylinder and headed for the edge of the flight deck. There was a crack like a rifle shot. Sparks and rockets ripped apart the night. Rivera rolled on the ground. His entire arm was a glowing torch.

Steve ran. When he reached the burning man, he plunged to his knees and ripped off his float coat. He used the vest to smother the flames on Rivera’s arm and back, screaming for a medic even though he knew he wouldn’t be heard. It didn’t matter. By now, everyone on the bow of the flight deck would have seen, and help would be on its way. He wanted to stay with Rivera, hold and reassure him, but the dispenser was still smoking. In the cylinder, the internal units were burning with an intensity Steve felt even from three feet away.