Viper Strike c-2, page 7
part #2 of Carrier Series
Don't worry, though. We'll remember you to the girls…"
"You want to kill them or shall I?" Price asked Tombstone.
"Aw, let them live. They both had deprived childhoods."
"Deprived of nookie," Batman agreed. "We're making up for lost time."
Tombstone snorted. "Perhaps I should remind you that you guys are still going to be working. That's Working…" He dragged the word out cruelly.
"You know… flying? With an airplane? Working with the Thais?"
"That's it, man!" Nightmare said. "Working with 'em by day and playing with 'em by night! Some of those That babes-"
"Uh uh," Batman said, shaking his head. "Not me. None of this here local gook poon for yours truly! That's why I'm for the Airport Hotel!"
"So what's wrong with local girls?" Price asked. "You prejudiced or something?"
"Nah. I just want a gal in my league, is all. You know how stews just love fighter jocks…"
"You'd be a natural with your medal, Stoney," Nightmare said. "You go into the bar, see? You sidle up alongside a lonely-looking lovely, and you quietly let slip that you are a genuine American Naval hero, winner of the Navy Cross…"
"… and all of a sudden you've got twenty gorgeous girls," Batman finished for him. "All rubbing up against you in their low-cut gowns, just begging you to take them back to their room!"
"Sounds crowded."
"That, my friend, is the true and deep tragedy of the American hero.
Alone… unloved… unappreciated, he nevertheless must bear the slings and arrows of misfortune-"
"That's 'outrageous fortune.""
"Y'know, Stoney, now that I think about it, maybe you should let me borrow that fancy ribbon of yours. I could put it to real good use!"
"Yeah!" Nightmare snickered. "It's gonna be wasted up in that jungle!"
Tombstone laughed, but the reminder about the medal brought a small stab of guilt. He still felt uncomfortable with the whole hero idea and wished the others would drop the subject.
"Well, Stoney," Batman said slowly. "I'll tell you. I will be thinking of you while you're up at that remote, jungle outpost. I truly will. And the first stew I get in the sack, I'll slip in the old salami and say, 'Stoney, this screw's for you!""
"Your generosity is overwhelming." He looked away from the group, toward a large, mounted photograph on one paneled bulkhead. Taken from another aircraft, it showed ten aircraft from VF-95 flying in formation toward the camera, with the bow-on Jefferson astern and below.
The squadron.
Despite the banter, Tombstone had been looking forward to his assignment at U Feng ever since CAG had told him about it that afternoon. He was not one for nightlife, and he didn't feel the driving need to bed and boast that seemed to animate the others. Batman, perhaps, was more typical in that respect. At least he followed the aviator's party line.
Well, he could have his stewardesses, and welcome. Tombstone was eager to see something of a mystic land that was more fairy tale than fact.
One thing was certain. His assignment to U Feng was going to give him a week away from the ship. A week away from Batman. Tombstone liked the guy, but he could certainly get on a fellow's nerves with his super fighter jock routine.
Tombstone leaned far back in his chair and scratched himself comfortably.
Yes, Batman could bang his stews until he was blue in the face… or wherever. For Tombstone, the jungles of the exotic Golden Triangle might be just the vacation he needed.
CHAPTER 6
0930 hours, 15 January
Flight Deck, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
"Now hear this! Now hear this! Lieutenant Commander Magruder, report to the admiral's office on the double!"
Tombstone turned as the voice blared from the 5-MC speaker mounted high on the island above the flight deck. "Now what the hell…?"
Chief Bob Smith looked up from the maintenance reports he'd been reviewing with Tombstone. "What the shit you been up to, Commander?"
"Beats me, Smitty," Tombstone said, handing another stack of maintenance forms to the bearded senior chief. "But it sounds like I'd better find out."
He started down the line of aircraft parked along the edge of the flight deck, their tails hanging out over the water like gigantic, roosting birds.
Across the deck, green-jerseyed handlers were working around an SH-3D Sea King helicopter which had arrived on board Jefferson twenty minutes earlier.
Tombstone had seen the landing but not the passengers. He wondered if the helo's arrival had something to do with his summons to see his uncle.
At a doorway leading into the island he nearly collided with Batman, who was just coming out onto the roof. "Hey, Stoney! You hear?"
"I heard."
"You up for a lecture from your uncle or what?"
Tombstone pulled off his cranial and his floater ― the helmet and life jacket worn while working on the flight deck ― and shoved them at Batman's gut.
"Whatever it is, it'll beat the hell out of listening to any more of your stories!"
Batman laughed. "Aw, you're just jealous, Stoney!" Breakfast in the Dirty Shirt Wardroom that morning had been made entertaining by Batman's tales of his rendezvous in Bangkok the night before with a gorgeous blond stewardess named Becky. "You oughta come into town with me tonight! Becky's bringing a friend!"
"Not tonight," Tombstone said, grinning. "Too much paperwork to do."
He made his way down gray steel corridors, then trotted up a succession of zigzagging ship's ladders up through the heart of the island. Minutes later, he arrived at the admiral's outer office on the 0–9 deck level and opened the door. A yeoman first class looked up from a steel desk and nodded.
"Mr. Magruder! You're to go right in, sir."
The inner sanctum looked more like an executive's office than something on board ship, with wood-paneled bulkheads and oil paintings of sailing ships and Navy aircraft. The deck was carpeted, and the furniture would not have been out of place in a men's club. Only the round, steel-framed portholes along one bulkhead proved that they were still aboard ship.
Tombstone had always been troubled by the protocol of having a two-star admiral for an uncle. Navy custom and common sense both dictated that he play it conservatively and pretend he didn't know the guy… at least until they were alone and discussing nonmilitary subjects. It was easier this time, though. The admiral was not alone. Captain Fitzgerald stood by the bulkhead, looking out a porthole, and there were three civilians seated in chairs in front of the admiral's desk.
He realized that these must have been the passengers who had arrived earlier aboard the Sea King. Two were men, one small with owlish-looking glasses and a crumpled suit, the second taller and brawnier and wearing a loud print shirt and a handlebar mustache. The third civilian was a woman.
She was lovely, wearing a conservative gray skirt and jacket which seemed out of place with the disarray of her blond hair ― the result, Tombstone decided, of the cranial she'd worn during the helo flight to the carrier. Her eyes were a pale, ice blue.
"I'm Pamela Drake, Commander," she said in a crisp, businesslike tone as she rose. It was clear immediately that she was the one in charge of the trio. "American Cable Network. This is my cameraman, Bob Griffith. My soundman, Hugh Baughman."
He shook hands with the two in turn. Griffith was the tall, mustached man, Baughman the one with glasses.
Tombstone exchanged a brief glance with the admiral. "Welcome to our boat, Miss Drake," he said.
"Pleased to meet you, Commander." She raised one perfectly arched eyebrow at the admiral. "But I don't care to be patronized. I may be a civilian, but I know you call something this large a 'ship," not a 'boat.""
"Actually, he's quite correct, ma'am," Fitzgerald said. "Aviators always call their carrier a 'boat." God knows why. Even when you get too old to fly, like me or the admiral here."
"Mind your manners, Captain," the admiral said. As Pamela resumed her seat, he turned to Tombstone. "It seems that you're something of a celebrity, son. Miss Drake here has come out to the Jefferson to get some film clips for a news program special she's doing. When she found out you were aboard, well…"
"I don't understand."
"Ever hear of a news program called World Focus?"
"Yes, sir." World Focus was a popular nightly program Stateside, with a news-magazine format and aired by ACN. Mildly liberal, sharply critical of the current administration and its foreign policy, the show had never appealed enough to Tombstone for him to follow it much when he was in the States. "I haven't seen it since we were Stateside last, of course."
"It's a one-hour program," Pamela said. "Five nights a week, covering current news topics. The closing fifteen-minute slot each evening is a segment we call Up Close. Generally, we run with a single topic five nights in a row, examining it from every side, featuring in-depth interviews, that sort of thing."
"But what does that have to do with me?" Tombstone asked. He felt uneasy. Pamela Drake's direct manner, her no-nonsense tone of voice made him feel like she had him on camera.
She pursed her lips. "Next week we will be presenting an Up Close series on Navy carriers, whether they're necessary in today's world. We'll be linking it to the World Focus pieces we'll be airing at the same time on the trouble in Thailand… whether we should be here, what danger there might be in our getting involved in Thailand, that sort of thing."
"And you want Tombstone here for an interview," Fitzgerald said.
"That's right." She gave Tombstone a sidelong look. "'The Hero of Wonsan," the press was calling him a few weeks back. I think we should feature him in an interview which we'll work into the carrier piece. Who is he? What was it like shooting down six North Koreans? What did he feel about that?"
"Just a damn minute," Tombstone said. "I didn't do it for fun…"
"No one said you did, Commander. But now you're here in Thailand, presumably carrying out our government's foreign policy. What are you doing?
How do you see the situation?" She smiled suddenly. "I think you'd have a lot to contribute, Commander."
"Our instructions are to cooperate with you, Miss Drake." the admiral said. "You can make arrangements with the Captain here for any shooting you want to do on board the Jefferson."
"I'll do that, thank you. As long as my crew and I are here now, can we begin with a tour of your ship?" She smiled again, a dazzling display of perfectly white teeth. "I mean your boat!"
"I don't see why not," Fitzgerald said. "Tombstone? Would you care to show the lady and her people around?"
He did not care to, but one did not tell the Captain that. "Of course, sir."
"You'll have dinner with us this evening, Miss Drake?" The admiral was trying to be charming, but somehow it wasn't coming off well. He seemed ruffled by her challenging approach toward Tombstone.
"Sorry, we can't. We'll need to get back to our hotel. In fact, if we can arrange it, it would probably be easiest if we could conduct most of our interviews with the commander in Bangkok instead of out here. Possibly at our hotel?"
"As you wish. How long will you need him?"
"Oh, two or three sessions will be enough. I imagine we could fit him in for an hour or two these next few evenings."
Tombstone groaned to himself. "May I remind the admiral," he said, picking with care the words he could use in front of the press, "that I've been assigned to temporary duty ashore."
"I don't think that will be a problem, Stoney. We can find someone to take your place. 'Full cooperation," remember?"
It appeared that there would be no escape.
Twenty minutes later he was leading Pamela and her crew through the twisting bowels of Jefferson, taking them down the island deck by deck until they were in the maze of passageways beneath the flight deck. The experience of walking down one of Jefferson's long interior corridors never failed to amaze a first-time visitor. The passageways ran straight for hundreds of feet; every thirty feet or so they were interrupted by a cross frame with an oval-shaped door called a "knee-knocker" because they forced a tall person to simultaneously stoop and step high to go through. Watching someone approach down a passageway was like watching one's own reflection in an endlessly reflected series of arched mirrors.
"My God," Baughman said breathlessly as they turned a sudden corner and confronted another infinite regression of knee-knockers. "How many miles of tunnels do you have in this thing?"
Tombstone grinned. "Never counted 'em. It might give you an idea of her size, though, if you think of Jefferson as an eighty-story building lying on her side. In some ways, she's a self-contained city. We've got a population of over six thousand, with one radio station and two television stations, a barber shop, a hospital complete with OR, a dentist's office, a ship's exchange which passes for our own shopping mall, a newspaper and printing office, laundry service, a hobby shop."
"Anybody ever get lost down here?" Pamela asked. She stepped back against a gray-painted bulkhead as three dungaree-clad sailors squeezed past, going the other way.
"All the time," Tombstone replied. "Everybody carries maps the first few days they're aboard. After that, well… I know I'd get lost trying to find my way around down in snipe country, and I've been aboard six months."
"Snipe country?"
"Engineering spaces, below and aft. Don't worry. That's not where we're going."
"Do you know where we're going?" Griffith said. He was out of breath, lugging the bulky camera he balanced on his shoulder. He'd taken a number of shots of various parts of the ship at Pamela's direction, but he looked as though he'd be a lot happier taping congressmen in a shore-based studio.
"Sure thing, Mr. Griffith. This way."
They took another turn into a blind corner with a ladder zigzagging precipitously into the depths of the ship. He led them down three levels.
Pamela seemed to be bearing up well under the indignities of navigating the steep ladders in her skirt; more than once, though, Tombstone had to lead the way with a bellowed "make a hole" to clear the sightseeing sailors who had gathered near the base of the next ladder down. It seemed that Jefferson's grape vine was working at full efficiency, alerting sailors to the fact that a woman was making a tour of the vessel.
"We were on the 0–3 deck," he explained as they left the ladder and doubled back in an unexpected direction. "That's the level immediately under the 'roof," or flight deck. Now we're on the 0–1 level, coming up on the hangar deck."
"Does that mean we're as far down in the ship as we can go?"
"Hardly. It means the decks below this one are numbered differently…
one, two, three, and so on down to the keel. Counting the island, Jefferson is twenty stories tall."
They made one last turn and emerged into a vast, steel-lined cavern.
A visitor's first look at Jefferson's hangar deck never failed to raise the same emotions: surprise and awe. Thirty feet deep, two thirds the length of the carrier and covering two acres, the vast chamber looked like the inside of some immense shoreside warehouse. The glimpses of sunlight and blue sea caught through the huge, oval elevator bays were so restricted that they might as well have been views overlooking a river from a storage building back home.
The air rang and echoed with shouted orders, the roar of tractors, the clatter of tools and metal on metal.
Most of the deck space was occupied by aircraft, each with wings folded in a characteristic way depending on its type: F-14s with their variable-sweep wings angled back along their flanks, A-6 Intruders with the wings broken in the middle and folded across their spines, a lone Hawkeye with wings twisted at right angles and rotated back to avoid the dish-shaped radome on its back.
Space not occupied by aircraft was made hazardous by yellow-painted tractors, called mules, which busied about in a strange blend of geometry and ballet.
"It's enormous!" Pamela said.
"Yup," Tombstone agreed. "Follow me."
"What's that smell?" Baughman asked.
Tombstone sniffed the air. Curiously, he was aware of Pamela's perfume, a subtle hint of roses and vanilla, but nothing more. "Probably a mix of oil and JP5," he said. "That's what we use for jet fuel. After you've been aboard awhile, you don't even notice it."
"You carry a lot of jet fuel on board?" Pamela asked.
"About two million gallons."
"My God!" Griffith said. "That stuff's pretty explosive, isn't it?"
"Yeah. We have to be pretty careful with it."
Pamela gave him a searching, sideways look. "Why do you carry so much?"
Tombstone laughed. "Actually, it's not enough. We have fifty or sixty active aircraft at any given time. Each one flies twice a day, and burns two, maybe three thousand gallons each time up. At that rate, two million gallons doesn't last nearly long enough! We need to take on more fuel just about every week."
"I thought nuclear carriers didn't need replenishment."
"To run the engines, no. Jefferson's nuclear fuel supply will keep her cruising sixty thousand miles a year for fifteen years, sure, and uranium takes up only a tiny fraction of the space a load of fuel oil would. In fact, because of that, we can carry more avgas than sep1 conventional carriers do. But we still have to take on fresh supplies pretty often. Not just avgas either, but food, stores of all kinds. One operation like Wonsan pretty much wipes us out on munitions too. That's why we put in at Japan afterwards, to stock up."
As he talked, he led them across the tangled maze of the hangar deck toward one of the huge, oval cutaway openings in the side of the ship.
"This is one of the elevators?" Griffith asked.
"That's right. Port side aft. Actually, it's a section of the flight deck which moves up and down on those rails along the outside of the hull. We have four of them, and they can lift sixty-five tons at a time. We use them to transfer aircraft back and forth between the hangar deck and the roof."
As they stepped across the yellow-and-orange painted warning stripes which marked the joint between deck and elevator, Pamela stopped and looked at the opening, large enough to pass an aircraft with its wings folded. "You know, Commander, a big question being debated back on Capitol Hill these days is whether aircraft carriers are too vulnerable to be worthwhile in a modern war. And now that I've seen one, I have to wonder if your critics aren't right."
