The Final Countdown, page 19
“Right here, sir.” Black Cloud led the way to a hooded scope. Yelland peered at the glowing lucite. He saw what his weather officer meant Nimitz was represented clearly on the tracking board. He saw the familiar signs of distant clouds, even the small bright spots of his night patrol over the carrier. Well to the rear of the carrier’s position the radar scope showed a strange blur. Yelland kept his eyes on the scope while talking.
“When did you first see this?”
“Twenty-eight minutes ago, sir.”
“Is it moving?”
“It sure is, Captain. And it’s moving toward us.”
Yelland finally looked. “You mean that thing is following us?”
“Captain, I’m way over my head with this business,’* Black Cloud said. “It seems to be following us. I don’t know for certain. I have no way of knowing. That could have been its original course, but I got a strange feeling that somehow we, well, we’re attracting it.”
Yelland looked at Lasky, who was deep in thought. “Don’t theorize any more than you have to, Warren. Let’s hear it”
“I think he’s right,” Lasky said. “Whatever were the conditions that first time, I don’t know, an electromagnetic signature from the nuclear systems of this ship, whatever, it could be repeating. That storm could also be having a rebound effect You know, like the overpressure wave of an explosion. It creates a partial vacuum and you get a return pressure wave to make up the imbalance. That’s the best I can do.”
“Sir, if we change course we’ll know a lot better,” Black Cloud offered.
“You mean we might just get out of its way,” the captain said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Damnit, I don’t know if we should even be trying to escape it.”
They all stared at him. “Jesus,” Yelland swore. “We’re right back to that closed circle of knowing not what to do. To the devil with the theories. Right now I have a mission to launch. John,” he said to Black Cloud, “you stay glued to this room. You don’t leave it. You keep a record of everything that’s going on. I’ll hold an open line between the bridge and you. If it looks important, you get on that horn to me right away, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Mr. Lasky, join me on the bridge. We’re about to start or to stop a war, and I’m afraid I don’t know which it’s to be.”
“Two o’clock position,” Owens said. “See that one island off by itself? Take this thing into there. It’s uninhabited, so when we get real dose bring her down slow and use one landing light There’s a good beach for about a hundred yards without any trees or obstructions. Take her in and put her down there.”
Owens stood between and behind the two helicopter pilots. They were flying with all running lights, beacons, and strobes off to avoid drawing attention from the military installations or patrol snips off the main Hawaiian Islands. The three men studied the radar screen displayed dead center in the cockpit It had been switched to land contour mode to bring into glowing lines the shapes of small islands off a major land mass.
The pilot glanced at Owens. “Sir, we were told to take the senator to Pearl Harbor.”
Owens nodded. “I know what you were told. Other people were supposed to hear your orders. Now I’m giving you a cured order, lieutenant Land on that beach I pointed out. Any questions?”
“No, sir.” The pilot set his lips grimly and began the steady descent toward the radar target growing steadily larger as they eased from the sky. “That’s it” Owens confirmed. “Radar altimeter shows a hundred feet Hold this until you’re over the beach and take her down gently.”
“Yes, sir.”
Owens returned to the cabin and went through a ritual of fastening his seat belt. Chapman and Laurel could hear the best of the rotors changing as they descended. Moments later they felt the big helicopter lurch slightly. “We’re down, Commander,” the pilot called back.
“Very good. Keep everything running,” Owens ordered.
“Wait a damn moment!” Chapman said angrily. He was peering through a window. Everything outside was dark. The only lights he could see were far in the distance. He turned to glare at Owens. “This isn’t Pearl Harbor. Where the hell are we?”
Owens met his gaze without flinching. “My apologies, Senator Chapman. My orders were to put you down here where you’ll be safe.”
“What orders?” Chapman shouted. “You heard the captain talking to me! He said to fly us to Pearl!” Laurel showed fear at the unexpected exchange. “What’s happening? Is there something wrong?”
Owens and Chapman ignored her questions. They were in a contest that Owens controlled and they both knew it “I’m sorry, Senator,” he said. “This is the only way for us to go. Like I said, you and Laurel will be safe here.”
Owens turned from the enraged man before him and addressed the crew chief. “All right, you know what to do. Get those supplies outside on that beach. We’re running out of time, so let’s move it”
Owens pulled open the sliding door and stepped down on the sand. Air whistled about him from the idling rotor blades. Behind him two men carried out several small crates of supplies.
Chapman stared at what was happening. He made an instant decision. “Laurel, get Owens to help you down. Do it, quickly!”
For the moment Owens and the crew were occupied. Chapman turned behind him, pulled open the safety catch on an emergency flare kit. Covering his movements with his body, he snapped a thick shell into the chamber, closed the flare gun, and stuffed it inside the flight jacket given him before leaving the carrier. Then he turned, hands in the jacket pockets, watching the men on the beach. Laurel had grasped Owens by his arm.
“Will you please tell me what’s happening, Richard? I don’t understand any of this!”
He looked at her with more than regrets for just following his orders. “Laurel, I’m sorry. My God, you don’t know how sorry I am about all this. But you’re safe, and that’s all that matters right now. Please don’t ask me any more because I can’t give you the answers. Trust me, I—”
She pulled back from him, the one landing light illuminating her face just enough to show sudden anger. “Trust you? I don’# trust you. Not nowl You lied to him and you’re lying to me, and I don’t believe a word you’re saying. I don’t take orders from you, Commander!“
Owens looked at her with sudden exhaustion. Damn, he had to get back to the carrier, because-But he couldn’t leave her like this and he ran after her, reaching for her arm. In the cabin Chapman could just make out her words.. “And keep your damned hands off mel”
Chapman made his decision. He would never have a better opportunity than right now. Everyone among the crew was busy. The senator brought the flare gun horn his jacket, moving slowly toward a crewman securing tiedown straps. The crewman turned, startled, and the heavy flare gun crashed against his temple. The crewman collapsed like a poled ox, unconscious. Chapman spun about and ran to the cockpit. The flight engineer was talking with the pilots when he felt the muzzle of the flare gun against the side of his head.
“Just freeze right where you are,” he was told.
The pilots stared at him. “If you follow orders, he lives. It you make one wrong move, I squeeze this trigger and I’ll bum his brains right out of his head. Do you understand me?”
The pilot stayed very cool, very calm. That flare gun was a bomb inside his machine. “I understand.”
“Then you take this thing straight up, and right now, or this man dies.” He glared at the pilots. “You goddamned traitors, do it!”
“Yes, sir, we’ll—”
“Shut up and get into the air, damn you!”
The pilot nodded. A moment later the sound of the engines increased and the great overhead rotors threw off their blatting thunder. The ground fell away slowly. The pilot shouted over his shoulder. “Mister, be careful. You shoot that thing off in here and we all bum.”
“That’s the price of this ride, buster,” Chapman snarled. “I’m willing to pay the ticket Keep going!”
On the beach, Owens stared in horror as the Sikorsky spun up its rotors and began a slow ascent. Cursing, he ran frantically toward the helicopter, reaching the rising machine as it climbed. He couldn’t make the cabin door and in an act of desperation he threw himself at the hull railings. He clung precariously to the chopper as it moved across the water. Then the pilot increased power, the Sikorsky pitched forward for speed, and the downblast overwhelmed Owens. He fell away from the accelerating machine, only a dozen feet above the water, and crashed into the surf.
Chapman looked ahead toward the brighter lights. “That’s Pearl over there. I know that harbor. You make straight for the navy base and you land at headquarters.”
The pilot nodded grimly. “You got it, mister. I don’t know what your game is, but—”
“Shut up. Fly.”
Behind Chapman, the crewman knocked out by the blow to his head had regained consciousness. He struggled to a sitting position, unheard by Chapman in the crashing sound of engines and rotor blades. The crewman steadied himself, and then hurled his body at the civilian with the gun. Chapman gasped from the blow, but he was desperate and like a wild animal He flung the man from him and turned to face his adversary. The moment the gun moved from his head, the flight engineer slammed a fist against Chapman’s head. The senator gasped, his body jerking from the blow.
His finger squeezed involuntarily.
A blinding flash speared at them as the gun went off. The flare slammed into a hydraulic line.
Dick Owens stood in the surf, looking after the helicopter moving across the water. He saw a flash of light inside the cabin. Before he could try to understand what the light might be, an enormous white-yellow ball of intense flame mushroomed outward in all directions. Blazing wreckage spewed into the water.
Behind him, Owens heard Laurel screaming.
Captain Yelland glanced at the distal clock on his bridge command console. The figures read 0528. Yelland turned to the radarman across the bridge. “Have they started back yet?”
“They’re in the air, sir, but—I’ve lost it! It just went off the scope. It’s down, sir!”
“What the devil do you mean, it’s down?”
The radar operator looked up, shaken. “Sir, it looks as if they crashed.”
Yelland cursed beneath his breath. Dan Thurman was by his side immediately. “Captain, we can launch a rescue helo in seconds.”
Yelland looked up again at the dock. The lines on his forehead deepend. “There’s no time. It’ll have to wait.” He leaned forward, looking across the great flight deck in the gloom, dull lights of many colors identifying planes and launch crews. “Mr. Perry,” Yelland said quietly, “bring her into the wind.”
The huge warship began her turn into the wind to increase tne air flow across the deck for the catapult launches.
“Plot, this is the captain. Report on the Japanese fleet”
“Aye, aye, sir. Two hundred miles out from Pearl, holding course, and—sir, they’re starting their turn.”
Yelland looked at his staff, Warren Lasky with them. “Two cruisers are set to launch four Zero floatplane fighters at 0600. That starts them all. The first planes will leave their carriers at the same time and start forming in the air. Less than ten minutes to go.” He squeezed the transmit button again. “Plot, give me the weather with the Japanese.”
“Aye, aye, sir. No change. Six thousand feet overcast, winds out of the northeast.”
“Captain.” Yelland turned to Lasky. “Would you mind a question?”
Yelland hesitated a moment, watching the afterburners blazing on a Tomcat as it catapulted into the night “Go ahead, Mr. Lasky.”
“In just ten minutes the Japanese will launch a hundred and ninety fighters and bombers.”
“I know that”
“I’m wondering why you didn’t go after their carriers before they launched. It would reduce the chances of a successful attack by—”
“Those carriers can’t hurt us at Pearl, Mr. Lasky. Until they launch those planes and they’re in formation and on their way to attack, there isn’t any attack. They need daylight They’ll launch at six o’clock and they’ll work their way into formation. They will not drop their first bomb until shortly before eight o’clock. I will not accept a war situation until those planes are on their way and committed. Then we shall intercept them. Those planes are like clay targets to our aircraft Then, and only then, after we have engaged in the air, will we go after Nagumo himself. Have no fear, Mr. Lasky. There are twenty-three ships in that fleet and we will send all twenty-three to the bottom.”
He fell silent as two more fighters crashed into the night sky. One after the other the powerful fighters and bombers thundered into the fading darkness.
Yelland’s earphone buzzed. He punched in the line to weather. “Sir, weather here.”
“Go ahead.”
“There’s no question, Captain. It’s the same kind of storm, maybe even the same storm. It’s moving up on us. And, Captain, when we turned, it turned with us like we were a magnet.”
“Keep me informed. How far out is that thing from us?”
“Thirty miles, sir.”
“All right. Give me any changes as they occur.” Spears of flame tore across the deck. In the first touches of dawn Yelland watched the powerful jets, seen by their position lights, taking up formation. The combat controller’s voice came across nis headset.
“Victor Two One Zero, this is Zulu Five. Assume your planned course. You will pick up visual for target intercept at zero six four zero.”
“Plot from the captain. Report”
“They’re in the air, sir. The scope is cluttered, but we count one hundred and ninety bogies. One zero niner aircraft, on course for a direct approach from their fleet to Pearl.”
Yelland looked at Lasky. “Right out of the pages of the history books, Mr. Lasky.”
“Weather to the captain.”
“Let’s have it”
“Sir, that storm is picking up speed. We’re getting much stronger interference. Captain, I thing it’s going to be as bad as before, maybe worse. And we’ve got all those planes out—”
“Thank you, Mr. Arthur. Stand by.”
Yelland listened to the radio exchange between his aircraft and operations. “Zulu Five, this is Strike Leader Victor Two One Zero. We confirm radar contact Bandits at one eight zero miles. We’re closing fast Request permission to arm all weapons. I repeat, request permission to arm all weapons. Over.”
The controller looked at Commander Dan Thurman. For a long moment Thurman paused, then he nodded. “Go.”
“Strike Leader from Zulu Five. That is affirmative. I repeat, you are affirm to arm your weapons. Over.” st
“Roger, Zulu Five.” Several seconds went by, then
I the voice ghosted through the airwaves. “Strike Leader to Zulu Five. We’re hot Confirm all aircraft are hot Over.”
“We read you as all aircraft armed, Strike Leader. Continue as planned.”
The sky had started to lighten along the horizon. They looked from the bridge toward the stem of Nimitz and beyond. Already they could feel the deep throbbing pulse beneath them as the seas began to heave. The greenish cast to the sky increased with every second.
“Captain! Weather here. It’s overtaking us, sir.”
Yelland turned to the helmsman. His voice cracked like a whip. “Steer one eight zero. All ahead, flank speed.”
“Aye, sir!”
Nimitz veered away from the storm bearing down on her, an enormous cauldron of violence seemingly intent on snaring a running prey.
Two minutes went by. Three. Four, “Weather office to the bridge!”
“This is Yelland.”
“Sir, it’s no joy. That damn storm is coming after us,
“Captain. It’s changed course and it’s on the precise track we’ve taken. We’re getting heavy lightning along the horizon—”
Yelland could see that for himself. The wind was already making its banshee cry heard on the bridge and terrible clouds boiled along the horizon, — “and There’s no way we can outrun it. Captain?”
A low moan of despair came from Yelland. He banged his fist slowly against his console. He looked up at Lasky, despair stamped on his face. “Full circle, Mr. Lasky. It’s all coming full circle. We can’t outrun that devil storm. We may have tripped over a glitch in time, but nature repairs its own wounds. Damn!” He took a deep breath. “There’s no choice. We’ve got to recall our aircraft.”
Lasky turned white. “My God, Captain, you can’t do that!”
Yelland turned the speakers from the weather office full up. “Mr. Arthur!”
“Sir?”
“Classify your situation as to the storm bearing down on us.”
“Captain, I—” Black Cloud hesitated, then threw away his restraints. “Sir, it’s worse than the last one and closing fast, and the situation is critical. Full emergency, sir.”
“Thank you, weather,” Yelland said calmly. “Pass the word to secure this vessel for violent weather. Full emergency conditions.” He hit another button.
“COMM, the captain. We have just moved into full emergency weather conditions. Scrub the mission. I repeat, scrub the mission. I’ll stand by on open line. I want to hear full confirmation from Strike Leader personally. Do it.”
Lasky stared, searching desperately for the right words. How in the name of God could he do this now, of all times! “Matt,” he said softly, “you’re wrong, you’re wrong.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Lasky… . how little you know sometimes. We can’t outrun that storm. You’ve got the same gut instinct I do. Were committed to it, linked for all eternity to that damned thing. And I’ve got to get those planes back here. Do you understand?’ He shook his head. “No, of course not How could you? You never flew a jet in hellish weather trying to reach a carrier deck that’s gone mad. Their only chance is to return immediately.” •
Lasky had regained his self-control and Yelland saw that smile show on his face. “Nice try, Matt We both know they’re not going to make it in time. Look at that weather. The way this thing is rolling, the wind. Just like before. Maybe worse. You’re right. I never flew a jet onto a carrier deck that’s gone mad. But I know that no one could do it in this kind of storm, when even the carrier can’t be controlled. Sail her into the wind? That’s a joke. You’re just trying to keep her from going down, that’s all.”
