replacing had been a friend from the old days. Commander Isaac “Jolly Green”
Greene, who’d survived a shoot-down during the Wonsan operation, and had
played a key role in the Alpha Strike that had stopped the war between India
and Pakistan, hadn’t been all that well liked by his comrades on the Jefferson
back then, but he’d been a first-class Intruder pilot and a fine squadron
commander with a reputation for guts and determination. He’d beaten Magruder
out for the coveted Deputy CAG post when Jefferson’s new deployment had first
been announced, and despite his own disappointment Tombstone had been glad
that it had been Jolly Greene who took it away from him.
It seemed wrong somehow that the big, sarcastic man had bought it in a
flight deck accident. He had survived deadly Triple-A fire over Wonsan and
the icy waters off the Korean coast, only to die when the Intruder he was
riding in as an observer had skidded while landing on a wet deck. His
ejection seat had thrown him clear of the carrier … but hours of searching
by SAR copters had never found him.
That wasn’t how Tombstone would have wanted his homecoming to start …
but now he’d be stepping into the dead man’s shoes whether he liked it or not.
Tombstone buried the thought. At least he was back on carrier duty
again, where he belonged. That was what really counted.
CHAPTER 3
Monday, 9 June, 1997
2325 hours Zulu (2125 hours Zone)
Tomcat 109, Mercury Flight
Twenty miles abeam of U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
“Mercury One-oh-nine, Charlie now.”
Tombstone acknowledged Jefferson’s order to break out of the holding
pattern and start his final approach. The rest of Mercury Flight had already
landed safely, though one of the Intruder pilots had nearly lost it in the
last few seconds. Some good coaching from the Landing Signals Officer down on
the carrier deck had kept the kid from cracking up, but it had been a close
call.
That incident, coming hard on the heels of his own refueling problem, was
the sort of thing that would have warned off someone who believed in bad
omens. Tombstone had never considered himself superstitious, but this flight
was shaking his skepticism.
Now only Darkstar, the KA-6 tanker that had flown back from the
rendezvous point with them, remained aloft with the Tomcat. It would keep on
circling until the F-14 had landed, in case Tombstone needed to tank up again
before landing.
Fat chance, he told himself. The thought of another refueling like the
last one was the best inducement he’d ever had for getting his landing right
the first time.
He reduced speed to 250 knots, overriding the flight computers attempts
to extend the aircraft’s swing wings to their full wing-forward position. The
Tomcat’s sleek lines wouldn’t be visible in the darkness, but Tombstone, like
most aviators, made it a point of pride to keep the wings back and the F-14
looking its best all the way down.
The action brought back an old memory of a young RIO who had referred to
the forward wing position as “goose mode” because it made the Tomcat look like
an awkward goose flaring out as it landed on some still lake.
As the seconds ticked by he checked his airspeed and angle of approach on
the Vertical Display Indicator in the center of his control panel, carefully
lining up the Instrument Landing System cross-pointers on the glowing cursor
that represented the Jefferson’s location with built-in corrections for wind
direction and speed. He didn’t like flying by the ILS, but it was the only
way to make a carrier landing approach at night. Except in the brightest
moonlight, sea and sky tended to merge into a featureless black cave, and
without reference points a pilot could quickly lose his orientation. Vertigo
was one of the milder problems associated with trying to fly when it was
impossible to judge distance or direction. When traveling at nearly three
hundred miles per hour, it only took an instant’s confusion to end up a
casualty.
At best the carrier itself would be no more than a tiny dot of light set
in an otherwise featureless gloom, and that only at comparatively close