just make out the Jefferson, a toy on the endless, glittering blue of the
ocean, twenty miles distant. Pri-Fly had ordered him to stay aloft until the
carrier’s traffic patterns could be cleared, and his rapidly falling fuel
levels had required him to rendezvous with the tanker, a “Texaco” in Navy
aviation parlance. Refueling complete, he made a gentle turn toward the huge,
oval racecourse in the sky known as the Marshall Stack, a holding pattern
where he could loiter until Pri-Fly called him in.
A sharp, thuttering vibration from behind made it feel as though the
aircraft was shaking itself to pieces. The engine-fire light was out,
however. If his turkey–Navy slang for Tomcats–would just stay in one piece
a little longer …
“Hey, John-Boy?” he called. “John-Boy! Can you hear me?”
No answer … and still no way to tell whether the ICS was working. The
complete lack of sound from the F14’s backseat had convinced him that his RIO
was dead or unconscious. Earlier, Pri-Fly had asked if he wanted to eject,
and it was John-Boy’s silence that had convinced him to stay with the damaged
aircraft.
Years before, during the air operations over North Korea after the
capture of a U.S. intelligence ship off Wonsan, Tombstone Magruder had won the
Navy Cross. Part of his citation had described how he elected to stick with
his crippled Tomcat, riding it in to the carrier’s flight deck because his RIO
was wounded and would have died in an ejection. Coyote found himself in a
similar dilemma now. Safest would be to eject now, and let the SH3 helicopter
dubbed “Angel One,” hovering as it always did during launch and recovery
operations a mile off Jefferson’s port side, pluck him from the sea.
But he couldn’t make a decision like that without knowing John-Boy’s
condition. As long as Pri-Fly gave him clearance for a trap on Jefferson’s
deck, that was what he would try for.
Radio chatter crackled and buzzed in his headset, spillover from other
channels intruding on the traffic-control frequency. He caught the distant
words “… fire on the deck …” and knew he was listening in on a
conversation between the stricken Hopkins, now many miles to the southeast,
and Jefferson’s CIC. Word that the frigate had been hit by two air-to-surface
cruise missiles had reached Coyote during his return to Viking Station.
Guilt gnawed at him like a raw wound. He’d not been able to reach
Scorpion and Juggler in time to save them, and he’d reached the Russian
Blackjack just too late to stop it from launching its ship-killers.
Navy aviators tended to be an arrogant lot, though it was arrogance
well-placed. They were the best at what they did, masters of their
professions, of their domains. But it was hard to admit failure.
Coyote knew now that he should have stayed on the Blackjack. Scorp and
Juggler would still have died, but he might have been able to take out the
Soviet bomber.
Might, might …
Coyote shook his head. Damn it all, he’d made the best judgment call he
could. If faced with the same situation again, the same decision again, he
was certain that he would make the same choice.
Another Tomcat pulled alongside Coyote’s aircraft on the right. The
number on its nose was 110, and the device painted in muted, camouflage grays
on the tail was a bird of prey, diving with extended talons. VF-97, the War
Eagles, was the other Tomcat squadron stationed aboard the Jefferson.
“Viper Two-oh-one,” a voice called over his headset. “This is Eagle
One-one-oh on your starboard wing. How about a visual, over?”
“Roger that,” Coyote replied. “But if I’m missing something like my tail
section, don’t tell me.”
“No sweat, Viper. Looks like you have some scraps missing from your
stabilizers, but they’re still in one piece. Sit tight a mike while we
inspect.”
Gently, the other Tomcat circled Coyote’s aircraft as its RIO eyeballed
the damaged F14 from every angle. He’d already been inspected once by the
KA6D just before linking up for refueling. This, he knew, would be the
inspection that decided whether or not the Air Boss was going to let him try a