impossible, incomprehensible ballet of motion. The noise, the noise was
overwhelming, even through the ear protectors built into White’s helmet.
An Intruder thundered off the bow, and the jet blast whipped at his
jacket. He was afraid. He’d heard time and time again that it was
possible for a careless man to step into a jet blast and be hurled off
the side and into the sea. In combat, the carrier couldn’t stop to
rescue one man overboard, and the water was so cold he wouldn’t survive
more than moments anyway.
I could get killed out here. Death was very much on his mind today.
Why had Pellet killed himself?
Dam. Where was he supposed to go now? Someone in a yellow jersey
turned and stared at him, then shouted something, his mouth working but
the words unheard in the thunder surrounding him. Now he was waving at
him, telling him to move that way.
The color codes of the jerseys were still hazy. What did yellow mean?
White wasn’t sure. Which way now … over there? An odd-looking
aircraft was on one of the waist catapults. White searched his memory.
Yeah, it was a Prowler, what someone had called a stretched version of
the A-6. The plane was being hooked to the cat shuttle, its engines
already screaming against the upright barrier of a JBD. More men were
gathered around over there. He started toward them.
Now where? These people were all busy. Was he supposed to … He
spotted someone in a blue jersey standing close to the Prowler’s side
and started toward him, chocks still in hand.
Someone yelled. White turned, but kept walking backward. Were they
yelling at him? Several men, one in white, the others in yellow, were
coming toward him at a dead run. At first, he didn’t connect them with
himself. He thought he was in the way and took several more steps
backward …
1638 hours
Air Ops
U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
Air Ops, right next door to Jefferson’s CATCC on the 0-3 deck, was a
large compartment made claustrophobic by the clatter of display screens,
status boards, computer consoles, radar scopes, and television monitors
that seemed to fill every available space. Tombstone had the CAG seat,
an office executive’s chair positioned on the deck to give him a clear
view of most of the consoles around him.
“Just stand easy, Nightmare,” he told Marinaro, who was standing beside
him. The man’s dark features had taken on a demonic cast in the eerie
glow of radar screens and CRTS. “We’ll get you guys up later, if we
can.”
“I really want to go with them, Stoney.”
“I know.” Damn it, Tombstone thought. So do I!
Which was why he was holding back on letting Nightmare and Tomboy take
the CAG bird up.
“Damn it, Nightmare,” Tombstone snapped. “I’ve got other problems on my
hands right now! If you want to make yourself useful, grab a seat over
there and lend a hand with squadron communications. But get the hell
out of my hair!”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Shit. He’d not wanted to come down on the guy that hard. Maybe the
strain was starting to show. He rose from the chair, intending to call
Nightmare back …
“God, look there!” another CIC officer shouted. Tombstone froze,
staring up at the PLAT monitor suspended from the bulkhead.
“What’s the son-of-a-bitch think he’s-”
“Oh, Christ!”
Tombstone stared in horror at the bloody spectacle on the TV screen.
For a stunned moment there was dead silence in Ops. Then the voices
started up again, urgent, worried, but continuing to maintain the flow
of communications traffic to the aircraft already aloft.
Operations went on, even when they were punctuated by tragedy. From the
look of things on the PLAT screen, a sailor had just backed into the
intake of a Prowler readying on Cat Three.
The man was dead, of course. There could be no doubt whatsoever about
that. Worse–from the point of view of flight operations–though, it
appeared that the accident had just killed the Prowler as well. Its
starboard engine had shut down. but there was smoke coming from the
exhaust and from the intake. From the look of things, a turbine blade