been ready to call it quits and settle into civilian life with Pamela. In the
process of helping Batman fight his own personal demons, Tombstone had come to
terms with his own. Flying F-14s wasn’t a guarantee of immortality–every
student pilot knew that–but it took time and age to assimilate that fear.
“You know there’ll be a formal JAG investigation,” he said. He kept his
eyes fixed on the pilot’s face. Deep in the blue eyes, he saw his own image
reflected back at him.
The pilot nodded and looked down at the floor. “I couldn’t think of
anything else to do. It all happened so fast. One second I was taxiing, the
next second the brakes are blown and I’m heading for the side. I remember
thinking about the E-2’s, wondering if I’d clear them. That Plane Captain–he
just appeared out of nowhere. I’d just taxied through that part of the flight
deck, and he wasn’t there then. Then all at once …” The pilot’s voice
trailed off.
“That’s the way it happens,” Tombstone said. “Even in the air. Four
hundred knots, ten knots–makes no difference. You train to react without
thinking, because there’s never enough time. You either do the right thing,
or you’re dead. Sometimes you do the right thing and you’re still dead.”
“I keep seeing him–just those last couple of seconds.” The younger
pilot’s voice was a low monotone. “He’d snagged a pad-eye. I cut the engines
as soon as I saw him, but it wasn’t fast enough. He was looking at me, and I
could see him screaming. I don’t think it was words, not from the way his
mouth was moving, just screaming. I keep wondering what I could have done to
prevent it, why I didn’t just ram into the JBD or one of the E-2’s and save
the kid’s life. Then I realize there wasn’t time; I couldn’t have gotten
turned fast enough by the time I saw him. Maybe if I’d looked before I
turned, maybe-”
“Maybe you could have,” Tombstone said, interrupting the emotionless
recital of the facts. Bird Dog’s voice suggested that he was still in shock.
The sooner Tombstone could cut through the cocoon that was isolating the pilot
from reality, the sooner he’d start to deal with what had happened. “It’s not
probable, but it is possible.”
Bird Dog flinched as though Tombstone had struck him. “You’re saying it
was my fault.”
“It doesn’t matter right now. It might have hours ago, when either you
or a plane captain might have noticed the hydraulics leak that caused your
brakes to fail. But nothing you can do will change what happened. You either
learn to live with it, or you’ll be tossing your wings on CAG’s desk before
the cruise is over.”
“Maybe I should just do that now,” Bird Dog said. He shut his eyes for a
moment and tried to imagine taxiing an F-14 on the flight deck again. All he
could see was the screaming face, eyes hidden by the goggles and cranial
helmet, one arm stretched out against the baking black non-skid, the fingers
slipping, the horrifying rumble of the Tomcat’s right engine, the wet sucking
grinding, metal clashing on metal as the body and the tie-down chains were
ingested. Two turbine blades tore through the fuselage, barely missing Gator,
ripping narrow bloody gashes in the cockpit.
It had been as sudden and unexpected as the destruction of the Spratly
rock. One minute the tank crew had been alive, staring up at his aircraft.
If he’d been closer to the island during those last moments, he might have
seen the same expression on their faces as he’d seen on Alvarez’s–a stark
realization that cut to the heart of each man, the inevitable truth that no
man was immortal. He shuddered and tried to block the vivid details out of
his mind, as well as the logical conclusion to that train of thought. If he’d
been close enough to see the tank crew’s faces, to look into their eyes in the
split second before they’d died, he would have been close enough to die
himself. Even if the missile had not sought out the Tomcat as preferred prey