asked, abruptly changing the subject.
“You think I wasn’t paying attention at the brief? South.”
“South is the right answer, my man. You get the nose pointed that way,
I’ll give you a vector.”
Bird Dog winced as he thought back to the one time he hadn’t managed to
keep the aircraft pointed in the right direction. Then he forced the thought
away and resolved to keep his head in the cockpit. His RIO hadn’t taken a
slam at him. It was Bird Dog’s mind that was the problem.
“Sure you trust me that much?” Bird Dog replied lightly. “Awful tough
task for a pilot, figuring out which way’s south.”
“I think you’re up to that part of it. Okay, come left to 187. That
ought to put us dead on course for it. No, it’s the other part that bothers
me. The part about why.”
“Now who was nodding off during the brief?” Bird Dog ribbed. “I thought
they covered that fairly well. With all these islands going boom, we’re
supposed to go watch and see if this one does. A real challenge for a
multimillion-dollar aircraft.”
Bird Dog heard the RIO fidgeting in his seat and glanced in the small
rearview mirror. “Hey! You hear me?” Bird Dog asked.
“I heard you. I heard the brief, too.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Aw, come on, Gator! Don’t make me play Twenty Questions with you!”
“It’s nothing, Bird Dog. Nothing firm, anyway. It’s just that I don’t
entirely believe that that’s why we’re going out to circle a bunch of rocks.
Think about it. We’re headed directly away from everything that’s happened in
the last couple of days. Seems strange, that’s all.”
“Well, why else would we be going out there?”
“I’m not entirely sure. And that’s what bothers me. If it were really
pictures of rocks blowing up, you’d send a TARPS bird to take pictures. Or an
S-3. Or a helo. Or something that could go low and slow and get evidence.
Not an F-14 with a combat load. And not on this type of cyclic ops. You
notice that, Bird Dog? We’re on flex deck ops, massive alert five birds, and
no CAP in the one area we ought to be interested in. Now why do you suppose
that is?”
“Hadn’t thought about it, really. I didn’t see my name posted for alert,
and that’s all that I looked for.”
“Well, doesn’t it strike you as unusual? For the next four days, we’re
going to be operating at very specific hours on very specific missions. And
this in the middle of some weird shit going on out here. I don’t know, Bird
Dog, it’s just not making sense to me.”
“Me, neither, now that you mention it.” And I’m not sure I really care,
except for the alert part of it. Sitting on the flight deck for hours, all I
see is Alvarez. Every time the engine turns over, every time some idiot plane
captain gets near me, I see it again.”
“At least we’re getting one of the flights today,” Gator said. “Better
than sitting on the deck.”
Bird Dog looked in the mirror again and saw the RIO looking back, a
speculative gleam in his eyes.
“Yeah. Gotta love that,” Bird Dog said finally.
0830 local (Zulu -7)
TFCC
USS Jefferson
“There goes the first flight,” Tombstone said, watching the plat camera.
“Think it will work?” Batman asked.
“It should. Lab Rat came up with a damned fine plan. Shit, remind me
not to call him that anymore.”
“Noted.”
“The way this op is planned,” Tombstone continued, “it’s the Chinese that
are going to be running the maze, not us. They’re going to see a lot of
American air activity to the south, around the furthest away rocks that are
part of this island chain. We’re hoping it’s going to get their curiosity up.
At the very least, we’re acting exactly the opposite of what they probably
expect. One way or another, that ought to provoke some sort of response from
them.”
“With an unarmed E-2 up overhead, I hope it’s not an armed response,”
Batman said.
“Me, too,” Tombstone said soberly. “We’re taking a chance, I know. But