between a civilian craft and a tanker.” He put the P-3 into a gentle,
left-hand bank, circling the large commercial vessel located below. “Even
at this altitude, I can tell what it is.”
“We going in for a closer look?” Lieutenant Commander Frank “Eel”
Burns asked.
“Not unless you really think it’s necessary. I can tell what it is
from here,” the pilot replied.
“Yeah, well, if we drop down and rig it out, it might be good
practice. Not damned much else to play with out here,” Eel replied.
“All right, all right,” the pilot snapped. “If it’ll keep you guys in
the backseat from playing with yourselves, we’ll go take a look.” He nosed
the P-3 Lockheed Orion over and headed toward the ocean below them.
Eel glanced uneasily at the antisubmarine warfare technician sitting
next to him. AW1 Kiley Maroney, an experienced technician with five
cruises under his belt, shrugged. He made a small movement with his hand,
signifying a continuation of a discussion they’d dropped before boarding
the aircraft. Pilots had their moods, and all a decent backseater could do
was put up with it. When it came down to tactical command, they both knew
that the man sitting in front of them would do what they needed.
“How ’bout we take a look at the island at the same time?” Eel
suggested. “Jefferson claimed she got some strange signals coming off that
island last night. Wouldn’t hurt us to take a look.”
“I tell ya, it comes from too many arrested carrier landings,” the
pilot said, continuing the diatribe he’d started earlier that day.
“Scrambles their brains, it does. Just look at that,” he finished,
standing the P-3 on one wing to circle around the massive foreign-flagged
tanker below them. “That’s exactly where they reported that Greenpeace
ship at. Does that look like a converted fishing vessel to you?”
“No, it certainly doesn’t,” Eel said slowly. “And I don’t think even
an F-14 jock could get the two confused.”
“Well, if that’s not what they reported, where the hell is the
Greenpeace ship?” the pilot demanded. “I tell you, slamming into the deck
that many times a day just rattles their brains. Ain’t a damned one of
them that’s got a bit of sense.”
“Let’s go back to your first question,” Eel suggested. “Where the
hell is the Greenpeace ship? We know she’s out here–too many people
besides that Tomcat jock have seen it.”
“Oh, it’s out here, all right; I don’t doubt that,” the pilot
answered. “But we try to work these things out so the carrier turns over
some decent locating data to us. Some hotshot just made a bad report, and
now we’re going to have to re-search the whole area. And it’s not like
they’ll get tasked to do that themselves–nothin on the carrier’s got long
enough legs to pull the shifts that we pull.”
“The S-3 might-” the technician started.
The pilot cut him off with a sharp laugh. “Yeah, like we can get them
to agree to do surface surveillance,” he said angrily. “If it doesn’t
involve dropping sonobuoys, they try to snivel out of the mission. People,
we’re gettin’ screwed on this one.”
Ten minutes later, after completing a detailed report on the
superstructure of the tanker as well as a close scrutiny of the flag flying
from her stern, the P-3 climbed back up to altitude.
“The island?” Eel suggested again.
“Give me a fly-to point,” the pilot replied.
Eel busied himself on his console, laying in course and speed vectors
to take them directly over the last island in the desolate Aleutian chain.
Finally satisfied with his plan, he punched the button that would pop it up
on the pilot’s fly-to display.
“Got it,” the pilot announced. The P-3 immediately leaned into a
sharp right-hand turn. “Looks like about twenty minutes from here.”
Eel flipped the communications switch over to the circuit occupied
only by himself and the enlisted technician. “What you thinking?” he said
quietly. “Me, I don’t like the sound of this.”
“Me neither, sir,” the technician said uneasily. “Too many ghosts.
That same F-14 jock reported a disappearing radar contact right before his
Greenpeace locating data. Me, I’d want to check that out a lot more