“Let’s get on top of this muck,” Parker said. He pulled back on the stick and headed for the clouds. In seconds they were in them, and Ryan’s field of view was reduced from five miles to five feet in an instant.
Jack looked around his cockpit, which had flight controls and instruments. Their airspeed showed one hundred fifty knots and rising, altitude four hundred feet. This Harrier had evidently been a trainer, but the instrument panel had been altered to include the read-out instruments for a sensor pod that could be attached to the belly. A poor man’s way of doing things, but from what Admiral Painter said it had evidently worked well enough. He figured the TV-type screen was the FLIR readout, which monitored a forward-looking infrared heat sensor. The airspeed gauge now said three hundred knots, and the climb indicator showed a twenty-degree angle of attack. It felt like more than that.
“Should be hitting the top of this soon,” Parker said. “Now!”
The altimeter showed twenty-six thousand feet when Ryan was blasted by pure sunlight. One thing about flying that he never got used to was that no matter how awful the weather was on the ground, if you flew nigh enough you could always find the sun. The light was intense, but the sky’s color was noticeably deeper than the soft blue seen from the ground. The ride became airliner smooth as they escaped the lower turbulence. Ryan fumbled with his visor to shield his eyes.
“That better, sir?”
“Fine, Lieutenant. It’s better than I expected.”
“What do you mean, sir?” Parker inquired.
“I guess it beats flying on a commercial bird. You can see more. That helps.”
“Sorry we don’t have any extra fuel, or I’d show you some aerobatics. The Harrier will do almost anything you ask of her.”
“That’s all right.”
“And your admiral,” Parker went on conversationally, “said that you don’t fancy flying.”
Ryan’s hands grabbed the armrests as the Harrier went through three complete revolutions before snapping back to level flight. He surprised himself by laughing. “Ah, the British sense of humor.”
“Orders from your admiral, sir,” Parker semi-apologized. “We wouldn’t want you to think the Harrier’s another bloody bus.”
Which admiral, Ryan wondered, Painter or Davenport? Probably both. The top of the clouds was like a rolling field of cotton. He’d never appreciated that before, looking through a foot-square window on an airliner. In the back seat he almost felt as if he were sitting outside.
“May I ask a question, sir?”
“Sure.”
“What’s the flap?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, sir, that they turned my ship around. Then I get orders to ferry a VIP from Kennedy to Invincible.”
“Oh, okay. Can’t say, Parker. I’m delivering some messages to your boss. I’m just the mailman,” Ryan lied. Roll that one three times.
“Excuse me, Commander, but you see, my wife is expecting a child, our first, soon after Christmas. I hope to be there, sir.”
“Where do you live?”
“Chatham, that’s — “
“I know. I live in England myself at the moment. Our place is in Marlow, upriver from London. My second kid got started over there.”
“Born there?”
“Started there. My wife says it’s those strange hotel beds, do it to her every time. If I were a betting man, I’d give you good odds, Parker. First babies are always late anyway.”
“You say you live in Marlow?”
“That’s right, we built a house there earlier this year.”
“Jack Ryan — John Ryan? The same chap who — “
“Correct. You don’t have to tell anybody that, Lieutenant.”
“Understood, sir. I didn’t know you were a naval officer.”
“That’s why you don’t have to tell anyone.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry for the stunt earlier.”
“That’s all right. Admirals must have their little laughs. I understand you guys just ran an exercise with our guys.”
“Indeed we did, Commander. I sank one of your submarines, the Tullibee. My systems operator and I, that is. We caught her near the surface at night with our FLIR and dropped noise-makers all round her. You see, we didn’t let anyone know about our new equipment. All’s fair, as you know. I understand her commander was bloody furious. I’d hoped to meet him in Norfolk, but he didn’t arrive until the day we sailed.”
“You guys have a good time in Norfolk?”
“Yes, Commander. We were able to get in a day’s shooting on your Chesapeake Bay, the Eastern Shore, I believe you call it.”
“Oh yeah? I used to hunt there. How was it?”
“Not bad. I got my three geese in half an hour. Bag limit was three — stupid.”
“You called in and blasted three geese in a half hour this late in the season?”
“That is how I earn my modest living, Commander, shooting,” Parker commented.
“I was up for a grouse shoot with your admiral last September. They made me use a double. If you show up with my kind of gun — I use a Remington automatic — they look at you like you’re some kind of terrorist. I got stuck with a pair of Purdeys that didn’t fit. Got fifteen birds. Seemed an awful lazy way to hunt, though, with one guy loading my gun for me, and another platoon of ghillies driving the game. We just about annihilated the bird population, too.”
“We have more game per acre than you do.”
“That’s what the admiral said. How far to Invincible?”
“Forty minutes.”
Ryan looked at the fuel gauges. They were half empty already. In a car he’d be thinking about a fill-up. All that fuel gone in half an hour. Well, Parker didn’t seem excited.
The landing on HMS Invincible was different from the COD’s arrival on the Kennedy. The ride became rocky as Parker descended through the clouds, and it occurred to Ryan that they were on the leading edge of the same storm he’d endured the night before. The canopy was coated with rain, and he heard the impact of thousands of raindrops on the airframe — or was it hail? Watching the instruments, he saw that Parker leveled out at a thousand feet, while they were still in clouds, then descended more slowly, breaking into the clear at a hundred feet. The Invincible was scarcely a half the Kennedy’s size. He watched her bobbing actively on the fifteen-foot seas. Parker used the same technique as before. He hovered briefly on the carrier’s port side, then slid to the right, dropping the fighter twenty feet onto a painted circle. The landing was hard, but Ryan was able to see it coming. The canopy came up at once.
“You can get out here,” Parker said. “I have to taxi to the elevator.”
A ladder was already in place. He unbuckled and got out. A crewman had already retrieved his bag. Ryan followed him to the island and was met by an ensign — a sublieutenant, the British call the rank.
“Welcome aboard, sir.” The youngster couldn’t be more than twenty, Ryan thought. “Let me help you out of the flight suit.”
The sublieutenant stood by as Ryan unzipped and took off his helmet, Mae West, and coverall. He retrieved his cap from the bag. In the process he bounced off the bulkhead a few times. The Invincible seemed to be corkscrewing in a following sea. A bow wind and a following sea? In the North Atlantic in winter, nothing was too crazy. The officer took his bag, and Ryan held onto the briefing material.
“Lead on, leftenant,” Ryan gestured. The youngster shot up a series of three ladders, leaving Jack panting behind, thinking about the jogging he wasn’t getting in. The combination of the ship’s motion and an inner ear badly scrambled from the day’s flying made him dizzy, and he found himself bumping into things. How did professional pilots do it?
“Here’s the flag bridge, sir.” The sublieutenant held the door open.
“Hello, Jack!” boomed the voice of Vice Admiral John White, eighth earl of Weston. He was a tall, well-built man of fifty with a florid complexion set off by a white scarf at his neck. Jack had first met him earlier in the year, and since then his wife Cathy and the countess, Antonia, had become close friends, members of the same circle of amateur musicians. Cathy Ryan played classical piano. Toni White, an attractive woman of forty-four, owned a Guarnieri del Jesu violin. Her husband was a man whose peerage was treated as the convenient afterthought. His career in the Royal Navy had been built entirely on merit. Jack walked over to take his hand.
“Good day, Admiral.”
“How was your flight?”
“Different. I’ve never been in a fighter before, much less one with ambitions to mate with a hummingbird,” Ryan smiled. The bridge was overheated, and it felt good.
“Jolly good. Let’s go aft to my sea cabin.” White dismissed the sublieutenant, who handed Jack his bag before withdrawing. The admiral led him aft through a short passageway and left into a small compartment.