The mission profile was a tight one. The helicopter was flying on a specific track to HMS Invincible, from which they would fly to the USS Pigeon aboard a Royal Navy Sea King. The Stallion’s disappearance from Oceana Naval Air Station for only a few hours would be viewed merely as a matter of routine.
The helicopter’s turboshaft engines, running at maximum cruising power, were gulping down fuel. The aircraft was now four hundred miles off the U.S. coast and had another eighty miles to go. Their flight to the Invincible was not direct; it was a dogleg course intended to fool whoever might have noticed their departure on radar. The pilots were tired. Four hours is a long time to sit in a cramped cockpit, and military aircraft are not known for their creature comforts. The flight instruments glowed a dull red. Both men were especially careful to watch their artificial horizon; a solid overcast denied them a fixed reference point aloft, and flying over water at night was mesmerizing. It was by no means an unusual mission, however. The pilots had done this many times, and their concern was not unlike that of an experienced driver on a slick road. The dangers were real, but routine.
“Juliet 6, your target is bearing zero-eight-zero, range seventy-five miles,” the Sentry called in.
“Thinks we’re lost?” Commander John Marcks wondered over the intercom.
“Air force,” his copilot replied. “They don’t know much about flying over water. They think you get lost without roads to follow.”
“Uh-huh,” Marcks chuckled. “Who do you like in the Eagles game tonight?”
“Oilers by three and a half.”
“Six and a half. Philly’s fullback is still hurt.”
“Five.”
“Okay, five bucks. I’ll go easy on you.” Marcks grinned. He loved to gamble. The day after Argentina had attacked the Falklands, he’d asked if anyone in the squadron wanted to take Argentina and seven points.
A few feet above their heads and a few feet aft, the engines were racing at thousands of RPM, turning gears to drive the seven-bladed main rotor. They had no way of knowing that a fracture was developing in the transmission casing, near the fluid test port.
“Juliet 6, your target has just launched a fighter to escort you in. Will rendezvous in eight minutes. Approaching you at eleven o’clock, angels three.”
“Nice of them,” Marcks said.
Harrier 2-0
Lieutenant Parker was flying the Harrier that would escort the Super Stallion. A sublieutenant sat in the back seat of the Royal Navy aircraft. Its purpose was not actually to escort the chopper to the Invincible; it was to make a last check for any Soviet submarines that might notice the Super Stallion in flight and wonder what it was doing.
“Any activity on the water?” Parker asked.
“Not a glimmer.” The sublieutenant was working the FLIR package, which was sweeping left and right over their course track. Neither man knew what was going on, though both had speculated at length, incorrectly, on what it was that was chasing their carrier all over the bloody ocean.
“Try looking for the helicopter,” Parker said.
“One moment… There. Just south of our track.” The sublieutenant pressed a button and the display came up on the pilot’s screen. The thermal image was mainly of the engines clustered atop the aircraft inside the fainter, dull-green glow of the hot rotor tips.
“Harrier 2-0, this is Sentry Echo. Your target is at your one o’clock, distance twenty miles, over.”
“Roger, we have him on our IR box. Thank you, out,”
Parker said. “Bloody useful things, those Sentries.”
“The Sikorski’s running for all she’s worth. Look at that engine signature.”
The Super Stallion
At this moment the transmission casing fractured. Instantly the gallons of lubricating oil became a greasy cloud behind the rotor hub, and the delicate gears began to tear at one another. An alarm light flashed on the control panels. Marcks and the copilot instantly reached down to cut power to all three engines. There was not enough time. The transmission tried to freeze, but the power of the three engines tore it apart. What happened was the next thing to an explosion. Jagged pieces burst through the safety housing and ripped the forward part of the aircraft. The rotor’s momentum twisted the Stallion savagely around, and it dropped rapidly. Two of the men in the back, who had loosened their seatbelts, jerked out of their seats and rolled forward.
“MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY, this is Juliet 6,” the copilot called. Commander Marcks’ body slumped over the controls, a dark stain at the back of his neck. “We’re goin’ in, we’re goin’ in. MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY.”
The copilot was trying to do something. The main rotor was windmilling slowly — too slowly. The automatic decoupler that was supposed to allow it to autorotate and give him a vestige of control had failed. His controls were nearly useless, and he was riding the point of a blunt lance towards a black ocean. It was twenty seconds before they hit. He fought with his airfoil controls and tail rotor in order to jerk the aircraft around. He succeeded, but it was too late.
Harrier 2-0
It was not the first time Parker had seen men die. He had taken a life himself after sending a Sidewinder missile up the tailpipe of an Argentine Dagger fighter. That had not been pleasant. This was worse. As he watched, the Super Stallion’s humpbacked engine cluster blew apart in a shower of sparks. There was no fire as such, for what good it did them. He watched and tried to will the nose to come up — and it did, but not enough. The Stallion hit the water hard. The fuselage snapped apart in the middle. The front end sank in an instant, but the after part wallowed for a few seconds like a bathtub before beginning to fill with water. According to the picture supplied by the FLER package, no one got clear before it sank.
“Sentry, Sentry, did you see that, over?”
“Roger that, Harrier. We’re calling a SAR mission right now. Can you orbit?”
“Roger, we can loiter here.” Parker checked his fuel. “Nine-zero minutes. I — stand by.” Parker nosed his fighter down and flicked on his landing lights. This lit up the low-light TV system. “Did you see that, Ian?” he asked his backseater.
“I think it moved.”
“Sentry, Sentry, we have a possible survivor in the water. Tell Invincible to get a Sea King down here straightaway. I’m going down to investigate. Will advise.”
“Roger that, Harrier 2-0. Your captain reports a helo spooling up right now. Out.”
The Royal Navy Sea King was there in twenty-five minutes. A rubber-suited paramedic jumped in the water to get a collar on the one survivor. There were no others, and no wreckage, only a slick of jet fuel evaporating slowly into the cold air. A second helicopter continued the search as the first raced back to the carrier.
The Invincible
Ryan watched from the bridge as the medics carried the stretcher into the island. Another crewman appeared a moment later with a briefcase.
“He had this, sir. He’s a lieutenant commander, name of Dwyer, one leg and several ribs broken. He’s in a bad way, Admiral.”
“Thank you.” White took the case. “Any possibility of other survivors?”
The sailor shook his head. “Not a good one, sir. The Sikorski must have sunk like a stone.” He looked at Ryan. “Sorry, sir.”
Ryan nodded. “Thanks.”
“Norfolk on the radio, Admiral,” a communications officer said.
“Let’s go, Jack.” Admiral White handed him the briefcase and led him to the communications room.
“The chopper went in. We have one survivor being worked on right now,” Ryan said over the radio. It was silent for a moment.
“Who is it?”
“Name’s Dwyer. They took him right to sick bay, Admiral. He’s out of action. Tell Washington. Whatever this operation is supposed to be, we have to rethink it.”
“Roger. Out,” Admiral Blackburn said.
“Whatever we decide to do,” Admiral White observed, “it will have to be fast. We must get our helo off to the Pigeon in two hours to have her back before dawn.”
Ryan knew exactly what that would mean. There were only four men at sea who both knew what was going on and were close enough to do anything. He was the only American among them. The Kennedy was too far away. The Nimitz was close enough, but using her would mean getting the data to her by radio, and Washington was not enthusiastic about that. The only other alternative was to assemble and dispatch another intelligence team. There just wasn’t enough time.
“Let’s get this case open, Admiral. I need to see what this plan is.” They picked up a machinist’s mate on the way to White’s cabin. He proved to be an excellent locksmith.
“Dear God!” Ryan breathed, reading the contents of the case. “You better see this.”
“Well,” White said a few minutes later, “that is clever.”