The Intruders (5 page)

Cars were not allowed On the pier. Yet there it was. A man in a white
uniform was driving, yet all of his passengers were women, young women,
and not wearing a lot Of clothing either. Lots of brown thighs and bare
shoulders were On display, several truly awesome bosoms.

In complete disregard of the regulations, the car made its way to the
foot of the Officers’ gangway and stopped, The driver got out and
stretched lazily as he surveyed the giant gray ship looming beside the
pier. The “men bounded out and surrounded him.

It’s Bosun Muldowski! Who else could it be? No sailor could get a car
past the guards at the head of the pier and few officers under flag
rank. But a warrant officer four? Yep.

Muldowski.

He had been the flight deck bosun on Shilo, Jake’s last ship. Apparently
he was coming to Columbia. Now Jake remembered-Muldowski never did
shore duty tours. He had been going from ship to ship for over twenty
years.

Look at those women in hot pants and short short skirtsf Sailors to the
right and left of Jake in the catwalk shouted and shrieked wolf
whistles. Muldowski took no notice but the women waved prettily, which
drew lusty cheers from the onlooking white hats.

With the bosun’s bags out of the trunk of the car, he took his time
hugging each of the women, all five of them, as the bands blared
mightily and spectator sailors watched in awe.

“The bosun must own a whorehouse,” one sailor down the catwalk told his
friends loud enough for Jake to hear.

“He sure knows how to party,” his buddy said approvingly.

“Style. He’s got style.”

Jake Grafton grimed. Muldowski’s spectacular arrival had just
catapulted him to superstardom with the white hats, which was precisely
the effect, Jake suspected, that the bosun intended. The deck apes
would work like slaves for him until they dropped in their tracks.

All too soon the ship’s whistle sounded, bullhorns blared and sailors
rushed to single up the lines holding the great ship to the land. The
men on the pier gave their women one last passionate hug, then dashed
for the gangways. As seven bells sounded over the ship’s PA system,
cranes lifted the gangways clear and deposited them on the pier.

The last of the lines were released and the ship began to move, very
slowly at first, almost imperceptibly. Slowly the gap between the pier
and the men crowding the rails widened.

Sailors tossed their Dixie cups at the pier and children scurried like
rats to retrieve them. The strains of “Anchors Aweigh” filled the air.

When the pier was several hundred feet away and aft of the beam, Jake
felt a rumble reach him through the steel on which he stood. The screws
were biting. The effect was noticeable. The pier slid astern slowly at
first, then with increasing speed.

Now the pilot climbed to the flight deck and threaded his way past
tie-down chains toward the bow, where he joined a loose knot of men
leaning into the increasing wind. Ahead was the Bay Bridge, then the
Golden Gate. And the fog beyond the Golden Gate was disappearing.

The ship had cleared the Bay Bridge and was steaming at eight or ten
knots Past Alcatraz when the loudspeaker sounded. ,Flight Quarters,
flight quarters- All hands man your flight quarters station.”

The cruise had begun.

Jake was in the locker room donning his flight gear when a black Marine
in a flight suit came in- He had railroad tracks pinned to the shoulders
of his flight suit, so he was a captain, the Marine equivalent of Jake’s
Navy rank Of lieutenant. He looked Jake over, nodded to a couple of
Marines , then strolled who were also suiting up to get some traps over
to Jake.

“They call me Flap. I guess we’re flying together.”

The BN had his hair cut in the Marine Corps’ version of an Afro–that
is, it stuck out from his head about half an inch and was meticulously
tapered on the sides and back. He was slightly above medium height,
with the well-developed chest and muscles that can only be acquired by
thousands of hours of pumping iron. He looked to be in his late
twenties, maybe thirty at the most.

Jake Grafton. you’re Le Beau?”

“Yep-”

“HOw come you weren’t at the brief?”

“Hey, man This is CQ1″ CQ meant carrier qualification, we’re gonna do is
fly around this bird farm with the wheels down, dangling our little hook
thing- This is Your bag. You can back it, can’t ya?” jake decided to
change the subject- “Where you from?” “Paris. Get it? Le Beau? French
name? Parris Island?”

“Ha ha.”

“Don’t let this fine chocolate complexion fool you, my man. It’s French
Chocolate-”

“French shit,” said one of Le Beau’s fellow Marines. “Eat it, butt
breath,” Flap shot back. “I’m black with a seasoning of Creole-”

“Sorta like coffee with cream,” Jake Grafton remarked as he zipped up
his torso harness.

“Yeah man. That’s exactly right. There was a planter in Louisiana, Le
Beau, with a slobbering craving for black POonta’19- After the Civil War
he took personal offense when his former slaves adopted his last name.
They did it ’cause most of them was his sons and daughters. But Le Beau
didn’t like the thought of being recognized in history as a patriarch,
didn’t want to admit his generous genetic contributions to improving a
downtrodden race. Hung a co Pie Of his nigger kids, he did. So the
blacks in the parish adopted the name. More damn black Le Beaus in that
sectIon Of Louisiana than you could shake a stiff dick at. Now that
redneck Cajun planter bigot was one of my many greatgreat-grandpappys,
of whom I am so very proud.”

“Tea” said Jake Grafton, who checked to see that the laces of his new
G-suit were properly adjusted.

“We heard YOU were coming. The Nan just didn’t think usjarheads could
handle all this high tailhook tech. So we heard they were sending an
ace Navy type to Indoctrinate us ignorant jarheads, instruct us, lead
the way into & better, brighter day.” Grafton didn’t think that comment
worth a reply.

“It’ll be a real pleasure,,, said Flap Le Beau warm, as he grabbed his
torso harness from his locker, ,flying with a master hookster. Just
think of me as a student at the fount of all wisdom, an apprentice
seeking to acquire Insights into the nuances of the arcane art,
appreciate the–,’

“Are you always this full of shit or are you making a special effort on
my behalf?” Jake asked.

Le Beau Prattled On unperturbed. “It’s tragic that so many Navy Persons
are dangerously thin-skinned in a world fun of sharp objects One can
infer from your crude comment that YOU share that lamentable trait with
your colleagues. It’s Sad, very sad, but there are probably gonna be
tensions between us. None of that male-bonding horse pucky for you and
me, hub? Tensions. stress. Misunderstandings. Heartburns. Hard
feelings. Ass kickings.” He sighed plaintively.

“Well, I try to get along by going along. That’s the Cajun in me coming
out. I am so very lucky I got this white blood in me, ya know? Lets me
see everything in a better perspective”

The Marine bent slightly at the waist and addressed his next comment to
the deck: “Thank you, thank you, Jules Le Beau, rotting down there in
hell.”

Back to his locker and flight gear-“Lots of the bros ain’t as lucky as I
am-they can’t tell trees from manure piles, axid-”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Flap,” someone in the next row said. “Turn off
the tap, will ya?”

“Yeovm,” Flap howled, “I feet great! Gonna get out there and fly with a
Navy ace and see how it’s done by the best of the best!”

“How did I wind up with this asshole?” Jake asked the major two lockers
down.

“No other pilot wanted him,” was the reply.

“Hey, watch your mouth over there,” Flap called. “This is my rep you’re
pissing on.”

on, sir!”

“Sir,” Hap echoed dutifully.

The sun shown down softly through a high thin Curtis layer. The wind
out of the northwest was heaping the sea into long windrows and ripping
occasional whitecaps from the crests as gulls wheeled and turned around
the great ship.

Two frigates and four destroyers were visible several miles away,
scattered in a haphazard circle around the carrier.

They were the carrier’s escorts, an antisubmarine screen, faithful
retainers that would attend the queen wherever she led.

On the eastern horizon land was still visible. It would soon drop over
the earth’s rim since the carrier would have to spend the next several
hours running into the northwest wind, then the universe would consist
of only the ships, the sea and the sky. The land would become a memory
of the past and a vision of a hazy future, but the solid reality of the
present would be just the ships and the men who rode them. Six small
moons orbiting one wandering planet …

Jake’s vision fingered on that distant dark line of earth, then he
turned away.

The ship rode easily this morning, with just the gentlest Of rolls,
which Jake noticed only because he didn’t have his sea legs yet. This
roll would become a pitching motion when the ship turned into the wind.

Sensing these things and knowing them without really thinking about
them, Jake Grafton walked slowly aft looking for his aircraft. There-by
Elevator Four.

She was no beauty, this A-6E Intruder decked out in dull, low viz paint
splotched here and there with puke green zinc dichromate primer. An
external power cord was already plugged into the plane. Jake lowered
the boarding ladder and opened the canopy, then climbed up and placed
his helmet bag on the seat. He ensured the safety pins were properly
installed in the ejection seat, let his eye rove over the cockpit
switches, the gear handle, the wing position lever and the fuel dump
switches, then checked the fuel quantity.

Ten thousand pounds. As advertised. He toggled the seat position
adjustment switches, noted the whine and felt the seat move, then
released them. Jake climbed down the ladder to the deck and began his
preflight inspection.

In Vietnam he had flown A-6As, the first version of the Intruder. This
plane was an A-6E, the second-generation bomber, the state-of-the-art in
American military technology. Most of the updates were not visible to
the naked eye.

The search and track radars of the A-6A had been replaced with one radar
that combined both search and track functions.The A’s rotary-drum
computer had been replaced with a solid-state, digital, state-of-the-art
version. The third major component in the electronics system, the
inertial navigation system, or INS, had not yet been updated, so it was
now the weak Point in the navigation/attack system. The new computer
and radar were not only more accurate than the old gear, they were also
proving to be extraordinarily reliable, which erased the major
operational disadvantage of the A-6A.

The E had been in the fleet for several years now, yet it had not been
used in Vietnam, by Pentagon brass. Had the F, been used there, the
targets could have been hit updated with greater accuracy, with fewer
missions, thereby saving lives, and perhaps helping shorten the war, but
inevitably some of these planes would have been lost and the technology
compromised, as seen by the Soviets.

So lives had been traded to keep the technology secret.

How many lives? Who could say.

As Jake Grafton walked around this A-6E looking and touching this and
that, the raw, twisted Vietnam emotions came flooding back. Once again
he felt the fear, saw the blood, saw the night sky filled with streaks
of tracer and the fiery plumes of SAms. The faces of the dead men
floated before him as he felt the smooth, cool skin of the airplane.

It seemed as if he had never left the ship. Any second Tiger Cole would
come strolling across the deck with his helmet bag and chain ‘ ready to
fly into the mouth of hell.

Jake felt his stomach churn, as if he were going to vomit.

He paused and leaned against a main-gear strut.

Six months had passed. His knee had healed, he had visited his folks,
done a little flight instruction at Whidbey ISland, visited Callie in
Chicago….. thrown that asshOle through the window at Sea-Tac… why
was he sweating, nauseated?

This is car qualsy for Christ’s sake! It’s a beautiful day, a cake hop,
a walk in the park!

He stood straight and, looking out to sea, took several deep breaths. He
should have popped the question to Callie. He should have asked her to
marry him. And he Should have resigned from the Navy.

He shouldn’t even be here! On the boat againt He had done his share,
dropped his share of bombs, killed his share of gomers.

For God’s sake–another cruise-with a bunch of jackoff Warheads He took
his hand off the strut and stood staring at the plane, his face twisted
into a frown. Primer splotches everywhere, dirt, stains from hydraulic
leaks … And it was a fairly new plane, less than a year old!

Campareffi would have come screaming unglued if they had sent a plane
like this to his squadron. Screaming-meemy fucking unglued!

Somehow the thought of Commander Camparelfi, Jake’s last skipper in
Vietnam, storming and ranting amused Jake Grafton.

“Looks like a piece of shit, don’t it?”

Bosun Muldowski was standing there staring at the plane with his arms
crossed.

“Yeah, Bosun, but I ain’t looking to buy it. I’m just flying it this
morning.”

“Sure didn’t expect to find you aviatin’ for the jugheads, Mr. Grafton.”

“Life’s pretty weird sometimes.”

The bosun nodded sagely. “Heard about that shithead that went through
the window at Sea-Tac.”

Jake nodded and rubbed his hand through his hair. “Well, I guess I lost
it for a little bit. I’m not the smartest guy you ever met.”

“Smart enough.” “Thanks.”

With that, the bosun walked forward, up the deck, leaving the pilot
staring at his back.