The strike fighter commander eyed it for a few seconds, shook his head, then said, “So, Lieutenant, you discovered a problem with your aircraft over one hundred and eighty miles from your target — actually before even reaching the Iranian coast — and it didn’t occur to you to just… turn back? Isn’t that the reason we keep the Alert Five aircraft ready to roll?”
“I thought it would go away, Skipper. Those fly-by-wire systems are always twitchy, and we just reset them and they’re usually good again. Besides, I was over five hundred miles from mother when it happened, so I thought it best to stick with my flight leader.”
“Which you obviously did,” Kowalski said.
As Amanda was about to reply, all eyes turned to the flat screen as a Hornet approached the carrier’s stern and snagged the number two wire while slamming onto the flight deck. The ready room trembled and rattled as if a subway train had just careened overhead.
She paused to let the clanging on the flight deck above them settle down, marking the controlled-crash landing of another navy jet. Although the Golden Dragons were enjoying a break, other squadrons were running daytime raids or flying CAP. Averaging between 120 and 140 sorties launched each day, it translated into somebody landing every ten or so minutes. And even if they were not launching actual strikes, all carrier pilots had to fly practice sorties on average four days a week, and that meant that from noon to around midnight jets constantly took off and landed on a flight deck roughly three football fields in length right over their heads.
“Well, Lieutenant?” Kowalski asked.
Amanda decided to stand her ground. “Yes, sir. I chose to stick to my flight leader, and I accomplished my mission. Had I turned back, I would have likely ditched with my full load of bombs. No way was I making it all the way back. At least this way I let those bastards get a piece of Dragon justice before going down.”
“The fact is, Lieutenant, you really don’t know if you would have made it back or not,” Kowalski said, before looking at his maintenance officer. “And it all checked out before the flight, Mr. Stone?”
Stone looked behind him toward the open bulkhead and shouted, “Come in, Master Chief!”
Up to that point, the discussion had been kept strictly among pilots, but now Lt. Cmdr. Stone had pulled in his right-hand man, the senior NCO who oversaw all of the maintenance belowdecks for the Golden Dragons.
Slowly Maintenance Master Chief Gino Cardona made his way through the bulkhead, dressed in a Navy Working Uniform, leaning down a bit to clear the hatch. The large man always reminded Amanda of Jessie Ventura during his wrestling days. Cardona had been handling maintenance for navy fighter squadrons for the better part of a quarter of a century. Although Stone was the officer ultimately responsible for all aspects of servicing the Golden Dragons’ jets, Cardona was the man in the hangar making it all happen. The master chief, who everyone aboard knew had seen pretty much everything during his years of service, just stood there a moment regarding the scene.
“Well?” Stone asked. “What’s the word from our boys belowdecks?”
“Just went over the maintenance records with my line chiefs, sir,” Cardona replied in his booming voice. “All checked out good. That Rhino was in perfect condition when it left my hangar. But, as you know, it isn’t unusual for pilots to report issues when flying that we sometimes can’t reproduce in the shop.”
“What are you saying, Master Chief?” asked Stone.
“I’m saying that sometimes shit happens, and we just don’t know why.”
Stone frowned and gave the large NCO a slight nod before turning to Kowalski and shrugging. “You heard the man, Skipper. It was, well, a fluke.”
“Yeah,” Kowalski said, his features tightening. “A very fucking expensive fluke, Mr. Stone, and in ten minutes the air boss is going to be chewing on a bowl of Chinese stir-fry with a pound of chopped Polish sausage.” Capt. Buchelle had a reputation for being a tough, old-school aviator who believed it was a pilot’s duty to do everything under the sun to bring your bird back home. And it became obvious the moment you stepped in his office. Behind his desk hung a large, framed photo of the man back when he was a young lieutenant standing through the gaping hole in the starboard wing of the F/A-18 Hornet that he had nursed back to the USS Saratoga (CV 60) after surviving a hit from an Iraqi SAM during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
“With all due respect, Skipper,” Cardona chimed in. “We all thought it was just a quarter-pounder.” He stated it with a completely impassive face while Stone grinned and Nova looked up from his writing.
“Go to hell, Master Chief,” Kowalski growled.
“Copy that, sir,” Cardona replied.
Amanda kept her eyes front and did not even twitch.
Looking over at Stone, Cardona added, “Does that mean I’m excused from your naval aviator party, sir?”
Stone sighed and nodded. “Thank you, Master Chief.”
“Aye, sir.” And he was gone.
Turning to all three pilots still standing at attention, Kowalski bellowed, “I want full written reports turned into Mr. Nova by 1500! No excuses! So, stop drinking my lattes and start writing!”
“Yes, sir!”
Kowalski then got right in front of Amanda. She could smell his cigarette breath. The man just loved those damn things.
“So, two ragheads point-blank and now you’re hot shit?”
“Two shots each, Skipper. Center mass. No way were those Iranian bastards getting their greasy paws on me.”
Kowalski exchanged glances with Stone and Nova, then he said, “They’re already calling you Quickdraw Diamante. God help us.”
“I prefer Deedle-Deedle, sir,” Stone chimed in.
Kowalski grinned. “I actually fucking love that! Deedle Diamante it is.”
She blinked. “What? Wait, I already have a call—”
“Want to fly again, Deedle?”
“Aye, sir!”
“Then go see Mr. Stone after you turn in your report. Maybe he’ll fix you up.”
“Aye, sir!”
The commander then turned his attention to Malloy, standing ramrod straight between Ricardo and Amanda.
“Mullet? What the fuck was that last pass with the canons? The helo was already away.”
“Ah, Skipper, I saw—”
“You saw what, Mr. Malloy? The chance of exposing yourself and my plane unnecessarily? Of getting your ass shot down so we had to deal with another downed pilot? A second lost bird? You know better than that!”
“I do, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“Yeah,” Kowalski said. “Me too.”
The commander turned to leave, but just before disappearing through the bulkhead, he looked over his shoulder at all three aviators still standing at attention and said, “Top-notch flying. Helluva fucking rescue… and great shooting. Dragon style.” And then he was gone.
— 9 —
The Republic F-105D Thunderchief roared across the night sky, skimming the speed of sound as it flew a Route Pack 6 mission south of Hanoi, unloading twelve thousand pounds of violence from its internal bomb bay precisely where designated by the 338th Tactical Fighter Wing stationed at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand.
US Air Force Lieutenant Cord “Cordy” Macklin jerked the control column of the single-seater fighter toward him and cringed when seven Gs slammed him into his ejection seat as he pulled out of his bombing dive. The night ignited in red, yellow, and gold when the munitions detonated, flattening the jungle behind him, before the sonic boom reached his cockpit as his Thud shot above four thousand feet.
Macklin continued cringing, but no longer from the Gs, his blue eyes narrowing as he looked back at his target, and noticed no secondaries. No SA-3 missile sites or weapons depot, contrary to his briefing.