Ellenshaw looked at Ryan, and Jason shook his head that he should just stay out of it and watch.
Everett returned and then took his spot next to Jack just as the V-25 took another nosedive toward the raging surface of the sea far below.
“Copilot to crew,” came the call over their helmet headsets. “Five minutes to IP. We will circle and then very quickly make our descent into the eye of the hurricane. Until that time, we have a particularly peculiar request from our American brethren.”
The blast of music exploded into everyone’s ears as the CD that was given to the flight crew came blaringly to life.
“The warden threw a party in the county jail. The prison band was there and they began to wail.…”
Every head of the thirty-five men perked up at the sound of Elvis Presley as he screamed out his hit from a million years before, “Jailhouse Rock.”
Carl smiled over at Jason and Charlie. But it was Henri who guessed as to the reasoning behind the music. He had always wondered why Colonel Collins insisted on rock music before a jump or anything harrowing that had to do with flying. The music actually was therapy for him. He smirked as he realized he had just learned a large secret he could use to irritate the arrogant American colonel as much as possible. His smile grew when Collins perked up, and he nodded as if to himself as his eyes closed and his body relaxed. The music from his father’s and grandfather’s time calmed him, and he had never in his life known the reasons why. He knew psychiatrists would have a field day with him on their couches.
“Now, that’s the way you sing it, Blavey!” the Cockney-accented sergeant said as he nudged the kid next to him in his never-ending tease about his Karaoke. The young corporal took a cue from Jack across the way and visibly relaxed. Most of the men felt the relief the music provided.
That would have to be noted in the past tense, since the V-25 Night Owl took a nosedive for the deck. The signal had been given. It was time to enter the eye of the hurricane.
Tildy awaited the assault team with her open arms.
The Night Owl came into full contact with the edge of the eye, and she nearly buckled. One of her four GE turbofan engines was actually drowned by the inrush of water as she tried desperately to escape the high winds that threatened to rip her from the sky. Inside, every man held on for dear life as the death plunge through the swirling and raging clouds convinced them they were into their final minutes of life. A brief but brutal gust of wind that measured 130 miles per hour slammed into the V-25 and turned her upside down. The pilot fought the controls, fearing he was about to shear off both wings as he brought the hydraulic systems online to invert the stabilizers for vertical flight.
Captain Ezra Johnson, a graduate of Mississippi State University, had fought his way up the naval ranks. His skin color had not been the detractor he had always thought it would be. Instead, the black captain had found out that the only real prejudice in the US Navy was the fact that he and many others were not graduates of the US Naval Academy at Annapolis. Any officer was looked down upon for that little failure in education; despite this fact he had steadily climbed the ladder until he landed his command aboard the advanced missile cruiser USS Shiloh. He had accomplished this through knowing naval operations better than he knew the alphabet.
At the moment, he was cursing the higher command authority that had authorized this crazy maneuver. The British, NATO command, or even his own president had lost their collective minds to try to pull off this kind of stunt in the middle of a hurricane. The weather was still wet and the seas rolling inside the eye of Tildy, but even this was too much to try to land a VTOL aircraft aboard his ship. With the towline connected to the Russian cruiser, it was a maneuver that could spell certain destruction for his ship and crew.
As he stared through his binoculars on the starboard bridge wing, he again cursed his luck at having drawn this command from NATO organizers. While Captain Thorne on Houston was the outright ranking commander of this rear guard group, he was well aware it would be his call on whether or not the landing aboard his expensive missile cruiser would go forward. As of right now, he was willing to call off the whole thing. He swung his glasses to the starboard as the Dutch frigate De Zeven took rescue stations on her starboard beam. He moved the glasses to the towline and then to the forward decking of the Russian derelict in his charge. The line was holding as the ship lightly entered a small swell of sea and then settled.
“Minimal radar contact, Captain, bearing three-four-five degrees north.”
Johnson swung his binoculars around and spied the blackened skies swirling menacingly to the north. He knew whoever was flying this mission had lost their minds. He turned and nodded at his XO. The executive officer then reached out and hit his intercom.
“Stand by to take on aircraft. All stations, the smoking lamp is out. Rescue stations, rescue stations.”
The radar officer aboard Shiloh was a patient man and always allowed his radar men a full range of training. This time, however, his eyes never left the scope of the operator he leaned over. He was watching not just the incoming aircraft but a spot on the screen that had held his attention for the past thirty minutes. It was a solid blip on the scope that was there one minute, gone the next. Then when he thought it was a trick upon his eyes, the officer thought he saw two red blips appear and then vanish. He knew the heavy seas of the hurricane were causing havoc with everyone, including himself.
“Captain, we’re getting an intermittent contact just eighteen miles north of us. The heavy swells may be masking someone out there.”
Captain Johnson nodded. Captain Thorne aboard Houston had passed along CINCLANT’s concern about Russian interference. But he also knew the Russians were very prudent about keeping their capital ships protected at all costs. Unless this signaled a change in Russian naval philosophy, Johnson wasn’t that concerned.
“Keep a close eye out, but concentrate on the job at hand.”
“Aye, Captain. We have our inbound, thirty-two miles out and closing fast.”
Johnson shifted his focus and then quickly spied the edges of the eye. Tildy wasn’t easily giving up her secrets, as he couldn’t see anything other than hell raging across the world. Then he saw the V-25 burst through the clouds at breakneck speed.
“What are those fools doing?’ he asked as his eyes widened when the Night Owl broke into the clear. It looked as though she had one of her four engines smoking and nonresponsive. She hopped, skipped, and jumped as she fought to level out. He mentally pushed the bird down and across the calmer seas of the eye.
It took the V-25 fifteen minutes to cover the calmer air of the now dormant eye of Tildy. They came on fast, as the pilot of the VTOL was anxious to get his damaged bird into its nest before Mother Nature explained to him in no uncertain terms who exactly was in charge.
“XO, take the conn.”
Johnson tossed the XO his binoculars and then went to the bridge wing to oversee the landing operation.
“XO has the deck.”
Ezra Johnson didn’t envy the British pilot in his attempt to get his three-engine VTOL down to the deck. He shot over the three ships three times as he tried to get his bearings on the fantail of the large missile cruiser. The towline in particular was causing the Royal Navy pilot much concern.