After pitching their case all the way up the chain of command, Lobo and Hot Rock had finally given up. The admiral was too pissed at them, too terminally pissed, to ever consider any promises they could make to be on their best behavior in the air from now on as worth anything at all. In fact, the CAG had informed them, they’d be lucky not to face a board of inquiry and have their wings stripped. As it was now, they were both off flight status, at least pending resolution of the current hostilities.
And after all, it wasn’t like the battle group really needed them right now. There was to be no anti-air activity over the island, and the Jefferson’s flights thus far had been limited to CAP and ASW. There were more than enough pilots — pilots willing to obey orders, Batman pointed out coldly — to fill the required slots. So, until further notice, the admiral had suggested that Hot Rock and Lobo, along with their RIOs, get their sorry little asses out of his stateroom and find some way to make themselves useful.
It hadn’t taken them more than three hours of pacing the passageways of the ship to feel utterly useless. All around them, activity continued at a heightened tempo, everybody seemingly hurrying to an operationally important task. Only the four aircrew were walking slowly and looking for something to do.
Finally, after three hours, Hot Rock had come up with this. He’d purloined four sets of dirtied and weathered coveralls from the maintenance chief, presented them to them, and made his pitch.
“Listen, we’re not going to be flying,” he began bluntly. “I think that should be pretty obvious to all of us. So, the question is do we sit on our hands and be pissed about it or find something to do?” With that, he held up the coveralls.
“Flight deck?” Lobo asked. “Come on, you want me to be a plane captain?” She laughed incredulously.
Hot Rock shook his head. “Nope. We’ve got qualified plane captains. What we need to do is some of the other stuff that you don’t have written quals for. There’s no way the handler would let us on his flight deck as a plane captain. We don’t have the sign-off card.”
“So we wander around incognito?” Lobo said.
“We work incognito,” Hot Rock corrected. “You know how much there is to do up there — or maybe you don’t,” he corrected. “If you don’t, it’s about time you found out. Believe me, an extra pair of hands shows up to do unskilled labor, there aren’t going to be too many questions asked.”
“Like what?” Lobo asked.
Hot Rock shrugged. “I don’t know. But whatever it is, it beats sitting on our asses down here, doesn’t it?” He surveyed the other two faces, then nodded. “I thought so. Come on, let’s go find something to do.”
As soon as they’d made their way out to the flight deck, they’d noticed a group of sailors near the stern hustling tie-down chains. They’d been on deck earlier to secure the aircraft during the weather but were now just cluttering up deck space. Each sailor carried four tie-down chains, approximately eighty pounds of extra weight. A few of the larger men carried six to eight tie-down chains.
“Where are they taking them?” Lobo asked, as Hot Rock unceremoniously draped the first tie-down chain around her shoulders.
“Just follow the crowd,” he said. “Just follow the crowd.”
The crowd, as it turned out, was heading down three ladders to the line shack compartment for an S-3 squadron. No one questioned the appearance of four extra nonrated sailors helping out with the workload, although the leading petty officer did seem faintly surprised at how quickly restowing the tie-down chains went. He stared at Hot Rock for a moment, started to ask something, and then was overcome by another crisis almost immediately.
The four made their way back up to the deck. “Well, what next?” Hot Rock said, looking around the flight deck for more opportunities. “Let’s face it, guys, if we ain’t flying, we ain’t qualified to do shit up here, are we?”
Tombstone stared at the bedraggled figure standing in front of him. He surveyed the wet hair slicked back from the broad, smiling face, the freshly scrubbed though haggard face, and then swept his eyes to the woman standing next to his friend. He took two steps forward and held out his hand. “You must be Jack’s wife. Tombstone Magruder — pleased to make your acquaintance.”
She took his hand gravely, and he noted how cool it felt. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Admiral. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, although I’m sure we both wish the circumstances could be different.”
“Of course.” Tombstone shook his head, bemused. “If I’d had any idea it was you and Jack on that boat, life would have been a lot simpler.”
“The question is, what can we do now, sir?” Jack asked, a sudden shift in his voice indicating this was now a question posed by a junior officer to a very senior one.
Tombstone studied them both for a moment longer, then glanced at the doctor standing next to them. “Status?”
“As I told the Simpsons, I’d like to keep them overnight in Sick Bay. Just to make certain,” the doctor started. Jack and Tombstone exchanged a cynical look. “After what they’ve been through…”
“We weren’t in the water that long, Admiral,” Adele broke in. “We exited the vessel before the impact, and there’s certainly no danger of hypothermia in these waters.” She left unspoken the other very real threat, that of sharks.
Batman spoke up then. “Admiral, that situation we were discussing — do you suppose…?” He broke off, and shot a significant look at the Simpsons.
“Just so,” Tombstone said. “Very well, then — Commander Simpson, I do have one mission that you and your wife might be especially suited for. Things are about to get real busy out here. You can imagine the constraints we’re operating under.” Briefly, Tombstone sketched in the restrictions on air combat and missile employment. “Now, I notice that civilian traffic has fallen off some, but there’s still a number of lookie-loos out in the harbor, trying to figure out what’s going on. The Chinese don’t seem to be doing anything about them. If you’re willing, I have a boat that you could take — the same one that brought me in, the Lucky Star. Civilian marked and pretty damned fast, for all that she might have a bit of a gimpy engine. But at least she’s not a military vessel. Any chance you could cruise over by the Chinese battle group and take a look at what’s going on?” He pointed at Lab Rat. “Commander Busby can fit you out with another cell phone so we can stay in contact.”
“Of course, sir,” Adele said.
Lab Rat held up a cautionary finger. “Admiral, there’s every chance that the Chinese took note of the markings and the hull configuration of the vessel that brought you to the carrier. And they were pretty damned intent on shooting it while you were enroute. I’m not so certain it would make an effective spy boat.”
“There’s that.” Tombstone gazed levelly at the Simpsons. “There’s some risk, to be sure. And you’d be operating as civilians, not military prisoners of war. But I think that the Chinese are probably a little too busy to keep any permanent records of that engagement, not with the air battle that was going on. If you look out in the harbor, I think you’ll see another ten or fifteen boats that could be mistaken for this one. So there’s some risk, but I don’t think it’s that substantial.”
“Neither do I,” Adele said. Both carefully ignored the fact that Heaven Can Wait had been shot out from under the Simpsons. “In truth, Admiral, we welcome any opportunity to get back into battle. And if this is how you think we can most effectively support the battle group, we’d be honored to undertake this mission.”