While the aviators were well aware of the historic significance and geopolitical consequences of the missions they flew, the sailors, for the most part, were oblivious. Wilson smiled at the idea that, despite what they may think, the aviators were not the center of the universe to thousands of kids just trying to make it through the regimentation of another day at sea. The young sailors were proud of their roles and welcomed opportunities to learn more about the aviators’ missions, but not all of their leaders took the time to visit them in their shops and explain. Time, after all, was a precious commodity at sea for everybody.
For Wilson and his team the afternoon went fast as they folded updates on the tactical situation, the weather, and expected ship’s position into the strike plan. When Wilson joined Olive and Dutch afterwards for dinner, he sensed the disposition of the air wing had picked up and ranged from quiet confidence to eager anticipation. Wilson was familiar with those feelings, too. Let’s get this show on the road.
After he finished dinner, Wilson went below, for no particular reason other than he wanted to be alone for a few moments. He stepped inside his stateroom and flicked on his desk lamp.
He looked at Mary’s framed picture on his desk, his favorite of her at the strike fighter ball. She had looked stunning that night. He leaned in toward her image and stared at her beauty, drinking her in, trying to seek comfort.
Wilson fought against the empty feeling in his stomach, the foreboding tension always felt prior to combat in a high-threat environment. What will Iran throw at us? What are they preparing up there? He answered his own question. Bandar Abbas is going to be hot. Compartmentalize, dammit!
Wilson stood to head aft to the ready room for the Skipper’s strike brief, but paused to pray instead. Holding his folded hands against his chin, he closed his eyes and whispered, “Please, God, bring us all back. Let us do well. Give us strength. And your will be done, not ours.”
Before he flicked off the light, Wilson took another long look at Mary’s photo, and said, “I’ll come back to you, baby.” He glanced at his watch: four-and-a-half hours until launch.
On a whim, Wilson decided to take the long way to the ready room — via the hangar bay. Sunset was in 15 minutes, and sunsets on the open ocean were often breathtaking in their beauty. Going this way he could look out to the horizon through the open elevator doors.
He walked aft, through a hatch, and down two ladders to the hangar bay. Winding his way through the parked yellow tractors, drop tanks on dollies, hydraulic jacks and various other pieces of hangar bay equipment, Wilson walked past a Raven aircraft, 401. Wearing a respirator, a young, female petty officer maneuvered an orbital sander on a piece of wing in preparation for some routine touch-up paint. He looked at the name on the cockpit:
CDR STEVE LASSITER
CAJUN
Wilson realized the skipper wasn’t going to be flying “his” aircraft that night. While 401 had a reputation as a solid flyer, maintenance would put Cajun, and the rest of the pilots, in full mission-ready aircraft, right now being loaded and fueled topside.
Wilson walked under a Prowler tail and over to the Elevator 1 opening. The sea was a deep blue, and where it met the sky, he saw the white superstructure of a tanker, brilliant from the reflected sunlight, peeking over the horizon. Realizing the carrier was pointing north, he scanned for other ships and noted another tanker, this one less than 10 miles away, and heading east. Several miles away to the southeast, he recognized the familiar outline of a guided missile destroyer in escort, paralleling the carrier’s course. Further east, dramatic cumulus buildups, illuminated by sunlight, formed a sharp line in the sky, all the way to the horizon. Great visibility.
Wilson savored moments like this, alone with his thoughts in the vastness of the Indian Ocean. But he couldn’t help thinking of what was in store after the sun set: the tension of the man-up, taxiing among dozens of loaded strike aircraft, joining up in the darkness and pushing toward Bandar Abbas, the radar cursor sweeping like a metronome as it searched for contacts, with terse, clipped radio transmissions interrupting the electronic hum of the cockpit. SAMs. They would see SAMs tonight, probably in numbers. Wilson imagined his RWR lighting up, accompanied by loud deedles in the headset, if his aircraft were caught in the electronic snare of a missile-tracking radar. His head would snap in the direction of arrival in a frantic search to pick it up visually and maneuver to defeat it. Known AAA sites surrounded the target area. It was also likely the American formations would be ragged and confused once they reached the release points. He visualized more arcs of AAA rising up to meet them, giant rapiers swinging through a swarm of bees in a desperate effort to hit one, just one. Would it be him?
And MiGs. Would the Iranians launch their fighters tonight? All of the fighter aircrew actually welcomed a fight, and prayed for the chance to down a MiG or Tomcat or Phantom. So did Wilson, but in the back of his mind, he knew more than the others how formidable the MiG-35 could be: invisible to radar, possessing an incredible thrust-to-weight ratio, slow-speed maneuverability. He wondered if the IRIAF would deploy them down here? What is Hariri thinking right now?
Enough! Wilson scolded himself, still trying to scan the horizon out to 1,000 miles. He was the operations officer in a deployed Hornet squadron and a TOPGUN instructor with as much green ink as anyone in the air wing. You can do this, he thought. If anything, it should be the Iranians who are worried right now, knowing we are just over the horizon. And if there was a golden BB out there for him, then so be it. He could not be more prepared for this moment.
Wilson said another prayer. God, please take this anxiety from my shoulders. Please allow me to do Your will now and always. And please bring us all back. Your will be done. Amen.
The apprehension left him at once, replaced by quiet confidence and assurance. There was no need to dread this mission; he would prosecute the assigned targets with aggressive energy. He was ready.
Wilson ambled along the length of the hangar bay and took in the scene: sailors and marines working on airplanes, yellow shirt directors talking in a group by Elevator 2, two young sailors in dungarees walking forward and nodding to him with respect as they would on any other day. Yep, to most everyone aboard, this was just another late afternoon at sea.
Hoping to view the sunset through the Elevator 4 opening, Wilson continued aft through the jumble of parked aircraft, each separated by mere inches from its neighbor. The tight spacing sometimes required him to lower his head or contort his body to squeeze past. Coming around the tail of an S-3, Wilson froze. Ahead of him, about 20 yards away, he saw a lone aviator in a flight suit. Standing motionless at the edge of El 4 and looking out to sea, with arms folded, was his CO… Cajun Lassiter.
He did not want to disturb Cajun, but decided to observe him for a few moments. Redness from the sunset reflected off Cajun’s pensive face as he looked to the west, eyes squinting from the light. Wilson walked to the starboard side of the bay well behind Cajun, who was now silhouetted against the radiant setting of a red sun over a gray mountain range of clouds. Beautiful streaks of light broke through the clouds and illuminated distant patches of ocean. Though Wilson rejected an impulse to join Cajun — because he especially wanted to stay and take in the beautiful scene — Wilson realized that he himself could be discovered. Knowing Cajun would be embarrassed if caught in a quiet moment, even by Wilson, he headed aft to a starboard-side hatch by the jet shop. Wilson had to stop, though, to take one more look at the Raven skipper — who remained a statue — before he proceeded to the ready room where Cajun himself would arrive shortly.