Stephen Coonts
The Intruders
Author’s Note
For their kindness in assisting with the technical aspects of this novel, the author wishes to thank Captain Sam Sayers, USN Ret., and Captain Bruce Wood, USN.
The in-flight emergencies featured in this novel are based on actual incidents. Where necessary I have simplified the complexities of cockpit switchology, emergency and air traffic control procedures in the interest of readability and pacing. I have also altered the outcome of some of the incidents. It was not my intent to write an aviation safety treatise or a manual on how to do it, but to entertain.
I also hope that you, the reader, develop a better understanding of the pride, skill, professionalism and dedication of the men and women of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Aviation. As you read these words, they are out there on the oceans of the earth working for all of us. This book is dedicated to them.
Epigraph
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm does bind the restless wave,
Who biddest the mighty ocean deep,
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea.
1
The huge ship towered above the pier that projected into the bay. The rain falling from a low, slate-colored sky made everything look dark and wet — the ship, the pier, the trucks, even the sailors hurrying to and fro.
At the gate at the head of the pier stood a portable guard shack where a sailor huddled with the collar of his pea coat turned up, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. There was no heater in the wooden shack so the air here was no warmer than it was outside, but at least he was out of the wind. Raw and wet, the swirling air lashed at unprotected flesh and cut like a knife through thin trousers.
The sailor looked yet again up at the projecting flight deck of the great ship, at the tails and wing butts of the aircraft sticking over the edge. Then his eyes wandered back along the ship’s length, over a thousand feet. The gray steel behemoth looked so permanent, so solid, one almost had to accept on faith the notion that it was indeed a ship that could move at will upon the oceans. It looked, the sailor decided, like a cliff of blue-black granite.
Streams of water trickled from scuppers high on the edge of the flight deck. When the wind gusted these dribbles scattered and became an indistinguishable part of the rain. In the lulls the streams splattered randomly against the pier, the camels that wedged the hull away from the pilings, and the restless black water of the bay.
The sailor watched the continuous march of small swells as they surged against the oil containment booms, swirled trash against the pilings, and lapped nervously against the hull of the ship. Of course the ship didn’t move. She lay as motionless as if she were resting on bedrock.
Yet she was floating upon that oily black wet stuff, the sailor mused. This 95,000 tons of steel would get under way tomorrow morning, steam across the bay and through the Golden Gate. All of her eighty aircraft were already aboard, all except the last one that was just now being lifted by a crane onto the forward starboard elevator, Elevator One. This past week had been spent loading bombs, bullets, beans, toilet paper — supplies by the tractor-trailer load, an endless stream of trucks and railroad cars, which were pushed down tracks in the middle of the pier.
Tomorrow.
Carrying her planes and five thousand men, the ship would leave the land behind and move freely in a universe of sea and sky — that was a fact amazing and marvelous and somewhat daunting. The carrier would be a man-made planet voyaging in a universe of water, storms, darkness, maybe occasionally even sunlight. And on this planet would be the ants — the men— working and eating, working and sleeping, working and sweating, working and praying that somehow, someday the ship would once again return to the land.
And he would be aboard her. This would be his first cruise, at the age of nineteen years. The prospect was a little strange and a little frightening.
The sailor shivered involuntarily — was it the cold? — and looked again at the tails of the planes projecting over the edge of the flight deck. What would it be like to ride one of those planes down the catapult into the sky, or to come across the fantail and catch one of the arresting gear wires? The sailor didn’t know, nor was it likely he would ever find out, a fact that gave him a faint sense of disappointment. He was a storekeeper, a clerk. The aviators who would fly the planes were officers, all older and presumably vastly more knowledgeable than he — certainly they lived in a world far different than his. But maybe someday. When you are nineteen the future stretches away like a highway until it disappears into the haze. Who knows what lies ahead on that infinite, misty road?
The sailor wasn’t very interested in that mystical future: his thoughts turned glumly to the here and now. He was homesick. There was a girl at home whom he hadn’t been all that serious about when he joined the Navy after high school, but the separation had worked its insidious magic. Now he was writing her three long letters per week, plus a letter to his folks and one to his brother. The girl…well, she was dating another guy. That fact ate at his insides something fierce.
He was thinking about the girl, going over what he would say in his next letter — her last letter to him had arrived three weeks ago — when a taxi pulled up on the other side of the gate. An officer stepped out and stood looking at the ship, a lieutenant, wearing a leather flight jacket and a khaki fore-and-aft cap.
After the cab driver opened the trunk, the officer paid him and hoisted two heavy parachute bags. One he swung onto his right shoulder. The other he picked up with his left hand. He strode toward the gate and the guard shack.
The sailor came out into the rain with his clipboard. He saluted the officer and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but I need to see your ID card.”
The officer made eye contact with the sailor for the first time. He was about six feet tall, with gray eyes and a nose that was a trifle too large for his face. He lowered the bags to the wet concrete, dug in his pocket for his wallet, extracted an ID card and handed it to the sailor.
The sailor carefully copied the information from the ID card to the paper on his clipboard as he tried to shield the paper from the rain. LT JACOB L. GRAFTON, USN. Then he passed the credit-card-size piece of plastic back to the officer.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Okay, sailor,” the lieutenant said. After he stowed the card he stood silently for several seconds looking at the ship. He ignored the falling rain.
Finally he looked again at the sailor. “Your first cruise?”
“Yessir.”
“Where you from?”
“Iowa, sir.”
“Umm.”
After a last glance at the airplanes on the flight deck above, the officer reached for his bags. He again hoisted one of the parachute bags to his right shoulder, then lifted the other in his left hand. From the way the bags sagged the sailor guessed they weighed at least fifty pounds each. The officer didn’t seem to have any trouble handling them, though.
“Iowa’s a long way behind you,” the lieutenant said softly.
“Yessir.”
“Good luck,” the lieutenant said, and walked away down the pier.
The sailor stood oblivious to the rain and watched him go.
Not just Iowa…everything was behind. The ship, the great ocean, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia — all that was ahead. They would sail in the morning. Only one more night.