“Well, I was a P-3 driver back in my squadron tour. We didn’t go in much for call signs.”
“Patrol plane puke!” shouted Flash Gordon, causing several more heads to raise. “Man, you must have fucked up big time to get sent to a boat.”
The new shooter looked hurt. “Actually, I sort of requested it. You gotta have shipboard duty in your record if you want to get ahead in the Navy, y’ know.”
More heads raised. This was really peculiar — someone who actually wanted to be a catapult officer. Volunteering to be on an aircraft carrier like the Reagan — without flying.
“Hey, man” said Pearly Gates, “if you’re gonna hang around with fighter pilots down here, you’re gonna have to get a call sign.”
“Aw, I dunno,” said Harvey, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “‘Dave’ has always been my…”
“Not allowed,’” said Leroi. “No first names, no cutesy nicknames, no patrol plane stuff. You gotta have a real no-shit call sign like the rest of us. Otherwise we won’t let you drink with us. You don’t want to be an outcast do you, Dave?”
Harvey looked dubious. “I just don’t know what my call sign would be…”
“You want us to make one up for you?”
“Well, I guess that would be all right. Just so it wasn’t something, you know, too… raunchy.”
“Raunchy? asked Leroi, his voice dripping with sympathy. “What would that be, Dave?”
“Oh, you know, something really gross, like…” He had to think for a second, “Oh, something like… dog balls.”
The instant he said it, he knew it was too late. The ready room swelled with the voices of cheering pilots. “Dog Balls! You got it!”
Harvey heard an alarm signal going off in his mind. “No! No, guys, what I meant was anything but that. You know, it’s just too —”
“It’s perfect. Dog Balls Harvey! It’s gonna look great stitched on your vest.”
A horrible thought struck Harvey: These crazy bastards are serious. They’re going to label me with the worst name imaginable.
He began backpedaling toward the door. “Guys, it was really fun kidding with you like this….”
“Dog Balls! Dog Balls!
Bang! He slammed the door behind him and retreated around the corner. Thirty yards down the passageway, the horrible yelling from the Roadrunner ready room was following him. “Hey, Dog Balls! Come back, Dog Balls!”
Chapter Six
Al-Kharj
CAG Boyce rapped the pointer — Whap Whap — on the illuminated chart.
“Al-Kharjh air base,” he said, whapping the chart once more for effect. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is our target.”
The overhead fluorescent light in the ready room reflected off Boyce’s shiny pate. He peered out at his audience — thirty flight-suited Hornet and Tomcat crews. “Our force of F/A-18s and F-14s will conduct a simulated strike against the Saudi base at Al Kharj. The strike package planning was done by Commander Maxwell as part of his strike leader qualification.”
A ripple of applause, whistles, cat calls rose from the room.
“This better be good!”
“Another Hornet fiasco!” said a Tomcat pilot from the F-14 squadron.
Boyce aimed his pointer at the map. “The Navy force — called Blue — will be opposed by the Orange force consisting of U.S. Air Force and Royal Saudi Air Force F-15s. Both the Blue and the Orange forces will be controlled by the same American E-3C AWACS, using different controllers. Blue will present a dual-axis attack at altitude, until the orange fighter cover has committed to the respective threats. With the orange fighters committed, the blue strikers will turn away and drag the orange fighters eastward.
“Meanwhile, down on the deck, along a third axis, two divisions of Blue fighters led by Commander DeLancey will sneak in undetected and engage the orange fighters from below. If the deception works, the blue stinger package will kill all the orange fighters, allowing the blue strike package to continue to the target.”
Boyce lowered his pointer. “Questions?”
A Hornet pilot named Dawg Harrison raised his hand. “What if the deception doesn’t work? If the Blue fighters down on the deck get caught by the Orange defenders, looks to me like the strikers are dead meat.”
Before Boyce could answer, Killer DeLancey spoke up. “Leave that to me. You suck ‘em toward me, I’ll kill ‘em. I’ve never lost a fight to an F-15 yet.”
That sparked a round of cheering and whistling.
Boyce shoved a cigar into his mouth while he waited for the cheering to settle down. He wanted to tell DeLancey to knock off the goddamn grandstanding. This was a large force exercise, not a solo mission. But Boyce knew he couldn’t rebuke DeLancey, at least in front of his adoring fan club.
Settling into his cockpit, Maxwell gazed around the flight deck. The afternoon sun blazed down on the flight deck, making it hot as a griddle. It was always that way in the Persian Gulf, he reflected. Just different gradations of hot, depending on the season.
Maxwell could see all his strike pilots manning their jets. Opposite them, spotted behind catapult one, were the Hornets and the Tomcats of DeLancey’s stinger package — the fighters assigned to engage the Orange defenders.
He thought again of the four weeks of planning he had put into the exercise, the late nights, the hours spent alone up in the Intel room. CAG Boyce had been impressed with the depth of detail in the strike plan, especially the complex pincers attack that was designed to lure the Orange fighters into the trap.
This was Maxwell’s single shot at refuting the prima donna astronaut reputation that he knew DeLancey had been spreading about him. DeLancey wanted everyone to know that Maxwell lacked the fleet experience to carry his weight as a senior squadron officer.
If Maxwell somehow pulled the strike off without any major glitches, he would receive his Air Wing Strike Lead qualification, which was requisite to eventual command of his own squadron. If the mission went to hell and Blue Force failed to nail its target, he could kiss it goodbye.
It was exactly what DeLancey was hoping. He would have an excuse to replace Maxwell as his operations officer.
Maxwell finished his pre-start check list. He closed the canopy, sealing out the wind and din of the carrier flight deck. Inside the cockpit, the digital display screens glowed at him like miniature billboards. On signal from Ruiz, the enlisted plane captain on the flight deck below, he started the right engine, then the left. He swept the control stick through its full range, moving every control surface on the wings and tail. The stabilator — the big horizontal tail slab — he ran to its take off trim setting. The flaps were cycled through their full range, then set to half-extended for take off.
Five minutes later, he was taxiing forward to the number one catapult, on the carrier’s starboard bow. Wisps of steam poured back down the catapult tracks. All four catapults — the two on the angled deck and the two on the bow — were busy hurling fighters one after the other into the hazy Gulf sky.
He eased the jet forward, feeling the nose of the Hornet lurch as the nose-tow bar dropped into the shuttle slot. The yellow-shirt standing by the jet’s nose gave Maxwell the signal to release the brakes. In the center of the flight deck, between the two catapults, the catapult officer was signaling Maxwell to power up.
Maxwell shoved the throttles forward. One last time he “wiped” the cockpit with the stick, making sure the controls were free. He shoved his head back against the head rest and wrapped his left hand around the throttle grip. His right hand came up in a salute to the catapult officer. The ready signal.