Her third pass was within limits but ugly. High in the groove, settling at the ramp, with an urgent power call from Pearly, ending with a number one wire — the closest to the blunt unforgiving ramp of the deck.
Taxiing forward to where the director was signaling her to her parking spot, she began preparing herself for the debriefing. Already she could hear the accusations, and she would be ready with the answers. The LSO tried to make her look bad by yelling these hysterical commands on the radio.
And Devo. The man was a blatant sexist. He shouldn’t have been flying. His briefing was unprofessional and erratic. Whatever happened to Devo was his own fault.
CAG Boyce sighed and hung up the phone. He closed his eyes and massaged them with the tips of his fingers. This was the part of his job he hated most. In twenty-three years as a naval aviator, he had seen his share of mishaps. It never got any easier.
He swung around in his chair and faced the officers seated at his conference table. ”They found debris,” he said. “Five miles from the Iranian freighter.”
“Did the freighter fire on him?” asked Killer DeLancey.
“No, there wasn’t any indication of hostile action.”
“Any clue that he ejected?” asked Maxwell. “Locator beacon or…?”
Boyce shook his head. That would be wishful thinking, and they all knew it. No beacon, no raft, no floating survivor. When you hit the water at 300 knots, there wasn’t much left.
Losing a guy like Devo Davis was tough. Boyce and Devo went all the way back to the A-7 days together on the Kitty Hawk. Devo, for all his faults, was someone Boyce could count on to tell him how things really were.
Now he couldn’t shake this feeling that he had helped kill Devo.
He had heard the rumors about the drinking. As Air Wing Commander, he was also aware that Devo was having problems in the cockpit. But they had already had a private talk about all that, and Devo convinced him it was a passing thing. He was having trouble getting over the split with Eileen. Nothing serious. He was coming out of it.
Then, while the Reagan was in port in Dubai, Killer DeLancey had come to his office. He wanted Devo replaced and sent home. Killer thought that Devo was a drunk and a poor role model for the junior officers.
Boyce turned him down. Devo, he told DeLancey, would come out of it. Devo was a good executive officer, he would make a good commanding officer. Just cut him a little slack, and Devo would get a handle on his problems.
That, of course, was a lie. His real reason for keeping Devo Davis was more critical. He needed someone he could trust to watch Killer DeLancey.
The recovery team completed its sweep of the surface around the crash site. To no one’s surprise, they found only a few baskets of floating debris — nothing that would yield a reason for the crash of Devo’s Hornet.
The Aircraft Mishap Board convened the next morning in the air wing conference room. Boyce named Commander Spike Mannheim, of the VFA-34 Blue Tails, senior member of the board. Maxwell, as the Roadrunners operations officer, was assigned to the board, and so were Craze Manson, the maintenance officer, Bat Masters, the safety officer, and the air wing flight surgeon, Knuckles Ball.
Spam Parker was the first witness called. She sat at the end of the table facing the five board members. She wore her dress khakis, her blonde hair tied back in a bun.
Mannheim asked the first question. “Lieutenant Parker, please describe Commander Davis’s demeanor during the brief.”
“What do you mean?”
“Was he… alert? Upbeat? Perceptive?”
“He seemed irritable. He was probably hungover.”
“We’re not asking you to make judgments. Just tell us how he conducted the brief.”
“Very unprofessional, in my opinion.”
“Explain, please.”
“Devo kept making a big deal about this overhead rendezvous, like it was some sort of religious thing with him.”
Mannheim frowned. “You disagreed with your flight leader about the rendezvous?”
“It just made more sense to rendezvous on a tacan radial.”
Mannheim scribbled a note on his yellow pad. “Even though the air wing tactical procedures specifically call for an overhead rendezvous?”
Spam didn’t like the questioner’s tone. “You asked me to tell you about the briefing. I just told you.”
Mannheim studied her for a second. “Okay, let’s talk about the mission. Tell us what happened.”
Spam described the HARM patrol.
When she finished, Maxwell spoke up. “I’m curious, Spam. How did you happen to fire a HARM? Why didn’t Commander Davis take the shot?”
“I guess he wasn’t watching his display. He didn’t see the Burner-three indication.”
At this, Mannheim picked up a manila file folder. “We have reports here from both AWACS and Rivet Joint. They saw no Burner-three activity at all. It looks like the HARM you fired went inert, without tracking.”
Spam looked at each of them. She was receiving clear danger signals. They were on a fishing trip. “I just told you. I had an SA-3 site locked up on my HARM display. There was a definite SAM threat to the strike force, and I fired a missile.”
“Did Commander Davis say anything to you about your missile shot?”
“I don’t remember.”
Mannheim looked at his notes again. “Here is a transcription of your HUD tape. After you fired the HARM, you and Devo had a radio exchange. He said, ‘What do you mean, a box? An SA-3 displays as a triangle. What the hell did you shoot at?’” Mannheim looked at her. “Well, Lieutenant?”
Spam was sure now. They were trying to set her up. “Excuse me, but what has this got to do with Devo’s crash? Am I on trial here?”
“We’re trying to reconstruct the entire sortie,” said Mannheim.
“It seems to me you’re trying to blame me for something that has nothing to do with the accident.”
Mannheim glanced at his colleagues, then made a note on his pad. “Very well. We’ll come back to that later. Tell us about the Iranian freighter you and Devo overflew.”
Spam related how they received the call from Alpha Sierra to check out the unidentified ship.
“Did you observe any hostile activity?” Maxwell inquired. “Any sign of firing from the ship?”
“No. Nothing at all.”
“What were Devo’s instructions to you about tactical formation?”
Spam considered for a moment. They had the transcript from her HUD tape. They were trying to trip her up. “As I recall, he said to fly a mile abeam and higher.”
“And is that, in fact, what you did?”
“Of course.”
Maxwell thought for a second, then said, “So you saw Commander Davis’s jet hit the water?”
“Not exactly. I was… trying to get the name of the ship.”
“I don’t understand,” interjected Mannheim. “If he was overflying the ship, and you were a mile abeam, how could you also be getting the name of the ship?”
Spam’s anger was rising. The bastards were definitely trying to trap her. “That was our job, identify the ship. That’s what I was trying to do.”
Mannheim again consulted his file. “Alpha Sierra has told us that your two radar contacts were converging as you approached the freighter. At the time they lost Devo’s radar signature, the two of you were superimposed on the radar display.” Mannheim put down the file and looked at her. “As Commander Davis’s wingman, you were supposed to be a mile abeam. Can you explain why you did not have him in sight when he impacted the water?”
Spam knew for sure now where this was going. It was just as she expected. “What is this? An inquisition?” She shoved her chair back and stood up. “I don’t have to sit here and submit to this. Not without a lawyer.”