accepting things at face value, life had grown complicated in a hurry. Maybe they were all spies.
As he and Bugle bussed their trays, six men rose from other tables. Would he know if any of them were Central Intelligence or National Security operatives?
A pilot named Giles jostled Bugle’s arm, faking the tough guy. “Watch it, fuckface,” Giles said, and Bugle responded brightly with “No thanks!”
Everyone handled the anticipation differently. Giles and Bugle fed off each other’s noise. Other men turned inward, like Drew.
The eight of them crossed the ship into the PR shop, an oversized storage locker lined with naked pipe and conduit. Giles cranked the boom box as they suited up. Drew tried to let the rapid-fire guitars erase his mind. It was better to be loud—better to be amped.
Christensen will have new orders once we’re back,
he thought.
If we make it back. China has decent aircraft, and a lot of ’em. It won’t be like pounding the shit out of Iraq.
If a pulse weapon burns our planes…
Drew grabbed his flight helmet and filed into the ready room, where the squadron duty officer handed over a weight chit. Drew scrawled his name before selecting a 9mm Beretta and two spare clips from the table.
“Next time I want a bazooka,” Bugle said.
“You
are
a bazooka,” Drew said, a rare crack for him, and Bugle laughed and punched his shoulder.
Every day Bugle wanted something different, a machine gun, a flamethrower, a fast horse. Clowning let him shrug off the superstition that they might need their sidearms.
A pistol was ludicrous compared to the missiles carried by an EA-18G, more so given the 20mm Vulcan cannon and five thousand pounds of ordnance on a normal F/A-18 fighter. No man would need his Beretta unless he was shot down in enemy territory, which was why they were also handed blood chits—waterproof sheets printed with the American flag and, in the spidery symbols of Vietnamese, Simple Mandarin, Complex Mandarin, and Cantonese, a short phrase that translated as
If you help me, my government will repay you.
Four of their eight guys were spares. The
America
would launch two 18Gs piloted by Drew and Giles for their mission, launch a fighter escort in case either of the first two planes developed problems, then either recover the fighter or farm him out to another cycle. The fourth two-man team was an on-deck spare. Combat operations were predicated on the assumption of casualties, and yet as Drew led their group from the ready room, he found clarity at last.
They ascended behind the tower that held the flag bridge. In the dim shine of the sodium lights, Drew traded fist jabs with Giles and Wade as they walked to their jets.
“Rock ’em,” Giles said.
“Beautiful night,” Bugle added, and Drew nodded, breathing the sweet stink of jet fuel. He wasn’t aware that he was grinning.
The ROMEO shrinks said Drew’s self-assessment was too simple, but he thought he knew himself. He was the older brother of a girl raised by a single dad, an uneducated joe who’d worked fifty-hour weeks to make time-and-a-half in a paper plant in St. Paul, Minnesota. Their father was a good man. He’d destroyed his hands and his back to provide for them. Drew had tried to be the dad, too, cooking and folding laundry, watching over Brigit’s homework, her boyfriends, and her ambitions to play soccer and piano.
The Navy had become his surrogate family, although the ROMEO profilers were right. His loyalty was more than the desire for a home. Drew felt more than he wanted to, remembered more than he wanted to, and years ago he’d hoped the Navy might be a way to toughen up and prove himself.
Now he was lying to his friends for all the right reasons. It was crucial to prevent intercepts and to preserve the status of shadow forces like ROMEO. If not for his double role, he wouldn’t have learned about the threat of a pulse weapon—but because of ROMEO, he was forced to withhold his information.
That felt
As he and Bugle bussed their trays, six men rose from other tables. Would he know if any of them were Central Intelligence or National Security operatives?
A pilot named Giles jostled Bugle’s arm, faking the tough guy. “Watch it, fuckface,” Giles said, and Bugle responded brightly with “No thanks!”
Everyone handled the anticipation differently. Giles and Bugle fed off each other’s noise. Other men turned inward, like Drew.
The eight of them crossed the ship into the PR shop, an oversized storage locker lined with naked pipe and conduit. Giles cranked the boom box as they suited up. Drew tried to let the rapid-fire guitars erase his mind. It was better to be loud—better to be amped.
Christensen will have new orders once we’re back,
he thought.
If we make it back. China has decent aircraft, and a lot of ’em. It won’t be like pounding the shit out of Iraq.
If a pulse weapon burns our planes…
Drew grabbed his flight helmet and filed into the ready room, where the squadron duty officer handed over a weight chit. Drew scrawled his name before selecting a 9mm Beretta and two spare clips from the table.
“Next time I want a bazooka,” Bugle said.
“You
are
a bazooka,” Drew said, a rare crack for him, and Bugle laughed and punched his shoulder.
Every day Bugle wanted something different, a machine gun, a flamethrower, a fast horse. Clowning let him shrug off the superstition that they might need their sidearms.
A pistol was ludicrous compared to the missiles carried by an EA-18G, more so given the 20mm Vulcan cannon and five thousand pounds of ordnance on a normal F/A-18 fighter. No man would need his Beretta unless he was shot down in enemy territory, which was why they were also handed blood chits—waterproof sheets printed with the American flag and, in the spidery symbols of Vietnamese, Simple Mandarin, Complex Mandarin, and Cantonese, a short phrase that translated as
If you help me, my government will repay you.
Four of their eight guys were spares. The
America
would launch two 18Gs piloted by Drew and Giles for their mission, launch a fighter escort in case either of the first two planes developed problems, then either recover the fighter or farm him out to another cycle. The fourth two-man team was an on-deck spare. Combat operations were predicated on the assumption of casualties, and yet as Drew led their group from the ready room, he found clarity at last.
They ascended behind the tower that held the flag bridge. In the dim shine of the sodium lights, Drew traded fist jabs with Giles and Wade as they walked to their jets.
“Rock ’em,” Giles said.
“Beautiful night,” Bugle added, and Drew nodded, breathing the sweet stink of jet fuel. He wasn’t aware that he was grinning.
The ROMEO shrinks said Drew’s self-assessment was too simple, but he thought he knew himself. He was the older brother of a girl raised by a single dad, an uneducated joe who’d worked fifty-hour weeks to make time-and-a-half in a paper plant in St. Paul, Minnesota. Their father was a good man. He’d destroyed his hands and his back to provide for them. Drew had tried to be the dad, too, cooking and folding laundry, watching over Brigit’s homework, her boyfriends, and her ambitions to play soccer and piano.
The Navy had become his surrogate family, although the ROMEO profilers were right. His loyalty was more than the desire for a home. Drew felt more than he wanted to, remembered more than he wanted to, and years ago he’d hoped the Navy might be a way to toughen up and prove himself.
Now he was lying to his friends for all the right reasons. It was crucial to prevent intercepts and to preserve the status of shadow forces like ROMEO. If not for his double role, he wouldn’t have learned about the threat of a pulse weapon—but because of ROMEO, he was forced to withhold his information.
That felt
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