The Intruders by Stephen Coonts Page A

little bit. I’m not the smartest guy you ever met.”
    “Smart enough.” “Thanks.”
    With that, the bosun walked forward, up the deck, leaving the pilot
staring at his back.
    “Hey, my man! Is this mean green killing machine safe to fly?” Flap. He
came around the nose of the plane and lowered the BN’s boarding ladder.
    “We’ll find out, won’t we?”
    “It’s an embarrassing question to have to ask, I know, yet the dynamics
of the moment and the precarious state of my existence here in space and
time impel me to ponder my karma and your competence. No offense, but I
am growing attached to my ass and don’t want to part with it. What I’m
getting at, Ace, is, are you man enough to handle the program ?”
    The pilot slapped the fuselage. “This relic from the Mongolian Air
Force is going off the pointy end of this boat in about fifteen minutes
with your manly physique in it. That’s the only fact I have access to.
Will your ass stay attached?
    Will sweet, innocent Suzy Kiss-me succumb to the blandishments of the
evil pervert, Mortimer Fuck-butt? Stay tuned to this channel and find
out right after these words from our sponsors.” He turned his back on
Flap Le Beau.
    “I have no doubt this thing will go off this scow, but can you get it
back aboard all in one piece?”
    Jake Grafton shouted back over his shoulder “We’ll fly together or die
together, Le Beau. None of that macho male bonding crap for hairy studs
like US.”
    Me bmun—he didn’t have to say that. And it was a beautiful day, the
sun glinting on the swells, the high, open sky, the gentle motion of the
ship …
    The plane would feel good in his hands, would do just as he Wanted. She
would respond so sweetly to the throttles and soon, would come down the
groove into the Wind and honest …
    As the sea wind played with his hair the pilot found himself feeling
better.
    WINGS SPREAD AND LOCKED, FLAPS AND SLATS TO TAKEOFF* Roger the
weight-board–4t all came back without conscious thought as Jake
followed the taxi director’s hand signals and moved the warplane toward
the port bow catapult, Cat Two.
    Flap didn’t help-he didn’t say or do anything after geting the inertial
aligned and flipping the radar switch to standby.
    He merely sat and watched Jake.
    “Takeoff checklist,” Jake Prompted.
    “I thought you said you could fly this thing, Ace. Jake ran through the
items on his own as he eased the plane the last few feet into the
catapult shuttle and the holdback bar dropped into place.
    The yellow-shirt taxi director gave him the “release brakes” signal with
one hand and with the other made a sweeping motion below his waist. This
was the signal to the catapult operator to ease the shuttle forward with
a hydraulic Piston, taking all the &lack out of the nose-wheel
towlaunching mechanism. Jake felt the thunk as he released the brakes
and pushed both throttles forward to the stops.
    The engines came up rucely. RPM, exhaust gas temperatures, fuel
flow-the tapes ran up the dials as the engines wound up.
    The Intruder vibrated like a living thing as the engines sucked in
rivers of air and slammed it out the exhausts.
    “You ready?” Jake asked the bombardier as he wrapped the fingers of his
left hand around the catapult grip while he braced the heel of the hand
against the throttles.
    “Onward and upward, Ace.”
    The taxi director was pointing to the catapult officer, who was ten feet
farther up the deck. The shooter was twirling his fingers and looking
at Jake, waiting.
    Oil pressure both engines–fine. Hydraulic&–okay. Jake waggled the
stick and checked the movement of the stabilator in his left-side
rearview mirror on the canopy rail. Then he saluted the cat officer
with his right hand. The shooter returned it and glanced up the cat
track toward the bow as Jake put his head back into the headrest and
placed his right hand behind the stick.
    Now the cat officer lunged forward and touched the deck with his right
hand.
    One