"I could tell you how important this target is," the admiral continued. "But you already know that. I could tell you what the effects will be if we don't take it out now, that we'll be seeing these weapons everywhere in the world in the next year if we don't stop it now. And I could tell you the dirtiest secret of all ― that the government wants us to take care of this problem now. Quietly, efficiently, and now. There's no time for foreign policy consultations, for diplomatic dickering and horse trading. And all of that would be true."
He paused for a moment, and I saw him look around the room to take the measure of each one of us. "True, and wouldn't make a whole lot of difference. Not to you right now. Hell, not even to me, for that matter. But what I do care about is my people. And those bastards tried to kill some of them. Succeeded, in a couple of cases. Shot down the E-2, the helo, and a couple of fighters. As nasty as that was, it's sort of one of the risks of military life. You hate it, but it's there."
"But this" ― Admiral Wayne pointed at the photo ― "is something different. Something more brutal than anything we can conceive. Torture, pain, and trying to bury a pilot and his RIO alive. Now that is something to get pissed about. You got any questions about it, you just take a good look at Bird Dog. Or go down to sick bay and see Gator. Remember what happened to them and watch out for the SAM sites. Remember, and make them pay."
With that, the admiral stepped away from the briefing podium and handed the slide clicker over to Lab Rat. Lab Rat flashed up a smaller-scale aerial photo that encompassed the entire missions area. The burnt jungle was still visible, but took up less of the picture now.
Julie Karnes. Now just what the hell was she doing on Jefferson?
Back a couple of years ago, I'd spent a year at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. It was the first time I'd had shore duty since my earliest days of pilot training, and I'd run amok.
Well, sort of amok. At least until I'd met Callie Lazier, a surface warfare officer in my class. I'd fallen for her hard ― hell, I'd even proposed. What's worse, she'd accepted.
Then, when the opportunity came up to scoot back out to Jefferson to do a little flying during a real crisis, it had all fallen apart. Callie was pissed at me for going. Started making this mumbo-jumbo touchy-feely crap about fear of commitment and all that stuff.
I'd pointed out that she knew I was a pilot when she got hooked up with me. Just where the hell did she think I would be after War College?
She hadn't understood ― but then, those surface pukes never do. It's a whole different Navy, steaming around at the hair-raising speeds of thirty knots.
We'd made up for a while, but it hadn't lasted. She'd Dear-John'd me on the next cruise.
And Julie Karnes ― she'd been Callie's roommate through it all. I knew her, of course, but not well. She was an F-14 RIO, which should have given us a lot in common. Except there were other things I was interested in when I was over at their place, things that had nothing to do with radar, ESM, or even flying.
Plus, I'd gotten the feeling she didn't like me too much. I'd figured it was because I took off to go fly missions over Cuba while I was supposed to be making like a student and keeping good ol' Callie happy. Those women ― they stick together.
So aside from Callie, the last person I really wanted to run into was Julie Karnes.
The female in question shot me another nasty look, as if she knew I wasn't paying attention. I looked back up at the front of the room.
Lab Rat was running through the estimated SAM locations, warning us in every other sentence that the damn things were mobile and could be anywhere. Our ingress and egress routes were planned to avoid their detection envelopes, but there he went again. "They could be anywhere, people. And the range is-"
I tuned it out, and concentrated on the routes inked out in blue marker on the screen, picking out landmarks and drop points.
"Is he boring you?" The whisper was so quiet I almost missed it.
"Gator will ― I mean, my RIO will take care of it," I whispered back, annoyed at her for breaking my concentration.
That cool green stare again, clearly pissed now. Like I cared.
But I wasn't flying with Gator this time, was I? What about the RIO I would get? Would he be as good as Gator? I'd been spoiled a little by flying with a solid, experienced backseater for so long. Hell, by all rights, I should have had a nugget in the backseat ― the Skipper tries to put a seasoned guy with a newbie to increase the chances of survival. It was just that a lot of people didn't want to fly with me. I had no idea why.
So maybe I would have to worry about SAM site planning, more than I would have before. Shit ― — all I wanted to do was fly.
"Maybe I will, maybe I won't," she replied. "There're two of us up there." She said the words casually, like it was no big deal.
"I pity your pilot," I answered.
I swear to God, she smiled. I hadn't meant it as a joke.
"So, now I know two things about you that Callie never told me. First, you don't pay attention at briefings. And second ― you don't read the flight schedule."
She was right about the last one. I hadn't wanted to see it, to see my name on there without Gator's right below. But I had this weird sinking feeling that I was missing the point.
Now she was turned full-face to me, paying as little attention to the brief as I was. "You didn't read it, did you." A statement, not a question. "You're flying with me, Bird Dog. And I swear to God, you're leaving command-eject selected."
We trooped out of the ready room and headed for the paraloft to pick up our gear. Karnes was already carrying her brain bucket and knee pad, but I wasn't suited up yet.
"This isn't a good idea," I said as we let the parariggers help us adjust our ejection harnesses. Mine was brand new ― the last one had already done what it was supposed to. "Flying together, I mean."
"Why not?" she asked, reaching down to adjust her crotch straps. I watched, still slightly bewildered at the machinations women go through with them. Like what do they have to adjust has always been my question. "Not that I'm disagreeing with you," she continued, evidently satisfied with the fit.
"Because! We've never flown together. I don't think hostile SAM country is a good place to begin our relation ship."
"Ah. So unless it's a nice peacetime hop ― or War College ― you don't believe in new relationships. Is that it?"
"That's not it, and if you were any kind of a RIO, you'd agree with me," I shot back. There was something in that oh-so-cool voice that really pissed me off.
Truth be said, the last crack was below the belt. And not true. The Tomcat community isn't all that big, and the chicks had gotten a lot of attention from the press and from everyone else. I knew what kind of aviators they were, more from their squadron mates than from the media, and I knew more about them than I would have known about a guy in the same position.
An oddly erotic memory of Callie popped into mind at that word ― position. Ah, the things we'd tried…
I shoved the thought away. You don't let stuff like that distract you when you're getting ready to fly a combat mission.
The point of the whole matter was that everything I'd heard about Julie Karnes was good. Not too good to be true, not that sort of bullshit. The golden-halo effect, you can pick it out after a while in the canoe club. No, it all had the ring of an honest assessment. So maybe she didn't have as much time in an ejection seat as Gator did, but she was supposed to be a damned competent RIO.
"I am a kind of RIO. But I'm not Gator's kind." She turned around to face me, hands on hips, her helmet dangling from one hand. "I gave up babysitting after junior high school. It didn't pay enough. It doesn't now either. So get this concept through that overblown ego of yours, amigo. We go out there as a team, not as hotshot young pilot with Daddy in the backseat. You have a problem with that concept, you speak up."