With a crash, the tail hook grabbed one of four arresting cables. The tires and struts of the rear landing gear compressed under the tremendous weight of the aircraft. The nose gear, hitting the metal deck last, also compressed, jerking the pilot forward in the cockpit. The arresting gear cable reeled out over sixty yards before the A-7 came to a halt.
Within seconds the pilot retracted his tail hook, the cable reeled back in its place, and the plane taxied toward the bow to be launched again. The flight deck crew directed the aircraft forward and attached its launch bar to the catapult.
The Jet Blast Deflectors rose from the deck behind the A-7. The pilot pushed his throttle forward sending hot, foul exhaust over the deflectors and high into the air.
Kurt watched the meticulous crew prepare the aircraft for launch.
The pilot saluted the deck crew, the cat officer signaled the pilot, and the jet roared to the bow and soared up and away from the ship and into the darkness. Only the faint, fading flames of exhaust disturbed the night.
Kurt had seen enough to satisfy his curiosity. Although he was a veteran, it had been nearly two years since his last flight deck experience. When he became an officer with the Naval Investigative Service, he thought he had given up that dangerous vocation. But he knew it was his prior experience that led the NIS to select him for this mission.
Carefully, Kurt stepped down the metal ladder, swung the latch secure on the hatch, and opened the heavy metal door. All of the deafening flight deck noises were muffled with the slamming of the hatch behind him.
He worked his way through a maze of passageways and compartments until he reached the shop that he'd call his home-at least until his investigation was complete.
Inside he was still a stranger. The Electronics Technicians had crossed the Atlantic together, but were far from shipmates. Over thirty men worked out of a small twelve-by-twelve compartment in two twelve-hour shifts. Kurt had asked for nights, which allowed him time for his real mission there.
Leo Birdsong was the only friend he had made. They had become close in such a short time-Kurt knew that often happened with sailors. Kurt dreaded the day when he'd have to tell Leo the truth about why he was really there.
"About time you got your ass off that deck," Leo said.
Kurt flipped his goggles up and removed his helmet. "I love the smell of jet exhaust in the evening," Kurt said.
In the two weeks they had known each other, they had entrusted each other with a lot of their background. Leo, who grew up in Denver, had joked that he must be the only Black man who had never tried grits. But he also knew that not many Black men could ski like him. Kurt had opened up as well, not telling lies, but not telling the whole truth-more like selecting bits of information from his youth and prior flight deck experiences.
"Fuckin' A," Kurt said. "No matter how many times I watch flight ops, I'll never get used to it. It must be twenty degrees up there, but the fuckin' exhaust will still curl your hair and fry your ass."
Leo laughed. "Shit. You're gonna start lookin' like me."
Kurt sat next to Leo. He was flipping through a Skiing Magazine, dreaming about the Alps and the ship's first port of call in Genoa, Italy. Kurt wanted to ski with Leo, but he knew he had work to do while in port.
"Did you get to see Corsica this afternoon?" Kurt asked. Working nights for nine days while crossing the Atlantic, and another six since entering the Mediterranean, Kurt longed for a daylight view of the aqua blue Ligurian Sea and the rocky Corsican coast.
"No. I couldn't drag my butt out of the rack," Leo said.
"I just had to see the sun," Kurt explained.
Leo nodded. "Need my beauty sleep. You're only twenty-five now. You keep this shit up, and you'll start looking like those thirty-five year old lifers who look sixty." He quickly flipped his eyes toward an obese man laying in a crumpled heap among a large pile of clean rags.
Kurt smiled. The man who nearly everyone had learned to hate in a short period of time, Petty Officer First Class Shelby Taylor, snored loudly over the muffled flight ops on the deck above. His face was a contorted mess. His cheeks a cross between that of a chipmunk and a bulldog. Some in the shop believed Shelby could sleep on command. Even while standing. But nobody complained. There was far more harmony while he slept.
Kurt needed to talk with Leo privately. He knew they would be free to speak below decks in the hangar bay. The large, cavernous area where most of the maintenance took place without being exposed to the elements, hummed with power carts that allowed technicians to simulate flight postures in search of electrical problems. Normally, the night shift performed maintenance on the A-7 weapon and avionics systems. But this night they were flying, so half the crew did maintenance and the other half was on the deck waiting in case one of the aircraft had an avionics problem.
"Let's go to the hangar," Kurt said.
Without answering, they both got up and departed through the hatch and out of the compartment. Kurt was really an Ensign, but wore the rank of a Petty Officer Second Class. Leo was a Petty Officer Third Class.
When they reached the hangar, they applied auxiliary power to one of the A-7s. Leo got inside the cockpit and partially closed the canopy. With the power on and the cockpit ajar he could lean into the cockpit and speak to Leo without anyone else hearing them.
"What do you think of Shelby?" Kurt asked.
"Shelby's a cock sucker."
"Besides that," Kurt laughed. He already knew that Leo, and most everyone else, hated Shelby.
Petty Officer First Class Shelby Taylor was Kurt's prime suspect in the disappearance of numerous computer chips, manuals, and avionics components. The NIS had been alerted by a young supply sailor whose records failed to balance. The sailor had narrowed the disappearing items down to the A-7 squadron, since it was the only unit using the new avionics equipment. The NIS quickly had the sailor transferred before the Mediterranean cruise began, and placed Kurt in the light attack squadron to find out where the high tech components were going.
"Shelby Taylor is a sleaze ball," Leo said. "I've known him for about a year-that's about three hundred and sixty-five days too long. He's a clap-infested dude. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw his fat ass."
"So, you like him then," Kurt said with a smile.
Leo turned power on to the cockpit and the Heads Up Display lit up like a Christmas tree. He then began playing with the moving-map display-a navigational tool on the right console.
"You'd like to fly one of these beasts, wouldn't you?"
"I wouldn't mind, but I've seen some of the assholes who work on these things," Leo said, flicking on more switches.
Kurt was trying to find a way to get more information on Shelby's activities. Leo was Shelby's assistant when ordering supplies, but Kurt had already cleared Leo from any wrongdoing. But had Leo noticed anything strange?
"You know we traced the problem on the 06 Bird down to the Nav-Weapons avionics box," Kurt said. "I ordered a new processor from supply, and when it didn't come in after a few days, I gave them a call. They said they were all out…that Shelby had wiped them out last week. But I checked our work orders and supply bins and can't find even one," Kurt added.
Leo gazed up at Kurt. "That's not the only thing missing. Shelby's taken me out of the supply business," Leo said. "When I questioned him on it, the son of a bitch just said `Don't worry Bro, let me take care of supply this cruise'."
"What do you suppose he's doing with the stuff?"
"Shit if I know. Maybe he's selling the shit to the Russians."
Kurt didn't answer. That was a possibility. The avionics components were part of a classified retrofit. The chips that ran the entire system were even restricted from trade to NATO countries.