Whap! Whap! Whap!
Inside the bar, all of the pilots began pounding the tables in unison.
Whap! Whap! Whap!
Plug was smiling ear to ear. He had pregamed with a few shots of tequila, until the squadron pilots inside playfully kicked him out of the bar once the ceremony was about to begin. Now he looked at the ensign and two LTJGs who were also in this group. They had come straight from flight school and looked more scared of this initiation ceremony than they were of facing the Chinese.
The bar door slammed open, and a six-foot-five, very wide man wearing a Polynesian tribal headdress and modified flight suit, the arms cut off to look like football coach Bill Belichick, stood towering over them.
“Get in here, rookies!” The big guy looked at Victoria and gave her an impish grin. “And you, ma’am… please…”
Victoria laughed and rolled her eyes, then followed the line of new pilots as they entered the dark bar. The sound of pilots pounding their chairs echoed throughout the pub. Hooting and hollering. The sour smell of beer on the floor. On a lit stage off to the left, Victoria saw the squadron’s commanding officer and a few of the more senior lieutenants in chairs decorated to look like thrones. The senior officers, who all knew her, smiled apologetically.
For the next thirty minutes, the new pilots were put through a series of playful and humorous hazing rituals. Jokes were told. Insults were thrown. One junior pilot, after consuming an inordinate amount of liquor, ran to the tattoo parlor next door and got his call sign tattooed on his rear end. Large quantities of alcohol were consumed by most, although Victoria, never a big drinker, just nursed a single beer.
When it was over, the new pilots were recognized and those without call signs were awarded them.
The squadron’s CO came up and shook Victoria’s hand as people were leaving. “Thanks for playing along.”
She laughed. “I haven’t had this much fun since I was in prison.”
He smiled awkwardly and they discussed her ship assignment.
The party continued as the night went on, and the junior officers got progressively rowdier and more intoxicated.
As darkness fell, a shortened school bus, painted gray and given all the markings of a Navy aircraft, pulled up outside the bar. A young ensign fresh out of flight school, who hadn’t partaken in the festivities, was on duty that night. Instead of manning the squadron phones, his job was to drive the bus up and down Jacksonville Beach, taking the pilots from bar to bar and, eventually, their homes.
An inebriated Plug stood on a bar stool and exclaimed, “Jaguars! Uniform change! All those participating in bar golf, meet on the bus, in proper attire, in five minutes! Your scorecards are here.”
One of the lieutenants began handing out pieces of paper and pencils. “Hey! Hey! Listen up… okay… okay… This will be a nine-hole course. Each bar is one hole. Each sip from your drink is considered one shot. Like, one golf shot.”
“One swing!” someone said.
“Right. Right. One swing. Okay… We’ll be at each pub hole for thirty minutes. Some of the pubs are marked as sand traps. That means you can’t use your right hand. Some are marked as water hazards. That means you can’t go to the bathroom at that hole.”
“What if it’s number two?”
“Shut up, Trainwreck!”
Plug said, “If it’s a par five, you get five sips to finish your drink. Par three, you get three sips. Everyone get it?”
“YEAH!” the group yelled.
“Okay, if you’re going to wear golf attire, go change. The bus leaves in five.”
The group scattered, and the real party was on. Soon the squadron’s more adventurous members headed from pub to pub, and the night became a blur of laughs, beer, and flight suits.
Victoria had one more beer at the next bar, where Plug found her. He was in rare form, but he seemed more subdued than he’d been prior to their time in a POW camp. They spoke loud over the sound of a second-floor band.
Plug said, “You been going to the shrink?” All of the POWs were made to visit a therapist.
She nodded.
“It helping?”
She shrugged.
“Yeah. Me neither.”
“Is this helping?” She held up her beer and nodded toward his own.
“Kind of.” He smiled.
Victoria said, “Lotta Chinese ships coming. This’ll probably be the last one of these outings before we’re underway.”
“Yup. What do you think our chances are?”
Victoria knew what he was asking. The approaching Chinese fleet was larger and more capable than the remaining US Atlantic fleet, after the damage of last month’s attack on east coast bases. When she was a CO, she would have said what needed to be heard. A positive, upbeat message. But here, to Plug, she just said what was on her mind.
“It’ll probably be rough.”
Plug squinted at her. “Well shit, boss, going out in a blaze of glory is what I’ve always dreamed of. We’re gonna be like the last starfighters…”
They finished talking and Plug went up to the top floor to listen to the band and get another drink. Victoria finished hers and slipped out with an Irish goodbye.
The next morning, she arose with the sun. She took a long run on the hard-packed sand of Jax Beach. It felt great to sweat. And there was no better feeling of freedom than exercising next to the ocean.
She came to a rest near the Lemon Bar and chuckled to herself as she saw Plug’s familiar frame lying face up on a small sand dune.
She nudged his foot with her sneaker. “Hey, you alive?”
“Head hurts…”
“You get all that drinking out of your system?”
“Yes, ma’am. I think I did.” He opened his eyes and peered up at her. “You seem like you got all the bad stuff sweated out of you.”
Victoria said, “I think maybe I have…”
David entered the west wing of the White House and was led to the Situation Room.
“You can go on in, sir,” said one of the staffers waiting outside. The US Secret Serviceman held the door for him.
General Schwartz, wearing his Army Green service uniform, caught his eye with a nod, indicating for David to sit in the empty seat to his right. David walked over and sat as the members of the National Security Council spoke.
David felt the tension in the room. President Roberts sat at the head of the Situation Room conference table. He looked five years older than the last time David had seen him. The members of the National Security Council sat around the table. They were some of the most senior members of US government: the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, as well as the Attorney General, the White House Chief of Staff, the Director of National Intelligence, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of the CIA, the Homeland Security Advisor, and the Ambassador to the UN. It was clear from the looks around the table that none of them were pleased with what they were hearing.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “We anticipate that the Chinese Atlantic fleet will reach port in Venezuela by early next week. By that time, most of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico will be within striking distance of the PLA.”
The Secretary of State, who David heard was privately urging the president to resign, said, “So let me summarize, General. The Chinese Navy has re-focused its Pacific fleet on protecting its supply lines to Asia in the South Pacific, and they continue to control the South American littorals. The Chinese Atlantic fleet is beginning to arrive in Venezuela. China’s South America-based army and air force are strengthening each day, readying for what we assume will be a major push northward. Meanwhile, our military in Central America is getting pounded, and our east coast naval and air assets were decimated in an unforeseen attack. Is that about right?”