He watched the HUD closely. He lined up the velocity vector symbol on the horizon line. On final approach, he throttled back and lowered the velocity vector three degrees. Now he was coming in at 125 knots, 300 feet above the runway. Les loved landing the Hornet. Simple as pie, he often said. One big computer game. He lined the HUD velocity vector with the edge of the touchdown markers that were painted on the runway and brought the armed monster in for a perfect landing.
Lieutenant Les Shilling was a twenty-eight-year-old, fresh out of Fightertown, USA, the famous Top Gun school in Miramir, California, where he completed a five-week training course with high honors. The calm, cool pilot had been a disciplined terror over the California desert. The instructors were impressed with the no-nonsense Shilling, who was rock steady at the controls. No one, including the instructors, had escaped him and his aircraft during the strenuous, competitive dog fighting. He could make the F-18 do what most other pilots couldn’t. In short, he took to heart von Richthofen’s words: “The quality of the crate matters little. Success depends on the men who sit in it.”
Les relished flying, proud to be one of the chosen few. The US Navy stats spoke for themselves. Out of every thirty desirable applicants in the training program, ten went on to flight training. Four passed as pilots. Out of these four, only one was considered worthy to fly operationally. Les was that one. A notch above the rest. A naval aviator. An artist.
And he was part of a proud force — the United States Navy — who had never lost a war at sea. Going back to the War of 1812, the Americans, with a measly seventeen ships, held Britain’s more than 600 vessels at bay. During the Second World War, the USN kept the sea lanes open to Britain and brought the Japanese to their knees in the Pacific, beginning with the Battle of Midway. Now, the USN was top dog in the Pacific, the only area of the world where they were not competing with the army and air force for recognition. Not so in places like Europe. Les had been stationed on Guam for five months now with a temporary special forces Hornet squadron, after coming over from Japan, where he had spent six months with another Hornet squadron. Prior to that he was attached to the USS Midway, home-ported in Yokosuka, Japan. Hornets in every case. His machine.
As far as Les was concerned, there was no other fighter quite like the F-18 Hornet, the aircraft to beat at Top Gun. This multi-role fighter scared many pilots at first. It seemed too complicated, too computerized, too damn expensive. However, it quickly functioned beyond original expectations. The power, the maneuverability, the lightness of the controls, impressed fliers. From the time Les first stepped into the fighter, he found it unbelievably easy to fly, as if he had already been in it for months. He prized the visibility factor. He could see extremely well in all directions. He felt as though he was sitting on the aircraft. Not inside it. Damn good crate, she was.
Now in his work khaki, Les threw his gear in the locker marked by his callsign of HULK, and closed the door. Without a doubt a one-woman man, he was, a handsome, muscular specimen who often made the opposite sex’s heads turn. He stood tall — just over six feet — and was richly tanned from the tropical sun. The strong, silent type, he was not one to waste words, almost taciturn at times, talking only when it seemed necessary. Only for something deemed important.
Turning around, he was suddenly and unexpectedly face to face with feisty Jack Runsted — callsign Tiger — another F-18 fighter pilot who had just finished an earlier night flight. Tiger was a skilled navy pilot who’d been bitten by the navy bug in his mid-teens. The women thought this six-foot bachelor was good looking enough, what with his blue eyes and short, curly, blond hair, although he was often irritating, arrogant, and a downright flake. Word was out that he was sowing his wild oats all over the island of Guam. While in a half-drunken state at a navy party a month earlier, he had even tried to make a pass at Les’s wife. Les had calmly offered to re-arrange Tiger’s face. Since then, Les avoided the young man with the Brooklyn accent. Today was no exception. Les turned to the hall, ready to leave. As far as he was concerned, Tiger wasn’t there.
“The CO wants to see you in his office,” Tiger said, breaking the silence. “Right away.”
“Yeah. OK,” Les grunted, over his shoulder.
A short stroll later to the CO’s office, Les saluted his commanding officer, Captain George B. MacDonald. On the walls hung color photos of an F-14 Tomcat, an F-18 Hornet, and the same F-4 Phantom that MacDonald had flown in the Vietnam War.
“At ease, Hulk,” the CO barked in his deep voice, looking up from his desk.
“Thank you, sir.”
MacDonald’s tanned face was long, with sunken, alert brown eyes. Nearing fifty, he kept himself in great shape, appearing to be a good ten years younger. A go-getter, he always wanted everything done in a hurry. And with precision. “What happened out there?” He leaned back in his chair, waiting. No expression.
Les took a breath. “Well, sir, the target disappeared before I could identify it.”
“Disappeared?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s the second time this week. And you were there the other time.”
“Yes, sir. That’s right.”
“Did you circle the area this time?”
“Yes, sir. Nothing.”
“What do you make of it, lieutenant?”
“I don’t rightly know, sir. It could be the air force are playing games with us.”
The captain folded his arms. It was no secret that Andersen Air Force Base to the northeast, the old converted World War Two B-29 base, had been busy throughout the Mariana Islands all July with aerial activity. “The air force have been deploying some exercises lately where radio silence is vital. But I wish we’d know in advance so that we don’t waste taxpayers’ money sending up a thirty million dollar aircraft for nothing. Do you think it could have been the B-29 that’s being repaired for the Second World War reunion coming up on Tinian? The — what’s that squadron?”
“The 509th Composite Group, sir,” Les replied.
“Yeah, the atomic outfit.”
“It might have been the B-29, sir. The target was large enough. And it appeared to be landing. Maybe at Saipan. It never got above a thousand feet.”
“But why this late at night.” The CO smiled for the first time. “I remember your file. Your father was based with the 509th, was he not?”
“Indeed he was, sir. Ground crew.”
“Is he coming out for the reunion?”
“I’m hoping he is, sir. I don’t know yet.”
“I’d like to meet him, if he does make it.”
“You would?” Les tried to restrain his surprise. “Yes, of course, I’ll let him know.”
The CO smiled again. “OK. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can find out what’s going on. I’ll make some calls. Dismiss, lieutenant. Go get some sleep. Say hello to Gail for me.” Remaining in his chair, he snapped off a stiff salute.
“Yes, sir, I will.”
Inside of five minutes, Les jumped into his newly-leased, white Nissan 240SX, opened the sunroof, and drove through the front gate. The night was warm. He opened the glove box and fingered through his assortment of 1950s and 1960s rock-and-roll tapes. Fats Domino, Ricky Nelson, Buddy Holly… He chose Dion’s Greatest Hits, one of his favorites, and snapped it into the tape deck. There wasn’t a car on the road, not at two-thirty in the morning during the week. However, he still stuck to the island’s strictly enforced thirty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit out of habit. When The Wanderer came on, he cranked the music up good and loud, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Home, his wife, the sack, ten minutes away.