Hover (13 page)

You know it's bad when …

Not all H-46 pilots can do a buttonhook, nor do many even attempt it. Em and I had the good fortune of training with Commander Amicus, who taught us how. There's not much better in terms of H-46 maneuvering. It's a high-speed approach followed by 180 degrees of turn to a stop, the deceleration so rapid, you move from over one hundred knots to less than twenty in just a few seconds. You're effectively hooking around a spot on the ground, and they're a blast—if you do them right.

There's a lot that can go wrong with a buttonhook—swinging wildly off direction, both sideways and up, hard landings you might not fly away from, and dropping the engines offline, to name a few.

But assuming all goes right, at the end of the day, it's just great precision flying and so much fun. So if Em would really pass on buttonhooks so she wouldn't have to fly with Commander Claggett …

“I have to run by Zack's room and then I'm grabbing a coffee,” Emily says, rolling out of her rack. “Want one?”

“Please.”

“Oh, and don't forget your training lecture. You have that at eighteen hundred, remember?”

Crap. I had totally forgotten.

“Now I do.”

“Gee, I wonder if a certain Lieutenant Marxen had anything to do with that?”

“Shut up, Em.”

“You know I'm right!” she says, skipping out the door.

I throw on my khakis, sit at my desk, and open the manual for the automatic flight control system. On my laptop, I create a new document, typing the acronym “AFCS” across the top of the page.

Five minutes later, I stare at the still-blank page, my mind where it was an hour ago on the exercise bike—
him
. I close the manual and sit back in my chair, rubbing my eyes. Sorting out my feelings for Eric is one thing. Figuring out Eric, in general, is another. A lieutenant, a pilot like me, privy to Top Secret messages, giving an exercise brief that had an admiral and several ships' captains on the edges of their seats, and running a large-scale, multiple-threat counterterrorism exercise, which, oh by the way, he did extraordinarily well. It doesn't make sense.…

I sit up, scooch my chair in, and bring up my e-mail. As my fingers move across the keyboard, I'm appalled with myself, acting like someone who Googles the guy who just asked her out, to check up on him.

I type anyway, composing my question to an old Academy friend, Tom Jenkins, who flies F/A-18 jets aboard
Nimitz
. I ran into Tom in San Diego prior to leaving, and we had talked about meeting up in Hong Kong to catch up on old times.

After signing my name, I read through the message once more.

Hi Tom,

How are you? Hope cruise is treating you okay so far. I know this question comes a bit out of the blue, but I was wondering if you might know or have ever worked with Eric Marxen. He's an Academy grad flying H-60s off the
Lake Champlain.
His name came up the other day in the wardroom. Things are fine here. Looking forward to Hong Kong.

Sara

I cringe as I hit
SEND
, then jump in my seat, startled when I hear knocking on the door.

“Yes?”

“Sara, it's Doug.”

Oh, no. Not Commander Egan again. I stand up and open the door just a crack. “Yes, sir?”

“Well, can I come in?”

I open the door wider, he walks in, and seats himself in Emily's chair.

“I thought you'd like to know about the Hong Kong shore patrol rotation,” he says.

“Yes, sir, I know.”

“Well, you're scheduled for Sunday after we pull in.”

“Yes, I know, sir. Is that everything, then?”

“Well, no.” He stops for a moment, I think realizing for the first time that I'm still standing by the door. “Aren't you going to sit down?”

“No, sir. I'm fine right here.”

“Sara, really, I'd prefer it if you'd call me Doug. There's no need to be so formal.”

“I know, sir.”

“Well, anyway, the shore patrol office is going to be located at the Harbourview Hotel. They've arranged a banquet room for us. I wanted to let you know that I've reserved a room there, so if you need anything—”

Emily saves me, walking in at just the right moment. “Em, you're back! I know you wanted to change, so sir, would you mind?”

“Yeah, this flight suit stinks to high heaven,” Em says. “Thanks for stopping by, sir.”

Commander Egan rises. “Well, just remember, I'll be there if you need anything.”

Em closes the door behind him.

“He'll be there if you need anything?” she says, her face screwing up.

“Shore patrol is going to be headquartered at the Harbourview Hotel. He was telling me he reserved a room there and if I needed anything…”

Em winces.

“No kidding.”

“And you're going to bring this up with the skipper when?”

“Drop it, Em.”

“I'm just saying.”

 

15

We spin up the rotors, the blades whipping the diamond-filled sky into a blurry sheen. The water is calm, illuminated by a waning crescent moon that hangs low on the horizon. Still waters. Finally. Four days from Hong Kong.

The seas quieted two days ago, and in those two days, I've flown four flights with Mike's SEAL squad. For each one, Captain Magruder came personally to the aircrew briefing space to relay Admiral Carlson's orders that I was to be at the controls. The aircraft commanders are miffed and I don't blame them. It's their aircraft. If I was in their shoes, I'd be pissed, too.

And to make it worse, no one is giving the detachment any answers. This many SEAL flights? Why? Sara at the controls for all of them? Why? We've received the “need to know” response, which is downright annoying. If anyone has a “need to know,” I would think it would be the aircrew who are conducting the flights.

The most distressing thing, though, is how this is affecting me and Em. The comments were good-natured at first. “You're really racking up the hours.” “Maybe you'd like to share?” “Just gives me more time to read.” But as I left the room for tonight's flight, the tone changed. “Remember when you asked if I'd like to fly that pax transfer with Commander Claggett? Well, I've changed my mind. Apparently, I have to take what I can get.”

I breathe a heavy sigh as we lift, flight number five in three days, another fast rope exercise. Chad and I fly loops around the
Kansas City,
while Mike's team makes ready in the back for a practice run before heading to the cruiser, USS
Reeves
, a late addition to our carrier strike group.

“Okay, sir, we're all set aft,” Lego says.

“Roger,” Chad says.

No Commander Claggett tonight, thank god. Although, flying with Chad lately hasn't been much better. I'm expecting him to transfer the controls, but he shakes me off.

“Chad?”

“I've got it,” comes his blunt reply.

I guess Mike isn't connected to the ICS, because I suspect he'd be throwing a fit if he'd just heard that. Or maybe not. Maybe practice runs don't count in terms of who's at the controls.

I confirm the landing checks and Chad begins his approach. We gain airspeed, and just shy of the aft end of the ship, he begins his flare.

And we're coming in hot. Way too hot. It's ugly as he tries to stabilize, and I'm thankful we didn't just plow it into the hangar. Boy, we're spending a long time over the deck.…

Lego finally calls last man out and we circle to land to pick up the team so we can continue on to
Reeves
. Once on deck, the squad stands by, ready to board the aircraft, but only Mike approaches. He walks to Lego and Messy's position in front of the aircraft and taps Messy on the shoulder.

Mike signals for Messy to give him his ICS cord. Messy pulls the cord from his helmet and hands it to Mike, who plugs it into the back of his own helmet. Mike then motions to Lego to disconnect his cord.… Mike doesn't want our aircrewmen to hear what he has to say. This can't be good.

“What the fuck was that!” Mike says. “Why wasn't Sara at the controls?”

“Who says she wasn't at the controls?” Chad says.

“I'd say it's pretty fuckin' obvious who was at the controls.”

“Hey listen, asshole, this is my aircraft and nobody tells me how to run it.”

Mike walks forward to stand directly in front of Chad, glaring. The Mike who is always friendly to me, who always has an encouraging word, has turned to ice.

“Do
not
fuck with us,” he says. “She had better be at the goddamn controls on the next approach or you can kiss this cruise good-bye! Admiral Carlson's sort of a stickler for having his direct orders followed.” He doesn't wait for a response, but yanks out the ICS cord and hands it back to Messy.

I wish I hadn't heard that. Crap. Chad has been backed into a corner, summarily told off, and I was witness to the whole thing. Not good.

As Mike's squad boards the aircraft, Chad says, “Take the fuckin' controls.”

We're en route to
Reeves
when Eric's voice breaks through the radio to guide us. For every one of these SEAL flights, he's had the call. It's always briefed that the Shadow Hunters will run the operations, but it's always him. And, of course, it was the same for Operation Low Level. I think about the e-mail I sent to Tom. I haven't heard back yet, so my mind has been free to roam, imagining all sorts of possible reasons that Eric does what he does, but none of it adds up. At the same time, I berate myself for my schoolgirl behavior. Why so much energy on this? Maybe he's just one of those superstar lieutenants that comes along once in a blue moon and the higher-ups are taking full advantage, letting him run the show. I don't know.

Since
Reeves
has gone silent, turning off all navigational aids, lights, and anything to help us find her, I follow Eric's directions to close on her position. Before I see the ship, I spot Eric's helicopter, visible by its running lights, hovering, as he observes from a distance. Once again, he directs our movements to find an invisible target.

“Okay, ma'am, deck in sight,” Lego says. “Thirty yards, let's slow it up.”

“We have it,” I report to Eric.

“Five, four, three, rope's away. Steady. First man out…” Lego says.

My only visual reference is an antenna array, silhouetted against a starry backdrop. And I've no sooner processed this than Lego begins to give his final calls.

“… last man out. Pulling in the rope. Steady. Rope's in. Steady. Clear to go,” Lego says.

It's painfully obvious that my approach and stabilization to a hover were far smoother and over twice as fast as Chad's. And I did so without the benefit of a lighted ship.

The cockpit remains quiet as I fly to a holding pattern that Eric dictates, while we wait for the pickup. I imagine the SEALs, weighted with all their gear, jumping into the blackened ocean. My stomach churns at the thought. They used Zodiacs for their boarding runs last night and for their exits at the end. Not so tonight. They're swimming to the extraction point.

Twenty minutes later, we hover, wheels on the water, for pickup, and the nauseated feeling is almost overwhelming. I swallow hard. The water is everywhere, kicked up from the rotor wash, dripping from the windshield, splashing against the clear cockpit bubble beneath my feet, and swirling in black rings that radiate away from the aircraft. I shift in my seat, biting my lip.
Come on. Come on. Get those guys in, Lego. Get them in.

“Last man is in,” Lego says. “We're closed up in back. Clear to lift.”

I tighten my grip on the controls, pulling up too quickly.

“Easy, ma'am,” Lego says gently.

Relax, Sara. Relax.

We land on
Nimitz
just as the sun begins to peek over the horizon, and I'm panting like I've just finished running an all-out sprint.

It takes me a minute, but I've got my breathing under control when Mike crawls between the cockpit seats. He looks like a dripping wet rat, but an excited dripping wet rat. He loves what he does. That's obvious.

“Hey, Sara,” he says. He never looks at Chad, nor does he address him. “You flew awesome. Better than last night even, and I thought that was pretty damn fine.”

“Thanks, Mike.”

He disconnects his ICS cord and retreats into the main cabin before exiting the aircraft.

“Shit, I'm soaked,” Messy says. “Let's get outta here.”

“I've got the controls,” Chad reports.

“You've got 'em,” I say, thankfully handing them over.

As Chad picks up and slides left, the scene could be out of some rah-rah military movie. An eight-man SEAL squad marching across the flight deck, dressed in dark camouflage, seawater rolling off their weapons and packs, silhouetted by the rising sun.

The reality is that there is no glamour in this, but I'm proud to the core to be a part of it. In moments like these, I smile inwardly, knowing I've just competently completed a mission and that anyone viewing the cockpit from the outside wouldn't realize who is looking back at them from behind the helmet visor. It's also in these moments, I don't feel alone or isolated, but rather, respected and appreciated, a pilot working just like any other.

 

16

I sit at my desk, adjusting to the strange stillness of the ship now at anchor in Hong Kong's famous Victoria Harbour. Tom's e-mail response glows on my computer screen.

Hey Sara!

Great to hear from you. Sorry, I can't help you with Eric Marxen. I've asked around and no one here knows him. Do you know what year he graduated? I'll be at the Hail and Farewell tomorrow. Maybe I'll see you there?

Tom

I shake my head, embarrassed that I sent the e-mail in the first place.
This is just sad, Sara. Really sad.