Nelson DeMille - Mayday

The F-18 lay back in trail and followed the huge airliner at a distance of a thousand yards. Matos experienced some turbulence in the Straton’s wake and lifted his fighter slightly higher. His last message from the Nimitz had been bizarre. A bizarre message even for a bizarre situation. Navy three-four-seven. Follow in trail. Keep out of sight of portholes and cockpit. Do not, I say again, do not attempt to communicate with Straton. Acknowledge.

Matos had acknowledged and followed orders without question. Had his position been more tenable, he would have asked for a clarification. But he was now numero uno on Sloan’s famous shitlist, and that had the effect of putting him in a complete state of psychological dependence and subservience. Whatever Sloan said, Sloan would get. Certainly there was some method to Sloan’s madness.

Matos was beginning to recognize tonal qualities in Sloan’s voice despite the fact that the voice was scrambled in transmission, then unscrambled on his audio. And there had been a strange quality in Sloan’s latest instructions that had not escaped Matos’s attention. The voice was not hostile or curt. It was almost friendly, cajoling. The voice seemed to say, All right, Peter, you screwed up, but just follow orders and we’ll be able to square everything.

But how in the name of God could anyone, even Commander Sloan, square this?

It occurred to Matos, now that he had time to think, that his career wasn’t the only one that was finished. He’d been thinking only of himself, which was natural under the circumstances. Now he saw the situation for what it was. A monumental fuckup. It started with him, but it would chain-react and obliterate Sloan and anyone else unlucky enough to be in the electronics room. It would also smash the Nimitz ’s commander, Captain Diehl, and probably his staff as well. The blast would reach into the Halls of the Pentagon, the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, and maybe into the White House itself. At whatever level this decision had been made to test-fire a weapon banned by the new Voluntary Arms Limitation Treaty, everyone involved from that level down would be culpable. No es tu culpa, Pedro.

Yet Matos, though he didn’t fully understand who ordered the test or how illegal it was, was very much in favor of it. He pictured himself in front of some sort of investigating committee-Senate, House, maybe Department of Defense. He would defend his involvement as a moral decision based on national security. A personal decision that transcended any treaty. He would not say he was only following orders. That was the coward’s way. He began to take on the mantle of the patriot and martyr: the Ollie North defense. He would show what he was made of when the senators began firing questions at him. The Navy would be awed by his loyalty. Sloan would be impressed by his defense of his superiors. Peter Matos had the feeling that he had arrived at last.

“Navy three-four-seven.”

Sloan’s voice brought Matos out of his reverie. “Roger.”

“Status report.”

“Roger. In trail. No change in Straton.”

He glanced at the Straton. What had happened was, at the most, only half his fault. Someone on the carrier had failed to note the flight plan of the Straton. The sky was a big test-firing range. It was someone else’s responsibility to make certain the range was clear.

But the feeling that Commander Sloan had something else in mind-something that didn’t require martyrdom or investigations-nagged at him. He knew if he put himself in Commander Sloan’s head, knowing what he knew about Sloan, he would know what Sloan’s next transmission would say. But he wouldn’t let his mind come to the obvious and final conclusion regarding the Straton.

He glanced at the crippled airliner again. It would just fly off into the Arctic Ocean on its present heading, and if no Mayday had been sent from it, and if no one on the Nimitz made a report… Why had he made the report? Damned stupid.

He looked at his fuel gauges. He couldn’t follow the plane much longer. Yet he knew Sloan would want him to do just that. He’d have to stay with the Straton until its fate was resolved.

His radio crackled and he felt himself stiffen. He cleared his throat and waited for the message.

“Navy three-four-seven, this is Homeplate.” Commander Sloan’s voice was cool, controlled. Sloan looked at Hennings out of the corner of his eye as he transmitted. “Status of Straton.”

“Status unchanged.”

“Roger. Stand by for mission order.”

“Roger.”

“Out.” Sloan put down the microphone and turned to Hennings. “All right, Admiral. The time for talk is over. I am going to order Lieutenant Matos to fire his second missile into the cockpit of the Straton. I am fully convinced that there is no one alive on that aircraft. If there was a pilot onboard, he would have changed direction long ago.” He paused again and switched to a conversational tone of voice. “You know that the Navy is required to sink derelict ships that are a hazard to navigation. Now, the analogy is not precise, but that dead aircraft is a hazard to navigation too. At its present altitude and heading, it can potentially cross some commercial air lanes and…”

“That’s absurd.”

Sloan went on. “And it could also crash into a ship. True, there is no precedent for this, but it seems like an obvious obligation to order a derelict aircraft brought down. We must bring it down on our terms. Now. Hazard to navigation,” he said again, hoping the old terminology would produce the necessary response.

Hennings didn’t respond, but a flicker of emotion passed over his craggy features. His memory was drawn back to an incident that they had often talked about at the Naval Academy. It had occurred at the beginning of the Second World War. One ship, the Davis, had been pulling the crew of a badly damaged destroyer, the Mercer, from the water. The Mercer was crippled and aflame but showed no signs of sinking, and the Japanese fleet had sent a cruiser and two destroyers toward it. The last thing the Navy wanted was for the Japanese to take a U.S. warship in tow, complete with maps, charts, codes, new armaments, and encrypting devices. The Davis captain, John Billings, knew there were wounded and trapped men aboard the Mercer. The survivors also reported that the Mercer ’s skipper, Captain Bartlett, a classmate of Billings, was still aboard. Captain Billings, without hesitation or one trace of emotion, was said to have turned to his gunnery officer and ordered, “Sink the Mercer.”

But that was war, Hennings thought. This was quite different. Yet

… they were at war, or at least could be someday-contrary to what the fools in Congress thought with their politically correct solutions and reasoning. The Straton, if it was visually spotted or tracked on radar, or crashed near a ship, might be recovered. And if it was, the nature of its damage would be quickly recognized for what it was. And that would lead back to the Nimitz eventually. Hennings knew that was what Sloan was really saying with all his bilge about hazard to navigation.

And if the Nimitz were suspected, all hell would break loose. America washed its dirty linen in public. The Navy would be subjected to inquiry, scandal, and ruinous publicity. It would be Tailhook a thousand times over. The incident would further emasculate the United States Navy; it was an emasculation that had already gone far beyond belief.

Hennings knew exactly what the Joint Chiefs would say if all that happened. “Why didn’t those sons-of-bitches, Hennings and Sloan, just blow the thing out of the sky?” They would never order that done, but they expected it to be done by their subordinates. Someone had to do the dirty work and protect the people on top. Protect the nation’s defense posture and the viability of its military.