“I didn’t hear that either,” Torine said, and then went on: “It’s about time for us to get going, Charley.”
[FOUR]
The USS Bataan (LHD 5)
North Latitude 14.89, West Longitude 77.86
The Caribbean Sea
1255 12 February 2007
Almost as soon as he spotted the Bataan, Castillo saw that four black 160th SOAR UH-60M helicopters were already sitting on her deck, their rotors folded.
“I think I should tell you, First Officer, that the Bataan has a very impressive array of weaponry—including four forty-millimeter Gatling guns—with which to discourage strange and possibly hostile aircraft from approaching.”
Torine gave him the finger and activated his microphone.
“Bataan, this is Keystone Kop.”
“Keystone Kop, Bataan, be advised we have you in sight. Go ahead.”
Castillo said, “What he meant to say, First Officer, was ‘gun-sights.’”
“Well, Bataan,” Torine spoke into the microphone, “if you have us in sight, then I guess I don’t have to tell you I estimate we are at one thousand feet about two klicks off your stern. Request permission to land.”
“Keystone Kop, are you carrier-qualified?”
Torine looked at Castillo.
“Lie, Jake. We don’t have enough fuel to go back to Cozumel.”
“Affirmative, we are carrier-qualified.”
“Keystone Kop, be advised that Bataan is headed into the wind. The wind down the deck is at twenty knots. Acknowledge.”
“Bataan, Keystone Kop understands wind down the deck is at twenty, and Bataan is headed into the wind.”
“Keystone Kop, you are cleared to land. Be advised a rescue helicopter is to port.”
“I think he knows we were lying,” Torine said. “You really have never done this before?”
“Only as a passenger,” Castillo said. “And what I think the pilot told me that day was that if the wind across the deck is at, say, twenty knots, and you’re indicating twenty knots, that means you’re in a hover over the deck, which, relatively speaking, has an air speed of zero.”
As Castillo very carefully lowered the Black Hawk onto the deck—I am really in a ground effect hover, even if I’m indicating that I’m making twenty knots. How can that be?—he found it easier to look at the “ground,” which was to say the deck, of the USS Bataan out the left window of the cockpit rather than the deck forward of the helo. That way he could tell, relatively speaking, if the Bataan ’s island was moving—in which case he was in trouble—or not.
And when he did, he saw that he knew several of the 160th’s Night Stalker pilots. They were standing, arms folded, waiting for him to crash, on the deck next to the superstructure that was the island.
One of them—a tall, graying, hawk-featured man wearing, like the others, the black flight suits favored by the 160th—he knew well. And he knew that hanging from the zipper of Arthur Kingsolving’s black flight suit was the “subdued” insignia of his rank. Castillo couldn’t see it, but knew it was the black eagle of a full colonel.
The Black Hawk touched down.
“You can exhale now, Jake,” Castillo said as he reached for the rotor brake control. “We’re on the ground. More or less.”
“Art Kingsolving’s here.”
“I noticed. I hope you are going to tell me you outrank him.”
“No, I don’t. But your question is moot. Active duty officers always outrank retired old farts.”